The Bike

I spent much of Monday morning working on the bike I will ride in the Dirty Kanza. It was not all that fun, as I had not worked on this bike in years. But the outcome feels good.

As bikes go, it is not a very exciting bike. But since I like reading about other peoples' bikes, I figure I should post mine, too.

It is a pretty straight forward cyclocross bike. For the race changes, all I did was put on a (relatively) new 12-27 Ultegra cassette, a new chain, a new 38tooth chainring, and new 32mm Ritchey Speedmax tires. Oh, and I changed the shifter cables and added new brake pads.

For the race we are required to have taillights and headlights, the power level of these is up to us. Since my plan is to finish in the daylight, or just after the daylight ends, I am going with the minimalist approach. So on my handlebar I have a small LED Cateye and an itty bitty, but very bright, Trek light that I got for free from the Bike To Work Week ride. Hopefully that is enough.

My body is feeling good, too. The two weeks of rest and light rides have made my legs feel very refreshed. On today's ride the hills and wind were easy and I felt like I could have kept going for a long, long time without much difficulty. Hopefully I feel the same way on Saturday.

Relaxing

That has been the theme of the week. Robin's sister Meryl is in town and we have all had lots of quality hang out time. We've played lots of cards, drank lots of wine and beer, and ate some really good meals.

My legs were super tired from all the dirty centuries and group rides of late, so this week I relaxed on the bike, too. On Tuesday's group ride I turned around after an hour so I could spin home on my own. And on Wednesday I did a very slow reservoir loop and was lucky enough to run into Steve and Cody at the end. They invited me over for a beer and I could not refuse. We talked about many scary bike moments, good books, and of course, the fast approaching Dirty Kanza. I think I'm feeling ready, and I hope all of this rest will do me good. Unfortunately, the bike is not ready. But hopefully before the weekend is over it will be.

Today it was wet in the morning and dry and cool in the afternoon. I wanted to get out for another easy spin after work, but instead I took a nice long nap on the couch. But I guess that is good for recovery, too.

Tomorrow we go to Chicago to take Meryl to the airport and celebrate my Dad's birthday. So I have at least a couple more relaxing days ahead of me.

Assault and Century

On Saturday morning I woke up in the dark before my alarm went off. I felt good, despite having one too many beers once again on a Friday night. At 5:30AM I pulled on my bibs and put sunscreen on while I ate cereal and toast with peanut butter. The crunchy stuff. It was still chilly so I went with arm warmers, but no knee warmers, as I thought the day would warm quickly. Plus I also had two jerseys on. I decided to test the "six pockets, no bags" approach that I got from Steve. And I think he said he got it from Ira.

I rolled out the door a few minutes before 6. I briefly stopped by the public library to return some DVDs and then rolled east toward dirt. I got a little twisted around leaving town and ended up riding the shoulder on Rochester for a mile or so. I didn't think this was a good sign, but the sun was already shining on my face and there were no cars out, so that felt good.

I turned north and followed the same route as last weekend for awhile. Instead of looping east and over to West Branch, though, I decided to keep going north. I got near Sutliff and found myself on a bunch of gravel roads that I had never been on before. These were beautifully treed roads and they were very, very hilly. Not as hilly as the route I will encounter in Kansas, but the hills were large enough that I had to settle into a climbing rhythm on a few of them.

After tacking on a short loop up north I turned west and headed into the strengthening northwest wind. This road was much flatter and took me almost directly to Ely. Ely has a Casey's, and I have really come to rely on these for food stops. I quickly filled my bottles with water (no sugar, bad for the tummy) and downed an egg and sausage pizza before getting back to the gravel.

I continued to ride west and occasionally a little north. I skirted around the Eastern Iowa Airport, found lots of more new gravel, and finally turned south for some nice tailwind into the Amana Colonies. The Casey's in Amana was disappointing. No pizza. So I got some caffeine in the form of a sugary and fatty Starbucks drink and loaded up on cheesy crackers. When I checked out the clerk looked at me, sweaty, salty, helmeted, and holding crumpled bills in my gloved hands, and asked, in all seriousness, if I had any gas too. I was confused and could only reply with, "uh, no."

The gravel back towards Iowa City was sandy and bumpy. This is where I hit a little bit of a low point. My legs and lungs felt great, and my average speed was still going up. But I was grumpy. I just kept swearing at all the bumps and hills. I figured it was best to just keep eating, so I did, and I think that helped. I also had a big rise when I scored this sweet road prize:

I had just started riding on pavement as I finished my 80+ miles on gravel, so the pavement and beer find were definite bonuses. I'm not really a light beer kind of guy, but I sure wont turn them down.

I came in on the oh so popular IWV. Just a couple miles out of Iowa City a beige Ford Taurus buzzed me quite closely. Closer than I had been buzzed in years. His mirror was inches from my handlebar. I flipped him off after he passed to let him know that I did not appreciate his driving style. Normally I am a fan of the smile and wave approach, but this time I was tired and frustrated.

He slowed down and found a place to pull over on the next hill. I was not really in the mood for a rules of the road discussion, as I had about 96 miles and 6 hours in my legs. He stepped out of his car and came rushing at me in the middle of the lane screaming about how if I flip him off I better be able to back it up physically. This was definitely not going to be a discussion, but I proceeded anyway, telling him how buzzing me with his car is playing games with my life. In truth, I didn't really have time to get that out before he swung at my face with his right hand.

Thankfully I had taken Tae Kwon-Do as a sophmore at the University of Iowa. And even though I was tired and that class was 8 years ago, I quickly leaned back and to the right and threw my left arm up in the classic block move. My forearm pushed his punch wide and his fist barely struck my shoulder.

At this point I dropped my bike, jumped into the low ditch on the side of the road, and ran up the other side onto some poor woman's lawn. I had my cell phone out and was dialing 911. This irked the old man and he just kept screaming and then picked my bike up, raised it over his head, and threw it down into the ditch. He did not chase me anymore, but he did throw some dirt at me. He missed.

When the very friendly Sheriff showed up my assailant had already fled. I spoke with the officer and so did a very nice person in a truck who saw the whole thing and gave me his card. He is a defense attorney. I doubt anything will come of it all, but I will be sure to keep you posted if/when I hear back from the Sheriff.

After all that excitement I rolled home with a wobbly front wheel and the lovely Robin had lunch waiting for me. She is so wonderful. I was still a little shaken, but I quickly ate and showered and we were off to Chicago to see my family and pick up Robin's sister Meryl. This post is getting a bit long, so I will have to cut it short, but I will end with a map of the ride. Since many of the roads were new to me, I don't think this map is completely correct, but you get the idea.

Oh yeah, the ride was just barely over a century. 100.3something. It took me 6 hours and 20 minutes of riding and about 7 hours with the whole assault thing.

Ph Imbalance

Some of you have probably noticed that the "books" portion of booksbikesbeer is horribly under represented. And usually when it has come up, it has been in regards to some brief comments about my job as a graduate student. A job that really has not made me very happy these last couple of years. I have been lucky to spend those years in a nice department at the University of Iowa with some very cool people, but after lots of thinking I have realized that the profession is not right for me. Or perhaps I should say that I am not right for the profession. It is always difficult to tell in these situations.

So I am now a Ph. D-rop out and have taken an advising position at the University's Academic Advising Center. It started this week and I think it will be a really nice fit for me. Even though I will not have a real summer, I am ok with it. I have already felt much better about my increased every-day free time and this new found separation between work and not-work.

In this new free time I have, of course, been riding my bike a lot. Last night's group ride was a fine time. We did the ever fast Eden's Loop and I took all my pulls and made it to the home stretch with the group. At that point I eased off, as I really did not want to ride myself into the ground this early in the week. Steve and I rolled in easily and then had a beer at Robin and my house. It was nice.

And I have also gotten back to fun reading. And it has been great. Even during my breaks from school I was not doing much fun reading these last couple of years. But now it is back. A few weeks ago I read Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. It is his first novel and is a wonderful tale of that time in your life when you are between being a kid and an adult and really have no responsibility. The characters are fascinating and the adventures, while generally things I wouldn't want to do personally, were very enjoyable to experience vicariously. It is a quick, enjoyable read. When I neared the end, I really didn't want it to stop. I often get excited about finishing books, because then there is the exciting period of choosing the next book to read, and so I tend to read a little faster. But with this one I definitely slowed down. I have my own tattered used bookstore copy, so thankfully I will be able to re-read it whenever I choose. Mr. LaRue re-reads it at the start of every summer, and that might not be a bad rule to follow.

Two Down

Yesterday morning I woke up at seven with a slight hangover after having one two many beers at Steve and Cody's fire. Thankfully it wasn't anything a little juice, coffee, and food couldn't take care of. While Robin enjoyed her early morning coffee in bed with her book, I went into the basement to set up my computer on my cyclocross bike. After that I got dressed, ate a cheese and egg sandwich, and rolled out the door at 9:15, only a few minutes later than I had planned.

The morning was cloudy and cool, but the wind was light/non-existent from the east. So I took the most direct route to gravel I know, and then more or less followed a path that Steve and I rode last November when I tried to follow him on one of his 100 mile gravel rides. I got a little turned around once, but it worked out in my favor as I just got to add a few more gravel miles to the ride.

The route was beautiful. Everything was green and lush. There were also lots of little purple violets and bright yellow dandylions and plenty of other things that I don't know the names of. At this point it started raining on me. I guess May showers are needed to maintain the May flowers. It wasn't hard, though, just a steady sprinkle, but it lasted for almost an hour. It cleared up a bit shortly before I rolled into West Branch for a pizza and fluids stop. And the sun even came out. I felt great here at the halfway point, I had 49 miles in and 45 of them were on dirt.

After lunch I rolled north a little ways before turning back south. I decided to start eating again almost immediately, even though I wasn't really hungry, and I think this was a good decision. It kept my tummy happy and the winds started to pick up, so I was definitely riding harder at this point. At first it was mostly a crosswind, but after I had skirted Iowa City and continued south a ways the winds picked up dramatically and were coming from the east and the south.

This area had also received a lot of fresh gravel. Combined with the headwind, this made for a very frustrating section. I spent most of it riding all the way to the side of the road, half in the grass at times, trying to avoid the deep sections of chunky gravel. I had originally planned to ride east towards Lone Tree and ride some of the nice roads I remember liking that are south and east of there. But that direction had more fresh gravel, and I wasn't up for it.

So I took a break and got some road miles in. I had hardly ridden any pavement since Iowa City. I decided to continue south towards the Tri-County Bridge and then Riverside. It seems I have been going there a lot lately, but that's ok. When I turned off the pavement the loose gravel and wind were still annoying me, but that ended as soon as I crossed the bridge. My speed and my spirits lifted as I rolled back north on the hard pack dirt I enjoy. Thank you Tri-County Bridge!

Nearing Riverside I was almost 90 miles into the ride and I was having no stomach problems. This excited me. I had almost no sugary drinks on this ride and I ate more food, so perhaps this is the way to go. I was quite starving when I pulled into the Casey's there. They were out of pizza, and this bummed me out. But when my eyes saw a bag of potato chips I realized those salty fats would be fine, too. So I grabbed a bag and a chocolaty, milky, Starbucks coffee drink and headed back to the bike.

The ride back into Iowa City was nice. I had a tailwind almost the whole way and I did a bunch of it on pavement. I ended up with just over 82 miles of gravel (I stopped counting at 80, but I know I got at least two miles in after that). The total ride ended up being 104.5 miles. My on the bike time was 6:40 and the total time was around 7:10. I also had some luck with me at the end, because when I pulled my bike into the porch I noticed the rear tire had about 50psi or less in it. And sure enough, this morning it is flat.
After a shower, some food, and some lounging, Robin and I went over to Cody's art opening. It was very fun. The mural was being painted by so many enthusiastic artists that I was happy to hang back, drink beer, and enjoy some great conversation with friends. I was a little dazed at the end of the show, so Robin and I skipped the after party at the Fox Head and strolled home in the rain.