Barry-Roubaix 2011

I love bicycles. One of the best things about going to a bicycling event, whether it's a race or club ride or a college campus, is just seeing all the bikes. I have to admit that my favorite bikes aren't really the super-fast plastic race bikes (although I do like those, too); my favorites are those with style. Classic style, modern style, clean lines, nice curves, artistic paint. Check out the pictures from the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in this month's Dirt Rag.

Yeah, so the Barry-Roubaix: Killer Gravel Road Race. What a fun ride! What a great loop through forests, around lakes, on hard-packed and just-wet-enough-to-be-dust-free gravel roads!

I'd been planning to participate for months, but with Q&A's schedules my work schedule, I waited until the last minute to sign up. I'm also afraid I waited until the last minute to train. I've been running a bit, occasionally up six or seven miles, and sometimes fast, but I've gotten on a bike only rarely. I think I did three 45-min rides on the Ute mounted on the trainer in the basement.

Last weekend I rode with an MMBA friend of mine, who is a geologist at MSU. We did 30 miles of mostly gravel roads and it nearly killed me. I seriously bonked somewhere around 25 miles. I had planned to ride 35 miles at the Barry-Roubaix, and had planned to ride them on my Santa Cruz Nickel. The training ride on the dual suspension Nickel made me reconsider. As much as I like the dual squishy, there's really nothing to be gained and plenty to be lost by riding a dual suspension on smooth roads - even smooth gravel. But not riding the Ni meant riding my Soma, which would need an appropriate set of tires and a little reconfiguring from it's commuter setup. I didn't want to mess with the Soma, and I really didn't want to buy yet another site of tires. Just ask the family: I went round and round about this decision! Finally, I gave in and picked up some tires on Wednesday, three days before the race. When I went to install them Wednesday night, I found that the bearings in the Soma's rear hub were shot. Crap. That meant a trip to Denny's on Thursday to look for bearings and cone races. They had them, for a chunk of cash, of course, and Thursday night after work I rebuilt the hubs. They're the original LX hubs with about 5,500 miles on 'em. The rear feels great now; the front is still just a little bumpy as it spins; I'm afraid the cups may be too worn. I'll just see how long I can make it last.

Here's the Soma Double Cross configured for the Barry-Roubaix:



Saturday morning I drove to the Yankee Springs Recreation Area, about 70 miles southwest of here. Cindy had to work and I didn't want to leave the kids hanging about at park freezing while I rode, so I went alone. The temperature was about 15 F when I left home; it was going to be a cold ride. I left at 6:30 a.m. and arrived at the park little before 7. Plenty of time prepare for a start time of 10:00 a.m. I wore tights, my winter cycling boots and Smartwool socks, an Icebreaker wool top with a synthetic T over it, and a Gore jacket on the outside. A Headsweats skull cap and an ear band under my helmet. Full finger mountain biking gloves under my ancient Pearl Izumi lobster mitts. I expected to have moderately cold feet because the boots, while windproof, are not insulated. I expected to have very cold hands at first, then comfortable hands, and then hot sweaty hands inside wet gloves. That was just how it worked out.

For breakfast I had a bowl of cereal with milk. When I arrived at the park I ate a Clif Mojo bar. Before the ride, I ate another granola bar. On my bike I took one bottle filled with Gu electrolyte mix and a couple of Gu gels. It was only a 23 mile ride.

About a thousand riders lined up at the start line. The first wave was for the 65-mile riders -- there were some really top-notch riders in that wave. Then a wave of young 35-milers, another wave of old 35-milers, and lastly my bunch.

I started in the middle of the pack and pretty much took it easy for the first couple of miles while the crowd thinned out. I saw no reason to hurry at the beginning. Cindy let me wear her Garmin Forerunner, so you can see a map of the route below, and even get to the speed and elevation details from my ride if you follow the link. The route was counter-clockwise around the loop on the map.



The roads getting out of the park were paved. We hit gravel when we first turned east. The 'gravel' was reasonably smooth-packed sand, with the usual little marble sized chunks of crushed rock on top. Mountain and cyclocross tires were appropriate. I ran my new and overly aggressive 700x35 Kenda tires with just over 45 and 50 psi, front and rear, which seemed about right. They conformed to the rock and tracked well in the sand; they were stable on corners and provided shock absorption on bigger hits. I can't complain.

The most challenging section of road showed up for the 5th mile: West Sager Road. Notice the Garmin map calls it "W Sager Trail," which is appropriate. That mile is on a low-maintenance piece of two-track with some steep rocky climbs, plenty of ruts, deep sand, and some big ice-puddles. Some riders with taller gearing couldn't ride the climbs; others got stuck in the sand, or crashed in the ruts. My Soma was geared appropriately, and I made use of my little ring in this section (as well as several others later). I would have ridden this section much faster, but it the congestion was and narrow tire tracks limited passing. It was fun.

After that, the ride sort of blurs in my memory. I rode for a while with MMBA friend, rvd (his MMBA forum name) and his colleague. Shortly after West Sager I was feeling hungry and sucked down a Gu packet. Yum. It helped. It seemed to be endless miles of mostly smooth hilly, curvy roads; quite pleasant. I found I was climbing faster than most of the other riders in my wave, probably because I had better gearing options than many of them. I passed a lot of people who were really panting hard on those climbs. They should train more!

About seven miles from the end, the route came back onto pavement. The riders were really thinning out and I found myself riding alone much of time. The hills were steep, up and down, and I made full use of my available gears. At one intersection there were no cyclists visible in front of me and a police officer was monitoring the intersection, but I couldn't tell which way to turn. The officer signaled me to come across, and I thought he pointed to my left. So I went left. The rider behind me hollered and I realized that I should have gone straight. So much for my podium finish, I thought! I quickly turned into a parking lot and got back on course, riding with that guy for the rest of race.

He was on a single speed mountain bike with big fat tires. He was a very strong climber, and his 200 pounds gave him downhill coasting speed I could hardly match when pedaling. On the flats, he kept trying to draft behind me, and I kept trying to lose him! About a mile from the end, a really tall guy on a geared 29er passed us, so the singler-speeder and I grabbed his tail and let him pull us toward the finish. Right before the end, there was a sharp corner and we passed the tall rider and raced to the finish. Even with my gearing options, I could not pass that single-speeder!

I finished 6th in the 40 to 49 age class for the short 23-mile race. It was really fun!! After the race, I spent about 30 minutes cooling off, changed clothes, put the Soma on the van, and wandered around to look at bicycles - especially tandems.

The only disappointment was the post-race food: tacos and Founder's Ale. Now I love tacos as much as Abbey, but I stood in the line for the tacos for 15 minutes, but the line never moved. I was still 100 feet from the taco stand! Founder's Brewing makes some of the best ale on the planet, I must say, but there seemed to be some sort of problem with getting it out of the kegs - like an empty CO2 bottle. Since I couldn't stay long after the race anyway, I went home without having a taco or a glass of Founder's Ale.

There were several tandems in the race, of many different kinds, including a Fandango 29er just like the one on its way to our house, a couple of Cannondales, a KHS, and I got to check out two custom-built tandems from Dean. There were other tandems, too, but I didn't get a close look at all of them. Next year, I hope Quinn and I will do this race on our Fandango!

ODRAM 2008

Last weekend I rode the LMB's One Day Ride Across Michigan. The weather was absolutely wonderful, with plenty of sunshine and a mostly favorable light wind. The ride went from one side of the state to the other, west to east. It was 145 miles of challenging, somewhat sweaty, slightly painful fun.

The ODRAM doesn't follow the typical format for a club ride, which comprises a loop route with various stops along the way for food and water, with support vehicles cruising along the route to provide assistance if needed. Instead, ODRAM riders check in at the start of the ride (in the dark) and are on their own until they reach the finish where they check out, although there is a lunch provided at the approximate half-way point of the route.

The ride starts at Meinert County Park on the west shore of the state, just a little north of the Montague-Whitehall area, and follows a not-quite perfectly straight line across the state, finishing at Bay City State Park on the shore of Saginaw Bay. The route is relatively flat, with a starting elevation of about 575 ft at Meinert County Park beside Lake Michigan. Through gently rolling hills it gradually climbs to mile 80 where it peaks at 1080 ft. After the high point - and lunch - at mile 80, the rolling hills get a little flatter and the elevation gradually drops back down to finish at Saginaw Bay with about the same elevation as the start (the lakes are connected at the top of the state, of course, so have a similar elevation).

Since on-the-road support isn't provided by the organizers, and since the ride doesn't end where it starts, most riders arrange to have some sort of support follow them along the route. Support strategies vary, including commercial service through a bicycle shop (Velo City Cycles - a great shop in Holland, MI - maybe someday they'll let me open an Okemos branch) that provides food and water on route and a ride back from the finish to the start in tour bus. More commonly, friends or family members in cars meet riders at designated locations along the route. For a few, including me, there was no support along the route; all food and water was carried on the bike, and additional water was purchased at gas stations or other stores along the route. Cindy and her mom and the kids were not more than an hour or two away in our van and would have been available by phone if I'd run into unexpected problems I couldn't handle on the route. All of this means that participating in the ride is rather expensive in terms of fuel cost and in indebtedness to friends or family, and it isn't exactly a low-carbon emission sort of ride, with perhaps 25 or more (just guessing) cars following about 100 riders across the state. But it was fun!

Here's how it went:

Friday after the kids got out of school we drove to a little motel in Montague; 'we' included Cindy, Abbey, Quinn, and Grandma. That's perhaps a story in itself, but I'll save it for now. It was pretty nice, for a very low-budget operation, and had a hot tub in each room. The kids shared a room with Gradma, and they did love their hot tub. Cindy and I got a separate room so we didn't wake the rest of the group when we got up early in the morning to deliver me and my Soma Double Cross to the start of the ride.

The alarm went of at 4:30 a.m. I took a quick shower and assembled my gear. I made some coffee in the room and ate a bowl of yogurt mixed with Cindy's fresh home-made granola. It was close to 5:30 a.m. by the time we left the hotel. I was checking in at the registration table around 6:00 a.m. and pedaling up the road by about 6:20 a.m. It was a chilly morning, the sun had not begun to rise, and there was very light drizzle falling.

I used a tire-driven generator to run my headlight and taillight, and I also had a couple of extra battery-powered taillights on the rear. I used a little white LED light on my helmet that pointed down toward the map case on my handlebar bag. My lighting worked very well, although I think I had accidentally directed my headlight a little low when was installing my fenders recently, so the road wasn't lit as far in front of me as usual.

To keep warm, I wore a light wool top under a bicycling jersey. My feet were a little cold in the morning with only thin Smartwool socks under my close-fitting cycling shoes.

On my bike, I had a Jandd rack bag in the rear that carried my tool bag, a couple of tubes, a folded spare tire, my little pump, four GU energy gels, four Mojo bars, and eight single-serving packages of GU2O energy-and-electrolyte drink mix. The rack bag was only about 2/3 full, but it weighed a few pounds. In my handle-bar bag, which was about half full, I had my rain jacket, wallet, some eye drops, chap-stick, hand-sanitizer, sunscreen, glasses case with extra lenses and an extra mirror (rear-view that attaches to my glasses), bandanna, wallet, another four energy gels and another four Mojo bars. I have to keep the handlebar bag pretty light or it affects the steering of the bicycle. On my bicycle frame I carried two water bottles. My intention was to stop at convenience stores and gas stations to buy bottled water that I would mix with the GU2O packets in one water bottle. The other water bottle would just have water. All things considered, I think I was carrying more stuff than just about anybody else on the ride, and several pounds more than most.

For the first few miles I rode about 16 miles per hour. My strategy was to ride at a slow and steady pace so that I didn't burn out before the end. I was riding alone, but could see one little point of red light that was another rider a half mile or so in front of me. After just a few miles I was passed by a rider who was using a very bright headlight on his helmet and another on his handlebar. His lights lit the road and the surrounding trees and fields like daylight. I wondered how long his battery would last with that much output. I really like my generator-powered lights since they've been very reliable and I never have to worry about batteries, although I think I'd prefer a generator hub over the tire-driven version. Those are too expensive for me at the moment, however.

After about 12 miles, we crossed a small dam that was for foot- and bicycle-traffic only. It was the only 50 yards or so of the route that was not shared with motor vehicles. At that time the sky was light enough that I shut off my generator. I also passed the guy with the dim taillight and caught up with the guy with the bright headlights. The bright headlight guy was Adam, and I rode pretty much the rest of the ride with him. He was a 230-pound guy riding a 17.5-pound Specialized carbon-framed racing bicycle on it's third set of high-dollar ultra-light wheels. My wheels are quite stout, hand-built, 36-spoke touring wheels, and would likely support Adam's mass quite nicely. But he was a gram-counting sort of fellow. To transport my 150 pounds, I was on a 28-pound bicycle, not counting water bottles, handlebar bag, and trunk bag. It must have been 35 or even 40 pounds with the bottles and bags attached. On Adam's bike there were two smallish water bottles, his battery-powered lights (which he passed off to his support crew at the first stop), and a rather tiny under-the-seat bag that was about the size of a large pear. I would guess it held a multi-tool, a patch kit, and maybe a CO2 cartridge pump. Like most of the ODRAM riders, he was totally dependent on his support crew for food, water, and anything but very minor repairs. However, if you add up the weight of our bodies, bicycles, and gear, I was still pulling less total weight up the hills. He went faster going down, of course.

I am glad I met up with Adam. We were pretty well-matched, despite our differences in weight and gear, and it was fun to have someone to talk with while riding. I also rode much faster because I rode with him. We maintained a cruising pace of around 18 to 20 miles per hour during the morning, which was considerably faster than the 15 to 16 mph I had planned. In fact, at first I considered suggesting that he ride ahead because I was concerned I wouldn't be able to maintain his pace for the duration of the ride. We rode together except for one short stretch following a stop at a grocery, in which there was a line for the bathroom that seemed too long to wait. I lost track of him when he went looking for his support crew, so I decided to ride on to the next possible potty stop just a short distance down the road. He must have passed me while I was stopped, but we met up again a few miles down the road. Apparently, he'd even turned around for a mile or two to look for me. I felt a little guilty when I learned that.

The ride during the morning was remarkably, well, unremarkable. Once the sun was up, the scenery didn't change much. Agricultural fields separated by narrow bands of trees lined both sides of the road. Occasionally we passed through a small town, some of them looked worth a second visit, some didn't. Somewhere around mile 50, around 10ish a.m. we crossed the dam - Hardy Dam, I suppose - at the Hardy Dam Pond, which was kind of interesting because the road went across the spillway and dam, and at the spillway was lower than the level of the water just on the other side of the concrete wall. There was a nice little park beside the lake, which I thought might be good place for Cindy and the kids to visit. A few miles later, around 10:30 I finally got too warm and pulled off my wool shirt.

The lunch stop at mile 80 was a welcome site. I was ready to get off the saddle for a few minutes. The church ladies had prepared chicken noodle soup, and provided fruit, sandwiches, and cookies. I ate a bit of everything except the soup. I just didn't feel like eating a hot bowl of soup in the middle of a long, hot ride. I would have loved to try the soup if the weather had been cold and wet.

But the weather was perfect. After the light drizzle early in the morning the sky became mostly sunny with a high in the low 70s. The wind was mostly calm in the morning, although for a short time we rode into a slight breeze from the east. After lunch the wind began to pick up from the west and then became straight from the west. It was really helpful during the last couple of hours.

After lunch, as the road flattened and the wind picked up, Adam and I really made good time. We began to realize that we were close to the front of the group of about 95 ODRAM riders. At mile 115, Adam's girlfriend said she'd counted riders ahead of us and we were the 9th and 10th in the group.

The ODRAM is not a race. My attitude during training and at the start was that it was a tour; an easy but speedy ride across the state. It makes sense to ride gently, but it's also true that the slower you ride the longer you spend in the saddle. My goal was to finish strong and comfortable with an average pace at or above 15 mph. I generally try to be sort of opposed to the prevalent racing-bike mentality in which all "real" cyclists ride 15-pound racing bikes with only the latest carbon-fiber components and super-light wheels, preferring the idea of the classically-styled randonneuring bicycle. However, I do love the challenge of pushing my limits, and racing against myself. Even riding with Adam at a faster pace, we generally rode side-by-side rather than drafting behind one another in a single file line (of course, we pulled into a single file line when traffic approached from behind). To me, this may have been because it really would have seemed like we were in a race if we were riding single file and trading positions. Also, with my handlebar bag, which I love because of the clear map pocket on top, I can't actually see the front of my front wheel, which makes riding close together a little more scary. I considered suggesting that we ride in a pace line formation, but it's a little more risky. It might have been worth it if we'd had a head wind. Adam's shoulders being perhaps double the width of mine, I surely could have disappeared in his slip stream. Of course, it's also easier to pass the time talking when you're riding side-by-side.

There were two riders that passed Adam and me several times. They were riding very high-end racing machines, drafting behind one another, and were travelling several miles per hour faster than us, but they took longer and more frequent breaks than us. Although during the last 20 to 30 miles we had pushed our speed up (with the help of a tail wind) and were traveling at 21 to 23 mph most of the time, these two guys passed us with about 15 miles to go. Adam was sure that meant they would finish ahead of us, and I could tell he had hoped they wouldn't, but then a few miles later, to our surprise, we passed them again - they were at the side of the road fixing a flat. At this point we also began to realize we had the potential to finish prior to 4 p.m., so we continued to push as hard as we could toward the finish. We were not sure exactly how far we had to go because my computer was reading about 7 miles fewer than the map and cue sheet indicated. Adam's computer had quit early in the ride. In the end, it turned out that my computer was right, but the cue sheet mileage had not been updated following some minor alterations that shortened this year's route to 145 miles.

Adam had been complaining of discomfort in his seat since early in the ride. I guess with his weight or maybe some aspect of his anatomy (and that's enough of that sort of talk), he has quite a bit of trouble with saddle discomfort. I was riding a recently purchased Terry Falcon saddle, and it was very comfortable for the entire ride. I had only minimal discomfort near the end. However, my legs were beginning to hurt in those last few miles, and for a few miles in which we turned north into and across the wind, I was having trouble finding the energy within to maintain the 20+ mph pace, but somehow I did. My quads burned from fatigue, and my calves, particularly the left, were beginning to feel that familiar but hard-to-describe sort of pre-cramp feeling that indicates the end is near.

And then we were there. We cruised into Bay City State Park as numbers 9 and 10. The racers with the flat tire finished a few minutes behind us. I think all the early finishers were sort of astounded at my steel rig with it's fat tires (28 mm instead of the typical 23mm), rack and trunk bag, handlebar bag, fenders, 36-spoke wheels, shiny polished aluminum components, and complete absence of carbon-fiber. Nobody said anything. Obviously, my setup worked quite well, fast and comfortable.

A bicycle computer keeps track of average pace, but only while the bike is moving, so the average pace reflects distance per time while the wheels are turning, and is always less than the cruising speed you think you're maintaining during the ride. Our average pace in the morning was barely 17 miles per hour, but due to the flatter route and some additional tail wind in the afternoon, our overall pace increased to 17.5 miles per hour for the entire ride. That's 8 hours and 18 minutes riding time. Since we started at 6:20 a.m. and finished at about 3:45, we must have spent just over an hour at stops for water and lunch. That was a probably two hours faster than I'd plan to finish the ride at my comfortable touring pace. It's difficult for me to resist the opportunity to ride hard.

After the ride, at the LMB tent at the end, each rider was photographed with his or her bicycle, and there were some yummy cupcakes waiting to be eaten. I got to the end before Cindy, Sharon, and the kids arrived, so I had plenty of time to rest in the park by the bay at a picnic table in the shade of a big oak tree with my Soma by my side.

Stats:
145 miles
8.3 hours in the saddle
17.5 miles per hour average riding pace
9.5 hours total time
15.3 miles per hour based on total time, start to end

Calories and fluids:
6 bottles water with GU20 mix
2 bottles water with no mix
4 packs of GU; 2 caffeinated, 2 non-caffeinated
4 Clif Mojo Bars
1 turkey sandwich
1 banana and a bunch of grapes
2 peanut butter cookies

Next year? Will I do it next year? Maybe. The hard part is getting ready for a ride like this. Doing it is easy. Training just takes a little more time on the bicycle than I feel is reasonable, given my family, career, and home-repair commitments. But I do enjoy it. If I do it again, I'll consider taking the Velo City Cycles support. It would mean Cindy and the kids wouldn't have to drive across the state to start and end with me. And my hefty steel bike? Well, if I did it with Velo City Cycles, I could drop quite a lot of the extra gear. Don't expect to find me riding a plastic bike with 23c tires, but it would be fun to rig up something just a little speedier. Maybe a Soma Smoothie ES? A Gunnar Sport? I'd like to build up on of these bikes with a speedy wheelset and a compact double - maybe even some of those Ultegra STI shifters to make riding a pace line a little easier. It's always fun to dream. Who knows, maybe I'd even consider one of those carbon-fiber machines, but it seems unlikely.

Soma Double Cross Update

Earlier this year I gave the old Soma a major overhaul. I did not, at that time, replace the fenders and tires, although I gave it some thought. I was so happy with it after the overhaul that I decided to ride it in the ODRAM this year. For that, I thought I'd go ahead and replace the fenders and tires.

The first step in replacing the fenders was actually to find it a new front derailer. Ready for this? The front derailer was a Shimano LX that worked just fine (almost), but since it was a "mountain" derailer, the arm was located sort of behind the seat tube. That meant that on the Double Cross there was limited clearance between a fat tire and the derailer cable anchor bolt. In fact, when the bicycle was new, and I first installed the Conti Top Touring tires, I had to replace the original anchor bolt with one that had a very flat head on it so that it wouldn't contact the tire. Further, to install the fenders, I actually had to cut a groove into the rear fender to make room for the cable and cable anchor bolt. It worked quite well for several years. Anyway, road derailers, in comparison to mountain derailers, are generally shaped such that the anchor bolt is out to the side of the seat post, since road bikes often have much less clearance between the tire and the seat post. I don't know what other implications this has for the function of the derailers. Since I'm using bar-end shifters on this bike, a mountain or road derailer is compatible. I won't go into how much I like having a non-indexed front derailer on this bicycle. OK, so I bought an IRD Alpina derailer, which is designed to work best with mid-size chain rings (larger than most mountain bikes but smaller than most road bikes) like I have on this Soma. The IRD derailer has a cable anchor bolt positioned to better avoid contact with the tire. This will be a big improvement if I put the fat studded tires on for winter again. I installed the derailer and had a little trouble with shifting up onto the big ring. I'd had the same problem with the Shimano LX. In both cases, the travel of the derailer limits out just a tiny bit before it should in order to move the chain to the big ring. I suppose my Sugino cranks must place the chain rings a little further from derailer mount than other brands of crankset? Consequently, with both derailers, I have to back the limit screw all the way out, and angle the rear of the derailer outward a little bit instead of keeping it parallel to the rings as is generally recommended. With a little angle, it works just fine.

I ordered tires and fenders from Peter White Cycles. I installed the tires first. My old Continental Top Touring tires had seen roughly 4,500 miles. The Soma now has 5,475 miles, but about 500 of those are on studded winter tires, and another few hundred were on a set of narrow Hutchinsons that I used briefly when it was new. The Top Touring tires still have a reasonable amount of tread left, but the rubber is cracking - perhaps due to age and too much sunlight - and I'm not sure I trust them for a long ride at this point. They've been great tires - I've only had 2 flats with them. The Top Touring tires were listed as 700x37 but measured about 32 mm on my Mavic MA3 rims. My replacement criteria were based on the continued use of this bicycle as my primary ride to work and around town during three seasons. Specifically, I wanted tires that (1) were 28 to 30 mm wide, (2) had some level of flat protection, (3) were reasonably fast and light weight (think ODRAM), and (4) had a tire-generator (dynamo) strip. The Schwalbe Marathon Racers were the only tires that really seemed to meet these requirements. They also have a reflective sidewall - not a requirement, but something I really like. I ordered them in a 700x30, which I hoped would mean they'd be about 28 to 30mm wide. They weigh about 360 grams each, which is roughly double the weight of a typical road racing tire, but is pretty light as touring tires go. The label on the tires says 28-622/700x30. Inflated to 70 psi, they measured about about 29 mm on my Mavic MA3s. I rode them today at 70 psi, and it felt about right for my 150 pound body - I might try 80 psi if I knew I would be riding on really smooth roads.

With derailer and tires installed, I could put on the new set of fenders. I got some Gilles Berthoud composite fenders from Peter White because I like the Berthoud mounting brackets, but I wanted plastic fenders on the Soma. Berthoud composites were the answer. I ordered the 42 mm width so they would easily clear my new tires and probably clear my winter studs (we'll see about the latter). I wish the fenders came in black, but silver was the only option. They're apparently an aluminum core with a clear plastic material on the outside. They look very cool off the bike, but I think the Soma would look better if they were black. Or maybe polished aluminum. I could have tried Honjos, but those are pretty pricey. These fenders were pretty easy to install, but I've installed several sets of fenders previously, so I kind of knew what challenges to expect. I never have enough of the right size of stainless metric bolts! My only complaint about the fender installation would be that the radius of the bend of the fenders is a little too big for these tires, so the front doesn't follow the contour of the wheel very closely. I may get another strut for the front to help pull it down a little and to reduce the bump-induced fender wiggle out there in the front.

Below are some photos of the Soma with it's new stuff. As shown, with rack and fender and lights, it weighs in at a very respectable 28 pounds. Any less and I'd worry about it blowing away in the wind. Besides, those super light-weight plastic and aluminum bikes are dangerous because they don't afford enough protection to the rider in the event of a crash! In the last picture, the close-up of the derailer, look carefully and you can see the bumpy generator strip on the tire. It's just a series of grooves that help keep the generator wheel from slipping. My top touring tires had a generator strip, and I've used my tire generator in frequently rain and in. It's never slipped at all, even when tire and generator were packing up with snow. Perhaps I'm just lucky.






Cindy said, "Do you think anyone reads this whole thing?"

I said, "Of course not."

Soma Love

After a long, snowy winter, my Soma was a mess. Road salt, grit and grime, and corrosion. The chain, chainrings, and cogs were coated with a thick, black, gooey, muck. Some of the aluminum parts were crusted with white corrosion, and the steel parts red. The cables didn't look shiny anymore. Since it had just crossed the 5,000 mile mark, and was looking very neglected, I decided it was time for a thorough cleaning.

So I took it apart. I simply started taking stuff off until there was nothing left but a frame. I cleaned the frame with a degreaser. Then I washed it with water, inside and out, to rinse out the salt. I dried it in the sun. When it was nice and clean, I waxed it. But all of that was the easy part.

The components I pulled off were a mess. Some of them were worn out. The middle chain ring, the one I use the most, had waves instead of teeth. The chain, which had about 1500 miles on it, was considerably longer than it was when it was new. The break arms, once I cleaned them, flopped loosely on their posts, the bushings worn to an oversize diameter. The cable housings were rusty inside, and in some spots the outer layer was worn through from rubbing on the frame. The bar tape was thin and falling apart.

So I bought it some new brakes, new cables and housings, new bar tape, a new chain, a new middle chain ring, a new rear cassette with a little narrower gearing than the old one for more choices of gears in my normal riding range. And I got a new rear rack. All for the cost of a couple of tanks of gas. Well, maybe three tanks of gas. I took apart the hubs and headset and cleaned and greased the the bearings. Some of the bearing seats in the hubs are worn and won't likely make past the next 5,000 miles, but they spin smoothly for now. The Soma seatpost was original black, but the anodizing, if that's what it was, was fading to gray. It looked pretty ugly, so I took the anodizing off with a wire brush on my drill. Now it's a shiny brushed aluminum seatpost. It looks a little better to me, anyway. The only thing I didn't change that I considered was the somewhat clunky fender setup I have up front. It looks a little strange, but it's functional.

It took a couple of months for me to find time to put it all back together (in the mean time I logged more than 200 miles commuting on the green Cannondale tandem), but once it was done it felt like a new bike. Soft and smooth and quiet. The difference was amazing. The new brakes and pads are a huge improvement. The routing of the wires for the headlight is much improved. I ran them on the bottom tube rather than the top. The new cassette gives me single-tooth difference in my primary riding speed range, and shifting with the new chain, cassettes, and clean derailer is incredibly smooth. The first day I rode to work on it, anyone who noticed probably wondered why I was wearing such a big smile!

Double Commute on my Double Cross

We're having some beautiful weather today. Our high was in the low 80s. It was 48 when I left home on my bicycle this morning. I must have been so happy about the weather that I forgot my panniers that contained my lunch, clothes, lock, and tools. I didn't even realize it until I arrived and lifted my bike up the curb to lock it to the rack. It was unusually light! I was glad, however, because it meant I got to ride back home to get my stuff. Extra bicycling on a beautiful morning! I should have known that something was amiss because as I was riding up the gentle incline along Hulett road I was traveling at 19-20 mph instead of my usual 16-17 mph. At the time, I assumed it was a result of the beautiful weather and my newly rebuilt Soma DoubleCross, and perhaps a slight tailwind (although there wasn't any wind), but it was just that missing 15 pounds of stuff hanging off my bike.

I saw numerous bicycles on my ride in today. It's so nice that summer is finally here!

My Daily Ride - The Soma DoubleCross

I've been thinking it would be fun to put up some pictures of some of our bikes - something other than the tandems, that is. In this post I've featured what I ride to work just about every day. We got it back in Seattle when I decided it would make more sense to have a good bicycle than the old Honda Civic Wagon. I'm really happy with my Soma. Rarely do I miss the Honda.

Soma is a small San Francisco company that makes steel bicycles frames. Check them out here. Really, they design the frames and have them built in Taiwan. They discuss this arrangement on their web site. If they didn't do it that way, I wouldn't have been able to afford one. From Soma, generally you just buy a frame and fork and build the bike yourself, or have someone put it together for you. I had Larry at Perfect Wheels build this one.

It was built as a touring, commuting, trailer-hauling machine. The DoubleCross frame is designed as a cyclocross frame, and it's great for a commuter, too. It has clearance for reasonably fat tires and fenders and it has plenty of lugs for attaching racks and fenders. Mine is set up with a triple crankset - it has three chain rings up front - and the gearing falls somewhere between a the low gearing of mountain bike and the high gearing of road bike. This one is 48-38-26. It works quite well.

I took this picture earlier this fall. You can sort of see my funky front fender and my dual headlights.

The fender I originally installed was a Planet Bike Freddy Fender. It worked quite well but I cut off the front of it just past the front brake so it would work better when I put in on the Seattle city bus racks. Later, in Michigan, when I installed headlight on the fork crown, the lack of fender at the top of the wheel meant I got crud all over my light. So I had this old plastic mountain fender that I attached to the upper front to extend it. The unexpected benefit was that it not only protects the light from road grime, but it stiffened the front fender and eliminated vibration that used occur on bumps. I've also added a white plastic flap to the rear of the front fender. This keeps snow from building up on the bottom bracket, and keeps my feet dry. It may look funky, but it's very functional.



The picture above was taken last winter after I got home from work one evening. The fork crown headlight is run by my a tire-driven generator. It's the least expensive dynamo unit from Busch&Müller. It uses a 6 volt 2.4 watt halogen bulb, and it puts out plenty of light for riding on dark roads at 15 to 20 miles per hour, even when there's oncoming gasoline-powered traffic using headlights. Check out Peter White Cycles to learn about these and lots of other cool, practical bicycling stuff. I'd like to get a hub generator, but for now this was all I could afford, and even then only because I happened across a highly discounted generator and light. The light on the handlebar is small LED battery light. I use it in the blinking mode most of the time just to help cars see me. I often use it when it's not really dark out, and I just want something to help call attention to me in dim light.

Pedals - Last year in the snow I road in my hiking boots, so I used Power Grips instead of clipless pedals. This year I'll try neoprene booties over my biking shoes and keep the clipless pedals installed.



The picture above shows my winter tires. Gotta love those carbide tipped studs. They work extremely well on slushy roads and solid ice. On the front I have Nokian Hakkapeliitta and the rear is a Kenda Klondike. I'd planned to get two Nokians, but there was only one available so I installed the Kenda on the rear.

The tail light on the rack is also powered by the generator. It's an LED light only. Both the headlight and taillight have stand lights, meaning they have a capacitor that stores some charge so that they stay on for a few minutes when the bike stops moving. The rack on the back is a super-hefty steel Burley rack that came with the Piccolo trailer. It weighs a ton, but I'm sure it will never, ever break.

The picture below is like a baby picture. It was taken in the back yard of the old rental house in Seattle when the Soma was brand new.

On my way home from work last night the Soma's odomoter had just reached 4600 miles. I'm very happy with it. I just hope the salty winter Michigan roads don't shorten the life of the frame.