brickhouseracing

In light of my neck issue and boredom, I figured that yesterday would be a good day to give my bike some new cables & housings (I wanted to flip the stem, too, which would leave me short on housing in the front). I’d also noticed recently that my awesome harlequin-pattern drop wrap was shifting around & not looking so hot, so I figured I’d re-wrap the bars, too.

The Harlequin:

I can’t have plain bar tape. I’ve decided that now. The new wrap is what I call “Memphis Style”

If I lived anywhere else, I wouldn’t do this…

I finally gave in and bought a power meter Competitive cyclist had a sweet deal on a wired SRAM SRM, so I went for it. Pretty soon, I’ll be bragging about the massive wattages I’ll generate on a daily basis (eyeroll)

Anyway… I just finished installing it. It was pretty simple, though running the wires was a giant PITA. However, I do appreciate the relability of a wired system, so I’m not going to complain too much.

Photos:

The box (they apparently recycle the box of the crank that gets butchered to add strain gauges to the spider)

I don’t need no instructions to know how to rock!

The crank

Comparison of non-drive & drive side crank arms to the Red cranks I took off

Installed Crank

The whole thing

Thus ends the simple days of using the most basic of wired computers and a heart rate monitor

Ladies: Have you ever wished that your Fizik Vitesse had a cutout?

I know when I got mine that I thought that the shape of it was perfect, but that the lack of any soft tissue relief was problematic and eventually led to removing it from my bike. However, the other day I was reading the Team Estrogen message forum and saw a post by a gal who, with the help of her boyfriend, sucessfully skinned her Vitesse, created a channel in the foam, then cemented the cover back on. I immediately had to try it…

The initial peeling:

Marking where I want to cut:

I used a really sharp knife:

Then coated both surfaced with DAP contact cement:

Voila! My Fizik Vitesse now has some soft tissue relief:

Now whether it will be comfortable or not is something that I’ll have to find out tomorrow or Saturday. The one concern I have is that the edges of my cutout will do what the edges of every other cutout have done (cause saddlesores). Hopefully not. Either way, it’s been a fun project!

Ryan and I will be heading off to Arkansas to volunteer at an aid station for the Arkansas Traveler 100 mile race. It should be a fun weekend. We plan on setting up camp at Lake Sylvia on Friday and heading out for a bike ride. If all goes as planned, we’ll get in a couple of 500ft climbs on the 40 mile loop I’ve got planned…

It should be a fun weekend. There will be smores. Oh yes… there will be smores…

I generally train alone, but since race season is over, I’ve been going out with groups more on the weekend. One thing I began noticing (that I’d forgotten about since last winter) was how often people in the group totally ignore traffic laws.

OK- I’ll be the first to admit… I’ve run stop lights on my bike (you know, those ones that don’t see much traffic and have a road sensor that’s not tripped by bikes that’ll make you stand & wait for a car to come by to get a green light… yeah, those), and I generally don’t come to a complete stop at stop signs if no other traffic is around.

What I’m talking about are the people who blow through red lights and stop signs without touching the brakes. Also, those that cut corners into oncoming traffic when making a left turn. The ones that are showing people in cars that cyclists don’t hesitate to blatantly disregard traffic laws and act like road hogs.

Example A: Car politely (without getting too close, revving motor, or cutting off) passes group. Light ahead turns red. Rather than pulling up behind the car and waiting for green, group blows through red light since there’s no traffic coming from the right or left. After light turns green, car gets stuck behind the group. Result: Former polite driver is now pissed. Cyclists look like jerks.

Example B: Group is approaching a light where they wish to make a right-hand turn. Light turns red before they get there. Even though there is plenty of room to safely stop, cyclists blow through and make right turn anyway. Cars approaching from left (as they should, considering that they have a green light) are forced to stop in the middle of the intersection to prevent a collision with cyclists. As a result, cars are forced to pass cyclists once the cyclists clear the intersection. Once again, we look like jerks.

I’m not going to be a hypocrite and preach stopping and unclipping at every stop sign or waiting forever for a green light when the streets are otherwise deserted. I’m just asking that you not show your ass around people in cars. It will reinforce the ideas that we should “share the road” and that we all have the same legal responsibility out there. It could also possibly prevent someone from throwing bottles at me from their car because they assume that since the last cyclist(s) they saw was being a road hog that I must be one as well.

I’ve been through a few more, so here’s my updated list:

Fizik Arione
Terry Zero
Terry Butterfly
Terry Falcon X
Specialized Toupe 143
Selle Anatomica Titanico (kept it for a while, but it stretched too much and looked absolutely horrible)
Brooks B17 champion special
WTB Speed She
Specialized Jett 155
Selle San Marco Glamour Aspide
Fizik Vitesse
Koobi Xenon
SMP Pro
SMP Glider
Terry Butterfly (again- tried a newer one just to make sure)
Specialized Ruby 155
Bontrager Inform 150
Selle Italia SLR Gelflow (current saddle- haven’t ridden longer than an hour yet)

All of these but the last one (so far) have caused some sort of issue- most of the ones with cutouts have given me severe saddle sores on the sides of the cutout. The ones without a cutout (both Fiziks and the Brooks) caused horrible soft tissue pain. The soft ones (Butterfly, Bontrager, Zero) seem the worst about saddle sores (though the Bontrager wasn’t as bad since it has a large “dent” rather than a cutout). None of them after the An-Atomica caused sitbone soreness. I guessing by then, my butt had toughened up. I’m really tired of dealing with pain on rides over 35-40 miles. It sucks. I’ve lanced countless saddle sores and spent countless hours suffering while I ride.I’m hoping the SLR is the answer, but at this point, I’ve lost all hope!!!

If you manufacture saddles, and you’re reading this… please… help me…

So I’m flipping through Velonews and I come across an ad for Pearl Izumi clothing. However, the ad tells me nothing about the clothes, because it’s essentially (for lack of a better term) faceless tits in a jersey (see photo below… warning- may be offensive to some). Now, I’m not one to get worked up over some nudity in most situations, but this is blatant “sex sells” advertising. It’s objectifying and disrespectful. I find it to be somewhat of a slap in the face to the women like myself who take their sport very seriously, and don’t care to be percieved as some sort of jersey-meat for the purpose of advertising.

I’ve emailed both Pearl Izumi and Velonews about the lack of taste in their advertising, and have encouraged others to do the same. Somehow, I doubt it will change anything. I’m “voting with my wallet” as well. Looks like I’ll be sending those gloves back that I just ordered. I encourage anyone who thinks that women in jerseys deserve better to do the same thing.

A scan of the page in question (courtesy of Mimi from the Team Estrogen web forum- I’ve made it small on purpose. Click for full-size):

I’ve added another horse to the stable…
The multi-purpose steel beast- a Surly Cross-Check! Right now I’m running it fixed gear (42×14) while I wait for a freewheel cog to arrive. Hopefully the mix of fixed gear road riding and single speed CX will make winter training a little more fun. I just finished my first fixed gear ride, and I have to admit, I didn’t really miss coasting except on a couple of low-speed turns. Enjoy…

Finally.

I honestly haven’t felt like riding for about three weeks now, but after taking much of this week off (of the bike at least), I’m finally looking forward to getting out for a group ride tomorrow morning. I knew the urge would come back eventually, I just wasn’t sure how long it would take!

By the looks of the radar/sky this afternoon just before my recovery ride, I thought that I could possibly run into some brief, light showers (if I was lucky). I even put some sunscreen on since the clouds were patchy.

By the time I was 2 miles from my house, I was in a downpour, and the wind was starting to pick up. I wasn’t too worried about riding in the conditions, but I was uneasy with my visibility (or lack thereof) to passing cars. I decided to ride to the nearby bike shop and wait out the worst of the storm. Half an hour later, I ventured back out. The rain was still steady, but the downpour, wind, and lightning had died down.

Once I took to the street, it quickly became apparent just how bad the initial deluge had been- the drains were backed up and the roads were flooded with several inches of water in some places.  I was going to head home at first, but was too tempted by the showers and kept riding for another half hour.
I took a couple of photos along the way…