Looking for a nice hilly ride? Check out the Bike With Pike Westcliffe Adventure next Saturday in my old hometown. The ride, which is a fundraiser for the Frontier Pathways Scenic and Historic Byway, starts in scenic downtown Weirdcliffe and heads to either San Isabel or Colorado City and back, depending upon whether you choose a metric century or the real deal.

The course uses part of the old Hardscrabble Century, albeit in reverse (from Weirdcliffe to Mackenzie Junction). And there is a ton of climbing in both directions — 9,000 feet in the century and 5,900 feet in the metric — which should be an excellent opportunity for folks to debate the relative merits of traditional gearing vs. compact cranksets vs. triple-ring setups, if they have any breath left for idle chit-chat.

If you’re interested, you can register here. Be sure to keep an eye peeled for deer, especially at mile marker six on Highway 96. Stupid buggers love to leap out of nowhere and into the road right about there. I once saw a black bear chugging up a hillside near there, too.

Charley A. writes:

My road bike is a custom Bill Holland steel frame made in late 1992; 53×39 and 12×24 gearing. It has about 70K miles and been well maintained. Do I upgrade or replace? I am not riding the miles I used to and the gearing is getting too long for me. Compact or triple crank if replace? I would like to hear some pro and con on the options.

Any recommendations for Charley? I’d be inclined to keep the Bill Holland and go to a compact crankset, 50×34, maybe add a tooth or two in the rear end as well. But then I never throw anything out. My road and mountain bikes are 15 years old, I have a 26-year-old pickup, and until very recently I still had the second computer I ever owned, a 1993 Apple Quadra 650. Alas, no amount of upgrading could transform that 33MHz beast into a modern machine.

One good thing about having a dozen or so bicycles in the garage, if you’re a lazy bastard, is that maintenance is deferred. The downside is, it eventually comes home with a vengeance. So lately I’ve been trying to impose a little discipline on myself by selecting for the day’s ride that bike which is in most dire need of a bath, a lube job, some minor mechanical work or simply a little lovin’.

On Wednesday it was the Jamis Supernova, which got a bath and a lube and will not be ridden again until I solve its fork-chatter issue, which is frankly scary under heavy braking. Yesterday it was the DBR Prevail TT, which only needed grease and some air but hadn’t been ridden in months and was feeling neglected. Tomorrow it will probably be the mango Steelman Eurocross, which needs a fresh set of Kool-Stop Thinline brake pads the way Michelle Bachmann needs round-the-clock psychiatric care.

And today it was the red Steelman Eurocross, which got a long-overdue tire change along with its wash and grease. This was one of a run of Team Clif Bar bikes built by Brent Steelman, who has built five bikes for me, four of which I have loved unreservedly. Lately I’ve been finding some affection for the fifth.

This Eurocross used to ride a bit weird for me back in the day. It has a downtube of True Temper S3, originally sported an Alpha Q carbon fork, and handled like an aluminum bike on my bumpy, rattlesnake-infested Weirdcliffe cyclo-cross course. I don’t like aluminum bikes, especially aluminum ‘cross bikes. So I slapped a steel fork on the sumbitch and now it’s pretty much the ideal Bibleburg bike-path bike, handling pavement and dirt alike with nary a whimper.

Like a lot of the machinery in the garage, it’s an oddball blend of top shelf and gack box. The rear derailleur is an ancient eight-speed Shimano 600 that, like Amarante Córdova from “The Milagro Beanfield War,” simply will not die. The front is a much newer Ultegra.

The cassette is an XT, I think (13-28), while the crankset and bottom bracket are FSA (48/38). Shifting and braking are courtesy of a pair of aftermarket Tiagra-level STI levers (the original Ultegra brifters croaked, as they will).

Other bits include a Chris King headset, Ritchey stem, Deda 215 bars wrapped with some  abso-fuckin’-lutely indestructible Off the Front cyclo-cross handlebar tape (Hi, Bruce and Jodie!), Empella Frogglegs top-mounted brake levers, Paul’s brakes (Neo-Retro front, Touring rear), Kool-Stop Thinline pads, Time pedals, Cane Creek Crono Cross wheels with Michelin Jets, and a Selle Italia Flite saddle (accept no substitutes) atop a RockShox suspension seat post.

I took ‘er out for a quick ride into the AFA and back, jumping off the New Santa Fe Trail just south of the sewage-treatment plant for a bit of road riding (can’t beat that federal asphalt) and then rejoining the trail just short of the south gate.

Tomorrow it’s fun with brake pads. If you hear a high-pitched keening noise followed by some very bad language, it’s probably me.

Just for laughs, I broke out my old DBR Prevail TT road bike, greased the chain, aired up the tires and took it for a spin this morning on a hilly street/bike-path combo ride.

Man, 110 psi in 700×25 road tires sure feels different than 45 psi in 700×32 ‘cross rubber, especially on these lousy Bibleburg streets. Ditto a low end of 39×25 versus 34×28 when gravity becomes more involved. And finally, where the hell were my top-mounted ‘cross-bike brake levers? Why, on the ‘cross bikes, of course. Eejit.

I got my first flat in months — something truly evil that solved my high-pressure problem in a nanosecond as I was climbing west on Woodmen. Happily, there’s a trailhead there, and I had a bench to sit on as I swapped tubes and reinflated with the cursed minipump (about 300 strokes’ worth and still well short of 110 psi).

The grind past the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration reminded me that casual ‘cross-bike rides do not a climber make (bless me, sister, for I have sinned, and as soon as I get off this goddamned bicycle I’m going to get right back after it). The 40-mph descent reminded me that I am a sissy, especially when some dude in a ‘Vette roared up to a cross-street stop sign as if he planned to treat it as a yield).

But I made it home alive, and it was lots more fun than working, so I must have been doing something right.