Category: Bike

25 things I love about the bike – #24




LardBar.JPG

Originally uploaded by billjank.

Got to love the post-ride lard bar … sorry, meal.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always associated riding with eating. There’s randomness thrown in – the farmer’s market the town over that you had never really heard of before, a patch of berries spotted while flying down a hill, etc.

Then there’s the added carrying capacity of the bike. I haven’t quite worked out the hydration logistics of running for much more than an hour, but on a bike, it’s a no-brainer – plop a bottle in the cage, and you’re set. Don’t need to hold on to anything, doesn’t affect your pedal stroke, etc.

But somehow, food tastes sweeter after a good ride.

25 things I love about the bike – #25




Bike Frame

Originally uploaded by billjank.

#25 Frames

This is my old Trek 360 frame. Well loved, it had a couple of massive chips in its paint, and I was afraid of it rusting out from under me. So, I stripped and repainted it this spring. It’s shiny now, and ready to be rebuilt and ridden for another 15 years.

But I’m not meaning to be specific about my stuff.

The basic bike frame is an amazing thing. Absent me telling you what kind of bike this was, and who built it, the double triangle shape has been set for well over a century. The stuff that hangs off of it has changed – kind of. Turning the wheel by pulling a chain with a foot crank hasn’t, and likely won’t in our lifetime – it’s too darn efficient. Likewise the double triangle shape – can be made pretty light and pretty strong with almost any material around.

There’s a line in The Princess Bride that goes “There are only so many perfect things in this world…”

The bicycle frame is one of them.

25 Things I Love About the Bike

So I could do yet another Fred gabs about the Tour de France for the next month series of posts. But, that’d largely consist of me sitting on my rump in front of the tee-vee for a large chunk of the prime of the year, and encouraging y’all to do the same. Which kind of strikes me as counter to the whole point of Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Cycle, Cycle, Too.

Which is not to say that I didn’t get my watchin’ in today – we had biscuits to start the day watching the pre-race hype, and bookended it with pizza. AND, I was not disappointed – I (and the boys, but I don’t think the baby had any clue why) was up off the couch cheering when Lance passed Jan – what a potential bookend to one of the great rivalries of sport. And it’s not to say that I’m not going to be doing my bloggin’ from the couch watching after the boys are in bed. But I’m most looking forward to going through the stack of videotapes this winter.

So the aim here for the next month is to give y’all 25 things that really, really get me jazzed about cycling. They’re in no particular order, and I’m kind of flying by the seat of my pants in coming up with them (I am open to suggestions if there’s either something that really fires you up, or if there’s a question that’s been nagging at the back of someone’s mind.) But, much like when I joined the Navy, this seems like a good idea at the time.

Allez.

Second Verse, Same As the First

‘Cept a little bit slower and a little less worse.

Yeah, I was a camp kid. Every summer, I got trundled off to day camp, or when I was older, off to overnight camp. The crazy thing? I loved it. Nothing better than living in the woods with other kids, getting to shoot and paddle and run and play. I even really enjoyed sing-alongs, be they bawdy camp songs or hymns at chapel. Best job I ever had was as a camp counselor, ’cause I got to get paid for playing. And the only evaluations that mattered were then ones at the end of the term when the campers’d bring over their parents to say “Hey – this is Billy. He’s cool”. Well, that and making sure that every night we tucked in the same number of campers that we woke up each morning and hadn’t lost any to drownings, rockslides, snakebites, gunshots, etc.
Continue reading Second Verse, Same As the First

OK, OK, all right, pretty good, pretty neat…

So I dig the Doors. Sue me. Actually, my friend Trey’s mom probably should after one too many times of me knocking down her porch railing after one (or twelve) too many beers and an ill-staged recitation of “I am the lizard king…”

OK, business first:

MARATHON
Primary marathon looks like it’s back to being Mystic Places. My little brother, who is well on his way to kicking my butt in the grand game of life, and his lovely wife are heading up. I’ve missed out on riding the MS150 with him, and cannot pass up the chance to run with him. Plus, he’s done Austin a couple of times, so he’ll be able to talk me past the dreaded “Wall”

I am going to still plan on running New York. Two weeks recovery – I’ll run Niantic as a long run in preparation for New York. A really, really long run, and hopefully a fast long run.
Continue reading OK, OK, all right, pretty good, pretty neat…

Well…

I am a triathete officially now. Results will be here, I assume. Or maybe here

I’m not sure if I’m pleased or not – mostly because I don’t have the results with me, only breathless looks at the clock as I went through the transition area. I think my times were: ~11 minutes for the swim, ~40 minutes for the bike, and ~25 minutes for the run, for a total of about 1:15, give or take 5 minutes. The swim, I know, took forever. The whole thing’s still kind of a blur, so the times may be off by up to 10 minutes either way.
Continue reading Well…

Jitters

So I’m doing a Tri tomorrow. Not quite sure why, but I’m all worked up about it. Actually, I do know why I’m all worked up about it – the new junior engineer in the office is doing the race, too. She’s great – smart, attractive, picks up new stuff quick, etc, so on and so forth. And she’s 10 years younger than I am, which means that I’m getting stomped.

Not that I wouldn’t get stomped anyway; it’s just that this time I’m getting stomped by someone I know.

I don’t think it’d bug me as much if we’d run together before, but until lunch on Monday neither of us knew the other were into running, etc. And schedules being what they are – Monday she didn’t have shoes, Tuesday I had T-Ball, today was a wreck – it’s an unknown. So tomorrow’s the first time we’ll get to judge pace, etc, for each other, and I don’t want to seem rude. But I’m kind of nervous about the whole Tri thing anyway…

AND to top everything else off –

Congratulations! You have been accepted into the ING New York City Marathon 2005! We are so glad to have you joining us along with athletes from all 50 states and more than 100 countries. Sunday, November 6, is less than five months away, and all of us are working hard to ensure that your race experience is the best ever. Coming off an incredible event in 2004, this is a challenge. But we love challenges, and you can expect a number of enhancements this fall, such as a smoother start for the fastest runners and dozens of great live bands along the course. We’ll keep you posted between now and then, but in the meantime bookmark http://www.ingnycmarathon.org, our official Web site, and visit it often for the latest news.

Crap.

Now this isn’t just an exercise in theory.

Back to the question at hand, though: Item the first – any cyclist knows that the absolute last thing that you want to do the day before a huge ride is major work on the bike. So what do I do tonight?
1) Swap wheelsets – this is kind of justified, I was checking spokes, and the winter set had one spoke where the nipple wasn’t even finger tight.
2) New brake pads. Again, somewhat justified – the old pads were original from 2001, and were pretty well glazed. Not squealing, but I didn’t feel a whole lot of grab on Sunday’s ride.
3) New cassette – finally threw on the 12-23 SRAM I’ve been staring at all spring.
4) New chain.
Yeah. But being smart got me fat. Jeff pointed that out a couple of days ago. I think that’s my new motto.

Let’s see – blew off Monday as a rest day after Sunday’s epic. Ran 4-ish Tuesday noon-ish after spending the morning sitting the baby (Hey Jon – remember, “the sitter’s not supposed to sit upon the baby”) while Missy and Jake checked out Kindergarden. Jake was kind of freaked out about the whole deal, but there’s a bunch of kids from his pre-school in his class. Half day, afternoon – jeeze, I wish I had his schedule. Then actually got to play at the t-ball practice. The dad-kid ratio was about 2/3, and there were only about 5 kids at the practice. So we let them actually try to hit, and tried to keep the other kids entertained by playing catch. Good times, except I have no gauge on how hard I throw any more.

OK, back to tossing and turning.

Suckers

Fixedgear notified me of Subaru’s Race to the Tour contest. Looks like they’re going to send me to France for a month of riding and writing. I can’t wait.

Sure, there’s the whole bit about actually getting selected for the gig, but as far as I can tell, that’s a mere technecality.

Here’s what I want to know – who is the poor guy who actually has to pour through the thousands of wanna be Henry James’ to do the choosing? How much bad prose can one person read?