This pic is actually about a week old, but since I was up climbing over the hill again this morning on Crook Type 3, I was again reminded that I need to get some time set aside to finally commit to the slammed stem position. I’ve spent about 6 months now gradually decreasing the stack on this bike, with the intention of adjusting to the lower reach slowly enough that my back/pelvis recovery wouldn’t be adversely affected. I really like it now, so I need to get this spleen-killer off of the front end of this thing.

Great ride morning: cold but not frigid, energy stores despite only having coffee, burning legs and chest after getting to the summit… what a great way to get to work!

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You may recall that some months back, I came out of Peet’s, and discovered that some hooligan had stolen my bar ends off of Crook Type 3, My CinelliXMASH. Not the bike, which was unlocked. But the bar ends. I had used sweet black crank bolts. You never know, right?

Anyway, yesterday, I stopped about two blocks from where Peet’s is, to tie my perpetually untying Sambas (even with double knots)… and I spotted something in the foliage by the sidewalk.

YEP. One of my stem bolts, still wrapped with electritole tape, now rusted from exposure.
That’s a trip. The hooligans abandoned them after the theft. And trippier still, I found one.

Crazy.

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Readers not suffering from short-term memory lost (and now traveling the streets of their unfamiliar neighborhood with tattoos of their grocery lists ont hem looking for payback for a murder they aren’t sure even happened) will recall that in preparation for the Levi Leipheimer Gran Fondo, I cobbled together a road bike the night before, and then had it explode on the ride.

You can read that ride report here. I called it the Gran Fondo Fireball.

After locking up the rear derailleur on the way down from the biggest climb of the ride, I was left with this:

And this:

Now, SRAM was a sponsor of the ride, and the local rep actually pulled up and gave me a new used rear derailleur, so I was at least not re-buying that part. With a baby imminent, my shoppe time is next to zero, so in order to get the bike going again, I dropped it off at Performance for a derailleur tune and more importantly a safety check. Right out of the gate, I forgot my new 10-speed chain i had purchased, so I was going to be picking that up there. They noted that the derailleur hanger that I had acquired from derailleurhanger.com was not correct. My frame seller was able to work with BTI and figure out the required part, and I had that shipped from the always sweet-as universalcycles.com. So, back to the shop for a second time, to replace the wrong hanger with the right hanger (this brings the famous ‘no wirrre hangerrrrs!’ to mind)… anyway, they thought they’d be able to finish the bike that day.

Late in the day report: not going to make it, some issue needing more time the next day, a Saturday. That wasn’t promising.

Late Saturday, same call. Even less promising. Understand, when I brought it in, I hadn’t done a THOROUGH inspection due to my family situation. But it looked like there wasn’t significant frame damage, and since the only substantial damage I saw was the hanger, I was hoping they’d be able to do a quick review for safety issues (one drawback to aluminum: when it cracks, it’s over) string the rear derailleur back up, and call it a day.

Then I got a call Monday that things were ‘very bad’. Fortunately, I feared this meant the frame was a loss, but in fact, not THAT bad. But the cassette was trashed, the spokes were jacked, the rim was creased, and some other smaller issues. I was kind of disappointed, because it was not my plan, when I built the new bike, to be frankensteining it with a bunch of new parts. However, it was what it was. I did a little price-checking, then authorized them to swap out a new SRAM 10-speed cassette (this time 12-27, so i lost the range of the old one at the bottom (in other words, the old one was a custom set-up from 11 to 27, giving me a great big AND little cog, with less steps between the two) and went in on new wheels. I could have had the old rear wheel respoked, but it was a cheapie from several years ago, and not really worth the labor and materials. Plus, the bearings on the front were getting choppy. So what the hell.

Picked it up, and it was as good as new. Better than before, actually, thanks to the much, much lighter new wheelset.

I was actually kind of overwhelmed with it last night after I picked up the bike. I was frustrated. I’m no regretter, as you may know from my posts, but I was starting to think, you know, had I listened to to my wife’s bad feeling that I shouldn’t build the bike for the ride etc, that this wouldn’t have happened. I’d have taken Crook Type 3, bombed that ride on a fixie (except for walking up that 16% gradient) and had a great ride, instead of sitting in the rain waiting for SAG for hours, damaging a new frame, destroying pretty much everything that wasn’t already new… at a time when I needed to manage costs.

Then I did some course correction: I suspect I might have had a calamity anyway, at some point. My chain was one link short, based on the discrepancy between SRAM tech notes and the install guides (the difference between one link being one outer and one inner, or just one outer OR one inner, as I thought it was) so there was going to be trouble when it chained big to big, which would happen eventually, despite my efforts. There’s some question about what failed when in the damage… the cassette may have already been bent in the biggest cog, from my previous problems having strung Villain together and riding that for a year. Anyway, it was sub optimal, and when it collap, it collap BIG. At the time, I fixie skided to a stop on a descent. But had it been the crabon frame, I’d very likely have lost the rear triangle, judging by the marks all over the back of the Cinelli and the damage to the wheel. I’d have gone down AND lost the frame. So, while the escalating repairs were unexpected and unfortunate, and the fact that I felt it better to let them keep whacking at it rather than sit on it in the shop for a few months and then start messing with it later, at least it was throughly vetted. And now it’s very rideable. In fact, better than ever.

But it was just hard in that way it’s always hard when you can point to a decision and think, had I not done that, I wouldn’t be in this mess. Even if that isn’t really true. With my first Look theft, and even with Lung’s lock-the wheel-without-the rear-triangle thing, sure they were errors but we had false expectations of security in each case. No sense in regretting that. Each led to newer, bigger, better builds.
So, in the end, this calamity COULD have ended in serious injury and worse damage, instead of ending in a sweet, sweet bike.

PS Zoe tried to pick out yet another wrongrobot-approved ride for herself. I said ‘now you have 3 bikes already. Only Daddy needs a stable of 8 bikes. It’s excessive.’ to which she broke into a toddler wail. Pretty funny, being commentary both on her bike denial AND on my excessive rides.

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There’s this wonderful moment in the wonderful film Anchorman, comprised itself of back-to-back wonderful moments, where Ron Burgundy has thrown a delicious and filling burrito out the window while driving, where it struck a Harley guy in the face and sent him sprawling. The Harley guy, Jack Black with a beard and beans on his face, begins his assault with:

‘What the hell, man!"

In a very specific low-key cadence.
I tend to use this whenever I’m struck dumb with the strange bullshit behavior of others, or self.

Today, after a stop off at the bank and at Peets, I returned to the office to find that someone came along and ganked the crank bolts out of my bar ends, which I used as end caps (because you never know)…

I mean, what the hell man! Really?

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Readers and fellow riders will recall my obsession with the 2003 Look racing frame, the KG381. I coveted it at the time. I got it’s skinny cousin used in 2006, and gave it away to a thief with a Bic pen. I got a consumer line KG381 Jalabert Edition, which I rode for about 3 years, and then scored a KG381 Team spare frame from the Tour, and after building it up as a fixed-gear for awhile, I finally converted THAT frame into my road bike, and sold off the Jaja.

Well, the Team frame was always big for me. I had the seatpost slammed, I had the stem low and small, and the seat forward on the rails as much as possible. It was doable, but after my pelvis and back injury, I’ve come to find the Look to difficult to ride comfortably. I can RIDE it, but I don’t LIKE riding it. The bigness haunted me, even being only modestly too large. But as I’ve come to find, fitment becomes even more important once you’re injured. Thus, I poured a sip out of my coffee for ole Villain, and started the hunt for something new.

With a baby on the way, and a need to not screw myself over financially any more than I already have, I knew I was working backwards on technology. I wasn’t going to find a carbon frame I liked to replace the carbon frame I loved. But riding aluminum (Crook) over long distances, including to LA, taught me that I could deal with the road vibration when properly insulated. So that helped: it would be lighter steel, or aluminum. Looking around, I couldn’t shake my disinterest in almost everything out there. No cash for a custom frame. I narrowed it down to Cinelli. I wasn’t a fan of their graphics these days on the road bikes (all sorts of lines and grids like 80s Tron merchandising) but started looking backwards in the line, at new old stock and used frames. After a few days of hunting, I stumbled upon a small shop in Oregon that was sitting on a few Cinelli frames they got as a closeout from a Canadian distributor. Few, as in one S, one L, and one XL. Unused, still packed up, never built up. And for a SONG. So, best part: these were 2008s, when Cinelli offered generally monochrome schemes on some of the bikes. And in nuclear trigger red/orange! So, I snatched it up. The unboxing pic is above.

You know, I had a lot of misgivings about giving up the Look. I loved the matte black carbon and minimal decals. I loved the exclusivity of it. But I have to tell you, I’m adapting JUST fine to this new frame. It’s like… magma!

I have the Levi Leipheimer King Ridge Gran Fondo this Saturday, so the race is on to have it built up and road tested by then. I snuck in last night and started the process. I got as far as headset, cockpit (complete), front and rear strung brakes, and wheels. I’m waiting on some used SRAM Red cranks I ordered, to play nicer with my derailleur, and then I’ll do the drivetrain. It’s admittedly easier to build up a road bike when you’re stripping a road bike you only built up a year ago. Everything’s in great shape. I had to change the brake cable routing (the Cinelli isn’t internal routing like the Look) and a few other things, but so far so good. The blurry picture above shows the current state of it: orange and black.

I had a few scares: for one, when I was trying to pull the front Dura Ace brake caliper off of Villain the nut was bound up, and in muscling it, I felt the brake explode in my hand and heard something ping across the shop. I have a rock floor. Losing small parts is the bane of my work down there. Anyway, all was not lost: the spring had come loose from the calipers and the plastic sheath for it was what had tried to escape. And miraculously, after about 20 minutes with a head-mounted light, I found it, and fixed the brake.

Also, when I brought the frame into the shop from the car, I was mollified to discover paint scraped away all over the seat post receiver. I couldn’t believe it. Did I grind it against something? Was it effed up and I didn’t notice it in the unboxing? I was conjuring various electrical tape based fixes, when I found the cause: the seatpost collar, which I had been missing, was on the floor in the car, and the paint scrape was from the collar clamping onto the frame, and being pulled off somehow in my loading/unloading of the MINI. Found it as I was loading Z up for a return trip to the office to search the box for seat clamps. HA!

Anyway, build in process, but I’m pretty pleased about the Phoenix-style rebirth of sweet-as happening here.

PS New bike name, influenced by the bright orange/red color: ROGUE

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Yesterday Lung and I got out on a rare opportunity to take a Team Lope ride up here in Marin, what with his social schedule and my family schedule… we take what we can get. Remember, to get to the start, ie. my house in Mill Valley, Lung has to ride in from SF, so he adds a total of about 35 miles to this, just in the hop up to the bridge etc.

This was not what I would call a ball-buster, relative to what we do when we’re in good form, but Lung hasn’t put miles on the bike outside of the city in a few months and I’ve been recovering from a pretty bad back injury that shredded my fitness level, so we were more interested in a good workout and some hang time than breaking any personal bests. I think the last longer ride we did together was Marin Century, also fixed.

We started by taking the hop over Loring and down the switchbacks on the other side, to show Lung how I get some climbing into my morning junk miles now, back allowing…

The last time I rode the China Camp route, it was a ride with guys on road bikes, me on Crook Type 1 fixed, right before Aids Lifecycle 9…
The China Camp Road Loop from my house usually consists of leaving Mill Valley, doing one half of the Paradise Loop (Camino Alto climb) continuing to San Rafael, heading out to China Camp, riding that ring to the Civic Center, then back to Larkspur, finishing the Paradise Loop through Tiburon, and back home. Normally we’d have probably done that. However, it was hot, a long ride, and by the time we finished the China Camp portion, tacos were in order. After that, I was feeling the two-pronged derailment of my will to go, as planned, back to MV, see Lung off, then return over Camino Alto again and meet my wife and kiddo in San Anselmo: I was feeling some grundle sufferage due to increased pursuit riding position (what Lung refers to as SLAMMMMMMED with emphasis on the AMMMMMED part) and the siren’s song of the pool at my mother-in-law’s house. So, after tacos (best Al Pastor in the Bay Area, it has been said) I rode Lung back to Larkspur to set him on the return route, and then turned around and rode to the pool, only stopping to strip my gear off before pool occupation. (My daughter greeted me at the door in a diaper with a giant bag of Kix and rosy cheeks, having woken from a 2 hour nap, so she was squealing at my bike arrival. I got her in a bathing suit and we both hit the pool for some much-needed mellow.)

Riding any of these routes up here can mean different degrees of effort depending on how you do it. Usually, it’s on a road bike. Maybe you noodle it, riding with less experienced friends, or maybe you plow through it at speed to achieve a personal best. We were certainly not bombing this ride: I have to be cautious and moderate to minimize risk to my back, and B has a long ride back up the hill to SF and a propensity for leg cramps. However, when you do these rides on a fixed gear, every climb is different, the here-to-there stretches are more work fromt he cadence, and overall, you do more work, because you never stop. That’s half the fun.

We’ve got the Guardsmen Metric in a few weeks (we’ll do it fixed) and I have the Leipheimer Gran Fondo on 1 October, which I’ll do road, so i have to get more saddle time in this month to strengthen my spine for that. Today i’m feeling a bit stiff, though stretching is helping.

All in all, just a great bro day.

Ride Map:
35 miles for me, 2500ft climbed (Blair broke off at 30 miles, then added 35 more for his commute for an estimated total of 65 miles and 3300ft of climbing)
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/China-Camp-Fixed

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Lung and I were talking, on our most recent ridery adventure, about how he likes his ride to be slammed, and how mine are generally unslammed, or whatever is the opposite of slammed, especially the last 6 months as I recover from my back injury.

For the last week, just for fun, I decided to try slammery. Well, semi-slammery: I left one spacer, so I could employ my bell.

Thoughts:

- I haven’t cut the steerer down so I have the spacers stacked above the stem. Wise choice when you are experimenting. However, it’s also a nice way to impale yourself.

- the ride position is nice and aero, very aggressive, especially on a pursuit frame geometry

- there is an unnatural weight distribution on your arms. It’s normal enough if this is all you ride, but general bike fitment is that you are never supposed to be resting weight on the bars, using core strength to maintain your ride posture. It’s so obvious that after each ride my arms feel it. It’s really weird.

- subsequently, one hand riding is a lot dicier: I’ve done coffee runs and felt a little unsteady with one arm partially holding me up AND steering.

- I need to lower my seat. I think I cranked my seat on Crook higher to get more of that dropped riding position, previously, and never really messed with it as I recovered from my back stuff. So now I just dropped about 4cm and thus my junk is crushed.

- even short rides feel more aggressive. It’s nice to have differences in riding position on different bikes.

So, I’m still adjusting. Tonight I’ll head out with the seat dropped a bit and see if that helps solve the more, uh, urgent issue.

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Last week or so I posted about a new back way to get over from Tam Valley into Mill Valley, dodging the mouth of the valleys themselves and instead heading up and over the pass that rises into Mt. Tam’s base. The first time I tried it, I was on Crook, so in other words a mid-gearing pursuit track bike, and I had a computer on my back. This was in the TO Mill Valley direction. That ascent was steep, and I stopped at one point to get my bearings, as I’m still recovering from a back injury and not up to par. Then, lots of twisty, switchbacky goodness to the bottom.

Yesterday, I took the same route BACK to Tam Valley, winging it. It was a pure impulse move, as I was on Carpetbagger (again mid-gearing, but a less aggressive posture, which actually hurts you here) and there was a ton of wind and traffic between me and home. So I veered right, behind the 2AM club, found Ethel, took that to the start, and wound my way back up this route from memory. I mean, it’s one of those things where if you don’t turn or choose wrong at a fork you aren’t doomed, you just keep winding somewhere else in the maze of these little elevated residential streets. That’s no problem: I have often ridden around in these areas just to explore and housewatch and stuff, and sometimes you end up back where you started or even further back, and sometimes you don’t. On the way home with dinner on the stove, though, you have to watch out.

Anyway, the point is, as I had hoped, it’s easier each time, once you KNOW it. Every climbing route I know has gotten progressively easier in perception based on familiarity. We’re not talking Alpine type roads or anything here, just a relatively short hop up and over, but I remember when Alpine seemed impossible. Until I did it, and did it again, and now it’s just one of many climbing rides available. So this is the same thing. Doing some steep but short climbs in this way is a GREAT option, because it’s on the commute, it’s not time-intensive, it gets you away from some of the vehicular traffic, and it is an opportunity to get a workout when you might not otherwise have the chance.

I love it! I’ll be revisiting it again in 3.9 hours.

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I had heard from an associate that there was a cool back way to get to downtown MV without dropping down into Tam Junction and getting tangled up with the cars and such. It involved climbing, but that’s a good thing, right. So, the other day, I went looking for it a little early before work.

About half way up this relatively short but steep grade, I stopped to catch a breath. Prolly shouldn’t have done this with a loaded backpack of computers and small gifts… and on Crook, a fixed-gear MASH… but onward!

I got to the top and looked back and it was surprising how steep that was. Up and over! No perceived damage to my spine, either, which was good. I haven’t done much STEEP climbing since my injury, so it’s a bit dodgy. Feels weird. But anyway. Whoa!

Then it was a bunch of tight rollers and then switchbacks to the bottom, and your’e basically out at the start of Ethel, back behind Whole Toles. Cross Miller and you’re almost at my office.

This is the kind of thing that’s tough the first time, and easier every time you do it. But it’s GREAT to have another route to work that gets in climbing and effort and gets you way away from most traffic*, without having to go up Tam and down the other side.

*excepting speeding Mercedes SUVs swerving through these little residential roads, of course. I was very inconvenient for them, and they let me know it.

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So this weekend I got a precious opportunity that has some scarcity these days: a ride! I mean, I get out on the baby carrier, Rapscallion, but as far as putting some work in over some distance, less so with a toddler and a baby on the way. But I was informed we were going into San Anselmo to swim at the in-laws’, so I snatched the moment.

Riding from Mill Valley to San Anselmo is no brag feat. it’s like part of the route to GET to China Camp or Alpine Dam Loop. But to be honest, between far less distance ride opportunities this year and my back and pelvis injury, I’m out of shape and everything counts. I took Crook, my Cinelli X Mash, and hit it. As usual, jumping on Camino Alto for that climb with little warm-up is a bit of a wind-sucker, but i found roadies ahead of me to chase down, and did. It’s one of those small joys of fixed-gear riding outside of the city: the incredulousness from roadies over you riding WHAT with WHAT gear over WHERE. So the guys I talked to and passed were pretty stoked. Sometimes they can be jerks, but these guys were very cool.

One thing that I don’t like this season: they’ve let the back side of Camino Alto go, presumably waiting to free funds or schedule to repave. It’s always been choppy on that descent in the reverse Paradise direction, but at this point, it’s so bad they put SIGNS up. Let me tell you, they’re correct. You want to get a little air and elevate your heart-rate? Take a fixed-gear down a road like this.

Anyway, from there, it’s not effort, just some really nice riding, long enough to get out there and think, enjoy the HOT weather (I came from Tam Valley where the marine layer socked the fog in and left wet) and ring the bell at a few cuties, the like. And prolly the best way to end a ride that doesn’t involve a burger: the pool at your final destination. Even if your mother-in-law drops your bike against a hose winder assembly and sends your helmet skittering along the pavers.

Nice way to end a weekend!

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