Mood:  chillin'

The reason I don't like SUVs isn't the stereotypical "they're unsafe, gas-guzzling environment-destroyers" answer flaunted by some tree-huggers.  There are plenty of ol' smokin' clunkers still on the road that waste more fuel and belch out more noxious pollutants than a modern, fuel-efficient SUV.  Besides, as an environmental geologist I've often used SUVs to carry my equipment around during field work.

The reason I don't like SUVs - as a cyclist - has everything to do with the wind-blast created when they blow by you less than two-feet from your left brake lever.  A big slab-sided SUV can literally blow a cyclist off the road when it  passes.  Factor in the popularity of big SUVs here in Louisiana and the often narrow, shoulderless parish roads that we cyclists frequent and you have a recipe for trouble.  Louisiana recently passed a law that requires motorists to give cyclists three feet of clearence when they pass, but reports of aggressive drivers "buzzing" cyclists persist.  Seems most of the reports I've read about involve full-size pick-ups and big SUVs. 

So yeah, I don't like SUVs even though I realize the vast majority of SUV drivers probably aren't hostile toward cyclists.  Problem is that SUVs are kind of like snakes - I really don't want to let one get close enough to me to find out if its poisonous or not.

The bad news: It does not look like I'll be riding a century this year after all.  I've made a lot of progress - I dropped over 30 pounds and got some of my old muscle tone back, but I still have a ways to go before I tackle 100 miles again. 

The good news: I've got my Cateye cyclocomputer working and mounted on my Ciocc so I can ride her on my wind-trainer in the evenings after work. It is amazing what 30 minutes on the bike can accomplish!  My Cateye has a cadence sensor and a rear wheel sensor, so I'll be able to track my speed and distance ridden - I couldn't do that on the trainer with my front-wheel sensored Bell computer.  I plan to increase the length/intensity of my training and get really fit (as opposed to flabby) over the holidays.  My goal is to be ready for the road again next Spring!

Mood:  chillin'

Some maintain that the “Classic Era” of racing bicycles ended in 1983, the year the great Tullio Campagnolo passed away.  Tullio began his amateur racing career in 1922.  In 1930, he patented his innovative quick-release skewer that would become the standard for the bicycle industry -- a design that is still in use 80 years later.  Tullio’s numerous inventions helped define what I consider the “classic racing bicycle”: a hand-brazed, lightweight steel, lugged frame outfitted with precision-machined aluminum allow components.  When I got my first “good bike” back in the early 1970s this was the standard, and it was still the standard when I built-up my Ciocc in the 1980s.  Even after Tullio’s passing, both the professional peleton and my cycling buddies in the Shreveport Bicycle Club continued to ride lightweight steel frames with aluminum components.  I’d go so far to argue that the “Classic Era” didn’t end abruptly with Tullio’s passing, but gradually faded as steel and aluminum gave way to carbon fiber in the 1990s. 

I used to think that my own “Classic Era” of cycling ended after I moved from Shreveport to Baton Rouge in 1990 and stopped riding.  There wasn’t an abrupt cessation – I tried to fit in with the local cycling culture, but found it seemingly polarized between some USCF racers who sprinted on their fixed-gear bikes at the local velodrome and slower-riding tourists who drove an hour out-of-town just to get to the start of a club ride.  Not owning a fixed-gear bike or having time for the touring club’s nearly all-day outings, I didn’t mesh well with either group.  I was an out-of-place “roadie” among “trackies” and tourists. After a lonely, wet, miserable ride one Spring I parked my Ciocc – and didn’t ride again.  I gave away my extensive collection of Bicycling magazines and consigned my cycling paraphernalia to the attic.  A sport that I’d passionately enjoyed for 20 years was relegated to the realm of “I used to do that.”   

Then, one day last May, I wheeled my Ciocc out of our boat port.  I needed to shed some weight and decided to start riding my Ciocc on the rollers again to burn-off some extra calories.  Poor Ciocc was covered with 17 years of accumulated dust and road grime left-over from her last wet ride.  Her tires were flat and her cyclocomputer was long dead, but her wheels were still as true as the day I parked her.  I cleaned her up, mounted new sew-ups, pulled on my (rather snug-fitting) cycling shorts and hesitantly climbed on my rollers.  I wobbled at first then started spinning.  It was as if I’d suddenly emerged from a “time-warp” in which I’d never lost interest in cycling.  After a short ride, I eagerly dashed out and bought the latest issue of Bicycling – and discovered that my “time-warp” had deposited me in an era where racing bicycles had 20-something gears, weighed 17 pounds and looked like props out of a science-fiction movie.  I wonder what Tullio would think if he saw one of these futuristic carbon fiber fabrications?  Then again, maybe he would have invented them if he’d stuck around. 

Issues of Bicycling magazines are once again accumulating on the back of the toilet.  I’m furiously riding my wind trainer two-to-three times a week after work.  On weekends I go for leisurely rides on my Ciocc with my new cycling buddy – my six year-old daughter April.  She can easily manage10 miles per hour on her “Free Agent” BMX racing bike as we tour the relatively car-free roads of the quiet subdivisions around us.  I recall this is how I started riding – and fell in love with cycling many years ago. 

I guess you could say my “Classic Era” didn’t end after all – it just got interrupted.  I don’t expect it will end anytime soon, either.  My Ciocc still has a lot of miles left on her, and I have a lot of miles left in me.

Mood:  sad

I'm bummed.  My daughter (and favorite bicycle riding partner) April has had the flu. 

Photo above is April posing with her customized cromoly-frame "Free Agent" BMX racing bike before her first ride with Dad on the "Big Road" last weekend. She handled her bike like a real PRO! Poor Dad didn't do so well. (I forgot to take my cleats out of my pedals and fell over!)

Oh, she can hardly wait to get her hands on her Mom's Colnago!

Mood:  chillin'

It was 1977 (I think).

We were on our way to Little Rock . . . I THINK it was for a century ride (my first) with the Arkansas Bicycle Club.  Mark had borrowed the shop van from the Highroller Cyclery to transport our bikes - we had some in the back and some on the roof rack.  We needed beer to ice down for later at the hotel and were pulling into a drive-thru liquor store on Highway 71 South when - as we were driving up to the drive-thru window that was beneath an overhang that was significantly LOWER than the height of our bicycles - I reminded Mark that we had several thousand dollars worth of bicycles (including my almost brand-new Raleigh Pro) on the roof rack.

The brakes on the old shop van worked remarkably well.  The front wheel of my Pro was a good six-inches from the roof when we stopped!

Oh yeah, those were the days alright!

Mood:  chillin'

The high point of my short-lived (one year) racing career as a USCF-licensed Category 4 bicycle racer was undoubtedly the "Tour de Hogeye". This was a 50-mile road race sponsored by the long-defunct Razorback Racing Team on the twisty, hilly roads in the vicinity of scenic Hogeye, Arkansas (just south of Fayetteville).  The hilly course favored climbers - but unfortunately at that point in my cycling career I hadn't yet acquired my supposedly "legendary" reputation for being able to effortlessly drop the entire peleton on the first major climb.

Flashback to race day on September 25, 1977.  I was still riding my "too big" Raleigh Professional Mk IV (thanks, Clay!) and struggling to stay with the back of the pack.  Turns out I was eventually dropped, but doggedly pressed on with the intent of finishing the race regardless.  Imagine my utter shock when I crossed the finish line over two-and-a-half hours later to a round of wild applause and a THIRD PLACE ribbon!  Seems the peleton ignored the course markers and took a wrong turn . . .

The moral?  Speed alone ain't much good if you can't READ (course markers, that is)!

Mood:  chillin'

More evidence that steel is still real at European Handmade Bicycle Expo:

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=7384&status=True

Gorgeous bikes made out of durable, lightweight steel.  Makes me wonder how long the carbon fiber (or is it carpet fiber?) hype will really last.

More evidence that lightweight steel is still the best frame material for MOST riders at this link:

http://www.torelli.com/tech/material.shtml

"A steel frame can be made that weighs in the mid to low 3-pound range. Over a non-compact aluminum frame, this is a penalty of about one pound. This is just too heavy to chase Tyler Hamilton up a category-one climb. That is why the professional peloton uses aluminum or carbon. But for the rider who does not compete at the elite level, that one-pound penalty as part of a whole rider/bike package that approaches 200 pounds (or may generously exceed it) is insignificant. And for that pound, the rider gets a bike that can take advantage of the high-tensile strength and springy elasticity of modern steel and ride a bike that is an absolute dream. No bike rides as well as a steel bike built by a skilled builder. People who disagree with this conclusion usually have either a commercial interest in other materials, or have not ridden modern steel bikes."

Mood:  irritated

Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity please take note: 

“Today Christians stand at the head of our country.  We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit.  We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press, in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of LIBERAL excess during the past years.” - Adolph Hitler  (From his first radio address after coming to power, 22 July 1933; The Speeches of Adolph Hitler 1922-1939 Vol. 1; Oxford University Press, 1942; p.871-872.)

My point?  The next time you engage in rabid "liberal bashing", consider carefully the company you keep.

Lest anyone think that I lack any appreciation for sports requiring balls (other than the serious nads sported by pro-cyclists), I'll admit to being a fan of basketball - not the "game" played by over-payed egomaniacs in the NBA, but basketball for the love of the game.  Truth be told, shooting hoops with my six year-old daughter April has become a favorite after-work and weekend pastime of mine.  Basketball is April's "other sport" - her first is gymnastics (she's a USGA Level 3 competitive gymnast and a rising star on Team Elite), but I suspect that she'd be good at almost any sport.  Watching her team play is more exciting to me than any NBA game! 

Mood:  down

After 21 stages, the 2009 Tour de France is over.  For me, the end of the World's Greatest Sporting Event means a return to the video wasteland that most American's consider "televised sports" - baseball, basketball, football, NASCARball.  Come to think of it, there isn't a NASCARball - just NASCAR.  Boring, boring, boring . . .

Analysis of the outcome of the 2009 Tour de France from the "Badger" himself, the great Bernard Hinault:

The good news - the Tour of Ireland is coming up next month and Versus is covering it!