Years ago, I had this jersey made up. The template is no longer available.
About 18 months ago, I retired it, out of fear that riding with it might put fellow riders at risk.
I'm bringing it back, although I'm only going to wear it on solo rides.
In addition to voting and financial donations, we need to remind the racists, misogynists, xenophobes, and the rest of the kakistocracy that we will always resist them.
I found myself with some unexpected free time yesterday, and friend Judy F was leading a ride, so I dragged along. It turns out the start is close to home; I left far too much travel time and was early.
This was to be the first long ride on the new handlebar setup, so the short-ish planned distance (27 miles), and the pace (a degree slower than I usually go*) were a good fit for the day. And what a day it was: not hot, breezy, clear - a great day for a ride.
*I need to admit that, in my decline, my pace IS slowing. While I can keep up with club rides listed at the pace I go, I'm no longer at the front, and the rides at the next pace down don't feel draggy. We have a club rule about "if you're off the front, you're on your own," but in these days of devices with turn-by-turn directions, it's common for group rides to split into faster and slower groups. I find myself in the slower group on some rides, and the faster group on others, or sometimes both on the same ride.
Judy apparently has a route she likes and does the same route each time; it looks like this. The break comes at Grover's Mill Coffee, about ten miles into this 26-ish mile route.
(I had a LOT of pictures that didn't come out on this ride. Contact me if you want some blurry, barely-recognizable images.)
The early stop gave me an opportunity to complain (there weren't many; I really had to dig). And how do you know if I'm having a good time if I'm not complaining?
Judy's route goes through neighborhoods I don't know, in towns that are close to me. I remember asking Mitch at one point, "Are we still in New Jersey?" "Kansas", was his reply.
A little while later, I asked, "Did you say 'Kansas' before, so I'd say later, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore' "?
"I wondered if you'd pick up on that," he said.
New handlebar setup: The bars put me in a more forward-leaning position. It puts the weight on a different part of my hands, which I'm not used to, and I find I move around the bars frequently for comfort. But I didn't find I got the pins-and-needles, hands-going-to-sleep feeling I got on the other bars, which I tried to manage by using gloves with padding across the full palm (that solution was only partially successful). Friend Ron A points out (on Facebook) that the new bar is a Cinelli 66 Campione del Mondo, so it's got racing cred (far beyond my league, but it pleases my retrogrouchy heart), so I intend to continue with it. The on-the-hoods position gets me a little lower than previously, and out of the wind, and (so far) my back has not registered any complaints about the new posture.
Good ride, good people to ride with. Judy doesn't do this ride every week, but I'm going to start looking for it.
The title of this post is what rider Eric H called it in his Facebook post and his Strava. I'm not brazen enough to come up with that myself... but I'm DEFINITELY brazen enough to steal and quote it.
I posted early in the week, and had four takers... and then two of them cancelled before the ride start. But I wound up with ten registrants, two of whom were gonna join us en route. (One of them was Laura OLPH, who apparently felt sorry for those of us who were baffled by her silence last week.)
I got to the start, and there was one more, who hadn't registered online, so I had David G sign in. We had a mix of faster and slower riders (as I often do), and Mike and Deb V came, Deb protesting that she wasn't gonna be able to keep up... except she surely did, smiling (almost) all the way.
My riders-in, Laura and Rama K, were supposed to meet us at Six Mile Run. I didn't see Laura, but that was because she was hiding behind some taller riders. Rama and I got signals mixed, so he wasn't there, but I believe we've since made peace.
We did my usual stop-at-the-Blawenburg route... and we stopped at the Blawenburg Bistro.
Above: When Laura not only allows you to take her picture, but is apparently so eager for you to do so, you oblige.
On the way back, I changed the planned route to go up by the water treatment and Suydam instead of Butler. That's now become my default, but I haven't changed the RideWithGPS route yet. Maybe I will.
Don't hold your breath.
Trigger warning: deep bike geekiness ahead.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted about my dissatisfaction with the bars on the Yellow Maserati, my titanium bike. The connection between the bar and the stem was no longer holding: when I would hit a bump, the angle of the bars would change. I'd put in an aluminum shim, but the shim had deformed, and was no longer doing the job. The section of the bars that was to be clamped into the stem is sharply corrugated, possibly on the theory that the sharp edges would catch in the metal of the stem... but both are aluminum, and, after about ten years of use, it just wasn't holding.
In a similar situation on another bike, I'd successfully used carbon paste. Originally formulated to provide extra "sticktion" because carbon fiber components can't be torqued as highly with the wrenches as metal components, it's also found use (by other mechanics as well as me) in holding aluminum components in place. But it requires surfaces with considerable surface contact; the sharply-corrugated section in the bars I had meant that the carbon paste would probably be wasted.
So I'd thought of abandoning years of noisy retrogrouchiness and "I don't ride no plastic bikes", and getting a carbon fiber handlebar (see the post to which I linked above). I was especially taken with the flat upper part of the bars; people who ride them say they are very comfortable. But then...
I use cross-top brake levers; they mount on the tops of the drop bars and allow me to engage the brakes from the tops as well as the hoods or drops. And I have a Crane Suzu Bell mounted; it's a beautiful thing, and the sound has sustain like a Telecaster. And I can't mount those on the flat-top carbon handlebar.
So I was back to looking for a round, aluminum bar. I've got the Nitto 115 on the Krakow Monster, and I really like it... but the only one you can get now is extra-wide. I looked at the Nitto 176... it's similar to the 115, with the almost-parallel tops and drops, similar depth, and so on...
But then Rickety G gave me a Cinelli bar that he had thought to put on his purple bike, but the mount area was too big around for his stem. But it fits MY stem, and the interface is flat enough to use the carbon paste. The area behind where the hoods go is slanted down, not parallel to the bottom drops, but it's very short... maybe it can work. It WOULD save me $59 plus shipping!
So I spent some of this afternoon, after my Sunday ride (I'll prolly blog about that, too) mounting 'em up.
Above, the bike is hanging by the front wheel. I haven't wrapped the bars yet, and I have some bar wrap that was an unfortunate purchase that I'm willing to sacrifice in case I need to make changes later.
Above, you can see the smooth section of the bar where the clamp reveals. On the back, I put the carbon paste.
Because of the unfortunate angle of the photo, the stem cap is at the bottom. I moved a 1cm spacer from below the stem to above it, "slamming" the stem down by a centimeter. Because of the shortness of the section behind the hoods, I was able to do that; I'll be out of the wind a little more, even when I'm riding in my most upright position with my hands on the bars. (I've ridden it around the local streets, and I'm not crippled, so it's apparently OK!)
The shorter distances on the bars meant that I had to adjust the cable and housing lengths, and that's all done. It just needs bar wrap.
But the Maserati looks kinda cool without the bar wrap. I wouldn't do a long ride with naked bars (my hands would hurt too much), but I may be a bit slow to get the wrap on. (That wrap really was an unfortunate purchase.)
Let's see how it feels for a while.
(Yeah, that's pretty much the whole Cranbury B ride today, leavin' me in the dust.)
Laura OLPH's Hill Slugs, and Tom H's Insane Bike Posse (consisting of largely the same folks) usually have an email conversation going on late in the week about weekend riding (and other) plans. I didn't get an email this week... and figured I had been left out, because I'm active with a number of other club members and activities now, so the Slugs/Posse folks must have decided to go on without me.
So I registered for Dave H's Cranbury B ride, and then saw that Jack H and Bob N, both Slug/Posse members in good standing, would be on the ride. At the start, I went to visit them at their cars. I don't remember which of us said it first (it wasn't me), but one of 'em said, "I thought I was left off the email chain...". Bob thought it was because he'd been away so long, and Jack hadn't come up with a reason. So we laughed when we figured out we'd all had the same thought.
(I've been in touch with both Laura and Tom since. Tom bumped into a group of JSTS riders who plied him with a promise of ice cream [and who among us could resist such wily persuasions?], and Laura was Dealing.With.Family, an affliction to which I am particularly tender. We weren't left off the email chain, because the email chain was never started. It's a good thing I'm so good-lookin', because I'm none too bright.)
It was a great sunny day for a ride, though. At the start:
We did this route. Dave regularly allows the group to break into a fast group (which Dom C leads), and a slow group, of which I was part. I made a virtue of my slow pace by sweeping. (Yeah. I intended to do that all along. Honest. I did.)
We stopped at the Wawa.
On a hot day, with a fast ride like this. I gotta remember to eat and drink more, I was uncomfortable at the end. But we all got in, in good order. Dave gave me a sweep credit, which I will take, but I'm not sure I deserve!
Tomorrow, I'm leading a C+ ride, shorter and slower. I'll need it!
The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I are just back from a week in Martha's Vineyard with a selection of FreeWheelers and spouses. I'm fairly sure these posts are going to run long, so I'm going to try to post them all at once so they read in the proper order, but I make no guarantees...
We arrived on Saturday June 12, and part of our number took a house on Samoset.
Pat VH hung the quilt on the porch; it was most helpful in finding the house for the first few days before I got my bearings!
This house was down the street. I remembered it from a previous trip, nine years ago. There's a Latin and a Greek motto on the house, but the owner apparently has a sense of humor: the Latin says, "Fancy Latin Saying". My Greek is pretty doggy, but I think the Greek motto is, "If you learn Greek, you learn this". (He's also got enough money to keep the house in excellent shape.)
Oak Bluffs was celebrating Gay Pride Month.
Those people were having FAR too much fun.
We all went out to dinner at a local place that night.
The next day, Sunday, rained early...
... and later, I led a ride to Menemsha, a less-resorty town.
Monday, Ira got bagels. Note: bagels in Martha's Vineyard are bagels for Protestants. It's not that they're bad... it's just that they're a different experience from bagels in the NY Metro area.
Uhhh... there are a lot left over.
I've been trying to persuade TEW that bikes in the living room will make us feel like we're always on vacation. So far, she's not convinced, but I'll keep trying.
We took a ride to Edgartown, parts of which are far more upscale than our digs in Oak Bluffs*. Jaclyn P had heard that we were in town, and rode out to join us. Later, she and her husband joined us for dinner.
*Oak Bluffs had an inn where African-Americans could come and be safe and relaxed, starting at the end of the 19th Century. The beach around Oak Bluffs was derisively known as "Inkwell Beach", and many white visitors avoided it, preferring the southern and western areas of the island. There are still many African-American visitors at Oak Bluffs, and "Inkwell Beach" towels, sweatshirts, and the like are now sold and worn. I love it that the locals have taken this term of derision and made it their pride.
See the "earlier posts" below for the next post about the trip.
