A bikey visit to the carrefour

A few blocks from our hotel in corsica was a big Carrefour market. If you are not familiar with it, thinkWallmart with even slower employees at the checkout line.

Of course, I headed to the bike dept immediately to see what passes for french bike crud. I was pretty impressed. While the bikes they sold were very typical Wallmart type MTB crap, the parts were pretty interesting. They had lots of post type cantilever brakes and straddle cables on the parts wall. They also had, gasp, 650B stuff. Is there no limit to the influence of grant peterson?


Crappy 650B spare tire:

click for big

Nice presta 650B tubes, only 3euro80, which is something like a million dollars US, or maybe about 5 bucks and a dime:

click for big

I bought a two pack of 650B schrader tubes for something like $5 Us equivalent. They appear to be seamless tubes, not too shabby...

They also had these pretty nice looking Richard Virenque branded shimano road wheelsets with decent looking Michelin tires (129euro, 173buckeroonies):

click for big

I also picked up a couple of packs of these sweet little step down ferrules, I think they are intended for touring type brakes, but they should be useful for dumb projects, a mere 0.83 euros for a 4 pack:

click for big

they had a bewildering array of patch kits, that frankly looked all the same to me, yet varied by a few cents here or there. I picked up a high end looking michelin kit with patches that appeared to be a bit more flexy or not. I had trouble finding an unopened one, when I got it home I realized why. The kits look huge, but have only 4 patches in it, I think people were stealing patches from the kits on the hanger and placing them in the kits they buy. Way to fight the man!

Finally I picked up this excellent Ensemble de Gonflage, with two types of beachball inflators, a ball needle, a presta to schrader adapter and the rare schrader to presta adapter all for only 4 euros or so:

click for big

After I selected my items, I headed to the checkout line and watched the women working the cash register talk to each other for the 20 minutes it took to process me and the four ahead of me in the "no cart" lane. In France, the man sticks it back to you. I was glad to see that half of the line I was in were visibly impatient too. The lines in the cart lanes looked to be the better part of an hour in length.

All told they had some good bike stuff, I regret not buying assorted types of cantilever/centerpull straddle wires as they had quite an array and they were pretty inexpensive. Good stuff. Go carrefourhell.

My new french german porteur

updated 6/26/07 to fix inconsistencies pointed out by my brother in the comments

I admit it, I was unable to resist. While in France I had to buy yet another bike. Here is my new French Deutsche Post Porteur:

click for big

Alas it is a bit too small for me:

click for big

Fortunately it came with a few riders to make the deliveries

click for big

I call them Chad and Jill:

click for big

They like to cut loose after work after a few too many carafe's of vino steins of bier. Oh so wacky, Chad and Jill:

click for big

Race Report Tierra Torture (most ancient) 5/6/2007

Hmm, Here is a really late race report now I am mostly caught up on race reports...

The quick report. The race took place just off the relief route in santa fe. A nice flat area. Or so I thought. (foreshadowing, nice eh?)

I geared up to a massive 34-16, I stayed up late the night before at a dinner party, I ate a big oatmeal banana and coffee breakfast and went down to the race site with Elena and my ma who was visiting. It was cold and overcast.



Isaac and me gunning it from the line clickforbig


The race was pretty big. 22 Single speeders. We started in the third wave after the pros and male and female experts. I started really hard chasing after wunderkid Isaac (see the soccorro race). I think we had a 200 yard gap on the rest of the huge field after a half mile or so of slight climbing. Then there was a fast tricky descent. I immediately noticed that Isaac downhills effortlessly while I did not. I fell back a bit, got caught by some of the faster descenders. Then we hit the rollers. They were very steep rollers. I suffered. My nice big breakfast revealed itself to be not really that digested. I was overgeared and suffering. Pretty much the entire race passed me, including my arch nemesis Jessica, and I was in 15 or 16th after the first lap.


my arch nemesis distancing me on the first lap click for big

Suddenly I noticed that I felt better after one lap. I hammered down. Passed a mechanically waylayed Jessica and started picking off other racers. I was still hurting but going MUCH faster this lap.

feeling good enough to smile click for big

Toward the end I passed two other single speeders. The laps end in a nice long gradual climb. I thought they were well passed, but Karl a crafty ex-pro torqued me in the sprint for 10th. Dammit. Results here. Turns out the stomach malaise had almost exactly the same effect as my flat tire in the soccorro XC race.


Outsprinted but good by tecate Karl click for big

All told it is a great race, a really fun course, 9.5 mile laps with 1100 feet climbing per lap, all on deceptively steep rollers. Try to digest and run a 34-18 next year dummy... After the race it snowed on and off all day.


Snow on water street in Santa Fe later that day clickforbig

Motobecane Fever!

From corsica:

click for big


click for big

Judging from the headbadge, this heavy duty mixte is newer, but no less stylish than the previous one.


It also was parked next to this excellent hand painted sign:

click for big
I really like the editorial graffiti, BZZ!!?



From my arch nemesis jessica's back yard, a mere 1/4 mile from my house:



From the velo orange blog:

click for source post with some brief musings on the motobecane.

On neck harnesses and tinned kit

The Race Across America is a silly race. Until they have
self supported division (see the great divide race)I am mostly ambivalent. Although, sometimes they come up some pretty good solutions to the problems created by riding 23 hours a day for 8 days straight:

click for source

Being unable to look up because your neck muscles gave out is a common enough problem during the RAAM to have a name, "Shermer's Neck" after the unfortunate progenitor of the condition many years ago. I think they usually "solve" it with mirrors so the rider can look down but see the road ahead, but this is a pretty good solution for the "elaborate system of levers and pulleys" crowd.

Also interesting about the web are Neill Currie's tool kits:

click for source

Check out his altoid tin tool kit and his touring kit. Good stuff and a good starting point for figgering what tools you might want to be carrying on a daily, weekly or monthly basis...

May Motion Update

Super late again. For those of you keeping score at home:
May had 231 miles of biking and a measily 4 miles of running. Woo!
Travel kind of torpedoed the mileage that month.

About 50 miles on the Schwinn Breeze, about 50 on the Bike friday, 100 on the fixie and the rest scattered about between the MTB, road bike and raleigh 20.
1185 bicycle style miles and 54 running miles in the year as of May 31.

Crappy month, but good to scale back a bit between the heavy racing of april and the summer.

Me, my brother and a future distant inlaw not bicycling on the yakima river there in washington:

Click for big

More Corsica bikes

This is the only riding I did in corsica:

click for big

Although I kind of wish I had a road bike as the mountains were filled with twisty one lane roads that went on for miles and miles.

Here is a forgettable example of the louison bobet marque.


click for big

Corsica Bikes

Ajaccio is the largest city in corsica, as such it was rife with not only tourist places, but old man bars and coffee shops, boulangeries galore and other signs of a local population. I was hoping this meant that there would be lots of interesting bikes to look at. Sadly no. Most of the few visible commuters were riding crappy mountain bikes. There was a healthy roadie scene with a fair bit of vintage steel extant and a high end bike shop as well. Corsica is a mountainous riding paradise. The roads are twisty and go from sea level up to thousands of feet and apparently great MTB exists as well.

I only saw a few classic french city bikes, all mixties, most with nice rear panniers, most motobecanes with a few peugots thrown in for good measure.

Here is the best one I got on film:



Nice leather panniers and bonus points for riding with your kid.

Corsica Circles

click for big


click for big


click for big



click for big


click for big

If you like this, maybe you would like kelpball.

La France

Corsica rather. Was on the ground 2 minutes before I saw the first Napolean statue. Blogging may be light for 10 days or so depending on jetlag and how much fun I am having.

A Bike Day in Seattle

I blasted over to Seattle area for the long weekend for some visiting with friends and attending my cousin Keith's floating bachelor party. I came in thursday and headed out to Vashon Island to stary with my friend Charlie. Starting on Vashon Island in the AM I rode with my friend Charlie for a quick 10plus miles on the twisty hilly roads there culminating in a pastry feast and a brief spin around the block with his oldest son with the rest of his family watching.

Charlie:


Ethan putting out huge watts, while Karin and the wee ones watch:


Later, while Charlie went to work, Karin and I took the younglings to the beach at the vashon light house where we saw black bear foot prints. Apparently the bear swam across the Colvos Passage from the olympic pennisula to Vashon Island, walked across the island and then, most impressively swam from the Lighthouse 3 miles or so over to seatac. Bears, apparently, can do this. The lighthouse keeper informed us the sea lions hanging out on the buoy along the way were not impressed by the intruder.

click for big


Then I took the ferry over to fauntelroy and road along the water over to downtown seattle. The view of seattle from Alki:

click for big

I had a couple of hours to kill in Seattle before meeting Charlie for dinner, so I dropped in on bicycling superstar Kent at the seattle bike station. Kent gave me a sneak preview of his excellent repurposment of a dish rack as bike basket (here). Here is a nice reflecty photo of Kent helping a commuter with a nasty flat:

click for big


Then a few of us absconded to the local coffee shop to engage in conversation. Kent, me and Brad, conversing madly at the 'geist (or is that the Zeit'?):

click for big

I then took my leave and pedalled up Jackson to meet charlie for a delicious 7 courses of beef dinner at a vietnamese resturaunt near his work. 7...Delicious...Courses...Beeef...glarrrgh...

At some point on this trip, the styling convertacouch that Charlie had was by far the most comfortable place I slept. I think the 4 nights went: convertacouch-floor-(rocks/cacti+rattlesnakes-tent)-floor. Mmmm getting too old for this kind of low quality of sleep local weekend. . Hopefully some photos of the rest of the weekend tomorrow, stay tuned for fishing and fire.

San Diego Bike Racks

Bike racks in San Diego. I wonder how well bolted to the parking meter this one is:


click for big


These looked a bit more secure.

click for big

I think their bike logo has a 45degree seat tube angle. Pedal forward indeed.

The Crapton!

I really like checking out bikes locked up around towns I visit. Santa Barbara has some good ones including this very tweaked bike downtown. I interpret the top tube decal as "Crapton" as it fits so well.

See the wheeled detritus label for more crap locked to poles and suchlike, and the nice dutch bike in italy for a more styling bike with a front end crunch.

Hoopty Trike

click for source

One of my dream garage sale scores is a Schwinn Town and Country Tandem for less than 50 bucks. I think I will add a Town and Country trike to that dream. Maybe a matched trio of a cyletruck, tandem and trike would be nice...

Mr Jalopy, who really should blog more, has made up a nice mobile drive in movie based around the T&C trike.

2007 Atomicman Duathlon Race Report

Sunday (4/29) was the Atomic Man Duathalon in nearby whiterock. The race comes in two flavors, the Fat man at 10k/40k/5k (run bike run) and the Little Boy at 4k/15k/4k. I did the fat man in 2005 when I was in good running shape and found that it was waaaaay too long. I have a long history with multisport events and 3 part duathlons are not my favorite. Run/bike/stop I can hack, but Run/Bike/Run is just gratuitous. The second run usually has little bearing on the race and only causes pain. When I did the long race in 2005 I saw no one on the second run. I also got so sore I could not really run or bike for 2 weeks. Wah wah wah wah. Anyway, long story not getting any shorter, between the early season pain last time and the lack of good running this year, I gladly opted for the short Little Boy race this year.

Whiterock is a mere 9 miles and 800 some vertical feet down from the house, I got up early ate some left over pork and eggs with an espresso, yoked up with a big messenger bag and rode on down to the race.


Post race dorkboy, clik for big


Race started at 8, I got there a bit late at 7:40 and had just enough time to rack the bike, change into running shoes and hit the portolet before the racers meeting and the start of the race.

At the starting line I chatted a bit with my super fast buddy Warren who claimed he was no runner and boom the race was off. Now, somewhere deep inside me is a skinny dude who used to run intercollegiate d3 cross country and track. I have sucessfully filled that little guy with a dozen years and 30 plus pounds of breakfast burritos, beer, chocolate and olive oil. But he is still in there. And when the gun goes off he likes to get the hole shot. So hole shot I did as I burst into the lead with a couple of actually skinny guys. Shortly thereafter one of the real runners took off at what appeared to be 5:30 mile pace never to be seen again. Another skinny guy took off after him and I settled into something like 6:30 pace into third. I felt good and somehow fast, despite not having run remotely fast in over a year. As the blissfully short 2.5k progressed I fell back a bit. Warren, the lying non runner, took off in search of the top guy. After some nonconsequential back and forth I ended up finishing the first run in 6th or so with fast guy way up front, Warren and other fast guy a minute up on four of us clustered around 17 minutes.

I had a decently crappy transition and got on the bike in 7th a fair bit behind the four guys I came in with. No worries I thought, I will crush them like bug on bike.

The bike course was tough and rolly. See amusing elevation profiles here. I started out feeling pretty slow and crappy, but ramped up my low cadence tri stomp as I saw riders up ahead. I immediately passed some dude who runs OK, but is riding a upright hybrid with flat bars. Whooosh, later dude.

Next I can see three ahead of me and I am closing well. As I get into the climb that leads to the turnaround I see fastrunner one riding hard the otherway with warren not too far behind closing on him. A short while later I decisively pass fast runner number two who is pedalling triangles, squares and possibly lines while riding all over the road near the turnaround. As I corner to make the turn I see the two dudes in front of me get in their aerobars and go to warp nine on the headwind downhill on the turnabout. Crap. There they went. I was going pretty hard, but I think I was not really having a good bike leg after the slow start, the fast uphill ride and then the demoralizing trouncing at the turnaround by the guys I thought I was about to catch. Lesson learned, find your damn aerobars next year and use them. At this point I lost focus a bit and rode hard but not out of my skull to the transition. I am in 5th.

After another cruddy transition, I get into the second run. As I suspect there is no one anywhere near behind me and I can not see anyone ahead of me. I run pretty well considering I have not done a bike-run transition in 2 years. I look way ahead and I see another guy running, but he is not really anywhere near me. During the last mile of the run we "lap" the tail end of the 10k runners from the later starting fat man. I loose sight of the guy up ahead, but being surrounded by slower runners allowed me to pic them off one by one which got me too the finish sans too much pain.


Crossing the finish while smirking at announcer choking on my name (the "I am not even going to try to pronounce this" ploy)
Click for more photos from race sponsor Pet Pangea's website

My final splits were as follows:
00:17:06 (6th) 00:27:05 (7th) 00:19:21 (7th) 01:03:33.37 for fifth overall, second inthe 35-40 age group behind warren. I can only hope my shitty transitions are reflected in my bike time. I won a really nice little blown glass paperweight from the Nambe Glass Studio, which ranks high in the noncash things I have won at races department.

I am a bit bummed that my bike was so slow, but otherwise I am veryhappy. Maybe next year I will break an hour with a bit more running training, some lace locks for the shoes and some aerobars it should be pretty easy... unless i get old.

I rode home which kind of sucked as the 800 foot climb with my bag post race hurt me. But I perservered and had a good bike (run bike run) bike day.

I always like seeing bikes in the transition areas at triathlons. They range from 10k super trigeek specials to crapped out rusting hybrids to full on mtbs to classic steel. While I was hanging around post race I noted a Cannondale Raven dual suspension knobbied MTB in the rack next to me and a really nice looking red yellow and blue paramont in the rack behind that. A woman did the race towing her kid on a converta trailer jog stroller which I blame completely on the Dick Hoyt effect. Triathlons are the realm of people that should not be trusted on bikes in any circumstances, let alone while going anaerobic trying to pass the lady towing her kid behind her.

I got outsprinted by Dick Hoyt (who probably started a wave behind me) pushing his son Rick in the Falmouth triathlon way back in 95 and have nothing but respect for the guy, but still, there is no reason people not named Dick Hoyt should be allowed to race while towing their kids. It will end badly.

Ok words words words, results here. Anyone still reading. Are these epic race reports boring you? I should maybe stop writing sooner.