Monday, June 18, 2018

Rediscovering the "Fast Bike"

Have I mentioned that I have two kids now, and that having two kids means I don't get to ride as much?  Oh, yeah, I guess I did.

Being a dad is pretty great.  Not getting to ride as much sucks.  For a long while, the best I could muster was a quick zip to our local, urban singletrack on my Stragggler.  I could get there, do a lap and a half, and get home in a little over an hour, which meant I could do it all while the kid napped.  Now we have two kids, and I'm bored with the local, urban singletrack, and honestly, the novelty of drop bars on singletrack has worn off.  So on Fathers' Day, when my wife asked what I wanted to do, I told her the truth: I wanted to get out for a good long road ride.  Like, on pavement, on a bike with skinny tires.  Don't tell The Radavist.

Many years ago, before the birth of ABW, I worked at a wonderful, if sometimes dysfunctional, shop in Oregon.  Among their brands was Cannondale, and our Cannondale rep was the best rep I'd ever worked with.  He'd been a wrench for a long time prior to being a rep, had worked for Shimano before Cannondale, knew his shit, and treated our shop really, really well.  It's his fault I'm a Cannondale fan boy to this day.

So he came in to the shop one day and told us that the warehouse guys at Cannondale had found some component odds and ends and did what they needed to do to make complete bikes out of them.  So they slapped Campy Record 10, and Ksyrium SLs onto CAAD8 frames and sold them to us for something insane like 1800 bucks.  That was more money than I'd ever dreamed of spending on a bike, but the shop guys correctly told me I'd be a fucking idiot not to buy one, so I did.  I rode it stock for a couple months, then sold the Ksyriums and bought some Record/Ambrosio wheels and put those on.  Then I rode the shit out of it for 10 years and the only thing I did to it was lube the chain and turn the barrel adjusters on the brakes.  It still has the original chain and brake pads, and neither is showing many signs they need to be replaced.  It's the smoothest bike I've ever owned.  I love it, even though I have had whole calendar years in which I've only ridden it 50 miles.  I just kind of forgot about it for a while.

Also for Fathers' Day (last year, and the year before, and the year before), The Wife gave me a free pass to go on a mountain bike trip to the location of my choosing, with whomever I chose, for at least a few days.  I finally took her up on it and rounded up a good group of fellow dads and the trip is coming up in a week.  I don't want to be the slowest guy on the team, so in addition to wanting to get reacquainted with my road bike, I needed to get some miles in. 

So Fathers' Day dawned kind of overcast, hot, humid, with the forecast calling for it to get a lot hotter.  Uncharacteristically for me, I headed out without much of a route in mind.  Getting lost isn't such a big deal out here, where the roads are pretty much a N/S/E/W grid.  I set out on a familiar road headed west, and kept heading west beyond where I usually turn south.  In the distance, I could see a long, gradual, straight climb right up to the horizon, so I decided I'd do that, and head south as soon as possible after the climb. 

Well, the first road south after the climb was gravel.  No biggie, but I will say this about the Stragggler - 41s at 45psi work better on gravel than 25s at 90.  I rode gingerly and slowly to avoid pinch flats and eventually made it back to pavement, headed south. 

I took the next paved left I could, headed back east at this point, heading home.  Before long, I had to decide - keep heading east on gravel, or turn north and head back to the path I'd taken out of town.  I didn't want to ride the same roads, so I decided to keep heading east on the gravel.  That was a bit of a mistake, as it turned to fresh, loose gravel within a mile.  25s at 90psi on loose gravel suuuuuuuck.  But it did wonders to refresh my bike handling skills. 

Anyway, I made it home without any flats, totally gassed after only 31.8 miles.  I'm no longer fit enough for the fit of the Fast Bike.  It's got a 120mm stem on it and about 8cm of drop from saddle to bars.  I think if I swap to a 110 and gain a few millimeters in height, I'll be OK again.  But damn, it still feels fast, even if I don't.