ride joe ride

I was going to make this an update in my tubular series, but I realized that today was actually my first real ride on what amounts to a completely reconfigured bike — today’s ride was more or less like riding a new bike. Things started inauspiciously when I came across a down rider 3 miles into my ride. She’d hit gravel on a sharp turn and come down hard on her elbow. It looked like it was probably broken. While I was talking with her companions/calling an ambulance a fellow UCVC rider came along. After we helped with the ambulance logistics, we decided to ride together. The ride ended up involving the lake front path, a cross town leg to Yojimbos for tire sealant and a cyclo-comp, and then returning along the lake path. Maybe 30 miles total.

Gears: What to say about my first real geared ride in years. As I suspected, I didn’t really feel the need to shift much. The ability to coast is amazing, and really helps when you’re riding for a couple of hours in ways you wouldn’t think of. You can drink while coasting, stand up and stretch while coasting etc. There is a rhythm when you’re riding with other geared riders that I think I was totally unaware of pre-gears. The sound of another freewheel is the cue to coast so you’re keeping the same speed. Finally my cadence is not in a completely different realm as the people I am riding with. There is a lot of talk about the connectedness you feel when you’re riding fixed. You and your bike are one machine etc etc. I find riding a geared bike is much more like riding a motorcycle or horse. That is, the agent which is moving you is something you are not in fact “one with.” Going down hills, this is particularly apparent: you’re riding this svelte thing and you’d better make sure it is pointing in the right direction. I found this to be lots of fun. I found myself spending almost all my time in 52 up front and 17 in the back. I got a good laugh when I just did the calculations: this is almost exactly the same gear length as the 49×16 that I have been running fixed for the past year. Not quite the gear ratio of champions, but the alps’ de 47th is somewhat shy of a category climb.

Tires: Simply put: all the hype about the ride quality of the tubulars is more or less accurate. The Vittoria CR’s at 22mm run smoother than my favorite Continental GP 4000s in 25cm. If you hunt around, you’ll see the ride of tubulars described as “cloud-like” and I now see where this is coming from. Small to medium sized road crap just gets sucked up by the tire in a way that makes me want to write these suckers poetry or something. Just beautiful, compelling, calming and just what you want when you’re going to be on them for many hours. I am running just shy of 7 bars front and rear which feels about perfect, but I may mess with pressure a bit.

In fitting celebration for a first geared ride, I just popped a cat-eye on Cupcake. Tomorrow: 70 miles.

So the snazzy fix on my tire didn’t hold. I think the original tube was latex and the spliced in part was butyl, and you can’t really splice them together. I’ll call the whole experience a win, though, as I learned that tearing into a tub is really not that bad.

So yesterday afternoon I headed out to Oak Park to pick up a set of Vittoria Corsa CRs, which are the top of Vittoria’s non-pro line. Once home, I put them on the wheels to stretch overnight (keeping the old front tire for a spare). They slipped on the wheels much easier than all the complaining on forums led me to believe they would.

This morning I got up early to glue them on in anticipation of ~130 miles of riding this weekend. Given that there are seemingly as many glue methodologies as there are tub riders, I decided to follow the directions in the tire packaging: glue on rim and tire, wait ten minutes, another layer of glue on the rim and then mount. I prepped the floor with a split garbage bag, and gathered a bunch of sandwich bags to use as glue spreaders. The front tire was largely a success. That is, I got the glue where it needed to go, and the tire mounted without vast quanities of glue in places it didn’t belong. I don’t know if it was all the glue on the bag or what, but the rear was much more of a pain, and I managed to smear up the sidewalls a whole lot. It mounted crooked and I had to do lots of massaging to get it set right.

So how much of a pain is gluing? It’s a pain alright. It’s messy in that uncontrollable gluey way. As soon as the glue flashes it becomes like fly paper, and anything (your spreader, your gloves, toes etc) that gets near it is instantly adhered. The smell wasn’t as bad as advertised, but this would have been massively easier if I wasn’t worried about getting glue on the floor etc. In terms of difficulty, it wasn’t bad, but it was surely annoying and not the sort of thing I’d want to do very often. Most annoying is that my awesome new Vittorias look like they were glued on by a distracted first grader with excess rubber cement to burn — totally bringing “I have an italian race bike and must have a mechanic since I run tubs” down to the level of “look I made my own operating system!” I’m gonna be lookin for a mud puddle for sure.

I recently had the good fortune to be able to buy essentially a whole mid-80s racing component setup for my favorite bike — the Paletti on which I recently rode my first century. The fact that I have switched to gears is a whole other post itself, but for now I’m focusing on the nice Mavic wheels that came as part of the set. For better or worse, these wheels are designed for tubular tires — also known as “sew-ups” or “tubs.” Basically, unlike what we now think of a normal tire, a clincher, tubs are held on the wheel by glue. Sheldon has a breakdown of their pros and cons here.

I have a tendency to pick the harder way to do things on occasion, but honestly tubs have always seemed to be too much of a pain. As the dude at Yellow Jersey Cycles notes, this is probably because the internet is really flooded with foo about how horrible they are as far as gluing and repairing flats, and how they aren’t worth it. Most of this is written by people who don’t and often haven’t ever actually used tubular tires.

What you tend to find when researching tubs is two distinct groups: people who have been using them for decades who love them, and people who hate them (often without having actually ever used one). So I am something of an unusual group. I don’t have any burning desire to run them, but I do have a set of really nice wheels which I can use if I can deal with them. So I see the opportunity for an experiment here. I’m going to try the tubs out and post my experience here. I don’t have any serious tubular evangelism in me. If they drive me nuts, I’ll dump them and explain why.

So to start off, here’s how I rode to work on them today. The wheels came with a set of Continental Sprinter 250s glued on — a pretty good set of tires. They weren’t worn much at all, but the rear tire was deflated. In an effort to see how hard it really is to repair a tub, I pulled the flatted tire last night to investigate. After tearing into the sewed up tire carcass, I quickly saw the problem: the valve stem had separated at the base. This is normally the sort of thing one tosses a tube for, as repairing the valve base is a royal pain — and it doesn’t normally work. Not to be deterred, I pulled off the faulty stem, cut the valve stem from a spare tube, and glued it into place. A little dental floss to sew the tire back up, and then remounted it sans glue (as I will probably pull it off again soon). Total repair time was probably 20 minutes. Not bad considering that this is the equivalent of brain surgery as far as tire repair goes.

The tire held 120psi overnight, so I figured it was safe to ride this morning. It was raining when we went out for the morning 16 miler, so I skipped riding the Paletti. I did ride it the couple of miles here to work without incident, so I am calling day #1 at least a 50% success (I have to make it home after all.) Impressions on differences in riding compared to clinchers will follow.

So we’ve been living without a car for a couple of months now. In general, we would all probably say we’re much happier without one. The lack of parking frustration, all the money spent on the car, and the utter convenience of living life by bike totally outweigh the occasional inconvenience car-less living occasionally entails. Recently, though, we have hit a couple of problems which stretch inconvenience toward downright annoying.

The other night, I needed to pick up Allison at the airport. Her flight was supposed to come in at 11 but landed a half hour later than that. The first problem was the lack of a close-by zipcar. The nearest non-reserved one was more than a mile away, not in the best area to walk at 10 pm, and the public trans options for getting to it were non-optimal. Unlike grocery getting trips which can be rescheduled, though, I had no choice so I reserved it. This entailed a mile walk to it and after the pickup (at about 12:30am as it turns out). The half hour delay on the flight meant that I had to extend the reservation while in route (twice in fact). If someone had made a reservation immediately after my intended return time after I had left, I would have been in a serious pickle. It also meant that the trip cost twice what just going to the airport should have. Having our own car would have solved all these problems.

This weekend, we’d like to take a trip out of town Sunday. Zipcar is out, as our intended route is a round trip of 300 miles (zip gives you 180 miles for a day rental). Our local Enterprise car rental closes at noon on Saturday and reopens on Monday morning, which means we’d be renting for 2.5 days. This would make our few hour drive on Sunday run about $200 with gas, and we’d have to park the car for two nights. I haven’t looked today but I’ll bet I could get a flight to San Francisco for less than that. This is definitely more than an inconvenience. Last summer, I really enjoyed getting out of the city for the weekend in sort of an unplanned way. Now I am realizing that doing this is going to cost a less than trivial amount of money, which means it probably won’t happen. We basically had a summer getaway plan before, and we no longer do.

I could go on about how this is likely to due the economy or search for the deeper implications thats this has for the extent of one’s living environment, but right now I don’t feel like doing much more than dwelling on the fact that sometimes being car-less is a royal pain in the arse.

Mile 3: After a lap around the hood, I hit the coffee house for once not the first one there. Within a few minutes there are nearly 20 of us. I mention to someone that I may have to tack some miles on the end of the ride to make it a century. I joke: “but that’s the morning talking I’m sure.”

Mile 8: We split into two groups. As always I intend to ride with the Slow Group and somehow change my mind at the last moment as I see the Fast Group pulling away. We cruise along at 15 mph or so for a few of miles socializing. A guy with a reputation for punishing takes the lead and the hammer drops. Fifteen minutes of hard riding, with me nearly spinning out my gearing, hovering in the upper 20s, and then a few minutes of rest. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Mile 38: We’ve just come through a series of rollers out in the countryside. The Fast Group has been gradually thinning as people fall off the back end not to be seen again. I find that during the downhills, if I really focus on the smoothness of my stroke I can keep from bouncing even at a super high cadence. We stop at a gas station in the seeming middle of nowhere. It’s getting warm and I’m tired. I pound a 20 oz Gatorade, and within minutes of being back on the road I regret it as my stomach sloshes. I start to get angry and fall off the end. As always, once the group is a few bike lengths ahead they pull off very quickly and the wind suddenly arrives. I turn on music and kick my way back into the group.

Mile 50: We reach the cafe, our agreed upon meeting place where the Slow Group is supposed to rejoin us. I need real food so I order an egg wrap, which turns out to be huge. Everyone comments on not being able to eat something like that on a ride. I’m thinking “Yeah, and I’m treating this like I could be on the saddle for the next 80 hours” but I don’t say that. They already think I’m kinda nuts with the fix as it is. Someone mentions that our in-saddle average so far is just a hair under 25 mph. I do a double take. The slow group is late, and lost, it turns out. When they finally arrive they are missing a couple of people. By the time we leave, this time as One Group, we’ve been sitting way too long.

Mile 65ish: The Group is ragged now, people riding in twos and threes spread out over a few blocks. A pack breaks away and I hang with them for a minute until they drop me. I’m tired and kinda surly with something angry playing music-wise. I get out of the saddle for a few kicks and look over my shoulder. Two other guys are with me, and suddenly we’re chasing down the break away group. I’m out of the saddle cranking, with stars starting to dance, and the other two are with me in a pace line. I know I am blowing out my reserves but it seems like the thing to do. We’re gaining hard on the breakaway when a light changes, stopping them. We’re up with them in seconds.

Mile 70: The pull has left me totally shot. The Fast Group breaks away again, and I’ve got nothing to answer them. I’m in no-man’s-land between the break away and the rest of the people. Riding with a friend for a bit and then alone. A few of us do a delirious sprint up the bike path, dodging rollerbladers.

Miles 77: Standing at the fountain near my house, I ask someone what his computer reads: 74 miles. That puts me at 77. Someone asks about my morning plans for making it 100, and I remind them that it had been the morning talking. I think I am done for the day. I go upstairs, eat about 1000 calories including a glass of really nice chardonnay. I realize that if I ride to Yojimbos now, I could both have the 100 miles and buy myself something in reward. I have something in mind.

Mile 85: Downtown is a freakin zoo, and I am just tired enough to yell at tourists who are not looking while crossing the street.

Mile 90: Yojimbos is broiling hot, but I fill my bottle and grab two vats of Record Embrocation. At long last, I had embrocation and in two flavors: summer weight and recovery. The Yojimbos guys say lots of nice things when I tell them where I was in the ride. There is a mind blowingly awesome Colnago steel frame in for repair, and I oogle it a bit on my way out. I head home for shower, embrocation, and the rest of that bottle of nice chardonnay. All in all, an awesome day.

I ride a fixed gear bike, and recently I have been suffering from gear envy. I am seized by moments in which I think I really need to grab a complete set of Campagnolo components and deck out my frame. The problem with this isn’t adversity to spending moolah for the bike. In general I am just fine with that. My hesitation to just roll with this desire has more to do with my attachment to the fixed gear paradigm in general. My love of running was always about the utter simplicity of the act, and the fixed gear bike is about as close to that as biking gets. So rather than just succumb to the gear envy, I spend lots of time thinking about it and why I suddenly want gears. On my ride this morning I tried to lay out just when I want gears, and assess if these are moments of genuine need or something else. Here’s what I came up with.

1. I want gears when the wind is blowing. This is probably the single most authentic need for gears that I have. When I turn around on a 30 mile out and back and suddenly find that I really wasn’t just totally in the zone but had in fact been riding a 20 mph tail wind, life can suck a whole lot. In Chicago, this happens rather frequently. If I had to argue against this as a need, I’d say that riding in wind always sucks no matter what you’re pushing. And suffering on the saddle builds character. Insert anything for “wind” in that sentence (hills, tired legs etc.) and you have the standard fixed gear response to gear envy.

2. I want gears when I am about to be dropped by the fast kids (or when I can’t jump to catch someone passing me, or when I realize I can’t really race on my bike). I run big gears (49×16) for a fix and generally I am pretty quick. Nonetheless, this is just not a setup for testosterony neck-n-neck with geared bikes. This is not a genuine need, though. Except in moments of endorphin overload, I know that I am not a racer. My long term goals are big endurance rides, not hanging with the fast roadies. Riding with the slow group on club rides can suck. Maybe adding some big distance before the rides would help my pride. It sure wouldn’t hurt my endurance.

3. I want gears when I look at geared bikes. This is just plain stuff envy. Geared bikes look cool, dropping a gear before making a jump sounds cool, geared bikes are the sign of a serious biker etc. I’d call this the pull of the status quo. The more you immerse yourself in bike culture, the less comfy being on the fringe bike-wise seems. The backlash against fixie bike culture (bikes as jewelry etc) fuels this, and riding a pink fixed gear brings the backlash somewhat closer to home. In moments of clarity, I can see that this is a really bad reason to drop the fix.

4. I want gears when I think about rides far in the future which are going to have lots of hills. I can quickly dream up a situation in which gears would be an absolute necessity. One day I want to make a crazy climb up the Tourmalet and I need gears for that. This, though, is a lame reason to go geared. I ride miles and miles of pancake flat ground and every distance event I have planned this season is doable on a fix. When I’m riding by myself and it’s not windy, I never (seriously) think “wow, I need some gears.” Never. It’s conceivable that I could ride my heart content in endurance events in my area without ever really hitting the hills. And when the time comes for the Tourmalet, then maybe I need to get a bike with gears.

So that’s it. One good reason for gears as far as I can see: wind. In my riding so far I haven’t quit a ride because it was windy. Neither have I skipped a ride for the same reason. I do what every biker does when it’s time to suffer: get into the drops, hunker down and enjoy. Music, of course, helps.

Conclusion: gears are officially on hold at least until the end of the season.

While riding an lazy 20 this morning (to loosen up from the nutty fast 50 I rode yesterday) I had some time to boil down what I took away from the SEED conference on Friday. In five easy steps:

1. Enthusiasm about what you do is the key. Be creative with whatever it is you are enthusiastic about. If you’re lovin’ living in your mom’s basement at 40, make that the center of what you do creatively.

2. When you’re really enthusiastic, you are likely to work hard on what you’re doing. These guys all worked amazingly hard. More than one pointed out that their real creative work happened between the time they got home from work and the time they went to bed.

3. Doing your thing on the internet is all a matter of establishing yourself as a brand, or a locus of creativity. Create your stuff, participate in other people’s stuff and tell them about your stuff.

4. According to Jim Coudal (well kinda anyway), creativity is the moment in which you make a connection between something you’re familiar with and something novel and enjoy that connection. That enjoyment is the enthusiasm in #1.

5. And my addition: fostering the creative process is less a matter of “creating” novelty as it is trying to figure out what it is that you are enthusiastic about. The creative process begins with that ethusiasm. Not surprising that the Greek philosophers we’re totally on to this; they called it eros.