Crook Type 3 is a transformed version of Crook, the Cinelli Mash I built up and rode on Aids Lifecycle 9, from SF to LA. The concept was simple, and absurd: after completing the 570 mile ride (if successful, which it was) I would swap out the gray frame that made that journey for the limited edition green/ white variant, celebrating the achievement. You can read about the build process for Crook Type 3 here. Suffice to say, I kept the bottom end from the original Crook, and replaced the top end, going with a silver dip theme above the frame line.

Cinelli Mash 09 Limited Edition Green/White Adidas-inspired variant
SRAM Courier 300 Cranks (48/165)
Shimano A520 pedals
Custom wheelset: Soma hubs laced to H+Son 43s
Sugino Track Cog system (17) (Currently 75 inchgear)
SRAM single chain
Dia Compe brake/ carbon fiber cable housing
Paul Comp cross lever, silver
Titanium spacers
Columbus headset and seatpost clamp
Thomson Elite post, silver
Thomson X2 stem, silver
Nitto RB-021 compact bullhorns
VO elkhide wrap
crankbolt wrap caps (!)
Brooks Swallow saddle, honey
Thomson stem cap
Continental Gatorskin Hardshells 25c
Awesomeness

Here’s the build in the wild…

Note the Paul Comp cross lever. That was a hard find, with a deceptively simple solution: Order direct from Paul Comp…
The elkhide is still stretching and getting comfy but it’s gorgeous. I miss gel padding, though. Crank bolts for bar ends. HA!

The gold hub works nicely with the color scheme, which was fortuitous. I’ll eventually have a brass bell on the front end too.

Sneaky inclusion of my Three-Pin rider logo under the chainring, for science.

On Crook 1.0 there was a quote here: ‘by hook or by crook’ which was my inspirational mantra for getting through ALC on a fixed-gear. Now that that was done, I elected to retire it, moving the bike name from the head tube to the usual position here. The cog decal moved from seatpost to seat stay. Oh, and there will be a pinup girl on the nose, it’s just not done. The other missing decals are a Type 3 lettering piece for the name, and a vinyl of our ALC logo used on our ride shirts.

Some adjustments will follow, in seat height and stem. But so far, it’s a greeeaaaaat rahde!

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Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Crook Type 3 Conversion
2. Team Lope Bike Bio: Crook
3. Friends of Team Lope: Team Hype out of LA

As you have seen from previous posts, Crook was my Cinelli Mash fixie build, which had an expressed purpose: it was my ride for Aids Lifecycle. When I bought and built it, my vision was just to build the fixie I could do the MOST on… the longest days, the best climbs, the most agility, etc. So, it was done up with road drops, ridden for a few months before the ride (about 400 miles) and then on ALC 9 from SF to LA (another 570 miles)…

But something changed, along that preparation period before ALC. I found my initial rejection of the green limited edition version of this frame turning from dislike to interest. I couldn’t shake it. And then I had the idea: ride the gray ghost to LA, then have a metamorphosis to the green. So I took a risk on the green frame, site unseen, and ordered it before I left.

My initial plan was to come home, strip the bike, assemble the new one, then ride up to the city and meet Lung later that week with the surprise build. I had kept my plan a secret. The frame was shipped to my office while we were on the ride. All was well.

Until I got it home the day after we returned. The frame itself was gorgeous. The color is indescribable, and no pics do it justice. But the fork had carbon damage at the crown, painted over by the factory. Unacceptable! So I had to wait several weeks to get this resolved through my guys at City Grounds (zack is awesome, I say) and an understaffed Cinelli US crew. Ultimately, I got the replacement fork, and discovered the crown race was missing. We got that sorted, and I received the race in the mail last Friday, just in time to finish the build before Lung would arrive that Sunday for a birthday ride. The build was done from the back forward, but the front end was waiting on that race.

The ride is a dream, and you can see the Bio of the bike here.

Below are my process pics from the conversion, which involved using the original Crook bottom end, and a new top end.

:::

Unfortunately, the photos of the frame unboxing and the back end assembly were largely lost to a bad SD card. However, imagine me pulling a brilliant frame from the box and squeeing. The green is this iridescent color… not quite flaked, but shimmery. And more importantly, it’s a warm green, not a cold green. It’s paired with a creamy opaque white, a look I’ve always loved, going back to my one-time plans to white-paint-dip a stained-wood raw coffee table top for a project years ago. I love that look.

First, the original Crook was stripped to the bones, for sale to a fellow who was heading to San Diego fixed in a pursuit of folly similar to our fixed-gear Aids Lifecycle endeavors. How’s THAT for synchronicity! Last shot of Crook 1.0′s frame.

While waiting for the fork situation to be resolved, I dragged everything up to the deck for the extrusion shot (using the damaged fork, because hey.) and then decided to do the back end build work up there, while simultaneously BBQing and hanging out with wee Z. Here’s proof.

Here’s a close-up of that damage to the fork. Not a MASSIVE deal, but the concern I had was two-fold: one, the top surface of the crown is unpainted, so it’s visible in the gap between the frame and fork. This would be more obvious as a result. And two, it’s not like it was a sealed defect. That’s the EDGE of the paint. It’ll fray.

That was never fully resolved at the time of this writing. My boys at City Grounds took up the effort in dealing with Cinelli on that front, as weeks had gone by without any fruitful response from the manufacturer. It will be an argument over manufacturing damage vs shop damage. I believe manufacturing. In the meantime, as these weeks went by, my Crook parts hanging on the bikeBasement pegboards like those trophy skulls int he Predator ship, Lung was fast at acquiring and gleefully riding his new Cinelli cockpit. I was dying. I prayed he wouldn’t have a similar issue, like opening the box and finding his bars twisted into the shape of a rhombus or something. They weren’t. Gorgeous bars!

So as I mentioned, the bottom end was remaining from Crook 1.0. These were all new parts before ALC, right, so this transformation was to swap out frames, and the top end changes were largely cosmetic, except for the bars. So I kept my wheels, tyres, cranks, pedals, cog, brake… well, new chain, but other than that, same same. For the new stuff, the idea was to have chrome up top, black down below. I could have done all black, but the few green builds I see on the supernet go all black in the components or in one case all silver. So, in keeping with the ‘dipped’ theme of the white on the frame, the top end was dipped silver. Conceptually. Here wee Z is carefully scrutinizing some small gifts for manufacturing errors. That’s a shim set for the Nitto bars (unfortunately a necessity), a star nut and a special awesome Thomson solver stem cap. I used Nitto RB-021 compact bulls on this build, since the road drop necessity of ALC was over. I sourced a sweet silver cross lever directly from Paul Comp, too. Awesome. Same stem and seatpost, both Thomson, just now in silver. I used a shorty stem this time, feeling like going compact would get me into the bulls’ drop position easier. This is still pending final approval, as on the road it may be too close to me in this configuration, putting too much pressure on my arms. The saddle is one of my Brooks, already broken in, and the wrap is elkhide.

Here’s one Lung will like. Once I finally got my crown, I built my own crown race setter. And by built, I mean I had the hardware stoe cut me a big section of 1 1/2" black PVC. Tappity tap tap!
Look at that, saved $100 right there!

To me, the scariest step is cutting the steerer. On Crook 1.0, I left about 5mm extra, ringed with a final spacer above the stem, anticipating needing some height adjustment on ALC as I went. Didn’t end up needing it. Plus, this time, the bars are compact, so the taller the stem, the closer they are. Anyway, measure TWICE cut once, here at chez Wrongrobot.

Setting the star nut is actually kind of fun. Whamma bamma.

Here the bike is ready for wrapping. The Paul lever is installed on the thicker portion of the bars, as far over as possible to minimize cable housing scrape on the sharp curve of the X2 front end. This would be the slowest step, wrapping the bike up (literally) taking me from Friday night after getting back from Lung’s birthday party, through Saturday and into the next evening.

The elkhide is really interesting. It’s stretchier than calf hide, and is more porous, shows more defects. It’s really rad though. I had started with a lighter color that purported to match the Brooks honey color saddle, but was too tan, so i sent that back and got the darker brown, which matched perfectly. I used something close to a baseball glove stitch. I had no experience with this. You use one thick waxed cord with two stubby needles, and work from the stem outward. I’d get three good stitches and then a fail, distracted by my baby hurtling herself off of something or Anne Hathaway on film or whatever. But it wasn’t arduous. Just required time to get right. Go slowly, etc. In practice, on the road the wrap slips a bit as it’s stretchy and you apply so much force with your hands, so it pulled away a bit from the edges where they started, but still good. Will take some miles to settle in. Easily the most gorgeous bar covering I’ve ever had.

And with that, Crook Type 3 was born. We rode Paradise Loop under windy conditions, and it was a dream. I have some adjustments to make, reducing the inchgear down to the more universal 72 from 75, and some messing around with seat and stem position, but overall, love it. LOVE iot.

So that’s the story of how Crook became Crook Type 3 in a post-ALC transformation!

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Related posts:

1. Team Lope Bike Bio: Crook Type 3
2. Bike Build Process Log: Crook – Front End Work
3. Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Strippery!

Friends of Team Lope, here’s some news. Crook, my grey/grey Cinelli Mash, is no more.
Or rather, it no longer is as it was. These photos were taken 24 hours before Crook ceased to be in my possession. Not from theft or malady, but by design.

I thought this was a nice swan song for Crook 1.0… the frame and fork were sold the next morning. But what of Crook’s majestic legacy? That bike made it to LA from SF, almost 600 miles of brutal fixie fire. This cannot be the end…

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Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Crook
2. Crook: Notes From the Getaway
3. Bike Build Process Log: Crook – Front End Work

Today, the front half of my new SRAM Force group arrived, and since I had to be home waiting for a Comcast technician, I decided to play around a bit. I didn’t actually intend to get as far as I did, but hey, I’m not complaining!

I stripped off the Dura Ace brifters and trade-boxed them and then studied the SRAM Force brifters for awhile. In a general sense, not much has changed. But boy, the details! SRAM’s Double Tap technology uses one inner lever under the brake to control both up and down shifting. You tap once to shift up, twice to shift down. It’s very cool. I’ve had Campy and Shimano but this is my first SRAM and it’s an interesting design. The brifters are adjustable to account for the different reach positions of riders with different hands, and the brifters also allow the shift cable to run along the inside or outside of the housing, depending on your preference.

Note the two tracks for shifter cable routing.

I decided on routing both cables to the inside track (shifter and brake) on each side, but only after I had previously taped them to be inside/outside. I redid it because I wanted to take better advantage of my bars’ cable valley along the underside.

One lever, two taps! It’s rule no. 2…

The Force brifters went on a lot easier than the Dura Ace brifters came off, I have to say. Granted there was a 13 year gap between the manufacture of these two systems, so I’m sure current DA 7900 brifters are much better. But these feel great and were easy to mount, adjust, set up the cabling etc.

Here I’ve routed the cables the way I wanted… in a Lovecraftian space madness of tentacled terror.

I didn’t intend to get very far, as I said, and didn’t really have an objective when I started today, so I was taking my time and going slow, imperative when exploring something you really don’t have much experience with anyway. Counting moving the DA stuff over format he other frame to this one, that makes… well, one pass at road bike component assembly for me so far. Heh. So yeah, I went slow.

I tried a few different ways to route the cables but settled on allowing them to spring out from the bundle under the bar and just find their best, least hassled paths.

I always tape the cables and the gel tightly before wrapping the bar.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, I says. I had a bit more time, so I thought I’d gel and tape the bars in preparation for wrapping them with the real tape later. I also noted a few things I wasn’t expecting, such as the fact that SRAM provides cables, housing, ferrules etc but they pre-size the cabling for you. I wasn’t expecting that, as I’m used to this all being bulk stock and in uniform lengths. So, the left and right brake cables were of different lengths, and of course reversed after I had installed them, so I had to switch them. No big deal, still interesting since you still have to cut each down.

Funny how Shimano is now providing the wrap for the brifter clamp to simulate electritole tape. For those that don’t already USE electritole tape. HA

The Comcast guy finally came and we took care of business really quickly, actually. However, not enough time to shoot back to work and my daughter was on her way back home from her Oma’s house, so I decided to work on this a little more. Wrap one side, I thought. Ok. Note that brake clamp wrap int he photo. Hilarious. Why not just provide some real electritole tape! Side note: I LOVE how you can hang your roll of elctritole tape on the bars ( or on top of your bike stand) as you work.

Oh, SWEET AS I says.

Before I knew it, I was done. That was unexpected! I only had to rewrap once, and for me that’s a record. I love this tape, too.. Took me awhile to find one I liked, since I’ve used Fizik black per on like three bikes in a row, and I hate most other tape. This is a black vinyl tape with perf, and it wrapped great. The perf pattern actually helped with spacing.

Anyway, one side is a bar end blinkie (yes, the car side) and the other, a video game upright button, a la 70s arcades. You may have seen me pull this on Crook as well.

Brakes are strung and adjusted, cables are in place for derailleurs. Seat is on. I’m good to go for the next phase.

Next up: derailleurs and cassette!

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Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Breakery
2. Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Completeds
3. Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Hangery

After Aids Lifecycle, I did a moderate overhaul, ie. drivetrain cleanup and brake inspection, and a surface cleaning of the bike, to return it to it’s former shiny self. Gorgeous I says!

I still quite like the ‘Crook’ placement above the Mash crest. That worked out nicely with the die- cut vinyl.

Here’s a shot of the Team Lope crest on the downtube. Kind of a subtle place for it, I think.

One noticeable scar from the road: a rock chip on the wheelstay. I think this was probably from when one of those pacelines passed in the middle of traffic at 40mph sending us into the gravel. You guys were really fast and cool and stuff.

Here’s that scrape from the chainring moving back up IN there. Fortunately, it’s an aluminum frame so no worries. And on close inspection, many of my bikes have this scrape, either from the chainring or a chain scrape along the way. Badge of honor…

There’s that Three-Pin name plate, along with a shot of the bike’s signature quote:

"By hook or by crook"

What’s really cool is that on the opposite side the lettering is partially worn off as if from age. Gives it some flavor.

That sweet cog reflector sticker. Nice touch on the black seatpost.

Ah, Crook. Ya done me well.

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Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Strippery!
2. Team Lope Bike Bio: Fix-e
3. Bike Build Process Log: Crook

As we talked about in our Aids Lifecycle ride reports, we came out fully prepared to deal with all sorts of mechanical calamity. We didn’t want to rely on the Cannondale bike tech support for our fixed-gears, in case they didn’t have the right tools for some of the components, so we packed full tool kits for overhauling the bikes. We brought tyres, tubes, chains, cogs, tape, brakes, electritole tape, everything. And nary an issue, other than a squeaky bottom bracket on Lung’s part. Of course, had I not replaced my cranks prior to the ride, it would have been a different story.

However, we did get quite dirty. These photos were taken after I returned from LA. That vinyl’s kind of gacho now! HA. Anyway, dirt is a badge of honor on a ride like this. I actually saw people cleaning their bikes at night. REALLY? I mean, I hardly clean my bikes at home. I lube and adjust the drivetrain, but dirt?

Anyway, here we are:

From my ALC Flickr set...

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Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Crook – Prime Assembly
2. Bike Build Process Log: Crook – SRAM Action
3. ALC9 post-ride cleanup

OK, now that I’m back from Aids Lifecycle, it’s project time! What’s life without projects, I ask? Well, a projectless life, certainly, but anyway, onward…

I have four concurrent bike projects underway, and this is the first report from those efforts. It’s time to frankenbuild Villain 3.0!

You may recall I have two Look KG381 frames, my favorite vintage of my favorite road bike frame. One is the KG381 Team (one of the team spares from the 2003 season) and one KG381 Jalabert Edition, which was the special edition consumer model.

The Ja-Ja is currently built up as my road bike, with the Dura Ace groupo from that year, good to go. Note the saddle upturn was a joke, please.

The other frame was built into my first carbon road bike fixed gear conversion, Villain. Villain made it through two iterations, before being retired. I partially cannibalized it to form the drivetrain for Crook, my Cinelli MASH build, but also, it was struggling under the burden of the fixie conversion with a very high inchgear. So the thing needed an overhaul anyway, and the frame suffered some minor damage when the damn Miche flangeless bottom bracket worked it’s way inward, allowing the chainring to strike the wheelstay.

Between the two frames, the Ja-Ja is immaculate, and the Team frame is a little weathered: some sticker damage, some chips and that scrape I mentioned. But I LOVE the black bare carbon look.

So, Villain 3.0 is a fusion of these two rides. I’m attempting to pull everything off of the Ja-Ja road bike and put it on the Team bike, swapping out parts here and there, and building up a more subtle road bike as a result, then selling the Ja-Ja frame. it’ll be sad to see it go, as I love it so, but while I DO have many bikes in the stable, I bristle at an unused frame hanging there, and Villain in it’s fixie incarnation wasn’t necessary any longer.

So the first step is dissembly of Villain. Not too hard, given I gave his wheels to Raully Raul when I built up Fix-e for him, and I had already stripped the cranks off for Crook. But I pulled the bottom bracket, took the bars off, and cleaned the frame inside and out, noting no noticeable thread damage to the shell, which is good. Good bye, Villain headbadge! (don’t worry, replacement is already made)

I’m keeping some of the Villain gear. I love the Thomson X2 stem, and will be reusing that in lieu of the Ja-Ja FSA stem. I also prefer a few other small gifts from Villain that will make it over.

Not much more to see. I started taking Ja-Ja apart, but this is a slower process, because I’m going part by part, transferring the group over to the Villain frame. I’ve never built up a road bike, so I’m trying to be methodical about the transfer. That said, the best WhytheFace moment was then I pulled the Ja-Ja bars and unclipped the brake and so on and tried to lift it away and sprannnnnnng, it bounced out of my hand, because… you know… it’s cabled to the frame in three other places, hahahahaha. Shows I’ve been working on fixed gears for too long.

Anyway, fohhhhwahd! I have the service diagrams for the Dura Ace group (gah!) and all I have left to procure is a replacement derailleur cage from my recent calamity, and I think I’ll be good to go. Oh, I should mention, new tyres. I LOVE the red slicks but Villain isn’t a red tyre bike.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Completeds
2. Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Swappery
3. Bike Build Process Log: Villain- Ergo Post, Bars and Coggery

So today I dropped wrongTank off to have some touch-up paint work done in Corte Madera. Just like my trips to the local Apple Store, this means riding back over Camino Alto to get back to Mill Valley for work. Having been off the bike for any real efforts since Aids Lifecycle, and since I was feeling strong, I decided to take the steep, windy Chapman St. climb to the top of the Camino Alto pass instead of the usual route. It’s slower on fixed-gear but more interesting after doing Camino Alto 33,000 times, and anyway, morning rush hour, SUV’s swerving along Camino Alto looking for coins in their seats or whatever while on the phone? Who needs the grief I says! So, I climbed up that thing, and my body almost unanimously felt solid. Except for that Achilles Heel. Man that thing is still strained! Well, i got to the top, figuring the hard part was done, and I could ease my way down the other side and to work without too much hassle on the AH strain.

However!

Fire abatement! Road closed! MEH!

The Rangers were cool, toling me about a frontage road along the highway that would mean not needing to go all the way around Tiburon for the following hour, so I decided to look for it, since they weren’t sure exactly how to find it. I shot back down Chapman, informing several roadies working their way up past me that the road was closed (some even heeded the warning) and down Paradise until I found Casa Buena behind Peets, and took that.

This takes you up a series of hops before three big ones that get you to the top of the freeway grade. This is about 60% or so of the total elevation climb of Camino Alto. However, it happens in a very short distance. I don’t know the gradient. I would say 15-20%. I was forced to zig-zag on the second section. By now my Achilles was screaming but man, I pushed on through and it was a great, refreshing feeling to be out climbing and then bombing down the other side. A week off the bike is too long, I says.

Oh, side note: I was carrying my backpack with the laptop and a bunch of crap for work in it, which was roughly equivalent to the weight I’ve lost since Aids Lifecycle. That’s the best thing about weight loss: Pick up a 10 pound barbell. It puts things in perspective. Carrying it in a backpack on the bike seems like such a burden. I lost that amount. Take it off and you feel lighter than air. By the time I get back down to my optimum weight/muscle shape, I’ll have lost almost two Crooks. That’s surreal. In fact when I first slimmed down a few years ago (too far, not sustainable for my fitness needs) I lost 30lbs. It was ridiculous to hold a 30′ weight and imagine it.

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Related posts:

1. TLTC Ride Report: The CthuLoop: One Last Grinder
2. TLTC Ride Report: ALC9 – Wrongrobot
3. TLTC ALC Prep: Camino is a Cruel Mistress

Readers of the Team Lope Tyre Clubbe site surely know that Lung and I participated in Aids Lifecycle 9 last week. We wrote about our gear preparations, our bike builds (Tumbler and Crook, respectively) and rallied the troops for financial support, netting over $7K for the cause. You may have even gotten updates on our incremental progress via Facebook or email. Now that we’re back, we’ve written up individual ride reports in the Team Lope manner, and I hope reading them is less grueling than the ride was.

The Aids Lifecycle ride this year was nominally 545 miles over 7 days, thought it logged in at approximately 565 miles overall all told. Each day started before dawn, breaking down the tents in which we slept, gorging on breakfast fuels and usually making stops to medical (in my case) or stretching, and on the road around dawn, riding for 6 – 10 hours with a number of rest stops along the way decked out in some nutty theme (and several more stops, thanks to the persistent saddle sores we called ‘grundle sufferage’) before arriving wearily to the next night’s camp, to pitch tent and get organized, shower, feed and pretty much pass out. Some days were kind of thrilling, from scenery to challenge, and some were tortuously monotonous and exhausting. We traveled from the dense morning fog of the bay area, through lush forest, huge agricultural fields of strawberries and various other produce, to arid valleys of tilled farmland awaiting future plantings and flattened by ridiculous headwinds, to the welcome breezes of the beaches to the south. We met scores of other riders along the way, suffered no permanent or debilitating injuries, and I think rode our personal bests. And once in LA, we were consumed by emotion, but also that surreal sense of loss, as this week-long micro-culture of community, tolerance, endurance, struggle, variety and frankly suffering, bled away and the real world returned. I think I’m still trying to process it.

It sure started well enough! This pic above was taken on Day 1, on the way down the coast towards Santa Cruz. I had narrowly dodged calamity when I packed everything but MY EFFING SHOES, requiring my awesome wifebot(tm) to drive down to SF at midnight and deliver them to me at Lung’s place where we were crashing for what was supposed to be 3 hours or so of sleep before having to get up again at 3am to get ready and head out to Cow Palace (in my case, about 90 minutes of sleep). She saved my ass fiercely. Once ont he road, I think i was so overwhelmed by the emotions of the morning (the opening ceremony, among other things, involved all 1900 riders and 600 or so support staff gathering to watch the entrance procession of the Positive Pedalers flag guard (HIV positive riders, carrying banners commemorating the passing of loved ones and former riders) along with the infamous riderless helmets and ghost bike. It was haunting and everyone was bauling. Ultimately, while I did apply sunscreen liberally, I apparently didn’t put enough on my face, because some hours after passing out in Santa Cruz at camp at like 3pm, I woke with the most ludicrous sunburned lips. My face, ears, nose etc were all burned, but the lips, my word. It was like fat grapes with split skin. Other than that grundle sufferage that had us off the saddle throughout the day from the discomfort, this was my most persistent medical agitation through the rest of the ride. My lips proceeded to grow more and more swollen, cracked, bleeding, nasty, and were covered in Preparation H and Zinc Oxide thereafter (‘dubbing what the Team Hype boys called my ‘powdered donut’ problem.. and man, I COULD have used some donuts.) and while this was certainly an aesthetic annoyance, and often a painful one, these are the problems to have, I say, because other than the saddle soreness and some dodgy Achilles Heel issues, I was otherwise fine, and got the job done.

And to be fair, everyone was having issues, from splints to IT band fails to knee, hip, back, neck injuries, dislocations, crash injuries, alarming numbers of heatstroke victims, and on and on. I was so concerned about the risk of an IT band flare-up on my right side that I was very cautious throwing myself around on the road. I took descents with care, sprints only gradually, and is my usual manner, conserved energy each day for potential issues to come. Nothing could have prevented the saddle soreness, but Chamois Butter liberally applied sure eased the discomfort some. And while I tweaked my ankle on Day Three, and my Achilles pulled later that same day, despite that potentially crippling injury for a fixed-gear rider, I was able to keep it taped and in the right position, and kept the effort up with no further issues. All things considered, it was an almost unseemingly uncomplicated journey. We each had packed tyres, tubes, full kits of bike tools, extra chain, extra cogs, etc and didn’t have so much as a flat. I can’t get away with a ride around Marin without a dodgy mechanical problem. I was stoked.

This is a familiar image to anyone who read Lung’s first report on ALC from year 7 (2008) as this is the same marker on the same stretch of highway. Some of the route was the same, but some had changed since his trip. Many of the days were longer than expected, and some detours since ALC7 were strange sometimes, sending us into awkward riding situations, like seeing disorienting and morale-busting miles of climbs in view long before you got to them, or pushing us into bad wind or road conditions that perhaps weren’t there in 08. However, lots of these changes were actually corrections from ALC8 last year, which got some course route complaints AND suffered a rain-out. We were pretty fortunate in that regard. Some days were blisteringly hot, and some had breezes (and of course, there’s that 20 miles of headwind day) but for the most part, nothing too drastic that stopped riders, and though road conditions were often pretty terrible, what choice do they have? Californians don’t value infrastructure improvements in the state budget until they taco a rim or worse.

One challenge that i found interesting throughout the week was dealing with the mix of experienced and inexperienced riders. In fact, we were primed going in to be cautious of inexperienced riders who might swerve too wide to avoid a pothole or panic in gravel or freak out if you passed too close. In my personal experience, it wasn’t these riders that caused the majority of our caution, but rather the opposite: experienced riders who were overconfident, aggressive and inattentive to the others. A few teams routinely broke the passing rules and passed as entire pacelines at speed with little warning in unsafe conditions in the middle of traffic. These clowns made it difficult for US, so you can imagine how they made the newbie riders feel. It’s unfortunate that so many riders had the classic inability to visualize consequences of their actions, and I’m glad more riders weren’t injured. There were about three crashes of note (and scores that were minor) all on descents, but overall, a pretty good safety record this year.

I enjoyed passing quite a bit myself, when safe (though not the one time I didn’t see the car and freaked my fellow riders out) especially because of how different fixed-gear distance riding is to regular road bikes: we have to manage our cadences differently. We make ground most on the slight and moderate grades. Flats the roadies who have motivation get away from us in their bigger gears, and on very steep inclines, our slow pedaling MAY put us behind roadies who can turn em around faster. But as a rule, we passed most road bikes in front of us where gradients were involved. They gear down and spin, we HAVE to mash and keep going. It was kind of a nice morale boost for us, how much attention we got over the fixed-gear bikes, and while we lost a lot of time on descents (me especially, going slower and pacing the brake to save my ankle and such) overall, each day we were with the same general group of riders throughout the day, or ended up ahead of those we started with. I did NOT expect this.

A word about fixed-gear. We got a lot of love for this. Sure, many were bewildered as to why we would do it more than anything else, but for those that grasped the limitations of the bike, and the extra effort involved, we got a lot of respect. We would get cheers behind us as we passed and people noted our drivetrains. We got gasps and outcries on climbs as we passed riders struggling to stay on their road bikes, ranging from incredulity to awe to occasionally jealousy. Overall we got a positive reaction, which pleased me. I was concerned that we were a negative morale problem for struggling riders or what have you, or would look overconfident or conceited (though nothing was farther from the truth: neither of us knew how it would go or if we would even finish) but as a rule, we were a well-documented phenomenon. There were a total of 6 fixed-gears and one single-speed (with freewheel) this year out of a total of more than 1900 riders. That’s a bit more than .03%! We also got a lot of love for our recognizable Team Lope jerseys, so we would hear behind us either ‘ayyy fixies!’ or ‘go team lope!’ which was really awesome.

Some of the days were excruciatingly long, such as the century days and those under high wind that made everything that much more grueling and slow. I saw a lot of the state I normally miss when on the freeway: I never knew Los Olivos was such a cute Victorian-style town. I didn’t know Bradley even existed. There’s a lot going on not far from view on those all-day highway trips across the state, and it’s something I never really thought about before. Another thing: the agriculture. Most Californians understand that the state’s primary economic force is farmning. We supply the country, and much of the world, with a huge amount of produce. What was compelling to me was being out there WITH the migrant workers. I always tole anti-immigrant rabblerousers that they should be careful what they wished for (these workers are doing work others here refuse to do, or couldn’t handle, and they do it for very little) but it’s one thing to see pics or see them as you drive by, and another to RIDE by. Being in the sun for hours, being perpetually starved, dehydrated, exhausted and missing your family? You gain even more appreciation for the lifestyle these workers endure to put food on the table for their own, and send money home. It’s pretty profound, at least to me.

Last thing, the little things that were big delights:

Roadies: The roadies make everything happen. These volunteers are up earlier than us, in bed later, build the rest stops, serve the food, prepare camp, organize events, clean up, run support and SAG vehicles, and what’s more, do it with relentless enthusiasm and encouragement for the riders. Ever try to be YEEEEEE happy for more than 10 minutes? They do that for us for 10-12 hours. They honestly work harder than the riders, in my opinion, and my next participation in ALC will likely be as a roadie. I have so much respect for what they did for us. Even though most riders sort of spin by stone-faced and in pain or some zombie-like trance, you have to know, the roadies cheering you and rah-rahing at each rest stop, and the volunteers and guests who came out along the roadside up and down the entire route with homemade signs and treats? They lifted our spirits.

Positive Pedalers: Not a little thing, per se, but I have to note that every time I rode by a PP-jerseyed rider I had a ton of respect and emotion for them. To spend your days, effort, energy and such for this cause is one thing, but to do it afflicted? What a sense of pride in community and commitment to each other as symbols and participants. Amazing.

Chockamilk: I’m not lying, I hadn’t had any in years but consumed probably more than my body weight in delicious chockamilk on this ride. So much so I had to get more when I returned.

Chamois Butter: Before this ride, I’d never really done more than a squirt of Gold Bond lotion before a century. ON this ride, I used a glop of it at every rest stop and often more. It literally got me through the ride.

Fruit Gummies: of all the delicious ride snacks along the route, I stockpiled little fruit gummies the most. Not so much for energy, as they were just gummies (sugar and horse) but after feeding on an energy bar or peanut butter and bananas and oranges and so on, I would nibble on these as power pellets of motivation, just to keep me going.

New Tents/ Camp: we benefited from the lessons learned of last year’s rain, where they discovered the tents weren’t waterproof. We got brand new ones. Excellent. And frankly, easy to pitch, easy to carry, and a good design. I appreciate the ‘cinderella riders’ and their hotel stops benefited from better rest and hygiene (and sanity) but really I couldn’t complain about camp at all. The Port-a-Potties were overall in good condition, the food was plentiful, the showers had strong pressure and hot water, laundry detergent abounded, and the tents kept the outside out and the body heat in. The worst we had to deal with was wet clothes, and that was a factor of choice anyway. And, as someone nursing an injury for more than half the ride, medical services were excellent and appreciated.

Variety and Diversity: I really thrived on how much variety we enjoyed. Not in the roads, not in the food, but in the people. Different riders, different bikes, different levels of school spirit, fun rest stop themes, lots of flamboyance and cross-dressing and enthusiasm… I really loved being part of a small community where being a clown was encouraged.

And as we finished the ride on Day 7 in my old familiar haunt of Westwood and Brentwood, after two days along the coast, it was honestly surreal in it’s ending. You get so accustomed to the microcosm of recent experience, it’s almost jarring to have it end and realLife return, just like with any immersive camping or traveling experience I suppose. It was wonderful to see my wifebot(tm) and wee Z, my young daughter, at the finish line, along with my dear parents, and Raul, Silvia and Damon came out to see us and cheer us on. We got to catch up with several riders we met along the way, take photos, etc and then closing ceremonies and it was done.

I can’t imagine not being involved again. I don’t know in what capacity. We’ve talked about tandem trike recumbents, roadie work, who knows…

It was a very emotional and uplifting experience, and one of the most amazing ones of my life, I have to say.

Links:

You can see my Flickr Set of the ALC9 photos here.
Check out Ironlung’s photos here.
And read Lung’s ALC9 ride report, and his ALC7 ride report before that!

Team Lope shout-outs:

Remi and Magnus of ]Team Hype, our fixed-gear friends to the south.
Remi’s ALC9 Flickr Set

Maynard (pronounced May-Nard if you know what’s up) and Mannie Rabara, my e-friends before the ride and friends thereafter.
Maynard’s ALC9 Flickr Set

Ryan, whom I met through Maynard beforehand, along with MaryAnn and Ron, his brethren:
Watch out for helicopters!
Ryan’s ALC9 Flickr Set

Graham out of Vegas, chock full of optimism and radness.

Seth and the Stix family out of Nashville, presumably finally successful in his personal quest by the time he got to LA.

Friend Jefferson from local Mission Bikes, purveyor of frames to Team Lope East Coast member Joe at 718 Cyclery!

Ariel and co. who we met on Day on the Ride, who always motivated me with her rainbow riding socks.

Holly, Anna, Barbara, and the others we met throughout the ride! And of course, all the unmet, but recognized, smiling faces we saw as we went…

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. team lope ride report – ALC9, the IL account
2. team lope ride report – ALC “day on the ride,” IL’s account
3. Team Lope Ride Report – ALC Day on the Ride, WR’s Account

This bike, formerly knows as RedBike, formerly known as That Wobbly Goblin, now known as RedCoat*, received an important upgrade and revised mission statement. What was once my city bar-bike, then my coffee carrier, is now my wee Z transport velocipede 1 (of 2). Thanks to Friend of TLTC Carey Woo for donating the seat, to Bell (now owners of the Co-Pilot brand) for special stay adapter clamps for this bike, and Ace for four other specific small items (bolt/nut/washer sets to replace dubious metal screws on this Monkey Wards frame)… the bike is done and ready for Z’s maiden voyage!

*This name change came about today. I was riding Crook through town, pretty fast, wearing a bright red collared Dickeys-style work shirt, and a guy on the side yelled ‘the Redcoats are coming! The redcoats are coming’ and it was awesome. Now, Crook ain’t red. But THIS bike is, so there we are.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Fix-e 3.0
2. bike build process log – Tumbler, drivetrain upgrade
3. Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – More Prep Work

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