Author: mb

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March Century

My March century was a sufferfest. With all the travel for work and play (see previous post) I’d only been on the fixed gear for short rides around town two maybe three times since my February century. It really showed – or I was having a really bad day.

I set out from Burlington and rode through Williston, Bristol, Middlebury and Vergennes. In all I covered 108.5 miles with about 5,000 feet of climbing. The day started cold in the 30’s and climbed to the high 60’s. I suffered from mile 30 on, with a slight repreive between miles 96 and 106 where I felt great. I had trouble with just about everything other than the bike – eating and drinking on the bike were off, I was overdressed, then underdressed, and I was pretty sore in spots. I forced down a sports drink about 20 miles from home and it really helped – my electrolytes must have been out of balance – about 30 minutes after I was able to pick up the pace for awhile and enjoy the ride. I covered the distance in just under ten hours total time, with about nine hours on the bike. Last season I completed my first 200k (125 miles) and 7,000 feet of climbing while severely anemic in 9:46! Where have my legs gone?

I overhauled the bike after my February adventure and swapped out the Campy chain for a Wipperman. The Wipperman has made a huge difference – my drivetrain runs much quieter and I didn’t have any mis-shifts the entire ride. I’ve used their quick links on other chains and bikes – but this is my first experience with their chain and links. So far so good.

I’m not entirely sold on the Selle Anatomica saddle I installed this winter. It is noisy as the leather rubs on certain bits of the frame, and I could swear that as my longer rides go on I end up sinking closer and closer to the top of the seatpost and saddle clamp. Yesterday it felt like I was hitting the top of the clamp when I rode over rough pavement. I’ll experiment a bit more – but I may swap back to my well broken in Brooks Swallow.

After yesterday I am rethinking some of my goals. If it turns out I had a bad day (which can happen) – I’ll press on and try to complete my season as I imagined – if the trend of a really rough rides continues I’ll dial back my goals, focus on regaining lost fitness and having fun so as to not burn out / stress out watching my speeds drop and frustration set in.

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March

A month of extremes.
3/27 Lake Champlain, finally a chance to ride!

3/25 Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

3/17 On the road for work near Winchester, VA.

3/10 View from our room at the Ritz Carlton St. Thomas with St. John in the distance.

3/9 Sailing in the Virgin Islands.

3/8 Snorkeling with Jen in St. Thomas.

3/1 Snowshoe with Jen and Maya.

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February Century

I managed to ride my February century on the last day of the month. I left the office far too late and rode another slow century around Mt. Mansfield. It was sloppy slow ride of mechanical mishaps – I lost my rear blinkie from my Carradice twice (the second time over some railroad tracks killed it), the chain sucked into the chainstays twice, I dropped the chain once, the new saddle needed several adjustments, I fell (clipped in, landing on my knee) leaving a convenience store as an SUV doing twice the speed limit bore down on me, and my computer ejected itself from my stem 2 miles from home. I chalk the drivetrain mishaps up to the salty overspray that coated the entire bike – my chain was in trouble at about mile 50 and I listened to it chirping the rest of the way home. It took me half a day to do a proper cleaning – and for good measure I pulled the bottom bracket to find it filled with water (most likely from cleanings and last falls rain rides).

The middle third of this ride was wonderful – great views as I pedaled through Johnson, Hyde Park, and Stowe – the landscape very different from January – lots of snow on the ground and in the mountains. As I left Waterbury the sun set and the runoff started freezing. The last 20 miles was misery into the wind heading back to Burlington and dodging ice on Route 2.

A fountain or spring in Stowe that has frozen over and over… this was not here last month!

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Reverence

This afternoon I wandered out on the Surly for my longest fixed gear ride to date. I covered approximately 32 miles with 2,100 feet of climbing from the New North End to South Burlington around about ‘Reverence’ – the whale tails sculpture off I89 – and Hinesburg.

From Wikipedia:

Reverence is a sculpture created by Jim Sardonis in 1989. The sculpture depicts two tails of whales “diving” into a sea of grass and is meant to symbolize the fragility of the planet. The tails were made from 36 tons of African black granite and stand 12-13 feet tall.

Whales in Vermont
The Whale Tails are more than just fanciful. Fossils of marine invertebrates found in the Champlain Valley reveal that Vermont was underwater as well during the Paleozoic Era, more than 300 million years ago. the last glacier melted away about 12,500 years ago, and the sea poured in. This inland sea was inhabited by many of the animals that inhabit the North Atlantic today, including mollusks, sea urchins, squid, herring, cod, salmon, seals, and belugas. In 1849, while constructing a railroad, workmen uncovered the bones of a beluga whale in a swampy area in Charlotte, Vermont. The fossil beluga is housed in the Perkins Museum at the University of Vermont. By about 10,000 years ago, the Champlain Valley had risen above sea level. The Valley’s waters drained northward into the St. Lawrence River. This river flows north of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes. Over 20 fossils of ancient beluga whales have been found around Lake Champlain.


I had hoped to get close to the sculpture – I’ve been curious about it since I first ventured to Burlington more than 6 years ago. They reside just off of I89 in Williston – approaching by bike I rode through a business subdivision – Technology Park. They were far off in a deeply snow covered field near the interstate – so I’ll have to make another journey this summer to get a closer look. The sculpture has found itself into several art history books, as well as onto Roadside America, and onto the cover of Weird New England. Reverence is not as odd as the Free Stamp which caused quite a stir in my hometown of Cleveland – but the tails are a bit surreal and oddly out of place the first time you come upon them from the interstate. Silhouetted against the sky, they are a stark reminder that the only constant in this world is change.

Contemplating the sculpture in the winter landscape as I pedaled along I came upon several snowmobiles at a trail crossing. While I was out keeping myself relatively warm in my wool layers and minimal gear, riding along on a simple machine powered by my legs and lungs – the snow machine operators were bedecked in goggles, helmets, and heated thermal suits sitting atop complex, noisy machines requiring significant inputs of energy not only to move about – but to transport and maintain. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them as they tore about atop their cloud emitting two stroke machines – insulated from the environment they were traversing – and the friends they were out enjoying it with. A simple twist of the wrist and the whine of the engine would rocket them over the road and up the trail. In contrast I pedaled in relative silence listening to the occasional winter bird and the hum of wheels on the pavement and the sound of my breathing. The only clouds I created were those of my breath in the cold air as I blended the gearing on my machine and the strength of my body to power me through the local topography. The contrast between us became even greater when I approached a gas station with a parking lot full of SUVs and pickup trucks with attached trailers for pulling their machines to and fro. The operation of these rigs and the structure of the society which makes them possible are jeopardizing the very thing they are designed to help people enjoy – the world of winter. Culturally reinfoced addiction is a complicated beast – we can all battle it in our own lives in different ways – being aware of mindless consumption, needless fossil fueled travel (for work and play), the convenience of a car to run into town, eyeing the next latest and greatest bit of bicycle gear, fresh strawberries during a Vermont winter, and on and on and on. Questions like these tend to put my mind in a swirl – the choices I make seem so small relative to all the ‘big’ news of the day – yet millions of these small choices make up the world we live in – and I find myself guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The whales that once swam in Vermont didn’t have much choice in how their environment was changing – as I doubt their lifestyle choices could have affected the recession of the great inland seas. We may be headed for the same fate – if we don’t figure out what people are for – and what we want to do with our lives in relation to this unique place we find ourselves in the universe.

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Snow Piles and Winter Fixed

Got out again for a quick ride on the Surly. I really like riding fixed – even with the narrowing of the roads and the unpassable bike paths thanks to the 25″ of snow we received last week.

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Montreal

Spent the weekend with Jen in Montreal. This was our ‘Holiday – Valentine’s Day Getaway’ present to ourselves. We drove 2 hours north Friday night – staying right downtown within walking distance of St. Catherine’s Street. Saturday we checked out the Montreal Museuem of Fine Arts and ate some great food after wandering old downtown. Sunday found us wandering old downtown again as fresh snow was falling. We settled on crepes for lunch and dessert then headed south out of the Canadian flatlands back to the mountains of Vermont.

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VDay

Winter’s arrival forced us to cancel our culinary Valentine’s Day plans at the Inn at Essex. Instead we enjoyed a home made meal – and stayed toasty warm and out of the blowing and drifting snow. An attempt was made to get out last night – but our road wasn’t plowed until this morning. I threw in the shovel and snapped the picture above about 5pm last night. We received another 6-8″ overnight – and the snow packed in so tight around the car it left Subaru prints!

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Winter Fixed

Went out for my second fixed ride today – stopped for a few pictures on the Winoosk bike bridge of the cold and grey Adirondacks. Lake Champlain is slowly freezing…

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Fixed

I’ve been missing the simplicity of the Redline 9.2.5 that I sold a while back. I rode it as a single speed machine commuting the mile to town when I lived in Putney, VT. It was a great grocery getter, office cruiser, and bike shop errand runner. I’ve been working on my old Trek – attempting to convert it into a winter go every where do everything bike. I’ve never really been happy with the the 520 so I decided to part with the bike – returning it to its orginal configuration with a few upgrades. It is currently posted for sale online. I’m using the proceeds to offset the cost of a simple, utility minded fun bike. I opted for a fixed gear / single speed machine – and unlike the Redline 9.2.5 which was a cheap impulse buy – I’ve thought about the details in how I want this bike to work, look, and feel.

I chose the Surly CrossCheck frame as the platform. I worked with Old Spokes Home here in Burlington to configure and outfit the bike. We set the rear wheel up with a Surly hub that has the Dingle Cog on one side and a single speed freewheel on the other. With the Dingle Cog I have two options to play with as I discover what gear ratios I feel comfortable spinning. The brakes are Cane Creek, front and rear hubs are 32 hole Surly, wheels are handbuilt on Salsa rims, stem, seatpost and pedals pieced together from my parts bin, and the saddle is the Brooks Swallow that moved from the IF when the An-atomica arrived. I’ve got a few more tweaks to work out on the fit – I’m trying to get it as close as I can to my distance machine.

It was COLD at 4 deg F with a windchill of -6, but it felt like -10. The limiting factor to my ride was my toes – I lost feeling in them about half way through.

There is one major rule when riding a fixed gear bike:

Never Stop Pedaling

The rear cog is fixed to the hub – as the cranks move so does the wheel. Unlike a freewheel bike there is no coasting – as the wheel moves the cranks move. This takes a bit of getting used to – and I debated using flat pedals or going clipless. I decided to go clipless to keep my feet firmly attached to my machine. I think this is the right choice for riding fixed – and time will tell as I gain more experience with the bike.

I tooled around the neighborhood until I felt confident and then headed to the lakefront bike path. The path was was packed snow and a bit of ice – I was a bit nervous about the conditions – I rode at a conservative pace – and the knobby cross tires worked well on the crunchy snow. I covered about 10 miles, including the hill I use for climbing repeats. The climb is short and sweet – nothing like the climbs in the Green Mountains – and it tops out at 8 or 9%. Climbing fixed was interesting – there is only 1 gear – so choosing your gear ratio is a compromise based on the terrain you plan to ride in. Too high a gear and you will struggle up climbs – too low a gear and you’ll spin out on the flats and descents. I had the bike set up in a modest gear, and riding fixed I felt better at the top of my training climb than when I hammer at a faster cadence on my geared bike. I certainly climbed slower than usual – but the bike has a ‘flywheel’ effect as the cranks keep on moving around as the bike moves forward. This felt like it gave me a bit more momentum – and I suspect I’ll be able to climb a gear or two higher fixed than on my geared machine.

I really like the way fixed riding feels – my legs moving in time with the bike – and with my limited experience I can see why many FG riders talk about feeling ‘one’ with their machine. I had some challenges moving over some of the rougher snow and ice on the bike path – I had to remember the rule of riding fixed and to keep the pedals moving when standing to float over obstacles! If you forget the bike gives you a reminder. Depending on what speed you are riding the reminder will be gentle or stern – as the wheels are spinning your legs are forced to move in time. This happened to me a few times today – adjusting my glasses, headlamp, and balaclava all found me slipping into autopilot and I stopped pedaling. The bike kicked back – a slightly unnerving event – but something I think will go away with experience. As you are one with the machine I found that you need to adjust riding habits. Reaching for a bottle – keep pedaling. Approaching traffic at an intersection – keep pedaling. Adjusting your jacket or helmet – keep pedaling. This also affects how you mount and dismount and stop for traffic.

The first time I needed to stop and restart was comical. I tried to time a stop at a lightly travelled intersection so that I would float up to the intersection with enough speed to get moving again – but not too much so that if I had to get out I could. As I did this another car entered the equation, and I lurched forward while squeezing the brakes. I did this 2 or 3 more times in about 15 feet as I figured out how to detach my foot from a pedal attached to a rotating crank. After this initial trial I found that getting my first foot out of the pedal was the easy bit – adjusting my speed and timing to remove the second foot was far more challenging. The leg just wanted to keep moving along with the bike – and you need to be moving to avoid falling over – so the timing of where in your pedal stroke you pull out your first foot and its relationship to speed and the location of the second foot seems critical. With time I’m sure this will become second nature – but at first not being able to coast up to a stop as you unclip is a very odd feeling. Getting in and out has me anxious to learn to track stand – I’ve always appreciated the value of it even on a geared bike (although I can’t do it for more than a few seconds unless the road is sloping just the right way) – on a FG it seems it will be easier – and a convenient skill to have for navigating stop and go city riding.

In all my first fixed ride was fun. My speed was way down – and my cadence felt way off – it could be the shorter cranks, the cold, or just getting used to a new bike. The 10 miles felt like 20, but I’m anxious to get back on the bike for another go of it. I’m not sure I’ll be ready for a long ride anytime soon – but I’m planning to ride part of my February century fixed – maybe up to 30 miles depending on which loop I choose – and how I feel tackling more challenging terrain.