VeloCouch Swing

Posted on April 28, 2012 by

My last post was published on Saturday morning two weeks ago and featured a ride report and some angst about a week of work…all work! But within about 8 hours of clicking publish on that post, I was out on my bike and took this…

Out scouting locations for a series of photo shoots I'm managing

…and then things began to swing in a positive direction. :)

So while I worked again on Sunday, on Monday morning I was out with the sunrise for more riding and some more photo scouting. Photo scouting is always a fun business, and I find it’s especially enjoyable while also cruising around claiming interesting KOMs on Strava…like the Old Springs Trail.

Worked again on Tuesday, but by Wednesday morning…I got up with the sun again in order to attended the City Cycle shop ride. That’s always a beautiful start to the day involving light exercise, fresh air, sunshine and coffee. And this time it was just a couple of hours later that City Cycle’s “el jefe” Cory had picked me up, so we could travel with bikes down to Monterrey for Sea Otter.

The Sea Otter Classic is a festival that takes place annually at Monterey’s Laguna Seca Raceway. I’ve been traveling to this event for several years now–mostly to race my road bike, last year to work the festival, and this time…to simply enjoy a mini “Mancation.”

The weather was near perfect this year and on our first day at the festival, Cory and I test rode the new BMC TE01 hard tail 29ers…We rode a lap of the 20 mile XC course which we were pleased to share with some of North America’s top professionals…

...including Ms. Emily Batty. It's ok wifey, you don't have to be jealous. ;)

..so that was fun. And because we’re not professional (athletes that is) we rewarded ourselves by heading to the Sierra Nevada Beer Garden for a refreshing liquid sandwich.

Sierra Nevada Kellerweis on tap.

While we were there, a nice young lady invited us to go out for a spin on Sierra Nevada’s pedal car/beer bike. Cory had a phone call to make, but I of course couldn’t refuse such an invitation.

Here are the facts: Six healthy young people boarded a “beer bike” and pedaled off from the Sierra Nevada Beer Garden on Thursday afternoon through the festival grounds at the 2012 Volkswagen Sea Otter Classic. All were having a good time, pedaled hard, and were cheerfully chauffeured by an enthusiastic yet wholesome employee of the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company.

More facts: No persons–passengers, pedestrians or cyclists–were hurt in the making of this film. Not even a beer was spilled, but sadly the Beer Bike didn’t fare so well.

And now I bring you part two of this VeloCouch adventure.

But all’s well that ends well, I always say! And as you’ll see here, one of the clear advantages to being employed by a company as cool as Sierra Nevada is that when you wreck a company vehicle, your boss simply comes out with a big smile on his face and some other guy with a pry-bar so they can help you out of your bind.

True story!

Let’s see, what happened next? Oh, yeah!

I decided I wanted to compete at this year’s Sea Otter after all, and registered for Sea Otter’s first ever cyclocross racing. That’s right folks! As part of the festival’s evolution, Sea Otter’s organizers decided to invite cyclocross racers like myself out during their off season and into the limelight this year…in April?! (Cyclocross usually runs from September to January.) Of course I couldn’t resist this. Especially as the course wound right through the Sierra Nevada Beer Garden that I was already having so much fun being a part of.

But before I get to the race, let’s talk about my preparations and the activities enjoyed the day before, such as a bike ride on the Monterey Peninsula. I mentioned the mancation, well this is how two extremely hard working bike industry vets chose to celebrate.

Sure, rolling down 17-Mile Drive there are stunning views of the ocean and golf courses and modern day castles……and that’s cool and all. But what about the cars,

Just can't figure out why I liked this one?

and art,and the plates full of oysters being consumed with tall glasses of light Belgian beer?Cause that’s what mancations are really all about!

Ok, and now to Saturday’s cyclocross race.

Race Report: Ready go! It was odd. (Duh, cyclocross in April?) It was also dusty and hot! I smartly decided to leave a bottle on my bike. There were 35 starters from all over North America and randomly Ben Berden who has twice stood on the podium at the Belgian National Cyclocross Championships. Pretty impressive! It was hard racing, especially because I hadn’t done any real intensity since my cross season wrapped in January, but I still managed to finish in 8th and had fun. But being totally off my CX game I realized in hindsight that I was missing my trademark green glasses.

Thanks to my friend Tim Westmore for capturing me in action and for tweeting before the race about me being a local competitor facing a Belgian hero. I did what I could Tim, though didn't see him for long. :)

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Now, this post is titled VeloCouch Swing for a reason and to recap, before this post I wasn’t riding enough. And now, as I’ve outlined to the best of my ability, I’ve definitely been getting my fill again and I haven’t even gotten around to reporting about the past few days…

…but darn it, if a swing doesn’t make me sick after a while.

Yesterday, I was out for what was meant to be another glorious road ride on VeloCouch One as I met up with Cory and area Trek rep John Thompson.

It was a good ride with some spirited sections of road thrown in there, which we were all enjoying at speed, and then, ironically because at ease and totally off the gas while rolling gently into one of the big corners on Hwy 1, disaster struck a blow.

My front tire got caught in one of these long cracks that run the radius of some of the big turns – the cracks that happen when a heavy car or truck’s undercarriage scrapes the asphalt as it makes its way around – and meanwhile, I’ve never been too intimidated by these. So I was caught completely off guard and before I knew it, I was picking myself and my bike up off the ground.

Damage Report: Bleeding hand, bleeding knee, bleeding elbow and leg, torn shorts, scraped and cracked helmet. Almost worst of all, scuffed up shift levers and rear derailleur on my fancy new bike (luckily all the important parts are just fine). And worst of all, it’s most probable that I’ve fractured my collar bone. :(

I’m lucky it wasn’t worse as I was able to ride myslef back home, and I can still bare some weight on it, but I’m dealing with plenty of discomfort and find myself in relatively bad shape today.

Bummer!

Because of this crash, I missed attending yet another of the season’s Grasshoppers today and it looks like I’ll be forced to take it easy for a little while. But don’t worry, I can take it! And in the end, this is just another known aspect of my VeloCouch lifestyle. Crashing happens!

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Pedaling to the Metal

Posted on April 14, 2012 by

While I’ve been doing my very best to maintain my VeloCouch lifestyle, lately it has been difficult to fit a regular schedule of pedaling into the madness. Some of that is evidenced in the post about “VeloCouch One” where you saw my new bike getting out in a number of different contexts.

Well, that sporadic ride behavior remained consistent right up until last Friday, a week and a day ago, when I was determined to get my new bike out for a “really real” ride. Up to that point, VeloCouch One had been built and rolling around for a month, but hadn’t been out for more than 2.5-3 hours at a time. That was a sad situation for a bike that was designed for the enjoyment of 5 hour rides, and one I meant to resolve…

Brief Ride Report: I headed out from SF with the initial goal to reach one of my favorite bike ride coffee stops!

An americano with one mixed chocolate chip cookie down, and one currant scone to go.

This is none other than the coffee bar at Toby’s Feed Barn in Pt Reyes Station. And by the way, please don’t tell anybody about this place…seriously! I’m just reporting here, not recommending it. And honestly, if my blog ever becomes popular (yeah right), I solemnly promise to remove this post.

To explain, every cyclist who rides a bike in West Marin County stops at Bovine Bakery, and that’s perfectly cool with me because I don’t need them to discover there’s a cooler spot. Mostly because when I’m at Toby’s I get to enjoy being the only cyclist there, and for a few minutes, I get to relax, enjoy the sun, sip my coffee and generally enjoy the town and townspeople–peloton free. I really like that!

Ok now back to the ride…with a Toby’s stop in the bag, I remounted and rode on. To my delight, by this time it was proving to be one of the most glorious riding days of the year. So I headed to the other side of Tamales Bay where my second objective could be to include one of my favorite areas (Drake’s Peak) and one of my favorite roads (Limantour.)

Those areas are also scarcely attended…and again, I’m ok with that. :)

That in the bag as well, I continued through Bear Valley to Highway 1 where I could head back towards San Francisco. But don’t take my word for it – I was using Strava to keep tabs on my ride, and interested parties can check out the details first hand…although you’ll find that this report ends suddenly down near Bolinas?!

This is because I stopped to answer a phone call and realized the battery on my iPhone had less than 10% of its juice left…so rather than loose record of my ride altogether, I decided to end tracking on the Strava app early in case the battery was going to expire before I got home.

Strava topic sidebar: Unfortunately I have run into this a lot, probably because I like using Strava the most when I head on epics (rides lasting 5+ hours.) And while in the past I’ve thought I just need to be more diligent about rolling out with a fully charged battery, even that hasn’t lasted me sometimes. So, while I’ve considered breaking down and buying a Garmin, to be honest, I’ve never really been interested in a cycling computer. In fact, the reason I think Strava is brilliant is that it has always seemed as if it was designed for me.

Since discovering it, I have been thrilled with the notion that I can simply push a start button at the beginning of a ride, and without looking at any gadgets while I’m pedaling, I can simply enjoy the ride. Then later, when I’m at home and eating food, I can sit down at the computer and look back at what I’ve accomplished and relive the day’s adventure.

This all get’s me thinking…perhaps I should talk to Strava about producing a gadget just for users like me. Or perhaps I should market  it myself. Coming soon to VeloCouch.com, the no frills, lasts as long as you will, “StravaCouch Tracker.” A simple gadget – switch it on, drop it in your jersey pocket and just pedal to your heart’s content. Who knows, I might beon to something! :)

Ok, sidebar over! And you checked out my Strava report, but you missed out on the rest of VeloCouch One’s first big ride. Well, let me conclude in a hurry. It was entirely amazing. And I effing love that bike!

Brief Ride Report concluded.

And while I look forward to spending many, many more days like that in the future, I am a little bit sad to report in the meantime that was the last ride VeloCouch One and I enjoyed together. And as such, the newly proven King of 5 hour rides has been hanging in the stable ever since. How sad is that! And what’s worse is that even though this morning the weather looks like this…

You can tell by the spirit with which these skate boarders are frolicking that it's a lovely day.

…I’m not headed out riding today, Instead, I’m headed down to City Cycle to support a sale event that I’ve organized. I’m sure it’ll be fun, but riding would have been nice because the truth is that this post was named “Pedaling to the Metal” for reasons other than to describe the crazy amounts of cycling (or lack there-of) I’ve enjoyed the past week. It was named that, because as I said before I’ve been in some extreme madness, AKA, really, really busy with the “pedal to the metal!” And besides, I don’t even like metal.

Here’s an update on that front…

Since my really real ride on VeloCouch One last week, I have worked a Demo Day with Trek and City Cycle, organized a big sale, made headway in the development in a new City Cycle blog and organized and done location scouting for a couple of photo shoots for Breezer. Oh, and if the week weren’t busy enough, I also got through a summons for jury duty.

While I hope next week is a little less chaotic, please enjoy some shots taken while I rode to the San Francisco’s Hall of Justice this this past week:

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The Invisible Bike

Posted on April 5, 2012 by

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VeloCouch One

Posted on April 1, 2012 by

This is a blog about bicycles and bicycling and it’s written by a guy who has been infatuated with the two as long as he’s been able.  Meanwhile, you might operate on more of an appreciation level? And if that’s the case, you may need to forgive the nature of this post. If it seems like I’m a little obsessive…it’s only because I am.

In recent posts I’ve been building up some excitement about the fact that I’ve been in the process of securing a new road bike for myself. Well, at this point it’s good and secured. But I had completely forgotten how long it can take me to get new equipment set up and dialed in exactly the way I want it…

My new Seven frame arrived a little more than two weeks ago, and with parts ordered and ready, it was built up that night. But that was just the beginning. From there it was test ridden, adjusted, ridden again, adjusted some more, ridden some more, dirtied, cleaned, ridden harder, dirtied again and at present…left dirty. And after all of that, I am very happy to announce that my new bike is certifiably ready for the life that was intended for it.

Here’s the list of requirements this bike needed to meet…

- A road bike
- Made of steel
- Hand made in UhMerica!
- Custom fit
- Custom painted (according to my own design)
- Assembled with as many UhMerican components as possible
- Race worthy!
- Brake clearance for up to 700×28 tires
- A “for the pure love of road cycling” ride quality
- An understated, classic and totally “Pro” aesthetic
- A bike that I’m compelled to ride it so much that come cyclocross season there’s nothing in front of me and lots of tears behind me ;)

If all of that could be achieved, in theory this would result in a bike that could take up permanent residence in my stable. A bike with which to play a time honored game called “Alright there hombre, who’s gonna break first?”

And now without further delay you get to meet my new bike. I was joking about naming it Elroy before. Its true name is “VeloCouch One…”

My paint instructions

And unfortunately that’s it for glamor shots. I was going to get more of the complete bike but this past week the decision was, ride it, or have it photographed. I chose option A…

Cory Farrer (code name C-Biz) is a close friend and colleague of mine. He's the owner of City Cycle. He did me the honor of building my wheels the night we assembled my bike. Here he is double checking my work on the rest of the bike. Lucky me. He's one of the best bike mechanic's I've ever come across.

First ride. Early the next morning.

Dressing up City Cycle in SF

Sometimes you just have to get out for a pedal...like midnight on a Wednesday

This bike will do a lot of this

A breakfast stop

Dressing up City Cycle Marin

Thomson & Chris King. American components in harmony

The ultimate test... VeloCouch One proved it was ready for battle on a ride with the lads yesterday

See those sweet King R45s laced to A-23s? Tubeless. Check!

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The VeloCouch on March 25th 2012…

Posted on March 25, 2012 by

The VeloCouch blog is my celebration of bicycles & living, and unfortunately over the past few weeks this celebration has been set aside and I’ve let my resolution to publish no less than one post per week slip. But you’ll have to forgive me. Lately my life has consisted almost entirely of one thing…WORK! In fact, today is the first day I’ll take off since March 3rd which means I’ve just worked 21 straight days while averaging somewhere between 12 & 14 hours of real effort, each day. So yeah…that’s an awful lot of work and not a lot of room for life. I’ll hope the lack of posting makes sense in this context.

My next post was supposed to be about my new bike. It’s here by the way…and it’s absolutely, out of this world, over the top…f’ing amazing! However…you can’t see it yet because while it might be ready for your eyes, it’s not for your browser because the photo’s I’d take of it on my own wouldn’t do it justice. It requires professional help and some glamor shots. It’s that good! I’ll get those images done this week and report back soon. :)

In the meantime, it’s Sunday morning and that mean’s it’s time for wifey and I to get on our town bikes and roll across the park to our local farmer’s market. Our weekly routine involves our bikes, strong coffee, fresh baked scones and strolling the market together as we gather most of the food and produce we’ll eat in the coming week. That’s living! And because it’s back to work tomorrow, I better get to it…

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Explanation of the Last Post Title…

Posted on March 6, 2012 by

Ok…here it is.

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2012 NAHBS (Part 2): What else before the KingRexCycipNedLuddian tacos tasted so good?

Posted on March 5, 2012 by

You might not understand this post title, but that’s ok…I’ll translate. It means what else I saw when I went to NAHBS on Friday March 2nd…

And for a start, I spotted the elusive Eric J. Herboth……who is a past colleague and good friend of mine. As a mater of fact…Eric published some of my first thoughts to ever appear on the interweb. They were music reviews I wrote for LAS Magazine. Eric founded LAS and for a time it I think that publication represented a pillar of indie arts culture. Anyhow…Eric’s elusiveness comes from the fact that he’s a man of international mystery and intrigue. And a man of many talents. For the time being he’s posing as the man behind the man at Portland Oregon’s Ti Cycles…but, not too long ago I discovered him in Philadelphia working as a famed barkeep and operating under the pseudonym “Anders Larson…”

Anders Larson...barkeep at the 700 Club in Northern Liberties

And with that snapshot in the bag, I return to the bikes…

Dang! I didn't really like this bike...and was trying to shoot the super sweet stainless steel car parked behind it. I must have been bumped. Sorry!

Dang! I liked this bike...and was trying to do a good job shooting it, but I must have been intimidated by the presence of Portland Oregon's carbon renegades (the two gangster looking types in the center). It's a little blurry.

I learned a little bit about Italy's extremely niche but ultimately vibrant single speed cyclocross scene here. I checked out bikes by Pitz Cycles and cloths by Biciclista

Chainsaw Massacre, the track bike. Of course...why didn't I think of that? Totally original. Like.

It's almost St Patty's and these guys are ready.

These were cool. Race specific road bikes manufactured in steel and aluminum by Gaulzetti in the Boston area.

Ok, that was fun. But now it’s time for my favorites…

This man is Jason French and he owns and operates Portland eatery Ned Ludd. He had this beautiful bike, and matching trailer, built by artisan frame builder Ira Ryan...also of Portland. He plans to use it to locally source and haul produce and other foodstuffs from area markets to his restaurant. Jason's a cool cat...living and working with care. And this is a cool bike. Purpose built!

Trailer linkage doesn't get any cooler than this.

It was always swarmed by traffic, so I never really got a good shot of it. But this was a true beauty. Original and a clear work of passion.

And here IT is…

And here it is. Hands down...my personal favorite of the 2012 NAHBS was this beautiful steel cross bike built by the Six Eleven Bicycle Co. of Roanoke Virginia. The bike was my favorite, the brand was my favorite, the whole package...my favorite! And now you know.

And that’s a wrap!

 

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