Question: When is riding a Fixie like playing Russian Roulette?
Answer: When you ride it for the Saturday D'ville group ride.
Yesterday after ACE asked about who was riding today, there were a few exchanges about the possible pace for the D'ville ride. I think I proposed "sane and steady", whatever that means, but Ian responded correctly with "Give it up, old habits die hard". Having been riding my fixie a bit, I think sure, I'm ready to give it a try, especially if others are doing the same (Ian, Doug, Greg et al). I'll just take my chances with the pace - Russian Roulette.
So I show up at the park and ride with my Steamroller. Given that I have a Corolla and no rack, I can only bring one bike, so I am comitted. At this point, I'm feeling like I have a revolver against my head with 1 bullet somewhere in the rotation. I'm looking around and not seeing any other fixies. I try to talk Tom Aga into riding his fixie (he's smart, he brings 2 bikes). No dice. Uh oh. Luckily Ian and Doug roll in on theirs. Click. Nothing. Whew.
We roll out down the hill and onto Patuxent River Road. Then the pace starts to ramp up with some of the ususal "we have to go at some ungodly power level (for me anyway) beacause that's what my coach says" types on the front. Uh oh. Then as the gap opens up they go off the front and the rest of the groups sits back, "steady and sane". Click. Nothing. Whew.
The pace continues sane and steady, even Bill Neumann appears to be enjoying it! Then we get to Brooks Woods; towards the latter part of it, I'm starting to spin pretty hard, some gaps start. Uh oh. After the turn, it slows and regroups, and I make it comfortably to the store. Click. Nothing. Whew.
We leave the store with ACE leading the charge. All of a sudden I realize that I'm working really hard to keep the wheel in front of me. ACE is doing an interval. Uh oh. He finishes before we get to Boyds turn and I catch my breath. Click. Nothing. Whew.
At Boyds Turn, there is some quick talk about who, if anyone, is doing the shorter route. Looks like no one is, so I keep following. The tandem goes by and I'm on the wheel. We start going down the first big roller, I'm spinning at a gazillion rpms and about 37 mph. Uh oh. Big gap. Click. BANG!
I'm gone. Oh well, I made it 4 rounds. I figure its all for the better anyway as it will spare me the indignation of being left for dead over the wall. After the first roller, there's a cut in the road so I quickly do a 180 and high tail it for Boyds Turn as the north wind alone all the way from North Beach would not be pleasant. I'm enjoying my "sane and steady" pace through Fairhaven, up the horse farm, over the wall and as I come the stop, I see some ABRT jerseys up the road. Sweet, I guess some people DID take the short cut. I work hard to catch them. It's Ian, Doug, Heff and John. This will really help with the wind. Nice to have some company all the way back.
The "beach crowd" gets back a few minutes after us, so they must have been hauling the mail to make up 6 miles in a little over an hour as we were not lollygagging. All in all, a nice December ride, and I'm better for the bloody experience.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
The NOT Bill Neumann Ride ;-)
After Bill posted an e-mail saying that while others might do the ride this week, he would not be leading it, I showed up anyway.
So I get up at 5:20am, drive 2.5 hours ... I was in NJ .... and at 9:00am I am sitting in my car in a snow and ice covered parking lot, watching the snow-driven wind....and no one else is there. Hmm. Plan B is a fixie ride at noon with Alex Pline.
Alex and I rode most of the Pete Penzell Saturday ride route, on our fixed gears, starting from Alex's home at around noon. The temperature was above freezing -- barely -- and it was windy. We made up for this by cutting the ride slightly short, and heading to downtown Annapolis and hot chocolate at The Hard Bean.
For those keeping score, both Alex and I are currently running close to 74 gear inches.
The Original Snow [Patapsco] Valley Ride
Greetings all, Today the MTB team banded together once more and made a terrible, windy, cold and brutal day into a very very solid ride opportunity.
After arriving at the CCBC tennis courts on my cross bike, the Raleigh RX1.0, I tried hard to tell myself the pain was just weakness leaving the body. After standing in the cold, we rolled and thankfully, gracious Mike did not take us on the technical loop right off. The technical stuff isn't a problem for me on my normal bike, but on a road bike, a little much.
After a few hard, hard diggers, I finally got into a rhythm. This is basically how the ride would go:
First the fat tire boys would fly down the hills like they were supposed to. The snow that was on the ground didn't seem to slow Kidd or anyone else down. I would find myself off the back, yes off the back of a mountain bike group.
Typacially I made great time on the climbs, even the technical ones and was actually clearing stuff on the 700x32's (in the snow) that I have trouble occasionally with on a nice day with my 29x2.2's. At one point on the ridge trail I was just tearing it up the side of the hill till my admittedly worn-out rear tire finally just refused to grab the earth any longer. I'm almost certin that I climbed better because this bike weighs 21 lbs, and my monocog flight 29er (SS I might add) weighs 27 on a good day.
Logs were of little problem for the RX1, the reasons I hate this bike on the road, were the very reasons it took so well to the dirt. Namely its very high bottom bracket gave mondo clearence over stupid stuff and the forward position made bunny hopping easy.
Biggest tip for riding a cyclocross bike at Patapsco-Avalon, THORN RESISTANT TUBES. Yes my cross bike has clinchers, cause I tend to break nice stuff. These tubes are 10x the thickness of what most recognize as a road tube, making it **Impossible** to pinchflat. I was actually bottoming out on my rims a few times (at 45psi) and still no problems. The one drawback is weight, they are very heavy but I noticed this less in the woods then I did in a cross race or on road.
Last point, cross bikes are slow as a turtle going down. Its their nature unless you're Jeremiah Bishop. Because of the carbon fork, high pressure tires and narrow contact with the ground (on a muddy snowy day) you have to just deal with it. The benefit, center pull brakes were the original anti-lock devices and I never skidded out, at all.
My wrists, forearms and neck all hurt from going over the bars about twice, crashing into a tree once. However I would certainly try riding out in the woods on my X bike again, let me just true my wheels up again first.
You Decide.
After arriving at the CCBC tennis courts on my cross bike, the Raleigh RX1.0, I tried hard to tell myself the pain was just weakness leaving the body. After standing in the cold, we rolled and thankfully, gracious Mike did not take us on the technical loop right off. The technical stuff isn't a problem for me on my normal bike, but on a road bike, a little much.
After a few hard, hard diggers, I finally got into a rhythm. This is basically how the ride would go:
First the fat tire boys would fly down the hills like they were supposed to. The snow that was on the ground didn't seem to slow Kidd or anyone else down. I would find myself off the back, yes off the back of a mountain bike group.
Typacially I made great time on the climbs, even the technical ones and was actually clearing stuff on the 700x32's (in the snow) that I have trouble occasionally with on a nice day with my 29x2.2's. At one point on the ridge trail I was just tearing it up the side of the hill till my admittedly worn-out rear tire finally just refused to grab the earth any longer. I'm almost certin that I climbed better because this bike weighs 21 lbs, and my monocog flight 29er (SS I might add) weighs 27 on a good day.
Logs were of little problem for the RX1, the reasons I hate this bike on the road, were the very reasons it took so well to the dirt. Namely its very high bottom bracket gave mondo clearence over stupid stuff and the forward position made bunny hopping easy.
Biggest tip for riding a cyclocross bike at Patapsco-Avalon, THORN RESISTANT TUBES. Yes my cross bike has clinchers, cause I tend to break nice stuff. These tubes are 10x the thickness of what most recognize as a road tube, making it **Impossible** to pinchflat. I was actually bottoming out on my rims a few times (at 45psi) and still no problems. The one drawback is weight, they are very heavy but I noticed this less in the woods then I did in a cross race or on road.
Last point, cross bikes are slow as a turtle going down. Its their nature unless you're Jeremiah Bishop. Because of the carbon fork, high pressure tires and narrow contact with the ground (on a muddy snowy day) you have to just deal with it. The benefit, center pull brakes were the original anti-lock devices and I never skidded out, at all.
My wrists, forearms and neck all hurt from going over the bars about twice, crashing into a tree once. However I would certainly try riding out in the woods on my X bike again, let me just true my wheels up again first.
or
You Decide.
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