New Rig

Designed for the long haul over mixed paved and dirt roads.  I think this one is going to be a keeper. Built by Chauncey Matthews in Belen, New Mexico.

And here it is loaded up in preparation for a tour of California’s Lost Coast starting a week from today:

 

Things that Suck

I finally killed it.

 

Housing Options for the Discerning Cyclist

They say Portland is a bike Mecca, but this is taking things to a new level. Check out this 1.5 million dollar custom home built around a storage area for 22 bikes.

 

Touring Calfornia’s Central Coast

In July 2011, my friend Esteban and I took seven days to travel between San Francisco and Santa Barbara by bike using a combination of highway 1 and some lesser known farm and side roads. Each day was a little different, taking us through rolling coastal hills, rugged seaside cliffs, strawberry and artichoke fields, redwood groves, and one splendid dirt road mountain pass over the Santa Ynez mountains on the last day. All in all, one of the most pleasant ways to spend seven days that I can think of, and none of it that far from home.

With the exception of one night in a roach motel at Pismo Beach, we decided to camp all the other nights. To keep our bikes light and sporty, however, we didn’t do camp cooking, but foraged at some terrific diners and dives along the way. I did not even attempt to do the tour fully paleo, though I may experiment with that on a future tour.

Taking a few cues from ultralight bikepacking, I was able to set my bike up with only 20 lbs of total bags and gear, including my tent. I could get a bit lighter than that, but not by much unless I wanted to go with a bivy sack and get pretty spartan.

For future tours, I may order a full custom frame bag, which would give me the option of bringing a few more layers for non-summer touring.

The trip started with a visit to Rivendell in Walnut Creek. Lots of cool bikes here and I would have loved to bring one home with me.

After some time in downtown SF and a visit to Box Dog Bikes, we were off on our way to our first camp site at Half Moon Bay:

We had a great camp site overlooking the ocean, but it was freezing (next time bring one thicker wool layer for “summer” camping in NorCal!)

We took plenty of time for stopping at various sites, and one detour into Big Basin to see some redwood groves.

The chocolate dipped strawberries served here must be the best touring fuel ever:

Unless you are a great white shark, in which case these guys are recommended:

The climb up to Big Sur was stunning visually, but became a bit tiresome due to Friday afternoon traffic and the absence of a shoulder to ride on.  For the next day, we rose early and tried to get as many miles on the seaside cliffs as possible before traffic picked up.

It was good to finally make it there after 78 miles:

And our campsite was spectacular:

I didn’t take quite as many pictures in the following days as I was getting into the rhythm of touring, and every view was so nice that I just about gave up trying to capture it.

Our brief stop in San Luis Obispo convinced me it is one of the coolest cities ever. Wish I had a job there.

For the final day we were joined by another friend, Jim Warren, for a terrific dirt road climb up Refugio road, over the Santa Ynez mountains, and on into Santa Barbara.

The steep bumpy descent on the other side was paved, probably so that Regan cold make it up to his former ranch:

All in all, we did about 400 miles. Not epic by the standards of experienced tourers, but with young kids and wives back home, seven days out was a pretty good stretch for both of us. I was happy to have been able to do all of it without too many knee and IT band problems, which had been one of my worries going in. Now the only question is where the next tour will be!

 

Sunflower

Just what you’ve all been waiting for: I finally figured out the perfect bar tape to complement my new Tournesol randonneuring bike. Yellow cloth tape with three coats clear shellac makes for the perfect shade of sunflower:

 

Riding From the Front Door

 

Sometimes You Just Gotta Know

Forked out the 20 bucks for a set of digital calipers. Between this and the gram scale, something tells me I might finally qualify as a bike geek.

 

Definitive Proof that Cycling and Paleo go together like Veggies and Pasture Butter

From Vibram’s forthcoming 2012 line.  I just need to bolt them on for testing.

 

More Bad News for Ultra-Distance Cyclists

Interesting article from today’s New York Times discussing a study recently published in The Journal of Applied Physiology. Bottom line: athletes who train the longest and hardest are more likely to have scare tissue build up on their heart.

Full article here.

Of course, most people aren’t likely to join the 100-marathon club or ride a dozen double centuries next year. The question of exactly how much endurance work is too much remains unanswered. Exercise is still a good thing, and the number risking disease by chronic excess is far exceeded by the marshmallow masses who court death by going to the opposite extreme.

Still, anyone who has even dabbled in ultra distance work knows that there is a difference between fitness and health.

(an endurance athlete in the prime of life)

My own view is that we’d do well to listen more carefully to our bodies when it comes to long-distance events, and experiment with different strategies for achieving enough fitness for occasional endurance work. I’ve outlined a couple of my own here, and there are many others out there experimenting with different ones we can also learn from.

Some folks out there in the Paleo community are going so far as to wear a heart rate monitor when cycling, fastidiously avoiding any kind of “chronic cardio,” and keeping their heart out of the aerobic zone to the extent possible. I don’t pretend that my own level of cycling is actually necessary to optimal health.  For that, I think the much more minimalist balance struck by people like Mark Sisson is probably about right.

But I also see no reason to think that my own level of cycling–which is far less than the athletes in studies like this–is actually damaging my health either. Over zealous heart rate monitoring and avoidance of even moderate cardio strikes me as a  bit much, and may lose the balance principle suggested by these sorts of studies.

I cycle hard, and occasionally long to get out into nature and experience joy and play. Maybe it’s because I’m not Catholic, but I think bike church can still be an amazing place even without the cult of regimented suffering.  Paleo diet and principles are a good thing to add to the mix, and help bring “balance to the force.”

(I just hope they don’t come out with a study showing that even weekend-warrior type cyclists like myself have scarred hearts! At that point, I may just say fuck it, and take up Olympic curling.)

 

Elegance

I’ve previously mocked the over-the-top, can’t get too much cowbell approach of some builders at this year’s North American Handmade Bicycle Show. One of the exceptions to that trend in this and previous years has been David Kirk.

Form follows function in all of Dave’s work, but function never looked so good. In the world of custom framebuilders, he has only peers.