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! 

How do I feel today?  I feel like crusin' on my Ciocc down Route 101 . . .

I feel fortunate to have sampled some truly fine beers in my time.  Many years ago I was at my friend Mark's house in Fayetteville, Arkansas when he decided to break out his private stash of authentic German-brewed Lowenbrau Special Dark.  Mark was the head mechanic down at Highroller Cyclery and had an all-Campy Nuovo Record-equipped Mondia Special that was custom-built for him while he was living in Europe in 1971-72.  Anyway, we'd been taking about the "Three Bs" (Broads, Bicycles and Beer) and the beer discussion triggered the need to break out the Lowenbrau.  IIRC we only consumed a six-pack between us, but this was REAL German beer and not the Pasteurized watered-down swill that most Americans routinely consume.  In short order we were feeling "comfortably numb" and decided to go for an evening stroll atop scenic Mt. Sequoyah.  As we were staggering down the street singing "Fat Bottomed Girls" off-key, we heard a loud explosion and saw a huge fireball erupt.  I remember Mark looking at me, eyes wide with fright, and shouting, "This is IT!"  Convinced that World War III had started, we both ran as fast as we could back toward his house.  We woke up his sleeping wife, Carol, who thought we were both drunk and/or hallucinating.  We didn't learn until the following day that a drunk driver had slammed his car into a natural gas pipeline, hence the seemingly nuke-like boom and fireball - made even more nuke-like in our minds by the potent Lowenbrau.

Mood:  chillin'

With the advent of modern 10 cog freewheels, the "30-speed bicycle" has become a reality.  Combine a triple chainring with a 10 cog freewheel and you've got 30 speeds, right?

Well, maybe . . . and maybe not.  Chances are some of the extreme combinations (i.e., large chainring/large freewheel cog) may not sit too well with even the most modern derailleurs.  Assuming your state-of-the-art "carpet-fiber" shifters can handle the extremes, are the gear-inches produced unique or just near-duplicates of some other chainring/cog combinations?  Is the resulting shift-pattern too-complex to master even with a gear chart taped to your handlebar stem?  (Ah, do you even understand what I'm talking about?)

To quote the late great cycling sage, Sheldon Brown, "(gear inches) . . . is the equivalent diameter of the drive wheel on a high-wheeled bicycle. When chain-drive "safety" bikes came in, the same system was used, multiplying the drive wheel diameter by the sprocket ratio.  It is very easy to calculate: the diameter of the drive wheel, times the size of the front sprocket divided by the size of the rear sprocket. This gives a convenient two-or-three-digit number."

So . . . do you have a clue what the available gear-inches are on your 30-speed wonder?  How about the shift-pattern you need to use to get the most use out of all your gears?  You can use Sheldon's handy on-line "Gear Calculator" to figure our how your available gears plot out, then pray that you don't have a bunch of wicked double-shifts (shifts on both derailleurs) needed to use your gears.

For the record, my 1980s-vintage Ciocc (which has 52x41 chainrings and a six-cog 13-23 freewheel) has eight very useable gears with only one double-shift.  Four up on the rear derailleur, one shift one the front derailleur to the big ring and one back on the freewheel, then three more on the rear derailleur to top out.  Reverse sequence to shift down.  Easy to remember and very quick - important in a race when you can't be fumbling to find the right gear.