Happy [very belated] new year!
Been doing more riding than writing but with snow predicted all weekend, I'll be back next week.
Have a great weekend, guys!
all i want for christmas is...bike porn [of my new bike]
I know there are pictures of the complete and painted frame floating around already, but for those needing some bike porn, want to stalk IF vicariously, or have simply never seen braze ons being, well, brazed on:
Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Now go ride your respective bikes!
[All pics courtesy of Tyler at IF.]
christmas mornings and the rapha 500
My sister loves to sleep.
This fact is not only well known amongst her friends, but might go so far as to be a distinguishing feature. It's not that my sister loves to sleep in after drinking her way through most of the previous night with friends, or wakes up at a respectable hour and chooses to go back to bed, hung over. My sister's sleep is much more intense, probably requires extensive training, and is an event that should be included in the Olympics. Getting up at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon might be an early "morning," and calls are not allowed before noon, at the earliest. Flailing arms [and sometimes, fists] would fly in[to] the face of anyone brave enough to attempt to wake her [yes, even, once, my mother's].
Yet my addicted sleeper of a sister has consistently made one exception to the rule. And that was always Christmas morning.
The anticipation familiar to everyone who has had parents loving enough to give gifts at this time of year, my sister made a practice of getting up at what I would later come to refer to as "the ass crack of dawn." Long after I abandoned the practice of jumping out of bed and racing to the tree, my sister would scuttle into my room, wide-eyed and awake [for once],
"Kaiko, Kaiko, wake up! It's Christmas!!!"
I would do the equivalent of playing dead, hoping my unresponsiveness would discourage her. It never worked - she would shake me like a cat ripping gleefully into a small and helpless rodent - but thankfully college seemed to mellow out my sister's ability to rocket out of bed at 5.30am on Christmas morning. And after a few Christmases spent apart, I'm not even sure her internal Christmas clock is still working.
As annoying as it was then, though, this year, I almost wish my sister had kept up that practice with the early Christmas morning wake up calls. Because with a road bike - my very very first - on the way, and all the little parts of it coming together [or at least sitting in a cardboard box at NYC Velo], even with snow on the ground, I would gladly rise too early to ride the crap out of that new frame. And if the prospect of a new bike wasn't enough to get me outside into the freezing cold, there was the idea [or hope] of doing the Rapha 500.
The concept of the Rapha 500 is to ride 500km [or 310.7 miles] in the seven days from December 23rd to December 30th. A feat that might not be possible to attempt if you are 1. employed or 2. have a life, it seemed like the perfect way to mitigate the damage to my arteries from my own holiday plans to inhale my weight in Christmas food and cookies [mostly cookies]. It's a fair bit of riding, and it would be difficult to accomplish without riding nearly every day of that week, but being 1. mostly unemployed and 2. lacking a life, with 3. a new road bike on the way, it seemed like a great way to get my lazy ass on the road before the new year. Besides, the first 100 people to complete it get a really cool patch!
Can you tell I always wanted to be a Girl Scout? I did. I made it to the Brownies and then either got kicked out or couldn't figure out how them bitches roll and gave up. Probably the latter.
Anyway, the problem is that with those holiday plans to devour cookies smack in the middle of plans to build up my beauty, [thankfully, perhaps, because, let's face it, I have zero proper winter gear to do longer rides in] those fantasies of getting up on Christmas Eve to churn out 70 miles [and then doing it again...and again...and again...] are not likely to materialize. I suppose I could be shamed into doing it trying it [and killing myself] on my single speed, but that idea is currently bordering on "retarded," because what kind of idiot risks life and limb doing that when said idiot will have a proper road bike in a few days' time?
Not this one [surprisingly, for once]. But because I love to live vicariously, I'll be checking up on photos, blogs, rants, and commentary on everyone else's 500. And don't you worry. That new frame's gonna get 500km on it in no time...just maybe not from December 23rd to December 30th of this year.
of chocolate, [new] bikes, and not being lazy
Okay, I admit, with the cold, the cough, and the cost of buying even more layers to layer over the layers I already wear when I ride in the winter, I haven't been riding much at all lately. I felt guilty enough about it a few weeks ago to haul all of my winter bike gear to NYC, in hopes of getting in a few rides over the weekend, but I ended up at the doctor’s instead. And while I think lethargy suits me more than I’d be comfortable admitting, it’s also fueled some scary mental scenarios.
Because with a pretty IF on the way, and legs turning into mush with lack of exercise, my panic has me visualizing scenarios where I get to the base of the GW bridge on my new bike's maiden voyage, only to turn around in humiliation as my legs shake from the exertion. In other imagined scenarios, friends drop me within seconds and fail to notice and I'm left to either fight the wind and cold myself or limp back home. Worst of all, there's the one where I fall over halfway up River Road because I'm too weak to climb the rest of the way, scratching the entire length of my new IF frame [except for the part where my legs might be] as I tumble down the hill, still half clipped in, destroying derailleurs and denting my frame on the way.
That's right. They don't call me a drama queen for nothing.
Which is why I figured a ride was in order yesterday. It wasn’t planned or expected, but the rain was supposed to hold off until 1pm. And it wasn’t freezing cold. Perfect. I cut short my gchat convo with Rich Bravo [that’s right ladies, I have Rich Bravo’s gmail address], got dressed and headed out.
Can I say something? 20 days off the bike + head wind + pms + almost no carbs since yesterday afternoon = the most pathetically sad ride, ever.
It was great for like the ten minutes after my thighs stopped screaming and I warmed up, i.e., I stopped feeling like I was going to have a heart attack. I kept up this mental chatter like, “this is totally fun! You’re outside and riding! Yay!” as my legs went on autopilot and stayed that way for the remaining two plus hours. There was some bad pop pounding into one ear but try as I might, I couldn’t accelerate. Climbing hills that usually only required a little pushing near the top turned into the kind of slow agony that’s somewhat like the feeling you might get when you end up trying to teach your clueless parents how to use the Internet. Worse, my attempted snot rocket turned into a gross snail trail all over my right thigh and leg [sorry Rapha bib shorts].
This was all exacerbated by the fact that I’ve been PMS-ing hardcore. Like “all cookies within a 5 miles radius need to watch out,” hardcore. In desperation, to keep myself from eating the entire bakery a block away, I self-medicated last night with protein instead of carbs and sugar...who knew that would make me feel like a washed up jellyfish as I attempted a simple 30-miler? Probably everyone. But in my defense, I don’t really think my rides are very hard or challenging. They’re usually quick sub two-hour rides that don’t even necessitate on-bike eating. Except this time I was kicking myself for neglecting to bring anything edible on my ride other than a bottle of water. Not even a cough drop. I was hurting. I almost tumbled down a few small hills a la my feared scenarios.
At times crawling at probably 5mph [no joke], I limped back home with a loose right cleat, a busted IT band, and shattered ego. Sure, the extreme front yard Christmas decorations I saw made for both an excuse to stop and snap pictures and ensured that my [possibly] last [for the year, at least] outdoor ride on a single speed was pretty memorable. But I couldn’t help feeling bloated, useless, and unworthy of that IF that’s on the way.
And then Clint tweeted a picture of it. And I had some chocolate.
And you know what? Weak legs aside, I’m feeling good about this coming weekend. Like really good.
what i saw on my ride today - dec. 13, 2010
Most festive front yard sighted. There was a close second, but all the cute little holiday pairs made this one my favorite [those penguins are so cute!].
Happy Holidays!
be still my murmuring heart: a visit to IF
I got the flu about ten days ago, which meant that I got to both amass an arsenal of over-the-counter cough suppressants and other flu medication, and have the honor of being possibly the only person in America losing, rather than gaining, weight on Thanksgiving. And while both some weight and the fever have since been kept at bay, I’ve had a dry, hacking cough that’s lingered. The kind that will wake you up at night like an insatiable significant other, persistent and somewhat predictable, resulting in groggy workdays. The kind that results in somewhat sore abs and a tight back from those nighttime acrobatics. Except, you know, without satisfying happy endings that are implicit in anything involving insatiable significant others.
All of which led me to run to a walk-in clinic where a doctor listened to my heart every which way and then informed me that I just may have a heart murmur.
“Have you experienced any shortness of breath or difficulty breathing during exercise?” The doctor asked.
Images of attempting to climb River Road without “shortness of breath or difficulty breathing” came to mind. The inability to suck enough air into my lungs as I got pulled, dragged, then dropped up and down 9W presented itself.
“Uh, no, not really,” I answered.
Because images of a frame also emerged as I envisioned how I must look, riding up River Road. It was small and cute and welded together by a friend. I had visited the workshop to watch it being put together and even met the guy who was going to do my braze-ons [that sounds so dirty, I know]. And there was no fricking way some goddamn heart murmur was going to keep me off this almost-complete beauty.
Because, like I mentioned before, it’s an IF. The day before I got so pathetically sick that I was living off Tom Yum soup, I had ridden up to Somerville, MA to the IF workshop, with a quick stop by Clear Flour Bread to pick up some treats [their morning buns are pretty phenom]. Bundled up in every bike gear layer I own, it was a quick trip north to a warm workshop where my already-tacked frame sat, being TIG-welded into existence. I got to watch as Tyler worked his magic, explaining the process of using a giant electrical circuit to weld, and the use of air without oxygen in it.
Then I got the grand tour. I got to see the collection of tubes, the jig where tubes become frames, and the chain stay cutting machine [it was really cool]. There was the paint section where the newest green Ti Featherweight sat, waiting for its stripes of black matte paint, as well as an assorted collection of frames waiting for their respective powdercoats. I even got to see the big machine that provides extra pure air to the paint department, as well as IF’s sand and glass blasters.
Along the way, I saw and learned about how braze-ons are brazed on, leaving a glass-like residue, and how Corvids are assembled and the super power glue that holds them together. The IF carbon lugs for the Corvids are made specifically to measure, and not bent or stretched to fit like steel lugs. Even in its raw form, the carbon fiber frame was awesomely impressive. I think my heart murmured when I got to touch it; it didn’t hurt that it felt like air when I lifted it up, either.
There’s actually so much cool stuff and people at the IF workshop that it’s hard to actually delve in and describe everything in one visit [especially when your own custom frame is sitting in the welding department, nearing completion]. I left feeling more excited than when I arrived, and even in the midst of a feverish flu a few days later, I did a mental little dance when Tyler sent me even more pictures.
Yeah, that’s right. Pictures of my brazed and welded IF Crown Jewel. [Potential] Heart murmurs be damned. Ain’t nothin’ gonna keep me off that bike.