The High Spark of Low Trail Bikes - Part 2

As all three of my regular readers will have noticed, I took a long break from posting on this blog. I have various reasons (or excuses) for taking the break, but none of them have anything to do with a loss of interest in randonneuring, cycling or anything vaguely bicycle related. I'm still as cycling obsessed as ever, though admittedly a complete neophyte compared to some of my riding partners. Anyway, it's time to jump back into the blog world.

Many months ago, I wrote a post about "low trail" front geometry and my Trek 311. Since then I've completed an SR series on that bike, not to mention countless just-for-fun rides and literally thousands of commuting miles, so I now have a lot more experience with the handling, both with and without front loads. With that additional experience, I thought I'd write some follow-up thoughts on the old Trek 311 and its low trail front end geometry.

But before I say any more I should warn you, I’m a lousy bike reviewer. There’s nothing rigorous or scientific about my reviews. These are just my thoughts on a bike I own, and I find that I almost always like the bikes I own. Even when they are $75 Craig's List finds (which the Trek 311 is). I may not like everything about them, but I usually find something to like because… well, because they’re mine and because in most cases I built them up myself from a bare frame and a bunch of parts. Furthermore, I tend to ride old “junkers,” so what do I know about good bikes, right? I've ridden a few nicer modern bikes here and there, but for the most part I ride bikes that are either old (Treks from the 80s) or new-ish, but using old designs and technology (VO Randonneur). I love combining an old steel frame with a mix of old and new parts to make a bike that is comfortable and highly functional for me. My bikes aren't vintage museum pieces and they aren't state of the art racing machines, they’re just my vision of good, useful and relatively inexpensive bikes. So, if you’re interested in a thorough and objective review of a bike that’s relevant in today’s market place, you may want to go here or here or maybe even here. But if you’re interested in one randonneur’s esoteric equipment choices and what he thinks about them, please read on.

I reread that last post from February and realized that after a lot more riding, my first impressions haven’t changed much at all. Specifically, I find that the 311 has stable, yet responsive handling both with and without a light to moderate front load. Without a load it’s a little quicker to respond to input, but barely. I prefer the handling with some weight on the front. For commuting, I often take the handlebar bag off altogether (so I don’t have to worry about the bag being stolen while the bike’s parked at work), and it’s just a bit twitchier than I like that way. The couple of pounds of tools, tubes and other crap I usually have in the handlebar bag for most rides seem to stabilize the ride just enough so I’m less likely to swerve off course when looking over my shoulder to make a lane change, for instance. Even with heavier loads like the 7 – 8 lbs I typically carry on a long brevet, the steering is still responsive when I need to avoid an obstacle, but extremely easy to ride in a straight line or hold steady through a fast turn. I almost never carry more than a few lbs in my handlebar bag, so I can't say much about how the bike handles a heavy load on the front.

Early on when I started riding the Trek with a front load I noticed it had a slight tendency to shimmy under certain circumstances. I've read a fair amount about shimmy being a common problem with low trail front geometry, and my Trek seems to support that. But to put it in perspective, after nearly six thousand miles I've only experienced shimmy a few times. It seems to happen when: a) the handlebar bag is very heavily loaded, like maybe more than 10 lbs, and b) I'm cold. No, really! If I'm cold and especially if I'm shivering, the frequency of my shivers seem to match the bike's oscillations and together we get into a shiver/shimmy feedback loop. Talk about being in sync with your bike... It's never been so bad that I felt at all out of control, and trying to relax my upper body and pressing a knee against the top tube does a good job of dampening the shimmy. I've read that a roller bearing headset can fix the problem, but honestly it's never bothered me enough to do anything about it. But, if you're the kind of person who gets freaked by any shimmy at all (and I wouldn't blame you if you were) then you may want to steer clear of the old low trail Treks.

In the earlier post, I talked about the Trek having a trail measurement of about 45 mm. While that’s lower than the typical mainstream road bike trail number by 10 mm or so, I should point out that it's not as low as most of the true French constructeur influenced randonneuring bikes that often have trail measurements in the 30s*. So, perhaps it would be more accurate to describe the Trek as "mid-low trail". Whatever you want to call it, the trail of my Trek is considerably less than almost any modern mainstream road bike you can buy.

My Velo Orange Randonneur (which I no longer own) had very similar front-end geometry to the Trek. Both bikes have a head tube angle of 73 degrees. The Trek's fork offset is 55mm, while the VO's is 53mm. That works out to about 2mm more trail for the VO than the Trek. For the metrically impaired, 2mm is about the thickness of a US nickle, or in other words, not much at all. The Trek and VO feel somewhat different on the road, but they both handle well with or without a light to moderate front load. My guess is that the differences in handling characteristics can be attributed more to other differences in geometry (chainstay length being the most significant), and differences in set up (stem length, handlebar width) than to the slight difference in trail.

Speaking of differences in setup, I've experimented a little with handlebars of different widths over the past year and was surprised to find that handlebar width seems to affect handling at least as much if not more than differences in trail. The extra leverage provided by a 44 cm wide handlebar vs. say a 39 cm handlebar makes the steering feel much more responsive. On some bikes that's a good thing, but I find that my Trek 311 feels better with narrower handlebars. It just seems much easier to ride smoothly in a straight line, or to hold a steady line through a turn with the narrower bars.

Conclusion
Yeah, well I'm not sure I have much of a conclusion (I told you I'm not much of a reviewer) other than: I really like the way my Trek 311 handles. So much so, that I bought another similar old Trek with the exact same front-end geometry to replace my VO as my main geared randonneuring bike (more on that in another post). But does the Trek's low-ish trail really make a significant difference in the way the bike handles a front load? It helps, but I don't find the difference to be huge. Overall, I think some of the old steel Treks from the 80s make outstanding randonneuring bikes, but it's much more than just front-end geometry that make these old bikes work so well. Tubing choices, quality of construction, overall geometry and design all contribute to make for a fun, smooth riding, well mannered and high performing bike.

* Here are a few modern production bikes to check out that have true low trail geometry:

• Boulder Bicycles All-Road and Brevet
• Ocean Air Cycles Rambler
• Soma Grand Randonneur
• Rawland rSogn/Stag and Nordavinden

SIR Spring 600k: Put a Forks in it

Welcome to Olympic National Park

It was on the road between Forks and La Push that I first noticed the moon. It was last Saturday night, and I was about 380 kilometers into the Seattle Randonneurs’ Spring 600k. The night was dark with few stars visible, the only light for miles coming from my trusty headlight and taillight and the running lights of Chris Cullum, my Canadian riding partner who I had been riding with off and on for the past 300 kilometers. Suddenly there it was: the full* moon shining through a gap in the clouds like a saucer of vanilla flavored Ensure Plus®. Then it all clicked in my head (by this point nearly as cloudy as the night we had been riding through). The full moon… The nearby town of Forks… Vampires! Werewolves! What was I doing out here!? I didn’t actually read any of the Twilight saga, but I saw the movies (well, part of the first one anyway)! I know what evil, wrapped in sparkly skin and designer jeans lurks in this damp corner of Washington state!

Ward and Gary on the road near Matlock

A few minutes later the wave of panic passed as I realized that even if vampires were real, they would probably do their best to stay away from Forks. Way too many Twifans hanging around these days. A more well-founded panic returned a little while later as I realized that it was Saturday night and Forks was the only town around with a bar. It was rapidly approaching the drunk driver witching hour, not a good time to be on a bicycle.

In spite of vampires, werewolves, drunk drivers, bad convenience store sandwiches, occasional headwinds and lots of lactate in my thigh muscles, I managed to complete the SIR 600k brevet last weekend. It was an incredibly beautiful route that circumnavigated the Olympic mountain range in a huge clockwise lumpy circle beginning and ending at the ferry dock in Kingston.

Shadow riders

Riding a single speed bike throughout the SR series this year has often made it difficult to find well-matched riding partners, but this time I managed to ride with others at a very compatible pace for about half of the distance. Chris in particular turned out to be an excellent riding partner, happily pulling me through endless rolling hills.

The view from Kalaloch

Every long brevet has it's warts and imperfections, but I really can't think of much about which to complain. Yes, there was a brief rain shower or two. But come on, we were riding through miles of Pacific Northwest rainforest in early June! What do you want? Maybe that last stretch of highway 104 from 101 to Kingston with the hills that took a couple of cheap shots at me when I was down on the ground? But that's not the hills' fault. They were there long before we decided to ride our brevet and they'll be there long after my trusty Trek has turned to dust and returned to the earth. Honestly I have to say this was my favorite 600k yet, and maybe my favorite brevet ever.

Some highlights for me:

• The excellent homemade chocolate chip cookies at the Hood Canal control (Jennifer's recipe and Kole's execution).





It was steeper than it looks, honest



• The lovely rolling, car-free back roads between Matlock and Humptulips, especially that steep dirt section that forced me to use my "granny gear" (i.e. get off and walk).


• Okay, this is for real: In the Matlock General Store the clerk found $40 on the floor and asked if it was someone in our group who had lost it. None of the group I was with thought it was ours. Then at the very next stop in Humptulips, 45 miles down the road, as I was walking to the cash register there on the floor at my feet... two crisp $20 bills. They weren't mine. I asked if anyone in my group had dropped them, but none of us had even come in with two twenties. Weird. I left them with the cashier and walked out wondering if the same $40 would be following us all the way around the Olympic peninsula.


• Chris and I helping a woman with a flat tire along 101. I'm convinced that woman would still be there trying to figure out how to fix that flat if we hadn't stopped (not exactly a whiz bike mechanic). She said she was riding to San Francisco. She'll either develop some bike mechanical skills along the way or continue to depend on the kindness of strangers.





"Dinner" at Kalaloch



• Celebrating the first real view of the ocean at Kalaloch with a dish of soft-serve ice cream.





Leaving Forks at 2:30 AM



• Making the most of the Forks control by stopping there not once but twice. The first time for an excellent bowl of homemade chicken soup to fortify me for the out-and-back to La Push. Then for a fiery bowl of chili and a couple hours of sleep before setting off again at 2:30 AM for last third of the route.


• The quiet and lonely slog from Forks up to the control at mile marker 218.7 in the wee hours (Chris and I had parted ways at Forks and from there on I rode alone). Perhaps I saw three cars in an hour and a half. A great time for introspection and loud off-key singing.


• But even better was the oasis at mile marker 218.7 with hot chicken soup and friendly faces.





Just before the sunrise on Lake Crescent



• Watching the black night turn to grey daylight as I rode along the shores of Lake Crescent.
• East Bank Rd!





Dungeness Spit from the stone bench



• Sitting on the stone bench overlooking the Dungeness spit and reveling in the knowledge that there was little between me and Kingston that could keep me from finishing the ride (but naively unaware of the hills on highway 104 I had yet to ride).


• The feeling of rolling into Kingston shortly after noon having just finished the brevet and a complete SR series on a single speed bike, not too mention it being my second fastest 600k ever. Of course, my spirits fell quickly when I realized I still needed to walk up a flight of stairs to the second floor motel room to get my card signed.

This was really a great ride for me from beginning to end. I felt strong the whole way and was rarely bothered by aches and pains. My bike worked well and nimbly avoided any broken glass and other sharp road debris that conspired to deflate my tires. The route was one I've wanted to ride ever since I started randonneuring. There's something about the remoteness and the idea of going all the way around an entire range of mountains that inspired me. I rode with some good riding partners who shared the hard work, some for a few minutes, others for hundreds of kilometers. Thanks to Chris, John, Gary, Ward and the others I rode with briefly. Most importantly, thanks to Kole and Jennifer, and the many other SIR volunteers for putting on an outstanding event.

*Okay, it wasn’t really officially a full moon until the 5th, but three days away from a full moon looks pretty darn full.

SIR Spring 400k: The Ferry Waits for No Man

The running lights of the last ferry of the night may have still been visible from the ferry dock as I pulled into the final contrôle of SIR's Spring 400k brevet. I didn't bother looking for the ferry because I knew I had missed it and besides, there was a slice of pizza and a cold beer with my name on it at the contrôle. My card was signed at 11:53 PM. The ferry had sailed at 11:40 PM. For the most part I rode as fast as I had hoped to ride, but I just dawdled a bit too much at a couple of the contrôles.

We couldn't have asked for a better day to spend riding hither and thither. It was 48 degrees when I left the house in the morning and it got into the low 80's by late afternoon. The winds out of the NE meant we had tailwinds for much of the morning and early afternoon until the route turned around in Raymond and headed back North. On the trip back north, the wind wasn't quite as helpful. It slowed things down a bit, but really not as much as I had feared.

On the Ferry

A crowd of about 55 turned out, and like two years ago when we rode the same route in similar conditions, many were looking to do a time (that's randospeak for "ride really fast"). Not two miles into the ride I realized that I'd have no hope of staying with any fast groups. The tailwinds and early ride adrenaline were pushing many along at 25 mph. That had me spinning my 68 gear inches of single speed goodness at over 120 rpm. It was too early and I hadn't had enough coffee for that sort of thing, so I let the faster groups fly on by and I drifted toward the back of the pack.

 Leaving Bremerton and being left behind

Of course, sometimes getting left behind is a good thing. For instance, not long after the picture above was taken, two of the riders in that group ahead touched wheels and the guy in back went down hard. If I had been in that pace line, I might have been taken down too. I quickly stopped along with a couple of others to help out. The rider who had crashed was still on the ground and looking pretty rattled when I got there. He had road rash on his face (ouch!) and knees that I could see but he seemed to be coherent and otherwise intact. Luckily one of the other riders who had stopped was Andy Spier, a retired fire fighter with mad EMT skillz. We got the rider and bike out of the road quickly as cars were still flying by at 60 mph, and Andy checked for serious injuries. After a few minutes we concluded that he had nothing more than bumps, scrapes and bruises and his bike seemed rideable, so we cancelled the 911 call and soon everyone was on the road again.

Hugh and Dave

In the rolling hills between Bremerton and Shelton I'd team up briefly with other riders, but it never lasted more than a few minutes. I'd catch up on the climbs and then the tailwinds would whisk them away as we descended to the next roller. Clearly the rhythms of a single speed on a windy day don't fit well with the rhythms of geared bikes. So, I quickly settled into my own rhythm and accepted the fact that I'd be spending much of the day alone.

Tailwinds

The morning was beautiful and the riding was easy. Even though I wasn't able to find a group that I could ride with, the tailwinds were still pushing me along at a good pace. Being alone allowed me to enjoy the scenery, which beats staring at the wheel in front of me on such a lovely day.

Blue Slough Road

Panda with gratuitous Ibex product placement

The road to Westport

On a typical brevet, riders tend to get scattered across the route like a one-dimensional version of the expanding universe. The start is the big bang and once into the ride, a rider's velocity relative to you is a function of how far away they are from you. The riders a quarter of a mile ahead are moving away from you ever so slowly while the ones way out there at the front are leaving you in their dust at what might as well be approaching the speed of light. As a result, once you've settled into your pace you don't have many close encounters with other celestial objects (a.k.a. riders) because they're all moving away from you.

On this ride I was finding that a single speed bike throws a monkey wrench in my cosmological model of brevets. The gearing of a single speed bike essentially limits your top-end speed like a governor (this kind of governor, not that kind), while on a geared bike your top speed is usually limited only by your ability to convert Clif Bars into watts. Hence the different rhythms that I mentioned earlier. As a result I was finding that even though I was riding alone, I was seeing a lot of other riders on the course as I'd pass them on a climb and then later they'd pass me on the flats. I had a lot of 15 second conversations "in passing" (literally).

I doubt that any of my observations are going to cause Einstein to turn in his grave, but at least it gave me something to ponder as I rode.

I got to the contrôle at Westport, a little over 100 miles into the ride, around 1:30. I was still feeling good so I decided to not stay for long. I quickly scarfed a sandwich and got on my way again eager to keep riding the tailwinds as long as they'd last.

Finally, the ocean

From Westport to Raymond is only 30-some miles, but along that road I encountered one of the temporal anomalies that always pop up somewhere during a long brevet. Time stood still. I'd pedal for what seemed to be hours, and my cycle computer would register the passing of only two, maybe three minutes. I wasn't able to come up with a cosmological model that adequately explains the temporal distortion between Westport and Raymond, but I know it's real.

The never-ending road to Raymond

After Raymond, the route heads north up highway 101 and goes over a series of hills. I've ridden this stretch of road a few times now and I've decided to name it Sisyphus Lane. The hills are so similar that it really feels like you ride up and down the same hill over and over again.

Near Elma

Maximum security prison near Shelton with me happy to be on the outside

The trip from Raymond to Potlatch was long and I was starting to feel a little like I was dragging an anchor behind me. My attitude was good, but my legs definitely didn't have quite the snap to them that they had had in the morning. My speed kept dropping off and might have dropped to zero if I hadn't encountered Brad Hawkins. We were approaching Potlatch State Park as the sun was setting and we worked together and seemed to give each other a little boost as we knocked off that last few miles. Brad burst into song at the sight of the contrôle.

Brad pulling me into Potlatch

The Potlatch contrôle run by Shane and his wife was the best setup I have yet to encounter on an SIR brevet. And that's saying something. They were making fresh homemade french fries (with lots of salt - yum),  soup, an espresso machine... In retrospect, I might have made that last ferry if I had just filled my bottles at the contrôle, grabbed a couple of cookies and got back on the road. But it was far too easy to stay and enjoy the party. I was there for over half an hour.

 

Potlatch - best contrôle EVER!

By the time I pulled out of Potlatch I knew I had no chance of catching the ferry so I took my time and savored the last leg. It was soon dark and the roads were becoming emptier with each mile. Deep into the Old Belfair Highway, with no street lights or house lights, and a moonless sky I could hear a chorus of coyotes not far from the road, yipping and howling like frat boys at spring break. Times like this are why I love randonneuring.

As you've already gathered from the beginning of this post, I made it to the finish eventually but missed the last ferry of the night. I actually got a decent few hours of sleep sharing a room with three other randonneurs. The ferry ride and the ride home from the ferry dock the next morning were glorious. It was another beautiful day, and though it was a little painful to be back on the bike so soon, I was happy to be heading for home after such a great adventure.

400k Plans and Grant's in Town

The sun is shining, the birds are out doing their cute little birdy things and rando season is in full swing. This weekend in rando-land, I’ll be riding the SIR Spring 400k. This 400k brevet will follow a fairly flat route. It leaves from Bremerton and heads out to Westport on the coast via Shelton and Cosmopolis. From Westport we head south along the coast to Raymond and then turn north on highway 101 and other side roads up to Potlatch State Park on Hood Canal’s funny bone. From Potlatch, it’s back to Bremerton pretty much the same way we came in the morning but in reverse.

SIR Spring 400k Route on Bike Route Toaster

I rode this same route two years ago, and with such a flat route and good weather quite a few Seattle Randonneurs were able to set a personal best for a 400k, myself included. This year I’ll be riding my single speed so I have no plans to set any new records, personal or otherwise. I do have a goal for the ride, but it’s going to be long shot. The last ferry from Bremerton to Seattle leaves at 11:40pm. My goal is to be on that last ferry. That means finishing the ride in about 16 hours and 30 minutes. That’s a huge stretch for me on a single speed bike. I can only spin those cranks so fast, so the key will be minimizing my time off the bike. I think if I keep my time off the bike to less than 45 minutes, then I’ve got a shot at making the ferry. But it’s amazing how easy it is to use up 45 minutes over the course of a 400k ride.

Luckily it’s not the end of the world if I don’t make it. SIR will have a room or two at the finish so there will be a warm place to nap until the ferries start running again on Sunday morning. Chances are good I’ll be sharing a room with a few smelly, snoring randonneurs Saturday night.

---

By the way, to get inspired for the 400k I might try to stop by Free Range Cycles in Fremont on Friday evening to see Grant Peterson talking about double top tubes, flat pedals, long quill stems or whatever it is that he'll be talking about. Grant is in Seattle promoting his new book, Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike. I don't agree with some of Grant's opinions and design choices, but I definitely plan on reading his book, and I have great respect and appreciation for the "radically practical" influence he has had on all things bicycling over the years. As a matter of fact, if I were to build a momument to the founding fathers of practical cycling, it would probably include the oversized likenesses of Grant Peterson, Eben Weiss and the late Sheldon Brown carved into a mountain side, like three-fourths of Mt. Rushmore but with faces only a bike nerd would recognize.

On Randonneuring and Time

Wet pavement, gray skies, pickup trucks and single-wides...

March: In like a lion, out like a soggy, hypothermic ruminant. That’s what we say up here in Seattle anyway. And the saying was dead-on accurate on Saturday as I rode the Seattle Randonneurs 300k. The ride started in the dark with a cold hard rain falling, and though the sun came up an hour or so into the ride, it was pretty hard to tell.

I spent the first half of the ride from Tacoma to Centralia and back up to Olympia riding with Todd Sahl and Andy Ziegler. Todd and Andy are strong riders, nice guys and great riding partners, but together we managed to sort of bungle our way through the first 100 kilometers.

First we missed a turn on our way out of Tacoma, venturing a couple miles off course. After a couple of sessions of head scratching and smart phone consulting we figured out where we were and got ourselves back on the route.

Then a couple hours later Andy got a flat tire. Andy’s hands were too cold and numb to deal with fixing the flat so Todd and I got to work on it. We got the new tube in and pumped up and then the valve stem of the new tube came apart. Not a big deal, these things happen… However, while Todd and I were fumbling with the tire in the cold rain, Andy was going hypothermic. He was shivering uncontrollably and literally turning a pale shade of gray. Luckily there was an open Subway sandwich shop close by (isn’t that always the case?) so we decided to take our wheel in with us and fumble around with it in a slightly warmer environment. Andy had more clothes with him so he added dry layers while Todd and I fixed his flat for the second time. Eventually with mechanical issues sorted out and core temperatures back to life-sustaining levels we were able to get back on the road.

By this point we were only about 50 km into the ride and well behind all of the other riders but we rode hard to make up lost time and to stay warm. We were making such good time (thanks in part to a tailwind) that by the time we got to Olympia, about half way through the ride, we had caught up with the most of the other riders.

At the Blue Heron bakery in Olympia I had a yummy Spinach and Ricotta croissant and would have had five more if it hadn't been the last one. I was a bit worried about staying too long because I knew my core temp would drop quickly and it would take a long time to warm up again if I didn't get moving quickly. Also, my legs were pretty cooked from keeping up with Todd and Andy in tailwinds for much of the morning. I was on my single speed bike and they were both fully geared which meant a lot of time with them in their big gears pedaling along casually at 25 mph while I was spinning like an eggbeater on speed. Todd and Andy wanted to stay for a while to have some coffee, so I told them I was going to take off at my own pace and see them down the road a ways when they caught up.

That was the last I saw of Andy and Todd other than a brief fly-by on the out-and-back section out to Hoodsport. Apparently Andy had had another flat that kept them from catching up to me. So I was mostly alone for the last 90 miles of the ride.

The weather never really cleared up for the rest of the day, but at least it went from constant rain to intermittent drizzly showers. The sun even managed to peek through the clouds a time or two as I meandered along the shore of Hood Canal on highway 106.

Hood Canal from Hwy 106

I spent a lot of that alone time thinking about the relationship between Randonneurs and time. Someday, thousands of years from now, the language of the Randonneur will have adapted to the Randonneur's environment similarly to how the Inuit languages have adapted to the Inuit's environment. They say Eskimos have [insert made up number here] words for snow (cough, cough, urban legend, cough). Perhaps Randonneurs will develop a rich language to describe the many various flavors of the passage of time experienced while pedaling a bike miles from nowhere.

There's the time left behind you on the road you've already traveled, limp and empty, like a discarded banana peel, its usefulness completely depleted.

And the time that lies before you when you're all alone, the sun is setting and you're not even close enough to the finish to start counting the miles yet. That time flows toward you like dark cold molasses oozing down a 1% slope. And then a headwind comes up and the slope goes from 1% to 0%. The molasses is still flowing out in all directions, but only imperceptibly so.

Time standing still

Then there's the time that swirls around you like a dust devil on a scorching day, while you're at the control but trying to get in and out quickly so you can stay with a fast group. "Fill the bottles, get the card signed, put on sunscreen, get some food for the next leg..." "Oh crap, there goes the group and I still need to pee!"

Of course there will be a special word for the Randonneur's version of Zeno's dichotomy paradox. I've experienced this one many times... "I'm moving 10 mph, and I'm 10 miles from the pass. I'll be there in an hour." Then a little later, "Now I'm moving 8 mph and I'm still 8 miles from the pass. Just one more hour..." Then a little later, "6 more miles to the pass and I'm rolling at..." (looks at speedometer and groans).

Or maybe we'll just develop a rich and complex language to describe saddle sores.

Tacoma is a lot of things, but it ain't Purdy

Anyway, my afternoon alone was long and quiet but really pretty pleasant. I was riding at a more comfortable pace but still making decent time, or at least decent enough to be able to finish before the sun had gone down. As I approached the Tacoma narrows bridge, the rain had stopped for long enough to tempt me into taking off my rain coat. And then as soon as I was across the bridge the rain started again (There will someday be a Rando word for that too).

A brief sun break as I approach the narrows bridge

This was my longest ride to date on a single speed, and I finished feeling purdy good. It seems like the 400k is doable, though I have to keep in mind that this 300k was an extremely flat route.

Next weekend is the flèche. Randos already have their own word for that.

Single Speed Randonneuse

I’ve owned this 1982 Trek 311 for couple years now and in that time it’s been set up in various ways. This winter I decided to build it up as a single speed brevet bike, and so far I’m really happy with how it’s working out. The 311 was Trek’s cheapest model back in its day. The main triangle is Ishiwata Magny X double butted tubing and the stays and fork are good ol’ high ten (aka "drainpipe"). Definitely nothing to write home about, but somehow it manages to be an extremely comfortable and fun to ride bike. It handles a moderate front load well, though it can shimmy a bit if I put 10 lbs or more in the front bag. That shouldn't be an issue because I usually don’t carry anywhere near that much on a brevet.

There’s actually not much of the original bike left in this build. The frame, fork, headset, stem and handlebars are original, but everything else was scavenged off of other bikes, out of my spare parts "warehouse", or purchased new for this build.

The gearing is 46/18 which works out to about 68 gear inches. I’ve found that gearing to work well on long rides. It allows me to keep up with moderately fast groups on the flats, and still make it up most of hills. When the hills get long and steep, I kick it into the granny gear (i.e. I get off and walk).

Since I started Randonneuring in 2009 I’ve wanted to complete an SR series on a single-speed bike. This year seemed like the right year to go for it, so that’s the vision that inspired this build. So far its longest ride has been only 90 miles, but it handled it with aplomb. I have little doubt the bike is up to the task of a full SR series.

P.S. Did you notice how I did that without any mention of the fact that I haven't posted a darn thing in nearly four months?

Mountain Loop Highway 200k

Early last week as I was riding my usual route in to work, I ran into one of my fellow Seattle randonneurs, Gary Prince. We rolled through the downtown traffic talking about upcoming rides and the fact that neither of us really had the time to drive all the way up to Bellingham for this weekend's scheduled 400k brevet. I had been thinking of doing a 200k permanent closer to home and Gary liked the sounds of that so we made plans to do the Mountain Loop Highway permanent on Saturday.

I've wanted to do the Mountain Loop Highway permanent for quite a while. I was intrigued by 14 miles of unpaved and seldom traveled road. Somehow the lack of pavement translated to adventure in my mind; not exactly exploring-the-upper-Amazon adventure, but still something more interesting than just another lap around Lake Washington.

So I picked Gary up early Saturday morning and we drove up to Snohomish for the start of our little adventure. The route starts in downtown Snohomish and heads up the Centennial trail for a bit until it jumps off and follows bucolic backroads to Arlington. From Arlington the route heads east on highway 530 to Darrington, then turns right and follows the Mountain Loop Highway over Barlow pass and on down to Granite Falls. Some more back roads from Granite Falls get you back to Snohomish, but not before doing a few odd twists and turns to make sure you don't miss any of steep hills along the way. The 14 miles leading up to Barlow Pass are all unpaved and make the gradual climb a little more challenging.

We parked in front of the antique store where I eyed the selection of cowboy boots, contemplating whether I was properly outfitted for our little adventure. Gary was hoping to hit the bakery across the street before we got started, but they weren't open yet so we opted for stale donuts at the 7-11 and had a nice chat with the guy working there before taking off just after 7 AM.

The first 25 miles to Arlington were about as pleasant as a ride can be. The temperature was upper 50s and the scattered clouds were getting more scattered by the minute. I mentioned the bucolic back roads, right?



We took our time at the first control in Arlington and sat down with a cup of coffee and my second donut of the day (chocolate old-fashioned this time). Gary made some comments about the way I eat on Rando rides. Ok, generally I'm a pretty healthy eater, but for some reason when I'm on a long ride good nutrition and all that great food culture stuff that Michael Pollan writes about get tossed out like some wilted organic lettuce that's been hiding out for too long in the crisper drawer. For me, ride food is not really food, it's fuel. My body doesn't seem to be too picky about fuel. It has simple needs. Sugar for energy. Salt to replace the lost electrolytes. Fat... um, because it tastes good.

So, after a nice leisurely breakfast stop we headed east on highway 530 toward Darrington. This stretch of highway isn't bad, but it's the busiest road on the route. Cars and trucks whiz by pretty consistently at 50 mph and keep you focused on that fog line.



In Darrington, again we took some time to sit and relax and enjoy a bite too eat, this time I had a relatively healthy sandwich. Apparently Gary had made me self-conscious about my eating habits.



As soon as we left Darrington the road became much quieter and started tilting upward ever so slightly. A few more miles out of town the pavement ends. The road has a pot hole here and there and some washboard and loose gravel now and then, but for the most part it's pretty pleasant riding.



We stopped at a nice view point for wardrobe changes and other important business. The scenery was gorgeous, but of course I chose to take a picture of my bike instead. That's my converted single speed Bianchi Volpe. The climbing as we approached Barlow pass never got so steep that I regretted having only one gear.



In 14 miles of road leading up to the pass there are about 200' of pavement if you count the two bridges along the way.

After Barlow Pass, the highway heads slightly downhill for 30 miles on wonderful smooth pavement. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the unpaved section, but after an hour of bumping along in the dirt, pavement feels like you're riding on a pool table.



Since we had already blown any chances for a speedy time by enjoying leisurely stops at the first two controls, we figured we may as well see the sights on this second half of the ride. First we stopped at the Big 4 picnic area to soak in the tourist thing. We had a nice chat with an old Italian guy there who seemed to know a thing or two about bikes. He asked if we had ever heard of "Campagnolo". Yep, we had both heard of the brand before.

We stopped again not long after Big 4 at the Verlot Ranger station to refill water bottles (for those of you planning to do this ride, make sure you fill up a couple of bottles in Darrington as it's the last chance for water until Verlot, 43 miles down the road). At the ranger station a guy approached us and asked if we were riding a permanent. This isn't the kind of question a normal person would ask. Then we noticed he was wearing a Cascade 1200 T-shirt from a few years ago. Nope, definitely not a normal person. His name was Dave Johnson and he said he used to ride the ML Highway back before it was a permanent. Apparently he's not riding much with SIR these days since neither Gary nor I knew him, but obviously he's spent a few hours on a bike in the past.

As we continued on toward Granite Falls, we passed a 70s (?) Rolls Royce Silver Shadow going the other direction. Apparently this would be a day for rare sitings, Randonneurs, British luxury cars... later we saw a cocky coyote trotting down the road looking like perhaps he had just eaten someone's cat.

In the final few kilometers of the route it does some odd twists and turns for no apparent purpose other than to send you up a hill that climbs a couple hundred feet in less than a half mile, the last part being probably a 10% - 12% grade. Gary grumbled about the hill being "completely gratuitous" and I shifted into my granny gear (i.e. I got off and walked). I'm pretty sure the course designer was just thinking it was a funny joke. But, the payoff was a screaming fast descent down into Snohomish which put a nice cherry on top of what was already a beauty of a ride.

Back at the Bakery in Snohomish ice cream seemed like just the thing. "This is about one hour of cycling" said Gary as he held up his generous scoop. Indeed, this is a big part of why I ride. Two donuts, two sandwiches, two bananas, two Starbucks Frappuccinos, a cookie and an ice cream cone, and it wasn't even dinner time yet.

Pre-Blog Ride Reports - Jan '09

Originally emailed on January 10, 2009 5:57:36 PM under the subject, One down, eleven to go - Ride Report

I set myself a cycling goal this year to do a century ride in every calendar month of 2009. And as if doing a century in January isn't punishment enough, I decided to do my first century of the year on my single speed Bianchi. I'm running a 46t chainring with an 18t freewheel cog in the back. For perspective, this gearing is basically equivalent to putting your chain on the small ring in the front and smack-dab in the middle of the cluster in the back (assuming you have a standard 53/39 double crank with a 11-23 cluster), and then wrapping duct tape all around your shifters so you can't mess with them for the rest of the day. In the flats it's a decent gear for spinning along comfortably at about 16 mph. But as we've all known since Columbus failed to fall off the edge in 1492, the world is not flat. I spin out at about 24 mph on the downhills, and have to stand up and grunt a lot if the uphills exceed about a 3% grade.

My route was pretty convoluted, part loop and part out and back. Most of my favorite routes for long rides are currently under water due to all the flooding we've been having. So I got a little creative. I started at 6:30am so I could get home at a reasonable hour and still have time to hang out with the family. Of course that meant I was riding in the dark for about the first hour. Starting from home, I went around Lake Washington counter clockwise as far as Kenmore, about 3/4 of the way around. From Kenmore I headed east and then north and then east again and south and west and then north (did you follow that?). My route took me through Woodinville, Maltby (wherever the hell that is), Paradise Lake, Novelty Hill, Redmond, Issaquah, Renton again and finally home.

Temperature was in the low 40s and it rained on and off the whole way. But I was dressed right, so I was pretty comfortable. Overall it was a fun way to spend an ugly day. I definitely didn't set any speed records. As a matter of fact, it was by far the slowest century I've ever ridden. I mostly blame that on the single speed, though it's possible the engine was partly at fault. Choosing the gearing on a single speed or fixed gear bike is an exercise in compromise at best. You give up speed on the flats and downhills in order to have a low enough gear to survive the uphills. After today's ride, I'm thinking I compromised a little too much on the low side. The hills were all manageable, but I could never do any better than about 16 - 17mph on the flats.

Ok, so that's my story. Who wants to join me for the February century? ;)

Steve

Ride Stats
Miles = 108.5
Ride Time = 7:28
Elapsed Time = ~8 hours
Ibuprophen Consumed = 800mgs