Get On Up

I have owned my blue gravel bike for over eight years now. In that time it may surprise you that I have aged a bit. Every year that goes by I am less and less enthusiastic about hunching over on a bike. Still, I am also an ex-racer, so the struggle is to find that line where I am comfortable yet still feel fast. I have not reached grandma-on-a-basket-bike age quite yet.

I knew I could get a little more stack height by getting a new fork. I looked around and settled on a Potts steel fork. With this fork I could accomplish a number of things: Get more height, get more modern (thru axle) and own a Potts Type II fork.

The Type II fork dates back to the 1980s, and it has changed very little since then. Like many people, I always wanted a Steve Potts frame and fork, but the price of admission was pretty steep. Steve doesn't even publish frame prices, but if your stem is $425, you can imagine what the frame must cost.

Oh well, at least I finally own a fork.

My old fork measured 410mm axle-to-crown. The Potts comes in at 419mm, so I gained a little stack there. It looks much taller in the picture, but it's not.

I also added 15mm of spacers over the old fork. I left an extra 5mm above the stem for future aging.

This is technically a mountain bike fork, so clearance is pretty massive with a 45mm tire. I obviously have the option of going much wider.

I like it.

I also took the opportunity to install the new Hunt wheels that have been sitting in my office for quite a while. They are a huge upgrade from my old wheels and I dropped almost two pounds from the bike in the process. The Hunt hubs are very modular, so I was able to run a QR rear and thru axle up front to keep this old bike relevant. Should I need to move these wheels to a new bike, I can convert to a rear thru axle with the readily available end caps.

I thought perhaps the extra 9mm of fork length would require some adjustments to saddle position, but I didn't feel a difference at all, nor did the bike handle any differently. The higher bar position was noticeable, however, and much appreciated.

The Hunt freehub is very loud and obnoxious. I did not like it at first, but then I learned how to use it. I no longer have to say "on your left" on the bike trail. I simply coast for a bit as I approach and people scatter like frightened bunnies.

Later.

Shifting Focus

Somehow the focus of my riding became only about what you see right in the middle of this picture.

I realized it last week while out riding. I wasn't really enjoying myself. I was simply out there getting my numbers, getting my miles, getting it over with so I could continue with my life of being busy. It's all about the GSD (getting shit done).

I am retired, for fuck's sake. Why is it like this?

Change can happen slowly and imperceptibly. Over time feeling like you have to rush through the extracurriculars (the fun stuff) to do the real things that supposedly matter (GSD) becomes the norm.

It didn't start like that. When I retired in July of 2021, I was very relaxed. Of course, this is very understandable. Suddenly I had an extra 40 hours a week to play with, and I was leaving an IT job (web server support) that simply wasn't a good fit. The isolation of Covid-era remote work only added to the misery, and I was so happy to leave all that in the rearview mirror.

The first year was mostly great. My son had just graduated from high school, and he played in a collegiate wood bat baseball league that summer. Often these games were during the day, and I was able to go with him due to my shiny new unemployment status. I gave very little thought to GSD.

In August we went to Catalina Island with family and friends, and it was wonderful (even though I caught Covid towards the end). The following January we went to Maui with the same core group and it was awesome.

Unfortunately in the middle of that "mostly great" year we lost my mother-in-law, Gina.

Losing a family member is terrible. I know. Losing that family member to dementia is in many ways much worse. It's a slow decline, one that cannot be managed by mere mortals at the end. A memory care facility is where Gina ultimately passed.

There are no real goodbyes. My own mother had all her faculties at the end of her battle with cancer, and there is some comfort in remembering those last exchanges with her. This is not the case with dementia. Depending on the day I see this as both a good or bad thing: My mom knew she was going to die; Gina was blissfully unaware.

Losing Gina kicked off a series of real estate transactions (seven?) that lasted for years. Two of these were court-mandated estate sales while the rest were our choice. Each of these entailed a lot of work, time, money and stress. And somewhere along the line my lifelong love of riding became just another task to get done. The rides became part of GSD.

Even though we are experiencing a bit of downtime right now, I still have a very difficult time relaxing when I ride. There is never not something waiting for any cyclist after he or she rides, be it cleaning the house, running errands, laundry, cooking, kids, home improvement, yard chores, etc. I assume there are people out there who can compartmentalize these things and enjoy themselves when they ride. Most of the time I cannot. I typically spend the entire ride thinking about all the tasks waiting for me when I get home.

In the end I think I have to get out of this funk in much the same way I got into it—slowly and methodically. I have to relearn how to enjoy myself.

A few days ago I went for a ride. I took the Jones so I would be riding upright. I went slow. I looked around. I said hello to just about every single person I saw, even the annoying ones. I smiled. Most of the time they smiled back. I rode 36 miles and the entire time I forced myself to think of anything but GSD. I thought about all the animals I saw, my childhood, old bike races, our next vacation. When anything negative tried to creep in, I willfully steered back to good things. I often went back to the very beginning, when life was simple and riding a bike was pure joy:

This kid isn't thinking about a kitchen remodel.

When I arrived home Jennifer asked how my ride was, as she typically does. Normally I say fine or OK, but this time I said "great" and I meant it. I felt good. I felt lighter.

Perhaps mental fitness takes just as much work as physical fitness. Maybe more. Enjoying that ride took a lot of conscious effort on my part. It may take a while to relearn how to love riding.

The work side of life will never end. There will always be tasks I don't want to do. If I can simply learn how to forget about them, even for a couple hours when I ride, I'll be in a much better place.

Later.

Cranky

You may recall that I started experimenting with shorter cranks. I rode with 165s on my Advocate Cycles gravel bike for over seven months but ultimately decided to move on. I tried, but I just couldn't get used to them. Perhaps the drop from 175s to 165s was just too much.

I don't think the crank length itself was as much of an issue as was the way it completely upended my bike fit and feel. On the last ride with the cranks, even after seven months of use, at various times my saddle felt too high, too low, too far back and too far forward. It's a very weird sensation. There was also a stretch of a few miles when it felt absolutely perfect and I was really ripping along. Unfortunately those "perfect" situations were few and far between.

I picked up a pair of 170mm Rival arms for a song on Amazon. I had to move the chainring over from the old Apex cranks. I am not sure why Sram moved from three bolts to eight. It seems like complete overkill, but I am sure the head of Chainring-Crank Arm Interface Structural Engineering (CCAISE) would tell me otherwise.

Once I installed all the teeny, tiny bolts I was ready to go.

They are the same Road Wide specs as the old ones, so I didn't need to mess with researching which bottom bracket spacers to use. I bolted them on, did a quick tension adjustment, and went riding.

I lowered the saddle 6mm and didn't touch the setback at all. After two rides I think the saddle is very close to it's final position.

I think for me a 170 crank is the best compromise. I didn't struggle to find the right spot on the bike, and climbing felt normal again.

I also put 170s on my mountain bike shortly after this bike, and now I am completely converted. After well over 40 years of using 175mm cranks for everything from BMX to road racing, it's the end of another era.

I don't know that a mere five millimeters is going to alleviate any issues with my hips, which was the reason this experimentation started, but I guess every little bit helps.

Later.

Slash

 Welcome to the jungle. You're gonna die.

Well, you know, eventually. And it will probably be a violent death. If you're one of my tires.

Stay with me here. This will make sense in a minute.

I rolled out for a ride on my gravel bike yesterday and made it a mere two-tenths of a mile before my rear tire blew. I was going about 20 miles per hour down the hill I live on, but I safely came to a stop right before the entrance to the bike trail.

The hole was pretty big. I couldn't really see any details between my poor eyesight, sealant bleeding everywhere and a lot of bark and grit sticking to the wound. I walked back home and grabbed my other gravel bike and completed my ride.

When I returned home I changed clothes and headed to the garage armed with some eye glasses. After brushing away all the debris, I could now see that there was a huge slash in the tire—a nice, clean cut.

This is unfortunate since this Rene Hearse tire still had a lot of life yet. It's also unfortunate because it's the second tire I have ruined this year.

I walked back to the scene of the crime to look for the murder weapon but found nothing. Maybe some concerned citizen picked it up or the weapon was thrown clear of the crime scene. Maybe the slasher returned to retrieve the weapon.

This isn't the first time I have been attacked by a slasher. Fifteen years ago I suffered a similar cut from a carelessly discarded utility knife blade.

My forensics team believes it is the same murder weapon.

As of now it is an unsolved crime. Be careful out there. A slasher is on the loose.

Later.

The Truth Is Out There

I took this picture of Jennifer and it gives me X-Files vibes.

Or maybe colonoscopy. Not sure.

Later.

Moby

We were riding along the canal today when something white caught my eye. Could it be the Great White Koi?

I turned around and went back, and there he was.

We haven't seen Moby in a few years. I had assumed he moved on or died, but there he was in his gigantic magnificence. There is his distinctive orange spot on his left side.

I should have known he was tougher than that. It was nice to see he's still out there doing koi things.

Later.

Monterey in March

We just returned from Monterey. While we were there something felt strange. We asked ourselves, have we ever been here in March? I combed through the many Monterey posts and it was true: we had never visited in March.

For the most part, the reasoning for this was simple. When the kids were young, there were many visits in April centered around Easter and spring break. When baseball became a central part of our lives, opening day was usually towards the beginning of March, and we played a couple games a week until the vacation window during spring break.

When the kids were older, Jennifer and I often went in January and February because the weather was often warmer in Monterey than at home. March is typically pretty nice in the Sacramento area, so we tend to enjoy the March weather at home.

Anyway, on the first day we rode south along 17 Mile Drive.

The weather was pretty damn perfect.

Afterwards we enjoyed a beer at Fieldwork, followed by an awesome meal at Alejandro's.

The next day we rode north with expectations of riding into Fort Ord. I knew the trail through Fort Ord Dunes State Park would be closed due to a campground project that will run through 2027. We would have to ride the less desirable trail along Highway 1 like last time and take the exit trail to 5th Street.

Unfortunately between visits they bulldozed the entire bike trail leading to 5th Street and were using it to truck in dirt.

<rant mode> This kind of shit has been happening for years. It really seems like municipalities will close off cycling infrastructure at the drop of a hat. Need to do road work? Close the bike lane! Want to organize a running race? Close the bike trail! Need to build a campground? Close the bike trail! Need to truck in dirt? Bulldoze the bike trail!

This isn't any new issue. I've been seeing the trend for a long time.

This past spring and summer I wanted to ride in Tahoe before we sold the condo. Then I saw that there were some trail closures due to a Marlette Lake dam repair, and I completely lost interest. These are some of my main trails up there.

The closures seem extremely excessive to me for one tiny little dam. But if you are a cyclist, you already know you are a meaningless pimple on the ass of society. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program. </rant mode>

We simply rode past the closure and continued to the north end of the trail. After turning around I had calmed down enough to start taking pictures again.

The weather was great and I told myself that things could be worse: I could be home working in the yard.

Afterwards we had a beer at Dustbowl and dinner somewhere that escapes me.

The next day we rode south again. I took some video. It's not my greatest work, but what can you do.

After that we packed up and headed home. It was a short but much-needed break from all the hard work we have been doing.

Later.