This is what the iPhone said yesterday’s sunrise looked like.
I’m not sure it was quite that garish, but it was an eye-popper, for sure.
Today showed a tad more restraint. There’s a hint of sprinkles in the weekend forecast, and I felt a brief preview this morning while snapping the pic.
A couple of my riding buddies are leaving for Tucson today to tackle El Tour on Saturday. I was invited to tag along but in my accelerating decrepitude I’m less excited than I once was about rolling around with a few thousand strangers on an unfamiliar course.
Back in the Day® I was a fiend for centuries, especially if it involved climbing. My favorite was the hilly Hardscrabble Century out of Florence, which climbed past Wetmore and McKenzie Junction to Weirdcliffe, swung over to Texas Creek, then segued into a fast roll along Highway 50 to Canon City before taking a back road into the finish at Florence.
The Santa Fe Century was another good one. South into the Ortiz Mountains and up Heartbreak Hill before jinking over to Highways 41 and 285 before the finale along Old Las Vegas Highway.
When I was a man instead of whatever it is I am now I could do both of ’em in under five hours. I might be able to drive them that fast now, if the old Subie kept it together and we didn’t count pee stops.
Speaking of time, it seems that the utterly shameless George Santos may have finally run out of same. The question now is whether the gutless House will boot him before he leaves under his own power.
Mad Blog Media 
Somewhere in the past after promoting small scale events with knowledge of the costs, the permitting, the coordination of staff, etc, and putting in many, many hours of volunteer time coordinating those and other similar events, the accounting side of my brain started to more concisely scrutinize the cost and effort to show up, versus the pleasurable reward, of participating in events such as the El Tour. Based on the registration fee that I just coughed at for El Tour, and even though I would love to get out and enjoy riding with a bunch of other good folks, I’d rather simply write a check to some charitable cause on my own (less the incursion of the for-profit promoter), and then drop it off in the mail as I start off on some ride, in some location and at a time of my own choosing.
I only ever promoted small-time deals, a cyclocross or two per annum. Kept it simple so I didn’t have to go to war with USCF/USA Cycling/BRAC or the city/county. And that was enough of a pain in the keister for Your Humble Narrator. If we got a field that paid the bills and left us with a little to donate to the parks and cut the cost of kit for the team, we called it good.
I lost interest in big fields after the Tour of the Alpine Banks in Glenwood Springs, when I was surrounded by more people than I’d ever raced with in my life on some very narrow and winding roads. No thank you, please. To whom may I send a check?
. . . the girl with colitis goes by . . .
my favourite mondegreen
Haw. That’s right up there with “’Scuse me while I kiss this guy” and whatever the hell they were singing in “Louie Louie.”
When I first started riding my local bike shop, Sun & Spokes, told me to skip El Tour. The owner got caught up in a crash at the start caused by a touch of wheels in the pack in front of him. He said too many racer wannabees causing crashes. So, I never tried it. I should have given it another look.
Santos and orange julius should be cellmates, and the sooner the better.
That’s the thing. Experienced racers will use these rides for training while average joes like us are just there for whatever. It’s an iffy mix of hopes, dreams, fitness, and skills. I can fall over all by myself, thanks. Don’t need no help.
The word “century” has the same effect the word “refund!” had on the dad in Breaking Away. I lost my enthusiasm for 100 milers or even 100k’s after doing a double century many, many years back. Four of us vowed to ride together so’s we could paceline and git er done efficiently. Only one rider had 6, count ‘em 6 flats due to a defective rim we only figured out after we ran out of tubes, stopped at a farmhouse and called a buddy for more tubes. No dummy, he brought a spare wheel – problem solved. All the delays meant we rode on into the night in absolute pure stupors with only the infamous Wonder lights to feebly illuminate next to nothing. Why we didn’t pack it in after the first 100 I still can’t figure out since none of us could hardly walk for a week.
Ho, ho. This is how I came to appreciate a nice quiet cyclocross, 45 minutes plus a lap. Sure, the weather generally sucked, but you were only out in it for … well, for 45 minutes plus a lap. Then it was beer-thirty. What’s not to like?
The problem with a century ride is you have to train for it. Back in my thirties, I could almost do the Honolulu Century in five hours but that took work. O’G is/was always a stronger rider.
And I don’t know that word training any more. Plus, a few years back, the Santa Fe Century combined itself with a Gran Fondo. I rode it once or twice as a century but not a timed fondo because Gran Fondo meant Gran Fuckups trying to shave seconds. One person shaved a few seconds while cutting me off in a corner and I got kinda mad and said something to him that you don’t say in polite company.
So to me, “century” or “training” does sound a lot like “refund”.
I was thumbing through some old training logs yesterday and discovered that I rode Heartbreak Hill in the 42×21 during the 1989 Santa Fe Century. Hijo, madre, etc. I believe that was the day I decided to “shift” to the 53/39T chainring setup that was starting to appear in the peloton. Also, a 12-23T cogset, with a 13-25T backup for hills.
I rode 6,725 miles that year. Finally broke the hour for the 40km individual time trial but was a confirmed middle-of-the-packer in the extremely tough New Mexico masters field. Every weekend a vicious beating.
53/39 upfront and 12/23 in the back? I was happy in Santa Fe with a 10 speed 105 50/34 front and 12/34 pie plate in the back. They still make that combo but in 11 speed now.
As the years march relentlessly on I keep subtracting teeth up front and adding them behind.
The old ti’ road-racing bike now sports a fairly traditional compact setup (50/34T chainrings, 11-25T cassette) It really needs a 28T back there and will get one eventually. The cyclocross bikes are 48/34T and 11-28T. And my new favorite setup, on the New Albion Privateer, is a subcompact IRD Defiant crank (46/30T) and a 13-34 7-speed cassette. I love that rig.
That was another piece of advice I got from Dan who used to own our LBS back in the USA made Cannondale days. He said find the lowest gear you can use to comfortably climb the highest grades on any of your rides, either mountain or road. Then have one gear below that. Bailout gear he said. Then, never worry about running out of a gear on descents, only climbs. I used his advice to day I quit riding. Of course, I never entered a race.
And good advice it was, too. I always like to leave one cog mostly unused at the spokes’ side of the cassette, strictly for emergencies. The old road bike doesn’t have one of those. I’m in that 25T cog about 10 seconds after I roll out of the garage. I know this for a fact because I just rode it today, to Tijeras and back.
If I were smart I’d swap the Ritchey compact crankset for an IRD Defiant with those sweet 46/30T chainrings and slap an 11-28T cassette on the back end. But as you know, I will never be smart.
Good thing that old DBR Prevail TT weighs 20 pounds or it would stay in the garage, like, forever.
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Yep. Real men ride straight blocks.
and then they get old and realize why they weren’t as fast as they thought they were.
Never rocked a straight block, but I still have the 7-speed 12-19T that I used for time trials. Whatever was I thinking? …
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Every time you say “I still have” I shudder. Herself has a lot of work to do to lighten your load.
Appalling, isn’t it? Bikes and Macs, Macs and bikes. Too many of both.
It’s a good thing Soma doesn’t have the 58cm Pescadero on sale this Black Friday shopping season. Because what I really need is another bike. And maybe another Mac. Annnnnnnnd. …
12-13-14-15-16-17-19? Pretty damn close to a straight block. I ran a 13-14-15-16-17-19-22 at my best, which wasn’t very good.
My big mileage years were in grad school on Long Island, where I was riding that original Cannondale Boneshaker with a 53/42 in front and a 13-22 seven speed in back. Got to Honolulu with those nasty mountains in the middle of the island and bought a 53/39 crankset from Frank Smith of Island Triathlon and Bike. That got me through 14 years of high stress job and slightly fewer miles in Paradise.
We moved to Los Alamos in 2001 and those hills got a lot longer and went up to 9000 feet elevation. I got back from one ride and my wife asked if she needed to call 911. So I put a 13-30 cassette on the back for my first Red River Century. That worked well. I used that 39-30 combination on Bobcat Pass.
Nowadays, I run pretty low gears on those old road bikes; typically a 50-34 crank and 12-32 cassette but I figure at my age, at least I am still riding my bikes. I turn 70 in January assuming I make it. I was never sure I would make it or what it would feel like to be this old. So far, it has not been catastrophic but one never knows. At this age, they stop making spare parts and the warranty has long run out.
The last century I did took me, let’s see, three, four, five, six, seven, well a long time. But it was great! I was doing it with a buddy who hadn’t ridden in a while and we stopped at every rest stop eating a lot of food and enjoying ourselves. When we rolled across the finish line, the servers were beginning to clean up the after ride food- A common overlooked problem of event organizers – The participants who probably worked the hardest to be able to do the distance are left with the scraps.
Y’know, it’s kinda nice to slow down a bit. The guys I ride with a couple days a week are mostly older than me, and a little slower in spots, so I try not to be an outlandish dick and mostly hew to their more casual, social speed. These are conversational-pace rides with a few stops along the way and a pleasant alternative to flogging myself around and about like a penitente on wheels.