I’m inspired to try hitting some of the steep streets in SF later this summer, to see what’s what. I’m never going to win any medals, being heavier and stockier than optimal for cycling, but once I’ve got some saddle time under my belt in summer, I think I want to try a few of these beasts. Road bike, of course. Lung has hit a few of the steep sections in Potrero on the Bolt successfully at a 72 inch gear or so, but these would require the tiniest gear available. On two ring road bikes, it still is pretty daunting… I have a 39/27 nominally available on Rogue, but I say nominally because I’m still having some shifting issues I want to sort out before this would happen.

Filbert is the one everybody talks about, right. The 31-32% grade, up the wrong way on a one-way. It’s in the books. You can read about one experience (or rather three attempts) here.

Side note: I noted on the Wiki for Filbert that an unofficial survey in 2010 determined that a section of Bradford at the south end of the city is 40% grade. So, we can always plan.

Of course, I tend to think of the climbing challenges in SF to be more about duration than total gradient alone. For example, witness some of the approaches to Telegraph or Russian Hill or even Potrero but from the BASE, going up 5 blocks? That’s what gives me the heart palpitations. It’s the real-world challenge. We don’t ride to a street and hit one block of it and then go celebrate, generally. We ride something brutal and then KEEP going to a destination.

Lung posted an infographic of tall climbs in major cities, including the one in his beloved Pittsburgh, so you know, this could be a long challenge if taken nationally.

Anyway, inspired!

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yesterday, i took a ride with friend of TLTC r-e-L, who WR and i met on the lifeCycle back in june. r-e-L had planned the route, which was 50 miles through the berkeley hills. i was on one of my fixed-gears — the one i rode to LA. the route amounted to several thousand feet of climbing, with grades that approached 20%. some of the roads we were on had awful names like grizzly peak and wildcat canyon, and we did at least part of something called "the three bears." just the fucking sound of it is intimidating. we circled the reservoir and went by a couple parks as well. in the end, we spent well over half of our day climbing, and the heat was up in the 90s.

i’d prepared for the ride by resting and eating an entire pot of pasta the day before, doing a lot of stretching, having some muscle milk, and loading my bike up with dual waterbottles of powerade/water. unfortunately, we didn’t start the ride till 2PM, so despite what i’d done before, i went into the day with only a bagel in me that i’d had HOURS prior. NOT SMART. and i was doing this fixed.

the day started out pretty well, with lots of slow climbing and gorgeous views and general good times. we rode at a good pace and climbed and climbed and climbed. every ride i’ve ever taken in the berkeley hills is just climbing. it’s like the old stories your grandfather tells of having to walk to school uphill both ways. i don’t know how it’s possible. EVERYTHING is uphill. it’s fucked. but it’s not so bad and we talked and talked and had a good time.

about halfway through the day, the heat was really starting to get heavy. about this time, we found ourselves on a climb that i’d never felt the likes of before. the grade had to be near 20%, as my cross street in the city is 18%, and this was steeper. so steep in fact, that it beat me. i made it MOST of the way up and then completely shut down. i could feel myself going into dehydration and overexertion (tingly scalp, maxed-out heartrate, dizzy vision), but because i’m a stubborn idiot, i kept going. for like another 6 feet. hahaha!!! i pulled over under the shade and quickly stripped off my helmet, hat, and armwarmers (i have to — i’m too fair-skinned), and i unzipped my jersey. then i drank a TON of my liquid and popped a couple shotblocks and had half a bonkbreaker bar. r-e-L had come up on me somewhere in this process and i tole her to keep going, which she did. after i’d regained most of my strength (a few MINUTES), i climbed back on my bike and tried to go further. nope. made it about another 100 feet and it was just too steep and too hot. i had to give up. i walked up to where r-e-L was waiting and said "sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you." she was so apologetic — "i’m so sorry, i didn’t remember this being so steep and i know you’re fixed and i just feel really bad." i said, "this is all me. the last thing i had to eat was a bagel at 9AM and the last time i rode distance was ALC. i knew i wasn’t prepared for 50 through the berkeley hills on a blazing hot day on a fixed gear and i pushed it anyway."

after we were both rested up a bit, maybe a few more minutes, we got moving. i decided to try and ride the rest of the way up now, because it wasn’t that far, so i climbed on and grabbed my drops and clipped in and stood up and took one pedalstroke and CREAAAK! my whole cockpit collapsed. i have no fucking idea how this happened, but somehow the faceplate bolts on my stem came loose over the last week. my bars spun down inside the stem. WIERD. so we pulled over AGAIN and i fixed it and then we were finally out. i was coming around from my bonkout finally, and that’s when the right calf cramp started threatening. that lasted the rest of the day, which was awesome. more climbing and more climbing and MORE climbing.

we were now 3/4 of the way through 50 miles and i was pretty well out of liquid. that’s when i got the flat. rear tyre, who knows why it happened (there was nothing in the tyre), just one of those things. i thought about patching it, but i had a tube and a patch kit, so decision made — tube. more climbing and more climbing and descents with hairpin switchbacks and just a nightmarish back-and-forth of blazing sun and frigid shade. my body was taking a beating that i hadn’t experienced maybe ever. and now i was officially out of hydration. we kept hoping for a gas station or something, but we found jack. this is ghetto as fuck, but i did find a half-bottle of crystal geyser on the side of the road — lid intact and apparently ok. i poured it into one of my bottles. r-e-L and i were also sharing her last bottle at this point and she was running low. we were really on the dregs. and BOOM, heaven! a park with a water fountain. oh man, so stoked.

i parked my bike with the pedal-on-the-curb trick and went over and drank a TON of water, and then filled up both of my bottles. that was when my bike fell over on the cement on it’s new matte black cinelli drops. awesome. a pretty bad scratch the length of the lower, horizontal part of the left drop. the upside is that i was riding the bars with no tape on them, and i’ve been intending to get some soon, so it’ll eventually be covered. meaning no harm, no foul.

after that, the day was a cake-walk. we got back to her apartment, showered up, she made a fucking BOMB roasted chicken and some kale and roasted potatoes and we noshed on pita and hummus and carrots and snap peas — very kick-ass post-ride mealery.

unfortunately, BART stops running at a certain time, so i caught an 1130 train back to the city and CRASHED. OUT. i was fucking exhausted, had nearly had a goddamn heat stroke out there, and it was past midnight now, so i was feeling it.

today i woke up feeling tired, but not sore. that’s a GREAT sign. if i look back honestly on the day, the reality is that i almost bonked on one hill that was the steepest i’ve ever ridden fixed. that’s really all that happened. everything else was fine, and in fact, super fun.

i do recommend not trying this ride fixed, though, unless you run a high-60s inch gear. i run a low 70s and that hill beat me. granted, if i’d been properly nourished and it hadn’t been as hot as the face of the fucking sun out there, it may have been different, but that’s the way it is.

until the next time…

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I sure LIKE the idea of Keirin racing, but I’ve never seen it, obviously, sadly; I’ve never watched track sprints, period. What took me by surprise, at first, in watching this video from legendary Koichi Nakano’s race against the Canadian Gordon Singleton, was how SLOWWWWW the majority of the race was. Then I as it was going, I thought about my biggest inch gear bike, which is an 82. I’m sure these guys were running much, much bigger gears (according to a quick search, contemporary track guys are riding 88 or so, but that’s not confirmed by any personal empirical evidentiary research) and when I start from scratch, it’s certainly slower than what you get accustomed to in the mid-70s of my other bikes. But yeah, if you’re going to go fast, you’ll need a big gear, and that means starting slow. DUH. Obviously there’s also basic racing mechanics here, like saving your juice for the final lap, but anyway, once it gets going and you see them flying, it’s pretty amazing stuff. I have no idea how fast. But that body check at the end? SHUDDER. Nice ‘hairnet’, buddy.

http://urbanvelo.org/koichi-nakano/

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CommuteTest,activateds…

Lung and I rode this morning, he on Loosey and me on Villain. This was the first official test ride for Villain, not that Critical Mass and the next day’s meanderings don’t count… but the commute is the real test. If I can ride this on my commute, I’ll be, as the kids say, stoker nuggeted! Now, the problem is the inch gear. It’s big. I just don’t KNOW what I can and can’t do on it. Thus, the test.

So far, awesome! The short climbs on the way in included Bay Street (where I had to hop off during Mass due to the densities and the inexperienced riders around me and going 3mph) and then again climbing up into the Presidio from Crissy Field. I won’t lie, that’s tough going. The last few meters of it are this weird little hop and it always tasks you, but on Villain, it was extra-tasking! Anyway, Lung peeled off at the bridge, and I continued on.

The Villain is a totally different fixed-gear riding experience. The thing I was hoping for has proven true: the big gear allows for not only a faster ride, but a comfortable optimal cadence… it feels a lot closer to my road riding normal speeds… it’s not as fast, mind you, but it’s far closer than my other fixie projects. This was especially evident on the descent into Sasualito. This was the first time I actually rode the descent not on my brake the whole way down. I tapped it here and there to make sure I still had it, etc. but I pretty much bombed down the hill… still spinning very fast, but much more doable. On my 60-something inchgear fixies, you spin SO fast far before you reach your bike’s terminal velocity on a descent that it’s sort of wooly and out of control. On Villain, though the cadence on the descent was fast, it was manageable. I didn’t bring my bike computer so i don’t know WHAT I was doing, but far, far more than on any other fixed-gear I’ve ridden.

I was a little tired when i got to work, largely from my reduced calorie intake from my diet, but it felt GREAT even noodling up to the office. Fortunately, though the first ride back out of Marin was challenging, I was able to do it. That was a huge revelation.

:::

So Saturday I took on the task of refining my sweet sweet ride. Because two sweets are not brand aware.

The first item on the task list was the installation of these stoker levers, otherwise known by a certain cigaweed TL mechanic as stoker nuggets. They were the result of a ton of searching I did for a brakeless hood. See, I’m obsessed with the hood hand position when riding a road frame geometry, and while the Villain LOOKS ill with plain wrapped drops, I really wished I had something to hold onto when climbing. And, having a bar-mounted lever, I didn’t want redundant brake levers hanging around bloating me with their unwanted weight or aesthetics. So stoker levers are actually designed to be used on the drops in the back position on a modern tandem. Pretty ingenious!

As I feared, I was forced to unwrap the bars completely. The rings that bind the lever to the bars were not the adjustable type you see on some hood designs. They were a solid, fixed loop brazed to a nut. It was actually challenging getting them out of the stoker assembly without losing the bolt, because you can’t get into the hood if the bolt were to slip out and rattle around in there. I didn’t want to do that sort of surgery. So I was careful.

Anyway, I measured and test fitted, then mounted the levers one at a time, rewrapping the left, then the right, to make sure it worked. On the left, I left a bit of metal from the lever looping visible under the wrap, but I learned from the mistake, and covered it with black electrical tape on the right. Unfortunately, the tape I use is a soft perforated leather that frays when you undo it, so while I got through the unwrap and rewrap without issue, I didn’t want to unwrap AGAIN just to cover that tiny metal exposure. Further, rewrapping later this year will be inevitable because a) a tear formed on the underside of one side of the bars where I tried to correct a tape pinch, and 2) I’m going to want to put gem strips under here for really long rides to come, and d) for science.

The second item on the task list was to replace the 130mm stem with a 110mm version I picked up the other week. It’s not a huge difference when held side by side. But this, combined with the seat adjustments, made an INCREDIBLE difference. I’m using the stem at an upward angle this time, not a downward angle, and that improves the reach further. This pretty much equalizes for the extended reach the stokers require, actually, since you are kind of forward from where you’d be on the drops. The one thing less desirable about having the stokers on there is that they are wider in diameter than the bars, so they look clipped on. But the function, man. WOW.

I took the bike out for a few test loops int he neighborhood, but I really wanted to give it a whirl, so i did a SoMA/waterfront loop in the unfortunately biting wind, and I’m happy to report: 100% minimum awesome.

I’m happy to report the Villain is now sweet, sweet, sweet ridery!

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So, setting out to make some decisions about this build-up, I was faced with an immediate issue: modern frame = vertical drops. Now, on wrongBike(tm) I used a rear wheel built up from an Eno Eccentric hub, which allows you to rock the wheel into position and get a tight chain. And while I originally assumed these were heavy hubs, research proved they really aren’t. And i thought about doing same here. But whell build-ups are pretty pricey, and that hub is EXTRA pricey. I lucked out on the previous ones. This time, i wanted to start more eimply, and see what could be done. The second option is an eccentric bottom bracket, but these have they’re own issues, and while it remained an option, just like the eccentric hub, I was tantalized by the prospect of attempting to find the Magic Gear.

The concept is pretty simple, the execution less so. You have a limited number of ways to manipulate the location of the rear wheel relative to the bottom bracket: chainring size, cog size, and chain type. The perfect combination of these three can get you close to where you need to be in vertical drops. But you are obviously limited compared to using an eccentric, or better yet, having horizontal drops. But since I wanted see if it could be done, I gave it a whirl.

I want this bike to have a big inch gear. My heavier steel fixies have a moderate inch gear designed to be a reasonable balance between flats and climbs. They allow me to haul the things up hills (slowly) and spin at a reasonable comfort level on flats (though invariably not fast enough, certainly low enough of a gear to maneuver in traffic well.) This bike, being superfluous by nature, and also villainous, I thought I’d try a heavier gear, so I can go faster on the flats, and see if maybe, just maybe, the weight savings might help me get it up the hills. I’m prepared to admit defeat on that front, but only time will tell. ONWARD!

I have already decided on a crankset that comes with a sweet 46t chainring. Assuming this as a constant, that limits my adjustments for finding a magic gear to the cog, and the use of a half-link chain. So, I went out to the wrongRoom(tm) to measure the chainstay (the measurement of distance between centerline of bb spindle to centerline of rear axle. This will help me calculate the magic gears.

The results of my research stupified me, enough so that I expressed them to one Lung thus:

:::

a. I bought a frame with vertical drops, not knowing how I was going to handle the chaining of a fixed gear to it.
2. I chose to go with non-eccentric BB and hub to stat with, figuring that SOME magic gear could help me getterdone, though not how to sort it out.
33. With combinations of half-link chain, variable chainrings and cogs, I figured I might have a chance right?
F. I committed to a crankset with a specific chainring, 46t, further narrowing my options. Additonallly, ti comes with 165mm cranks.
66. I go out to the garage to see what’s what with my chainstay dimension, for the purposes of calculating my magic gear toleyou options.
r. I discover i still actually have my sweet sweet Dura Ace fixed cog, the only one I’ve ever owned that was black. high quality, black, still in my possession. The size is 15.
5. I measure my chainstay as best as possible, coming up with 411mm.
9a. Consulting the magic gear calculator, I enter a chainring range of 46-49, a cog range of 12-16, 700c wheel, half link chain, 4.11cm chainstay, and pray.
7. What do I get?

Left side is inch gear. Top is chainstay dims. Possible magic gears that fit my criteria float around in the middle. Follow the colored vertical bar. What do we see?
46/15 at 411mm chainstay is virtually PERFECT.

:::

This is astounding! I’m RIGHT on the money.

Consulting Rabbit, my 46/15 with 165mm crank arms gives me an 80.6 inchgear.
19mph at 80rpm

let’s compare.
Fix-e gearing: 40/16 = 65.7 inch gear
WrongBike gearing: 48/18 = 70.1 inch gear
both with 175mm crank arms..

Villain gearing: 46/15= 80.6 inch gear

ZOINKS! That’s villainy!

So, I *appear* to be in good shape without using an eccentric axle. The proof will be in the pudding, however, when this gets executed.
I have not mentioned a little insurance policy:

drop adjustment, 5mm… This may give me the wiggle-room needed to get things just so. Hope!

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CommuteTest, Part 01:

WR: Lung and I rode this morning, he on Loosey and me on Villain. This was the first official test ride for Villain, not that Critical Mass and the next day’s meanderings don’t count… but the commute is the real test. If I can ride this on my commute, I’ll be, as the kids say, stoker nuggeted! Now, the problem is the inch gear. It’s big. I just don’t KNOW what I can and can’t do on it. Thus, the test.

So far, awesome! The short climbs on the way in included Bay Street (where I had to hop off during Mass due to the densities and the inexperienced riders around me and going 3mph) and then again climbing up into the Presidio from Crissy Field. I won’t lie, that’s tough going. The last few meters of it are this weird little hop and it always tasks you, but on Villain, it was extra-tasking! Anyway, Lung peeled off at the bridge, and I continued on.

The Villain is a totally different fixed-gear riding experience. The thing I was hoping for has proven true: the big gear allows for not only a faster ride, but a comfortable optimal cadence… it feels a lot closer to my road riding normal speeds… it’s not as fast, mind you, but it’s far closer than my other fixie projects. This was especially evident on the descent into Sasualito. This was the first time I actually rode the descent not on my brake the whole way down. I tapped it here and there to make sure I still had it, etc. but I pretty much bombed down the hill… still spinning very fast, but much more doable. On my 60-something inchgear fixies, you spin SO fast far before you reach your bike’s terminal velocity on a descent that it’s sort of wooly and out of control. On Villain, though the cadence on the descent was fast, it was manageable. I didn’t bring my bike computer so i don’t know WHAT I was doing, but far, far more than on any other fixed-gear I’ve ridden.

I was a little tired when i got to work, largely from my reduced calorie intake from my diet, but it felt GREAT even noodling up to the office.

The real test would come tonight. When I would have to go BACK.

: : :

CommuteTest, Part 02:

IL: this brings us to my trip over to MV. for me, the work-MV-work trip is almost exactly 30 miles, and when it’s myApt-MV-myApt, closer to 35, so it’s actually a great little haul with climbs — in other words, a "real" ride.

anyway, the interesting thing here is that not only was it my first ride to MV on loos3y(tm), but it was my first ride of any real mileage since last year. i’ve been riding city only through the whole winter. as such, i didn’t have my climbing legs on me, and i had a twinge of the fears lurking in the back of my brain. that was alleviated to a small degree by the fact that loos3y(tm) is about 33 fucking pounds lighter than the last bike i hauled out of there, but she also has a slightly higher gearInch and an entirely different geometry. so, like with all things, i just had to wait and see.

the ride in was great. i cheated a bit on the city side and avoided the aquatic park hill, which is a short, steep climb between fisherman’s wharf and the marina/crissy field. since i was gonna be climbing like mad later, i thought i’d give myself a break. the hop up to the bridge from crissy, as well as the hop up just AFTER the bridge were both shitty, but the bridge itself was calm and bright, which was nice.

from there, it’s a mile-long bomb down into sausalito, and here’s where things got interesting. see, i’ve been riding "brakeless" for a few weeks now. i put that in quotes because i still HAVE a brake, and i still use it in emergencies, but i’ve been challenging myself to use the bike’s natural proclivity for increased control, and slowing/stopping by using only backTorque, skidStops, skipStops, and sheer force of will. thus, i bombed into sausalito without touching my brake. i left a LOT of rubber on that grade, skidding myself under control, but it felt AMAZING.

sausalito to MV is just a flat haul through wealth, so i tucked and mashed to WR’s office, rolling right in through his open front door and immediately admiring his new black dining room chairs, which were there waiting to be taken back to his home.

after our usual session of bullshitting and joking around, and before i cooled down too much, we got back on the road and headed home.

WR: this would be an interesting experiment for both of us. Lung hadn’t ridden Loosey up those hills back to the bridge, and I obviously hadn’t on Villain, so we were both curious as to what would happen. i was personally cautiously optimistic, but I mentally prepared myself for a few points on the route that I’d have to stop. During Mass, attempting to turn up Bay St. I got three car lengths before having to stop (at slow speed, no ramp-up, lots of squirrelly riders around) so until this morning, I hadn’t even been sure I could get up THAT hill, let alone Sausalito. And since I had done so, I was feeling a little more confident. But I don’t have pride about it. I’m extremely stubborn on a bike: I don’t quit when I’m tired, and i don’t wimp out out of fears or laziness. But I also don’t beat myself up if I can’t complete a ride without stopping. Certainly, in the last several years, I’ve become a stronger rider with more discipline, and early on, I had to make stops, from Headlands to Alpine. There’s no shame in taking a break to get your heart rate down. Here, it was more about the gearing. Light bike, heavy gearing. If I couldn’t turn the cranks, I’d fall over. I prefer not to, so if I got to that point, I’d stop and walk it.

We set out around 630pm, which, thanks to Daylight Savings this past weekend, meant we still had light, the sun rapidly descending over the Pacific. The ride into Sausalito from Mill Valley was nice, as usual. Not too much bike path interference, and fortunately, not a lot of wind, like what was, and would continue to be, buffeting the City itself. As we approached the last stretch of Sausalito, though we had planned that Lung would ride ahead so as not to get stalled by me if I had to jump off, I noted that a relatively rare occurrence lay before me: that stretch along the water is usually filthy with slow moving tourist cars, and parking spot weavers, and meandering rental bikes, and spontaneous jaywalkers. But this time, pretty much a clear shit to the start of the climb. So I took advantage of the ramp-up, and accelerated. I knew it was a risk, because I was burning energy doing so (Lung likes to say my bike has no choice but to go fast, but in fact, while it CAN go fast, it does take work to push it forward on that gearing) so I hoped I wasn’t hamstringing myself (so to speak) later in the climb.

I got up the first few hops at a nice pitch, passing a few tourist bikes and avoiding vehicular deaths. This is the double-edged sword of big gears on hills… you can ramp up with greater speed, and maintain it with significant muscle effort… until the cadence winds down, and it becomes extremely laborious. The entire principle of multi-gear riding is maintaining cadence, through gear shifts, and therefore speed reduction. So, on climbs with my roadLook, I’d bomb the bottom of the climb for the first several rotations, but then downshift as my cadence would strain, so that I would end up in the gear necessary to maintain roughly the same cadence as on the flats (usually coming fown from 80rpm to 70-75rpm)… but here? Whatever’s the opposite of that. Certainly, the same problem occurred on the other fixed-gears, but there, the inchgears were more moderate, in the mid-60s. With Villain at an 81 inch gear, I was able to bomb my way up the first section, and then BAM! It was like I hit molasses. Now, I don’t know if it was adrenaline from setting my mind to this challenge, or the fixie-inertia combined with being in better form than I’m usually at this time of year, but I got to the first level off and my recovery was short. I mean, I didn’t RECOVER, but I wasn’t overwhelmed, and I didn’t need my inhaler, so I keep forging on to the first of the grades I feared: this short, tight winder that sets you up for the main grade to follow. It’s narrow, the cars graze you, and if one were to, say, be unable to turn the cranks, and have to bail out of road clips, one could fall the wrong direction.

Lung was right behind me and I could hear him hooting, and since I hadn’t seen us pass any EHPs, I assumed it was encouragement. And man, I hit that wall hard, and managed to get up over it, but it was some of the hardest mashing I’ve done. Once I got to the top, I started the long grade (broken into two hops with a short descent between them) with greater ease than I usually do. This is because fixed gear climbing is an anabolic muscle-burn effort, whereas proper climbing is a cardio effort. Spinning a consistent cadence pushes the heart, while physically mashing gears burns the legs, until you run out of steam. I mean, of course your heart is working there too, but being anabolic, you only have so much energy to burn and once you’ve tapped out the muscles, you’re done. When in good form, sustained cardio effort can be maintained at just below the anabolic level. Thats what pros do. I’m not there. But climbing with Villain was entirely the opposite experience for my body than the cardio workout of the roadLook, and it was really interesting to process what was going on. Basically, I pushed/pulled on those cranks, kept a rigid form where possible, and focused on not stopping. And somehow, I succeeded! By the last rise up to the freeway underpass and then up to the lookout by Headlands, I was really at my limit, but man, I never put a foot down. I was stoked. Not even there! Onward, over the bridge, and soaking in endorphins!

IL : i was completely blown away by the climb i saw unfolding in front of me. managing to ignore WRs prolific amount of ass-sweat was a chore in itself, but the thing i was encouraged to see was that he was not stymied in the least by any of what he’d thought would crush him. in fact … it was ME who had the troubles on the first hops to the main grade.

the last time i climbed up out of sausalito, i was on riser bars and a smaller gearInch. in addition to the aforementioned larger gearInch, i’m also on road drops now. but road drops with neither road brake levers nor stoker nuggets. that means i have nothing really to hold on to when i get out of the saddle, which i have to do in order to crest these hops. so i found myself struggling to keep up with a guy in a gearInch 15 or so BIGGER than mine. i was totally confused. hahaha!!!

but like WR … i do NOT give up on no fucking bicycle, believe. so i muscled up through those hops to the main grade.

from there, i think it was much easier for me than for WR. that last part of the grade, the main part, is not as steep as the first hops, but it’s a billion times as long. and SUSTAINED climbing, any cyclist will tell you, is much harder than hopClimbing. so as i regulated my breathing and just turned em over, hovering a couple feet back from WR’s wheel, i chanted supporting things such as "you’re killing it!" and prepared to protect the both of us from cars if he went down.

by the time we got to the bridge, it was the same ole same ole … with one exception. my legs were completely blown. i hadn’t anticipated that i would be so mauled below the waist by this excursion, which i’ve done a bunch of times before. but as i said, this was my first big ride of the year and my legs were NOT ready for it. my lungs and heart were fine, barring the expected sucking of wind. but man, when i peeled off and WR carried on, it was all i could do to push loos3y(tm) up to the rack in front of taylor’s, where i saddled up to a bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, a cold PBR, and the skateboarding game i have on my mobile phone.

i stayed at taylor’s for a while, as (SG)f had tole me earlier in the day that she wanted to spend some time alone that evening, so i took the opportunity to play mobilePhone videoGames and enjoy greasy food, re-acquiring all the calories i’d just burned.

the ride home sucked ass in every conceivable way, because in addition to tired legs (thankfully not blown anymore after a rest), i now had a belly full of burger, beer, and onion rings. jesus. i got home just as the charge on my headlight died, took a hot shower, and sat the fuck DOWN.

all in all, a killer lopeRide!

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Related posts:

1. Team Lope Ride Report: Critical Mass, SF Feb 2009
2. Team Lope Ride Report: Saturday FixCrawl SF Feb 2009
3. Team Lope Ride Report: The Napa Ride Weekend of Destiny 07

This Friday, Ironlung and I had our first opportunity to ride a critical mass in 2009. What made it extra sweet, was that it was also the inaugural ride on the Villain and while I was fairly certain it wouldn’t explode, I didn’t know exactly what to expect. On the one hand, I had the concerns that not having properly worked all over the connections to manufacturer’s specifications, I was risking leaving a $200 crankset somewhere on market Street. But on the other hand, I was also expecting that it would be a sweet sweet ride. Well, we did have to do some last-minute chain tensioning, but overall there were no mechanical failures, and that includes my ass.

We actually got to the critical mass meeting point at Justin Herman Plaza earlier than usual and very few people were in attendance, so we feared that there would be a low turnout due to weather. However, over the next 45 minutes enough people arrived to make a mass out of it and so we did. The route this time was fortunately less hilly then they have been in the past, which was perfect, since I haven’t really tested what kinds of gradients I can handle with this new gearing.

It was nice to be there early for a spell. i got to gaze longingly at my new ride, and jaw about it with a few lookieloos that came by, and Lung rolled around practicing sweet sweet BMX moves on Loosey, including backrolls, bunny hops, and wheelies. He even gave Villain it’s first skidstop. Lucky for me he isn’t a RAMBOW yet, or those new Everwears would be more everworn…

We spent the obligatory half hour or so inching our way up market Street and trying to avoid the streetcar grates and avoiding inexperienced riders, drunks, and Muni buses, which are always inches from you along that stretch. But soon enough the ride turned up into the business district and we were on our way. I don’t enjoy the beginning of the mass as much as I do the rest of it only because we’re packed in too tightly and it can be dangerous. It’s hard to avoid obstacles, grates and cheeseburger meat and the like when there is a bike 3 inches from you in every direction. But I figure if you haven’t gone down by then it’s probably going to be a good night. In this case I was so hyper focused on how the Villain felt to ride relative to my other bikes that I frequently found myself in between streetcar tracks and tucked into wedges between cars and tricycles or whatever in ways I would normally try to avoid. But after about a mile I felt pretty comfortable on the bike.

It’s interesting: riding this bike is unlike any other that I have. On the one hand, it’s a very large each gear, so it’s slow to start and slow to stop and a little bit difficult to maneuver at slow speeds just because it takes so much extra torque to turn the cranks than I’m accustomed to on a fixed gear. But on the other hand it’s a very calm ride because you’re having to push less revolutions to go the same speed than you would on a more moderate inch gear. Reasonable!
Another thing that’s interesting for me is being in a road position but on a fixed gear bike. Ironlung has been riding what is essentially a fixed road bike for several months and makes it look effortless, but I found that it was a little bit confusing at first. Sometimes I felt that usual familiarity of being on my road bike path and i’d be stymied by the lack of freewheel or being in a heavier gear than I would normally be if I was riding my other Look around. But it was a short transition. Soon enough it felt like I had been riding it for weeks. Literally, because I hadn’t given my seat time to break in. These Brooks saddles require softening agents, which are basically fats, and a few hundred miles to conform to your sit bones after which they feel great. Best saddles I’ve ever used. But the first hundred miles are tough, and the first 15 miles or so on an untreated saddle can be a recipe for disaster, especially since I wasn’t even wearing bike shorts and had no protection for my business. I don’t know, maybe I was just so enthused by finally getting to ride the Villain that I was ignoring the shrieking of my central nervous system but I felt pretty great all night.

The real test came when, after descending a gentle grade on Columbus, and watching a few riders tumble on the wet light rail tracks, the mass turned left up Bay Street, which is pretty steep. Because of the density of the mass at that time, I couldn’t build momentum to rocket up the hill so after about three car lengths I ran out of juice and had to hop off. But that was actually the only time I had to walk it, the rest of the climbs being moderate enough for me, having enough momentum to keep the bike going. The real test will be trying to commute into Marin on this thing, or more specifically, on the way back.

Overall it was a great mass. After several days of rain it was pretty warm, lots of people were out and not just the regulars but many new riders on rental bikes or old beater ten-speeds or whatever having a great time, and we actually rode longer than we usually do. We ended up splitting off to grab a bite to eat at one of my old haunts in the mission / Noe Valley area, called Papalotes. It looked like we would have to wait for like three hours to eat but the line went faster than we thought and we actually got a great two-person table near the window in view of our bikes. Having that viewing angle was a blessing and a curse, because I got to not only see a small child flipping out at my blinking bar ends (which I left on for visual security) but also got to see a dope lock up his beater bike on TOP of mine which ultimately scratched the frame. That’s okay though, because after all, bikes are meant to be ridden, and you can’t be too precious about it.

What a great night!

The next morning we agreed to meet for breakfast because Lung wanted to give me some small gifts, and I wanted to give him some digital somethings, so we met at bugaboos and had a casual breakfast. I was surprised, actually, how much work it took to get there because while the grades are fairly gentle in my neighborhood and in the mission, grades are grades and I had to horf the bike more than I normally would Driving Miss Daisy style. Which was nice, actually; its fun to have a bike that you have no choice but to get a workout on anytime you ride it. And man, like Lung said elsewhere, it’s also pretty cool to be on a fixed gear that you can really put into overdrive. At any given cadence I’m going about 6 mph faster than I was on my other fixed gears so when I want to push it, I just mash a bit and boom, it’s off like a rocket. How long? Well, it depends on what I’ve eaten. But regardless it’s extremely pleasing, both aesthetically and functionally. And thorough.

Overall, the first of what I hope are many sweet sweet critical mass evenings on Villain in the year to come!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Team Lope Ride Report: Critical Mass, SF Jan 2009
2. Team Lope Ride Report: Fixie Comute SF/MV Mar 2009
3. Team Lope Ride Report: Critical Mass, Chicago September2008