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.