Mud, Sweat, Beers, and Riding Bicycles I Don't Own

Saturday was my first race of the year. I finished in the middle of Sport. I’m not exactly disappointed since I finished where I assumed I would, I’m just frustrated. Very frustrated. But I’m keeping this positive. My Tomac worked flawlessly as usual, 20.5 lbs of crisp shifting carbon fiber goodness. I finished, changed, and made it to the beer tent before it rained. I guess this makes it a good race.



After the race, Sue and I went to a Derby party. I met the host last winter at a birthday party; he was interested in the Chevy Volt and I knew enough about this car to carry on a conversation. Saturday he introduced me to someone who imported electric bikes from China. I suppose since I know a little about the electrification of the automobile and I had just done a bike race, they assumed I knew something about electric bikes; I don’t, but had fun trying the bicycles out. One model had a motor in the rear wheel which I have seen before. The other model had a motor in the bottom bracket that assisted your pedaling. This was interesting. Twisting the throttle rocketed you up from a Cat V racer to Fabian Cacellara just like that. One of the old men watching was from Sweden and said he sees bike like this there. He said old roadies use them to drop young racers practicing on climbs, turning to smile at the kids as they pass. I see the charm in these bicycles.

Sunday morning Sue and I left early for a ride, trying to beat the rain. I don’t mind riding in bad weather so much but rain and mud is hard on bicycles. Sue pointed out BMC was having a demo day. You don’t say? We went to the display and faked mild interest so we could ride their bikes and leave ours protected and comfy in the back of the truck. I chose the Speedfox, a full suspension 29er with SRAM XO, not the kind of bike I would buy but I thought it would be interesting to ride. It was actually a really nice bike; I forgot how smooth full suspension was and it almost convinced me that 29 inch wheels are the way to go. It had wide tires and a more upright riding position; a good bike when I give up racing, better than an electric bike anyway. I’m not ready to give up just yet.

Want it Wednesday: Santa Cruz Stigmata

This week’s Want it Wednesday is the Stigmata, a cyclocross frame Santa Cruz quietly introduced in 2009 then quietly discontinued at the end of 2010, making it about as rare to spot on the road as a yeti (the ape-like cryptid that inhabits the Himalayas, not the ARC-X cyclocross bike). The Stigmata doesn’t look special on paper, an aluminum frame with normal cyclocross geometry, but it is so gosh darn cool that it got me to sell my Kona Major One so I could buy one. Well, that and I decided I wanted gears. I used the single speed Kona on a trainer during the winter and it wasn’t ideal for following any type of structured workout. Plus Sue is now faster than me and I figured I needed 19 more gears to keep up, or a tandem.

I've wanted a Yeti for a while (the ARC-X cyclocross bike, not the ape-like cryptid that inhabits the Himalayas). I bid on a few on ebay over the years but they always went for more than I am willing to spend on a bicycle. An ARC-X showed up on the MMBA classifieds recently, the very same month I didn’t bother to look. Part of my attraction to an ARC-X was because Yeti is a mountain bike company that decided to offer a cross frame, and I am a mountain biker who decided he wanted a cross bike. A pure road bike isn’t right for me because even on road rides I tend to gravitate towards dirt roads. And I have a fantasy of racing cyclocross; road racing is out of the question. 

Like Yeti, Santa Cruz is a mountain bike company that decided to sell a cross frame but a Stigmata lays more towards the road bike end of the spectrum than an ARC-X. Since I will be primarily using a cyclocross bike on the road, this appealed to me. A 54 cm Stigmata frame only weighs 2.85 lbs which is close to what a road frame weighs; 9 ounces lighter than a 54 cm Yeti. I am less of an irrational weight weenie now than I use to be but 9 ounces is nothing to sneeze at. Hum, apparently I am still an irrational weight weenie. Maybe I just have an irrational obsession with bicycles. I’m getting off point. The Stigmata has a lower, more road bike-like bottom bracket than an ARC-X. I imagine the Santa Cruz’s Easton EA6X butted and tapered aluminum would give a more forgiving ride on the road than the Yeti’s Pure Tube Set, but this is only a hunch.

Another emotional reason why I chose the Stigmata is because it was made in America and, while some Yeti’s are still made in the States, the ARC-X is made in Taiwan. Look, I have nothing but admiration for the manufacturing capability around the Pacific Rim and I know frames made in Asia are every bit as good as the ones made here. I love my carbon fiber Tomac and it doesn’t bother me it was made in China. I understand how antiquated the “buy American” mentality is but still, I was sad to see Cannondale, Slingshot, and, well, basically every major American bicycle company ship their manufacturing overseas. I liked Nuke Proof and appreciated their decision to keep building frames in Ada Michigan right until that decision put them out of business, RIP. The fact that I even considered where my frame was made wasn’t rational. Buying a bicycle is emotional.

Florida 2012 Part II

I just got back from my second trip to Florida in 5 weeks; this time with my daughters. I like working only 3 weeks a month. It improves my attitude. My sunny disposition lasts until about the third work email.

I took my Kona single speed to Florida again. I am serious about my conviction not to ride when my daughters might miss me so riding last week was limited to short, early morning rides. This will be my last picture of the Kona, a silly pic I sent to a friend back in Michigan. I have another conviction: the only money I allow myself to spend on bicycles and bicycle parts must be first made by selling other bicycles or bicycle parts. I started this back when I raced BMX as a kid. I am always looking to sell my bike for more than I paid for it and, strangely, an opportunity to sell my Kona came up in Florida where cyclocross racing is becoming popular but used cross bikes are somewhat rare. I drove back to Michigan without my beloved Kona.

Selling bikes and parts before allowing myself to buy bikes and parts serves two purposes. First, the net cost of riding is reduced to only race fees and maintenance parts (maintenance parts do not count as an expense that has to be offset by selling something, in my convoluted way of thinking, unless I try to sneak in an upgrade under the umbrella of necessary maintenance in which case I force myself to sell something to make up for the additional cost of the upgrade over what was on the bicycle, unless the upgrade saves 1 gram of weight for every dollar spent, which was grandfathered in a long time ago. It's complicated).

The second purpose for this zero sum gain philosophy is to keep my inventory of bike stuff to a reasonable level. I know myself well enough to know I could easily turn into the crazy cat woman of bicycle parts. My apartment could become so packed with bike parts that I would have to make tunnels to move about and this would not bother me at all. I don't think I am materialistic but it hurts to sell my bicycles. Somehow they seem more than just stuff. My dad has the same feelings about vintage car parts. He will enthusiastically explain how Ford Designers used this little chrome trim piece on the 1965 Mercury Comet as a last minute fix to hide a body weld in the car’s rear quarter. I love his passion. I hate his piles of car parts.

Want it Wednesday: Surly Tuggnut

Today’s Want it Wednesday is my Surly tuggnut. I like Surly. I am impressed by a lot of bicycle part manufactures, like Chris King. Chris King cogs are so beautifully machined that I swear it almost brings a tear to my eye, but Surly cogs are wonderfully practical. The base on Surly cogs are wide so they don't damage the hub’s cassette body. Not randomly wide but the width is such that multiple cogs can be stacked on a cassette body, without spacers, and the spacing is perfect for using a derailleur.

If Chris King made a tuggnut, it would have this super complicated articulated camber adjustment screw that somehow allows a wheel to move forward and back and the tuggnut would remain stationary. A Surly tuggnut, on the other hand, has a bottle opener built in. Two bottle openers actually so it will work on either the drive side or non-drive side of the wheel. I don’t drink much, not enough to invest in my own bottle opener anyway. And even people that drink enough to justify buying a bottle opener often forget them when they go on group rides. Bells is a huge supporter of Michigan mountain biking so often someone brings Bells Beer but Bells doesn’t use twist off caps. Lines form at the back of my bike post ride all because the person who designed the Surly tuggnut actually rides and paused a minute to use common sense. Pausing a minute to use common sense…that right there is a philosophy I can embrace.

Different Hemispheres

I like the people from Marketing, those free spirited right brained folks who are unhindered by practical concerns from plans they sketch out on bar napkins. My job is to fret over those practical concerns. Their phone calls all start the same way: "Neil, I know this is an odd request but..."

In that brief pause after "but" my mind goes back to school, back when I was a landscaper. God I loved that job. I'm not bragging or anything but I was a very good landscaper. The gentle witness marks left on lawns from my Bunton walk-behind mower were so straight and even that builders could use them like chalk lines to stake foundations for homes they were building. I liked working on the lawn equipment and the smell of cut grass and gasoline. I liked working outside. I liked the total lack of responsibility. In college I had to take an aptitude test to see what job would be best for me. I took this test during my last semester so results were pointless. It said I should be an Arborist. I was curious enough to look up what an Arborist was. It’s like a tree doctor. I remember thinking “oh hell, that makes sense.” Perhaps I should have taken that test in high school.

Back to reality. "Neil, I know this is an odd request but [insert some super complicated half baked scheme, like changing the engine in a car to one that the car wasn’t designed for yet]."

Last weekend I stopped by work and got one of those calls. "Neil, I know this is an odd request but [I take a deep breath] can you get a hold of a bicycle, put it in the back of a (prototype) Encore, and take pictures?" Marketing was working on a commercial and they want to make sure a bicycle actually fits. Finally a request that I can get my little mind around. I keep a bicycle in my truck in case an opportunity to ride opens up.

So I bring my bike into the garage, spend about 2 seconds figuring out the best way to get it to fit, and send them pictures. I wrapped this project up in less than 5 minutes. All week I have been getting emails thanking me. A silly number of emails really. My bicycle might even make it into a commercial. The techs think I just made this request up so I could make sure my bike fits; I do like the new Buick Encore and made it clear to everyone I am getting one once they are in production. It was a good day; Arborists don’t get paid to put a bike in the back of a car.

One Year Later...

Thursday would have been a good day to ride; Emilie was in New York on a class field trip and Allie was spending the night at her mom’s. The Poto chapter of the MMBA just started their Thursday night rides but I was tired and didn't feel like socializing. A friend from work and I talked about riding at Island Lake but he dropped me so bad at Pontiac on Tuesday that I was still embarrassed. I drove to Maybury to quietly ride by myself. I fought falling asleep on the drive there then sat in my truck near the trail head wanting to curl up and sleep more than I wanted to ride. I decided to go home.

Sleep deprivation is one of the unexpected side effects of my divorce. It was final a year ago. I realized it was inevitable long before then but my brilliant plan was to stay together until the girls where done with high school; that would have been the classy, standup thing to do but apparently I didn’t do as good of a job isolating them from reality as I intended.

Filing was the right decision for me but I feel horrible about it. Allie who, like me, doesn’t talk much is finally starting to ask questions but there is nothing satisfying in my answers. I’m glad I didn’t fully comprehend all the ramifications of my divorce because if I had, I may have procrastinated longer. I may have continued trying to fix a problem that was unfixable. Unfixable problems is a concept Engineers have difficulty grasping. We aren’t allowed to respond to a Technical Incident Report by saying: “Well, shit happens” but the reality is sometime shit does just happen. Hardly a mantra to live one’s life by but it’s true nonetheless. Sometimes shit happens for the best.

Want it Wednesday: Fox Float Forx

I see Want it Wednesday is gaining momentum. Anyway, I finally have the Fox Forx I always wanted. The SID on my Inglis single speed locked up at the end of last season. Rebuilding forks is something I am not real comfortable with so I decided to just hang that bike on the wall and deal with it some other time. That time is now. I started to rebuild the SID. I read the manual. Apparently the first thing I needed to do was grind down a ¾” socket. Great. I had a nice upright grinder once but it, like most of the things from my big garage that wouldn’t fit in my little apartment, ended up at Bill's. Figuring there must be an easier way to deal with (i.e. avoid) this problem, I looked at the MMBA classifieds. Someone was selling a Salsa frame with a Fox Float. I sheepishly gave him a low offer for just the fork. He accepted. It was beat up but held air and worked fine.

I have been a strong proponent of the previous generation SIDs. The SID's 28mm stanchions feel like wet noodles but the fork weighs less than 3 lbs and nothing else mattered to me. Twice I rented bikes that had Fox Floats with 32 mm stanchions. The difference these forks made was amazing. People who know much more about forks than me tend to like Fox Forx, from riding them to rebuilding them to dealing with the company itself. Even with the two pound weight penalty, I’m sold... but I feel a little stupid using the titanium Chris King cog I bought a couple years ago to save 8 grams.