A Day on the Bike…

I was in a foul mood.  Never mind why, just accept that I was mad at the world.  Little things annoyed me.  Irritable was my middle name.  I didn’t feel like going out for a ride.  And the weather, in a word, stank.  It was a bit too cool, and raining, and dark, and evil out.

The thing was, I was committed to doing a very challenging long ride.  I had a training schedule to meet.  So I geared up, grabbed the bike and headed out.

As I rolled out of the driveway and up the street, I was wet-cat miserable.  But I noticed that the rain was tapering.  At least a little bit.

By the time I’d left the town behind, the rain had stopped and there were blue patches showing through the clouds.  The temp actually dropped a bit, but the sun was beginning to shine.  I stopped briefly and shed the outer layer, rain shell and rain pants.  I Folded and stowed them on top of the Carradice bag.  (Lovely design, that bag.)  My clothing now matched the conditions perfectly, and I was enjoying being less encumbered.

I crested a long, but not very steep grinder and turned into the light breeze for the long descent.  I couldn’t help but smile.  This was nice.

The wind stayed light, and danced all around the compass, now behind, now to the side.  The clouds disappeared.  The wind picked up a bit, and it seemed the temp dropped a little more.  I worked a bit harder, and body heat balanced the increased cooling.

I was getting a bit hungry.  I’d noticed that at every stop, for an intersection, or a quick consult on navigation, I felt the chill.  I found my way to one of my lunch stops.  This was an old homesite, long abandoned and falling slowly to ruin.  But the site had a set of steps that descended from a raised yard to street level.  I’d stopped here before, resting and eating while seated on those steps.

On this day the wind direction was such that I was out of the wind and fully exposed to the sun on that old stone stair.  Comfortable.

It was time to turn toward home.  I had a lot of climbing to accomplish on the way.  Basically, there was a very large ridgeline between me and home.  The next fifteen miles would be generally uphill.  (Of course that meant that the last ten miles would be mostly down.)

As I began the climbing, I noted that the wind had settled and increased, but…   It was a tail wind!  The breeze helped me up every climb, urged me along each flat, and was blocked on each descent.

The sun was lowering as I moved into the last five miles of the ride.  Shadows were growing longer.  My legs had that “good tired” feeling.  I knew I’d been working, but was far from over-done.  As I approached the town and home, I found I was humming tunes I liked.  Somewhere, in the last few miles, without noticing it, I’d started singing.

“How was your ride?”  my wife asked as I came in.

“Perfect,”  I said,  “Just perfect.”

Friday Follies ~~ Walking Home

It happens.  It’s the cyclist version of the infamous “Walk of Shame.”  It happens on a bike ride.  Life is good.  The rider is having a great time out on the bike, and then…  SOMETHING HAPPENS.  The “something” could be a mechanical, a flat, a physical problem, a crash, it really doesn’t matter.  For some reason the ride is not only interrupted, but the rider must walk back.  That’s right, walk.  Not ride a reduced “struggle home pace.”  Walk.  All the way back.  Walk home.

It’s happened to me.  Not often, mind you, but it has.  And more than once, damnit!

In the early days it seemed to happen with some frequency.  Bikes were a lot less reliable then, and I knew a lot less about preparing them and re-pairing them.  It astounds me to think of all the times I left home without so much as a pump, spare tube, or patch kit.  Believe me, the tires of that day were not the amazing wonders we have now.  (Kevlar hadn’t even been invented yet.)  More, I tended to ride hard, and with not much skill.  Things broke.  A lot.

In much more recent times things improved a lot.  Bikes became much more reliable.  I’d learned a lot.  But…  As I’ve often repeated, “Ride long enough, and everything happens to you, good or bad.”

There was the day back in the mid 90s.  The one I refer to as my worst day on a bike.

I was working a murderous job.  I had an insanely loaded “schedule.”  Time on the bike was hard to come by, and precious.  I managed to clear an afternoon for a good long ride.  Better still it was a lovely sunny Summer day.  With great joy, I saddled up and went.

I flatted about a mile and a half from home.  Spit!  Dirty word!  But after all, not that big a deal.

I broke out the supplies and replaced the tube.  Pumped it up, sweating like a pig.  (I did mention that it was a sunny Summer day?)  Flat repaired and rear wheel back in the bike.  Tools and tube stashed.  Off I went.

A couple of good hills later I had the second flat.  This time on the front.   Grr.

Fix flat and proceed to ride again.  (Of course I had committed both of my spare tubes.  That’s as in, all the spares I was carrying.)

A short distance later, the rear went down again.  (There followed a bit of an attitude adjustment session.)

I repaired the third flat.  Of necessity this meant locating a pinhole and patching it before re-installing the tube.  I was not a happy camper.  I made a decision.  A good one I think.  I turned around and headed back toward home.  My intention was to return home, pick up more spare tubes, cool off, do a thorough and complete tire inspection, and then resume riding.

I’d barely started to ride back before I encountered one of those hills I’ve mentioned.  About midway up the hill, the chain broke.  That provided me with some excitement.  Also, before I got back under control and got the bike stopped, I’d been treated to the enchanting sight of  the chain, writhing like a snake, slithering downhill, and off the road, and into the weeds.

Dismount.  Search for chain.  Find it.  Brush the crud off of it. Re-install chain and repair broken link.  (Don’t you carry a chain tool with you?  Doesn’t everybody?)

I’d just about finished packing up form the chain repair, when I noticed that the rear tire was flat.  AGAIN!!!  (If you’ve been counting, that was number four!)

After turning up the volume on the gumption control, I repaired the flat and (finally) started again for home.  I was still a mile short of the house when the fifth flat happened.

I think I showed admirable restraint.  For example, only a couple of birds and small animals died as a result of the language I used.  I did not pick the bike up and hurl it into traffic or the woods.  I just accepted the situation.  Clearly, I was not meant to ride that day.  I walked the rest of the way home.

As walks go, it wasn't really all that bad.  My total round trip was about five miles, and the final walk was roughly a mile.  Of course it was done in cycling shoes with exposed cleats.

It’s times like that, thankfully extremely rare, which serve to make the good rides all that much better.

Do you have a “Bad Ride Story”?

On Turning 50,000

This coming Saturday, 19 July 2014, I will hit an interesting milestone.  I joined South Side Cycling Club back in 2009.  At the very end of that year, I started using a feature of the club’s website to log rides and track miles.  Since that time, I’ve faithfully posted every ride and every trainer session.  This coming Saturday, I will cross the 50,000 mile mark.  Please note, that is not my “all time,” or “Life Time” mileage.  I’ve been riding a lot longer than I’ve been a member of SSCC!  (In fact, I have log books that go back over 40 years.)  So this 50K miles is only a fraction of my life’s riding.

But it’s a significant fraction.  This particular 50,000 miles has all been done since I joined the club.  I am pleased to have this particular gift.  I want to celebrate a little.  So I’m inviting everyone to come along.

On this coming Saturday, I should arrive at work with between 10 and 25 miles remaining before I cross the 50,000 mile mark.  I plan to leave from work, at Bicycles Unlimited, at 6:30 P.M., saddle up, and finish riding the first 50,000 miles of my membership in the club.  I’d love to have company on this.

It will be a road ride.  Bring your bike.  Dress up in your roadie kit, wear your helmet, and let’s all go for a group ride together.  What 

The Cobbler’s Children

The old saying goes, “The cobbler’s children have no shoes.”  Way back in history, back in the days of the guilds and villages, shoes were made for people by individual craftsmen, cobblers, who also repaired shoes and boots.  A busy and successful cobbler had a lot to do.  There were shoes tto be made for customers, leather to be purchased, tools to be mended, repair work that had to be done immediately, an apprentice or two to be trained and supervised, a lot of things.  The idea behind the old saying is that a busy and prosperous merchant could find himself without the time to take care of his own needs and those of his family.  In fact, often if a new pair of shoes was nearing completion, ones that were intended for the family, they would be purchased by a needy and demanding customer.

Those days are long gone.  Shoes are made in factories in Asia.  They make a lot of them.  There is very little left of custom craft in the world.  Small local bike shops are a large part of the custom craft that remains.  I work in one such shop, and I am often in something akin to the old cobbler’s situation.  I do enjoy working on my customer’s bikes.  Summer is our busiest time, and we are usually flooded with repair work, tune-ups, and modifications.  We also have to build a lot of bikes for sale.  To that list add, we support a lot of bike rides, do charity work, do fittings, give classes and training sessions.  What with all of that, I sometimes get caught a bit short in supporting my own stable.  (There’s your cobbler’s children.)

So, it was with a great deal of pleasure that I managed to sneak in an hour’s work on two of my rigs.  I got the super supple racing tires off of my Giant Defy and replaced them with the new, high longevity, high durability training tires.  (I’m saving the racing tires for something special.)  I also managed to do a complete brake job on my tourist. 

I’ll be especially interested in the tires on the Defy.  They are directional, and front and rear specific.  While I’ve had that sort of thing on mountain bikes, I’ve never had anything like that on a road bike before.  Should be interesting

The Return

It's been a long time....  Too long!

Like the hired man said,  "There's been a deal of trouble around these parts."

That might be a bit strong, but I've been dealing with some personal issues, things that absorb time and attention.  I'm not done with it all yet, but I do feel like I just might have turned the corner.

"So what's been going on here?" you ask.  I most definitely have been riding.  Sometimes not as much as I'd like, but never down to nothing.  I just haven't been able to write about it.  I'm hoping to change all that now. I doubt I'll be posting every day.  I'll do my level best to get out one or two posts per week.

Thank you all for your patience.

Oh yeah!  I guess, since this is a bicycle related blog, I ought to include at least some bicycle related content.  Here goes.

I rode the GA-400 Hospitality ride.  That was on Sunday 29 June.  The 3.5 miles on GA-400 were a complete blast!  The next section was hilly riding, working our way out of the suburbs of Roswell, GA.  There was a long stretch in the middle that was hilly, and mostly rural.  I've been recovering from the Headcold From Hell, so I opted to cut the ride a bit short.  I clipped off one of the 14 mile "do-loops."  (I am incredibly glad I chose to do this!)

By md-day it had become quite warm.  The route was leading us through some hilly country returning to Roswell.  Then I hit the bit with the "Three Sisters."  These are three seriously steep. challengingly long climbs.  Ouch!  My legs were almost sort of recovered as we cruised through downtown Roswell.

The trek along the Chattahoochee riverfront was okay, if a bit to crowded with car traffic.  And then I came to the last practical joke of the course.  "The Mother In Law!"  This was one more serious climb, leading to the very end of the ride.  I came as close as I've ever come to dismounting and just sitting down on that thing.  I did make it.

I'm glad I did the ride.  I won't ever do it again.  It would be a god thing if I never meet the practical joker who designed that course.