The people of Arizona clearly have sold their souls to the Devil and this is the upshot. Well, this and John McCain, who is full of more bad noise and wind than any tornado.
The weather is deteriorating here, too. I probably should’ve done a long ride yesterday, but instead I went to Old Town Bike Shop for a bike fit from Randin Isip, who’s been through the Serotta school. After dicking around with my position for too many years on too many different bikes I was convinced that I’d settled on a bad setup and wanted an expert’s opinion.
Turns out I was right. I’d done a little homework before going in and lowered my saddle height a couple centimeters, which also brought it forward a bit and felt like a slight improvement. But Randin took it a good deal further, adjusting my saddle height, angle and fore-aft position, tinkering with my cleats, and finally swapping my already-geezerish stem for one with even more rise. Sucker looks like the boner on a 14-year-old kid surfing Internet porn.
When the sun finally peeked out around noon I sucked it up and got out for a two-hour test ride, heading east and then north for some mild to moderate climbing. The new position felt just fine, especially when I hit the drops into an ass-kicking headwind out of the south that transformed me into the Titanium Tortoise. I felt like I was doing an extended trackstand.
And at times I was, mostly at stop lights that refused to recognize the fat bastard on the bicycle. Every time I had to roll over to punch the pedestrian-crossing button I pretended I was punching a traffic engineer.
* When the English invented the pedicab, of course.
Mad Blog Media 
You’re making a mountain out of a mole hill, Pat. We all have to get old. While you are out riding with your geezer stem, remember 2 things: First, remember the vast majority of people in your age group only ride a barca-lounger. Second, you can take some satisfaction that there are people like me that are only a very few years behind you in age who will soon be joining you in this new fitment craze. Cheers!
Pat: Methinks thou dost whimper too much….or is it protesteth too much!
John Crandall, Randin Isip, and the team at Old Town will keep you riding long into your (and Herself’s???) sunset years because they know comfort keeps you on the bike….and keepin’ you on the bike keeps you happy and fit…..and a good fit keeps you comfortable. Ergo infinitus loopus logicus!
Smile….life is good….especially after a 2 hour ride and some green chile-smothered Hoppin’ John y vino blanco!
Carpe manana!
It snows in Flagstaff all the time.
As long as your saddle is parallel to the ground and not covered in an old Spenco gel pad, I ain’t sayin’ shit about your stem.
By the way, cool bar tape.
Patrick, you rule.
I’ll say it — looks geeky and I’d be scared the thing is so short horizontally that the bike is squirrely, not much leverage with a stem so short — but if it works for you and you ride more as a result, WHY NOT?
The Boner Stem® will be a temporary measure until I score a new fork. The Wound-Up fork on the DBR is nearly as old as the bike itself — 15 years old or thereabouts — and when I bought it I was (ahem) a few pounds slimmer and a whole lot more flexible. You’ll notice there are no spacers on that dude at all. A new fork with a few spacers should allow me to use a stem that looks more like the balsa woodie sprung by a 55-year-old cyclist, which I call right and proper.
And yeah, Darwin, I’ve been to Flagstaff more than a few times — we own land near Ash Fork — and am aware that snow there is hardly a rarity. I was referring to this, not the photo of the Flag’ dude shoveling snow. Hope all my buddies in Fountain Hills/McDowell are OK — I know they haven’t made any bargains with Old Nick.
Patrick,
So are you gonna refit all the steeds in the stable? Sounds expensive. I know you’ve got more than one bike of choice.
Hey, Jeff,
Yeah, I’m something of a hoarder. I have six ’cross bikes, one mountain bike, one road bike and a time-trial bike, while Herself has road, mountain and ’cross bikes.
Happily, the road bike is the oldest machine in the corral. It has the longest top tube by a couple of centimeters and is the only one with absolutely no spacers on the steerer tube. All the ’cross bikes have cable hangers and at least one spacer (a couple have the maximum after fork swaps) and everything has a high-rise stem, though nothing as steep as this thing. I briefly went to an similarly steep stem on the MTB before getting a rebuilt Judy from Hippie-Tech and adding a buttload of spacers plus a more elegant stem. So I’m good there.
I might have to make a couple of stem swaps, but I’m in no hurry. I plan to log most of my miles on the road bike for now and save the ’cross bikes for short bad-weather outings when I ride with my hands on the bar tops anyway.
I’ve been told not to add too many spacers to a carbon steerer tube. So my Six-Thirteen with full carbon fork getup has as much drop as I can tolerate with its “erect” stem on a short carbon tube. The stem setup on my older CAAD5 with an alloy steerer looks pretty jacked up. I’ve put a Delta stem riser on it in honor of geezerhood. Its a lot easier to ride with my back less flexible since a herniated disk in 2005, so I ride it a lot more.
As Doug alludes, it beats being an old fat slob in a barca lounger.
Hey, K,
Yeah, I’ve heard that too. I pulled the only all-carbon fork I own, an Alpha Q, off its bike and it sits in a box with a couple of other unused forks. I went back to steel forks for both bikes I tried it on (the Steelman it came with and the Voodoo). Never quite warmed up to it.
The Wound-Up has a steel steerer (toldja it was old) and the Ritchey Comp Carbon Road I’m going to replace it with has an alloy steerer, so I should be able to slip a few spacers in there. I hope. It’d be a whole lot cheaper than buying a new bike. Though I do crave a custom Steelman road bike, and my birthday is coming up. …
I looked at this week’s “Bike of the Week” on the Steelman site. OMG! I’ll take that one.
Yeah. Definitely drool material, Jeff.
Here’s another pretty one for the Eyetalians in the audience. Dedacciai tubes and Campy Chorus (mostly).
I have three of Brent’s bikes — two Eurocrosses and a time-trial bike — but I’ve owned a couple more and can testify to their simple beauty, utility and durability. My first Steelman, a CC (basically a 700c mountain bike) and its replacement, my first Eurocross, are now in the hands of Dr. Schenkenstein, a friend and teammate.
Patrick, sorry that I am late to this (pity) party, but at about one year behind you on the-big-chronometer-in-the-sky, I have flipped all of my -6 degree stems on my bikes to the +6 degree configuration over the past year. Fortunately, I have steerer and spacer stack heights on my bikes that are comparable to the original “Steely Dan” home health apparatus (I am told it is a “relaxation aid” for women). You can cut ’em shorter, but you can’t cut’em longer, as they say.
I, too, have a huge Jones for a new Steelman lugged road/rando bike. Is there a pill I could give my wife that would make her forget that I already have two Steelmans and five other bikes? I guess if these was, Tiger Woods would have used it on Elin.
All the Best,
Dale