This is a companion report to the detailed, dare I even say thurra, ride report Ironlung posted this morning. The Primavera event is probably one of my favorite charity rides in the area, largely based on what Lung pointed out in his write-up: excellently supported, beautiful views at the reservoir, and close enough to home to keep it from being a travel hassle. In previous years, I took a road bike, so my perspective was shaky as I planned for this year’s run on a fixed-gear. I remembered the Calaveras Wall but that was about it. Anyway, Lung and I basically rode a variation on what we took to LA in Lifecycle, and ride every day, basically: him on a Cinelli X MASH Bolt, me on a Cinelli X Mash [sceond gen]…we were set up a little differently from each other. He used drop bars, and I had bulls. Our gearing was a bit different too: he ran 44/16 for a 72 inchgear as his base, and 44/20 for the steep climbing sections, yielding something like 57 inchgear. I rode a deeper 48/17 (77 inchgear) with a 48/19 (67 inchgear) for climbs. Previously, neither of us had used bail-out gears on our bikes. We brought cogs on Lifecycle but never used em, and on all of our rides in Marin and the like, we muscled through climbs with what we had, and avoided the super-steep stuff altogether out of practicality (if one may use the term when discussing fixed-gear bikes in this context)… but here we were facing climbs that were part of a regular regional loop for roadies, and those climbs were spread out over a good distance, so attrition would also be a factor. As any cyclist can tell you, you can go all out and ride farther and longer than you thought possible… on one climb… but that’s it, you’re not going to recover. To sustain for a whole day you need to see the long picture. We knew this was going to be the most climbing we’d done fixed, and early in the riding season to boot, but we were all in.

It was also one of those rides where there were very few hitches. I got out of the house 15 minutes ahead of schedule, we arrived about 20 minutes ahead of our plan, and had no delays in check in. We ditched the start and got right on the road, didn’t dilly-dally at the rest stops, had great food throughout and at the end, and never needed SAG or field support. No llama drama. And Lung never had tripleCramps and my bike didn’t become, like a helicopter, a cluster of components traveling in unstable formation, which was all in all a nice change.

Yep, my gearing was too brutal to make it up the wall without stopping, but not for long.

It wasn’t devoid of challenges. I got two hours of sleep before the start, thanks to a sweltering heat wave. Team Lope vet Jeff Muadib Marks met us on the route, living thereon) and made it up Calaveras before suffering the SAME EXACT MECHANICAL that knocked me out of last year’s Gran Fondo, a rear derailleur shattering that I had never even HEARD of before.

Here’s Jeff examining his SAW III type deathtrap derailleur

Lung’s salt tablet deployment system was getting a little surly, and I dropped my chain on the rollers due to bearing race issues in my rear axle, though quickly resolved. There was some saddle soreness. I had suffered a pretty bad wrist wrenching on Mt Tam a few days prior that i was nursing at the start of this, which was at full bore inflammation by the end, so the final descent was very painful. BUT. It was the descent after the final climb, after a full effing day of climbing and riding so I was stoked. And like Lung said, it was great to burn your candle on a long day like that but walk away (literally) without injury or recovery issues, feeling like you could ride the next day. You never know, especially when pushing fixies on these things.

The Calaveras reservoir area was my favorite. Thanks to Jeff’s misfortune, we got to enjoy it longer than in previous years.

Anyway, it was a great ride. I will say that I wasn’t as well equipped as Lung, partly avoidable and partly not. For one thing, I chose to keep my 77 inchgear as my main drive, rather than gear back down to the 72 we both generally ride… had I switched back, I would have probably felt better as the day went on, because of the muscle work I was essentially wasting. I mean, it’s a compromise, right. Go to 72, spin more, ride slower. But at 77, ride faster and work harder, sooner. I needed to swap cogs sooner than Lung, and I was suffering more at the end of the day. My bail out gear was a 67, which was not enough. It was sure as hell better than the 77 but it was still too steep for these climbs, so while I DID successfully ride all the climbs on the route, I stopped a number of times to recover.

Interesting snake whip skids coming down to Rest Stop 3 at speed…

But man, we had a blast. Skidding all over the place, flying along those rollers, great conversations on the route and at the rest stops with wide-eyed riders that marveled out our general madness, and I can’t reiterate this enough: AWESOME ride support. Strawberries and pineapple and all sorts of carbs at every stop, fudgecicles, ICE for the water bottles, effing ROOSTERS for no reason, more SAG vehicles on the road than I can remember ever seeing, even when you consider the smaller scale of this event compared to the rider count of something like the Gran Findo or the Marin Century. It was just a great time all day, even when it wasn’t.

That’s the last of the unreasonable fixed-gear assaults on event rides for this year, as Marin Century and Gran Fondo both warrant road bike use (I mean, warrant it MORE) and we missed the Wine Country Century (and gave up on Solvang due to travel time)… but we’ll continue to ride our unreasonable fixed-gear bikes up unreasonable climbs in Marin and around the bay area year-round, so wave or holler if you see us…

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Well, I ran out of time.
Last night, on the way home, I said to myself: ‘self? Those sweet, sweet Sugino Keirin cogs are sweet, sweet, but for track racing. It’s probably not a good idea to be skidding all over town on them. I should go back to conventional cogs, so when it inevitably unwinds, I don’t have the splined cog flying onto the hub body.’
Thus, I ordered a Halo cog in 17t, gold, and called it a night. Should ship today, I’d have it by Friday or Monday, and be right as rain.

Then, today, I climbed up Loring, after a nice long skid down the street fro my house. Then I skidded several long stretches down the back side towards downtown. At the bottom (fortunately) at Miller, the old telltale dropped crank. I lost the cog again.

The lockring, which was as tight as I could get it, had unwound, the carrier unwound, and the cog, still on the chain, loose on the hub threads. Thread wire everywhere. I got it back together enough to ride to work, though I couldn’t thread the lockring. At the office, I pulled it apart, and retightened it, but to my chagrin, the lockring wouldn’t take. The threads on the hub have taken too much stress. I get the lockring almost as tight as possible… give it a last push, and it loosens… then retightens… so the thread is bad at that point.

So, I’m in for a new rear wheel on top of it. It is what it is, however what I’ll miss is the sweet, sweet gold hub. Back to black for a pre-built wheel.

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On the way to work, I sometimes take an alternate route. Instead of riding down Shoreline and to Miller and through Mill Valley, I’ll go the other way, climb the hill towards Mt. Tam, and take a steep route through the residential streets up to a crest and then down the other side and into town, which is a great workout and very challenging. Today, right as I was about to turn off to this alternate route, I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and keep going up Highway 1 to a place called ‘Four Corners’ which is the gateway for the descent into Stinson Beach/Pt Reyes, the ascent up Mt. Tam, back down Hwy 1 towards our house, or down to Mill Valley. I’ve never ridden this on my fixed gear and it was difficult but I made it. Now, I suspect that later in the season, I’ll have the leg strength and the endurance to do this more easily, and actually attempt to ride up Tam on the MASH, but at this point, mid-February on short infant-induced sleep and without breakfast, I checked the Success column on this one.

I took a few glamor photos of the bike, naturally. This is February?

Part of the incentive to do this was the weather, but also, I’m about to change rear cogs to a 17t which will push me to 76 inchgear, and this sort of climb will be that much harder.

The biggest setback this morning was road construction about half-way up that had traffic blocked in both directions. I didn’t want to stop, but I was the first vehicle to be blocked by the rotating one-way traffic as managed by the work crews, so I did circles until it was our time. I managed not to ride off the cliff edge, too.

I took a break once I was up on the range, after that last section of switchbacks, to get my heart rate under control. Yeesh. No gear options, no discounts. Full price effort.

The descent was actually just as hard. Usually coming up to Four Corners from downtown MV I would take Edgewood and it was a climb but you got there. Somehow I dropped down onto Molino descending today, and it was brutal. It’s space madness steep, so I was on the break I mean Brake, back pedaling, trying to stay around 10mph-15mph or so because it was a drop, a turn, another drop, and lots of commuter traffic and construction trucks barreling down the hill. It was sketchy. Plus my quads and my arms are all very sore from skid stopping so I was not taking chances.

Durrrr!

That is all! Not a bad work commute!

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Ah, the joys of breaking in a skid-stop capable fixed-gear bike… and fixed-gear capable organic engines.

Low: on Friday night, after doing some longer skids down my hill approaching my house from an alternate route, I felt slippage. Guh. I thought I had that stuff wrenched down, but of course these are new forces compared to backpedaling, so. This was expected. I took the wheel off, added Phil’s, cinched down the cog carrier and lockring, and was back in action.

High: On Tuesday, I began systematically trying to train myself for ambidextrous skidding, after that first attempt almost led me into the maws of Ole Coal Hi’sself. By the time I got to work, I had managed two reasonable ones (maybe 4") in gravely flotsam, and about 5 smaller ones on dry ground. It feels ridiculously alien, compared to the left leg forward on which I’ve been practicing normally.

Low: I’m starting to feel splints in my forearm tendons from gripping the drops and keeping my body as forward as possible.

High: On Wednesday, I had another 5 successful dry ground mini skids using the alternate right lef forward… still very alien, very hard to get my brain in gear. But baby steps. Lung waited a long time to go ambidextrous while in the meantime powersliding down whole city blocks with his dominant leg, so I thought I’d try and get ambidextrous from the get go if possible.

Low: Wednesday evening, I was stuck at the office late, and by the time I got off the horn, I was in hot water at home. I raced out the door, hit the light on my helmet, and shot down the street. It was some way down a little hill I descend that I realized I left my toolkit at the office. And my U-lock. Oh well, too late to turn back.

I skidded a few stop signs. On the third, I felt my leg drop and my cranks were spinning. I assumed I had some sort of crank or bottom bracket deaths, but when I pulled over to inspect, it was the other direction.

Scheiise! The lock ring had spun off and was dangling on the axle. The cog carrier (remember, I use these Sugino Keirin cogs) was about half way unthreaded, and the cog itself was off the carrier (nothing holds it on) and also rolling on the axle, still chained. I consider myself lucky: I knew at some point I’d probably unwind the cog, but when matters of drivetrain fail occur on a fixed-gear bike, if they didn’t send a chain to tangle the crank arm or simply send me to meet Ole Coal Hi’sself, I count myself in the win column. However, OF COURSE. No tools. And no U-lock means no Monkey socket end.

I spent about 10 minutes or so fiddling with it with my gloved fingers and managed to reseat the cog, re-spin the carrier a bit, and roll the lockring, despite threading problems. A few good pulls on the cranks got the carrier into place, re-hand-tightened the lockring, and then I just noodled home. I mean, I rode fast and hard and jumped on the cranks quite a bit to get that carrier cinched, but the real concern was the lockring rolling back off and then dropping the cog. It’s also really hard to ride without backpedaling. Not just not skidding. No counterpedaling to slow.

This morning, in Ye Shoppe, I examined the wheel off the frame, and saw that while the end of the hub had thread damage, and I saw some wear on the lockring, I was able to pull off the thread threads (You know what I mean, you can see one below) and then tighten everything down again. So, off I went.

High: Made it to work, including climbing Loring and doing a number of skids down the back side, without incident and the lockring doesn’t appear to have budged. I think from now on I’ll be checking this before each ride, though.

Tonight, more ambi skidding.

One more note: I checked my tyre again and since last check you can definitely see the difference, and by extension, the increase in my skid successes and confidence. Last time I saw no change to the tyre, and this time, I have three solid patches of wear. In fact, since I’ve been roll-stopping, or, you know, skid-hop-skid-hopping since I can’t seem to stay forward long enough to maintain the skid for more than at most 3 feet or so, the third patch is like a third of the wheel’s surface length. Ha. So I have two small contact skid patches and one looooooong one. Which also tells me that I need to consider a new ratio. Three skid patches is the worst possible. And while I won’t be skidding through expensive Gatorskins next time, Ineed more surface area. So, I suspect I’ll drop to a 17 cog, which will get me to 17 skid patches, though I’ll be back up to 75+ inchgear, which will make climbing again more onerous.

Final High: That 3′+ skid limit I mentioned? This morning, final skid before the front door skid (which my boss has noticed the marks on the sidewalk and given it the old WTF) and it was around a turn. Fun!

Experienced skid-stop fixie riders may or may not remember these days with nostalgia or disdain, but for me, all new.

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If you read this for WENCHERY, you’ve been led astray.

So I’ve been talking with Mannie Rabara about helping him out on his fixie commuter for a few months now, but our mutual kid-management and work schedules have prevented either of us from getting to the other’s houses. Mannie rode Aids Lifecycle with us last year, and is the older brother of Maynard, the rad dude who donated his old Mixte frame that became the first Zoe Carrier. Mannie and I both went to Cal Poly for university, at different times. Anyway, he bought a Factory Fixie awhile back to get his feet wet, and decided it was time for, as we say, UPGRADES. I have a copious overstock of bike parts perpetually being sold, traded or stolen, so I hooked him up with some Sugino cranks and a shorty black stem (again, wrong site, for some of you)… the problem was merely getting it done. The plan was to install them for him and show him how to do it.

I had an opportunity to take Wee Z out for the morning to give her mombot(tm) a break, so I shot over the bridge and down to Oakland and met Mannie near his office. I’ve never actually BEEN to downtown Oakland before. It reminds me of Chicago: wide streets, similar heights and construction style of much of the buildings. No private place to work, so i said, what the hell, let’s do it on the street, the Team Lope way! (again, perhaps wrong site)

Zoe was eager to help, right out of the gate, and was wielding my field tool kit. It was a bit too heavy for her, admittedly.

Along with my regular tools, I brought everything needed for a full overhaul, since I wasn’t sure yet what to expect and I wanted him to be be able to ride away. Drivetrain tools, cog and lock ring tools, chain, Phils Lube, WD-40, and so on.

Downtown Oakland isn’t really sketchy, just more like upper lower Market, lots of homeless and dudes wandering around, mixed with working folk. I parked in front of a sweet Thai joint and set up in front of the MINI. I was aware of the spectacle, but hey. It must be done!

It went very well. His bike was new enough that there wasn’t a lot of junk in the bolts and the lube was still good for the most part so it came apart pretty easily. Which is what you want, doing field repairs. I pulled off his generic cranks and noted that his no name bottom bracket was probably not much different than the basic Shimano BB I brought, so we decided to leave it in place. I cleaned and mounted the new cranks, lubed and added his pedals and toe straps, and the tightened it all down. Reset the rear wheel, and sent him off to test it. I had brought extra cogs so we could change gearing if needed, as he was moving to a 46t chainring on the Sugino cranks, but he liked it as it was. Retightened after his test ride, gave him a 12mm key and some 2-day tips (you know, re-check and tighten everything after two days of riding) and he was good to go. He took the stem for later use, and was generally stoked to be able to ride back to work with his new gear good to go.

It was pretty fun. Best part was that I had a total of five different people stop and ask for my card, thinking I was a mobile bike tune-up kit. There’s definitely a market there. Everyone seemed into the idea that someone could come and help them with their bikes on their lunch hours, and you know, with the free time necessary, it could be fun to do just that, much like how Mike’s has a mobile mechanic out on the bike path during certain events and ALC training days. Mostly, I got a lot of interest from other passerby that just hadn’t seen bike repair in front of a Thai restaurant before.

Zoe slept through the whole thing.

I think Mannie’s fixie is on the fast track to customization and personalization, just as ours are. He already has the bug. What’s next? He has a new wheel and cranks and stem… possibly bars… maybe frame? And then he’s doomed! Nice to see Mannie and fun excursion in the middle of the 24-hour triage of newborn management…

Forgot to mention my work isn’t covered in the event of nuclear detonation, however. Oops.

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Team Lope Ride Report: Gran Fondo Fireball

You know that trope in romantic comedies, where the protagonist suffers all manner of circumstantial and personal disasters before being lifted by a beautiful girl in the third act? Well, I had one of those. The 2011 Levi Leiphiemer King Ridge Gran Fondo was like that, but at the end, I saw my gorgeous daughter run up and squeeze my face, so I got the happy ending. And I’ll tell you in advance, there were no deaths, and my spirits were high throughout, so this is not a tale of woe. But read on, for the biggest logistical disaster in Team Lope history.

Preparation

As you may have read in earlier posts, about a week before the Gran Fondo, I made the decision to change road bike frames. My Look KG381 Team carbon frame, my pride and joy, was a size too big, now becoming a real issue with my back and pelvis injury to deal with. I decided to give up the ghost on the Look, hunted for a more suitably sized frame, lucked into a sweet NOS Cinelli Xperience from 2007, and set out to get it ready for the ride. I built up the majority of the bike earlier in the week late at night, then hit a snag due to needing new shifter cables and housings, and with time running out, I took it down to Tam Bikes for a re-string and deraiileur adjustment. As much as I wanted to do the build myself (my second time on a proper road bike) time was of the essence, as family obligations would prevent me from getting down to the shop again before the ride. This would give me a day to test ride it to work, make any tweaks, and I’d be ready. Or so I thought. Taking it in, the shop was slammed, but agreed to fit it in… by Friday at closing. This meant no test and tweak time, but at least I’d be ride-ready. My wifebot(tm) got one of her increasingly bad feelings about the ride. She encouraged abandoning it. But I had two other riders depending on me for a ride, and frankly, I had contingencies. Gran Fondo has some seriousness to it, no question: more arduous in some ways than the Tam Climbing Century in terms of gradients, and lots of intermediate climbs peppered through the course. But if I couldn’t get the bike done, I’d take the MASH. Looking at the ride profile, there were two sections where I’d have little hope of staying on the bike, even pre-back-injury, as the gradients were too steep and the climbs too long. But hell, I’d ride the thing fixed as I often do in these events, and where I needed to hoof it. I’d hoof it. I’d still get a great ride in. Meanwhile, adding to the bad mojo, Team Lope’s Muadib had a crash a few weeks ago, horfing his road bike to bits, and while he survuved unscatched, he was out of the Gran Fondo as a result. And Eric nearly got creamed on the way into Mill Valley on Friday as well. The near-misses and snags were mounting.

Build complete, 11:55pm the night before.

Friday afternoon, no word from the shop. Later in the day, I was informed a message was left for me on voicemail, and that the bike wouldn’t be completed. This was a bad time for my Google Voice account to have the ‘silent message’ error. No data. I didn’t know what was wrong, but since they weren’t going to be able to do it, my wifebot(tm) graciously shot over in the MINI with a sleeping Z, grabbed me, took me over to the shop so that I could get the bike, and see what my options were. The shop was slammed and they ran into some issues so the bike wasn’t going to happen. However, the only reason I had brought it in was that I ran out of shifter cable and housing at home and didn’t have any more time. So they gave me cable and housing pro bono and I figured what the hell, I’d give it a go! So now I was back where I left off on Wednesday night: my remaining tasks were to restring the brifters, string up the derailleurs, and adjust them. I’ve done this once before, on Villain, so I was ready to take it slow and get through it. I’ve confessed before that I find deraiileur adjustment maddening, with the two limit screws on each, the adjusters, etc. I just don’t have a good sequencing set-up. But I had at it. My comedy of errors, however, continued. First, the rear derailleur was missing the pinch bolt, which apparently must have dropped back at the LBS. I stole one off of my old Dura Ace rear and proceeded with only minimal workaround. Next,t he Jagwire cable housing I got from the shop? I couldn’t cut it cleanly. It splayed out into all the fiber fragments, thanks to my wire cutter being designed for electronics and not a nice sharp one for this application. I ended up recovering cable housings from, believe it or not, the torn-down groupo from the Vista 10-speed that became wrongbike! HA. So, that would have to do in a pinch. Thinner housings, easier to cut. Next problem: my SRAM 10-speed chain was too short. It used to be WAY too short when I first strung up Villain (The SRAM instructions describe stringing big ring to big ring, and adding a link; later readings of third party guides say they mean one outer set, one inner set, of links; so I was one link short) but on this build, I was using a compact 50 tooth chainring so I thought I’d be safe. I was going to avoid crossing into that big cog from the big ring (as you should anyway) and just keep that risk factor in mind. Next, I was out of black electrical tape. WHAT! You say? The fixed-rider’s best friend? But it’s true. I had one roll at the office, gave one roll to a rider in need a few months ago and Zoe ran off with another. Suddenly, I had none of the stuff, just in time to rewrap my bars. I ended up re-using the tape from before, which wasn’t pleasant but got it done. By 11:45pm I had the bike completed, and took it down the street for a test. I was having rubbing in the back and it took a few to figure it out: the skewer slipped out of one of the drops. I’m so used to track axles now that I forgot that if you don’t really wrench those skewers down, they can pull out from chain tension (!) and it did. What’s a little more lost frame paint? So, by midnight, I was upstairs, bike was done, and I was ready to get a few hours sleep before getting up for the early start. My derailleurs needed help but I was banking on some ride mechanical support for that. I’d at least be on the road. Wifebot(tm) was still unhappy about me going: my cough remained, suggesting illness, we had to rent a car so that I could bring myself and two riders with me up there, and all the portents of doom leading up to it gave her the concerns, especially as she is full term and I need to be avaialble in case the baby comes early. But I wanted to give it a shot. I like reaching a quitting point and instead, doing the opposite of quitting. In other words, not quitting. And anyway, had the road bike not come together, I’d bring the MASH and do it fixed anyway, and if I had to walk up the entire Coleman climb, I would. It’s the Team Lope way. If I can ride to LA on a fixed-gear, I have enough legs for this ride.

Ride Day

We drove over to Santa Rosa nice and early, with bagels and coffees and not much traffic, and parked about a mile away from the start at Finley Park, as the parking near to the event was limited and a problem with local businesses in previous years. We headed out on the bikes, and I left my vest and warmers in the car because it was already reasonable in temperature. Go ahead and keep a running tabulation in your head about all the things I’m mentioning that would backfire later. We’ve got last minute build, a used 10-speed chain with probably the 1000 miles on it already that these rinky-dink light chains are supposed to top out at (can you believe that? single speed chains and heavier gauge MTB chains, even 8/9 speed road chains, these can go forever… but 10 speed narrow chains with hollow pins? No), clothing layers left behind…

Systemic Failure

OK, so about a half mile from the camp, everyone’s ahead of me, and we’re waiting at the light. I decide that my bars are still a little low (SRAM brifters want to be higher on the drops, so I reseated them when I restrung the brifters, but they still needed a bit more height) and pulled my 3-head hex key out and made the adjustment. I was using a trusty Thomson X2 stem, a two bolt design. I adjusted while on the bike. Apparently, I’m told later, that was my mistake, because you can’t as easily judge the torque. I always thought torque bolts failed intentionally, such as we see in Oakleys and other precision mechanical fitment. I was very wrong. I heard a POP! and my bars dropped. I spun them up in that flipped-10-speed antlers style and noodled across the intersection by the freeway to get out of traffic, then assessed my problem. I thought, at that moment, that the bolt had broken inside the stem, at the top of the clamp plate. I figured my best bet was to nurse it to camp and see if I could steal a stem bold from somewhere else. That was some dodgy riding, basically riding upright, holding the bars up for brakes. Guh. At camp, I soon realized that the stem itself had failed, internally. I went ahead and checked in, and while the gang rolled to the massive start, I headed over to the festival grounds, where Trek had a tent and some other vendors were setting up. Trek had no stems, and neither did anyone else. I got a lot of knowing, pained looks. The dark side to the two bolt stem, I’ll tell you. Finally, a vendor, I think at BiCi, noted that another vendor’s table had a box of stems on it, though the vendor was missing. He said he’d vouch for me, and so we pulled the stock open, and found a stem for me, and threw it on there. The vendor showed up, was supportive and awesome and said to hit him up later for it, and just like that, I was back in it. Quick stop at the Trek tent for some derailleur adjustment: everything looked great. I was good to go!

Team Mechanical

The ride is staged, so faster riders head out first to get out from behind everyone, then the rest are staged based on approximate experience level, so that like riders are with like riders, etc.

Eric, Kristin, her brother Donovan, and his girlfriend Sally rounded out our little group, and while we were initially heading out thinking that the worst was behind us, we were soon confronted with a freakish number of problems. Eric had a flat. He didn’t have a pump or adapter that could fit his valve properly. Different riders had different skill levels so pacing was dynamic. I stopped and stretched at each rest stop. More mechanicals. Ultimately, one of us self-assigned the name Team Mechanical. I had no idea how accurate it would be. We were joking how we never used the mechanical tent, barely ever stopped at the rest stops, etc.

Eric, Kristen and me: Team Mechanical

Wellllll….. anyway, we had sent Don and Sally up the road and were going to catch up once Eric was done with his thing. We ended up doing a pretty reasonable pace line to get back there, and stopped at the last rest stop before the big climb of the day. This was along the water, and the wind was picking up. Dark clouds were forming. Everyone said previous years were boiling hot and so on, but I thought we benefitted from the storm front, keeping us cooler and so on. I was having a great time.

Last generally pristine shot of Rogue. There’s some under-seatpost-binder scraping, and that dropout scraping from the night before, but otherwise, this was the honeymoon shot

I want to mention, the build was AWESOME. This new Cinelli frame worked out perfectly. With my bars adjusted to bring the brifters where they needed to be, the shorter frame, seat adjustments… I felt so comfortable. I can’t even tell you what a relief it was for my back and pelvis.

Grabbed the wrong bibs this morning, so a tiny hole in the upper thigh seam was growing. I safety pinned it For the TEAM’s safety, mind you.

And I had it dialed in. Unlike my last ride, I did everything right: I got a bit more sleep (almost 5 hours), I hydrated and fed well (even after two weeks of carb and sugar detox) and was humming with energy, Even my cough and my athsma weren’t holding me back. So, we embarked on the next leg, the big bad everyone was stressing about.

The steepest point on the Coleman grade…

The Coleman climb is remarkable not for its length or it’s overall height (it’s about 3 miles long and about 1200 feet of the 4000 feet aggregate for the day) but for the gradient. In the first third of the climb you hit gradients floating between 12 – 15%, topping out at 16.9% at one point. Recall that this was the section that I felt would force me off the fixed-gear had I brought it. I ended up taking the first third at a good pace, then pulled off at a convenient section after the big gradient, stretched my back and relieving the stress on the pelvis, and then resumed again, for the first time in the history of this cassette I put on Villain when I converted to SRAM, dropped into my 27 cog and just ticked the climb away at a steady, slow pace. We got to the top without stopping and I was justifiably elated. The night before, I didn’t have a bike to ride, was sick, had a back injury and poor saddle time; and now I had just done the big climb of the day. I was stoked.

Downhill From There

Over the top, Eric and Kristen were already descending and Donovan and Sally were now with me. Sally went on ahead, I think, and as I was descending, I rolled through the cassette to get into the smaller cogs and then flipped the big ring from the small to big. However, my shifting in the back wasn’t happening. In retrospect, I was going too fast, and didn’t wait to confirm that I was down to the saller cogs before shifting in front. I did it too close together and basically ended up doing the precisely WRONG thing for this build: I let the big ring in back (which hadn’t let go) line up with the big ring in front, and the derailleur locked up. I rolled backward on the cranks and tried to get back into the small ring, but by then it was too late: the rear mech blew up, sending it into the cassette and my rear spokes, the chain jammed up against the hub, and I was locked up in back. I can honestly tell you that all the fixed gear riding I do saved my ass. I was out of the saddle, hitting the front brake, and powerslid down to a stop in a lazy, jagged whip of rubber. I got out of the pedals and pulled off the road and was frankly just thankful i didn’t go down. Donovan came up and was eyeballing the mess behind me with a look that was like a cross between horror and queasiness. There was nothing to be done. I was out. I pulled the shattered derailleur pully cage out from being entwined in my cassette and it cut my fingers. The whole thing was just destroyed. A CHP moto cop rolled up and said that he’d get SAG support out for me, and then returned and said they would be here in about 10-15 minutes. So, I told Donovan to go on ahead and catch up with the others. They were going to catch a ride with him anyway, so I just figured I’d sag to the end, hop in the MINI, and jet home to my family. Off he went, and I hunkered down to wait as the wind whipped up and the temperature began to drop. Eventually another rides came walking down the hill with a Lightspeed and a broken chain. He had been waiting for SAG for an hour already. This wasn’t looking good.

Shot of the mangled derailleur hanger

I mean, this was pretty insane

The derailleur was wedged up into the cassette, and the hanger was up into the spokes. Amazing I didn’t go down. Wheel locked up. Longest skid-stop for my personal best, ha.

Eventually a fire volunteer rolled up in a big pick-up and agreed to take us back… but I mean BACK. Down the big climb, to the previous coastal rest stop. But hey, a ride’s a ride! And I was still riding out my euphoria about not crashing.

First ride back… literally, unfortunately.

At the rest stop, the wind was blowing and it was sprinkling. The word was that the SAG vehicles hadn’t been there in forever, and were not likely to be there. So, rather than sit on my ass, I thought, you know what, time for plan B. An awesome mechanic from Norcal Bike Sport, August, tore my rear derailleur ‘flower’ off and re pinned my chain shorter and we fashioned a single speed out of it. To hell with it. I’d ride as a single!

Derailleur and cables stripped away, ready to go single-speed.

The other guy got a chain fix and we were ready to head out, each with a crew farther along the course, sticking together out of convenience. He advocated taking an alternate route on the map. The ‘gravel route’ was designed to give riders an alternative to the Coleman grade. My concern was that it was unsupported, and it was gravel. Who knew what would happen, or how long my jury-rigged single would hold up. I didn’t want to be off the reservation. So he took off for that alternate route, and I headed along the coast and back to the big climb. I didn’t know it at the time, but while I was on the way back to the mechanical tent that second time, Levi Leipheimer had passed with his crew.

Chain Reaction

Here’s the new Single version of Rogue’s build… for a moment, anyway

PANG! There went the chain, just as I was getting started. So, I turned around, nursed the bike back to the previous rest stop, and returned to the mechanic who was sort of wide-eyed that I was back again. We shortened the chain further, now in a slightly easier gear (so bad on the flats) but not as easy as was needed on Coleman. I asked if he thought I’d make it. He shrugged and said he thought it was better than waiting at the rest stop for the SAGS that weren’t coming. So off I went for a third try. I got to the climb, hit it at a good pace, and was being pretty careful: I couldn’t stand out of the saddle, lest I stress the chain too much. And all the way up it was sort of the familiar refrain from Aids Lifecycle, as riders would double-take at the lack of derailleur. I was actually craving the MASH frame at this point. I don’t like single speed. I want the mechanical advantage of the fixed drivetrain. All my instincts were telling me to jump out of the saddle and bomb the hill as I would fixed, but I kept it steady. And I made it to about 50m from the top. PANG! There went the chain again. Now the link was twisted and two links back were open. I was done.

Second ride, this time to the next rest stop, ha

While I was at the top, I was trying to decide what to do, but I knew, either way, it was just going to be a matter of holding out until SAG support would eventually come. I was back in signal range for awhile so I texted Lung that I was out of the event and had a good story for him. I sent him blown derailleur flower pr0n. I thought I’d be hopefully getting home later that day and making up for my lateness with wifebot(tm)… but it was getting ugly, weather wise. Eventually a camera crew offered to give me a ride, which was awesome, so I put Rogue into the back of a truck for the second time in one day and hopped in. No crash, got a ride in, no worries! However, they elected to drop me off at the next rest stop a few miles up. I guess they were planning and picking someone else up before heading to base camp, so I took the ride for what it was and hopped out, joining a motley crew of injured riders at this water-only stop: a guy under a space blanket heaving from exhaustion and electrolyte overloading, and a woman who had cramped up. Guess what? It was a 4 hour wait.

The remains, alongside the medical tent. Lots of admirers of the frame (and the wreckage) though.

I mean, it was laughable. We could hear the radio going off: SAG vehicles were being rerouted BACKWARDS rather than coming forward and collecting to the end and back out again, as they should be. The rain was coming in from the coast, and there were crashes. More people were abandoning and the SAGs were picking them up on the side of the road. Even before all this, we passed four different accidents with ambulances etc. So it was an ugly day for riders down. We ended up hearing that three people were airlifted to hospitals, and it was getting worse. CRAZY! The woman took a space blanket, but I went without since I was otherwise doing OK. I just tucked into a ball and fed off of my energy gels and mini cliff bars. It sounds pathetic but it really wasn’t. I had signal so I texted my family. I even went to Amazon and ordered a replacement derailleur and chain. Ha. Oh, and Ethan Suplee, from My Name is Ed and Willfred, who we’ve written about previously on Team Lope, rolled through and looked great.

Ethan Suplee kicking ass.

One volunteer finally went off shift, and was able to take the vomiting guy, who was all gray and dead looking, down the hill (I heard her cry to the medics that he waspuking all over her Nissan though) and at another point, the woman I was sitting with got ahold of her husband, who tried to come get us (he had room for my bike, and they would take me to my car, even. Stoked!) Unfortunately, he was stuck behind the same traffic blocks that had closed the roads to everyone else, thanks to the healthy CHP support. After awhile it was raining on us. I got a text from wifebot(tm) showing young Zoe in a rickshaw in SF, saying I could use one of those right now. Truer words! Anyway, 4 hours later, a SAG vehicle rolled up. And behind them? a SRAM neutral car.

SRAM Steps Up

Finally, a SAG showed up, 4 hours later

I loaded my bike on the Sag van rack, and they said they had to wait for more calls before heading out. So I walked over and showed the tech driving it my derailleur flower, just because it was pretty crazy and he admitted it was one of the worst he’d seen. And then wham, he offered me a new one! I tole him I considered it pilot error, not defect. But he thanked me for being a SRAM customer, and suddenly I had a new derailleur.

SRAM to the rescue. This guy rocked

THAT is what I call another in a string of pretty amazing services on this ride, from the CHP support, to the amazing road crews, to the mechanics, to now this rad SRAM replacement. I was pretty delighted. And yes, I canceled the Amazon order in the van.

We ended up driving back along the route to collect more riders, and eventually were up to 6 riders in the van, before heading out to base camp. We rolled in a6 6:10pm, a good 6 hours after my second chain blow up.

I made it across the finish so my sensor could be read. I CARRIED the bike. The girls swooned. Trust me.

Over at the festival grounds, they just closed the beer tent at 6pm, so a lot of stragglers still coming in were fired up about the beer being gone, as it was presumably their carrots for getting home. However, I was driving anyway.

There were about 9 or 10 different food offerings at the festival, and riders each had a meal voucher. I chose, of course, the taco truck with the fit girl waiting in front of it.

Beer tent, closed 10 minutes prior. MAN people were steamed about that

I grabbed a delicious burrito, then headed out to walk the mile back to the car. Then I saw my original SAG van driver out front. I asked if she was heading my way, and she volunteered to drive me to the MINI! I was really thankful for this. It had been a long day. So I was in my car at 7pm. I got through Santa Rosa traffic and down to Mill Valley in a record 40 minutes (don’t ask don’t tell) and stepped in the door to give my daughter a bath at about 14 hours to the minute after I left that morning. CRAZY!

Oh it was delicious.

Now, I know this sounds like a tale of woe. But I felt pretty good about the ride!
Dig it:

- Incredible CHP support, with road closures and plenty of traffic blocks
- Volunteer support and crews that nearly rival Aids Lifecycle
- Great time riding with Eric, Kristen and Donovan, who I haven’t ridden with since spring I think, on a China Camp run where I was fixed and they were on road bikes, so this time I got to prove I actually HAD a road bike.
- Met Sally, Donovan’s girlfriend, a London import who was refreshing and generally awesome
- Got an extra ride in while wifebot(tm) was full-term. If you don’t have kids, you won’t understand how precious this was. I’m in the last three weeks before the baby is due, and that means staying close to home and scrambling with preparations and such.
- Went from having an ill-fitting carbon Look that hurt my pelvis to a PERFECTLY dialed in aluminum Cinelli and haven’t felt that comfortable on a road bike in years
- Pulled off a complete bike build in a few after-hours sessions after the toddler was sleeping
- dialed in my hydration, nutrition, and stretching and had pretty much no physical issues on the bike; no cramps, no athsma issues of concern, and in general, felt like I had much more saddle time under me than I had
- Got to drive a Fiat 500, the car I rented for wifebot(tm) to take Zoe to baby gym and her other stuff for the day
- Got a sweet, sweet carne asada burrito
- Replacement derailleur from SRAM
- All the damage was manageable so I’m on the road to repair very quickly: new chain coming, ordered a replacement derailleur hanger for the Cinelli thanks to the amazing website: www.derailleurhanger.com
- Fresh air and new ride routes
-Always reassuring when vendors, mechanics and staff go above and beyond, when we generally face selfish and hard people on our day to day ride experiences.
- Most important: I didn’t crash. I kept the bike up, never went down, and other than a minor strain in my left IT band, I’m in tip-top shape! Got to hold my daughter at the end of the day, so all was good!

Side note: one additional bonus was the use of that Cinelli. Not only is it gorgeous and did it elicit a number of comments from people having never seen it before, but guess what: I’m pretty sure I stayed off the ground because of it. The gouges in my rear triangle? Had this been my carbon Look I think i would have lost the triangle, wrecking the frame at minimum, going down far more likely. It was the first thing the SRAM tech asked about. Most blown derailleurs trash the frame when they fly up into the stays. I have cosmetic damage only. I don’t even think I lost a spoke. How awesome is THAT!

All in all, despite the calamities, it was a great day I say.

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Re-Cycle is a Northern California used bike shop that accepts donated bikes and accessories, refurbishes or cleans them up, and then sells them for a charity program. I mean, right off the bat, you want to buy as much as you can there, right? Even if you weren’t a bike build enthusiast.

Oh, but I am!

Onward: I have been wanting to get out to Re-Cycle for about a year, ever since I learned about it, but only now had the opportunity to take a long lunch and shoot over. I like to multitask my errands, and had a bike part craigslist pick-up in SR same day, so. The goal was: look for suitable track or trackable frames for couplng, and look for potential raw projects for a gift bike for my loving wifebot(tm).

I was unsuccessful on the frame hunt. I saw several great project frames, including two road frames fromt he 70s that had long horizontal or diagonal drops (perfect for track conversion) but both were 58cm and I’m 56cm and I’ve learned, through my Looks, that it’s frustrating when you adapt to a frame too big or too small. So I walked from those.

However, there were finds:

1. Sweet 3T Stem! This was my favorite stem mfr other than Thomson. Of course, in both cases, it’s because we’re talking matte black stems with white block letters, but also because the 3T, like the Thomson X4, is a 2-bolt bar clamp, AND, there’s the name thing. You know I dork out and like Thomson parts for the name. And of course, same same, 3 T ? HA. Anyway, this was a great find, because it’s the right length, and it can be used on Villain, where my other black Thomson X4 currently lives, allowing me to swap the X4 over to the new MASH build to keep things all Thomson over there. Perfect! Also? $22.

2. Sweet Elmo Hobby Horse: We’ve been looking forward to getting a hobby horse for Wee Z, though she’s still too short for it. We wanted to get a wooden one. They are very expensive. Oh, and she’s obsessed with Elmo, of course. BOOM! With fully-lowerable seat. Price? $30 negotiated down form $50.

3. And here’s the sweetest. I found an incredibly cool project bike for wifebot(tm). It’s a mixte from the southeast-asian market. It has rod brakes. It has pie plates. It is Guaranteed World Finest Bicycle Precision Mechanism! I’m stoked. If she ends up hatin it, you know this will be mine.

I"m just loving this place as a resource. One weekend, Lung and I are going to take a drive over and spend THE DAY. I think, if we were crafty, we could actually BUILD a frankebike and ride it out.

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I have a reputation for being technology-forward. But for some reason, as I age, I want to go technology-backwards when it comes to my bikes. Within reason, of course. I’m not going to denounce a light crabon frame just because it’s modern. But many of the advancements of the day that are emerging fill me with ambivalence at best, and apprehension at worst. In this piece, which rah-rahs about three new technologies, at least two of which aren’t new (and is written for, to be fair, a PC magazine) I was kind of unsettled at my own resistance to it.

I mean, there’s nothing WRONG with electronic shifting. We covered it before the 2009 Tour de France, and agreed ‘EH!’ but really it’s all just steps forward. On the upside, precision shifting, and on the downside, eff up your charging schedule and well, you’ve got a single speed or, worse, a bike stuck in mid-shift, unless you can manually seat it without power in the field. But not exciting to me, anyway.

The Continuously Variable Transmission, as you see above (CVT) is a staple in electric cars and now is making its way into boutique mountain bike applications. Instead of cogs, we have orbs of teeth that roll around each other creating (and excuse the original writer’s attempt to say both ‘unlimited’ and ‘limited’ in the same statement) smooth micro-shifts that completely eliminate the stepped shifting with which we are accustomed. But again, something in my mind says the experience of riding is lost when you can just throttle a lever like it’s a gym bike and increase or decrease gearing dynamically. That said maybe it would be awesome, I don’t know.

Lastly, belt drive, which is the one that I DO like, continually being ‘prototyped’ according to this article (despite being in production) has some advantages, but mostly I like it from a dork factor, because it would seem to be quiet and smooth. But you need a breakaway frame, you need to accept fixed drivetrain, and you need to get over some false marketing ploys like claiming that chain drive is ‘the weakest part of a conventional bicycle’… which is just sales hype. The chain drive has been around for so long it’s obscene, and with today’s material manufacturing technology, it remains one of the most reliable designs of it’s type. Chains stretch but this is compensated for, and chains break because we use economical versions, not because of faults in the design. I will contend the greaseless aspect is enjoyable. But it’s still just an ‘option’ and not a fix to some terribly flawed technology.

Anyway, article made me feel like that older guy in a hand-knitted beanie at the coffee shop who’s been sitting there with crumpled Arts sections from two days ago, glaring at the young kids baring tramp stamps near his tea-infuser.

http://gizmodo.com/5745772/how-the-comm … einvention

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This was a gorgeous, warm weekend, atypical for January even for us here in Northern California. I’ve been itching to get out for some climbing on the weekend, but between baby illness, adult injury, and the relative dearth of riding partners in this footbal spectacularama season, it just hadn’t happened yet. But I intend to get back to form early this year, and yesterday was as good as any to start. Baby went down for a nap, and I made a break for it on Villain, my road bike. The objective: climbing Mt. Tam.

Observations:

1. I’m carrying too much winter weight. I’m lighter than I was when I started effing AIDS LIFECYCLE, but then again, I had 6 months of riding under my belt then, despite. Here, I was coming off cold, after a pretty gruesome holiday season of illness and pelvic injury. But really, I felt it in my ride. Too heavy. Too much excess being carried up the mountain, burning off too slowly, ha. But anyway, we do what we can.

2. My back ain’t healed. I mean, certainly my chiropractor thinks so, as I’m going every week for alignment. But man my back was aching by the time I got to Four Corners. I took a few breaks (I’m not proud, and see the long view) one at Four Corners and one part way up the mountain, partially to ease the asthma, but also to ease DEM BONES.

3. The weather was incredible. It was warm enough to feel great under the heat of it, but cool enough not to overcook. There were parts that baked me and parts that were chilly, as I passed through the darker patches under tree cover. Pretty great for effing January when our friends on the East Coast are snapping thermometers.

4. I’m proud of building my first road bike, but I have to say, work needs to be done. My shifter cables are either shifting or frayed from all the adjustments I was making. I can’t get into the big 27 cog in my crazy climbing cassette (and yesterday I’d have used it) without locking up the drivetrain, and the front derailleur was slipping a bit and didn’t like the big ring. The worst was that slip between a few gears on sustained climbing, where it hops back and forth between neighboring cogs and throws you off rhythm. It’s all a matter of adjustment, but man, out on the road you’re like COME ON, COUSIN.

5. Afternoon on Mt. Tam can be a freeway in parts. That’s not right.

6. I actually did pretty well, all things considered. I was strong where I needed to be, and I did almost the whole ride seated, and I didn’t stop half the times I contemplated it. Ultimately I got up to the split, took the East Peak route at the fork, but my lungs and my back were really bothering me. By the time I got to the open-air Tam theater, I saw it was 4pm and I was in trouble… this was more than just a quick loop, and I had a sick baby and lots of tasks at home. So I flipped it 3 miles from the summit, and bombed down the mountain to get home. And FAST. Faster than I usually go. It was exhilarating and not a little scary on a few curves.

Anyway, climbing ride 1 of 2011… only uphill from here, in a good way!

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So, Ye Blacke Death has been ride-able for 24 hours now. I mean, it goes and it stops, both reliably.

So, while it’s not yet complete, I do have thoughts.

Test Ride 1 was the coffee run last weekend that saw most of my coffee land in and over the front rack, being unsecured, plus was the ride I learned I had both a high-gearing issue AND a baby seat clearance issue. Subsequently, I swapped out the Nitto moustache bars for big-ass moon bars. This provides the necessary clearance to ride with the baby up ON there. I also swapped out the vintage hood lever for a BMX lever and restrung the brake cable 33 more times.

Test Ride 2: Wraps Run

So the bars are on, the brake strung, seemed to be in order, so i headed out. First thing I noticed was that despite cinchin’ it, the bars still moved in the stem clamp. So I was carrying all my tools in me pockets as I do on test rides, so I was able to really muscle it more and get it tighter. Good. Second thing I noticed was that the brakes were still just a bit too soft. It’s hard to finesse center-pulls like this. You under-do it and they slip, and over-do it and the cable get s smashed and frayed. So I stopped and adjusted again. Little better, not perfect.

I also noticed that riding with moon bars is kind of awkward. It’s fun, but when you’re used to the drops or the bulls, pitched forward, this position is kind of strange. You’re pushing pedals differently too, with your body geometry changing in that position. But as far as the first real RAHHHDE of any distance, it worked. It’s smooth, cushy. LAID BACK.

I brought back some wraps and a salad using the front basket, and used my webbing to hold it down. Worked AWESOME.

Test Ride 3: Commute

So after the ride last night, this morning I was able to do some more brake adjustment (still not perfect) and a few other things, and I was good to go.

Lung warned that my gearing was still likely too high. He’s right. I came down from my accidental 300 inchgear or whatever, but my chain was broken too small now, so i couldn’t get it back up to the bigger ‘pie plate cogs’ because I don’t have enough chain. So I installed the biggest I could fit, which was an 18. That’s still a 78 inchgear. Not terribly comfortable int he upright. Doable certainly in drops, but this is different. Add the short hills to get to my house. Add 20+ pounds of Wee Z! So yep, need a new chain.

I also found that man, it’s hard to adjust to those wide hand-positions. I kept instinctively slipping down to the stem to ride more comfortably as I do on Crook, but of course with a baby seat installed that wouldn’t be possible, so I tried to force myself to stay in position. Overall, fun ride, but need to do more adjustments. Possibly a drainpipe post, as I’m feeling a little forward from where I want to be, just like with Fix-e back in the day. I just happen to have Fix-e’s old one, so we’ll see.

I headed over to the stoe to get some groceries, and to Peet’s to get my coffee. Again with the webbing, this time pushing more of the limits of the reach of the net. Worked great. My bag was about 20 pounds too, and the bike handled well. That’s a good sign. Coffee in there too, nice and snug.

Test Ride 4: Afternoon Coffee Run

Yes, that’s a lot of coffee, i know.
Anyway, this time I webbed the coffee cup vertically close to the stem-side of the basket, and it worked like a dream. Even better than my modified gimbal on wrongBike. Narry a drip spilled.
Little more used to the bars now.

Please note the sweet, sweet sticker I through on here, courtesy of TRDL R3 Lieutenant Akua!

All in all, good rides. I’m heading over to get yet another chain tonight and replacement grips. Don’t be fooled by that red wrap. That’s just the under-wrap to the cork grips. I had to break one off to get the moustache bars off, which was crumbling from some cracks anyway. So more to come.

Onward! Next ride, lower gear, proper grips, bell and BABY! If all goes well…

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