Today was a rest day in the Tour, and in Dogpatch, too.
Getting out for a ride on the weekends, when I’m in the VeloBarrel, has been impossible — it’s pretty much full-on from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m., which is about when the rain begins bucketing down.
On Saturday I managed to ride for a whole half-hour before the rumbling and pyrotechnics started, and Sunday I never even made it out the door. So it was excellent to ride hills for a couple of hours today.
As I mentioned earlier I’ve been test-riding a Soma Saga touring bike for Adventure Cyclist lately, so just for giggles I broke out my Soma Double Cross for purposes of comparison. It was missing a wheelset (loaned to the Saga), so I took one off yet another bike, replaced its nine-speed cyclo-cross cassette with an eight-speed MTB jobber (the DC now sports a triple XT crankset and an XT rear derailleur), and off we went.
I climbed the Col du Peregrine and the Côte de Ombres des Montagnes, then took a spin around the Garden of the Gods before finding a flattish way home. And y’know what? That’s a damn’ nice bike. Not light — like the Saga, it has Tange Prestige main tubes and a Tange Infinity fork up front, lesser chromoly behind, and it clocks in at about 23.3 pounds in its present configuration with a pair of chubby 700×32 Panaracer Pasela Tourguard tires, a USE suspension post, and bar-cons and aero brake levers instead of STI.
But the DC serves up a comfortable ride, and a versatile one, too. Despite its ’cross-bike bottom-bracket height and shortish chainstays Stan Pun at Soma/Merry Sales calls it “a good loaded touring bike with a couple of compromises … a very nice all-rounder/commuter.”
In other words, a bicycle. Wondrous machines, those. We should all have as many as we can afford.
Mad Blog Media 
I would love one of those but I would break my neck reaching for that lower water bottle.
It’s a bit of a stretch, Bro’. You want to wipe the bottle off before sipping after riding the cowflopped cobbles, too.
How is the Saga working out (email me privately if spilling your guts here would violate an agreement with Adventure Cycling).
We have our old tandem that is not used much since we got the Co-Motion, so I’m probably going to strip the old Trek tandem and build a tourer with its parts (9 speed shimano w/ bar cons, aero V brake levers, etc). That would be done either on a touring or a cross frameset. I’m leaning towards the cross frame because its sportier than many tourers, but was not sure the geometry would work when fully loaded with fore and aft panniers. My old Blackburn low-rider rig is still sitting in the garage pining for some work.
E-mail sent, K. I was gonna go 8-speed on the Saga, but the Soma/Merry Sales folks were nice enough to send me that 9/10-speed crank, so I went 9.
Interestingly, yours truly is riding one of our Torelli “standard” rental bikes on our Legendary Climbs tour after his custom Torelli/Mondonico developed some BB noises too late to investigate before the tour started. These tig-welded steel bikes with Campagnolo Mirage triple groups originally retailed for around $1500 and are anything but light, but yours truly has climbed the Furcia, Fedaia, Campolongo, Pordoi, Costalunga and today the Gavia on “Bugno”. (each of our rental bikes is named after a Giro winner) with no problems, even passing some folks on the “newest-latest” machines, especially on the descents. I’ll always believe a proper-fitting bike is much more important than what material it’s made from. I have a pet theory that steel machines descend better because the flex and give in the material allows the tires to stay in better contact with the road than super-rigid carbon-fiber or aluminum machines.
Yup, we don’t always need the latest and greatest to get by. And I wonder whether you might be right about steel bikes being more sure-footed.
I pulled a carbon fork off one Steelman ‘cross bike because it felt dead to me on sketchy descents, occasionally giving out with a disquieting “thock” if I hit something just right (or wrong). And I pulled the road bike’s carbon fork after it tried to kill me with a Death Wobble (replaced it with a Steelman fork).
With our roads in such a shabby state thanks to Bibleburg’s status as the national Laboratory of Libertarianism, I find my steel bikes do a better job of eating up the bumps than does the kinesium/carbon Jamis or even my old ti’ DBR road bike. More comfort means more miles to this ol’ dog.
Impressive rides and performance and quite a statement to the participants on your tour whether or not they are riding your rentals. Well done.
Do you and the group catch the end of the TdF stages after your rides? Or just ready to savor the local food and drink you’ve tantalized/tortured us with in your posts?
Well, Larry. ..
These days I’m “anything but light” too. Not sure spending an extra grand or three on the latest and greatest super compacted carbon fibre nonsense makes any sense unless I spend some time on compacting the less than supercompacted gut as well.
I know it’s been joked about on your blog before, but I can’t let this one go.
Is that a positive rise stem on those bikes or are you just happy to see me?
Since we’re talking utilitarian, non-racing, non-hucking, non-urban hipster cruising bikes here …
Any advice on a kid hauler? The little girl is one year, 18 pounds, but apparently, according to the text books and the neighborhood gossip, she’s only going to get bigger.
Is the Chariot the end-all for this situation?
Ciao Libby,
If we arrive in time to catch Le Beeg Shew on the tube, of course we tune in and watch! Quite often we gather in the hotel’s TV room and enjoy an adult beverage or two while enjoying the show. We find the folks who enjoy our tours the most are rarely the ones who ride the most or the fastest…the only competition we encourage is who can most enjoy their vacation…ride, eat, drink, relax, repeat…or as we say, “pedala forte, mangia bene!” (ride hard, eat well) as just getting up and over these legendary climbs is tough enough, no matter how fast or slow you go. Riding them gives most a new understanding of what the pros go through while racing over them.
Glad to hear it! And the road will go up for your tour and the other tour on Thursday!
Our guests went home today. We’ll take a bit of a break ourselves and tune in the Tour mountain stage which runs start-to-finish live on RAI TV. A few days of washing rental bikes and putting away our equipment for the season may give us a free day to drive up to Pinerolo to see LeTour live in-person on Wednesday before we fly home (for a few months anyway) the next day. Then it’s time to finalize details for our 2012 season!
Khal,
Some of us had a laugh the other day on Passo Gavia when a fellow rode along on one of those Cervelo California “skunkworks” bikes with a $5K wheelset on it…probably more than $15K worth of machine powered by $5 legs from the looks of it….he was laboring mightily…and certainly couldn’t blame it on the bike! Proper gearing and attitude make all the difference…much more than a 7 kg bike vs a 10 kg one does.