tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37470488255015880092024-02-08T11:13:39.557-08:00bike curiousthe ramblings of a chicago bicyclistJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-73439113846853803692011-07-14T07:53:00.000-07:002011-07-14T07:59:39.827-07:00tdf - quickies thus far<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">-NBC internet package is awful. After trying to use it for 4 days on numerous computers and networks I raised a stink and got my money back. Back on low-res but dependable feeds from cyclingfans.com.<br /><br />-Crashes. Man, that's a lot of crashes. I am generally a fan of some crashes as a way to take the predictability out of things, but guys going over the edge of the mountains is a bummer. Also, the France TV car incident is just ridiculous.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lqmR3xo93J4" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="560"></iframe><br /><br />That guy should be tarred and feathered.<br /><br />Finally, we're in the mountains. I like watching people get spit out the back more than into a barbed wire fence.<br /><br />My highly unlikely fantasy podium (based on underdog status or amount of hard knocks taken so far):<br /><br />-Cadel Evans<br />-Andreas Kloden<br />-Thomas Voeckler<br /><br />Haha! That would be the best.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-74188564853088105202011-01-01T19:24:00.000-08:002011-01-02T15:29:46.320-08:00Moving along<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">110101<br /><br />Well, I'm feeling like this blog has mostly run it's course.<br /><br />I finished off the year doing the Coal City Century, my first proper century ride last year, again and ended up with a pinched nerve that screwed my left hand up good for a few weeks. Now we're deep in the bowels of winter and I'm not doing much more than commuting 3 times or so a week.<br /><br />Heading off to Austin at the end of next week for some much needed riding down there (I'm registered again for the MS 150).<br /><br />Mostly, though, other things have taken my attention from finding time to write or even just think so much about bikes (of course there's not as much to think about in January). I'm going back to school and have just had an explosion of interest in reading and learning about economics over the last couple of years. Apropos, I have a new blog that is centering around the dismal science and my schooling experience as it unfolds. It's called<br /><a href="http://theunlikelyeconomist.com/"><br />theunlikelyeconomist<br /></a><br />and it will hopefully be a worthy read for anyone interested in a variety of different things.<br /><br />May drop in here from time to time, but I think my bike curiousity has been largely sated and now I'm just ready to plain-old ride bikes and spend my time talking about other things. (It helps that I have a borderline embarrassing "stable" of bikes to ride and enjoy. But that's been pretty well documented in these pages.)<br /><br />Thanks to all for reading and feel free to drop by every so often and see if I've changed my mind and plopped some more words down here!<br /><br />JW<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_01.jpg" /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /></span></span><br /></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-82662322168500846702010-07-22T21:42:00.000-07:002010-07-23T07:37:07.569-07:00Workin' my way up to pack fill!<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">100722<br /><br />I'm a newly minted Category 5 road racer. I duly registered with USA Cycling about 10 days ago and then registered for my first race the next day. The day, Wednesday, July 14th. The place: an empty parking lot between Soldier Field and McCormick place.<br /><br />This one:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/sfcs_0714_04.jpg" /><br /><br />To be fair, in the other direction, it looks more like a place you'd have a bike race:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/sfcs_0714_03.jpg" /><br /><br />I didn't tell anyone I was doing it except for, on the morning of, I was emailing with my friend Zac in Syria and I told him about it. Beyond that, I just did a normal work day, did a furtive clothes change in the bathroom around 5:30 and rode on downtown. Dunno why I was being so secretive. I guess I just didn't want to discuss it too much so as not to hype it up too much. I hadn't even really been riding that much lately. Lots of working and going out of town. Was probably doing maybe 60 miles a week for the month before, but I had told myself I wanted to do a bike race before the end of year 40, so I only had about 2 weeks left.<br /><br />I had checked this race out briefly last year. Got a good laugh out of my <a href="http://bikecurious.blogspot.com/search?q=soldier+field+cycling" target="_blank">previous post</a> on the Soldier Field Cycling Series. Here's a funny paragraph:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Basically, there was a maybe 1/2 mile course made from traffic cones and some temporary fencing and people seem to ride around it for about an hour. Apparently that's a criterium. The women's combined field (women always get the shaft I guess) was only about 9 riders, but it looked pretty fun anyway. I was sorry to be out of town a couple of weeks back during the Chicago Criterium. I guess that's an entirely different affair. Anyway, checking it out made me think I might just go down there and give it a shot. It can't be much different than hauling ass up to the Botanical Gardens which I have managed at a almost 20 mph pace including city traffic before. </span><br /><br />Ha! The humor will soon become apparent (for those who have ever done a criterium race, it should be already).<br /><br />Anyway, here's how the day went down. As I was riding down the lakefront path, I came upon a woman on a <a href="http://www.bikerumor.com/2010/04/28/review-storck-absolutist-10-road-bike/" target="_blank">Storck Absolutist</a> and asked her if she was going to the race. Yes, she said and we chatted a bit on the ride over. She rode for Chicago Cuttin Crew and told me she was riding in the same race as me. I was unaware that women could ride in the mens heats, but apparently they can, which is cool! I prefer co-ed sports, seems like the boys just behave in a little more civilized fashion. Anyway, I watched the womens race and rode some laps on the big area for warming up. During the first mens race, I went over to each corner and tried to get a sense for what was going on. Also got to ride a few laps before the first mens race. Seemed pretty mellow as far as the course was concerned. <br /><br />I also met a really nice chap, Laurent, who was sporting a Tour de France shirt and a funny accent. Turned out he was the Bastille Day "feature" and got up in the booth and did a spiel in French before each race. Pretty nice! Le Grand Campion du Chicago and such. He along with Megan, a nice gal who rides for XXX that I met whilst buying some parts the week before, told me they would cheer for me since I didn't have any supporters. Let me tell you. It's NICE to have some people cheering for you. <br /><br />Here's how the race went down: <br />I lined up with what I thought was about maybe 30 people(?). After Laurent gave his pep talk, we got the rules: Ride for 30 minutes, timer counts down to 10 minutes, after that it goes to laps. If you get lapped stay to the outside and don't contest sprints, you can be pulled for falling too far back, but he probably won't. And we were off! The speed immediately went up to around 26MPH (that's about 42KPH for you modern rest-of-the-world types) and it pretty much just stayed there. It was about 2 laps before I fell off the back. At first I thought "dear God, I'm just screwed." Then I'd think I would catch up, then I realized I was about to be lapped. I'm still going fast, mind you, like definitely keeping it up around 23, but a few miles per hour is enough to get lapped twice as it turns out in 30 minutes! I think I was first in the people-who-got-dropped part of the race. Also probably came in first in the 40+ year old, first race category too, but who's counting?! What would that be? The grey, stained jersey perhaps. So yeah, some cheering was nice. I didn't ever let up from what I felt like I could do and it seemed like a decent first outing. It's pretty exhilarating to just turn yourself inside out (as Phil and Paul like to say) for a while. There were some crushing riders there and it makes me laugh to think that the guys that were killing me wouldn't even be able to hang on the to back of most stages of a Grand Tour or something. Gives you a whole new respect for the lowliest TDF domestique! During the MS150 back in the spring, my friend Jason (no relation) was telling me he thought I'd be able to hang on to the back of a Cat 5 race, and I'm here to say... I can't. But I'm working on it! One day I'll be bonafide Cat 4 pack fill. <br /><br />Personal stats:<br />Distance traveled in 30 minutes: 12 miles exactly<br />Average speed: 22.75 MPH<br />Top speed: 30.25 MPH (!!)<br /><br />One very impressive thing is that Jeanette (I think it was) from CCC, who I met on the way over, was part of the 2nd of 2 "main groups" (such as they were) who lapped me twice. Truly a badass. Way to go Jeanette. Here's something weird though... I felt like there was about 30 people in my field and I felt like I came in maybe 23rd or something, but when results finally got posted, it tells a whole other story, which I think may be a wrong story, but who knows. I'm not really buying it, but it looks a lot better for me <a href="http://soldierfieldcycling.com/sfc/?page_id=789" target="_blank">here</a>. They have the field at 17 and me at 10. That does not seem right at all, but the race before has all 42 people accounted for, so it's confusing. Anyway, next time maybe I'll stay around for the provisional results. This time I just split pretty quick as it was already kind of late. I thought the ride home would kill me (I had already ridden about 20 miles before I got there that day) but going anything less than circa 23MPH felt pretty leisurely and I went on home at a pretty good clip even with a fairly full backpack. <br /><br />Overall, what a fun time! Nice folks were met and I'm going to go back I think.<br /><br />TDF: Was going to try and write some fun stuff about it, but I've just been super, super, duper busy and blogging ain't payin' the bills (in case you hadn't figured that out on your own!). Anyway, a few brief thoughtlets:<br /><br />- Bummer for Andy Shleck throwing his chain and losing yellow. Nice try today on the Tourmalet as well. You'll be in yellow in Paris soon enough I reckon. <br />- Armstrong. Should have maybe stayed retired, then would not have to be living and working amongst several hundred news reporters asking nosy questions about doping, selling bikes to fund doping and seemingly lying about his ownership in Tailwind Sports.<br />- Zabriskie and Hincapie. Are they feeling the crushing weight of the Landis allegations? They have both been such non-factors in the entire tour. No presence in breaks. Coming in with the gruppetto many days, not even a good prologue. Too bad. I hope they come clean with anything they have to come clean about. <br />- Footon Servetto. For sure the ugliest kits I've seen in my active days of watching racing. Many greats from the past can be found for sure, but they are really keeping in funky in those tan leotards. <br />- Ryder Hesjedal... Nice tour buddy. Methinks that perhaps Garmin should put some serious resources into you as a GC contender. Oh Canada!<br />- Contador. Boring. Like the Chicago Bulls in the 90s. I deeply crave the underdog win (speaking of which, bummer about Cadel. He was really hanging in there for a while.). I did like seeing he and Shleck get all buddy buddy after today's Tourmalet stage. I enjoy displays of friendliness between rivals. It was all World Cup style! <br />-Phil and Paul. Those guys jump the shark so, so much it's kind of wearing thin. I know that when you have to blab all the time, your gonna hit some lean material, but man, PAY attention! When you are calling Andy Shleck "Frank" after his brother broke his collarbone 2 days before, you really are just phoning it in. I like Matt what's his name, the warm up guy better.<br /><br /><br />Off to Omaha for the weekend tomorrow to run sound for Superchunk at the MAHA festival. Going to bring my newly built 1988 Specialized Allez! Did a stealth build of this a couple of weeks ago. It rips! If I was good enough to not need my Ti crutch, I'd do a crit on it just to be keepin it real!<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/allez01.jpg" /><br /><br />I'll have to make another post about my 68 mile ride in northwest Dane County, WI soon. That was the inaugural serious ride for this bike and was a warm up for the <a href="http://www.dairylanddare.com/" target="_blank">Dairyland Dare</a> in about 3 weeks. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-39137047232134076582010-07-11T20:17:00.000-07:002010-07-11T21:43:09.618-07:00Palos, city riding and other delights...<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">100711<br /><br />Okay, so last Monday I remounted my (maybe?) trusty 29er and headed for the much heard of but as-of-then untried "Palos." It seems to officially be part of the Cook County Forest Preserve District, but <a href="http://cambr.org/SMF/index.php?action=home" target="_blank">these</a> guys seem to do a lot of the work involved in keeping up the trails. Closing some, reopening others, making little bypasses when something is eroding too much, that sort of thing. I will say now, nice job guys!<br /><br />Before I could attempt to ride though, I had to spend a bit of time Sunday de-winterizing my bike. I had last ridden it probably in January. It had Nokian studded ice tires on still (which look so comically small compared to the Conti Mountain Kings that normally go on), a VERY crusty, rusty chain and just needed a going over. I did a deep chain cleansing and lubing, changed the tires, spent some more time tinkering with the rear dropout situation, which was time very well spent. My bike is built around an <a href="http://mtb.unrealcycles.com/catalog/item476.htm" target="_blank">On One Inbred</a> frame like this:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/29er_purp.jpg" /><br /><br />As you can see, it has rear facing dropouts like you would most commonly find on a single speed bike. Some very mad, mad people (including the wonderful guy I bought this from) apparently ride mountain bikes that way. I cannot fathom how this is done and I currently have this bike set up as a 1x9 speed with a 12-32 cassette in the rear and (I think) a 32-tooth cog in front. Anyway, when I first set the bike up for some reason it didn't seem like the rear wheel would sit all the way up front in the dropouts. SO, I used a trick I read about somewhere on the always trusty interwebs about putting some chainring bolts in there to move the stopping point back some. This caused me to have a problem where, when I really pedaled hard, the wheel would slip a bit because it just wasn't that great having the wheel seated up against the outermost point on a circle instead of being fully nestled inside of a semicircle. Does that even makes sense?! Anyway, on my shoulder separating ride from last fall, I had to stop every couple of miles and tweak the wheel. Not that inspiring to do. SO, I took another crack from scratch with the brake position and such and got it seated all the way up to the front of the dropouts and working well. Still have a little bit of disc brake rub I have to try and futz with soon, but it's not really a big deal beyond the mental zone where I think "this is slowing me down!" Still, I'll have to sort that out soon.<br /><br />At any rate, the bike performed just splendidly on this trip. I did not eat it in any serious way (did one very comical slow-motion semi-wipeout on a log pile, but nothing except a touch of pride was wounded). Palos is really, really fun and is also in pretty great shape in my limited experience. It looks pretty taken care of. JBI, my guide and riding buddy, has been riding there for years, so even though it had been a good while, he still had a pretty good bead on what was where in there. There are lots of places to drop in and out from these service roads (or maybe it was just one road, I dunno!) and I would have been completely lost without him. We rode for a good 2+ hours and my shoulder did not particularly trouble me and I was careful but still managed to move along at a pretty good clip and have some thrills and chills like one would hope.<br /><br />Here are some pics:<br /><br />Dudes at the first stop:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/palos01.jpg" /><br />Typical scenery in the non-insane roller coaster parts (why I could stop and take a pic!)<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/palos02.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/palos03.jpg" /><br />Here's a trail we tried that turned out to be closed (it was a pretty bat cave style entrance to this one and it took a while to be sure that the trees we kept coming across where actually meant to make you not be riding! JBI thought it had been recently reopened as he remembered it from a long time back, but after about 10 unride-throughable barriers we admitted we probably weren't going to get back to anything good without just going backwards. Doh!)<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/palos04.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/palos05.jpg" /><br />Here is (one of?) the service road(s?) that we came out onto a few different times.<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/palos06.jpg" /><br /><a href="http://www.neis.org/Content/Nuclear_Illinois.shtml" target="_blank">Here's</a> something you don't see everyday:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/palos07.jpg" /><br />There are 2 old nuclear reactors buried under us! Follow the link above to see what these looked like. They look like large parts of a building, not just some kind of vat. CRAZY!<br />Beautiful ride down to the little lake (after a pretty big climb up to the crest:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/palos08.jpg" /><br />My pretty raw legs (quite a few thorny bushes on the closed trail part):<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/palos09.jpg" /><br />And my bike, resplendent in the afternoon swelter:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/palos10.jpg" /><br /><br />We even got to catch up with the ice cream man about 5 minutes after we stopped riding and were just puttering around the car. NICE! I had a watermelon and lime Bomb Pop with candy seeds! Looking forward to going back soon.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYye59dstRY" target="_blank"></a></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYye59dstRY" target="_blank">I LOVE LIVING IN THE CITY!</a></span></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Actually, I'm not all that crazy about it. Unlike many of my aerospoke front-wheeling, spoke card back-wheeling, carabiner, little caps, no brakes seats too high on a small frame, rolled up jeans, toe-clip sporting brethren and sistren (?!), I'm not really enamored of the gritty, glamorous danger of city riding. In spite of Chicago's #10 ranking in Bicycling mag's <a href="http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/bicyclings-top-50" target="_blank">bike-friendly cities</a> report, it still seems like a pretty dangerous place to get around by bike. While our bike lanes are nowhere near as disrespected as NYC's Kafka-esque circus of joggers, delivery guys, <a href="http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2010/05/flipping-script-upside-down-and-against.html" target="_blank">salmoning</a> riders and cell-phone chatting walkers, it's still not great. Actually, when in bike lanes, things are usually pretty reasonable, but there are still a lot of streets without them and it's hard to rate a city on the amount of drivers who look at you as nothing but a pure obstruction between them and where they want to go. I think to discover that you have to just live somewhere, not cross-reference several lists from other groups and talk to local experts and bike shop owners. Many, many, many people in Chicago simply could give a sh*t whether you are a traffic cone or a human being. I had one woman lay into her horn the other day when I was riding down the street at about 23 mph, right at the speed of traffic and when I pulled up to her at the red light that she had to stop at maybe 3 seconds up the road from where she had to honk and asked "why are you honking at me?" She replied "You out there in the middle of the road like you a car or something. Why don't you get over on the side where you suppose to be?" I began to have discussion about how under IL law, I am required to ride in the roadway and I could actually ride right in the middle of the road if I liked and I was going at the speed of traffic anyway, but then she began throwing up hands and yelling and I just threw a few obligatory expletives at her (maybe not obligatory, but hard to keep in) and just rode off. Of course, she never got as far as me again, but I reckon she had to tap her brake back there or something and over what, a bike!?<br /><br />Another min-van driving mom-ish looking woman in our neighborhood just was literally throwing up her hands today at one of Chicago's infamous angled intersections because we too were in it waiting to make a left-turn. I reckon she thought we should be on the sidewalk were we belong as well.<br /><br />My friend Keith was hit about 4 weeks ago, not through neglect but through a good aim and careful timing by some gangbanger dudes who, coming the opposite direction down a neighborhood street, moved over to box him in against parked cars on the right and opened both driver's side doors to send him flying through the air. Just what we all need, thrill-killers. Right?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/06/brookfield-running-down-bicyclist-illed-armando-reza-guilty.html" target="_blank">Here's</a> another great one for Illinois.<br /><br />Though we certainly don't have a monopoly on <a href="http://cycledog.blogspot.com/2010/06/reed-bates-jailed-again.html" target="_blank">ignorance!</a><br /><br />We did apparently get a new law signed last week making it a class A misdemeanor to "crowd or throw missiles" at a cyclist, but judging by the sentence given to Armando Reza for drunkenly trying to run over cyclists, I'm not holding my breath for the dawn of a new day of safe cycling from this. Even making it a class A misdemeanor to potentially kill someone with your car is too much for people like this <a href="http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/life-as-i-see-it/2010/07/-pat-quinn-signed-a-1.html" target="_blank">gem</a> of a human being. I'll do my best to stay clear of this <a href="http://www.chicagonow.com/profiles/jenlenks" target="_blank">suburban bell</a>. Actually, I'll just go ahead and never enter Orland Park, I'm sure that'll work just fine for both of us. <br /><br />In other Chicago living notes, I always know that summer is in bloom when I take a ride down the lake shore and see all the drinking fountains with their heads knocked clean off, spewing that great Lake Michigan water that we love to use so much of 4 to 6 feet in the air all day and night. Mmm, mmm good! <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-68145922374273552652010-07-06T21:23:00.000-07:002010-07-07T06:51:41.629-07:00dopey.<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">100706<br /><br />Le tour is underway. Seems like 2010 has been especially heavy on crashes, enough to get rider protest on the Giro, Armstrong out of the TOC (quelle timing!), Cavendish, Van De Velde and on and on. The first 3 stages have kept up the trend. Gruesome but Henry Desgrange would be positively delighted <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_France" target="_blank">(his ideal race would be so hard that only one rider would make it to Paris)</a>!<br /><br />Not really pulling for anyone specific (I guess that's not really my style in general, but this year even more so). Liked Wiggins last year, but now he sort of seems like an over-hyped contract breaker, so it kind of took the wind out of my sails. I think I'm pulling for Ryder Hesjedal actually.<br /><br />Just got led to some HEAVY DUTY links on the Landis biz by Joe Lindsey's almost-always enjoyable <a href="http://bicycling.com/blogs/boulderreport/" target="_blank">Boulder Report</a> blog. Landis seems to have a flair for memory that I don't really have, but then again, if I was doing sh*t that crazy and having to make up complex and intertwined lies about it, I guess such things might focus the mind a bit more than making dinner and having a chat about some job that pissed me off that day or whatever.<br /><br />If you want more details in this sordid affair (allegations, I reckon it must be said, though some allegations are easier to believe than others), here are the two new insane articles I just got done with:<br /><br /><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704911704575326753200584006.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_LEADNewsCollection" target="_blank">from the WSJ</a><br /><br /><a href="http://espn.go.com/olympics/tdf2010/crunchtime" target="_blank">from ESPN</a><br /><br />Some of the detail in there is just crazy. Selling maybe up to half the team bikes to finance the doping program, I guess it makes sense. Can't exactly put that stuff in the annual budget. Thanks Trek!<br /><br />Went on a great MTB ride Monday, my first at <a href="http://www.singletracks.com/bike-trails/palos-hills.html" target="_blank">Palos</a>. More on that soon. For now, it's off to work.<br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-74050046765372358922010-06-08T19:52:00.000-07:002010-06-09T06:26:32.141-07:00One bike to rule them all...<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">100608<br /><br />Not much posting for not a ton of riding lately. I have been out of town and just had all manner of heavy workload and too many extracurriculars going on lately to get much riding done.<br /><br />I did get some bike building done though. About three weeks back I purchased this beautiful third-hand Bill Holland 60cm Ti frame with Reynolds fork and CK headset. It arrived in just gorgeous condition. Why I cannot keep a bike that nice for any length of time, I dunno (maybe being clumsy is one, city living too I guess). There is not a lot to find out about these bikes on the interwebs. A few forum threads, a reference to one being used in a quest to build the "lightest bike in the world" in Popular Mechanics. A few references in a Joe Bell interview as he shares a building with Holland and apparently came up under his tutelage somewhat in the (?) late 70s (I think it said). For some reason, that was enough to make me take a chance on this thing.<br /><br />First impressions...let me start with the welds. They look like fillet brazing. I have become an instant Ti weld snob. There is some fairly gnarly environmental harshness from welding titanium, but I guess at least it lasts roughly forever. It's light. Very light. It even says so here:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/ELS.jpg" /><br /><br />A sense of humor to boot (sorry for the crappy photo)!<br /><br />Building it up was pretty easy. I had to come up with a 1" stem, but I found a fellow parting with this nice Ibis 120mm 0 degree stem and snapped it up. Beyond that, I just moved all my Campy Centaur stuff over to it from the trusty old Look KG381. It came with it's own Ti seatpost. Here it is in progress:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/holland_inprogress.jpg" /><br /><br />And here is the finished build.<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/holland_complete.jpg" /><br /><br />I've only ridden some 50-60 miles on it as of yet, but it is pretty amazing. It's about a half lb. lighter than the Look, coming in just right at 18 lbs. Really feels like it can just go 25-30 mph all day long. Rides similar to a steel bike in terms of road chatter, but feels almost like aluminum when you are out of the saddle. I have yet to climb anything on it, but am dying to! My original impetus to try something else was that the Look was a little on the creaky/flexy side when really out of the saddle on a climb. I think I've got that solved. More to come on all that.<br /><br /><br />Had a full head of steam to write something about the Landis doping stuff, but it seems like it's all been said better already. Here are a few things that are worth peeping:<br /><br /><a href="http://bicycling.com/blogs/boulderreport/2010/05/24/truth-lies-and-evidence/" target="_blank">Joe Lindsay's column</a> had links to most of the good stuff and some pretty good writing himself.<br /><br />Then you have to check in and get the <a href="http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2010/05/riding-dirty-coming-clean-all-you.html" target="_blank">BSNYC perspective.</a><br /><br />I had actually just finished reading Paul Kimmage's "Rough Ride" about a week before all this came down and I was thinking that he was really just kind of a super downer (and for me to say that, you've gotta really be cramping some style!). Not that I doubted any of what he knew/alleged/suspected (he goes on at length in the 6 or 7 mega-epilogues about different doping scandals after the book was published up to Landis and the 2006 TDF. I was thinking "Geez man, maybe you are TOO suspicious!" but then this stuff all came to light.<br /><br />In some way it's weird to draw the line at tweaking every tiny manner of aero-bike dweebery and skinsuits on your shoes and wind tunnels etc, but to think that tweaking your body chemistry is cheating. However, I tend to think the same thing. Part of it is perhaps that it's just so GROSS to be stashing away your blood in a fridge so you can pump it back in later and get all your stats to settle down after you've been making blood pudding in your veins for a few weeks or what have you. Estrogen, testosterone, corticoids, etc. etc. What ever happened to Clif Shots? That seemed gross to me for quite a while (I guess I'm more Paul Kimmage than I might like to think, he held out on caffeine tablets for quite some time).<br /><br />Mostly though, I think it's that cycling is, more than other sports, really aspirational for a lot of the fans. Unlike maybe US football, for instance, where it's difficult to put on 50 to 100 lbs and get a giant kit of armor and play with large teams on a well-groomed field, it's feasible for many fans to get a decent bike and some fancy clothes and ride down the road like you are on a solo breakaway. It sucks to think that you aren't really doing it "like a pro" until you know how to get your <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127244621" target="_blank">microdosing</a> program all sorted out. Training rides ain't gonna do it! Landis amusingly points out in one of his rambling <a href="http://www.livestrong.com/teamradioshack/news_series-emails-referenced-statement-regarding-doping-allegations/" target="_blank">screeds</a>, correctly, that Amgen (of the Amgen Tour of California) is the manufacturer of EPO. Quelle irony! Those letters actually make me feel worst for Dr. Brent Kay, who spent years and years of his life (and one can only imagine piles and piles of money) defending Landis, starting his own procycling team to help Landis come back, etc. and seems to betray a woozy sense of defeat at finding out how much of his life has been misspent in these sad emails.<br /><br />I think the thing about all this heavy duty, seriously gross, seriously complicated doping stuff that freaks me out the most is that all these dudes (and face it, most people are more or less normal as far as general personality traits, etc. go) had to learn to spend large portions of their adult lives being professional liars, going on and on and on about how clean the sport is or how they've never taken performance enhancing drugs etc. Imagine doing an interview and going on about unproven allegations against you and then heading on over to your flight to go "consult" with Dr. Ferrari and pick up your EPO vials. And so on. Ugh. I think my head would explode in short order. I don't even like little tiny white lies, let alone having to have an entire false narrative about your life (see Landis's now especially amusing <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Positively-False-Real-Story-France/dp/1416950230" target="_blank">book</a> for an epic, epic example of this).<br /><br />Anyway, I still enjoy watching racing, but what a giant pile of shit that stuff all is. Beware of professional sports is the overarching message for yours truly.<br /><br />Time to get back to basics! Here are some quality freak bikes I have encountered lately. You ain't gonna attack the group on these things, just enjoy the ride my friends.<br /><br />Spotted a few blocks from the U of M commencement (featuring our leader, B.H. Obama) which I attended last month:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/annarborfreakbike.jpg" /><br /><br />Here are a couple of specimens from a house several blocks from me. I tend to swing by here now to see what's cooking. I think this house may be from whence issues a biker that could be described as my own modern-primitive <a href="http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2009/02/inspiring-rides-true-greatness-knows-no.html" target="_blank">lone wolf</a>. Perhaps I'll post a shot of him someday.<br /><br />Anyway, first here is a rare shot of two freak bikes entwined in the delicate act of making sweet freak bike love:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/freakbikesinlove.jpg" /><br /><br />And here is a handmade cargo bike that puts the Surly Big Dummy to shame:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/DIYcargobike.jpg" /><br /><br />With that, I take my leave. Let's get out and ride!<br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-37818491223586712162010-05-12T21:10:00.000-07:002010-05-12T21:21:43.550-07:00Another nice old Trek<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">100512<br /><br />For the money, you just really, really can't beat a late 80s Trek. They are just great riding, light, attractive (and still made in the USA) lovely steel bikes. This 1988 Trek 360 that I fixed up for a friend has a nice Suntour 12-speed setup with indexed shifting. I swapped out the bars/levers for something a little more upright. Eric, if you're reading this, I take back the aspersions I cast at the Sturmey Archer brake levers, they look very nice and are terrific levers to boot. Thanks!<br /><br />This bike was gotten for a mere $230 in gorgeous perject working order and after another hundred-ish dollars in persnickety parts swapping, it's a fleet 21 lb. city bike. What does $350 get you new these days? A decent saddle and a set of cheaper STI levers maybe. Certainly not much of a whole bicycle.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/trek360_may2010.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/sturmeyarcherlevers.jpg" /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-8476354375960149132010-05-09T19:45:00.000-07:002010-05-09T20:28:55.956-07:00dark lord day and other delights<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">100509<br /><br />Went to Three Floyds Brewery's much discussed "Dark Lord Day" a few weeks back. Missed it last year due to I-can't-remember-what, but I DO remember realizing during whatever it was I ended up doing that the weather was a bucket of sh*t around the time folks would be riding their bikes back. I mean, ripping winds, temperature dropping 20+ degrees and very, very cold rain style. In other words, a typical Chicago Spring day!<br /><br />Well, my buddy Arman was up for it again in spite of the brutal beatdown he took on that one. I think he was also in charge of leading a rather mixed crew of riders in terms of amounts of stops per trip and such, so I believe it came as a relief when only a couple of people sounded like they were going to turn up this year to ride down. The weather was looking pretty bad this year too, but he scoped out a METRA ride home option for this year, riding the 10-ish miles over to Flossmor and catching the train, so I guess one way in some potential rain seemed doable.<br /><br />We met up on the Lakeshore path across from Buckingham fountain at the 9am hour and while sitting there up rode Jay and Alex, some friends of his, who were heading down too so they decided to join up. Then up rode about 25 other people asking if we were heading to Three Floyds. When we said yup one guy started getting in his bag and asking us to sign in and such. After a moment of confusion in which one of our little gang just signed up (weird what you can get if you just ask!) I asked a few questions and found out this was the (forgive me if I've got this wrong) Chicago Cycling Club official ride down group and we quickly cleared up that we were just heading that way on our own, which I think snapped Arman out of some flashbacks from last year's perhaps overly Keystone Kops-ish experience. He looked relieved anyway. We ended up running across that lot later during the ride, but they had some different instructions so it didn't last more than about a mile or two.<br /><br />With the late arrival of Tiber, we set off. It was a pretty gloomy overcast morning but no rain, so all was well. Rode down the path and on down S. South Shore drive and continued on what turned out to be a really nicely sorted out route <a href="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/beer_run_map.pdf" target="_blank">(click here for a PDF of the map)</a><br />. Just took a largely neighborhoody and pathy/parky way most of the way down. Got my first ride on the Burnham Greenway, which was just like any other bike path except that it had a dozens and dozens of covered up graffiti spots on it (along with a few fresh examples!). Got my first flat on my year plus old Schwalbe Marathons, found out I can still do a roadside tube change (it's been a while), and with a couple of quick stops, we made it down it something like 2.5 hours (37.5 miles or so).<br /><br />Some crazy biz, this Dark Lord Day. I forsee it not being in it's current location for much longer as trying to squish about 8000 drunk broheims into the 1/4 mile street of a small office/industrial park doesn't seem like the way to keep up neighborly relations. It was a pretty good scene though. I ate about a year and a half of my normal meat intake. Something like 5 sausages, a brisket taco, some more brisket and probably another thing or two I'm forgetting. Not a very veggie friendly event. Tasted some very tasty brews. Followed my buddy Andrew and his rather large posse through the Dark Lord Russian IPA buying line and helped to portage the beers safely back to the car (I got to buy in on 2 bottles for my trouble). There were some heavy bands playing in the brewery, but the overall drunky far-from-home vibe made me eventually want to head back to the cozy confines of home.<br /><br />After hanging out for about 2.5 hours, it still hadn't rained and I was feeling like going to the METRA was just going to be a pain (apparently wasn't, but I felt like riding more anyway). I decided to go it alone on the bike back up into town. A couple of pounds of meat and the equivalent of maybe 4 hefty brews made this a different sort of "sport" than the way down. I did quite respectably thank-you-very-much, but was DEFINITELY feeling a bit knackered by the time I hit the Lakeshore path back in town. The map worked pretty well on the way back (Arman guided down so I didn't really have to pay much attention), but I did get off at one point and end up going through some unknown southside zone. Pretty mellow altogether, though I did get a few garbled SOMETHING-UNINTELLIGIBLE-WHITE-BOY! comments cutting through the wind. Guess it's not a well road-biked area in a few spots down there.<br /><br />Anyway, a fun new trip out of town. I feel a little less intimidated by getting into Indiana on a bike now. You can really just slip right into Hammond by the back door and even in a few spots were we had to brave a bit of heavy-ish traffic, I found Indiana drivers to be pretty courteous and chilled out, at least on that particular day.<br /><br />Pics!<br /><br />Our Gang<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/darklordday1.jpg" /><br />Burnham Greenway with blacked out graffito<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/darklordday2.jpg" /><br />A VERY slow moving train in Hammond. Note awesome mid-century madness on the 2nd Baptist parking garage behind.<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/darklordday3.jpg" /><br />That's some lineup (to buy expensive beer!). Several hours long.<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/darklordday4.jpg" /><br />A swamp of party bros.<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/darklordday5.jpg" /><br />An expensive litter display.<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/darklordday6.jpg" /><br />Glad to have biked. These were ALL OVER, only set off by the occasional<br />"PARK HERE $40" signs.<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/darklordday7.jpg" /><br /><br />A ridiculously undetailed version of the route thanks to the crappy GPS of iPhione 3G.<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/darklordday8.jpg" /><br /><br /><br />In other news:<br /><br />I rode to Milwaukee again today, my first completion since last Summer's aborted attempt (3 flats and a wifely pickup). It was pretty fun, only occasionally grueling. Light to moderate headwind almost the entire way and pretty chilly (low 40s in the morning up to 50-ish by the afternoon).<br /><br />I can do the whole thing with only a very occasional map consultation. Actually, I might not have had to at all had part of the Wisco bike trail not been closed, but that put me back on the road sooner which speeded things up nicely anway. That gravel is SLOW!<br /><br />Anyway, home to just shy of downtown, 94 miles, in a total of 6 hours 4 minutes. Probably stopped for a total of about 15 minutes en route, so riding time was about 5 hours 50. Between the gravel and some headwinds and no one to draft on, that ride is some good exercise!<br /><br />Tried to tune in the Giro when I got home, but managed to just catch the exact spoiler ending 20 seconds. Groan! Anyway, Tyler Farrar finally got some.<br /><br />Looks like my trusty Look KG381 and I are parting ways. There's a new (to me) frame coming down the line here in a week or so. It's been real, but I like to keep things interesting (</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I am bike curious after all)</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> and I have to sell to help mitigate the costs of the new steed.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-81536796615044932742010-04-24T18:31:00.000-07:002010-04-25T11:51:26.144-07:00MS150 report!<span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">100424<br /><br />It was one week ago today when I set out with some 14,000 other riders on the 26th annual (now sadly "BP") MS150 ride from Houston to Austin. Here is my best attempt to run it down for those very few who may be interested in the details.<br /><br />Flew into Houston on Thursday evening and went to a wonderfully filling dinner with my folks and my friends Bob and Carrie who just happened to also have flow in the very same day. We had a big pig out at Cyclone Anaya's, which I do like to hit every so often when in Houston. Kind of local chainy, but muy delicioso!<br /><br />Crashed out promptly that evening. Awoke nice and early (6:30) as a warm up for the truly gruesome get up times that would be required the next couple of days. Ate a salad for breakfast, which was mentioned in <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/18-9780307266309-0" target="_blank">this</a> cheesily written but overall very gripping and inspiring book I finished reading that very night. Not bad for breakfast, a salad. Does bring on the lunch urge a little faster than normal though. Kind of makes me want to get into running too, but we shall see. If my wife goes a bit more whole hog, perhaps I'll be her pacer!<br /><br />I headed over to the Omni hotel, where registration and whatnot was going on. Registered and poked around in the expo area, which was not nearly a gianormous as I'd imagined it would be. Just one largish meeting hall deal with about a dozen or so vendors. There were some pretty great deals to be had on lycra and other plastic based clothing items, so I picked up a few bits, including this pretty nice Capo bib short (pair of bib shorts?!) for 50% off.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/capobibshort.jpg" /><br /><br />While that special chamois bears an unnerving resemblance to a presenting baboon, I can assure you that it's the most comfy chamois I've ever had in contact with my taintal region. I also picked up a cheapish rain shell/jacket as I forgot mine at home. My bike arrived shortly thereafter with Jason and his lovely mother, Rita straight from Austin. I had ebayed and sent to Austin a Shimano R700 compact crank to have installed on my trusty Paramount as I was a bit apprehensive about the hills of day 2 on a normal 53/39 (probably would have been fine as it turned out, but anyway). It was a weird aftermarket gearing the seller had on there of 52/34, rather than the normal 50/34. Upon giving this thought for a couple of days the week before, I realized a 52 big ring would probably prove less than ideal as on my normal road bike in Chicago with a 50/36, I'm almost always, always kicking around the lowest gearing on the 50 ring, so a 52 would just make that a little bit less appropriate. I ended up ordering a 50 tooth big ring at the last minute and figured I'd change this out at the hotel. Once I got my bike out, I realized that the shop in Austin (which I guess shall remain nameless) did a kind of half-assed job of changing the crank out, leaving the chain at least 2 or 3 links to long (it was sitting 3 cogs up on the rear cassette when I got it out but the chain was already rubbing on the fully collapsed rear derailleur. Thanks for the questionable work small certain Austin bike shop I have spoken kindly of recently in these pages....)! Fortunately, there were a few local bike shops set up at the hotel, so I took this mess over the the West End Cycles folks who sorted me out in short order. Afterwards I took a little 6-mile spin and tweaked some seat height and front derailleur position until everything seemed kosher. Thanks West End! Whilst tweaking my seat, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that my seat post has some sort of stripped seat pivot situation going on. I kept finding my seat in a more backwards angle / taint hurting position than I thought I put it in and eventually realized it was popping back every so often. Groan. It was too late to do anything there but keep an eye on it.<br /><br />The steed:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_01.jpg" /><br /><br />The weather was predicted to be pretty poopy, with 50% to 60% chances of rain on Saturday and Sunday respectively. While not as bad as the storms that resulted in the <a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/6379227.html" target="_blank">cancellation</a> of the first day last year, it wasn't looking ideal. But if there's one little advantage being from Chicago provides, it's that a bad spring day in Texas is a pretty decent summer's day in the midwest.<br /><br />I had a lovely dinner at home with my folks Friday night (Grilled shrimp, couscous, roasted veggies and a wonderful bottle of Chardonnay, thanks ya'll!) and went to bed around 10:30 in order to rise at the gruesome (for me) hour of 4:45am. As is the norm when I'm doing a big ride, I slept rather spottily and ended up laying awake from about 3:15 am until 4:20, when I finally just gave it and arose.<br /><br />DAY 1:<br /><br />My folks were up shortly thereafter and after wolfing down some sort of slightly preservative laden breakfast burrito and some fruit and coffee, we headed over to my meetup with Ryan, Jason H and Danny at Ryan's sister's place about 3 miles from the start at the Omni hotel. Got there, realized I didn't get safety pins in my lil packet to use for my bib number. Ryan had to wake up his sister for this (who was inexplicably sleeping on the couch at her own place when I arrived). Thanks Sally, sorry about that! She was kind enough to wake up and take a few snapshots of our motley crew. Here we are in all our pasty, chilly pre-dawn glory:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/ms150motleycrew.jpg" /><br /><br />We finally rolled out of there at about 6:30, so as not to be late for the 6:45 start. Almost ate sh*t a few times on the very dark way over. Some pretty industrial sized gaps in the little drainage bibs that stick out into the road. Smooth it out Houston!<br /><br />We rolled up to the start to find that there was NOT A BIG HURRY! Note to any future riders, unless your oil company sponsored team raised $250,000 or something, you may as well take your time getting to the start. We got to listen to a good 45 minutes of verbal tongue-lashing through a portable squawk box setup that sort of comically threw the breaker on the generator powering it a few times. Accompaniment was provided in the form of various hits of the 80s, Huey Lewis and the News, Survivor, etc. We finally managed to squeeze in with some team that must have rolled out around the 8,000 to 9,000 riders mark. It strikes me that if you pay your fee and do your fundraising, maybe you shouldn't have to sit on a cold road and listen to an obnoxious emcee for most of an hour, but I digress...<br /><br />It's all better once you're rolling! We took a windy path up N. Eldridge twisting around NW Houston and ended up on some farm road (FM154?) while getting a light raining on for about 45 minutes to an hour. That finally petered out around mile 20 or so. At the first rest stop we almost immediately ran into my old friend and sometime roommate Todd. He joined our little train and we spent a few hours on the road catching up about the last, oh, decade or so! He was on the <a href="http://www.sweetleaftea.com/" target="_blank">Sweet Leaf Tea</a> team, but they were pretty well atomized all over the "field" such as it was, so he joined up with us for the day.<br /><br />Nothing too eventful to report over the course of the day. I had some of the usual energy ups-and-downs that come with 100 mile ride. The route had some very modest rolling hills but was pretty flat overall and we had favorable winds. One thing that is always amusing at these sorts of giant rides, but seemed ESPECIALLY intensive at this ride, is the whole "on your left" etiquette. We all know that sometimes it's quite good to give riders on your right verbal notice if, say, you are passing them pretty closely or perhaps very quickly. However, I think it's fair to say that if you are in a field of 14,000 riders and you are riding on the far right side of the road at around 11 to 13 mph, there are going to be a LOT, LOT, LOT of folks coming by "on your left" pretty much constantly and all day long! It really should come as no surprise! That did not stop a lot of people from seeming really surprised and ENDANGERED that some riders were coming by about 4 to 6 feet away from them on the left without a CLEAR ANNOUNCEMENT to the effect. Reactions ranged from a light sort of tu-tut-ing (yelling "riders on the left" up ahead of them as a little rebuke) to some straight up "you need to call out buddy!" etc. Here's my hunch: Maybe this is a combination of people who have just read the "rules" of riding etiquette and just tend to the pedantic in matters of safety combined with a smaller minority of riders who want to reserve the right to swing wildly over to the left side of the road at a moment's notice and consider it really dangerous that anyone would ride by them without crying out "ON YOUR LEFT!"<br /><br />At any rate, I think I must have given out at least a few thousand on your lefts over the course of 2 days. Sometimes there were so many in a row that I'd just realize I was saying it a few times even during big empty spots on the road, just sort of muttering it like a crazy person.<br /><br />With about 20 miles to go on "Stage 1" we got passed by a few of Todd's buddies on the Sweet Leaf team and ended up jumping on their train and powering into the day's finish at a nice 20-ish mph clip. I think one guy pulled us the whole way. No complaints about that, he didn't seemed to object or care one way or the other. Some pics of day 1 (psychedelic photos courtesy of the my pHoine somehow):<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_02.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_03.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_04.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_05.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_06.jpg" /><br /><br />The end was at the LaGrange fairgrounds and was an instant village of corporate team tents, miscellaneous vendor and support tents and the like. Pretty cornfusing layout, we wandered around in a semi-daze for a while before we all met back up at the Sweet Leaf team tent where we were graciously allowed to park our bikes for the night, saving us from the (presumed but not confirmed) mess of official bike parking. Wandering around ensued. Got some tasty morsels of food from a few friendly grillmasters, some delicious beers courtesy of old Emo's alum Vince, who now is the brewmaster at St. Arnold's in Houston (who also had a large team out on the ride).<br /><br />Eventually our trusty "team car" in the form of Jennifer, Ryan's S.O. came along and scooped us up and off we went to our digs for the evening in the evergreen woods outside Smithville, TX about 20 miles away from LaGrange. Her sister has an incredible little spread out on 7 acres on a dirt road off a dirt road. We couldn't have asked for a nicer spot to relax and recharge. After showering, we drove to Bastrop and had a nice dinner at a little local Italian/Greek joint. Bellies full of pasta, we didn't last long upon our return. I think I was in bed by 9:45 and got to sleep through a night of pretty glorious thunderstorms with just a screen door between myself and the great outdoors. Beautiful music to sleep to. Must have rained a couple of inches overnight!<br /><br />Buddy, our host and VERY reluctant outdoor dog:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_07.jpg" /><br />Jason relaxing with his personal digital device:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_08.jpg" /><br />Mini-cabin and my sleeping digs for the night:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_09.jpg" /><br />The lovely grounds and our trusty team car:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_10.jpg" /><br />Ashen, team dog along for the ride from Houston:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_11.jpg" /><br />More beauty from the front door:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_12.jpg" /><br />Relaxing, porch style!<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_13.jpg" /><br /><br />DAY 2:<br /><br />Another 4:45 wakeup. In hindsight, we should have probably been quite a bit earlier, as we rolled back up to the fairgrounds right at 6:35 or so to find WELL OVER 10,000 of the 13 or 14k riders all lined up already being barked to anew by the emcee. There was no team x leaving first deal this day, just letting the line trickle out the gate. The place was a swamp with all the overnight rain and we were running all over creation to try and find our way back to the Sweet Leaf tent. Finally managed to locate our bikes (schlepping through soupy fields in cycling shoes does not rate as one of my favorite activites!). We queued up with the Sweet Leaf folks on our little arterial roadway and waited while they slowly let people out the gate by the few hundred at a time. UGH, wait, take 2 steps forward, wait, take 1 step forward, wait, wait, take 1 step forward, etc. etc. Took about 40 minutes to get out of the joint. We probably rolled out around riders 10,000-ish, an inauspicious start for the second day in a row. Fortunately there were 2 routes right out of the fairgrounds, us taking the hilly challenge dealy, which seemed to be at least a bit less trafficked once we got going. Left into a light rain again and it was QUITE chilly for TX, like 53-ish degrees).<br /><br />Here are some images of the morning including the ridiculous lineup getting out of that joint:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_14.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_15.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_16.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_18.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150_19.jpg" /><br /><br />Riding, riding, riding. After about 25 miles, we hit Buescher State Park. It IMMEDIATELY got really beautiful. Small road, just barely 2 lanes. Towering trees. This part of the route was about 12 miles of pretty decent rolling hills. Maybe 100-200ft. each, probably rode a couple thousand feet of elevation change. I really enjoyed this part. Did most of my climbing out of saddle using my big chainring. It got to be a sort of experiment after a while. I only gave in and went to the little ring twice for about a minute each time. Feels good climbing and you always get the downhill payoff. A bunch of exhilarating 40-ish mile downhills throughout. I was sad when we suddenly got dumped out onto Highway 71 with the rest of the riders. We powered along to lunch and on, keeping a pretty great clip for the remainder of the ride. There were some pretty decent headwinds here and there, but we got a fair share of nice tailwinds too. Lots of false flats that seemed MUCH harder than the actual steep hills of before. After some time, it was just Ryan and I doing a little 2 man "breakaway" all the way in for the final 20-ish miles. We must have passed a few thousand riders in that time averaging around 19mph for the whole end of the ride.<br /><br />Came into Austin on FM969, nee MLK JR. Blvd. Eventually got routed through a neighborhood, over to Manor Road and on into town on Dean Keeton/26th street. Had a nice surprise when we found my brother and a couple of old friends waiting out on Dean Keeton for us, they gave a big yell and took off on their bikes to meet us on the other side of UT at the finish. We turned into campus and ripped through there on those nice rolling campus roads with almost no one at all around us, having just happened to find a big break in the pack there. It was REALLY fun and brought on a nice burst of energy that carried us all the way back onto MLK through the barricaded last few blocks with thousands of spectators lining the road. Felt like a little faux race finish and actually got me a little verklempt to see all that support. What a big event this thing is!<br /><br />Then, it was over! We decamped from our bikes on a little right of way a couple blocks past the finish and waited for our friends. St. Arnold's was no longer providing beer, saving what was left for their team. BOOOOO!!! Have some more for sale for cryin' out loud. People who have just ridden 80 miles will often need a beer! The whole second day I felt remarkably good. I was worried about feeling like a wet noodle after the first day where, at times, I was feeling pretty shagged out on the route (around miles 60/75). Not to worry though. No problems from my right knee, even with all the climbing and just felt pretty great overall. The 4 mile ride back to my brother's house did leave me feeling like I had ridden enough for the day, but it wasn't excruciating by any stretch.<br /><br />The rest of our "team" made it in within about 20 minutes total and the lot of us rode back to my brother's house for a very nice BBQ dinner party that had been put together. Showers for all and a nice beautiful sit around (it got sunny and ALMOST warm for the rest of the afternoon!). Thanks to Eric Hartman who very generously brought over a massive spread of pulled pork and brisket, mac/cheese and beans. Good times!!<br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-11461490824282665662010-04-15T12:23:00.000-07:002010-04-15T13:08:54.694-07:00quick post<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">100415<br /><br />Heading off to TX in about 15 minutes (to the airport to go there anyway).<br /><br />Had a great weekend riding in Madison. Took my googled route out to Mt. Horeb. Didn't end up going all the way there, turning off about 4 miles before it to follow a different route back for the sake of variety. It never got superhill overall, but some nice semi-gentle rollers. I did veer off on a few singular quests when I saw a pretty harsh looking hill. Here's one that had me wheezing on the way up (in the distance there) and having to ride the brakes to keep it at 40mph on the way down! Pretty fun though.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/saddlebackrd_west.jpg" /><br /><br />Here is a lovely little creek-y, drainage-y oasis out on Saddleback Road off Hwy 14 and County Road P where I (in the parlance of Phil and Paul) took a "natural break!"<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/look_saddlebackrd.jpg" /><br /><br />Rode a total of 55 miles on this ride, about 45 on this big loop then puttered around the lovely Shorewood neighborhood in Madison, riding around a loop on this biggish hill about 4 times. Also tacked another 10 on it later that evening riding back to my folks-in-laws' house.<br /><br />Here's the mapmyride result. Still losing about 20-25% of my miles with this alleged GPS stuff. Oh well, get what you pay for I guess!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/madmthorebridemap.jpg" /><br /><br />Put in another mellow 23 miles with the missus on Sunday. Just regular commuting after that. A lovely weekend all in all. Just my regular commutes this week. Going to try and get in a nice 20 miles with Ryan in TX tomorrow and then it's off to the big ride. <br /><br />Not bringing a computer, so will probably have to report on all this next Tuesday or Weds. Supposed to be something like 50% chance of rain both days, but rain in the 70s sounds pretty alright to me. Dry wouldn't be awful either though!<br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-73400942164382765842010-04-09T16:55:00.000-07:002010-04-09T17:04:07.767-07:00Horribly Hilly 65<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">100409<br /><br />Heading off to Madison today for the weekend. Not a ton of riding this week. Ended up doing something like 150 last week though. Probably rode 60 miles until today, but I went on a mellow 45 miles today with my pal Shea. I have a ride planned tomorrow from Madison to Mt. Horeb that I'm hoping will be some sort of approximation of my MS150 day 2. Supposed to be good and hilly out there. I will report back! Got some good tips from folks at the Serotta forum and just riffed off of those and came up with a route. It goes like this:<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MADtoMTHOREB.jpg" /><br /><br />Should end up being something like 65-ish miles from the look of it. The title is a riff on the <a href="http://www.horriblyhilly.com/home.html" target="_blank">Horribly Hilly Hundreds</a> ride that is apparently a staple of the Madison area. I'd be tempted to try it, but my experience last fall or riding the North Shore Century all alone (boring, not that fun) will probably keep me from doing it unless I make a new cycling buddy right quick!<br /><br />Tour of the Basque Country stage 5 is almost over in my replay watching. Inspiring hill riding going on now! Txurruka just wiped out, bummer for him. That guy's got moxie!<br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-50109114935201141782010-04-05T17:13:00.000-07:002010-04-05T17:29:25.004-07:00Do you know?<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">100405<br /><br />I'm not a terribly thin-skinned person, but I'd like to send these Gram Parsons lyrics out to the 70 or 80 cyclists I tried to give a little friendly nod or wave to on the lakefront path today.<br /><br />Do You Know How it Feel (to be Lonesome)<br /><br />Do you know how it feels to be lonesome</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When there's just no one left that really cares</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Did you ever try to smile at some people</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And all they ever seem to do is stare</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And you remember how it feels to be cold again</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When the happiness of love has gone away</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And you never want to go out on the street again</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And you only seem to live from day to day</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Do you know how it feels to be lonesome</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When there's just no one left who really cares</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Did you ever try to smile at some people</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Yes, and all they ever seem to do is stare</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Yes, and all they ever seem to do is stare <br /><br /><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0hAC_PBGaCE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0hAC_PBGaCE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br />It's true, all they ever seem to do is stare. Is it a sign of weakness to give a little human acknowledgement?! Must be discouraged in the Chris Carmichael book or something. Anyway, if you see some old dude trying to give you a little flick of the hand or nod of the head, it may be me, though I just give up after a while.<br /><br />Rode 38 miles today. More good wind "training" for the MS150, pretty stiff headwind out of the south around the lake today. Nice quick ride back up though.<br /><br />In other big news, I'm switching to "normal" type size. I realized my "small" type selection seems to be an outlier among the bloggerati.<br /><br />Big props to Fabian Cancellara for just crushing all comers at the RVF Sunday. Damn!<br /><br />Cycling TV/internet time is officially on. The Tour of the Basque Country is on Universal Sports about 3 times a day now too. Good inspirado. Stage 1: Alejandro Valverde, get a life. You were not squeezed. Bad call. Must feel kind of lame to stand up on the podium and put the funny hat on when you just whined your way up there.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-23457194462611635052010-04-03T16:10:00.000-07:002010-04-03T16:22:25.639-07:00one more thing...<span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">100403<br /><br />I'm so distinctly behind on the interwebs most of the time that I must have been the last person who cared to find this out, but the iconoclastic <a href="http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Bike Snob NYC</a>, a writer whose verbose marriage of deprecation and self-deprecation along with occasional (and hilarious) references to the CroMags and Agnostic Front make me feel like it's not so bad to be a part of the aging "Gen X" crowd (that is what we were supposed to be, right?), has been unmasked.<br /><br />I think the big news was broken in the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304370304575152160672087120.html?mod=WSJ_hp_editorsPicks" target="_blank">WSJ</a> a couple of days ago, but I actually came across it on <a href="http://bikefag.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Bikefag's</a> blog, which is always a pretty funny read as well, though I'm pretty sure that guy is Gen Y (and not to be trusted). I like how he just links straightaway to the guy's USA Cycling race stats when you click his name. (BTW, nice job Eben, you aren't near as bad as you say you are!).<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/RTMSapprove.jpg" /><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-79791295336941818592010-04-03T15:13:00.000-07:002010-04-03T16:07:25.034-07:00You like bah-logging?<span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">100403<br /><br />Anyone? Anyone?<br /><br />2 posts in one day!! Wow.<br /><br />Just finished a nice 43 mile ride to the bottom of the Botanical Gardens and back. Average pace, 15.1 mph. Wind=yes, very! What a wonderful day it turned out to be.<br /><br />Starting to feel something just shy of terrified about this <a href="http://www.nationalmssociety.org/chapters/bp-ms-150/index.aspx" target="_blank">MS150</a> ride on April 17/18. It is a 2-day ride from Houston to Austin, TX. 1st day is from Houston to LaGrange, TX, about 99.6 miles, second day is from LaGrange on in to Austin, 77 miles, if you take the "Bechtel Challenge" route (not to be confused with the "Pfizer Lunch Express" route, all really rolls right off the tongue, eh?). While I'm at it, this is actually the "BP" MS150. Those allegedly earth-loving, actually drill-baby-drilling Brits really know a good cause when they see one! What about the Goldman Sachs sag wagon?! "I've flatted and I don't have a spare tube, bail me out, bail me out!!"<br /><br />Going to ride this with my old compadre Ryan with whom I rode the <a href="http://bikecurious.blogspot.com/2009/09/hotter-n-hell-100.html" target="_blank">Hotter 'N Hell 100</a> last year. He rode it last year too, but last year was the year that the first day was <a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/6379227.html" target="_blank">cancelled</a> for the first time ever (on the rides 25th anniversary), so he felt like he didn't really ride it (and honestly, he's right, even an old man like me can pretty much buck up and ride around 100 miles almost any old time, but can we do it two days in a row? Very different question!!). SO, in the interest of having felt like he did it and wanting to pal around with yours truly, we are making a go of it this year. I'd like to give a special shout out to all my friends and family that were kind enough to help me raise the required funds for the very worthy cause of working on a cure for MS too. Y'all are cool!<br /><br />Anyway, here's the route for those of you who have some idea of Texas geography:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150day1.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/MS150day2.jpg" /><br /><br />Should be fun-ish. I'm hoping to find a quite hilly ride next weekend in Madison, WI, to simulate some of day 2. Day 1 is supposed to be typically quite windy, so I have been getting a decent dose of that this week in our fair city. Trying to get used to long periods of time in the drops pursuant to that issue. For my day 2 related problems, I have procured a nice Shimano R700 compact crank to put on my trusty P-Mount down in Austin. Changing equipment one day before a big ride, mmmm, sketchy, yes. BUT, riding a 53/39 on 77 miles of fairly ferocious hills (I am a 40 year old man with a bad right knee after all), perhaps even more sketchy. Only two weeks time will tell.<br /><br />Otra cosas:<br /><br />I've been reading the pretty enjoyable <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780297847168-0" target="_blank">"A Significant Other"</a>, which chronicles the 2003 Tour de France from the viewpoint of Victor Hugo Peña, one of the USPS and Lance's more heavy hitting domestiques. It's a pretty nice read, with a historic overview of the TDF interspersed with VH's personal recollections and some pretty gripping writing about stage 15, where Lance bites the asphalt really hard after hanging up on some idiots goodie bag on Alpe D'Huez, then gets up, fixes his chain, takes off, racks himself while coming out of his pedals about 30 seconds later and then just goes all Popeye-on-spinach (literally all but the bulging arms and steam) and rides away past everyone to win the stage by a good 40 seconds. Good stuff.<br /><br /><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5FnU7b9MKFY&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5FnU7b9MKFY&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br />I got the word on this book from the great blog, <a href="http://cyclinginquisition.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Cycling Inquisition</a>. There you can find a treasure chest of great writing about cycling in general, but with a strong focus on Columbian cycling history. Check it out! Also, if you enjoy whiling away your winters (or whenever) with cycling related writing, a lot of these books including A Significant Other are just cheap as dirt on the interwebs. I think I got this one for about $.99 plus $4 shipping on ebay or half.com or some such thing. Cycling "literature" is a pretty cheap habit.<br /><br />Enyoy!<br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-6067756591247761382010-04-03T09:09:00.000-07:002010-04-03T10:39:57.850-07:00rainy day blogging<span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">100403<br />11am<br /><br />Well, that's another 2-ish months without even a half-assed post to show for it. Who cares, right?! Now is the time to begin writing about matters cycling again. Fortunately, February's this:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/snow_2010.jpg" /><br /><br />Has given way to some Spring showers. Blissfully 70s and 80s weather for the last three days. Now it's 50s and showers, but I'm not complaining much as water is MUCH better than snow in this blogger's humble opinion.<br /><br />I'm sitting, waiting for the rain to stop, or at least simmer down a little. It's pretty much pissing down outside my window right now. Had plans to do a small group ride out to some sort of big northern suburbs loop today, might still happen if this stuff will settle down by around 1pm which it is supposed to according to the dudes with the doppler radar.<br /><br />Meanwhile, let's look back over what there is to recount in the last couple of months.<br /><br />When I last left you, faithful reader, I was recounting a fun late-ish January trip to my home away from home (and the true home of my heart), Austin, TX. Upon my return, I began to build up my new Surly Long Haul Trucker touring bike in earnest. Here is how it went:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Frame/fork: Surly LHT 60cm</span> (in the rather boring Tan colourway, and made of the rather boilerplate 4130 cromo)<br />-This plus a nice Cane Creek 100 headset were had for a fantastic price from my pals over at <a href="http://smartbikeparts.com/" target="_blank">Smart Bike Parts</a>. I'd like to throw in another plug here for these guys. It is the most non-attitude-y bike shop I've ever had the good fortune of having to ride past almost every day. If you're decent company, they might even offer you a beer.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wheels: Mavic A119 36h rims laced 3-cross (of course) to Shimano Deore XT hubs</span><br />-These came from Rocky Mountain Cyclery via ebay (new) and were a great deal at $150 shipped! Not terribly light, but just good strong touring wheels.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cranks: 175mm Shimano Deore LX mountain bike triple (48/36/26)<br /></span>-Got this from Blue Sky Cycling, some mail order place with a good price on it. Had advice from some to not get a MTB triple as the gearing would be too low for descending, but as I'm not planning on taking this thing down Alpe D'Huez yet, I think it's going to be just fine. In town, I have yet to go onto the big ring even with the strongest tailwind.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The rest </span>of the buildout was made from a hodgepodge of internet and locally sourced new and used stuff. Brakes (these nice Shimano BR-550 cantilevers that are made to work right with road levers), Shimano cassette (11-32)/chain and a Cateye computer came from Jenson USA, saddle and fenders from Smart Bike Parts, tires and cables from Boulevard Bikes in Logan Square, misc. used stuff included seatpost, derailleurs (Ultegra triple FD, Tiagra long-cage RD, Dura Ace bar-end shifters from a great little craigslist purchase a while back, like $60!). Thus a bike is born!!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/LHTbuild.jpg" /><br /><br />I put this together over a few days and I think I rode it to work once or twice before finally getting a nice enough late-winter, snow-partially-melted day to take it on a bit of a longer ride. On said day, I went on a decent little 15 mile ride down to the lake front and around through downtown and back home. Still lots of cruddy ice around the path, rode into stuff I had to get off and walk out of a couple of times, but it felt good to do something more than commute to work. Here we are thawing out in the Millenium Park parking garage entrance across from the Art Institute Modern Wing (winter cycling tip, this is a pretty nice place to defrost. They have a sort of big baseboard heater thingy in there and you are free to chill (no pun intended).<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/LHTearlyride2010.jpg" /><br /><br />Did a lot of latex glove under regular ski gloves riding and right at the end of the winter, I wondered if it might be good to ride in those sort of heavier, much more reusable dishwashing gloves. Going to try that out next winter, will report back. Another big end of winter deal for me is that, after riding all winter in my regular Specialized "spinning" shoes with plastic bags over my feet inside them (if you will remember my fancy shoe covers came apart at the end of last winter), I was inquiring into buying a pair of the super heavy duty <a href="http://gearjunkie.com/lake-cycling-winter-biking-boots" target="_blank">Lake winter cycling boots</a> from Smart Bike Parts, owner Eric incredibly (at least it was incredible to me!) offered to sell me his that he had ridden that year. I guess if you are a bike shop owner you like to keep rotating your personal stock. I will not divulge the very generous terms this deal went down with, but suffice it to say, I feel VERY lucky that I'm the same shoe size as him! Thanks Eric. So, I'm ready to ride all over next winter, but HEY, no hurry or anything! Seriously...<br /><br />Things are all good with this ride. I did have one unfortunate experience involving the infrastructure of the City of Chicago and a real hole-in-one. I was riding north on California in a rush to get to my Spanish class. At the light at North Ave. I was sitting there and went to change the display on my computer to see the time. You do this by sort of clicking it down on this pivot point that is part of the mount and it's a little kludge-y, i.e. sometimes it doesn't get seated right and won't click. So in my big heavy gloves, I went to try and reseat it on the mount and it went skittering out of my hand and bounced twice across the pavement right in front of a car as the light was turning green. I was fully prepared to throw down and make that car wait a second when it took one more bounce (this is a total of about 6' of bouncing) and just plopped straight into the one rather tiny hole in a giant non-holy manhole. UNBELIEVABLE!! It's in the hole!! At that point, I just said to myself "unbelievable" and rode onward. Here is the computer eating manhole.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/computereatingmanhole.jpg" /><br /><br />Oh well, it wasn't that great of a computer anyway.<br /><br />Anyway, I just got back this week from a 2 week mega road trip back down to SXSW and all the way around the horn of Louisiana, Georgia, NC all the way to NYC and then home. 4200 miles were put on the odometer. Need to do lots of bike riding to make up for that!!<br /><br />And bike riding I must do. I am now officially in training for the MS150 coming up in two weeks in Houston. I've got a lot of work to do. Got back in the swing of things this week with a 25 mile ride Tuesday (came home from out of town Monday night), regular commute Wednesday, 50 miles Thursday and regular commute Friday (yesterday). More on this ride and my working up to it later, as I'm about to take off, the rain seems to have stopped.<br /><br />I will leave you with a pic from the foot of the Chicago Botanical Gardens taken on my morning ride of 2 days ago. Happiness!<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/LOOKearlyride2010.jpg" /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-57430051753191486682010-02-03T21:34:00.000-08:002010-02-03T21:56:23.989-08:00bad blogger redux<span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">100203<br /><br />I'm not a good blogger. Especially in the winter, which seems counterintuitive. Unless moderate S.A.D. makes one not want to blog. Not a lot of "epic" rides to go on about in the winter either. Anyway...<br /><br />I finished the Paramount rebuild some time ago. It turned out really, really nice. Took it down to Austin and got some good riding in a couple of weeks ago. Here's a pic in all it's new-ish glory:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/paramountrefurbcomplete.jpg" /><br /><br />I had a whole big ordeal with the wheels. Bought some wheels from a guy on eBay who turned out to be a royal chiseler and sold me some wheels that, upon arrival, turned out to be fairly damaged in ways that all his super detailed pictures just happened not to picture! Quelle surprise! The rear axle was bent. Someone who had no idea how to use a tire lever (Rule 1: Don't use a steel one with alloy rims!) had mangled parts of the front rim and someone without the proper spoke tool had made a big mess of a few of the spoke nipples, and these were some exotic Shimanos with the nipples on the hub and whatnot. I had to have several pointless emails with the guy to find out that he had no interest whatsoever in taking responsibility for this (though he never disputed any of the conditions I described) saying "you can't expect them to be perfect, they are used wheels" and other such pablum. I don't expect perfect, just AS DESCRIBED YOU ASS! Anyway, I had to do a full-court eBay dispute on this guy. Lengthy explanation, photos, even a video on youtube<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Efam8lNgcGw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Efam8lNgcGw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />showing the messed up rotation of the bent axle.<br /><br />In the end I, of course, prevailed (actually, I was pretty surprised I prevailed, but boy did it feel good! What a schmuck!). I got my money back and just in the nick of time found a terrific set of 09 Mavic Aksiums for sale on CL. Nice local guy from the Spidermonkey racing team selling them for $150, in perfect condition, nice normal spokes/nipples, easy to maintain, very attractive, etc. Things seem to work out most of the time. I got them the afternoon before departure, went home and built the bike until about 10 at night, finished, took it apart and put it in a box. It went down on the flight with me uneventfully.<br /><br />Didn't get to ride the first full day as it was raining like the flood for the entire day. Halfway through Saturday morning though, it cleared up and I took off. Some weird noises eventually led me to discover that I was light a shim for the rear cassette, it was jangling around. Fortunately it was rideable and I rode downtown to Mellow Johnny's where a nice fellow fixed me right up for $7 while I had a coffee. After that, fuggedabahdit! I was tearing up the place. I missed this bike!!! Ended up riding around with the missus and mi hermano for another 17 or so miles that day. S on her newly reminted Trek 500.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/trek500refurbcomplete.jpg" /><br /><br />Looking good, right?! Ready for some hilly city riding with that triple on the front.<br /><br />Went out with my pal Jason and some of his buddies for an east of Austin trek into the sticks. We headed out from south Austin and went out through Buda and Webberville and such. Ended up doing 42 miles as our navigator broke a spoke on his posh Ksyrium SL wheels. Made me glad to have normal old 32 spoke 3-cross wheels. That thing went all crazy when one spoke broke, rear braking was out of the question. Fun ride and great company anyway. We were buzzed by a humorless mob of Cat 1 and 2 cyclists at one point maybe 50 deep. As long as you guys aren't having any fun out there! I'm watching you! Otherwise, just very occasional cars and a couple of dogs having a go at us. Good times, fantastic weather (a little chilly actually, but I'm definitely not complaining!).<br /><br />Since my return, I have completed the morphing of the Surly Pacer into someone else's future bike. Going through the process of estrangement with my once trusty steed. Shorn of it's preferred grupo, it's sort of alien and offputting through no fault of it's own. We had many good miles together, but it's time to move on. Still my daily ride for maybe another week though. Still pretty ripping too. I must have hit 24 mph on the way home up Kedzie this eve.<br /><br />My new Long Haul Trucker frame is coming into my hands tomorrow. The nice folks over at Smart Bike Parts are even giving it a free frame saver treatment for me. Thanks guys! I think it will take me about a week to get this built up. Will be posting!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-78282960779776667112010-01-03T21:09:00.000-08:002010-01-03T21:57:12.259-08:00winter building<span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">100103<br /><br />A good new year to you, loyal and inscrutable reader.<br /><br />Bikes are on the move again. I am in a mad scramble to sort out a new bike situation for Austin, as we are headed there in about 10 days. My wife's bike that is down there has a number of issues.<br /><br />1) It's really a bit too small<br />2) The rear wheel is biting the dust in a big way (have had numerous spokes replaced numerous times now and new ones just keep breaking) every couple of days of riding<br />3) It's a friction shifting 12 speed in a town where it's not a terrible idea to have a triple chainring.<br /><br />SO, I resolved after our last trip all the way back in early Sept. to sort out some modern-ish parts and to convert the Trek 500 that has of late been mothballed here in Chicago in favor of the (admittedly much nicer) Look 194 that she's been riding for the last year.<br /><br />Here's a shot of the Trek in it's hodge-podge-ish previous state. It has pretty ancien brakes, original Suntour 12 speed stuff, some nice 36-spoke Deep Vs but built on pretty "vintage" Malliard 500 hubs. Just kind of a grab bag of stuff.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/100103_01_trek500_1.jpg" /><br /><br />and here it is in it's nearly complete new "Stealth bomber" incarnation. I think it's looking rather nice (iPhone pic notwithstanding)!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/100103_02_trek500_2.jpg" /><br /><br />It is now sporting a Shimano Sora 8-speed triple setup with a Sugino XD300 crankset all culled from some good bargain hunting on CL and eBay. All that is rolling on a Mavic Cosmic wheelset with decals removed and Panaracer Messenger tires from the previous setup. A much more flattering setup for a pretty quality frame. I'm just waiting on some interrupter levers to cable up the brakes and she'll be all set.<br /><br />As for myself, having sold my Felt 85 back in the late summer to finance other obsessions of the moment, I am currently bikeless in Austin. My brother likes this state of affairs just fine as he has moved into a considerably less-cavernous domicile since my last trip, but I'm going to have to try and stuff a bike in the guest room as I can't be bikeless!<br /><br />This bike will be the trusty old Paramount. I picked it up from UV Metal Arts today and it really just looks incredible. I had to forgo decals as they supposedly would not deal with powdercoating temps well and would yellow, but after seeing it in it's naked monochrome glory, I'm not missing the decals anyway. I took it straight over to Boulevard Bikes and got a new headset put in as the Shimano 600 that was on there showed some pitting and you could feel it too. They had a nice Tange headset there for me and all seemed to enjoy the new paint job, which Kevin described as "root beer." I like that. It's a dark graphite-ish color with an undercoating of copper flakes, so it's got a very subtle orange-ish tint in the sunlight, kind of looks like a coffee-ish/stout-ish tone to my somewhat colorblind self.<br /><br />Here are some pics of it.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/100103_03_UVpmount1.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/100103_04_UVpmount2.jpg" /><br /><br />Here it is swaddled in the basement.<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/100103_05_UVpmount3.jpg" /><br /><br />I am lacking wheels (on the way) and an adapter clamp for my front derailleur (scavenged for the Trek, hopefully will pick one up tomorrow) and that's about all that's stopping me. Hopefully I'll have this thing built by the end of the week. Not sure yet about transportation logistics. It'd be cheapest to fly both of these down, but I may ship the Trek. Better figure it out pretty soon!<br /><br />Perhaps you are wondering where all the other parts for the Paramount are coming from? (Probably not, but I'm going to tell you anyway as you must be a glutton for punishment getting this far anyway.) Well, they are being mostly reclaimed from the Surly Pacer that has been my trusty steed for the last year plus. I have also been squirreling away enough parts to convert this over to a decent setup and am going to pass this along to a friend and will shortly (cash allowing) fill this hole with a bonafide touring bike setup. I'm thinking Long Haul Trucker. More on that soon. Here is the almost totally converted Pacer. I rode it in the blistering cold yesterday and it performed well save for the vintage brakes on it. Riding on the hoods especially and really just generally (I had been squeezing DuraAce 7700s for the last year on it), the single pivot older Shimano brakes I had on there just didn't seem to be doing the trick. So, once I source some reasonable brakes and wrap the bars for real, this thing will be taking it's leave. Thanks a bunch Surly Pacer, that was an enjoyable couple thousand miles. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/100103_06_surly.jpg" /><br /><br />Finally, all the old parts off of the Trek 500 especially the pretty nice wheelset seemed like a shame to not put to use and since I'm kind of blowing through a bit of money with all this, I realized it'd be a splendid pairing with the reasonably decent old Raleigh Marathon frame/fork I've had kicking around in the garage for about the last 2-ish years. I kind of figured it'd never ride again, but that was mostly because it just didn't seem worth the trouble to sort out a decent setup for it. Turns out it should make a pretty decent bike for someone and will at least put a modest dent in the parts budget for all this other nonsense above.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/100103_07_raleigh.jpg" /><br /><br />Any pretty tall dudes (5'11" to 6'3") looking for a hardy city bike for a pretty reasonable price, drop me a line!<br /><br />Here is my impromptu winter shop. I didn't cannibalize the piano this year, just doing it in a more temporary fashion. One old rug and a Rhodes 73 to lean things against and wrenching can happen. This weekend in the shop was sponsored by the delicious bottle of Half-Acre Daisy Cutter and a bunch of episodes of Radiolab.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/100103_08_shop.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/100103_09_shop.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/100103_10_shop.jpg" /><br /><br />I leave you now with this great <a href="http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/fitting.htm" target="_blank">sizing article</a> from Peter White Cycles. I think it puts the lie to some of the voodoo sizing information that is being purveyed all over creation. Bikes are pretty simple and they are one case where I think an inquisitive mind and a bit of common sense and trial and error is the best prescription for a quality bike fit. <br /><br />Stay warm!<br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-90987254777896333632009-12-23T14:36:00.000-08:002009-12-23T14:50:03.101-08:00Snowy riding<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">091213<br /><br />Just got home from a 30 minute, fairly nerve-wracking ride home. Let's call it tension in slow-motion. I left work in a sort of middling sleet/snowstorm with about 1.5 to 2" of fresh mess on the road. It was out ahead of the plows, mostly just an already driven-on mix of packed snow and slush here and there.<br /><br />Cruising along at an average of about 9 mph, I was sort of shimmying around in the car tire tracks for several blocks until I finally got to some road with a fairly undriven strip along the side. This stuff is much better to ride in as it kind of holds you in place better than sliding around in some hard packed stuff that the cars have had their way with.<br /><br />It's fairly shocking (well, I guess it's really not), just how little cars seem to notice or care that you are making your way in a pretty precarious fashion on two wheels right next to them. I had a sort of vague visualization of slowly sliding over and getting my leg run over or my head crushed by a tunnel-visioned driver at about 18mph. The slow horror! I guess it helped me keep focused though.<br /><br />I am just a little bit proud to say that I did not tip over at all in my 4.2 mile commute and kept a cool head at all times. It was ALMOST fun at times, those times being when there weren't any cars around (few and far between).<br /><br />Anyway, kudos are due to a couple of things:<br />-Schwalbe Marathon tires. Kept a pretty good grip in this "wintry mix" from hell.<br />-Fenders. Let's hear it for "wheelbrows!" I am a big proponent.<br /><br />Here are some pics from the end of the ride beginning with a shot of the conditions from my front porch. Feast your eyes on this mess my southern friends!<br /><br />Days are getting longer again anyway. Only 3 weeks until Austin!<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/snowyride1.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/snowyride2.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/snowyride3.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/snowyride4.jpg" /><br /><br />And just for good measure, here is my annual winter message once again (actually one more kudo here to the intrepid and unknown snow sculptor who crafted this masterpiece).<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/f---winter.jpg" /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-20728886367868935322009-12-19T20:39:00.000-08:002009-12-23T14:36:06.485-08:00Paramount refurb begins<span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">091219<br /><br />Not much going on these days in a bikely way as you can probably tell from the extremely infrequent posts. I graduated from physical therapy this week. My right arm is at least about as strong as my left. However, the physical therapy I did made me realize that I have some pretty weak muscle groups altogether in my upper body. I'm going to try and keep up the good work to sort that out. I got two pages of exercises to take away. Perhaps if I bulk up a bit it will hide the GIANT bone sticking up out of my shoulder a little bit.<br /><br />About a week and a half ago I did go ahead and take my long dormant Paramount frame in to have it stripped and powder coated. I had every intention of sending it along to Waterford Precision Cycles for the full factory refurb. However, once I started looking at it critically, I realized it would be a VERY expensive prospect to make it something like "as good as new." I was discussing this with my friend Lee and he told me he was about to take a load of frames over to <a href="http://uvmetalarts.com/powder-coating/powder-coating.html" target="_blank">UV Metal Arts</a><br />. After seeing the bike-centric focus that Yuval there seems to have and checking my bank balance, I decided that keeping it local would probably be a lot better move overall.<br /><br />I dropped it off and picked out a color that looked (to my semi-colorblind self) like the sort of gray/graphite color used on the original Paramounts. I also called Waterford and found out that their decal sets would not do well at the curing temps of powder coating clear coat process, so it's going to be a naked Paramount. I reckon that should keep me in a bit more of a stealth mode in terms of the ever-present threat of thievery. Anyway, I'm hoping to get it back in the next few days and to get it set up to take with me down to Austin in a couple of weeks.<br /><br />Here are some pics from dropping it off last week:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/uv1.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/uv2.jpg" /><br /><br />This is the color I'm going for. (Nice picture, I know, I know!....)<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/uv3.jpg" /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-55623321685363662152009-11-15T16:05:00.001-08:002009-11-15T16:21:48.489-08:00...bowie<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">091115<br /><br />Just glancing at my last post made me wonder whether it was just a thought about how to introduce a freak bike that looked pretty funny or whether I had this:<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/f4zV4pJ8MwM&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/f4zV4pJ8MwM&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />Still ringing around in my head. I must admit to having watched it quite a few times. "That's pretty freaky Bowie."<br /><br />Here's another more understated "freak" bike. It's freakishly small, but has a full adult sized seat. My wife pointed it out to me out on Milwaukee Ave. Sadly, we did not get to see this rider mount his or her steed, it'll have to be left to the imagination what sort of rider this bike takes.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/tinybike.jpg" /><br /><br />In about the only other news to report, the Bridgestone 400 I purchased and was hoping to build up for a friend arrived in a pretty oddly shaped box...<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/bridgestone400_1.jpg" /><br /><br />Upon opening, I was greeted by what looked like a great packing job. Actually, it did not look very good at all now that I think about it.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/bridgestone400_2.jpg" /><br /><br />Something doesn't look right here.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/bridgestone400_3.jpg" /><br /><br />That is one narrow rear dropout spacing. Maybe it was for some older exotic track bike hubs, a one off for Bridgestone?<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/bridgestone400_4.jpg" /><br /><br />Nope, actually it looks like this bike was crushed to death. At first I thought the guy I bought it from was just an unconscionable dolt, but then some things started to seem weird. First off, he shipped it from some sort of fancy bike outfitter place, so it seemed weird that such a chap would put a bike frame in a giant empty box with some pipe insulation on it. Then I began noticing that the label looked kind of like it had been taped on more than once. Finally I took a look at the dimensions on the label and it became clear that this box was just a UPS warehouse special. I guess someone must have dropped a pallet full on this thing and just pulled the bike out of the annihilated bike box it was in and stuck it in this cavernous thing, taped the label on and off it went with nary a mention. I could've dug something like "Hi, this is UPS, we destroyed your shipment but thought you might still like to receive it. Enjoy!" <br /><br />Between this and my f-ed up front wheel from August, I'm not feeling much love for brown these days. What can brown do for you? I'll tell you what it can do for me, don't destroy my shit! Thanks.<br /><br />Going to the orthopedic surgeon again tomorrow morning. We'll see what the verdict is, if anything. I have been doing pretty well, but have only ridden a bike around the block a few times thus far. I've had a few unfortunate bouts with overdoing it after feeling good for a few days, so I'm trying to not continue being an idiot. Might try a ride this week. Dying for it.<br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-55422679795596695072009-10-29T07:29:00.000-07:002009-10-29T07:38:12.577-07:00that's pretty freaky...<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">091029<br /><br />Freakbike of the month:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/freekbike_0909.jpg" /><br /><br />What the?! That is some freaky geometry. Sadly, I did not see this being ridden. It's so tiny I could just stand over it, but perhaps it's a tall freak bike to a 4'8" person?<br /><br />Not much else to report. My arm is mending pretty reasonably it seems. I'm still having a hard time getting used to the shockingly big collarbone end popping up out of my right shoulder, but I guess that's the new me.<br /><br />I have not tried to get on a bike yet. The guy said 4 to 6 weeks, but I have improved a lot and it's tempting to just go try and putt around the neighborhood. I probably shouldn't push it though, I've been pushing it enough just doing regular household stuff I think. It's coming along though.<br /><br />I've been finding a few too-good-too-pass-up deals on some bike bits lately. I have a back burner build to do for a friend, so perhaps these things will come in handy:<br /><br />Gorgeous 57cm Bridgestone 400 frame/fork with BB and chain: $105 shipped to me<br />Shimano Tiagra derailleurs and DA bar end shifters: $65<br /><br />My next thing to do is to start trying to get my Paramount refurbished though, so I'm hoping to build something I can make a little extra scratch from for the fund to do this.<br /><br />I'm missing some pretty good riding weather these days. It's real hard to drive almost everywhere, I am just getting used to not feeling like a bike when I pull up behind a long line of cars in stopped traffic. Oh yeah, I don't get to go by on the side, I'm part of the problem now! Boo Hoo!!<br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-9002654142979919942009-10-19T19:05:00.000-07:002009-10-19T19:56:59.208-07:00injured reserve<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">091019<br /><br />Dateline: Yankee Springs, MI<br /><br />I do believe I mentioned a few posts back that I was building up my very first mountain bike meant for mountain biking (I spent many a sad year riding a mountain bike in the city, but we won't dwell on that here). Anyway, it all came off pretty well, I found 3 great to good deals on nice used 29er parts/frame and added a new rear derailleur and seatpost and this was birthed:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/yankee01.jpg" /><br /><br />I have had it put together for a few weeks now. I had to learn about hydraulic disc brake bleeding and do that, I had a near miss with a pretty cut down steerer on a very attractively priced used White Brothers fork (it worked with a little selective stem selection!), but all was well in the end (of part 1 at least). I rode it about 5 or 6 miles in town Saturday to a friend's house to see how it was and did some critical seat adjustment from that and I was ready to go hit the trails on Sunday.<br /><br />My friend Shea and myself headed over to <a href="http://mmba.org/index.php?option=com_trailguide&task=trail&cid[]=4" target="_blank">Yankee Springs, MI</a>. It's a pretty good haul from Chicago, but I would say (even in light of subsequent events) well worth the drive. It's a 13 mile loop of intermediate difficulty, and October is a pretty great time to go see this place. I actually appreciated fall for once! Hooray.<br /><br />Checking the route:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/yankee02.jpg" /><br />We're underway:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/yankee03.jpg" /><br />Nice colors:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/yankee04.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/yankee05.jpg" /><br /><br />We were stopping at semi-regular intervals to appreciate the gorgeous scenery (and also to rest!). The new bike was performing pretty terrifically, though I have to see if I can find some more purpose-made dropout spacers for the rear wheel (the On One frame is a combo single-speed/geared design and one suggestion for holding the rear wheel in the right spot I read and used was to put a pair of chainring bolts as spacers in the dropouts, but it seems like a rather crude method and I found the wheel was scooching slightly under heavy torque). Otherwise, the bike was a dream and was much easier and more enjoyable to ride than the Gary Fisher rental I had used a couple months before at <a href="http://my.execpc.com/~jwamser/KettleSouth.html" target="_blank">Kettle Moraine, WI</a>. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/yankee06.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/yankee07.jpg" /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/yankee08.jpg" /><br /><br />Here is a pretty funny digression for anyone who has spent any time working on audio equipment wiring. Shea had a fraying rear derailleur cable on his hands, so he did what any self-respecting audio geek would do, he crimped an <a href="http://www.google.com/products?q=EDAC+pins&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=2x_dSs7YCI2IMqG05OsN&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCIQrQQwAw" target="_blank">EDAC pin</a><br /> on it!<br /><br />Ingenuity:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/yankee09.jpg" /><br />The right way to ride:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/yankee10.jpg" /><br /><br />Everything was going along swimmingly until I had to get my high-school BMX style foolishness on and try to bypass the easy root/stair steps down this one particular downhill berm thingy and go for the high side bowl ride type line. What didn't seem like it would play such a major role was the cut-off tree root sticking out along my intended path. This very quickly grabbed a hold of my front wheel and I went ass over tea kettle to the (thankfully) soft ground below (and I mean a few good feet below). Fortunately everything came down on my right shoulder (does that come off as facetious?). I laid on the ground just trying to get my half-breath knocked out of me self back into speaking shape as Shea sensibly made his way down to right behind me and asked "are you alright?" I said "I don't think so." At first I thought I may have broken or dislocated my shoulder/arm, but I realized I could flop it around fairly convincingly, so I decided to get up and see what was going on. It had a sort of electric/in shock feeling going on and I could move it pretty good, but then I hit a few spots where it was apparent that something was no longer attached correctly. Just as I was noticing that my (always very pointy and bony) end of my clavicle was sticking up quite a bit further than I was used to, a trio of guys we had been taking turns passing and being passed by rolled up. They kindly stopped to see what was going on with us and one of them announced himself as a Physical Therapist and asked if he could take a look, I gratefully obliged him and he felt me up in a very doctorly way. It only took about 15 seconds for him to tell me that I had experienced an <a href="http://www.muir-orthopedic.com/patient_ed_docs/ajs_pe_doc.htm" target="_blank">AC joint separation</a> and basically gave what turned out to be a pretty exacting diagnosis of my deal and what it's aftermath would likely be. Didn't catch your name, but thanks friendly Michigan mountain biking PT! You rule! These guys also knew the trail well so they were able to tell us that we were only about 100 yards from a medical emergency bypass spot to a service road. We proceeded to walk along (me in a pretty grimacing fashion) and make a plan for Shea to take off and go down the road to get my car and meet me back at the exit of the service road. I walked along the 1.25 miles, did a little gentle riding on the hard packed parts (this was a pretty comical sight seeing me try to get rolling without being able to put my right arm on the bars at all) and made it out in about 15 minutes or so. <br /><br />Aftermath of the wrong way to ride (and that thing that looks like a little mountain on my right shoulder IS the end of my collarbone):<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/yankee11.jpg" /><br /><br />We (and by we I mean Shea) picked up some ice and ziplocs and I began icing for the 3 hour ride back to Chicago. Fortunately it was filled with good chatting and I was able to keep my mind off of the situation pretty easily. I ended up heading over the the emergency room by about 8pm with the wife and they basically just did x-rays (diagnosis confirmed), put me in a sling and gave me a referral to an orthopedic surgeon. I went over there this morning and here's what the deal is with a shoulder separation:<br /><br />-I was a 3 on a scale of 6, so about middling severity<br />-He did not see any reason to operate unless I couldn't live with my poky collarbone<br />-4 to 6 weeks should see me back in action, provided I do the right stretches, etc<br />-I should be good as new more or less<br /><br />Lesson learned:<br /><br />-When you're 40, it's okay to take the easy line down the trail <br /><br />Sadly, it'll probably be next year before I can try again, but c'est la vie. I feel like that was a pretty cheaply bought lesson and I am going to just try and watch it a little bit. <br /><br />Back to normal bike geekery, here is what the build ended up being for my pretty awesome new (to me) 29er:<br />-On One Inbred frame<br />-White Brothers suspension fork<br />-Bontrager Race disc wheels<br />-Avid Juicy 3 brakes<br />-Truvativ single speed crankset (33)<br />-Sram stuff (9-speed cassette, RD, shifter)<br />-Conti Mountain King tires<br />-Bontrager bars<br />-Race Face seatpost and Deus headset<br />-Easton EA50 stem<br /><br />It's a nice bike!! I was able to cobble this all together for just a shade over $700. A new build I think would have been something more like $1600, so this was the only way I was going to pull off a decent bike at this juncture. Seems like it'll be a long time before I need to tinker with this formula as A) I'm getting a grip on my purchasing insanity in general and B) I'm just not as obsessed with the aesthetics of mountain bikes. I think this is a good looking bike, but it's no Serotta Legend or anything in the looks dept. <br /><br />Anyway, I'm pretty gimped out now, regular daily activities are taking 30 to 50% more time, but I'm keeping a good attitude and am very thankful I did not screw myself up much more badly. Onward! Let the healing begin.<br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-69373497492642846872009-10-10T12:28:00.000-07:002009-10-19T18:23:34.313-07:00you can do it!<span style="font-family: arial;"><font size="2"><br /><br /><br /><br />091010<br /><br /><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=getting-more-bicyclists-on-the-road" target="_blank">Here</a> is a pretty interesting article from Scientific American (discovered via <a href="http://bike-pgh.org/2009/09/2008-city-commuting-trends-are-in-how-does-pittsburgh-stack-up-nationally/" target="_blank">Bike Pittsburgh</a>) regarding the rather large national gender gap in bike commuting. The gist of it is that women are A) more risk-averse than men and B) still tend to do more of the practical, errand-running trips in a family and the conclusion drawn is that this large difference (which incidentally in not the case in most of Europe at all) tells us that existing bike infrastructure in most of the country is somewhat unsafe and also not conducive to practical trips.<br /><br />In Chicago (and many, many other cities to be fair) I would say this is all on full display. While the city has done a pretty nice job of doing all the easy and cheap stuff, i.e. painting a bunch of lines down the sides of a lot of streets and putting up cute little junior street signs with the mileage and direction to local destinations, it's the more expensive and politically difficult things that will help to close this gap and increase cycling as a real way to get things done. Where are the "safe" places to ride a bike? The lakefront (though safety is in question for this route as it is, on most decent days, a veritable Frogger game of trying not to crash into texting fixie riders passing on the left or headphone wearing rollerbladers, legs akimbo all over the route) and the North Branch and North Shore paths. Not exactly the most practical routes for your daily needs.<br /><br />Anecdotally, I see a lot of women riding down Milwaukee, etc. but it ain't the safest route in the world, and I'm a pretty reckless rider to be making that statement. It's high time for some separated bike lanes, and paint just ain't enough. In NYC where there is a nice 3 to 4 foot paint "barrier" cops and delivery vehicles are still parked all over the bike lanes along with UPS dudes rolling dollies full of stuff the wrong way down them, etc. Separate bike lanes are what will move cycling from a popular fringe activity to a real alternative to sitting in traffic fuming. One of the more promising things that I am hearing more and more about is the idea of making the street laid out this way:<br />sidewalk-bike lane-car parking-roadway-car parking-bike lane-sidewalk<br /><br />This can mostly be done with new lines and has the added benefit of making the Chicago human right of passing recklessly on the right no longer an option. This place could use some serious traffic calming anyway and the possibility of doors opening to cars rather than bikes should definitely move things in that direction. <br /><br />In the hopeful category, I'm in Clarksville, AR for a friend's wedding and right outside the Hampton Inn off the I-40 feeder road, there is a lonely little yellow "Share the Road" sign with the ubiquitous bicycle silhouette. These have been popping up in the darnedest places too. If this picture were any good at all, you'd be able to see what I'm talking about:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/sharetheroad.jpg" /><br /><br /><br /></font></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-89561776809776521392009-09-13T20:37:00.000-07:002009-09-13T21:40:40.291-07:00north shore century<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">090913<br /><br />My first attempt at a 100 miles solo ride began in a scatterbrained fashion. I left the house without my helmet, gloves or glasses at 6:10 am, I got my key out of my seat bag turned around and got those. So I'm off at 6:10 am for Evanston, headed up Kedzie to the North Shore Trail. The streets of Chicago are a beautiful thing at the crack of dawn. If this pic was at all in focus, you'd be able to tell what I was talking about, but here is a delightfully empty Kedzie Ave:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/nsc01.jpg" /><br /><br />Got to the registration at 6:45, picked up my packet and hit the route. This was a start-whenever-you-like ride, so there were just a smattering of people (total riders was not more than 1600 for all distances, so it was pretty mellow altogether).<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/nsc02.jpg" /><br /><br />After riding for a few miles, one nice fellow rider (thanks buddy!) finally let me know my seat bag was open. Turns out that after I got my key back out to get in the house and get my helmet, etc. I had left it open. Nice move dude. The only thing that made this not a total disaster was that I did not put my little ziploc with ID, credit card, cash and house key back in the bag after I got it out to get in the house. It went in my jersey after. Now, I can put a lot of stuff in this bag, it's fairly large (and has a tendency to swing when I ride, my friend Ryan is reminded of <a href="http://www.truck-nuts.com/index.html" target="_blank">these</a> when he sees it swinging)<br /></span></span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/trucknutz.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />At any rate, I just ended up losing half of my "food" stash (quotation marks are meant to indicate doubt at the proposition of calling things like GU and Clif Shotblocks food, but you get the idea. Fortunately my multi-tool, tubes and cartridges were all still in there.</span></span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I was annoyed nonetheless.<br /><br />It was quite a brisk morning out there. low-ish 60s and super duper moist and overcast. By moist, I mean I had dew all over me like I had been sitting in someone's yard overnight. It was a good 2-ish hours before the sun began to make a meaningful appearance. I got in a little 3 person line early, that turned into 4 and we were motoring along at a pretty good clip until the delightful roads of the "North Shore" intervened. For some rich "villages" and suburbs, the greater north-of-Chicago area has some of the most bootleg roads in this part of the state. I mean, REALLY, many of them make Chicago's average road look pretty nice, and that is not an easy feat. I had already hit a couple of large bumps that almost caused my seat tube mounted bottle cage to spit out it's large, rather heavy bottle of gatorade, but had managed to catch it and put it back. Going around a corner up in Glenview or somewhere at about 18 mph, it finally popped out again and did a neat trick of flipping over into my rear wheel, popping open and disgorging it's contents all over my wheel. I stopped, bent my bottle cage into a tighter grip, put the empty back in, realized that whole mess had also knocked my chain off, put that back and began to try and claw back to my little group, but the moment had passed. I ended up passing a couple of them later no longer working together. Ah well. We went for a while on this nice path that looked to me to be brand spankin' new. The Skokie Valley bike path (?)<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/nsc03.jpg" /><br /><br />Check out the fresh sod and freshly tarmac with newly painted lines. Nice!!<br /><br />When the sun finally came out about an hour later, I realized I had also forgotten to put on any sunscreen. I hereby resolve to make a list for future rides.<br />1) Zip up your seat bag, you dumb****!<br />2) Bring your helmet, etc.<br />3) Put on sunscreen<br />4) Make sure you have tight bottle cages.<br /><br />I'm sure I'll think of some more things once they too go wrong.<br /><br />At the first rest stop around 30 miles, I found that there were ample power bars, shot blocks, etc. and a nice gentleman volunteer went to his car and got some ancient 15spf sunscreen for me too. I left there feeling much better. Jumped into a line with a couple of guys that just came up around me and rode the next 25 miles with them. This was at a burning pace (for me at least), averaging about 23/24 mph. It definitely helped my average, but it was killing me after that much time. They stopped for a moment, I carried on and they passed me shortly after never to be seen again. This was around the time we got to the lake shore at Kenosha. It was a pretty scene up there.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/nsc04.jpg" /><br /><br />I slowed my roll considerably after the blistering speed of the previous stretch as things also seemed to begin to be much more slightly uphill and headwindy than before. Puttered along around an average of 16 for a while though after another rest stop I had a bit more of a second wind and got moving again okay.<br /><br />What else can I tell you? Crappy roads, a few nice ones (mostly in actual nice neighborhoods, I think that's the other side of NIMBY, nice roads IMBY!). Went through a bunch of places I kind of recognized, Glencoe, Fort Sheridan, finally to Wilmette and back down into Evanston. I pulled back into the registration zone at 105.5 miles for the ride, done in 6 hours, 15 minutes.<br /><br />More ride stats:<br />Ride time (excluding stops): 5 hours 48 minutes<br />Max speed: 27.3 mph<br />Average speed (excluding stops): 18.1 mph<br />Average speed (including stops): 16.9 mph<br />Fun quotient: 2.5 of 5 (would have been a lot more fun to have a buddy out with me, roads were killing my lower back)<br />Total mileage including my ride to and from Evanston: 127!<br /><br />A personal best time-wise anyway. I think this may wrap it up for the road riding "season" such as it was. Methinks I'll not repeat this bone-jarring event again. The roads at the Coal City Century were like butter overall compared to this, and that's including gravel sections and all. Pay for some roads North Shore!!!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/NSC05.jpg" /><br /><br />I'm going to be off the bike for about a week and a half starting this Thursday as I leave town to make a new album in Kansas and play a couple of shows with <a href="http://kidcongopowers.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Kid Congo Powers</a>. Probably ready for a little extended recovery time anyway.<br /><br />In other cycling news:<br /><br />WAY TO GO VALVERDE! He looked to be cracking on the final climb of the Vuelta's stage 14 today, but then just found the extra gumption to actually extend his lead with no help from teammates. Way to suffer dude, my hat is off to you.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3747048825501588009.post-7795833064350684922009-09-07T21:36:00.000-07:002009-09-07T22:19:54.463-07:00the week ahead...<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">090907<br /><br />Going to ride the <a href="http://www.evanstonbikeclub.org/NSC/" target="_blank">North Shore Century</a> solo this coming Sunday. That'll be another first. I guess it should end up at a solid 200km as I'm going to ride up to Evanston and back too. Does this qualify as epic?! Probably not... Personally epic?<br /><br />I reckon I need more riding buddies around here. I only have one who will tackle such rides with me and he's going to be out of town. The next closest one is in Houston, TX (Doh!). Anyhoo, I'm considering trying to make my own gels as per the <a href="http://www.cyclingtipsblog.com/2008/09/make-your-own-powergel/" target="_blank">cycling tips blog</a>. Can homecooking save me from eating soylent green? We shall see. I am sort of addicted to these <a href="http://www.honeystinger.com/products.php" target="_blank">Honey Stinger</a> natural energy gummies, but I bought a gross of them a while back, so I'm still "holding."<br /><br />I have been pretty beat up over the last week since the HHH ride. My knee was in pretty sketchy shape after, and then Friday I came down with some pretty harsh lower back pulled muscle action. Was walking like a crippled old man Friday night, Saturday day, feeling a bit better Sunday and finally felt pretty human again today. Did my first two days in a row off the bike in quite some time (since May?). Got back on the iron horse today for a 30 mile ride around with my lady and JBI today, but I better put in another good solid 50 before Sunday I would think.<br /><br />Got to go see a man about (hopefully) saving my deformed front wheel (see last post) tomorrow. It's not turning out to be easy to find a couple year old Mavic Ksyrium front wheel in black thus far, so I'm going to go to a straight up posh shop tomorrow and see what sort of tricks they may have up their sleeves for getting a pretty severe hop out of a low spoke count wheel.<br /><br />I'm in the midst of building up a 29er now. I would say "this just in" or some such, but I've been putting this mess together for some weeks now and just not sharing about it. I found a guy on a roadie forum selling a very well-kept <a href="http://www.on-one-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Slot_Dropout_Inbred_29er_29.html" target="_blank">On One Inbred</a> frame with a smattering of parts still attached for the low, low price of $150 plus shipping and it just tripped my mental "buy order" to put one of these together. Another guy with some Bontrager disc wheels, another with a White Bros. fork (so cut down it just BARELY fits, but thanks to a really short headtube, I think it fits nonetheless. Who needs to cut their fork down that low?!? Just use a few spacers and flip the stem for the love of God!), and I'm pretty much in biz. I'm waiting on a rear derailleur now, but I think it'll be here in a few days. Here are some pics of the beginnings of a (hopefully) fun offroad bike slash crappiest part of unplowed-streets-winter bike (I can put my <a href="http://www.suomityres.fi/hkplstud.html" target="_blank">Nokian ice tires</a> on this thing in a few months. A few short months....... (sigh)<br /><br />This:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/inbred1.jpg" /><br /><br />plus this:<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/inbred2.jpg" /><br /><br />equals this!<br /><img src="http://www.jasonward.org/bike_curious_pics/inbred3.jpg" /><br /><br />I'm beginning to learn some ins and outs of hydraulic disc brakes which is kind of making me shudder with recognition of my car tinkering past. I don't miss prying back disc pads, brake fluid, etc. but I guess once I get all this crap together I can just enjoy some quality braking.<br /><br />There is an embarrassment of bike racing on the interwebs right now. The Vuelta is in full swing, dudes started coming unhinged in the mountains just today. Also, the considerably less dramatic first stage of the Tour of Missouri happened today as well. Mark Cavendish is the 90s Chicago Bulls of cycling, not a terribly exciting afternoon of watching to see who's going to win a flat stage that he is riding in. Great sprinter, but makes for a pretty boring finish to some often boring (flat stages) overall days. Chalk up another vote for <a href="http://rouleureditor.blogspot.com/2009/07/race-radio.html" target="_blank">losing the radios</a> (Thanks team Motorola!).<br /><br />Finally, from the same blog as above, I had to repost this (Thanks Rebecca!):<br /><br /><a href="http://rouleureditor.blogspot.com/2009/09/it-could-happen-to-you.html" target="_blank">(I want it to happen to me!)</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07623092773166302259noreply@blogger.com0