Pure

Our air hasn't been particularly great lately. As someone who is a little sensitive to particulate levels, I have to be careful, which has meant riding indoors a lot. Which sucks. This morning it looks like this:

Bad air in the winter is not something we deal with here. Yet here we are. I find myself saying "we've never" a lot lately when it comes to the weather and climate: We've never had rain like this. We've never seen wind speeds this high. We've never seen heat like this. On and on it goes. This time it's a high pressure system that is just sitting on top of us creating an inversion layer that does not allow particulates to escape. We've never seen this . . .

Yesterday, though, I caught a break and had some clean(er) air and blue(r) skies. I took the new Wolverine out for a mixed surface ride.

All told it was 24 miles and a little over half of it was on dirt.

I wore my new Duff Beer cycling cap for the first time. Sexy. As is the cap.

Hopefully this weird inversion layer situation lets up soon.

Later.

Moving On: The Final Chapter

An era ended today. Finally.

We closed escrow on our Incline Village condo earlier today. It was a very long and stressful 11-month ordeal. It's amazing to me that I posted about this decision almost a year ago. And so ends our 15-year run in Tahoe.

I am mostly happy it's over, but at the same time a little sad. I wish we could have kept the condo, but the world has changed. Taxes, insurance and HOA dues are spiraling out of control in Tahoe. It isn't sustainable. Not for us, at least.

It also severs our relationship with our property management company, one that lasted a dozen years. All my Goldfish keychains went into the trash.

Hopefully we still get up there on occasion.

Later.

Trading Places

The full suspension experiment with the Santa Cruz Hightower was sort of a disaster. I guess I should have known better since the first two forays into full suspension weren't exactly successful either. I hated the first one in 1994, again in 2003, and now this one. After over 40 years of riding mostly rigid and hardtail bikes, I must conclude that I just don't like full suspension.

Anyway, I listed this damn thing on Craigslist months ago:

Other than a couple lowball offers and a Nigerian prince scam, it generated little interest. It sat in my office collecting dust. This was not unexpected. Times are tough.

I decided to edit the post stating that I was open to a trade for a gravel frame or bike. A guy contacted me and asked if I would be interested in a Soma Wolverine. When I said "possibly," he sent me a pic:

Good enough. We met and made the exchange.

He was taller than me and expressed his concern that a 58cm might be too big for me. I hopped on and the saddle was actually much too low. All good there. I have long legs and arms.

Unlike my pristine Hightower frame, this bike has really been ridden. It has some scratches, cable rub and chainslap marks. It has a little character for sure.

Today I went through the bike (never trust other people's mechanical skills) and made a few adjustments. I flipped the stem over to get the bars a bit higher, raised the saddle and topped off the tubeless sealant.

This evening I took it out for a short spin since I already rode this morning.

It's definitely bigger than my other bike. The extra stack is great, but the extra reach is not. Compared to my other bike, the 27mm longer top tube is mostly negated by the 20mm shorter stem. However, the Easton bars have 12mm more reach than the Salsa bars on my other bike, so all told it's still 19mm longer. Because of the higher bar position, I rode much of the time in the drops whereas on my other bike I spend more time on the hoods.

Shifting is handled by 11-speed GRX. Although I was a Shimano guy for many, many years, I have been using DoubleTap for quite a while now. I shifted the wrong way many times, which was frustrating. If I keep both bikes I will have to convert this one to SRAM so I don't lose my mind.

Cornering was weird. My other bike is running 700x43 tires and this one is 650x55. I can't put my finger on what exactly I am feeling, but this bike does not carve corners like my old bike.

Anyway, I rid myself of a frame I didn't want that was just gathering dust, and I acquired a new toy without spending any money. So much winning.

Later.

Commissioning a Symphony in C

Today I was trucking along on a quiet, smooth road when there was a loud bang and orange tire sealant spewing everywhere like a pinwheel firework.

I stopped and found a large, C-shaped cut in my rear tire.

There was no fixing. I mean, I could have installed my spare tube if I had to, but I certainly didn't want to. It's a messy situation.

Jenn was about 30 minutes away at a yoga class. Luckily my son was still a few days from migrating back to SoCal for school, so he was available to come get me.

It's a bummer because the Panaracer GravelKing tire was very new. You can still see the nubs on the center tread. I have no idea what I hit, but it must have been something very sharp and cylindrical to make that cut. This is only the third tubeless failure in well over 10 years of tubeless use, so I can't be too mad.

Time to shop for a new tire. I will not get another GravelKing because they were not easy to seat due to the very loose bead. Hopefully there is a Maxxis tire that fits the bill because I like mounting those.

Later.

2025 By the Numbers

Well, after my indoor ride today the 2025 mileage year is in the books. Once again I hit the 6,000 mile mark in 2025.

We went on a couple long trips this year, those being Cabo in January and spring training in March. I also missed 25 riding days due to the condo remodel in Tahoe, which we finished in late May. Consequently I missed a lot of riding opportunities in the early part of the year. I had to really ramp up the miles during the summer to catch up.

The statistics:

• 6260 miles is the most since I started keeping stats in 1995
• 73 miles more than last year
• Ninth straight year increasing annual mileage
• Set mileage records in June, August, September, October and November
• 259 total rides was 3 more than last year
• 24.26 miles per ride average, up from 24.17 last year
• The 202,000 feet of climbing was 1,000 more than last year

Even with all those missed days, I really feel like I am reaching the upper limits of what I can do. I COULD ride more miles, but I'm not sure I WANT to ride more miles. We'll see.

Later.

Trainer Time

I managed to make it all the way through the fall before I resorted to riding on the indoor trainer today, which is the first day or winter. For about four weeks we have seen nothing but fog and below average temperatures. Miserable. I rode quite a few times on cold, wet days with temps in the low 40s.

Today the rain finally came, so I broke out the trainer. I saved the newest season of Unchained for just such an occasion.

I love this show. Now in season three, every first episode draws you in and hooks you. So good. I watched two episodes and the time flew by. I rode 21 miles and kept a pretty steady pace, but it was hard to not speed up during the exciting parts of the show.

I was hot and soaking wet. A definite departure from the last month of riding outdoors.

After taking a shower my body felt great. Loose and pain free. Another departure from the tightness and aches that come with spending a couple hours in the cold.

We have more rain coming, so I'll be back out there occasionally when necessary.

Later.

Week in Review

 I had a pretty good week on the bike.

Nothing outrageous, just seven rides between 20 and 31 miles. A couple mountain bike rides, a gravel ride, and four rides with Jennifer.

I am a little tired, so I will take tomorrow off. Perhaps I will hit the weights and work on these skinny arms.

Later.