This morning I went for my longest-ever fixed gear ride. I did a little over two hours on the fixie, dodging the season’s first snowflakes over the rolling hills of Canton and Stoughton. I enjoyed the ride, though getting out the door was a trial. When I headed to the basement, I knew I had two quick tasks to accomplish before I could head out: I needed to mount a computer on the fixed-gear bike, and I had to flip the rear wheel around from the freewheel side to the fixed gear side. Together, these should take about five minutes. Here’s how it actually went down:
8:35am – Felt a quick flush of satisfaction when I found the computer mount without having to rummage through a pile of junk
8:37 – Flush started to fade as I realized I only had one of the three zip ties I needed to secure the mount to the fork.
8:38 – Back on top of the world after I improvised with a little vinyl tape.
8:40 – Realized the screw that holds the computer bracket on the handlebar is missing. The flush started to feel more like embarassment. In a flash I decided to cannibalize the screw from another bike with the same kind of mount.
8:45 – After much fumbling with screwdriver, mount is secure. I decided to pump up the tires before removing the rear wheel and flipping it around. Good thing, since I ripped the valve stem out when I removed the pump. If that had happened after I had taken the rear wheel out and put it back again, I would have been really bummed.
8:53 – New inner tube mounted on rear wheel.
8:55 – Bike is ready to go, but I had to dash upstairs to get the chain grease off of hands.
9:00 – Finally out the door.
With that frustration behind me, I was free to enjoy two hours of Just Riding Along Without Coasting. The fall colors aren’t as spectacular as I’ve seen them in previous years, but even with the snow it beat the heck out of another day on the trainer.
After the ride I just had to sit down and figure out how fast my legs moved at max speed. My top recorded speed was 27.3 MPH, or 43.9 Km/h. The bike’s wheel circumference is nominally 2096mm, so at 43.9 Km/hI was doing about 349 wheel revs per minute. The bike had a gear ratio of 2.625, so my max pedal RPM was about 133, which is fast but not blazing (I’ve heard that track racers will hit 170 in sprints).
So, how fast were my feet moving? The crank has a diameter of 345mm, 133 Revs/min * .345 m/rev * 3.14 = 144 m/min = ~8.6Km/h = 5.18MPH. Which is not nearly as fast as it felt.

Cycling isn’t just about the body. There’s a machine involved. Usually I like this part; the machine enables me to go farther and faster than I could ever carry myself on foot. Somehow the machine seems to know that and finds ways of asserting its prominence. For instance, instead of going to bed early on Friday night to try to kick my cold, I was straining to mount new tires on my bike. I managed to pop two inner tubes in the process, further lengthening the ordeal. It seems that there’s always a chain to oil, or shifters to adjust, or handlebars to re-wrap. Not to mention the project bike I was supposed to finish before Maggie arrived back in May and hangs tonight, yet unridden, from its hook in the basement. Some may say it’s not about the bike, but probably only those who don’t maintain their own equipment. And I’m in that camp, at least until Andrew can turn a wrench.
I could probably get by with fewer than the four bikes I have in various states of operational readiness, but there’s nothing like a hot spare. I’d hate to lose a few days of riding to something stupid, like not having a bike to ride. But I could probably cut down on the projects. I’ve proven that I can build wheels and assemble a working road bike this year, so I don’t need to do that again.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that another bike won’t appear in the basement. But I’d better pay somebody else to put it together for me.

Last Thursday I had my yearly crash. This time around, nobody else was involved; just me, a damp corner, and a poor choice of line. I delayed my turn-in to miss a paint line near the curb and obviously tried to carve it a little too tightly. I went down to the inside and slide a little, earning a nice strawberry on my hip and a little road rash on both elbows. The guy behind me managed to avoid smacking into me, and I got off comparatively easy; no broken bones and no head injury.
Well, no visible head injury, anyway. Naturally enough I’ve lost a lot of my confidence in my corenering ability, which was one of the things I’d worked pretty hard to improve this year. Riding around this weekend I found myself braking more for even the most familiar corners. I know I’ll work my way back up, but it’s really disappointing to see such a hard-won skill evaporate so quickly.
Dangit.

Most cyclists – OK, I – prize speed. Fast is good, faster is better. Fast is cool. But, I have a secret. In my book, the coolest cyclists are the ones who are standing still. I’m talking about trackstands. If you live in a city center or perhaps in T-town, you’ve probably seen them. A biker rises from the saddle as he rolls to a stop, feet in the pedals, using the crown of the road and subtle weight shifts to balance the bike. Sometimes you’ll see a trackstander roll back and forth a bit, racheting the crank to stay upright.
Every time I see somebody do this I think dang, I wish I could do that. I’ve read everything I can find on how to do it. But, at heart, I’m a big chicken on the bike. I’m usually the first guy to unclip when approaching a stop. Not to mention the fact that I’m vain. I’d rather not fall over in the middle of the road while trying to perfect my technique. I’ve already spent enough time laying in the middle of the road this year, thanks, and that was mostly without witnesses.
But, after opening my yap just a bit too much on a group ride this weekend, I’ve decided it’s time to figure this out. No more reading, I need to practice. My commute route runs through a park with some nice, grassy slopes, so I’ve resolved to practice at least once a week until I get it nailed. Here’s what I learned in my first lesson:

• Relax The first few times I carried a lot of tension in my uppper body and really jerked the front wheel around as I slowed to a halt. That didn’t help. Once I learned to get out of the saddle and just lean on the handlebars a bit, the bike stopped moving around so much.
• Look up Once I remembered to look out at the horizon instead of at the ground immediately in front of the bike, I found I had an easier time keeping my balance.
• Lube the chain, dummy I don’t do much maintenance on my commuter bike, so the chain stuck a bit when I backpedaled. This made it impossible to move forwad a little bit by racheting the crank. Once I got things unstuck I could keep the crank more-or-less level but rachet them a bit to move forward at a crawl.

I didn’t quite get to the point where I could stand still for more than a split second, but I did progress past the point where I had to put my foot down every time I got close to a stop. Small progress, but it’s a start. We’ll see how the second session goes.

So I didn’t place in any races this year (so far), but I managed to win something yesterday. My biking and weight-losing bro Elden over at Fat Cyclist asked us to guess how many page views he’d get the day AFTER MSN pimped him on their “What’s Your Story” page (getting him 50,000+ visits), and I came the closest to the actual number of 4818. My good fortune nets me a very cool bracelet. Thanks, Elden and Mrs. Elden! I owe it all to my son, who caught a brief but nasty cold and kept me up websurfing Sunday night.
Just for comparison, good ol’ jls.cx had 222 hits from 29 unique IPs yesterday, and one of those was me. You people need to Get The Word Out.

So while I was out tooling around the back roads of southeastern Massachusetts, the embattled Tyler Hamilton was winning the Mount Washington Hillclimb up in New Hampshire. That’s a good story, but look just a little farther down the results and you’ll see Ned Overend, who wore race number 50 for a very good reason. Today is his 50th birthday.
According to the VeloNews article, his time was 5 minutes faster than anybody else over 40 has ever ridden the race. How’s that for aging gracefully?