Category: Cyclo-cross

Steel we got; Campy, not so much

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Lots of chat in comments about The Good Old Days®, when men rode steel and Campy.

I missed those halcyon days of yesteryear, having come to “serious” cycling late in life (I didn’t start racing until I was in my mid-30s). During high school and college I rode a series of Schwinns — five- and 10-speed Varsity and Continental behemoths — but when I took up cycling again in the early 1980s it was astride a Centurion LeMans (either a 10 or 12).

The old Pinarello ’cross bike. It went from me to Dr. Schenkenstein, who eventually cracked the top tube doing something manly.
The old Pinarello ’cross bike. It went from me to Dr. Schenkenstein, who eventually cracked the top tube doing something manly.

I had the chance to do the right thing when I went shopping for my next bike. But instead of buying a Bianchi from a local shop that is no longer in existence I went to the Dark Side and bought a Trek 560 from Criterium Bicycles. it was a purple-and-yellow monstrosity that looked like a rolling pustule. An acid flashback must have driven that particular purchase.

A couple more Treks followed. First came a mountain bike (an 830 Antelope, I think), then a 1200 (broke the frame at the right rear aluminum dropout in a city-limits sprint outside Española), and finally a 1500 (a courtesy upgrade from Trek with steel dropouts).

I finally went Italian with a Campy-equipped Pinarello Prologo TT time-trial bike (an old Team Crest machine bought used from Denver Spoke), but this was a mental lapse, on a par with a bald-headed fat bastard who thinks that driving a Maserati will get him laid.

Next came a series of road and mountain Specializeds in steel, aluminum and carbon (we had an amazingly compliant rep in Santa Fe, ol’ Special Dave). My first “real” cyclo-cross bike was a steel Specialized Sirrus road bike that a frame-building acquaintance doctored, adding canti’ posts and subtracting the chainstay bridge.

’Cross is what finally put me back on the road to steel for real. My first really real ’cross bike was a Day-Glo yellow Pinarello, bought cheaply with the assistance of Tim Campen, then at Veltec. Then I met Brent Steelman at Interbike Anaheim and all hell broke loose. First it was a Steelman CC in Excell steel, then a series of Eurocrosses in Dedacciai, Reynolds and True Temper, even a time-trial bike (another mental lapse, but screw it, I’ll start racing multisport again, just you wait and see).

I’ve since ridden a ton of aluminum, titanium and carbon bikes from a variety of manufacturers — Bianchi, Voodoo, LeMond, GT, Look, Cannondale, Jamis, you name it — but I still reach for the steel first. Usually it’s the Nobilette or one of the Eurocrosses, but I even like the inexpensive steel from outfits like Soma and Voodoo, and it’s hard to find a shop rat who doesn’t ride something from Surly.

And there ain’t a Campy-equipped bike in the lot. Not among the rolling stock, anyway.

Cool today, chile tomorrow

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
A touch of yellow among the green.
A touch of yellow among the green.

Summer is hitting the door running with its bike slung over one shoulder. The leaves are turning, we’re back to breakfasts like steel-cut Irish oatmeal with black tea, and dinners involving copious quantities of freshly roasted green chile and free-range pork are in our very near future.

I haven’t made the ultimate concession to cooler weather — pulling on the ratty old gray sweatpants — because I’m still a tad scabby and stiff from stacking it on the trail last week. But I may have to start adding socks to my usual T-shirt-and-shorts ensemble, if only in the early mornings.

Political signs have replaced roses in the yard — Hickenlooper, Bennet, Merrifield and Mowle — and a few more opposing three insane tax-slashing initiatives will be joining them soon. I don’t see that overfed, under-taught windbag Doug Bruce volunteering to underwrite a few streetlights, patch a couple potholes or water a park, and frankly some things are worth paying for.

Between you and me, I’ll be glad when the midterms are behind us if only so we won’t have to listen to the ceaseless drumbeat of an ass-whuppin’ a-comin’ from the mainstream media. I’d rather take three beatings than endlessly anticipate one.

Meanwhile, cyclo-cross season starts this weekend. Already? I can still walk, but I haven’t tried running lately, and I haven’t been on a bike since a week ago Monday. So don’t look for me at the Pikes Peak Velo Supercross on the 18th. On a bike, wearing a number, anyway.

White ’cross

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
The Nobilette cyclo-cross bike is ready to roll.
The Nobilette cyclo-cross bike is ready to roll.

Meet the latest edition to the Mad Dog Media bicycle collection — a custom Reynolds 853 Nobilette cyclo-cross bike.

Like pretty much everything else in the garage, it’s a blend of old and new. The wheelset, taken from my oldest Steelman Eurocross, is a well-used Cirrus pair from Excel Sports — Michelin Jets on Mavic Open Pros laced to Dura-Ace hubs with DT 14/15g and Revolution spokes. Likewise the brakes, a used (and mismatched) set from Paul Components — Neo-Retro up front and Touring in the rear, both with Kool-Stop Thinline pads. Whether that grippy Neo-Retro will overwhelm the fork’s one-inch steerer in a panic stop remains to be seen; back in the day I ran lower-profile Dia-Compe 986 cantis, which were basically speed modulators.

An old Salsa Pro Road handlebar sports new Cane Creek brake levers (the traditional non-aero’ sort plus a top-mounted set). The stem is an Origin8, an outfit I’d never heard of before.

The drivetrain is nearly all new — Race Face Cadence compact cranks (50/36), nine-speed Dura-Ace bar-cons, FSA front derailleur, Ultegra rear, 11-28 cassette. The lone exception is a thousand-year-old pair of Time ATAC pedals.

Check out the nifty integrated cable hanger.
Check out the nifty integrated cable hanger.

And finally, the seat post is a new Ritchey WCS, but it holds a used Selle Italia Flite saddle that I got for a six-pack of beer. Assembly by Chris and Randin at Old Town Bike Shop. Thanks, guys.

I asked Mark to add eyelets for fenders and a rear rack in case I want to do a little light touring. If this were a road bike, I’d have sprung for a pump peg, too, but ain’t no pump peg in the world gonna secure a frame pump on a ’cross bike. Not the way I ride it, anyway.

Weather permitting, the Nobilette will undergo its maiden voyage this morning. The weatherman’s calling for snow, but hey — that’s cyclo-cross weather, right?

Head for the hills

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment
Your roving reporter captures a shot of a socialist deer dining for free upon a taxpayer's shrubbery.
Your roving reporter captures a shot of a socialist deer dining for free upon a taxpayer's shrubbery.

It hasn’t exactly been cycling weather around Bibleburg of late — nevertheless, I sucked it up yesterday, pulled on about half the clothes in my closet and got out for two and a half hours of hills.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Despite sitting in the shadow of Pikes Peak, the road riding around Bibleburg is less than stellar, and the one long, sustained paved climb into the high country — Highway 24 west — is just plain dangerous, going up and coming down.

So a guy has to improvise. Though I was going to be mostly on pavement, I broke out my red Steelman Eurocross (fatter rubber, lower gearing) and rode west through a moderately gooey Monument Valley Park to Mesa Road, then started climbing.

Mesa is a nice warmup, a steady-state ascent that dumps you out on North 30th Street by the Garden of the Gods. From there I hung a right on Garden of the Gods Road and descended to Centennial Boulevard for another short climb to Fillmore Street, then hung a right and returned to Mesa.

I was thinking about doing laps of this short circuit to minimize my exposure to a nasty south wind, then said screw it and headed north on 30th to Flying W Ranch Road (hey, if you have a tailwind, why not take advantage of it?). Flying W is a steeper climb than Mesa, and a short 40-mph descent dumps you out at Centennial and Vindicator Drive for the pièce de résistance, the ascent of Centennial Boulevard/West Woodmen Road.

Centennial-Woodmen is steeper than any of its predecessors and something of a challenge for the average fat bastard. It’s one of those pain-in-the-ass climbs that flattens out every now and then, even throws in a couple of short descents, just to fuck with your head. It’s why I rode the Steelman with its low gear of 34×28.

Anyway, I made it up without throwing a rod or blowing a seal, and on the way down the other side I saw this pretty little buck with a couple of his cousins, so I stopped to take a snap with the iPhone. It reminded me of living outside Weirdcliffe, where we always had a few mule deer camping out under our deck. We used to say that they were so dumb you could hunt them with a Twinkie and a ball-peen hammer.

But we never saw one stupid enough to be riding a ’cross bike on the roads in the dead of winter.

Nys guys finish first

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
An oldie but a goodie. Still, damn. Look at the geezer stem. I call that an excuse for a new fork.
An oldie but a goodie. Still, damn. Look at the geezer stem on that thing. I call that an excuse for a new fork.

OK, every now and then I feel the urge to post something about cycling on this miserable site, and today is one of those days.

My man Bret W. tweeted about the Belgian national cyclo-cross championships this afternoon and posted a pair of links to video of the race, which was a lulu, even though it apparently included no running at all, which is bullshit.

The first half is here, the second here. Enjoy. And a tip of the Mad Dog liter-sized mug of Stella Artois goes out to Bret for keeping the video links coming via Twitter.

Meanwhile, I was out and about on the ’cross bike today my own bad self. Being my second outdoor ride on drop bars since The Day My Finger Went Sideways in mid-November, it was part of an ongoing experiment to determine what bike I can ride best with the least amount of stress on the damaged digit.

Yesterday it was the red Steelman Eurocross, which has clunky aftermarket Tiagra-level Shimano R500 8-speed brifters; the long throw from small ring to big ring proved irksome. Today I rode the Jamis Supernova; its 10-speed SRAM Rival was a little easier to manipulate, but not much.

When I got home, just for laughs, I aired up the tires on my DBR Prevail TT road bike and rode it up and down the block a few times, shifting from small ring to big and back again and hitting the brakes a few times. And whaddaya know? Its nine-speed Ultegra brifters work smooth like butter, even for Paddy Nine Fingers.

This is extra good news, since it’s the bike I’ll be riding around southern Arizona come March. I was afraid I was gonna have to go to a left-hand bar-end shifter with a top-mounted brake lever for the rear wheel. But given my “performance” today, a compact crankset is starting to look like a must-have item. Robert Byrd could’ve dropped me on the hills.