Friday, August 6, 2010

Can I Help Grandpa?

These words came from my three….ok, almost four…year old grandson as I was pouring paint into the tray to finish painting the kitchen.

“Sure” I said, “it will be fun”

“Are you sure Dad?” My grandson’s mom asked…

“No problem, you go sit down, it will be fine”

I finished setting everything up, poured some paint into a little tub, handed him a brush and put him in front of a nice large wall...

“Uh-oh” I heard him say a few minutes after we started(by the way, in case you’re not sure, this is not a phrase you want to hear when your 3 year old grandson has a paintbrush in his hand) as I looked over I realized he had accidently put his hand up against the newly painted wall.

“It’s ok bud” I said as I wiped off his hand and got back to painting...

“Uh-oh” (again, in case you weren’t paying attention, this is not a good phrase to hear) as I looked over and saw that he had dripped on the floor...

“No problem kid, I’ll clean it up” I said as I wiped the paint off the floor...

As I once again tried to finish rolling the wall I was working on I heard those now common words...“Uh-oh” (by the way...yeah, you know...bad words, 3 year old, paintbrush...blah, blah, blah...)

I turned once again to see that this time he had stepped in the paint tray and his entire foot was now the exact same color as the wall I had still not finished painting...

Ok, so it may have crossed my mind that this might not be working after all as I cleaned out the sink, turned on the warm water, carried him over to the counter and washed his foot off in the sink.

“Was I a good helper grandpa” he asked as I sat him down in the family room with his mom.

“Of course Caleb, I couldn’t have done it without you” I said with a smile, “it was fun having you help me”...and believe it or not, I actually meant it.

One week and counting…


One week from today, Jerry, Chris and I will begin what is sure to be one of the most amazing bike rides I’ll ever do. We’ll be riding 210 miles from Telluride CO to Moab UT through the San Juan Mountains and I'm so excited I could spit....

This ride will be a bit different than last year’s adventure when I did the California Coast Classic. The CCC was also 7 days on the bike, but was a different type of adventure in that it was a fully supported road ride from SF to LA where every morning and every night we had showers, delicious catered meals, and constant sag support with vans and mechanics.

This ride, we’ll be pretty much on our own during the day and while we’ll end up every night in a fully stocked hut, there will be no sag wagons, no catered meals and our bathing options will be whatever lakes or streams we happen upon during the ride. I did confirm though, that each hut will have beer. Granted with no refrigeration it may be warm beer, but it will be beer just the same.

Doing a trip like this for me is tough because I’m one of those people that tends to over-plan and over-prepare for everything. I’ve made list after list of things I could possibly need or want. I’ve tried to think of everything that could possibly break or go wrong and still I know that at some point one of our group will have an issue that will require something simple and basic that I forgot to bring.

The other challenge is that since we’ll be carrying everything we need, with the exception of food and shelter, I’m limited as to what I can bring. I’ll have a rack and panniers, my large camelbak and a small bag on the front of the bike which should provide plenty of room, but I also don’t want the bike to be so laded down, that it takes away from the fun of the ride. Afterall, we’ll be in the mountains of CO and UT which should offer some pretty amazing singletrack.

So, for the next week, I’ll continue to make and refine my lists, finalize my packing system, drop the bike off for a final servicing and cross my fingers that there’s nothing critical that I’ve forgotten...did I mention that I’m so excited I can’t sleep???? If not, then yeah, I’m pretty stoked!!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Riding While Loaded…..

No, I don’t mean like everyone used to do in the 70s, I mean this time the bike was loaded and not the rider...


This past Thursday, in an attempt to try to get used to riding with the rack and panniers, I loaded up the bike and bags with some old towels and a couple bricks in each side. What a shock when I tried to load it in to the truck...that thing must have weighed a ton. Ok, it actually only weighed 49lbs 10oz according to my scale, but you get my point.

After getting to the lake and immediately upon heading out it dawned on me that this wasn’t my normal ride. In addition to trying to get used to riding with gears, having the weight being all on the back of the bike made for a very weird handling ride.

It’s funny that everyone thinks riding a single speed is so much harder than a geared bike. And while I totally want to nurture the image of being a bad-ass, it’s really not true. There’s no doubt that it’s different and that in the beginning it’s harder, but once you’ve gotten used to it, it’s not necessarily harder...what’s hard is going from a rigid single speed that weighs about 22lbs to a geared bike weighing almost 50lbs.

The temptation when you come to a hill to just downshift and spin up it is hard to ignore. Of course every time someone passed me, it drove me nuts. I'm usually up front with the fast guys...

The toughest issues to deal with were both a result of where the weight was located, on the back of the bike. The first was the way, when heading into downhill corners, the bike wanted to push through them. It made braking and steering more challenging than I expected.
The other was that in addition to the extra weight, when going uphill the front end was very light forcing me to lean way forward in order to keep the front end down.
I might need to switch out the spacers from 100mm to 80mm...

It wasn’t until about the half way point that I figured out how to spin smoothly with the front suspension and all the weight on the back. Once I got this, I was able to stand up and ride and eventually to keep up with the front group. Of course by the time we finished the loop, my legs were pretty well thrashed and although I had thought about tossing out the bricks at the halfway point, I didn’t and was able to finish the ride.

The goal when I started was to find out what to expect and this was accomplished. I now have a better understanding of what this it’s going to be like to ride the bike fully loaded. Granted I only rode 13 miles instead of the 25-35 we’ll be doing every day and it was a sea level instead of at 9000+, but as long as I can manage to actually breathe I should be just fine....9 days and counting....