fellowshipofthechainring.org

El Cap and I just got back from our yearly Deschutes River Trail ride, and I thought I would pass on a few learned nuggets of knowledge from today’s ride:

• Don’t wait all summer to ride – yes, I admit it, I hadn’t touched my bike all summer. Between missing Reach the Beach (it was one of the little sprockets’ birthdays), volunteering as a counselor at my eldest sprocket’s middle school camp, doing the California family vacation, and not balancing my time well, I just flitted away most of my summer not riding.
• 4,500 feet of elevation gain makes a difference – okay, I do have a fine attention to the obvious, but having your first ride of the summer be at 4,500 when you’re used to sea level does make a difference
• Make sure all riders double check all equipment before leaving home – if you don’t believe me, see my next note
• SPD pedals were not made for standard tennis shoes – El Cap can tell you all about what it was like riding 14 miles through single track littered with roots and rocks, but I must at least point out that those little clipless pedals don’t leave much room for the shoe
• Momentum is your friend, but Mosquitos are Not – those ruthless mosquitos are waiting at every turn for you to stop and take a drink of water. When they begin a full assault (and they did today), it’s time to move on
• Be sure to purposefully ride right over rocks (if they aren’t too big) - the best way to be ready for tricky rocky sections is to be comfortable riding right over the rocks, then you won’t be spooked by them. I make a point of this every year, but today, when we had to limit our ride (see the point on spd pedals or the one before it), I deliberately worked rocks into to my routine as early as possible. I had to break out of my tentative shell early to enjoy the ride before it was over.
• We have too much noise in our lives – this may seem like a bit of a non-sequitur, but it rang true. In my post-ride euphoria, I noticed how quiet it was in the house in Sunriver where we’re staying. There was no tv on, no music, just the slight hum of the air conditioner. I began to relax and stop for a moment. Then, it came to me: there’s this thing that our minds are capable of doing called thinking. I’m not talking about making decisions on what to eat, what to say to someone, what to buy, what show to watch. No, it’s something completely different and even enjoyable. When you sit down without any other distractions, you can actually contemplate, reflect, ponder, ruminate, think fondly of what’s important in your life.

So, my advice to you is to carve out a chunk of time in your busy schedule and get on your bike. Go on a cycling adventure, even if it’s only 14 miles, but don’t forget your cycling shoes. Attack the obstacles in your way, realize that they are much smaller than they seem, and then relax, turn off the tv and radio and sit down on a comfortable chair and let your mind go wild…

Then, post about it.

Ricco was caught with a new generation EPO (a blood booster), called cera. Apparently, some numbskull thought that maybe with a new strain of EPO, it might go “under the radar” (I’m really liking the “quote un-quote”). He’s been pulled from the Tour, and he’s got us wondering how deep this doping goes.

I’m glad they caught him; I’m glad the testing is working; I’m glad they’re holding their line; I’m sad there are so many desperate cyclists out there. I can’t imagine what might have happened had Floyd Landis won his appeal.

Now, Ricco’s entire team, Saunier Duval, has exited the tour.

“It’s a team decision not to start the race,” sporting director Matxin Fernandez told AP. “He’s our leader, we can’t act as if nothing happened. We suspend the activities of the team until we know what happened.”

Listen, my children, and you shall hear a cautionary tale of a faithful bike whose persistent noise saved his owner fifty or more dollars. It all started on a cool Sunday morn in April . . .
I first noticed an odd sound during the Vancouver Discovery Walk ride (yes, the walk that’s also a ride). My bike started making an odd clicking noise. I thought I broke a dérailleur by doing bunny hops during the first half of the ride (by the way, bunny hops are so much more fun with clipless pedals). Fortunately, the bunny hopping had nothing to do with the clicking noise—it did, however, lead to a snapped spoke, but that’s another story.

I had not heard this exact noise before, and the last time I heard an odd noise, I discovered that I had the wrong pannier rack. This time, I knew that Little Joe (my bike) was telling me something. I don’t speak mountain bike, so I tried getting everyone within range of my bike to listen and look for odd sounds and movements, but no one could spot anything. By the end of the ride, I decided I better keep and eye (and ear) open to figure out what was wrong.

Fast forward to two weeks later: two nights before Reach the Beach. As I inspected my bike, I heard a clank: the sound of some kind of metal dropping to the garage floor. I looked around, but I could see nothing, so I chalked it up to one of many possible screws, nuts, or bolts that sat precariously on a shelf edge (yes, I need to clean up the garage). Then, upon further inspection, I noticed that my spoke was broken. I was about to feel shamed about all the bunny hopping I had been doing, but then I thought about the fact that this was a mountain bike, and if you can’t bunny hop with a mountain bike, you have no business with a mountain bike, so I chalked that one up to wear and tear.

I took the bike down off of the hanging hook, and it was then that I noticed the disc brake was not working correctly. Something was wrong; the break wouldn’t work at all. Great, I thought [notice the italics], it’s only two nights before Reach the Beach, and I have to get my spoke and disc brake fixed. I did a little internet search and discovered that it could be a disc break drum that fell out. It was then that I figured out the clanking sound; it was my disc brake drum pad landing on the garage floor. I explored the garage floor, and low and behold, there was a flat, little metal roundish looking thing, so I picked it up and wondered how much a replacement would cost.

The next day (the day before Reach the Beach), I dropped off the bike with the drum pad at Performance, and the guy fixed the spoke, and let me know that the drum pad was fine (it turns out that the drum pads are metalic, and there’s a magnet in the disc brakes; it just must have had too much dirt in between the housing and the pad), so he just stuck it back in. So after all the little mechanical mishaps, I figured that the clicking sound riddle was solved—end of story.

But it was not the end of the story. Not more than 2 miles into the Reach the Beach ride, the sound came back. Fortunately, unlike the Discovery Walk, this was a heavily supported ride with bike techs at every stop, so I had an REI tech check the funny noise. Just my luck, as he popped my bike up on the bike stand and explored all gears, Little Joe went mute—no sound at all. He looked it all over, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so he did one last check: he measured the chain. Low and behold, the sound was simply a loose chain. He warned that loose chains must be replaced as soon as possible. He offered to replace the chain for free, but I still would have to pay for the chain, but alas, I had no loose change on me for the ride, so I had to wait.

It took me two weeks before I finally got around to getting a chain, but it only took me about 20 minutes to swap out chains. It’s a good thing our friendly neighborhood REI tech guy caught the problem. Had I not swapped chains in time, I would have to replace not only my chain but my freewheel and one or more chainrings. Of course, the real hero of the story was Little Joe’s persistent noise; had Little Joe said nothing, I would have probably waited another year, and then it would have probably cost me $100 dollars, instead of the $22 dollars for the chain.

And the moral of the story is: listen to your bike.

James Robert Shelton, 59, was found alongside Eola Hills Road, according to the Yamhill County Sheriff’s office. He was part of a Salem Bike Club group cycling from the Capitol through rural Yamhill County and back to Salem.

Shelton was one of about a dozen riders on the hilly, difficult course.

James Robert Shelton was one of three athletes who died in Oregon this past weekend (thanks Triguy for passing on the information). Another was a man (Patrick Findlay, 45) from Renton who apparently died of heart failure during the swimming portion of the Pacific Crest Triathalon, and the third was a man (Slieght Manivong, 34) who was found dead after a 10K charity run in Sandy.

Two of the deaths were heat-related, two were young (in my opinion—I’m months from 40), and all were tragic. Let’s stop for a moment and consider the three men. I want to give respect to their lives and their families and loved ones, which is why I posted their names.

“Man knows not his time” (Ecclesiastes 9:12)

The article said Shelton had a history of heart problems, and it seems he did not have water with him; the ride leader suggested that his water bottle could have rolled away when he crashed, which is possible. I cannot imagine that heat did not play a role. No matter what happened, it’s a good reminder for all cyclists to take extra precautions with the heat (it was our hottest day of the year). I think I’ll add a blog entry on safety precautions for summer rides in the coming days.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the lost ones’ families.

Ever since Discovery dropped their cycling team last year, I’ve been forlorn wondering what will become of Hincapie, what will become of American cycling. It turns out that things are looking up, and Team Columbia is the team to watch out for this year.

I’ve been reading snippets of cycling news and was aware that there was a new team, titled Team Columbia, but for some strange reason, I kept thinking it was the country Columbia. It never dawned on me that it was a team sponsored by Columbia Sportswear, a local company. Well, not only has Columbia stepped up and sponsored a team, but they’ve revamped the stellar Team High Road, with George Hincapie as captain, and the amazing talents of Kim Kirchen, and Mark Cavendish to name a few.

As their previous team name (Team High Road) implies, they are making a public anti-doping statement:

Through this stringent program, each member of the team gives a minimum of 26 random blood and urine tests per year. The volume of test results enables ACE to build extremely detailed longitudinal profiles of each rider so that they can detect small changes in body chemistry that might be caused by doping.

I hate to say this, but only time will tell if they can truly keep to the “high road.” I sure hope they do. I definitely know that they will be the team to watch out for in this year’s Tour de France.

Warning: the following blog is not for the squeamish!

In light of the many tragedies involving cyclists getting killed or severely injured by a bus or car in the Portland metro area, I’ve lately pondered whether I should continue riding on the road. Every time I go out, I wonder if I am taking an unnecessary risk. Should I just quit riding on the road and stick to single track? Is mountain biking more or less dangerous than road riding? Is it better to wrap yourself around a tree or a light post? Is it time to toss my slicks and keep only my knobbies for riding?

When I started riding, Breaking Away had come out on video, and I rode with the Barber of Seville running through my head dreaming of racing through the cobblestone streets of some small French village in the twelfth stage of the Tour De France. This was long before mountain bikes were sold, so when the mountain bikes first came out, I thought who in their right mind would want to ride a bike down a mountain. It seemed obvious to me that mountain biking must be more dangerous. After all, on a road bike, I’m only riding on smooth asphalt for the most part with a few potholes or gravel I need to avoid. Mountain biking, however, conjured up visions of slamming into cacti (I lived in Arizona) or breaking a collarbone as I smashed down onto a rock after doing an endo over a cliff.

To be honest, everyone I know who rides a mountain bike on any even moderately technical ride has crashed and bled or pulled a muscle or something unpleasant. As El Cap once told me, it isn’t mountain biking until you’ve crashed and/or you’ve had to walk your bike because the terrain is too tough (El Cap, you can correct me on this). I admit it; I don’t like to crash, and it’s my goal not to crash whenever I ride, but I know it goes with the mountain biking territory; I know that sooner or later I will crash.

The difference between mountain biking and road riding is that I’m 100% sure that I will crash in the next year or so while mountain biking. I’m not so certain about road riding. I don’t want to brag, but I don’t think I’ll crash while road riding, at least not due to the terrain or my riding ability. If I crash while road riding, I think that the odds would suggest it would be due to an automobile. I can have a perfect riding record, but I have no control over the drivers out on the road. It’s likely I may crash into a rock or tree, but It’s not likely I’ll have a rock or tree crashing into me.

Warning: yucky part coming up. It’s not too late to turn around, hit the back button, log off, whatever you need to do to avoid getting completely grossed out. . . .  Okay, I warned you. I can’t be held responsible for you losing your appetite.

I voiced these ponderings last Sunday at the first rest stop of the Vancouver Discovery Walk Ride (the walk that’s also a ride!) to anyone within earshot, and they mulled it over and seemed a little unconvinced, so I asked if anyone has ever heard of a mountain biker dying from an off-road accident. A rider, who I believe claimed to be a nurse, told us the story about a mountain biker who crashed and severed the top of his lip off. They had to graft half of his lower lip onto the top. She said the paramedics tried desperately to find the severed lip, but alas, could not find it. Their best guess was that he inadvertantly swallowed it.

So, other than the possibility of becoming a quasi-cannibal, mountain biking seems safer than road riding. You’re more likely to be injured while hitting the single track, but the much less common crash during a road ride may have more dire consequences.

What do you think?

I might just have to say w00t, but now it seems cheapened. Not only did w00t make it to Webster’s online dictionary, but w00t was awarded Word of the Year for 2007 by Merriam-Webster readers.

All my technology students will toss out a big huzzah for making lexical history, and it’s true; they did make lexical history because w00t is l33t-speak, an online (bastardized) variant of the English language that creates all types of English soup with letters, numbers, and acronyms. Unlike my students, I can’t help but think that this marks the beginning of the end of Western civilization as we know it.

Now that w00t got its foot in the Dictionary’s door, what will be next? pwnd: where the p is supposed to be an ‘o’ and the ‘e’ is dropped? lol: the bane of email banalities? Will the number 2 now be a preposition? Has Boyz II Men been justified after all these years? Can we drop the ‘b,’ ‘e,’ ‘a,’ and silent ‘e’ from because (after, of course, we swap the z with an s)? Didn’t anyone read 1984? This is DoublePlusUnGood!

So, why in the world, does Merriam-Webster choose to forgo years of grammar instruction and embrace the new lazy-speak? Don’t they have rules against that, such as words must contain at least 1 vowel, or that words must be spelled with letters (and not numbers)? Aparently not. I looked into it, and low and behold, they don’t consider themselves gatekeepers of the English language but more like reporters of the English language as it is, warts and all. I hate to admit it; Merriam-Webster is part of the “it is what it is” crowd–for shame! I even tried going to the Oxford English Dictionary, hoping that the Brittish would at least have a dictionary that has some standards, but they are the same:

The Oxford English Dictionary is not an arbiter of proper usage, despite its widespread reputation to the contrary. The Dictionary is intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, its content should be viewed as an objective reflection of English language usage, not a subjective collection of usage ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’. However, it does include information on which usages are, or have been, popularly regarded as ‘incorrect’. The Dictionary aims to cover the full spectrum of English language usage, from formal to slang, as it has evolved over time.

So, who are the gatekeepers? I guess there are no official gatekeepers. It’s not in the Constitution; there’s no fourth branch. We aren’t like the French, with their Academie Francaise (pardon the lack of accents); they actually have had official gatekeepers since the Cardinal Richelieu (they were mostly writers and elite members of society). That would never fly here in the US; we’re too populist for that. Without any official board or government position, the gatekeepers are, by default, the teachers, editors, publishers, and any stickler, wherever he or she may be. I’ll call it the “club:” the gatekeeper club. Hey, maybe even Microsoft Grammar check can join in the club.

With all that being said, I must make a disclaimer: my technology students will be the first to point out that even I occasionally utter the famous w00t expression in class (and even in front of my own kids). Before I explain myself, let me at least point out that it’s one thing to say a word, and it’s quite another to add it to a dictionary.

Now, on to my explanation. I only said w00t on rare occasions. It was fun to see my students’ reaction, kind of like an inside joke. Part of that fun was using the expression in public. It would be so foreign to most people my age or older that saying it would completely slip under their radar while getting picked up by some net-savvy youth. But now that the word has been picked up by the Webster Dictionary, I feel that I must stop using the word. Instead of it being an inside joke, it looks more like I’m pandering to the youth by using the 2007 word of the year.

I’ve been pwnd—by Merriam-Webster, no less.

I should probably clarify my disclaimer about not paying for Bicycling Magazine from my last post. I like Bicycling Magazine, but I’m getting sick of reading reviews for multi-thousand dollar Pinarello bikes. I teach high school, so I won’t be purchasing any costly carbon-fiber or magnesium frame bikes unless I want to completely bury myself in debt.

So I may not have Campy components; so I don’t call Cannondales Commondales; I might not have GPS on my cycling computer; my tires don’t cost more than $12 new; I don’t wear Hytrel membrane material.

No, none of that. I only buy a bike every decade or two; I ride that bike till it wears out; I use clinchers; I use thornproof tubes because I would rather increase my rolling resistance by 1% rather than fix a flat every ride; and my rain gear is typical commuter black and yellow. So sue me!?

I am content with where I am and what I’ve got. Little Joe is just fine with me! I have two legs and a decent hardtail that doubles for road riding and single tracking (depending on the tires…somewhat).

I was just introduced to Bike Snob NYC via my free copy of Bicycling magazine, and I gotta say he hit it right on the money with his quote about the recent phenomenon of fixed-gear mania.

People have been racing, training, messengering and commuting on fixed-gears for a long time, but it seems like the aesthetic has collided with the zeitgeist. Now, for a lot of people, they’re just a way to cover short distances in style…

I think they’ve become so trendy that new riders are making choices that are dictated more by style than by function. Like the guy who thinks it’s uncool to ride a fixed-gear with a brake on the street….I want people to be able to identify when trends cross the line into sheer stupidity.

I like his style and attitude. I also like the fact that he used the word, zeitgeist.

I must make this disclaimer though. I don’t pay for Bicycling magazine. I get it free from having joined Performance Team so we could get a great rebate from my daughter’s bike that we bought last Spring.

Here we go again. First Vinokourov, now Rasmussen is out of the tour. His team dropped him because he lied about where he was training before the tour, which, whether it was stupidity or deviousness on Rasmussen’s account, has the appearance of cheating, and that was all it took for his team to say goodbye.

It has gotten to the point that whenever something unbelievable happens in sport, everyone must wonder how these things are being achieved, and everything now must be questioned. (Alex Trautwig)

Everything now, indeed, should be questioned (man, I hate to say that).