Flèche 2013 - Café Loiterers

Last year, I tried to convince my Flèche teammates to do the Provincetown to Portland Flèche on fixed. It was a perfect fixed route, I said, but the Misguided Angels were having none of that.

As the night and day wore on, they all seemed to agree that it really was a fixie-friendly route, and next year would be a fixed year.

Bike Friday Tikit Give-Away

In a purely shameless attempt to increase the readership on this blog (from my two loyal readers to maybe 4 or 6), I am going to give away my Bike Friday Tikit. If I can't increase blog readership based purely on my riveting stories, maybe I can buy it :-)

But first, let me say thanks to Velouria of Lovely Bicycle for helping me out with this shameless promotion and for taking all the awesome photos below.   

Do you want the Good News or the Bad News?

"Do you want the good news or bad news?"

This is what Fear Rothar said as he came upstairs just before we were to load the tandem into the car to drive out to Westfield for the Bash-Bish 300km brevet.

A few weeks before, while cycling out in the Catskills, we noticed that the rear tire on the tandem was rubbing the fender a bit. These darn aluminum fenders are such a pain. We supposedly have the right sized fender for our tires, but like Dr Who's Weeping Angels, if you look away, bad stuff happens! Or if the tire isn't perfectly round... or seated just so, bad stuff happens. The Grand Bois Hetres that we use on the tandem seem to have a reputation for fiddly mounting, so the plan was to remove and remount the tire, or just put on a completely new tire. I was supposed to do this, but my brand new belted fixed gear bike showed up a few hours prior, and I had to go for a ride first. I mean it would just be inconsiderate to the builder not to take the bike out for a ride as soon as I got it, right?

Domestique to a Brand New Randonneuse

The greatest blog post ever written was almost ready to be published when I added one more link and lost the whole thing! Darn auto-save! I've tried to rewrite it, but it's not as good. What follows is the 2nd attempt... 

I met Constance Winters about 18 months ago on a Thursday morning ladies rides from Ride Studio Cafe. I was made aware of her very popular blog a few months prior and had become a fan. Constance is actually a pseudonym, and since she introduced herself with her real name, I didn't make the connection right away. But as we were riding along, I realized that I was in the presence of a celebrity, and suddenly blurted out, "Are you Lovely Bicycle?" To which she shyly replied, yes. We continued riding and chatting until we got back to RSC. Finding we had some common interests, we decided to get together again for more rides.

Climbfest in the Catskills - Part 3

The smoker's cough seemed to be getting worse. Almost to the point that John considered passing on the planned long ride for Friday. I'd initially plotted out this brutal century route, but also created a shorter option with a remote start.

Just as I had the car packed up and was about to leave, I convinced John to come, so we put his bike back into the car and headed out a little later than planned. We drove out to Phoenicia where we are becoming regulars at Mama's Boy Coffee Shop. After a quick coffee, we headed out on our bikes.

Climbfest in the Catskills - Part 2 - Nectar for the Honeybees

We had a couple of goals for our week in the Catskills. One was to do lots of climbing, and trust me, we did not suffer from any lack of hills. The other was to make full use of my new Honey All Roads and find some good dirt roads. We'd found a little dirt in our initial rides, but not quite as much as I was hoping for. So I sat down in front of my computer and typed the words, dirt and Catskills into the search box on ridewithgps, and found this route created by somervillebikes. I've never formally met somervillebikes, but we have a mutual friend, Velouria of the blog, Lovely Bicycle. In the week before we headed away, Velouria had mentioned that somervillebikes had a holiday home and some good dirt road routes in the area. So I had great confidence in this route when I found it. But then I noticed a level of detail rarely seen on routes one might randomly find online. He had color-coded the route to show what was dirt and what was paved. And every cue was annotated with additional details. This was very promising indeed.

Climbfest in the Catskills - Part 1

Longtime readers may have spotted a theme to our vacations at this stage. It seems that we find some place with lots of concentrated climbing and travel there to concentrate on climbing.  This spring, we decided to go to the Catskills in New York. I joked with a friend recently as I referred to this as a "Staycation", since we weren't flying anywhere. Despite this area being just a few hours away by car, we had not ever truly explored it. We've cycled through Woodstock, NY on the Westfield 600km and really enjoyed the scenery and the climbing. So it's long been on the list, and this year it bubbled up to the top.

We decided to rent a house for the week in Woodstock and since we were driving out, we'd bring both the tandem and a couple of single bikes. I have a brand new Honey All Roads, and I was eager to put it through its paces. But we also love riding the tandem, and since we could bring multiple bikes, we did.

Not quite a cycling post, but then again...

Never again, when someone asks where I am from, will I have to respond "just outside of Boston". Now I can just say "a few blocks from THE boat in Watertown, MA."

Last week left me and John feeling very lucky. While we got to experience a stressful day of lockdown at the end of the week, we were nowhere near the marathon on Monday, and on the far side of the river from all the action in Watertown on Friday. And this was the message that I attempted to send to far distant friends and family throughout the drama all week. At times, it felt wrong to post messages on FB or twitter, that we were safe and sound, while so many others were not. But our families needed to see these messages from us. And it turns out social media is actually a good way to broadcast a message like that to a far distant audience. I admit to being quite relieved to see the check-ins from various friends that I knew were doing the marathon on Monday. But I was still heartbroken to hear of the deaths of people I did not know, but who's stories I will not forget. And I was devastated by the news of all the severe injuries, including so many leg amputations, a most cruel attack on fans of running!

Permanents and Transcience

As a fixie rider, my feet are always moving. Could it be some form of hyperactivity that draws me to riding a fixed gear bike - since I just can't seem to keep my feet still? Or maybe hyperactivity is why I am always seeking variety. I'm not one of those riders who can go out and do the same route week after week after week.  I just read about a Kiwi rider who did the same century route every day for 65 days in a row to celebrate his 65th birthday. While an impressive feat, I would have gone insane by day 3!

While it may help someone training to compare their time or performance on the same loop from week to week, that's not why I ride a bike. Yesterday, while leading my Tuesday ride, someone asked me how to get strong. I laughed, as I said that I was the last person to ever ask about training advice. I ride my bike to get to great places to eat, to enjoy the view, to enjoy good company and to have fun. If fitness comes as a side benefit of my riding, that's great. But it's not my goal.

A Little Diversion

I know. It's been a while. But radio silence on this blog is coming to a screeching halt! I have a serious backlog of things to write about, so there may be a flurry of posts in coming days.

Despite the backlog, I'm going to start with my most recent diversion. I went on a seriously fun bike ride last Saturday, and tonight I'm still smiling and giggling with glee. Ride Studio Cafe and Honey Bikes put together an awesome event and they built a bike, just for me, just for the occasion. Really! They did! How cool is that?

And in the true spirit of Just-In-Time manufacturing, it came off the bike stand about 15 minutes before the start of the ride. But no fear, I hopped on the new bike, rode it around the block, across some cobblestones, down a trail and off and onto curbs a few times, and then headed out to do a group ride on twisty trails, with rocks and roots and bridges and boardwalks, grinning ear to ear the whole time!

I had a blast, but for some reason, kept thinking about coffee!

Photo courtesy of Rob Vandermark

Pay It Forward

Last week I was having a chat with a friend about different styles of bike trips. John and I have done all types of bike tours, including structured group tours, partially pre-planned tours with a few friends, and trips on our own or with a few friends, where only the start/finish point is pre-planned, and the rest is done on the fly. Each type has its advantages and disadvantages.

On an organized trip with a large group, you may meet and ride with lots of new people as well as some old friends. You might also have the bad luck to find a PITA (pain in the a$$) among the group! Many organized trips include vehicle support to carry gear, as well as providing snacks and support throughout the day, allowing one to fly up mountain passes without carrying a lot of stuff on the bike. Organized trips also come with assurances that you will have a place to eat and sleep, at a known distance. They also typically include a well-scouted route and a good set of directions. Occasionally, though, the directions can leave you desiring more while the actual distance can leave you wishing for less! Disadvantages with a pre-planned route are that one can't really make big changes based on weather, or the discovery of an interesting road or a cool looking place to stay.

The Elusive Howlin' Grits

History repeats itself...

A few years ago I bought an inexpensive fixie to use on the local Saturday morning fitness ride. Part of the appeal of riding fixed is that it is lightweight and simple. But prior to this acquisition, I'd often use my commuter fixie, with its lights and racks and fenders and studded tires. That bike is definitely not lightweight, and those studded tires can be a real drag.  But it is such a joy to ride a stripped down lightweight fixie, so I got the new bike purely for fun spirited group rides, like the Saturday ride.

No one!

According to Wikipedia, Nemo is a Latin word meaning "no man" or "no one".  So it seems that "no one" banned vehicle traffic from Massachusetts roads for a day (much to the delight of the plow drivers, not to mention local pedestrians and cyclists). "No one" shut down public transportation for almost two days, much to the chagrin of folks trying to get in and out of town without a car, bike or xc-skis. "No one" helped sell every bit of bread and milk and batteries in the region. Then "no one" came to town and left more than 2 feet of snow at our door. Interestingly "no one" seemingly told folks in Long Island about the pending storm, but that's a different story, although maybe those folks should upgrade their smart phones, so they get the message next time.

Finally, and the point of this post, is that "no one" made me use and abuse lots of non-cycling muscles over the weekend.

Before Nemo

Southern Hospitality

Today as I write this, I am back home in Massachusetts, looking out at snow falling on our eerily quiet street, as our governor has taken the almost unprecedented measure of banning all non-essential driving on roads state-wide, with the threat of 1 year in jail for violators.  I was surprised to learn that in addition to exceptions made for public safety, there are also exceptions granted to the media. This will enable them to interrupt regular television programming with frequent updates on the growing height of snowbanks, as well as demonstrating how dangerous it is to be out, by showing a low-in-the-pecking-order reporter standing in the surf without a hat or gloves, so we can appreciate the blizzard-force wind-speed based on the frozen reporter's soggy and windswept hair. But the more surprising (to me) exceptions are for vehicles supplying essential businesses like convenience stores and hardware stores.  I was one of the lucky folks who got that very loud blaring blizzard warning through my smart phone a day before the storm even started. After I changed my underwear, I headed out to the shops to join everyone else in the northeast stocking up on bread, milk, beer and driveway salt. Actually, since I don't really live under a rock, I was already well aware of the storm forecast from many news sources (both traditional and new media) and had already purchased plenty of fresh bread and milk before that panic-inducing alert was sounded. But I can say that this new cell phone based Emergency Warning System was very effective in causing general panic and clearing the shelves through the northeast of all bread and milk.

Strange But Familiar

I headed out on unfamiliar roads. A change is as good as a rest, some say. So this should make for a nice adventure.

But let me back up a little first. 

I'm a little removed from my usual stomping grounds here. My father moved to a retirement community in Durham a few months ago, and the only riding I have done here so far is to and from his old home in Sanford. Not needing to ride to Sanford on this day, I decided to look for some new roads in a different direction. I looked around on various online bike route mapping sites trying to find a good route. I wanted something relatively rural and quiet and rolling, maybe about 60 miles.