Photos From the Saddle

I’m changing directions with this space: intentionally writing less (if at all) and letting it be more of a repository for photos.

-CC

I’ve been pulling apart the 85er bit by bit, getting into the really meaty parts over the past two nights. I have to say, for a bike that’s nearly 25 years old, things aren’t that bad. When opening things up, some of the old grease has appeared suspiciously similar to ear wax. But, once cleaned up, things look good. There’s some pitting on the cups and cones, but not much; mostly just with the rear hub.

While I have an unused bb that I can throw in there; it’s the hubs that concern me the most. Ideally, I’d replace them, but there’s little sense in replacing just the hubs and not the whole wheels. There’s no question that I’m going to need a new crank, so there’s that, too. Despite all this, I’m still quite eager to get the bike set up and rolling. It’s already been a fun project.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in 39×15 lately. It’s starting to feel a bit like a favorite article of clothing—familiar and comfortable. I know I’ve got 19 other gear combinations at my disposal. But when it comes down to it, those other gears are just that: gears. Lifeless tools. There’s something about 39×15 that feels like home, warm and inviting; somehow filled with a spirit of its own. It’s a place where my cadence, heart rate and speed blend together in harmony; where my legs rejoice at the perfect amount of resistance and distances seem irrelevant.

I can’t help but wonder if this is true for others, if there’s a gear that fits them better than their favorite jeans. Yet, like a guarded secret fishing hole, I almost don’t want to speak of it. Logically, I know others must have “sweet spot” gears… possibly the same one as me… but for the time being I’m happy to defy logic and nestle comfortably, with a couple clicks and the sound of the chain shifting, into my favorite gear: 39×15.

I managed to outdo myself yesterday, in terms of questionable behavior, when I rolled out at 2:30am—I’d volunteered to help out with a support gig for the region’s largest organized ride and had the (early) early shift.

I do not recommend rolling out at such an hour for the following reasons:

1. You will quickly remember that bars close at 2am, which explains the seemingly bizarre number of cars on the road for the hour. This will put you in a heightened state of paranoia, for fear of being hit or dangerously harassed by drunk drivers,
2. No matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to go to bed early enough to get a reasonable amount of sleep (unless you’re accustomed to going to bed at 8pm),
3. If suspicions hadn’t already been confirmed, your friends and family will most certainly decide you are insane and consider an “intervention”,
4. If you ride through areas where wildlife is present, it is highly probable that it will be out at that hour, which will lead to many surprise encounters that are only heightened by the limited field of view created by your front light, and
5. While relative to the distance you must ride, it is highly probable that between the distance and lack of sleep, you will be a zombie for the rest of the day, effectively limiting the ability to make decisions or form simple sentences when speaking.

All of which is to say, I totally recommend doing it at least once (though, upon reflection, I liked the 4:30am ride much  more in terms of overall enjoyment).

So… yeah. Woke up a little after 2am, stumbled around a little bit and got my gear on. It was actually pretty pleasant, with temps in the mid-50’s and no wind to speak of. Aside from the heightened paranoia due to the surprising number of cars I encountered, the ride was pretty much par for the course. It’d been a while since I’d needed to depend on a front light, so the limited visibility outside of the light’s throw was a little unfamiliar.

I rode through a number of corporate/industrial park areas, discovering that the hours between 3 and 4am are when most of these places have their automated watering systems going. What’s impressive about this is the number of systems that are broken or misdirected, often watering the sidewalk and street instead of the lawn and plants.

About half-way, I linked up with a bike path and found, quite quickly, that the path was a major thoroughfare for bunnies, raccoons and a skunk. The skunk situation, very fortunately, didn’t end up stinky. The raccoons pretty much stayed put on the side of the path. As for the bunnies… I encountered a frightening number of them, and I swear they were daring each other to run across the path in front of me. So many of ‘em were doing this that I had to desist from my other time-wasting practice of taking pictures, but not before one was unintentionally caught in a shot:

That little brown blur in the middle is the bunny; the erratic lines of light are the result of me holding the camera up off the bars and having to quickly get my hands back on them, mid-shot, in order to swerve away from said suicidal bunny. Fun times. If I’d crashed, I probably would’ve spent a good amount of time laying there laughing about the whole thing. It’s not often one hears of a bike crash caused by a startled bunny at 3am on an isolated bike trail.

Another thing about riding so early is that you really don’t get to see much of dawn. It’s pretty much dark, then mostly dark with a faint hint of something on the horizon that could be light pollution, then something that definitely looks like the beginning of dawn… but by that point, I was almost at my destination so that was the extent of it.

The volunteer gig was a hoot. I discovered that unused port-a-potties are impressively manueverable and can be pushed across parking lots with great ease and agility (I doubt the same is true post-use; fortunately I didn’t have to stick around to find out). There was a flurry of setting up, a calm before the storm, then a gradual swelling of the tide of riders.

Seeing and interacting with thousands of cyclists in a not-riding-with context was fun and… interesting. To be fair, I don’t think the array of interactions would be any different with any other group of people numbering in the thousands. So I suppose I’m saying that people in general can be a weird/amusing bunch. This bunch just happened to be wearing a lot of spandex. A few notes…

• The most spectacular helmet hair I’ve ever seen was on a guy that had longish, thinning hair that, in the process of riding, had worked its way through the vents on his helmet. When he took his helmet off, it basically looked like he was bald except for where his helmet’s vents were, and in those spots he had giant, sweeping mini-hawks… almost like little shark fins. It was a sight to behold.
• The guy wearing leopard print cycling shorts took awesome to a whole new level.
• More than a few individuals got caught in what can only be described as a “food whirlpool”, where they’d start at one end of the food tables, work their way down to the other end (often filling their helmets), go off and eat it all before coming back and doing it all over again (and again and again). I was impressed by the amount of food some people managed to put away in a short amount of time. I can only wonder how comfortable their rides were after that.
• I was frequently asked if sunglasses were for sale anywhere.
• I will never understand the logic behind buying a bike the day before riding back-to-back centuries (or a double-century in a day).

After three hours, the next volunteer shift arrived and I was set loose into the main swell of riders. Part of the whole reason I’d ridden to the volunteer gig was so that I could ride a bit with the participants on my ride home. This proved highly entertaining and fun. I got to ride on roads I wouldn’t normally dare riding solo (protection in numbers isn’t just for wildlife), and I was able to find a group that paced me at an unprecedented 22mph+ for the “commute” home. For a while, it was, with a little stretch of the imagination, kinda like riding in a pro peloton… kinda.

I also met this guy:

He was riding the last leg of a bike trip that had started in Toronto. I can’t imagine what it was like to solo ride 2,600+ miles, for one thing, but then to go from that to riding with nearly 10,000 other people for 200 miles. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, which is what counts.

I won’t lie: I was sad to turn away from the group and had seriously considered the viability of “poaching” the entire ride. I mean, I had my pack with me with some clothes, my wallet, camera and my phone… I didn’t really need much more, as I had friends in the destination city and I could buy food along the way (my morals wouldn’t look kindly at using resources available at the official rest stops, which were funded by the registration fees the riders paid). But, turn away I did.

Almost instantly I noticed the difference of riding solo… and that I’d overlooked the minor detail of eating anything since the night before. Oops. Not unsurprisingly this came back to bite me in the ass (and legs) and the rest of the ride home was a bit brutal. I got to my place around 10, ate everything in sight, then tried desperately to take a nap before I had to meet up with friends at noon. The nap didn’t happen, though I did manage something nap-like in their car on our way to a game and another one on the way home. (Word to the wise, though: don’t take directions from a deliriously exhausted friend in the back seat… lest you be sent on an unnecessarily long detour and find that the direction-giver has fallen asleep when you need further clarifications.)

I got back home in the early evening and rallied for a few more hours before finally giving up and passing out for a good 9 hours of solid sleep.

It’ll be a long time before I do that again… so, basically, next year.