Almanzo

choosing to climb 8000 feet
over 100 miles
on loose gravel
into 31 mph winds
and 93 degree heat
was tough
but when the urge came to
start cussing
and damning
I didn’t
because the only one chasing me
was myself

- TOB dnf with wd

Retro

I got Betty back in the early 2000s and loved the ride...until a couple summers ago when I quit loving the ride.

I made changes to the stem and to the seatpost to make it a bit more comfortable for a bit more time, then I dropped my name into an 18-24 month queue for a custom road rig. I’ve never been interested in the carbon bike that everyone has, and the steel ride I wanted just wasn’t found on the LBS floor.

Until one day it was.

In my size. Fillet brazed 853. Gloss black with white panels.

And I took it out for a long ride, just because I was curious.

It was lively.

And for the next ten months the ride picked small battles with the custom-lugged-953 in my head. My LBS buddies would comment on the bicycle when I’d stop in, and I’d leave saying I like it. The ride is what I’m looking for...

...but for just a few more $$ I’d eventually have my dream bike, whatever that was. It had been clear when I’d signed-up, but the edges were getting hazy.

And then there was a deal.

And the deal and the ride and the stolen LHT and the upcoming gravel grinder and the fact that I really do fit a standard off-the-shelf bicycle just fine so-why-would-I-spend-a-ton-of-$$-on-custom all added up to a logical conclusion.

And it turns-out the things I questioned about the bike ten months ago are the very things that make me love it: long-reach brake calipers and brazons for a rack mean it’s a ride for a variety of purposes, seasons and conditions.

One ride for everything. Old-school.

-TOB turns-out Old School is hip

Epitaph

It’s been about a week since the LHT was pinched and I’m getting past it.

It’s not in the same league as a family member having health issues. It’s not the same as losing a significant other. No one has cancer, has lost a job or is foreclosing on a home.

The frame was purchased due to a contract provision at work. In exchange for taking a couple years' pay freeze, we all received a sick day’s worth of pay to purchase fitness equipment. I built up the Trucker using parts from boxes and from an old cracked frame. I didn’t have much out-of-pocket money into it.

And, can I be honest about my attachment to it?

I'm not sure I liked the ride.

Can I say that without the converted taking it as heresy?

A girlfriend asked me about the ride last summer. She said she’d commuted on one for a bit; insisted upon getting the bike even though her husband thought she’d be better off on something less hefty. She’s a wee thing and it turned-out pushing a heavy bicycle made commuting to work feel like work. So she sold it. I was wrestling with the same dilemma.

It doesn’t have the get-up-and-go that I like, I told her, but I guess that’s not what I’m looking for in a commuter. I’m tired of carrying my stuff on my back. After loading down a ‘cross bike, the LHT can handle groceries and it’s stable. I’d had fun building-up the bike, and it was a pretty thing, but I didn’t love it. I wasn’t sure Wheel and I would ever go touring even though the idea appealed.

The frame was likely to go up for sale sometime this summer. The bits would have gone back into the garage drawers where they’d have mingled with the rest of the quilt pieces until the next build. I’d have moved on to another commuter.

So yes, I’m out some bucks and some bits.

Bummer? Sure.

Devastating? No.

-The it's just stuff  Bag

Stolen LHT

My Long Haul Trucker was stolen! Cub Foods, St. Louis Park MN 5 pm Sunday 2/4.

Pieced together from old parts...barely used Ultegra triple 9 sp from the early 2000s, Dura Ace skewers from 2000 and Open Pro blue anodized rims...there isn't another like it * sigh *

• BLACK Surly Long Haul Trucker frameset, 56 cm
• BLUE rims (old Open Pros) with 
• Ultegra 600 hubs (1996)
• Dura Ace skewers (2000)
• back wheel: butted spokes, blue nips
• front wheel: heavy-gauge spokes, silver nips
• 9 sp Ultegra 12-27 cassette
• BLUE Salsa lip lock seat collar
• BLUE handlebar tape, silver plugs
• Silver bars, non-ergo 
• black rubber pads in hook under bar tape
• Ultegra, 9 sp triple (2002-04?)
• 172.5 cranks
• Silver Thomson stem, 25.4mm, 5 degree, 90mm (not as pictured--that was a test stem)
• Chris King headset, silver
• silver and black spacers (not as pictured)
• black Ahrens Wisecracker bottle opener 
• black cable hanger
• Shimano BR-R550 cantis
• Eggbeater pedals with a bit-o-blue on the spindle
• black Jagwire cable housing
• Nokian Hakkapeliitta studded tires
• Avocet O2 saddle, cromo rails, covering loose around edges
• Silver seatpost off an old LeMond
• Tubus Vega black rear rack
• Arkel Utility Basket panniers (grocery getter size, black and army green, long bag straps), 2, with a lb of Dunn Bros Brazil beans!
• seatbag with tools, spare
• Zefal frame pump
• 2 Zefal Spring waterbottle cages
• BLUE BARMITTS around the handlebars and brake levers
• black Race Blade fenders, detachable 

-The PISSED OFF Old Bag

Through the Window

I want

that

bicycle, the one that says

goin' somewhere...and

maybe I'll think about coming back....

- OB and I want to go with it

Nirvana

In 1996 I bought my first road bicycle.

I had ridden thousands of miles on a Giant Prodigy comfort hybrid during the previous four years; had seen the coast of Oregon and the Canadian Rockies a week at a time from an upright position. As I watched riders on road bicycles fly past me on those tours, I didn’t really understand the wow-you’re-doing-this-on-a-hybrid comments. I simply assumed they had fitness that I didn’t.

It was during a tour across Minnesota that summer that I rode my first century. The day’s route was about 70 miles, with an extra 30-mile option around mile 60. It was a relatively flat course with a couple of rollers, and the decision point was late enough in the ride that my friend and I had plenty of time to think about it.

The day was perfectly blue and perfectly mild. By the cutoff we were still feeling fresh. We had nothing to do all day but ride, so we did.

Over those 30 highchair-positioned miles I pondered road bicycles as small groups of them passed me with riders on the hoods, in the drops, on the tops. Somewhere around mile 75 my lower back started aching, and the extra foam of my lycra-covered saddle that had been so comfortable...well, it wasn’t anymore. The bull-horns on my hybrid didn’t allow the hand positions that would give my back and backside a break.

The light bulb warmed, then illuminated.

A couple weeks later I was off to find a road bike.

It was a LeMond Zurich that convinced me I could give up a granny ring for the double -- one test climb up Williston Road was enough for me to know that a lighter weight bicycle and different position meant I could go places more easily and more comfortably than I’d ever imagined.

It was cycling nirvana.  

I’d never need to, nor why-would-I-ever-want-to, buy another bicycle.

- OB I was pretty naïve in '96

Almonzo

In January it’s easy

to say yes to a 100-mile gravel ride in May.

...

When the weather is beautiful,

in January it’s easy

to say yes to a 100-mile gravel ride in May.

...

When training is effortless on 50-degree sunny days

when the weather is beautiful,

in January it’s easy

to say yes to a 100-mile gravel ride in May.

...

As temperatures plummet to single digits I mourn

when training was effortless on 50-degree sunny days

when the weather was beautiful,

in January when it was easy

to say yes to a 100-mile gravel ride in May.

-The just what-the-hell was I thinking?! Old Bag

My Fault

Last Thursday saw record high temps across the upper midwest. One area of MN recorded a 60 degree day, one of only ten 60 degree January days to be had in the last 120 years...one day out of a possible 3,720 January days to hit 60 degrees. Our chance of a 60 degree day in January is...well, it’s infinitesible. But that's the winter we're having.

And, hitting the mark this year is my fault...our fault.

Last February, we test rode fat bikes over piles of snow on the playground of the neighborhood school. I told Wheel, “If we do this, we’ll have the first brown winter in six years.” But, he was having none of that argument, and we put down our money.

In April we got our Fatbacks...

...that have seen 2” of snow...

...over the span of one afternoon.

Over the past eight months, we’ve had them out on bare trails, sand, gravel, singletrack, rail lines and a few fire roads. The bikes are a hoot. But I knew it would happen: we’d get snow bikes and then all of us would face down the brownest winter in a decade.

I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't make a big deal about it. We feel bad enough.

-TheOldbummerBag