damnit

I had a great title come to me while riding in. It is gone. The winds were seriously howling. Rare to see white caps as consistent and powerful as they were today. Knock you over sideways kinda wind. Killing myself for leaving the camera at home as the little coast guard boat was blasting through pushing white spray off the bow easily as big as the boat on either side. Brilliant Sun, wicked wind, cold power days. Them is the type of conditions made for big 90kg riders. And actually I think i'm over the 90kg mark again. From visual clues though my body fat % is down. So I guess that is a good thing? Double edge sword. Esp when the terrain goes up. Anyway. That sort of brings me to a point to clarify from yesterday. About the gearing. Being able to climb anything in the 39x18. How? Well I think the key was being a tall skinny freak. 6'6" and 165 pounds is a heck of a lot of leverage and not much weight. I couldn't really sprint. I wasn't fast. But I could climb with anyone I rode with (which might not be true it just seemed that i rode away from more people than i got ridden away from on the hills). I didn't have anywhere near the power needed to deal with the winds in michigan when i got there. So, all in all, Me saying I could climb anything with a 39x18 basically means not much. Don't read anything into it more than that. Oh and i was not much for spinning in those days.

Now the gearing. I mentioned BCD. That really is the critical issue. Campy and others set a standard of 144. I forget the minimum tooth # for that but the norm was a 42. When I got that 39 on the P-mount back in '91 or when ever, most people were still running 42 on everything. Campy's grip on the cyclists was strong and 144 limited the chain ring choices.

In other parts news. Stock up on tubes now. Buy em in bulk. And I predict a rise in patching vs tossing. Well for many. I suppose any price increase in an industry that can support products like SRAM Red and LEW wheels... the raw material cost of butyl and steel are so insignificant that, well, $20 tubes wouldn't even cause them to slow down the speed at which they type in the gold card # on a web site.

And those Bike Radar sunsofbitches are tormenting me with the turquoise can of Heinz beans. Vegan and wicked tasty. (look closely in the shopping basket in the link)

Last night my motivation was slipping to get on the bike. but a good nights sleep and i was on the bike and rolling away happily. So much for self regulating motivation. Legs didn't even feel too tired. Over the last seven days i've had one day off the bike and amassed an almost respectable 16.5 hours on the bike (if i count just riding straight home tonight). And it has been fun. A handful of those hours were really slow spinny things. A leg or two with the trailer that I just rode, small gears, just enjoying being on the bike. A few efforts. Some leg breakers in both the uber high cadence (dropping someone on a decent with the 40x12) and uber high torque (coming to a dead stop even with 180 cranks trying to push a 40x23 up a 30% grade at the top of a 10-15% grade). A range that is new for me. No it probably won't pay off. I'm definately not one of the super egotistical types that Burke mentioned here:

COTBR: What advice do you have for a young rider trying to break into the Pros?
Burke: Tragic Optimism . . . Seriously. You must have an almost tragic belief in yourself because 99 out of 100 races you’re likely going to fail miserably, but as long as you learn from your mistakes and keep trying, there’s that 100th time when you don’t fail and it makes it all worth it.

I almost fall under the tragic pessimism.

Ah well.

We all can't succeed at everything. But damn it. We can have fun trying.

Heddwch
G