engineered dreams and the uci

Man, I am so glad my new road bike was built before January 1, 2011.
No, it’s not only because my beauty is one of the last Crown Jewels to be made in Somerville, Massachusetts, by guys who are no longer at IF, but because - phew! - my 18 lbs. steel road bike might actually be UCI legal...!
I really did have concerns that it might be judged “too aero,” but - lucky me! - the new UCI approval procedure only applies to frames and forks still in conception as of January 1, 2011. Oh, right, what am I talking about, you ask? Earlier this month, the UCI announced that it will be working with bicycle manufacturers to conform frames and forks to UCI standards. The stated goals are understandable, and it’s not hard to see how this might make everyone’s lives a little bit easier. Though concerns have been voiced as to how the new approval procedures might affect competitve cyclists, as a former anarchist sympathizer turned capitalist [once you realize that people are not innately good, anarchy ceases to become a viable political framework...or lack thereof], my first concern was, “poor Trek/Cannondale/Specialized/Cervelo.”

Actually, more like “poor engineers with any modicum of creativity at Trek/Cannondale/Specialized/Cervelo.” Because the imposition of rules and approval procedures onto individual manufacturers is really going to suck for the bike nerds out there. Sure, it wouldn’t make for embarrassing moments when one’s bicycle is deemed “illegal,” like it was a pound of cocaine, not a goddamn machine, but it could also stifle creativity and innovation. As any intellectual property attorney can tell you [or in my case, any attorney who has taken an intro intellectualy property class], protection of innovation is a balancing act between rewarding innovation [by allowing the initial innovator to recoup his investment in inventing], and encouraging further innovation [based on what has been newly invented]. Without financial incentive, one theory goes, creativity will decrease significantly, therefore making everyone else worse off than if you just hadn’t screwed with anythng in the first place.
With me so far? Okay, good. Under 35 U.S.C. § 101 et seq., which governs patent law in the US, a bicycle qualifies as a “machine,” which is patentable subject matter. This is not new. Just ask Cervelo. Patent law is the only method by which one bicycle manufacturer can protect its invention, because, hey, copyright and trademark aren’t really gonna help you, right [leave aside the whole “well trademarks are protected by trademark law blah blah blah” thing, okay?]? There are several requirements for an innovation to be patentable, including “nonobviousness,” defined as a significant change that is not simply a “small, incremental improvement [this is very fact specific and obviously varies case by case]. The fact remains: you can patent bicycle technology.

But regulations limiting how a manufacturer can build a bicycle - for example, how aero is too aero - will most likely also limit how inventive bicycle engineers can be. I’m not saying that the guys over at Specialized or Trek are going to throw up their hands and give up...just that with no incentive to be truly cutting-edge, we may risk losing that part about super aero bicycles with electrical shifting that give bike nerds like me giant boners. Because, let’s face it, without the possibility of pros riding said super bikes in the Tour or Spring Classics, there’s no point in making them. There’s no marketing advantage, no rise in brand name recognition because you made a super bike that is useless under UCI standards. In fact, with a list of "approved products" and manufacturers planned, it seems highly likely that the opposite will happen; that manufacturers will focus on getting as many of their products approved as possible. No doubt this will result in creative ways of producing bicycles that are more technologically advanced and meet the standards, but we may never see the physical product - those complicated angles and flattened tubes - that you know those engineers are dreaming about. And that kind of sucks.
On the bright side, with no pros able to ride super bikes, maybe they’ll become affordable and normal non-pro peeps can snatch them up! Just make sure you don't, you know, race it.

to build an if

There are times when the days blend together. Whether it occurs because of a great winning streak in a game of Beirut or because of late night ramblings over a midnight snack with a friend at a 24 hour diner that eventually turns into breakfast, anyone with even a hint of a social life will understand this. Even with a couple hours of sleep thrown in, one day can turn into another, the reminder that you mentally crammed 48 hours into 24 only hitting you full force when the headache of sleep deprivation sears through your temples. Too bad when the overpowering desire to curl up on the floor and doze saturates your brain, you’re usually already a drink or two into your next blurred-together day.
Of course, the last time my days blended together, it was due to back to back to back episodes of “To Catch a Predator.” Me, pedophiles, and Chris Hansen. Until 3 a.m. Oh yeah.

And though Chris Hansen’s magnetic creepiness was woefully absent, the past few weeks have blended together, too. Sleeping in until almost noon, trudging through the slushy streets of New York, going to too many bookstores...and before I knew it, 2010 had flowed seamlessly and somewhat unmemorably into 2011.
It wasn't until last Sunday night that it occurred to me that it really was 2011. That night, in a slightly chilly bike shop, with some Victory beer, the help of another Chris [Harris, not Hansen], and some oddly shaped tools, I slowly assembled my very first road bike.
It started with a bottom bracket tapping and facing set; a gigantic metal contrapction that does the frame-prepping equivalent of douching and brazilian bikini waxing. Each tap got inserted so as not to cut through the BB threads, “chasing” them, before the facing cutter was fitted onto the outside edge of the BB, shaving off most of the paint. It hurt a little to do [doesn't waxing anything?], but I managed not to screw it [or my frame] up.

With a hammer, I pressed my first fork crown race, clanging away at the crown race installer. Then, feeling very pro mechanic, pressed my first ever headset into place, perfect and pretty. Okay, that’s not accurate. I only really installed the bottom half of the headset while Chris did the hardest part of aligning the top half. After spacers, bars, and brakes were attached, Chris made me figure out how to install the derailleurs myself [which was totally cool because those are only the exact parts that don't come on a single-speed bike]. I got it, eventually, only to be laughed at when I tried to put on my wheels, tightening them down like they had track nuts on them. Chris had to fix the wheels before helping me wipe down and measure out the chain, installing the brakes, and insisting I wrap one side of my bars. And he took pictures, documenting my embarrasment.
A la "To Catch a Predator," the bike build was a team effort. I was the equivalent of the Internet pedophile that stupidly walks into a TV set [“well...I thought it would make sense to put that...there...is that...wrong?”], while Chris [Harris] pretty much played the part of my other favorite Chris [Hansen] by attempting to reason with me [“do you really think that’s a good idea? You're building your own bike...What did you think was going to happen here tonight?”]. All very much like one of the greatest shows on television, with the exception that when I left the store, I wasn’t tackled by some burly cop screaming at me to get down on the ground.

And at the end of it all, I had a road bike. All I really got to do that night on the bike, was to pedal the length of the store. The saddle was a little lower than it should have been but once I cruised past the display of Chrome bags, that cliched realization, the prefix for those "I told you so"s [or more accurately "I TOLD you--Jesus CHRIST! WHY don't you ever LISTEN?!"s], that this bike was made to measure, hit me. It felt perfect. Not in the pre-fabricated, psychological way born of expectations, but in the physical sensations of a just-right reach, a standover that didn’t feel dangerously questionable, and the tangible fact of how the hoods fit into my hands.
And that’s when I knew. When I ceased to have any question in my mind about this simple fact:
Y’all are going to have a hard time catching this predator.

rapha scarf friday - jan. 7, 2011

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.