Be Invisible.

This is my Sunday morning plea. I won’t call it a “rant” – I haven’t gone on one of those in a while, and frankly they do little other than to make me even more hyper-aware of whatever obscure topic happens to be bothering me at that moment.

So, a plea it is. Cyclists, if your riding is primarily JRA outings (Just Ridin’ Around, please consider wearing comfortable, every day looking clothing. Unless you are a BASC (Bad Ass Serious Cyclist) – and really, unless you’re actually a racer out racing, or at least training for a race, you’re probably on a JRA ride.

Where I live, nearly every cyclist I encounter is garbed in skin tight Lycra, covered in logos or eye-melting colors and patterns, or both. (Well, not my friend Bob. I don’t see him often, but when I do he’s comfortably sporting shorts and sneakers. Thumbs up to you, Bob!) But here’s the thing: If you’re riding around the block or doing a two mile stretch through the park on your “townie,” do you really need $75 padded cycling shorts and an equally pricey wet suit-like microfiber jersey that weighs less than a quarter ounce just because it has a couple of pockets aft?

Please understand I’m not arguing against common sense cycling gear. A good quality shoe that meets my needs is something I personally value, especially if I’m riding for distance. In yesterday’s cool 40 degree weather, a decent base layer was the right call. Sometimes I wear a pair of purpose-made cycling knickers with knee socks; yesterday it was Levi 501’s. In the wind, a good shell makes sense… mine is a windbreaker I picked up on the cheap at an Eddie Bauer outlet. Even cheaper still is the black wool cardigan I got from a thrift store (three or four bucks, if I recall correctly.) A wool cap from Walz. A Dollar Store bandana purchase.

I ride a lot, but not everything I do is riding. I get off the bike to sketch. (A lot.) Or on my return ride, stop on the square at the pub. (Actually, I do that a lot too.) I feel oddly conspicuous clacking across the floor of the pub in skin hugging super hero tights. And let’s face it, I’m no longer built like Ryan Reynolds. (Don’t you like how I implied that I once was? Fact checker: I never was.)

I think it’s just plain weird that cyclists feel the need to go through an entire ritual of dressing in special clothing just to ride a bike. (Weird? Yes. Also the result of great marketing.) So my plea: Go for a ride today. Need to change your shoes or put on a windbreaker? OK. But beyond that, just hop on your bike and take off. Go ride. Enjoy the day. Turn on your blinky. In all other ways be invisible.

Illuminated Ride

Predawn hours. It’s black as night.

Oh. Maybe that’s because it is still night.

Country lanes are devoid of illumination, save for the thin sliver of a crescent moon and the distant twinkle of yard lights. The headlight on my bicycle has an adequate charge and the lane before me reveals bumps and sticks and stones in a narrowly channeled beam.

There are no other headlights. None from cars – mercifully, none from trucks either, not even as I roll through town on my way into the rural hills of Clay County.

The absolute quiet of night is a fallacy. A complete fabrication. In fact, on this early and wondrous September morning, the air is filled with sound: billions of crickets and other insects are playing a tune, singing their song. A light breeze buffets my helmet.

To the east a faint, rosy glow emerges along the horizon; night wanes and the dawn approaches.

Into the wild.

Yes, the L’Avecaise has been released into the wild. The build is complete for now, and my initial shakedown ride went well yesterday morning. I stopped frequently to check and recheck bolts and tires and clearance and all manner of things – as I swoop down that first long descent after a new build I’m suddenly thinking to myself, did I tighten down the stem? Oh crap…what about the front wheel? 

No decaleur installed for now – I’ll need something with more drop than the VO version I have on hand if I’m going to move my Swift Ozette bag back and forth between this and my Boulder…I should have measured first. The other option is Berthoud bag, the GB28 size looks to fit the space just about perfectly but at a $270 price point I have a great deal of difficulty not grimacing. I’d much rather have one bag traveling back and forth.

Counting this morning, I’ve escaped on the L’Avecaise twice and neither ride was long or especially spirited: About twelve or thirteen miles each time out, with a few climbs and a few descents, and one very deceptively steep false flat. Essentially, I haven’t attempted to push it much at all yet and won’t until I know I’ve got everything dialed in to my satisfaction.

So, out of the box just a few observations:

• I like the “float” of supple 650b x 42 tires quite a bit. I’m using Hetres at the moment, which while a bit heavier than the Compass tires, still feel great. The cost point between the two is negligible, and Compass had the Hetres in stock so my. tire selection was narrowed by availability. I’ve made no secret how much I like Compass tires as evidenced by the fact that I have them on three other bikes.
• Installing the VO Noir Zeplin fenders and nailing down a perfect fender line was a snap. Jeff Lyon’s frame and fork are perfectly designed to make set up so much less painfree than other installation experiences. What totally pissed me off though, was the damn VO front rack. It came nowhere close to fitting and required extensive bending to even make an adequate mating. During the process of dry fitting I managed to bodger up the front fender. With a bag in place, no one will ever see the scratches or no the difference. But I will. I’ll never use another of these racks.
• I went with Tektro CR720 cantilevers for the brakes and I’m very happy with them, and let me explain why: When I built up my Boulder I used Avid Shorties. I heard so many good things about them that I was really taken aback at how difficult I found them to set up. In fact, I jiggered around with adjustment for over a year, and to this day they work only adequately. They stop, and that’s about the best superlative I can apply to them. By contrast, the Tektro cantilevers installed and were adjusted quickly. They are very grabby, and stop very well. I like how they modulate on descent. And quite frankly, when it comes time to replace the pads on my Boulder I’ll probably just yank the Avids and install a pair of Tektro CR720’s.
• When it comes to saddles, I’m a Brooks fan boy. My favorite model continues to be the Cambium C17, but I also have Brooks Professionals on several of my bikes. Having a couple of NOS vintage Pros on hand, I installed one, presuming I’d eventually replace it with a black C17. And while that may still be the end game, I’m very pleased with the saddle position. The overall frame geometry and set up of the cockpit matches my own body geometry and ride positioning. I’ve made extensive measurements and comparisons over the years, so I’ve got a great baseline as a starting point for set up. I’m very pleased that I was able to use this data to easily position the main points of contact: saddle, relative to the bottom bracket and pedals; reach, relative to saddle, bars, bar height, and hand position.
• For handlebars, I’ve been very pleased with my experience with the VO rando model. On two other bikes, I’ve gone with a pretty wide size. On a whim, I ordered a pair that are a size narrower. I don’t notice an appreciable difference, and if anything, the difference is positive rather than negative. This is the second set of bars on which I’ve used the rubber Brooks Cambium wrap. I appreciate the slight “give” the Cambium wrap has on my palms, yet there’s still a confident foundation. In contrast to the bars on my Boulder – also VO rando models, by the way – wrapping the bars on my L’Avecaise was a real bitch. I’m pretty good at wrapping bars using cotton, leather, or just plain old cork, so I found this experience both challenging and frustrating.
• I’ve currently got my favorite style of clip in pedals installed, the dual SPD/platform Shimano M-324 model. However, I’m likely going to replace them with flat platform Vice pedals, which I have on both my International and my Bernard Carre. I like how grippy the platform is with just about any shoe, and that I can just hop on and take off without going through the motions of outfitting in cyclist clothing and togs.
• I’m going with rechargeable lighting in front and battery operated tail light. After running out of charge on the road a couple of times now, I like the convenience of just being able to stop at Quick Trip for a pair of AAA batteries. Plus, I am finding the battery operated tail lights outlast the USB charged options. Go figure.

What’s up?

So what’s new? Well, nothing actually. I’m still surrounded by old stuff in my studio – old bikes, old furniture, old baseball cards, etc. But it’s the old bikes that concern The Early Morning Cyclist. And my newest old bike is a Bernard Carré that as is par for the course, I continue to experiment with.

I am extremely pleased with the overall fit. It feels great to ride, and for those reasons alone it’s worth it to me to continue playing around. I pulled the 27 inch wheels off that I’d been riding on and replaced them with lighter, sportier 700c wheels. Something about the beefy 27 x 1 1/4 tires appealed to me, but the wheels never seemed to want to spin up as quickly as I wanted. I installed a pair of 700 x 28 Gatorskins; combined with the slightly smaller wheels the bike was noticeably faster off the starting blocks. Meanwhile, I wound up horse trading for a pair of 700 x 32 Compass tires – this bike just feels better on wider tires – and I’m happier still.

With the narrow bottom bracket axel, I’m still running a 52/42 racing crank, but that will soon be remedied. I finally located the longer Stronglight spindle I knew I had in my parts storage. I’ll pair that with a 48/34 crankset, which will replicate the same gear range as my Boulder Brevet (albeit with fewer cogs and larger jumps between them… that’s the trade off you get in comparing five speeds to nine.)

I noticed an odd jump on the chain yesterday as I was fine tuning the shifting. Only closer examination it turns out that one of the teeth is missing on the rear derailleur jockey wheel. No big deal – I’ve got others, so replacement is relative easy.

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I’d planned to ride the Carré in yesterday’s Tour de Bier but I’m not content with the gearing yet, and my bad knee might have objected simply out of spite once I hit the first climb. So I’m waiting on the replacement crank to arrive before heading out on any long hilly rides. I’ve got some traveling to do this summer and it would be tough to carry my Boulder along with me. But the Carré should break down to fit into my bike bag, and is light enough that it can be my rider while I’m gone. Plus it’s pink and “old,” so there’s a better chance thieves will ignore it.

So yesterday’s ride was astride my Boulder Brevet. Even though I was intentionally trying to maintain a leisurely pace so that my wife could keep up, I found myself constantly out in front by a long measure. Fortunately, I brought my sketching pen and book along to make really quick scribbles in the West Bottoms and Stock Yards . This allowed adequate time for her to catch up, pass me, continue on, and then for me to leap frog forward. Repeat.

The area is a good one for urban cyclo-touring, and the road surface, although crumbling in places, was no match for my wider tires. Yet another good reason to sport fatter, supple tires!

An event like the Tour de Bier is a good one for cyclists who enjoy bikes and beer. The route meandered past many of the former brewery locations in Kansas City, and stopped for sampling of golden fare from the various microbreweries thriving in our urban core and northern corridor. The wind was a bit fierce, and grew stronger as the morning evolved into midday. Coming back across the Missouri River, going uphill into the stout and unyielding breeze, I heard a lot of bitching and moaning. I chalked that up to cyclists who’d sampled too much golden fare. Me, I’d sampled and enjoyed too, but by this point the end of the ride was nigh and within two or three miles there was a tall, cold brew waiting for me, along with a locally sourced meal. My stomach grumbled, then roared, and I ignored the wind.

The Curse of Winter Slothfulness.

I went out to ride a route of hill after hill after hill after hill yesterday morning. The photograph is maliciously deceptive – they’re not especially long but they are devilishly steep in places. My legs are not yet hill-hardened after a winter of wanton slothfulness, and I found myself regularly dropping into the lowest of the low gear combinations.

I love the land. And I was in a “black-and-white kind of mood this morning.” In fact, I love being in that mood with a camera – or in my case these past several years, an iPhone. Every so often, the topography would level off and I’d stop for a photo op and a tank of oxygen.

Gazing out across a field, it all seems so benign. But I know this route well: It’s my HTFU route, the one I pedal through every spring. It’s the route that gives me a moment of respite before winding back toward the hills and the Missouri River bluffs again, the one that I regret taking. The one that I actually love.

It’s a lonely trek, but clearly someone has been here before me. There’s an empty bottle in the freshly turned soil – a window tossed remnant of a previous night’s revelry? All I know is that it mars my view, the one imperfection in an otherwise perfect scene.

Each stop for image making – and they are frequent and welcome – each stop gives me a chance to breathe in the loamy fragrance of tilled land, to be scolded by a chattering jay perched on a branch behind me. There’s not even a hint of highway noise. That paved monstrosity is many miles away and I enjoy that for the moment this particular country road and moment belongs just to me. A single pickup truck passed me earlier but otherwise mine is a solitary outing.

The rollers begin again, gently at first, but with little fanfare each subsequent wave increases in contrast, and before long I’m struggling in the granny gear. No stopping for photographs now: That would mean having to initiate a climb mid-hill and there’s no way I’m giving up the momentum of riding down the previous wave! I’m satisfied with those taken from the flatter crest of this route.

For now, it’s time to grit my teeth, enjoy the short climbs, and HTFU.

 

 

To Hell With The Groundhog.

Waiting in the wings was Baby, my 1966 Schwinn Paramount, holding out for an afternoon ride in the country.

And what an afternoon it turned out to be! Not a puff of breeze, completely still except for the trill of birdsong and quiet voices of couples and families out for a walk on an incredibly pleasant day.

Heading north, the sun disappears behind a thick cloud cover. It’s cool enough that I’m barely breaking into a sweat, but pedaling at a nice steady pace my legs quickly warm. All around me the world seems to be bathed in ochre and sienna and umber. A closer look reveals fresh sprouts of green peeking through the underbrush and dead leaves that blanket the ground.

Trees, not yet laden in foliage allow a view of the lake and land and hills beyond.

It’s weird. I’m riding through rural Missouri, about as far from the ocean as one could be, smack dab in the middle of this land mass we call America. But high above the water, dipping and swooping, are gulls. At the end of one small body of water, in the shallows, a school of some kind of small fish is breaking the surface, the water boiling, making quiet popping sounds as they do.

To hell with the groundhog. Spring is on the way.

Glow

Sub-atomic, nuclear glow; snowy whiteness, bleached and silvery – like the hoar frost that only days ago crusted the windshield of my car; pallid, colorless, ashen, and pasty…washed out and waxen, entirely bereft of warmth or color, pale and anemic looking  legs that haven’t been kissed by the sun since last November, when old Sol simply wasn’t even at his best even then, betraying my Gaelic-Nordic ancestry.

Yesterday was the very first “shorts day” of 2017.

Escape.

Thank goodness for good weather and an opportunity to get outside on my own to ride for a couple of hours. I needed to be away from the three ring circus that is our political system, broadcasting from every media outlet 24/7. Never in my memory have we been so divided as a country as we are at this moment. Social media is fuel on a raging fire, too. Had I left my iPhone at home I’d have escaped the lunacy…but no. I heard it ping, letting me know I had a message, and made the mistake of checking it. I wish I hadn’t. I was getting trolled on Facebook by a smug “why can’t you live and let live, get over it because we won it all” nutball.

Sad. Just sad.

It bothered me for the rest of the ride, and on into the night. Don’t ask me why. I’m usually good about ignoring stuff like this. Maybe, arriving as it did in the middle of an otherwise enjoyable JRA outing – maybe I was resentful of the interruption. Cycling is meditative to me, a means of decompression, to escape… it’s a strategy for reconnecting with me. Getting insulted and criticized like that … gosh, I’ve got a lot thicker skin than most people. But what a soul suck it is when a person feels the need pulverize someone else with their opposing political views, to bathe them in guilt by “Bibling” them, to presume that their world view is, indeed, an override of another’s.

Like wheels on a bike, life and things propel forward. Life goes on.

But dang it all. I thought I’d escaped that crap for a while yesterday.

 

Cold New Year’s Day Ride.

It’s New Year’s Day, and brunch with good friends ran long. I’d planned on joining one of the local clubs for a 2017 kick off ride, but that wasn’t to be. By the time we’d parted company, the ride had already begun. I was looking forward to a ride from the River Market, through downtown, and looping around The Plaza, followed by an hour of libations.

After brunch, I spent a few hours in the studio finishing up an illustration. The sun that had promised a better looking day was hidden behind gray banks of clouds. Although not as windy as the past few days, nevertheless the breeze felt cold. I knew my ride wouldn’t be a terribly long one before I gave up the ghost, but I needed to get outside and put in a few miles of road time.

Heading out, my first thought was “Brrrrr!” Almost immediately my stocking cap crept up on top of my head and my ears were exposed. I can’t seem to keep the darned thing low enough on my head when I ride. Coasting at speed down the first long hill, the cold air rushed in around my eye glasses and I immediately teared up. My nose was running like a faucet, and my fingers were only passably warm, despite the heavy gloves that covered my hands. But my saddle position was excellent and I felt comfortable spinning on the big ring. Before long, my legs were starting to warm up as the revs added up.

Near the edge of town there’s a small lake. There are literally no cars on the road today – perhaps people are at home, in bed, nursing a hangover or catching up on lost hours of sleep. I pause briefly to make a photograph, to document the ride. The temps are hovering just above freezing, although the breeze makes it feel a lot colder. I enjoy stopping here beside the water, if only for a moment. A short stop and then I’m off again, spinning quickly, feeling pretty darned good, moving along at a decent clip.

So 2017 has arrived. I’ve shared a meal with good friends. I made artwork in the studio. My Chiefs won the Division. And I got in a good ride. I figure it would be pretty tough to top that as a beginning to a new year.

 

Adieu 2016

After an hour or two of reorganizing, the studio is looking a bit less like a bike shop and more like…well, like the artist space it is supposed to be. With the holiday season drawing to a close I need to get more than my work space sorted out: Students return from break next week, I’ve got drawing and design lessons to organize, and there are a couple of design commissions that I really should begin working on.

Semester break passes very quickly. I’ve enjoyed the luxury of keeping my own schedule, with a few large chunks of that time having been dedicated to bicycle mechanics. Three more frames were placed on the auction block after Christmas, and because they were completely built up I needed to strip them down, then clean and store the components and wheels. It always amazes me how much less time it takes to tear down a frame than it does to build one up!

And so we come to the last day of 2016. Yesterday was another blustery, blow hard kind of day. But aside from gale force head winds, Dame Fortune blessed us with surprisingly nice riding conditions for late December. Not so much today though, and I’ll be back to layering up again for a therapeutic ride following the annual Anderson family holiday feast. Three generations of food will be in attendance – mercifully, the final gorging of the season. I look forward to the traditional Molloy fare that my mom contributes: sausage rolls, cheese straws, and of course the Yorkshire pudding. A hearty beef brisket prepared by our daughter, pastries and pie are in the final stages of prep in my wife’s pastry kitchen. Brothers and sisters, and very likely at least a glass or two hoisted in good cheer as we bid adieu to this bastard of a year.

And after the dishes have been wiped clean and the leftovers divided up, I’ll head out for a few miles to settle the digestion and stretch my legs.

I took full advantage of yesterday’s opportunity to do a little local exploration. Having felt like the stem height was off I had made a slight adjustment to my 1971 Raleigh International. While everything looks good in the stand, and feels good test riding it up and down the road in front of the house there’s simply no substitute for a shake down ride that takes in a variety of road conditions. What feels acceptable for five minutes may actually turn out to be quite unacceptable after leaning on the bars for ten miles. And as it turned out, I stopped on the town square, leaned the bike against a corner of the Jesse James Bank Museum, and tweaked the height up a tiny bit more.

Earlier this year I installed 700 x 38 Compass Barlow Pass tires with the option of extra light casing. I experimented with tire pressure for several weeks before identifying a front/rear combination that works well for me. The ride is cushy without feeling like things are dragging. The larger tire diameter with 700 x 38 doesn’t seem to spin up as quickly as 650b x 38, or even 650b x 42. But the configuration isn’t a dog either. I’ve got Compass supple extra light casing tires on this and my Boulder Brevet and have really come to appreciate these as my tires of choice.

I’ve previously hinted at a new frame. All I’ll say at the moment is that Jeff Lyon is working on a L’Avecaise 650b project for me, and that it will most certainly be sporting Compass Baby Shoe Pass tires when it hits the road this spring.

My Raleigh holds its own in many situations. The geometry and choice of tires work well for riding the gravel pack of the KATY Trail, it’s a good choice for leisurely road miles through the hills of Clay County, and I like it for running errands or just riding around town. It’s this latter purpose where I feel it excels. But sometimes I really feel the need for simplicity: moderately speedy and responsive riding. And that’s when I roll down the driveway on my 1966 Paramount.

After wiping down the Raleigh, I pointed the Paramount directly into the wind and pedaled down the road. I really enjoy riding this bike, and at least in this case the Paramount reputation seems well deserved. First off, one of the most important considerations is that the frame and points of contact fit. I’ve engaged in quite a bit of action research over the years and know very precisely what my optimum target measurements are. Making the base adjustments are easy for me, assuming that the starting point – the frame – will accommodate those adjustments.

Every bike needs to be fine tuned though, because geometry and compliance are variables. None of my bikes – this Paramount included – are nearly so compliant as my Boulder Brevet. It simply responds the way I anticipate. My Paramount does come close though, and it provides a racier, “sportier” ride.

The Paramount’s original tubular wheels have been boxed up for years. The high flange Campagnolo Record hubs are quite beautiful, light, and spin smooth as silk. I’ve been thinking about re-lacing them to clincher rims so I can pair them back up with the bike. I’m pretty certain they will polish up nicely.

I’d set out on yesterday’s Paramount ride with 35 or 40 miles in minds, but the stiff 35 mph head winds really beat me up. There were times I felt like I was standing still, particularly when I came to a point where no natural windbreak existed to ease my ride. I buckled a lot sooner than planned, and turning down a road that put the wind at my back I immediately felt like I’d been fired from a sling shot. The wind behind me, I quickly began to chew up the miles.

One thing about a racing bike – I really don’t have anywhere to store things, other than in my jersey. Stopping to catch my breath, I peeled out of one underlayer and stuffed that shirt into my jersey pocket. It’s a functional solution, but crammed in with a spare tube and tire levers, I always feel a little like I have Quasimodo’s hump on my back, and that it has somehow slipped down near my butt. I’d much rather have  the weight on my bike.

40 miles is no-brainer for me, but yesterday I settled for somewhere around 25. Tomorrow, day one of 2017, there is a New Year’s Day club ride out of the River Quay with a planned stop for a pint at the end of the run. I’m thinking there are a lot worse ways to begin the year.