2 rides, one Tutu...

Those of you who have read this blog for the past 2 years are probably aware that I am involved with a charity ride that is close to my heart because the disease we are trying to do away with has affected several family members and friends. The American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure. This will be my 5th year participating.

This year, I decided to ride in another charity ride, the bike MS, in honor of my Sister-in-law, Joan, who has suffered with MS for the past 15 years of her life.

The general idea of charity rides, as you know, is to ask people to contribute money under your name for the cause. 

That is what I am doing here. Asking for your help. but i'm going to use a hook to get your participation that I haven't tried before - public humiliation.

This is a picture of me cheezing for my wife's camera in a tutu my daughter made for Halloween. Now imagine me wearing my full cycling kit along with that tutu, riding my bike for 100+ miles.

Here's the deal. If I raise at least $2000 for the American Diabetes Association I'll wear this tutu on the 100 mile course. If I raise $1000 for the MS, I'll wear it for the first day, $2000, both days. I can guarantee that If I'm wearing a tutu, pictures will be taken, and I'll post them here after the rides.

Want to help me make a fool of myself in the name of two causes that are very important to me? Contribute.

Go here to contribute to my American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure cause.

Go here to contribute to my bike MS cause.

Contribute to one, contribute to both. If I reach my goal on both, I'll wear it on both rides.  There's not much time left.  The Tour de Cure is on June 12th, and the bike MS is on June 26th.

All joking aside, these are both very important causes to me.  I would be extremely grateful for any help you are able to give.  Thank you for your genorisity and your help in fighting these two, very serious illnesses.

Yes, this is a couple of days early, but Saturday starts Bike Month here in Utah.

You can go to the Utah Bike Month website and find out information on all of the events that are going on to celebrate bike month.
 

 
I'll post reminders and reports of some of the Bike Month events throughout May. Stay tuned...

Yehuda Moon's back - sort of...

Rick Smith, the creator of the fantastic Yehuda Moon comic strip is back! - sort of.  He took a hiatus back at the beginning of March, and promised to return on May 2.  As with his hiatus last year, just because he says he's gone, doesn't mean that he won't post the occasional strip.  Go check out the "tricycle peleton" that Rick has put up on the site over the last few days to test the link.  http://www.yehudamoon.com/  The official return is still May 2nd.

Schwinn: Let's go for a ride

Schwinn is running this ad on TV.  Haven't seen it in my area yet.

Terrible twos

I made it two years with this blog. 

I thought for certain that I'd run out of things to ramble about long ago, but I'm still going strong. 

Thank you to all of you who read this. 

Plan C: The results are in!

First off, I would like to thank everyone who commented, voted, and tweeted their opinions about what to do with my Allez frame. 

Now to the results....

The overwhelming consensus is to keep it pink.  The poll came in at 4 to paint, and 10 to keep it pink.  The comments - except for one - were to keep it pink, and the tweets were unanimous for pink. 

I said I would comply with whatever the general consensus said.  So, without further ado, I give you Plan C!

I actually like it with the all of the black components! 

Don't know how long it will remain pink.  Just need to finish dialing in the derailleur adjustments, and it should be ready for it's maiden trip outside this weekend.

Sunday funnies

Caption this!

Plan C: It's here!

I had a visit from the Brown Santa yesterday, and my new (to me) frame is now in my posession.
 

A Specialized Allez Pro frame. Material: aluminum  Year: unknown.  1" Chris King NoThreadSet headset (alone worth the price I paid), and a steel Ritchey fork (which will probably be swapped for a carbon fork before too long).

There is just one possible problem, that you may be able to discern from the pictures...

IT'S PINK!!!!!

I don't know if I am man enough to pull off a pink bike, or if I should paint it.  If I paint it, it will probably be a "rattlecan special" as I don't have the budget to get it professionally painted or powdercoated.

**I just want to make a comment here.  As you know with eBay, you jump on a sale, or you'll miss it.  This frame was the right size, and it had the Chris King noThreadset headset.  Color didn't have anything to do with my decision to purchase said frame.  

So, now I have my wheels

And my frame. 

But wait!

Some of you may notice that this frame has vertical dropouts.  And, you may remember that Plan C was going to be a fixed gear conversion.  "Isn't that another problem?  Isn't it more difficult to make a fixed gear bicycle out of a bike with vertical dropouts since you have no way to tension the chain?" I can hear you say...

Yes, it is.  And no, it isn't a problem.  You see, my current bike, the Koga-Miyata that I have been riding for the past 4 years has horizontal dropouts - perfect for a fixed-gear conversion.

So, Plan C is going to be my new road bike build and my Koga-Miyata will be reborn as my fixed-gear.

Here is the part where I ask for your help.  Please answer my simple poll below, comment, or do both letting me know what you think.  Should I keep it pink, or change the color? 

I leave Plan C's fate in your hands.

BCycle

Happy Earth Day!

Do you have any plans for Earth Day this year? Well, you can go rent/buy a movie about blue 10-foot-tall aliens that comes out today, or if you are in the Denver area, you can go for a bike ride.

The latest bike sharing program in North America, BCycle, is launching today in Denver.

Go to http://www.bcycle.com/ for more information.

"Expert" opinion

It's interesting that you are occasionally percieved as an "expert" because of your participation in a certain activity by those who don't participate in that activity.

My family substitutes "nerd" or "geek" for "expert", but it all means the same.

I got a call yesterday from a friend. He said that one of his co-workers was signed up to race in an upcoming sprint triathlon, but didn't have a bike. He immediately thought of calling me to see if I would be willing to answer a few questions.

I talked to his co-worker, and gave him my suggestions on what to look for (he was looking for a used bike on Craigslist and KSL), and what to avoid (any bike named after a car, i.e. GMC Denali)

I'm sure many of us who consider ourselves cyclists can relate to the phrase "I may not know art, but I know what I like" I by no means consider myself an expert, but I know what I like, and I know what I've used that works. I guess that makes me an expert of sorts to those on the outside.

Good news for Yehuda Moon fans

http://www.yehudamoon.com/

The UPS man commeth.

Don't you just love UPS? 

My frame is on it's way.  It should be here on Thursday. 

Sunday funnies

Caption this!

Food Friday - Hydration redux

Today's tip is a quick and easy one.  I don't remember where I first heard or read about it. 

Hydration/energy drinks are great when you are riding, but they can be expensive. 

Gatorade and Powerade are cheap, but they are lacking in sodium (they only have 25 mg/serving).

What you do is buy a can of powdered Gatorade mix, and when you mix up a bottle to take on your ride, add  about 1/8 tsp of salt to the bottle.  That will give you the necessary sodium to replenish what you are loosing through perspiration.

Plan C update

Plan C is moving forward...

Just to remind everyone, Plan C refers to me adding another bicycle to my "stable" (Can you call 2 bikes and 2 unicycles a stable?).

Plan A - was the purchase of a "low end" complete fixed-gear bike from the likes of Wal-Mart, or Jenson USA. The guys at Urban Velo have a very good, surprisingly fair and unbiased review of the Mongoose Cachet that Wal-Mart is selling for $150, Eben Weiss aka BikeSnobNYC also has a review. If you are familiar with his blog, you can imagine his review.

Plan B - was finding an 80's cromoly road bike and removing all of the superfluous and unnecessary bits*, like shifters, derailleurs, gears, etc..., add a new rear wheel and voila! a fixed gear. (*Brakes are not "unnecessary bits" in my opinion.)

Plan C - buy everything on craigslist/eBay that I don't already have downstairs and build my own. As I mentioned in my previous post about this, I had purchased a wheelset off of craigslist, and was awaiting delivery. The wheels are now in my possession. A pair of black velocity hubs mated to some white Alex rims. The rear wheel came with a 16t fixed cog and lockring. I just need to pick up a freewheel cog to take advantage of the flip/flop hub.

The frame is another story... I found a frame on eBay, successfully won the bid, and am waiting for confirmation of delivery from the seller. Once I have it in my possession, I will elaborate further. I will say this, I am going to ask for your input. Yes, all of you who read this blog will have a hand in deciding a fairly significant part of my upcoming bike build.

More to come (hopefully) soon. Pictures too!

Doubling up

One problem of scheduling posts in advance is when you forget that you have scheduled a post in advance, and go ahead and post as normally.  That is why there are two "Caption this" and "Sunday funnies" posts from the past Saturday and Sunday. 

Oops!

What the...?

I ran across this bike Monday downtown. I have seen it before, but I've never been close enough to get a picture of it. I've even seen the rider "surfing" down the sidewalk by standing on the "saddle" and grabbing on to the uppermost bar ends (I need to get a picture of that someday).

As rickety as it looks (I spy some duct tape holding part of the handlebar "apparatus" together), I would guess that it rides like a nightmare.

Top 50 Cyclists of all time

Who is the greatest cyclist?

Whenever you bring up that topic around a group of cyclists, invariably two names are brought up, Armstrong and Merckx.

Well, Eric Bowen has on his site, the Virtual Musette, has developed a scoring system to rank the greatest riders of the Modern Era (from WWII to present).

Using Eric's system, here are the 50 greatest riders of the Modern Era:

1. Eddy Merckx 410.5

2. Bernard Hinault 232.5

3. Fausto Coppi 219.5

4. Gino Bartali 213.0

5. Jacques Anquetil 184.0

6. Rik Van Looy 152.0

7. Sean Kelly 146.5

8. Roger De Vlaeminck 139.5

9. Francesco Moser 131.5

10. Lance Armstrong 116.5

11. Felice Gimondi 114.0

12. Louison Bobet 109.5

13. Miguel Indurain 98.0

14. Freddy Maertens 97.5

15. Ferdi Kubler 96.0

16. Joop Zoetemelk 91.5

17. Tony Rominger 89.5

18. Laurent Jalabert 88.5
19. Fiorenzo Magni 87.0
20. Giuseppe Saronni 83.0
21. Erik Zabel 81.0
22. Rik Van Steenbergen 73.5
23. Raymond Poulidor 69.0
24. Jan Janssen 65.0
25. Greg LeMond 65.0
26. Mario Cipollini 63.5
27. Luis Ocana 59.5
28. Laurent Fignon 58.5
29. Franco Bitossi 56.0
30. Federico Bahamontes 55.5
31. Paolo Bettini 55.0
32. Charly Gaul 53.5
33. Johan Museeuw 53.0
34. Jan Ullrich 52.0
35. Alberto Contador 52.0
36. Jan Raas 51.0
37. Lucien Van Impe 50.0
38. Moreno Argentin 48.5
39. Stephen Roche 48.5
40. Hugo Koblet 48.0
41. Claudio Chiapucci 48.0
42. Gianni Bugno 47.5
43. Alberic Schotte 46.5
44. Alex Zulle 46.0
45. Michele Bartoli 44.0
46. Alessandro Petacchi 43.0
47. Walter Godefroot 42.5
48. Tom Boonen 42.0
49. Herman Van Springel 41.5
50. Charly Mottet 41

By this, you can see that Eddy Merckx is, in fact, number 1 by a large margin over Lance (number 10).

The way Eric came up with his scoring is by assigning points for victories earned in the following ten categories:

• The Monuments
• The World Championship Road Race*
• Classics/Olympics/Time Trial Championships
• Semi-Classics/National Championships
• Minor Tours 
• Grand Tours* 
• Grand Tour Classification Competitions (Mountains and Points) 
• Grand Tour Stages 
• Season Long Competitions 
• Bonus: The UCI World Hour Record  
• *Points also awarded for podium spots. 

It is no surprise that many of the top spots are occupied by greats such as Bartali, Hinault, and Anquetil. What is interesting is how the current crop of cyclists, such as Armstrong, Bettini (31), Contador (35), Petacchi (43) and Boonen (48) are ranking in the top 50. It definately shows where many of the current cyclists, who prepare for, and race mainly in the Grand Tours stack up against the earlier riders, who raced in everything from the spring classics, to the Grand Tours to everything inbetween.

If you are interested in the history of bicycle racing. go check out Eric's blog http://www.thevirtualmusette.com/. It is certainly an interesting read.

I also have to give credit to John and Scott from the Velocast podcast for alerting me to the existince of Eric's blog. These two produce a great podcast, and are (partly because of their accents) very enjoyable to listen to. You can find them at http://www.velocast.co.uk/

Sunday funnies

Frazz

Sunday funnies

Caption this

Caption this!

Ladies Night Out at SLC Bicycle Co.

If you are a woman who is into cycling, or thinking about getting into cycling either for your own reasons, or to keep up with that cycling nut of a husband or boyfriend, here is an event just for you...

On Tuesday, April 13th from 7:00-8:30 pm, SLC Bicycle Co. (For those of you who read my recent post about bike shops - the one where I didn't mention any shop names? Well, I will mention this shop. SLC Bike Co. definately falls into the category of shops you WANT to visit and support. Brent and his staff are some of the nicest guys that you will ever meet, and they are constantly doing events like this to help support the bicycling community.) Is holding a "Ladies Night Out" event in conjunction with Trek Women.

There will be fun workshops, where you can learn skills like how to change a flat and learn about bike fitting from Tori with Trek Women's program. Food, drink, and great give-aways. Free test rides of some of Trek's WSD line of bikes, and Bike experts to answer any question you may have. Many women's items will be on sale: shoes and clothing will be 20%-70% off.

Salt Lake City Bicycle Co, is located on the corner of 200 S and 200 E in downtown SLC. Bring your women friends for a fun and imformative evening!

This is the last time I travel without my bike.

as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

My family just returned from a camping weekend in Zion National Park. Even though I have lived in Utah for almost all of my life, I have never been to Zion N.P. (that I can remember, just in case my mom comments on here that I, in fact, have been to Zion) As such, I didn't know what the cycling was like in or around the park. Since we were already packed to the rafters in our van, and this was a family trip with my sister-in-laws family, I decided to leave the bike at home.

That was a move that I proceeded to regret for the entire weekend.

For those of you who don't know, Zion N.P. is extremely bicycle-friendly. most of the park is restricted to vehicular travel. The only things allowed on the majority of the drive through the park are slow-moving trams - which are prohibited from passing moving cyclists, and have a bike rack on the front which can hold two bikes if you want to only do a one-way trip. Every trailhead also boasts numerous places to lock your bike while you explore the trails, and many of them have water refilling stations, where you can top off your bottle with some natural spring water.

The weather was also just about perfect over the weekend. It was a little cold in the mornings, warming up to about 5-10 degrees below the perfect temperature.

I saw every type of bike out there on the roads, and parked around the tents in the campsite: from little kids bikes (a couple of which were constantly ridden through our campsite by their owners until I gave them the "death stare" and told them to knock it off), fitness bikes, mountain bikes, up to our next camp-site neighbors who brought along a pair of litespeed titanium road bikes.

Next time we go to Zion (oh yes, there will be a next time) I'm bringing a bike. I'm also bringing some hiking shoes and gear and plan on hiking Angel's landing and possibly the narrows, but that's for another post.

No pictures, as we also forgot to grab our camera as we were going out the door.  I'll have to see if I can snag some pictures that my sister-in-law took.

Food Friday - Mug Cake

I wasn't planning on posting a Food Friday today, but I remembered this recipe that I found a while ago, and it somehow seemed apropos today.  Enjoy.  (the variations to make it vegan are courtesy of me)


Chocolate mug cake

Ingredients
4 tablespoons flour 
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2-3 tablespoons applesauce
3 tablespoons soy milk
3 tablespoons oil (use applesauce for lower-fat variation)
splash of vanilla extract

optional: handfull of pecans

Directions

1. In a large coffee mug, add dry ingredients and mix well.  
2. Add oil, applesauce, and soy milk. Mix well.
3. Place in microwave on High for 3 minutes. (The cake may rise over the top of the mug. do not be alarmed if it does)
4. Allow to cool a little, eat directly from mug!

(Best slightly undercooked, so be careful).

Enjoy!

1,261,440,000 seconds

Today I am 1,261,440,000 seconds old.

Or, 21,024,000 minutes old.

Or, 350,400 hours old.

Or, 14,600 days old.

Or, 2,080 Weeks old.

Or, 480 Months old.

Or...


No matter how you look at it, that's a lot of candles...




I think I need to go for a ride...

Plan C

After some consideration, and input from various sources, I still am not sure what I would like to do about adding a fixed-gear bike to my stable. I do have a clearer idea on which direction I would like to go, however.

One of my friends commented on my post about wanting a fixie...

Now that fixies are no longer hip, I think it's completely reasonable :-)
Don't get the Walmart one -- cheap fixies are painful to ride, about like riding a Walmart mountain bike.
I'm not too sure the SE Draft on sale @ Jenson is much better. It'll get your around, but hi ten frame & junk parts = not fun to ride.
Bikes Direct has Cromoly fixed bikes starting at under $300.

Plan B: convert an 80s Cromoly road bike to fixed isn't difficult. Remove shifters and derailleurs, replace the rear wheel, maybe cold set the rear triangle and you're done.

I have to say that I was hesitant about the Mongoose Cachet from WalMart because there isn't enough information about it, and the "one size fits all" mentality doesn't work all that great when you are 6'2". Plus, let's be serious.  It's a bike, from WalMart.

The SE Draft from JensonUSA, was - at first - looking better, but it tips the scales at 26 lbs. Richard's comments about the frame and components do make sense. Heavy bike = unhappy riding.

Which brings me to his Plan B: which - when I told my wife I wanted to do this - was my original idea. I should be able to find an old road bike in the classifieds, or on Craigslist for not too much, then it isn't that much more work to convert it to a fixie. 

Or...  there is plan C.

Plan C would be finding a frame/fork on eBay, Craigslist, etc... and building it up from that point.  I have a small parts bin in my shop area that has a good majority of the parts that I would need to build a bike from the frame up; handlebars, brakes and brake levers, quill stem, pedals.  I would need to buy a set of wheels I found a set of wheels on Craigslist - even if I went with plan B, I still would be looking at least a rear wheel - and a crank.  Aside from that I should be set.

So, it's between Plans B and C...