Road Hazard

Road Hazard

Georgeous day to ride in this morning, despite temps starting at about 30 F (-1 C). My only regret was not putting on a wind-proof layer on my torso – any speed over 15 mph was painful regardless of the amount of work I was putting into it. No sweat at all, though.

December is shaping up to be a great month – four days commuting on the bike last week, two days this week (with Friday as a rotating day off on which I’ll get bonus ride), and a week of vacation at the end of the month.

I think I’ve licked the cold weather thing. The toughest part of the challenge is in preventing sweating – nothing worse than putting on wet clothes for the ride home and not warming up at all. But wind-proof gloves and a balaclava seem to do well enough on keeping frostbite off the ears and fingertips. My feet, I think, will just be cold. For half an hour it’s survivable in coastal Connecticut.

The rack is worth its weight in gold – so nice not to have to have weight on my back. Nicer is not having an excuse to drive just in case I need to stop by the store to pick up milk (or wine!) on my way home.

Lights for my use aren’t a problem – I’ve got two NiteRider Minewt USB sets, one on the handlebars / stem, and one on my helmet.

Visibility to drivers is still my main concern. I’ve got reflectors and a couple of LED blinky lights on my bike, but still feel relatively invisible. I’m adding a reflective vest, but would love suggestions. Vittoria Randonneur tires with the reflective stripes leap out at me, but I’m less than 500 miles into wearing out the tires that came on the bike, and am trying (really) to be cheap about the commuter bike. The good folks at Mystic Cycle Center sent me off to the hardware store for reflective tape to wrap around the frame. But it’s good to be thinking ahead.

Snow hasn’t fallen yet – we’ll see how that changes my attitude.

HTFU*

Days made for fenders

Today’s a day when modern fabrics are worth their weight in dollar bills. Which is pretty much what they cost. It’s also a day when fenders make up for looking dorky on sunny days. I swear that, even when rain is falling, fenders keep the lower half of my body dry.

Truth be told, I’m happier on the bike, regardless of the weather than I am on the treadmill.

Actually, this picture’s deceptively dismal looking – this morning’s ride in was in the mid-50’s, and not really raining, just foggy. Road was slick from last night’s deluge, with more deluge coming down while I was at work. It’s supposed to go back to being foggy again for the ride home, but I’m starting to think that the ‘loom’ off of my lights is much more effective in the fog than on a clear night.

But there’s 14 more days of fall before true winter commuting starts. I’m hoping that I get my first snowflakes on a commute on Friday afternoon.

*Harden The Flab Up, of course. What did you think it meant?

EDIT – Pouring all the way home. 30 minutes, and I looked like a drowned cat. Squeezed a pint out of my gloves alone.

This one goes to 11. But I don’t think I will (anytime soon)

BikeHugger has a good post up congratulating SRAM for not immediately jumping to 11 speeds on their road gear after Shimano went to 11. I’ve got to say I’m pretty much in agreement:

Going from 7sp to 8sp was good, but 9sp to 10sp was marginal.

My first road bike was a department store Huffy with 10 speeds (2×5) with friction shifters on the stem. Man, I thought that was the snot – flew on that one, including a drunken midnight 15 miler over to K. Chad Hauser’s (my boyhood friend and idol) house one weekend while my folks were out of town. But, much like learning to drive on a stick shift car, there was a lot of grinding gears on that one.

After that, I picked up a mountain bike between my junior and senior years of college – a fully rigid Trek 930 with Shimano Exage? trigger shifters – magic, until I smashed the front shifter with my knee going over a rock wall about 5 years later. Parts everywhere. Limped back to the car in the big ring, learning all sorts of humility. Freaked out at the bike shop – $50 to replace with XT? Heck, no, give me an indestructible thumb lever. 2×7, I think, though I overhauled it with LX the better part of a decade ago. Cheaper to go to 9 speed than to source vintage parts. And with a steel frame, I could stretch the rear triangle without too much trouble. It’s my vacation bike – drag it up to Stowe each summer, and pull the kids or the picnic basket along the bike trail.

My first ‘real’ road bike was a 10 year old Trek that I picked up while Lance was winning his first Tour de France – 7 speed down tube shifters, indexed. Loved that arrangement – there was no “can’t find it, grind it”, like with my high school 10 speed, but there were definitely gaps in the gearing. Indexing on the big ring was kind of iffy, too – probably I was just inept at tuning the drivetrain. But, man, you really had to avoid even the appearance of crossover.

After about 3 years on the Trek, I bought what’s still my favorite bike in the stable – a Cannondale R700 with full 9-speed 105. Man, was this the stuff – didn’t have to pull the hands off of the bars to shift, plenty of continuity in gearing, and going from the small ring to the big ring didn’t have to be a huge commitment – I’ve found there’s a pretty consistent two-cog difference between the big and small rings, and if I’m iffy, I can always flick my right wrist, and fix stuff.

This fall, I picked up a Nashbar ‘cross bike on which to commute, but mostly ’cause it was one of the cheapest ways to get a 10 speed 105 group. And, I’ll admit, I’m pretty much in love with the 5700 incarnation of Shimano 105. The couple of awkward gearings near the big cogs are gone (I’ll caveat here that I’m a wuss, and have been running a 12-27 or 28 rear cluster on my Cannondale since about 2004); having all the cables run under the bar tape is superb, and it’s been the easiest drivetrain to adjust that I’ve ever dealt with. Part of the joy may be in riding on new STI levers – the 9 speed right lever on the Cannondale is getting pretty sloppy. But I think, somewhere around 700 miles in, that I like it. A lot.

Trouble is, I don’t see the push to go to 11. Frankly, I was skeptical about going to 10 from 9, but whatever. Parts availability is about the only thing that could will get me to move (see putting LX on the 930). But I’m already putting aside cash for the 5700 closeout sales – then I can be one of those annoying NOS guys on eBay.

How do we balance the need to get good gear with business models that rely on a constant upgrade cycle? I love the integrated brake/shifter concept, but a test ride on MicroShift convinced me that relying on them for 9-speed backfill wouldn’t make me happy, and 9 speed 105 is more expensive than 10 speed 105 at this point. I’m sure that 11 speed whatever rides like a dream – but upgrading’s the better part of a new mid-range bike, plus cassettes for winter wheels, etc.

So, I’m not excited. Or interested. Much like electronic shifting, I just don’t get it.

A question that continues to gnaw on me, though – at what point can we go to 1×11, or 1×12?

Racing Weight – Plugging Away

Hey, y’all. (Hey, Jank!, I hear you say)

Plugging away up here. Starting the 4th week of Racing Weight. Haven’t been completely strict on either diet or exercise, but I’m batting about 80% on workouts, and diet appears to be working – I’ve gone from 186 to 182 in a month. Nothing breathtaking, but steady progress beats no progress, right?

Working swimming back into my routine has been a key. Working out form through the Triathlon classes at the Mystic YMCA a couple of years ago made a giant difference. Swimming’s always been a great way to get exhausted quickly, but it’s nice to be able to knock out a mile of laps in 45 minutes instead of maybe 600 yards for the same level of exhaustion. I’m by no means a good swimmer, but the sensory depravation one gets in the pool is close to zen. 20 good flip turns in a row feels like carving a good line through moguls – something you can’t think too much about but need to be completely conscious of to make it happen.

Commuting on the bike is awesome, BTW. Need to spend some time documenting my current system. But that’s a post of a different color…

Racing Weight – Someday.

Hey, y’all. Still alive; don’t add me to your list of Dead Blogs yet. I’m still plugging away, but work, moonlighting, kids’ sports (Drop me a line if you want to buy a raffle ticket), and Cub Scouts (Ditto if you want some scout popcorn), have kept me from posting. That, and catching up on 30 Rock and Dr. Who.

Survived Snowmageddon 2012 V1.0, manage to work out pretty frequently, and completed the first week of the Racing Weight Quick Start guide. I’m pretty pleased with the program after a week. It’s a do-able chunk of work tied to a pretty workable diet plan. Nothing earth-shattering on the diet side, but good advice about how to score what you eat by quality. (Full disclosure – my quality for yesterday and today is terrible). I’m pairing it with calorie tracking at MyFitnessPal, mostly because they’ve got a GREAT and free iPhone app.

I miss posting here. I miss the early days of Web 2.0 – everything’s getting all monetized and crap.

Sigh.

Plugging Away

So good to be back on the bike this morning. Lovely day, had breakfast with the guys from church, went home (nix on the saving gas today, as breakfast was as far from home as work, but it was 0530 and I really didn’t feel it…), spent some quality time with the boyos, and then flew into work.

I’m shocked at how quickly my general cycling fitness seems to be coming up. Hopefully my weight will keep coming down. I’ve been using myfitnesspal.com (specifically the iPhone app) to track calories (net of exercise), and it seems to be working – zap every barcode that goes into my belly, set the preferences for lose 1 lb/week, and do it. Two weeks, two pounds, including last week while on travel. It’s been kind of tough, ’cause there were a lot of just random calories I’d eat during the day without thinking about it, which is why, I think, my weight kept creeping up.

Still loving DailyMile – nice to get the feedback, and pretty easy to knock out a post.

My PF seems to be at least not getting worse. I’m not convinced that my left foot will ever be good again, but it’s at least better when I run than when I don’t. So, I suppose, I’ll keep running.

And, with that, at least I’ve busted the August zero for posting here.

How to fix a flat

So, my friend, Johnny Rollerfeet asked me if it was hard to change a flat on a bike. This is what I passed:

Flats are crazy easy.

1. Go buy a new tube and tire levers. There are some great ones now – wide and stiff, not the crappy ones that break. Actually, buy two or three tubes. They’re cheap, and I’ll guarantee you ruin at least one while changing a tire. Maybe not this time, but eventually. Plus, it’s always great to be the person on a ride with a spare tire.
2. Take the wheel off the bike. Look at the tire. See if you can find what caused the flat – thorn, piece of glass, pinch flat from hitting the curb without enough air in the tire. If you can find something in the tire, pull it out. Mark the hole, if possible
3. Lever off half of the tire – wedge two levers under the bead, pry with both of them until the bead comes over the rim. Slide one lever along between the sidewall and the rim until enough of the tire is off to remove the rest by hand.
4. Pull the old tube out. Keep track of it’s orientation.
5. Reinflate the tube to find where the hole was. If it corresponds to anything found and removed, you’re good. If not, check inside the tire, starting where the hole in the tube is. Don’t get completely freaked out if you don’t find anything – especially with glass, it’ll pop out as the tire goes flat.

(note on re-reading this – you can leave one bead of the tire inside the rim. If you’re really paranoid, though, pop off the other bead and turn the tire inside-out to really inspect for junk)

6. If you’re at home, dust the tube with talcum powder. The tire’s probably already coated. On the road, don’t sweat it.
7. Partially inflate the new tube. Like one pump. Put the stem in first, then work all the way around the wheel. Make sure that the tube is all the way inside the rim.
8. Work the bead back into the rim, starting at the stem and working both sides around the wheel. End up opposite from the stem – this way, there’s not tension on the stem from putting in the tube. As you work in the bead, make sure that the tube doesn’t get between the rim and the tire – nothing more frustrating than starting to pump and then hear the tube pop ’cause it was pinched between the bead and the rim. This is the main reason to put air in the tube before you put it on. Too much air, though, and the tube’s too big to get the tire bead back into the rim. Just enough to keep it round.
9. The last bit of the bead will be tough. Stick one tire lever in to hold the bead, and with the other, pry the bead back over the rim. This’ll take a couple of tries, and is where most tire levers get broken.
10. Check the bead and the rim. Make sure there’s no tube there.
11. Reinflate the tire. About 25 psig, you should hear a ‘pop’ as the bead seats. Listen for leaks.
12. Take the pressure all the way up. Bounce it a couple times. Feel good ’cause you’ve fixed something with your own two hands.

It’s pretty easy – I tried to write good documentation. It’ll probably take 10-20 minutes your first time; I can do it on a ride in about 3, especially when it’s obvious what caused the flat. Fixing a flat’s pretty much a mandatory thing to be able to do on your own.

Keep the rubber side down.

Jank.

Father’s Day Metric Century

So, my DailyMile buddy Steve’s going under the knife this week to fix some tendon in his knee that apparently doesn’t exist any more. Wah. Such is the cost of getting old, I suppose.

(He’s brokenhearted too, about missing the Vermont City Marathon this year, but he missed it due to his knee, whereas my owie seems to be getting better>

Anyhoo, he wanted to bang out the route that the Pequot Cyclists use for their 100K before he went under the knife. Father’s Day seemed to be a good morning to do it, so Steve, Alex, and I set out from our local gas station (just east of the ‘official’ start) at 0530.

The beautiful thing about late spring in New England is that we’ve got like 20 hours of effective daylight, so 0530 on a Sunday morning was bright and clear. The funk that we’ve been in, both mentally and meteorologically, lifted over the weekend, and the morning found Alex, Steve, and I ready to ride. There had been tragedy in recent hours – I’d hit a valve cover on some road about to be resurfaced the morning before, and am about to shell out a couple of sawbucks for a new rim. But I’ve got a cool tire cut pretty much in two, so that’s all good. Alex checked his bike Saturday evening and found two flats on his road bike. So, rather than fix the flats, he showed up on his ‘cross bike. Nothing like pushing 60+ miles on 38 mm knobby tires…

The first hour of the ride – to quote my sainted grandfather (usually about the 3rd tee), “I wonder what the poor folks are doing this morning”. Down CT 215 to Groton Long Point (with the added benefit that the valve covers I’d shredded my rim on the previous morning all seemed to be on the other side of the road), and 3 miles of brand-new skim-coat pavement to downtown Mystic, and a great spin up US 1 to Stonington.

There’s a small climb on Rt 1 right before you hit Montauk Ave in Stonington. Alex’s shtick on recent rides and runs has been to pull alongside and start asking “deep” questions. So, on this one, he hits me up with “Does God Exist”? Feeling slightly guilty about possibly missing church ’cause we’re all old and fat, and what should be a 3.5 hour metric century is probably going to be a 4+ hour ride, I say “sure”. Alex presses, so I launch into the Apostle’s Creed

There’s more, but hWordPress for iPad ate it (I’ll blame equally operator error and poor app design) and it’s wicked late. I will say that (a) I wish I’d taken more pictures; and (b) Steve’s flat at about 40 miles couldn’t have been more perfectly timed.

Fathers' Day Flat

So to both Steve and Alex, huge thanks. Best ride in a long, long time.

Where are you, Buddy Holly?

When I was a kid, my dad didn’t listen to much music. He liked even less music. He’d tolerate the outlaw Texans – Waylon, Willie; a little Merle Haggard. But, when “Peggy Sue” would come on the radio, he’d light up like he was 16 and waiting for a hot date (“Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty Peggy Sue”).

Which made me really excited when NPR’s “First Listen” series posted a Buddy Holly tribute album.

The project looks really, really promising – Lou Reed, My Morning Jacket, Modest Mouse, Justin Townes Earle – solid bands, decent cross-section of Americana and alt-folk that should be able to do a solid job paying tribute to an artist lost at a tragically young age. However, the execution is far below what it should be.

I’m pretty disappointed with this as a whole. Cee Lo Green, Kid Rock and J.T.Earle provide redeeming cuts; however, as a whole, the album fails. Much of my resistance to the Buddy Holly album mentioned earlier is due to a bias that some things just can’t be improved upon. In particular, Sir Paul McCartney and Lou Reed really let me down. Modest Mouse and the cover of “Not Fade Away” irk me in particular. I’ll probably come back to the album a couple more times because I want it to be great. And there are moments of beauty on here; just not where you’d think they should be.

Maybe Buddy Holly would have ended up fat, sweaty, and playing Hawaii much like Elvis. Maybe. But, in the moment up until the crash in a snowy cornfield, he was the living, breathing embodiment of rock and roll. To mis-quote the “Princess Bride”, ‘There are few perfect (things) in the world – it would be a shame to ruin (his)’. Sometimes you can’t do any better than a straight-up cover.