Another Boring Post

I haven't really had any big cycling news, so I guess I can fill in with some mundane stuff. I don't even have any pictures! I was supposed to do a little practice for a team time trial coming up on May 9Th. (My birthday!), but it turns out 50% of my team is out of commission at the moment. I have my doubts we'll make the date, let alone get a practice in. SO instead I went out on the "Golden Arrow" that's the gold Transition Expert time trial bike, and put 40 training miles on. Things went, well and I was able to keep the heart rate at 140 average, and run an average of 17.6 mph. considering traffic lights getting out of and back in town, I consider that a success. It also highlighted my need for a better pair of cycling shorts. If I have learned a thousand times before, you get what you pay for!
Progress on the Masi is going slow but good. My Reynolds Ouzo Pro all carbon fork came in and compliments the frame beautifully. I won a set of Dura ace 7700 brakes from Ebay. for 56 bucks with shipping! They are a bit older, but weigh basically the same as brand new Ultegra brakes (about 320 grams). When I add the Jagwire carbon cartriges with Ti hardware, they will probably weigh in at around 290-300 grams. I've decided to run the old standard of 26.0mm handlebars. After a bit of research, the smaller diameter is usually lighter and stiffer, and most likely what the bike came with new, although 26.0 bars are still used( my Country Road Bob has 26's). I've got my eye on a pair of Kestrel carbon kevlar bars that have yellow and red accents, that will match the bike perfectly! Of course when I cover all that with bar tape who will know! If I get the bars and a Syntace f-99 stem, the combo will weigh less than 300 grams! SO, I'm well on my way to finishing a very light high performance Italian road bike! Cost so far is $782.05. In that total is all shipping charges, and includes frame, carbon fork, ceramic bearing bottom bracket, seatpost, and brakes.
Well, Im out!
Darren

It's Here! Lackluster Time Trial.

It arrived! What a beautiful frame. I can't believe this is a five year old frame! The previous owner took such good care of this bike that it doesn't hardly look used. The Masi is an Italian bike manufactured with the precision and flair usually reserved for Ferrari and Lamborghini! Now the quest to get it built up will begin. It did come with a bottom bracket with ceramic bearings, FSA headset, and a really nice Thompson seat post, so I guess the next step will be to acquire a fork. I've got a couple in mind, but I'm eyeballing a Reynolds Ouzo Pro full carbon fork. It is going cheap on ebay because it is cut for a smaller frame, so there is little interest. The good part though, is it will fit mine perfectly! I typically under bid and get beat to the punch, but sometimes I get lucky! If I get lucky, I can have a frame and fork of this caliber for possibly less than 700 bucks! I know that seems like a lot, but Bought new, this set up could approach 2000 bucks! I'm hoping to get this fully built with at least Ultegra components for less that 2000 dollars. Now for the not so fun news.
I ran the first Belmont Time Trial of the season on Thursday. This time trial is put on by Fresno Cycling Club http://www.fresnocycling.com/, and has been great fun, if you can call 30 minutes of pure torture fun. Back in October, I ran my first one to establish a baseline time before I started training over the winter. Well I trained hard from October through February almost religiously, then I started slacking off in recent weeks. I figure I took off about 6-8 weeks with almost no training save for commuting to work, and weekend fun rides with Carolyn. For my first ever time trial I ran a pretty respectable 26:43 which works out to 22.45 miles per hour average. I was pretty happy with that, but there were lots of better times by people without time trial bikes, so I started working to better that time. So after everything I did this winter, including buying light, aero wheels and a pointy helmet I ran a dissapointing time of 26:39 averaging 22.51 miles per hour average. I meager 4 seconds improvement! So, That was pretty terrible, but when I do the calculation I beat myself by 132 feet. 132 feet over the course of 10 miles is nothing! I have nothing to blame but myself, and I'm going to do my best to shave 39 seconds from my time to hopefully run at 23mph. Of course that means beating my current time by nearly a quarter mile. When running at the ragged edge, it is hard to imagine myself pulling away and finishing 1315 feet ahead of my last time. At the end of my run I had spiked my heart rate at 95% which works out to 180bpm. I don't know, but I need to try and improve somehow. Well, I've got nothing to say, and It's time for work, so I'm out of here!!
Darren

New Acquisition, Miles, and Evil Master Plan!! Mwuhahahaha!!!

Hey all my loyal readers! Well both of you anyway! So, I have acquired a new, used road bike frame! It's a 2004 Masi Gran Criterium. This is an Italian thoroughbred made of some fancy type of aluminium. I am aware of the spelling of aluminium, but that's how the Brits say it, al⋅u⋅min⋅i⋅um. Go here to hear it! http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=aluminium&db=luna It just sounds so proper! Anyway it also has a really nice carbon rear that is supposedly magical in it's ride quality. I should hope it is base on the price! I won't tell how much, but I had a really tough time finding a good frame in my size for a reasonable sum. The plan is to build it up slowly over the next several months, entirely from Ebay, and Craigslist. We'll see how it goes!

We took the weekend to relax, and take care of a few errands. Carolyn was out of town last week on business so we thought we would stay home for Easter and slow down for just a second! This morning was beautiful and we took advantage of the weather and went for a ride. We actually left the house on our bikes instead of toting them to the park and then riding. This was really good because we got to put on some real miles and save some gas. It was a good idea too because Woodward park was packed with cars! On the bikes we just cruised right by and rode our favorite trail. All told, we rode a tick under 28 miles! That is a new best for Carolyn, and she did it without any trouble at all! Then I made her mad by announcing that the next mile stone would be 50 miles. She said I should let her enjoy this level for a while. Guess I wouldn't make a good girl, because I still have no idea what she was talking about!! So, like I was saying, 50 miles next!! Ha!!

Now for the evil plan. I've been trying to get my best good friend to hit the road riding with me. Lets call him "Chucky". "Chucky" is reluctant to spend the cash for a road bike at this stage, but I just happen to have a nice, well used Giant Bowery singlespeed that is just his size I'll bet! So here is the plan. I'll loan the Giant to "Chucky" and we can go riding on the singlespeeds together, so he can get used to the road bike geometry. Then he can save some cash while I'm building my road bike, and we can both have new road bikes about the same time! Then he can give me back my Giant and I can Blow it up with dynamite or something. Nah, just kidding, but I'm sure I can find a good use for it somewhere. So, if my evil plan works, I can get "Chucky" into cycling and I can add him to the running list of people I've convinced or forced into cycling. If I can get "Chucky" hooked that will make the total converts to Five!

Yeehaw!

I love My Country Road Bob!!

I love my Country Road Bob (Van Dessel). I know I've said it before, but I have finally justified my purchase! First, here is a pic of the bike. She sure is pretty, huh? Can you call a bike like a Country Road Bob a she??

Now let me tell you a little story of why I love the C.R.B. I first started searching for the C.R.B. because when commuting in the rain, regular rim brakes would get all gunked up, and make some horrible noises because of road grime and water. This compromised the braking quality and the rim life considerably. I was very specific in what I was looking for, a road geometry frame with drop handlebars, disk brakes and singlespeed gearing. I figured this would prove to be the most reliable configuration and the theory was that disk brakes would keep out of the grime and stop normally during inclement weather. You know the only bike on the planet that had all these things? That's right the C.R.B. Well it's been a very dry winter/spring, and every single day I've ridden since receiving the C.R.B. has been dry as a bone....until last night.
It had been raining heavily for a couple of hours before my commute home last night. The rain had stopped but it was really wet on the road on the way home. So, there I am riding home at after 11:00 P.M. with no starlight, no streetlights with a shiny wet street ahead of me. I was enjoying my ride and the water from the front wheel would spray up in front of my headlight creating a rather beautiful reflection back in my direction. It was quiet out, and I'm pretty much mesmerized by the light show, which is keeping my attention straight down and not out in front of me! I know not smart, but that's what happens after riding the same route several hundred time! I catch something at the top of my vision rapidly approaching! Well I'm rolling along about 18-19mph, and about 20-25 feet ahead is a parked semi tractor where there is never anything parked! I wish I could have seen my face, but my best guess is that it looked something like this........

I immediately smashed the brakes and came to a very rapid, but easily modulated sliding stop rotating 90 degrees and pointing toward the curb with about 2 inches between me and the semi! I know I can't bring back the excitement of the moment, but it was pretty crazy, that I didn't go down, or eat the rear of that truck for a midnight snack! But, the brakes worked flawlessly, and I can guarantee that if I was that stupid on my last bike, I would have been dragging myself off the ground and looking for my teeth under that truck! Did I learn a lesson? Yes! Always spend as much time, effort and money to get exactly what you want, and you can always find a way to justify it later!!!!!

Tubular Trials and Tribulations

I thought I'd waste many hours of my weekend installing my new Tufo Jet Specials onto my race wheels. I guess that was okay, because I needed to fill time as Carolyn was busy getting herself ready for her first business trip at her new company. She loves her job! I wish I could say the same for myself. The only thing I like about my job is the paychecks.....and I could love them more!

Anyway, getting the tires off the wheels was easier said than done. After wrestling the tires off I was left with a sticky nasty residue that I absolutely had to remove!

Getting years of goo and crust off of the wheels was a combination of mechanical separation and chemical goodness brought on with lacquer thinner. The peeling back of layers was tough on the old fingers, but the thinner did a number on drying out my fingers, with an added bonus of taking the red color from the shop rags and transferring it to my fingers! They still aren't the same. As you can see the results speak for themselves. These are 8 year old Lew Composite racing wheels. Still among the lightest, if not the most aerodynamic wheels ever made!

Once cleaned up I tackled the task of installing the new blue and yellow very under the radar tires! Here is where I took a shortcut. I know that there is the argument that traditional glue is stronger and less likely to have the tire separate from the wheel. Since this was my first time, and didn't want to chance ruining these expensive tires, I opted to use Tufo Extreme gluing tape. The tape comes from the Czech Republic, so the box reads, LEPICI PASKA PRO SILNICNI GALUSKY! That must be good right? Actually, the tape went on good and was very easy to use and center the tire on the wheel. The most difficult thing was trying to stretch the tire onto the wheel. After stretching the tire a couple times and a bit of finessing they went on and seem to hold onto the wheel very nicely. I figure that time trialing is mostly straight line I'm not too worried about them peeling off the wheels. The best part is after three days, they are still holding air! As you can see they look quite fetching on their wheels when you add the SRAM red cassette, they are quite colorful too!

Reasons to Love (or justify) Cycling.

I'd like to share the reasons that I love cycling. Please keep in mind that these can all be reasons to justify cycling to yourself or others. Some of these reasons may not apply to everyone, or the people you are trying to explain this to may not want to hear certain reasons, but you'll have to use your own discretion there. This list usually comes flying out as soon as someone asks, "How much did that bike cost?". You may be surprised to discover that even 500 dollars will be enough to start justifying away! I get this question at least once a week, and the more expensive the bike the more necessary it becomes to lengthen the list. So lets get started.

1. It saves gas! This reason to love cycling worked wonders when gas was nearly 5 bucks a gallon last summer/fall. During that time I usually could stop there. Now that gas is "only" around 2.25 you may have to continue. By the way, on my 14 mile commute it probably took less than 6 months to reach the 500 dollar threshold. Of course every body's calculations will be different based on length of commute, cost of bike, and fuel preference. If your car requires premium fuel you win!!

2. You get fit! This should be obvious to most people, but I still get the deer in the headlights look. So you may need to further explain that you get two thirty minute cardio sessions five days a week! This serves a double big purpose for me as I need to maintain a fitness standard as part of my job. Still, non cyclists will doubt your sanity when the cost of the bike heads toward 1000 dollars. So you may have to move to more reasons.

3. Losing weight! This closely related to number 2, but if the cost of your cycling obsession reaches well beyond the thousand dollar threshold, to will need to split this list as much as necessary. Personally, I've lost 30lbs inside of probably 6 months. I've gained about 5 back, but I call that muscle!

4. Keeping miles off the car! This may seem like number 1, but it is entirely different. It costs money to drive. Gas isn't the only cost to driving a car, there are things like maintenance, oil, tires, etc. Something to consider when regurgitating this list is remember the significance of the order. This reason may move farther up, if your car costs 100,000 and all those miles will depreciate the vehicle rapidly. You may also consider moving it down if you drive a 23 year old Yugo that costs less than a huffy. (It just wouldn't make any sense!) I haven't been keeping track of my miles but I'm sure I put less than a thousand miles on my car last year.

5. Saving the environment! Here is reason that you will need to consider the person that you are trying to justify your insanity to. Believe it or not, a lot of people refuse to believe that their cars pollute the environment! At my place of employment just uttering the word environment will classify you as an immediate outsider, possibly a spy for Greenpeace, or PETA. I'm not kidding either. Call it ignorance, or brainwashing, but there are people that think humans are pretty arrogant to believe that they can affect the environment for the worst. I'm serious! I've heard it in regular conversation at work more than once! Now I'm not the tree hugger type, but come on! So, consider your surroundings when mentioning this one!

6. Saves money! This reason can be the most difficult to explain especially when cycling costs climb into the stratosphere. But carefully worded this can become a valid excuse...er reason. Gas, oil, maintenance all cost money, but so do other things. Going out to eat for lunch is impossible on my 30 minute break with my bike. So, even fast food will cost 6 or 7 bucks a day. so over the course of a year you could save This is a 1500 dollar a year expense at 6 bucks a day 5 days a week and 50 weeks a year! Now you still have to bring a lunch and they aren't free, but you could reasonably save 750 dollars a year! That will get you a pretty nice singlespeed, or city bike! All told you can easily mentally write off 2,000 a year without thinking too hard! Now you are talking a really nice road bike, and probably equipped with Ultegra! Not too shabby!

I probably could go on, but I've got to wrap it up, So with all the money you save commuting to work, you could easily justify spending more on an otherwise prohibitively expensive hobby. I for one know I far outspend any savings bike commuting will give me, but when considering all the other benefits involved, this is the cheapest hobby I've ever had!!