It was the Wednesday Geezer Ride and I was running on O’Grady Standard Time as per usual.
I almost always make our meeting spot on time, or within shouting distance of it, anyway. But not this Wednesday.
After a distracting morning spent accommodating Herself and a visiting sister I was horsing the Nobilette northward along Tramway, a few minutes off my usual delayed kickoff and feeling a little light in the jersey pockets for some reason.
So I gave myself a quick pat-down.
“Shit, forgot my tools. Aw, probably won’t need them.” Onward.
Then the Watch cheeped.
“Forget your water bottle?” asked Herself.
“Shit again. That I will definitely need.”
So I texted the Ride Leader to let him know I’d join up somewhere along the route, then pulled a U and big-ringed it back toward El Rancho Pendejo, which this morning seemed aptly named.
While headed south I saw our Ride Leader headed north. We both looked at each other like, “WTF?” He should’ve been at the meetup while I should’ve been a couple minutes behind him and closing in.
“Back in a minute!” I yelled and punched it.
At the casa I grabbed bottle and tools and headed north once more, advising the Ride Leader via text that I’d try to catch up around Simms at Eagle Ridge, or at the Elena Gallegos Open Space.
But when I got to Eagle Ridge, no Geezers.
So I backtracked the route a bit. Nope. Rode up to Elena Gallegos. Nix. Did a couple laps of that loop to pass the time. Nuttin’.
Shit.
So I rip a quick shortcut to the next checkpoint, in High Desert. Nada.
¡Basta ya! I text again.
“Where you gents at?”
“At top of Elena’s,” replies the Ride Leader.
Sheeeeeeyit.
Anyway, to shorten an already-overlong story, one Geezer had a crook gut and bailed pre-ride, another flatted (the Ride Leader stopped to offer aid, which explains why he was running behind), and there were a couple other no-shows. A late start thus became even later. Our carefully designed velo-structure simply fell apart like a toilet-paper tent in a heavy rain.
At least our communications devices didn’t explode in our pockets or hands. First World Problems only, please.
In any event, so we’re a little slow off the start line. So what? Rivendell’s Grant Petersen likes “pleasurable, unhurried riding,” and so do I. When I can manage it, anyway.
• Hat tip to Alex Strickland, the former boss-fella at Adventure Cyclist, for passing along the Rivendell story.
Mad Blog Media 
What a nice bike! Herb, ole bud, there’s your triple.
Getting texts on a phone in a ride?
The Nobilette is a beaut’, for sure. I’ve thought about going to a 46/30T double crank but then thought again.
I was riding another triple today, the Rivendell Sam Hillborne. That’s another beaut’. Had to break it out after reading the Rivendell piece in The New Yorker.
Loves me my triples and ancient shifting parts. For me the real “horror” can be found below in Khal’s mention of sealant. That stuff is scary. And the Rivendell Joe got about 21 miles in today while I reflected on Grant and the gang.
I rode three triples this week — Nobilette, Sam Hillborne, and Soma Double Cross. The Sam is a smooth ride, but the Nobilette and Soma are a whole lot lighter. Bar-end shifters, rim brakes, and Specialized AirLock or Slime inner tubes on all of ’em.
Just about ate shit on the Soma today, hitting a long stretch of deep sand lined with cacti in various flavors. The 42mm Soma Cazadero tires were pumped too hard (40F/45R) and the front wheel dug in on a corner. Whoop whoop whoop. I waddn’t scared or nothin’, but somebody shit on my saddle.
This is why I typically ride alone. No one to meet up with at a prearranged time, no schedule, no one to drop me except myself, and Annie the Big Red Dawg always gets priority.
I ride at least five days a week, sometimes six, occasionally seven. But I do enjoy one or two days with The Geezers. Gets me out of my head. They’re mostly older than me but I have more saddle time and can be something of a resource for them now and then.
I’m loaning a bike to one so his son can tag along on El Tour de Tucson without renting a bike, which I guess is hella expensive.
Good for you on the loan. These bike tours are getting expensive enough on their own without having to rent stuff.
We have The Geezers up here, the SOBs. But I always seem to be busy, lazy, or uninterested when they schedule a ride. My problem is scheduling. And of course, ending up like Michael Corleone up at work….
These rides are casual affairs, more social than training, though we enjoy occasional spontaneous outbreaks of athleticism. A couple of the lads like to have a jump when the ground tilts up.
When I heard the prices quoted for bike rental in Tucson for the century I had to give up a bike. Damn, they should point a pistol at you when they demand that kind of coin for a loaner.
The price of the Tour ain’t exactly chump change. I’ve started to lose faith in these “charity rides”. They added a Gran Fondo to the Fanta Se century for a “few dollars more”. Heck, I have a stopwatch on my bike computer if I want to know how slow I am.
Good on you for passing along the New Yorker article by Anna Wiener. And by the way, how is Alex Strickland doing?
Good read, hey? The Rivendell boyos seemed pretty pleased with it, based on the most recent newsletter (always worth a read, BTW).
Alex and his wife have twins now, 18 months old as of yesterday, and you can imagine how much saddle time he’s logging these days. He sez to me he sez:
Forgive a quick detour, but it is about something old, very old. Saw this on the NPR website this morning.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/20/nx-s1-5090077/chimayo-red-new-mexico-holy-chile-pepper
By the way, that Praxis 48-32 crankset is working out fine on the Frankenbike, a 2002 Cannondale CAAD-5 with its Made in USA sticker on it and a mismash of older Shimano stuff. Not a big change in gearing but two things. One, undoubtedly psychological: it is pretty (my previous crankset was getting pretty battered looking) and slightly lower gears. Two, I can run a 1:1 gear ratio with a 32 tooth big cog and that has eased the life of my old XTR rear derailleur. I can run an 11-34 on the back a well, as I pulled out a chain link to improve the geometry of the XTR on the casette in the lowest gear (I suppose I could also have bought one of those little gizmos that drop the derailleur away from the chainstay, but hey, cheap). Somewhere in the garage is another spare mountainbike derailleur as well if I want to do that. The XTR looks better on a road bike. Yeah, appearances.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Hyde Park Road up to the Ski Basin is currently closed for repaving, but there are plenty of sharp hills on the lower roads where I have put that new gearing to the test and it seems to make my old knees a little happier.
The CAAD-5 still seems to have a lot of life in it. In spite of it being an older technology aluminum frame, it rides nice on traditional 32 spoke wheels. Besides, I have not done a century in a few years, so the hind end doesn’t have to sit in the saddle for that long. And in keeping with Grant Peterson’s philosophy, I want to keep the old stuff rolling down the road (myself included in the category of old stuff) rather than investing in this newfangled “planned obsolescence” crap.
Sorry to dump on the Tour de Tucson earlier. Prices of everything (food, permits, cops, EMTs, etc) have gone up. And as you say, the price of rentals vs. BYOB. I guess my objection to the high cost of organized rides is it kinda weeds out those who don’t have a couple hundred bucks sitting around (plus cost of travel, lodging, etc). I think the bicycle fraternity needs to do more “poor man’s events” if we want bicycling to be useful for The Proletariat rather than a sport for the privileged bourgeois. There. I worked in some politics…..
Glad to hear the new crankset’s working out. I have two ancient subcompact XT triples and two IRD Defiant doubles (46/30T) and they sure do take some of the owie out of the uphills.
I went to an 11-28T cassette on the old DBR Prevail TT, the max its Ultegra derailleur could handle, and that seems good enough for a 20-pound bike with a standard compact crank (50/34T).
Now I need to get some new tires for the beast. Its Panaracer Gravel Kings have flatted twice in their last two outings. Whatever I hit this last time punched right through the casing like an awl. These dudes don’t seem well suited to what passes for roads in these parts.
I have a pair of Soma’s The Everwear in 700×28 that might just fit that rear triangle, but it’s gonna be really close.
Not surprised the Gravel Kings have disappointed. My rear Gravel King on the Litespeed looks like it has freckles, it has so many places where the sealant has spooged out to fill punctures. Those spots are darker than the surrounding tire, so gives it a sort of artsy-fartsy look. In one case the tire kept losing air and sealant until I found part of a goathead still stuck in the hole and dug it out. But I’m running tubeless so the sealant, so far, works.
I put a 46-30 crank on the Salsa LaCruz and that has worked out really well. I might just have to retire all my old standard cranksets. As far as low gears, I either need to get back to my old fighting weight of around 150 lbs or suffer the indignity of having a low bailout cog on my road bikes, given some of the hills around here keep getting steeper. I’ve got a 12-28 and a 12-26 I might use on one set of wheels for the flatter rides. I had enjoyed a nice flat circuit through Las Campanas until the day an eighteen wheeler passed me on a one lane road barely wide enough for me and a car. I just held a line and hoped for the best.
https://labikes.blogspot.com/2022/09/narrow-single-lane-roads-leading-to-and.html