Bike Goodies

The QBP order came in at the shop today and that included a few new things for both Robin's townie and my Surly. Robin has been patiently waiting for me to get her a new seatpost and is thinking about a possible bar tape switch to blue or tan. My Surly is getting some tan bar tape (over the existing black, of course) and some new tires, Continental 4 Seasons in 28mm. They look pretty beefy and could be the perfect in between tire that will function well on both gravel roads and asphalt. I also got a very stylish Salsa Cro-Moto stem in 100mm. It's zero degree rise and shorter length should bring the bars a wee bit closer to me and end some of the stretchy feeling I've experienced in my back and shoulders the past couple weeks.

The order also included some CO-two cartridges, a box of spare tubes, and a front derailleur clamp. I've only got another week to decide if there is anything else that I should get. I'm feeling pretty satisfied at the moment, but I also think a Brooks B-17 would look quite nice on the Pacer. But we'll see. If I get too much at once, then I wont have exciting things to look forward too later.

Rescue Me

Those were the words I said to Robin on the phone while I sat hunched over my handlebars some 30 miles outside of Iowa City. Being the wonderful person she is, she dropped Harry Potter and picked me up instead. So I gave her directions to a gas station in Lone Tree and hoped that I would make it there before she did. After I hung up the phone I limped north at about 11 miles per hour, on a flat road, and with a tail wind. Each seam in the concrete brought a pang of nausea. Both of my quadriceps had been cramping for some time, so any attempts at standing brought little lightening bolts through them. And just recently, my left hamstring started to cramp also. Dealing with cramps from both sides of a leg is not much fun. Plus couldn't stretch my back by riding without hands or my hamstring would cramp. And of course, I was out of water. This is not what I had planned when I left the house hours before.

It was a beautiful sunny late morning, with light winds out of the south. I had just finished watching a rather grueling mountain stage in the Tour de France. I had not been on the bike for a week and I was excited to have nothing to do that day but ride. I headed out on a Lone Tree loop with a vague idea of heading further south and east, perhaps to a town called Letts that I had scoped out on the map. Letts is about 38 miles out of town, so riding there and back would make for a nice mid-distance ride.

My initial thoughts on the ride were that I would just cut it short and take the lower mileage route. But when I approached the edge of the loop I was feeling quite good and still had some food and water, so I figured I would at least go a little more. I continued on towards Muscatine with the intention of turning south and going towards Letts. From G-28 I turned onto Cranston road. I was not sure if this was correct, but it looked quiet and inviting, so I went. It turned to sandy gravel a few miles later, but it ultimately got me to the correct road and eventually to Letts.

Letts is a quiet town with a population of 398. There are a few blocks of neat old houses and a very nice looking city park. The town was rather dead though, I saw two kids outside, and that was it. And for a town that size I was expecting perhaps a general store or a gas station, what I found was a Pepsi machine that had a giant hole in the plastic front. Thankfully it still worked. Unfortunately it was out of water. So I got a Mountain Dew and a Sierra Mist. They tasted quite good, and kept me feeling good too. But with only these sugary drinks and no more food I thought I should look around the area for something more substantial. Knowing Lone Tree was quite a few miles away I foolishly road just a bit further south in search of something that sold cheese and crackers and Little Debbies, or if I was really lucky, slices of pizza. No luck, just a large, crowded state highway.

On my way back through Letts I double checked the streets to make sure there was no establishment that I had missed; but the results were the same, Pepsi machine, closed bar, closed Post Office, and a closed Library. I did see an extremely large funeral procession heading towards the cemetery. This explained why I did not see any person or open signs in the town.

Riding back towards Iowa City started out pretty good. I had a small tailwind, a couple sugary drinks, and little bit of water. Only the tailwind lasted. The demise crept on slowly over the next hour or so. It was not nearly as dramatic as I made it sound earlier, but I still felt thoroughly rotten.

All in all I ended up riding 70 miles in about four and a half hours. Pretty close to my original goal, of course I was still over 20 miles away from home when my ride came. From this I learned that I need to drink more (I wasn't too dumb on this one, I did have three large bottles with me) on hot days, which I guess for me is anything starting around the mid to high 80s. I should look into bail out options when attempting to ride to unknown towns, or at the very least bring more food (again, I had three granola bars, not enough though). And finally, don't try to ride your bike for four or five hours when your fitness levels have been declining for the past many weeks from only riding about 1.35 times a week. Not enough.

Visitor

Right now Robin is picking up her brother Jesse at the airport. He'll be spending the weekend with us and we are very excited about it. I believe it is his first visit to Iowa, so we will be busy making sure he sees a lot of stuff and gets some beautiful photographs that he can distribute to the various corners of the globe that he frequents.

Bikes, Beer, Bikes, Beer and More Bikes (but no books)

Today was a wonderful Sunday. The morning started out a bit rushed, as Robin and I slept longer than we expected, but I made it to the park to meet Steve, Joe, and Ryan for our ride and I was only a few minutes late. We headed out south and west for the Fry Town loop. The ride was a perfect pace, a little on the fast side in the wind and easy spinning in the draft. It was fun to ride with Joe. I had not really seen him since I've moved back to Iowa City, so we had a lot of things to catch up on.

After the ride Joe invited us to his house to sample some of his very fine homebrew. Ryan declined, as he had family matters to attend to, but Steve and I were not going to pass up such an offer. Inside Joe's spacious garage approximately a dozen bikes hang from the ceiling. He has a geared bike and a singlespeed bike for just about every occasion, and a few extras thrown in just for good measure.

Sitting below the hanging bikes are about a dozen small kegs (a keg for every bike? Perhaps a good rule to live by). Many of them are full, and four of them are hooked up to a tapper that runs the lines through a refrigeration system. Joe switches them around to meet his tastes. We started by sampling a very hoppy, and very tasty, IPA. We enjoyed these out on the porch with Joe's cat Harry. We talked about everything from racers and drugs to morons and bikes. It was lovely. I cannot remember the last time I had a beer at 10:30 in the morning, but I doubt it was as good as this one. Joe's IPA is perfect for early drinking on a sunny day. The brewmaster kindly offered us samples of his other fine brews, but I had to be at the bike shop to work in a few hours, so Steve and I rolled home before we got really carried away.

The afternoon went by slowly. The shop has been packed recently as RAGBRAI is looming large on the horizon, but today was an extremely quiet Sunday and it seemed like forever before I could leave. Now I sit resting my weary legs in the recliner with a sweet wheat beer at my side. Tonight should be a relaxing one as the replay of the tour starts in ten minutes. It has taken all of my strength to not read any cycling related pages this last hour. So if you know who wins this first mountain top finish, please keep it to yourself.

Morning Productivity

In the past few weeks, or maybe a couple months, Robin and I have been struggling just a bit to get out of bed at a descent hour and get things done. So we decided that two mornings a week we would go for a short run right away and two mornings other mornings each week we would take advantage of our very nice and very close recreation center and go swimming. Today was the first day of implementing our plan. We went running.

I had not gone for a run in over a year. It felt awkward at first. And my legs got a little tired of the pounding at the end. But there were a few minutes in the middle where it felt great. And the rest of the day I felt quite good. Breakfast and coffee after the run were fantastic. Work was better than yesterday. And my afternoon bike ride was also good, though in the final hills my legs were feeling sluggish. All in all I am very happy with this new plan.

Tonight we are going to bbq. Tomorrow we have no plans other than to watch the first mountain stage of the Tour de France. We have found a way to watch it online for free, if this sounds good to you, go here, download the player, and look for the channel Versus. They air it four or five times a day, but the live one is in the morning.

Test Ride

It has been a long while since I last wrote. I can’t necessarily say that things were busy in Arizona, because for the most part, we relaxed with bikes, horses, and a beautiful pool. I also had plenty of time for updates, but something about being away from home makes me less likely to do the things I normally do. It was a nice vacation though. A bit on the hot side, but that’s Arizona in July. We attended a mildly stressful, but exceptionally beautiful and sincere wedding. For some pictures and a bit more info (and animals) see Robin’s blog.

After a few days of being tired and working I have finally had a chance to really test the new Pacer. I have been playing around with all the available stems in the house and have almost decided on what size I need. It now has a 115mm on it with a pretty big rise, so I have it flipped upside down. I think I will end up purchasing a 110 or a 105 with a small rise on it, say 5 or 6 degrees. That should be about perfect.

But the 115 was good for my ride the other morning. I headed out Sugar Bottom way with the intent to go through North Liberty and Tiffin and come back in on Melrose/IWV to test it in the hills. There is a small weight difference, which is to be expected as my old frame was made of really light aluminum, but for the most part it felt the same going up. I think the biggest factor was that I have lost some of the fitness I had in late May and early June. So my lungs were burning a bit when I tried to charge up the hills.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was some light construction on Sugar Bottom road. I’m not saying I’m a fan of what Edward Abbey would call the progress of civil engineering on one of my favorite roads to ride on, but in its current stage I was able to test the Pacer on a bit of dirt. At the moment I only have 23mm tires on it, but it felt great over both the packed gravel and the loose gravel.

By the time I crossed Mahaffey Bridge and started the climbs to North Liberty my legs and lungs were feeling great and I had a nice rhythm when climbing out of the saddle. The handling was slower than my old road bike but quicker than my cyclo-cross bike, so basically exactly what I was looking for. I weaved around seams in the concrete and had no problem jumping onto the shoulder when large trucks came a little too close.

The stretch shortly after North Liberty and north of Tiffin is also one of my favorite sections of road. Smooth blacktop, low traffic, twisting turns and rolling farmland make it aesthetically pleasing and easy to make as challenging or relaxing as I want. On this ride the traffic was particularly low, as in I did not see a single car. This had to do with some more construction on the three short hills just north of highway 6. This time I could not ride through. Well, I probably could have, but large dump trucks being filled by numerous earth movers changed my mind. So I turned around and road the nice stretch of road again and it was still traffic free.

The detour routed me over some very smooth gravel roads. Even on this longer stretch the skinny 23s still felt pretty comfy. There were a few rough, washboard sections though. So I’ll have to put some slightly larger, higher volume tires on for a serious dirt road test.

Coming in on IWV with a slight tailwind I kept it in the big ring and hammered up the hills. It felt good and the Pacer felt considerably better than my old aluminum racer on all the fat, open seams on that road. In fact, it was on a big, fast group ride this past April when we were coming into town on that same road that I decided I had had enough of my butt and hands being beaten up. So it was fitting that this ride finished up on the same road with me feeling much fresher. The Pacer is definitely a keeper.

Of Crashes and Titanium

The bike is all together now. I'm quite pleased with both the look and the ride. The stem I have on it now is not ideal, so I'll have to play around with that a bit. And I'll most likely get some wider, squishier tires, but other than that, it is great. I took it out on its maiden voyage last Thursday. It was a beautiful and cool evening. The bike felt great. Very smooth. I noticed an immediate difference over the aluminum. Unfortunately the ride was cut a tad short by a little mishap between Robin and I. The short version is that I stayed up and she needs a new helmet.


There were a few moments of disorientation and short term memory loss for her, but we got home alright. And aside from a few small scabs and a little bruising on her hip, she is just fine.

I have not been able to get back on the new pacer since then because we are now in Arizona for a week. They are having some slightly higher than normal temperatures, but it isn't too bad. The mornings and evenings are beautiful, and the Stephens allow me to use their spare Titus on all the trails that surround their house. It is quite nice. The full squish titanium frame and XTR components take some getting used to after riding the rigid 1x1, but they both have red stems, so that makes the transition a little smoother.