sweeping up

The American’s swept the silver’s at cyclocross worlds this past weekend. Alas, coverage has been spotty and I’ve only seen a handful of short clips on the web. But Kerri and the IFchicks were there in person and should have updates on the blog soon!

Another Tuesday, another hour spent riding in place. The realities of winter’s arrival are sinking in. Today we were treated to a series of squalls that teased us with more snow that they could deliver. Rumors are that snow is accumulating up at Black Mo for skiing this weekend, but until then even the morning commute can be counted as ride time.

Tonight Sophie and I made it out for a quick run before heading to the shop to relive the glory of Frank Schleck’s win at the Amstel Gold last spring and do one legged intervals on the rollers. Temperatures are looking to climb into the balmy upper 20’s for the next few days, so perhaps I won’t be kept indoors for much longer.

Looking to the summer Single Speed World’s is only a week after PBP! So I’m hatching a new plan to travel from Paris to Scotland, by way of Cambridge to join Dr. John and the Telly Savalas Players Club for two days romping through the heather and drinking the aged scotch that the weak among us find unpalatable (for a more academic treatment of the subject see my favorite issue of Applied Statistics). The beauty of this plan, is that I have work colleagues in Paris, Cambridge, and Edinburgh so I can claim the whole trip as a work! Of course it will be a stretch to get a grant to fund all of this tom foolery, but at least it will be easy to tell the boss I’ll be AWOL for a few weeks. Here’s to blurring the lines between business and pleasure.

snow day

We’ve been waiting for snow, and at 10:30 it was looking pretty promising today.  Alas, the snow came mostly in squalls, which were briefly exciting but ultimately cosmetic.  A few phone calls around the hood led to quick cancellatoin of the planned ride on the road and a few optimistic suggestions about skiing late in the day.  By 2 it was apparent that skiing was not going to happen and the best way to enjoy the day was to head to Scotia on mountain bikes. I met up with Billy and Steve
at 2:30 and headed out to the woods.  The trails were fantastic!  Not much more than 2 inches in any one place, which meant that the rolling was easy, but the snow soaked up all the sounds in the woods and all we heard was the spinning of our gears.  I led the boys on a few of the newer trails and we enjoyed playing in the woods like school kids playing hookey.  We rolled out of the woods more refreshed than we’d gone in . . . another good weekend in the hood.

Solo

There are some things that only 3.5 hours of riding a fixed gear can change. This week was a bear at work and it was an absolute struggle to get up and out the door this morning. With the weather, and several of the regulars heading to the slopes, I was in no rush to get to the shop to ride alone at 9. Hopefully the lack of chatter on the “weekend ride” page was indicative of weak support for the early ride. Working off of about 20 hours of sleep this week, I managed to roust myself around 10AM for the morning ritual of eggs, toast, and espresso. The grey sky greeted me like an old friend waving me to the bar, “Come. Sit. Tell me of your troubles.” ,  and I suited up for a few hours of circular meditation. I had a minor breakthrough with my new tights as I pulled them out of the wash yesterday. When I reached into the machine I found two rectangular pieces of foam; the uncomfortable knee pads that nearly kept me from buying these tights. Apparently they are removable! And I pulled the tights on this morning and reveled in my new freedom. No longer would I feel the odd aerodynamics or strange rubbing at my knees when I stood on a climb.

I made a few quick calls around before leaving the house, but no one answered so I headed out alone on the Coburn loop. A light tail wind on the way out helped me overcome my stupor and I managed to get myself in a comfortable rhythm for the ride. It was quiet and grey. I saw almost no one all day except a cheery bunch taking a break from home repairs in Millheim who waved with almost unnerving enthusiasm. The wind picked up a little as I hit 45 on the way back to town and I had to grunt out the last 12 miles into a headwind.

Back at home I bookended my ride with another shot of the black nectar and settled in for a last few hours of work to cap off the week. Deadlines are past and Monday is still a while off.

Slow week

A slow week indeed. Work has kept me in the office late and so riding in the wintry air has been a secondary priority. I made it home early enough yesterday to take Sophie for a quick run before heading to the shop to spin for an hour. There is a certain zen to the rollers; I just try to focus on the technique, because I’ve never really been satisfied with an intensity workout indoors. So I spend an hour focusing on my feet, where the pressure is, where the dead-spot is. And then just when I think I’ve got it, I’ll go one foot at a time and realize that the stroke is not as smooth as it seemed.

Afterwards I met a few of the boys at Faccia Luna for dinner and a much needed beer. At about 9:30 we got the bartender to turn on the State of the Union address and a group of about 10 of us sat and heckled Bush an cheerd Nancy Pelosi every time she stayed put in her chair.

The forecast is looking particularly miserable for the next 2 days , so I thought it important to get out for an hour before the temperatures plummit. A too quick spin on the fixie, just to get my head on straight, then back to work. Thankfully after Friday my schedule clears out and I should be able to make up for lost time next week.

running on empty

I ride a bike so that I don’t have to run.  I love running, running is convenient, running is cheap, running takes less time than biking.  And running tears my body apart, hurts my knees, hurts my achilles, and if I run I want to run more, and my body just can’t take it.  But, unfortunately, when its 25 degrees and snowy and dark, and Sophie is bouncing off the walls because I’ve been at work all day, running is a pretty appealing option.  So this year I’m trying to avoid the problem that happens every other winter, I start running after 8 months of only riding and I get hurt.  This year I’ve limited myself to a rather trivial 15 minute run through the neighborhood with Sophie on the evenings that I can’t make it out on the bike.  It serves its  purpose, I sweat, I feel like I did something, and the dog doesn’t look at me like I’m a delinquent parent.

We’ve settled into cold in central PA, and I’ve finally started adjusting to the realities of winter.  Sunday was a wintery 25 degrees and I managed to struggle through an hour 45 on the fixed gear in the afternoon.  I opted out of the early cross ride: enough coasting in 20 degrees for one weekend.  And for my choice I was awarded with an extra 6-8 degrees and some light falling snow.

Winter is great not only for fixed gears, but also affords a great excuse to catch up on the cinema.  I don’t really recommend curling up with A Clockwork Orange for the comfort, but kudos to The State Theater for starting to make up for the embarrassing lack of an arthouse movie theater in State College.  And for those who can’t get enough of classic cinema, the boys at FreezeThaw are bringing back movie night with a screening of “2 seconds” this Friday at 8; a riveting tale about the epic struggle between downhill racers and bike messengers. How this escaped the attention of the Academy, I have no idea.

Fuzzy Math

My ride clock started today at 8:55 and ended at 1:20. So by some calculations I got almost 4.5 hours on what has been the coldest day of the winter thus far. However, to claim to have been riding that whole time would be a bit of a stretch. At 8:30 I was sitting on the couch with the dog listening to the wind howl outside and wondering why on earth I had suggested to ride pavement today. But, partially out of obligation, and partially seeking the warm comfort (a relative term at these temperatures) of a fixed gear, I roused myself and headed down to the shop. The brain freeze rolling down Cherry Lane was enough to make me question my sanity, but I was out of coffee this morning and I new that Jimbo would be brewing.

Only Dave van Tol was man enough to show up for the 9AM ride (though credit to Kyle and Pam for hitting the trails in Scotia). Fearing the wind we opted to change bikes and join a 10AM cross ride leaving from the bike hood. So back home to switch bikes and head over to Steve’s in search of my second cup of coffee. As Steve readied his steed, I warmed up in the living room with the kids testing out all of this year’s Christmas presents. A little after 10 I learned that the new plan was to drive up to Tussey and do 4ish hours from the forestry lot. Knowing this crowd, and looking at the number of riders and the size of the truck, I figured that this arrangement would have us starting the ride closer to 11. Dave and I had been partially riding and partially waiting for a little over an hour and so we opted to go it alone and start pedaling then and there.

We enjoyed a following wind and managed to get to the Tussey lot before the boys from the hood. Rather than wait around again, we kept going and headed up Bear Meadows Road. We chose a mellow loop, out to Whipple Dam on Beetleheimer and back on Laurel Run Road. The climbs were great for keeping warm, but we paid the price on the long descents. When I arrived back home I tried getting my shoes off but couldn’t manipulate my fingers well enough to undo the buckles. A warm shower and an espresso and I was able to sit back and enjoy my accomplishment: 20 degrees, 20 mph wind, and yes, it goes down in the books as 4.5 hours.

Winter chill

35 degrees and a fixed gear, can it get much better than that?  Well, yes, it can.  But when that’s what you’re faced with it ain’t bad.  I got 2 hours in as the sun faded.  A new pair of winter tights made the temperature pretty bearable.  The forecast is for more of the same on the weekend, so it looks like the fixie will be seeing some further action.

old man winter

Winter has arrived in central PA.  And so I retreated to the comfort of the shop for an hour on the rollers.  It’s hard to believe that I used to routinely put in 2+ hour trainer rides in when I lived in Montana!  Now its everything I can do to make it an hour.  But trainer nights do afford the opportunity to “ride” with a mixed group, and everyone does their own pace, and you get to talk to people that you just can’t do an hour outside with.  Back when I had a heated two car garage in Bozeman, I used to come home from work to find 5-8 people spinning and watching Bjarne Riis win the 1996 Tour.  That winter on the trainer was formative for me.  I’d broken my ankle, ending my ski season in February, and found solace on the trainer (with a walking cast and a downhill pedal) riding with the best riders in town, through the French country side in my garage.  When the cast came off, I rode like a demon, buoyed by the camaraderie I’d felt all winter.  I remember it fondly . . .

. . . of course, that was before I got a fixed gear and realized that riding indoors all winter is for pansies.

Soggy

The patter of rain on my window this morning brought the welcome news that I would not be getting out of bed early to ride. This gave me time to finally look at the stats for this blog.  I’d generally assumed that this was an exercise in futility, but I was surprised to see 250 hits in the last 2 weeks! Hopefully I can make this thing interesting . . . or at least informative.

After a few quiet hours of work at home, I finally rallied to get on the fixie around 2. I’d been watching the radar for a few hours and it looked like a break in the rain was coming. But at 2 it picked up again and I called Billy to delay for a bit. I headed over to his place at 3:30 during what the radar indicated might be a significant gap in precipitation. Alas, the rain came back 20 minutes into a casual spin around town and we spent the better part of the next hour getting progressively wetter and colder. By Boalsburg the tights were soaked, by Houserville the gloves were sodden. The last few miles back into town as the sun faded were appropriately miserable. The kind of miserable that feels so good. The kind of miserable that you know will pay big dividends when the weather gets warmer.

Rolling back through campus we saw the end of our quiet small town. Over the next 24 hours town will swell by some 25000 undergrads, streets will be more crowded, bars louder and smokier . . . all the more reason to spend time in the quiet solitude of the saddle.

To hell and back in ‘07

We ride for many reasons: health, therapy, companionship, pride, challenge, punishment. And on any given group ride, the individuals are likely to be motivated by any one of these.  Today’s ride was equal parts camaraderie, celebration, group therapy, and flagellation.  The weather couldn’t have been better, 40-50 degrees and misting rain all day.

I had to wake up Joe and Rich on the way to the shop, so I knew we’d be rolling out a bit late.   But the leisurely start left plenty of time to drink coffee and catch up before we got started; which, after a late night of social anesthetic at Zeno’s, I found very welcome.  Despite the miserable weather, we had 7 leaving from the shop at 9:30 and stopped to pick up Chip on the way out of town.   The turtle ride is so-named because of a tiny bit of overgrown jeep trail halfway through, betwee Lake Perez and Whipple Dam, that is usually so water-logged that it is not uncommon to have to dodge turtles.  The ride was nostalgic for me as it is the first winter adventure ride that I did after getting my cross bike in similar conditions two years ago.  Today did not disappoint: grime, mud, puddles, ice, two dam crossings, poaching a bit of private land.   We were out just under 4 hours overall.  The hours, two significant climbs, and the weather made it exhausting and we pulled back into town feeling like we’d accomplished something, even if all we’d done was end up back where we started . . . a little dirtier and a little smellier.

The afternoon, after a bowl of soup, a nap with the dog, and an espresso, presented its own minor triumph.  Nita and I rolled into town for the inaugural ride on her new, old bike.  Over Christmas she had her childhood Peugot sent to State College so that she could have a bike for riding around town.  Right now, its still got the original build, including stem mounted, friction shifters and Shimano Tourney components (nothing but the best!).  But we’ve got plans in the works to pimp it out a bit with an internal 3-speed and  orange velocity rims.  The boys at FreezeThaw should have fun with this one.