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.

Breakdown

Yesterday I sold my travel bike. Finally.

It definitely took a while. Five months, to be exact. It has never taken me so long to sell a bike.

There was a time when a 26-inch wheeled single speed with S&S Couplers would have been a hot commodity, but those days have passed. We are also dealing with unprecedented issues with the economy and consumer confidence that have slowed the sales of nearly everything.

It took a number if iterations and price reductions to finally get the job done. When I first put it up for sale in May, it looked like this:

This saddle height is about 3-4 inches lower than I rode with.

New tubeless wheels and tires, a little titanium, colorful anodized parts. It looked good, but there was little interest.

Then I thought maybe the world wanted gears, so I put an XT 11-speed drivetrain on it. I sold the wheels separately and lowered the price with the old wheels. No dice.

Then I dumbed down the parts even further, again as a single speed.

Finally at $500 I made the sale.

There was a mix of relief and sadness as the new owner rode away. I have owned many, many bikes. I have sold many, many bikes. This bike was definitely special. Looking back, it was a lot of fun to plan and execute this bike for a specific purpose.

I first conceived the plot to ride bikes in Cozumel 12 years ago, a time when I was much younger and had fewer issues with my body, specifically my neck. Riding something like this with the bars so far below the saddle was no big deal.

This is how high I actually needed the saddle.

I was young and strong.

But these days riding around hunched over on a tiny 26-inch bike isn't appealing. I tried a number of different bar and stem combinations, but finding something high and comfortable that would still fit in the very tight travel case was nearly impossible. With rise comes size, and there simply wasn't room for it.

An upright position that provides neck relief is the main reason I started riding Jones bikes. My bars on the Jones are now are almost a foot higher than the travel bike.

We will always have the pictures and the memories. Of course, we would love to do it again, but we aren't getting any younger. Even back then, 41 miles in the heat and extreme humidity was tough.

With any luck we will find another option that allows us to explore the world on bikes again that is more convenient and comfortable.

Later.