L
Luigi de Guzman
Guest
Have been off the bike for too long.
I call my buddy Peter up last night. "You and your brother-in-law
still do your morning rides?"
"Yeah, thirty miles."
"Where do you start?"
He tells me the start point, about fifteen miles away from my house.
"I'll meet you there at seven thirty tomorrow. I'll be riding in."
My alarm goes off today at four o'clock. Wake up, wash my face, eat a
bowl of cereal. It's still dark outside. Get my stuff ready. Catch
flak from mom & dad--they dont' like the idea of my riding off before
dawn. Not safe.
It's five o'clock when I set out. Still dark. My lights are on. I
move slowly--around nine miles an hour, on average, in the dark.
Safety first: even with lights, it's hard to see road hazards in the
dark.
I make good time. Dawn breaks. The sun is now up, and I'm cranking
a steady fifteen miles an hour on a striaght stretch. Out of nowhere,
I say the antiphon for matins under my breath: "O Lord, open my lips/
And let my mouth proclaim Thy praise". I pray the rosary as I go,
tapping decades out on my fingers.
God in Heaven is a good friend, and like many good friends, He is not
beyond a joke. I finish a decade on a doxology: "Glory...." and
just as I finish, I roll to a stop sign. My toe catches on my front
fender, folds it under the wheel, and I go down. I start laughing.
I pull the offending fender off and go the remaining distance to the
meeting point--Peter's brother-in-law's house. Just as I'm around the
corner from the house, POW. A spoke breaks.
Now I know I'm a fat *******, but this is ridiculous. These are
thirty-six spoke wheels, recently trued. I examine the hub flange,
and see that the spoke hole has keyholed somewhat--I suspect this
deformation of the spoke hole has been sawing spokes off right at the
spokehead, causing the breakages. Time to haul that back to the
shop...I'm going to want a new wheel on warrantee (even though the
bike is now 2 years old), because the hub seems to have been defective
from the word go, and I've broken more than a few spokes at that same
place.
Peter's brother-in-law, luckily, had a Cannondale R500 which he
doesn't ride much, which fits me just fine, so he lends that to me.
It fits well enough that I don't have to adjust a thing. We mount up
and go.
There were a few adjustments that I had to make, mentally. First was
the brakes: My Jamis Aurora's cantilevers are very very powerful.
The Cannondale's brakes are dual-pivots sidepulls; strong enough, but
they felt different. I had to make a panic stop (misjudge a left turn
and nearly become a Ford Explorer hood ornament) and lock up the rear
wheel--it fishtails. Let me never ever do that again.
This was my first time on a modern, close-clearance road bike. I have
to say it was a blast--for twenty-five miles of their thirty-mile
loop, I was constantly itching to go out in front. Peter would attack
me, just as a joke, and I'd counterattack with surprising (to me)
combativeness. On one stretch, I cranked it and opened up two
minutes' gap on my companions. The bicycle demanded to be ridden hard
and fast--not like my Jamis, which reassures me and calms me to ride
at a steady pace. Maybe someday I'll have a real modern road-racer.
I'll have to think about it.
My absence from the bike really showed up in the last five miles
home--towards the end I was barely hanging on to Peter's wheel. The
legs that I had earlier that morning were gone. It was frustrating,
because I remember when i used to be able to ride faster, harder,
farther. I was consoled, somewhat by the fact that I had tacked on
sixteen extra miles (riding to the meeting point, instead of driving),
and was riding a borrowed bike.
So overall, I was pleased that I could still ride reasonably fast (for
a man of my weight & fitness). But annoyed at the broken spoke on my
own bike.
I call my buddy Peter up last night. "You and your brother-in-law
still do your morning rides?"
"Yeah, thirty miles."
"Where do you start?"
He tells me the start point, about fifteen miles away from my house.
"I'll meet you there at seven thirty tomorrow. I'll be riding in."
My alarm goes off today at four o'clock. Wake up, wash my face, eat a
bowl of cereal. It's still dark outside. Get my stuff ready. Catch
flak from mom & dad--they dont' like the idea of my riding off before
dawn. Not safe.
It's five o'clock when I set out. Still dark. My lights are on. I
move slowly--around nine miles an hour, on average, in the dark.
Safety first: even with lights, it's hard to see road hazards in the
dark.
I make good time. Dawn breaks. The sun is now up, and I'm cranking
a steady fifteen miles an hour on a striaght stretch. Out of nowhere,
I say the antiphon for matins under my breath: "O Lord, open my lips/
And let my mouth proclaim Thy praise". I pray the rosary as I go,
tapping decades out on my fingers.
God in Heaven is a good friend, and like many good friends, He is not
beyond a joke. I finish a decade on a doxology: "Glory...." and
just as I finish, I roll to a stop sign. My toe catches on my front
fender, folds it under the wheel, and I go down. I start laughing.
I pull the offending fender off and go the remaining distance to the
meeting point--Peter's brother-in-law's house. Just as I'm around the
corner from the house, POW. A spoke breaks.
Now I know I'm a fat *******, but this is ridiculous. These are
thirty-six spoke wheels, recently trued. I examine the hub flange,
and see that the spoke hole has keyholed somewhat--I suspect this
deformation of the spoke hole has been sawing spokes off right at the
spokehead, causing the breakages. Time to haul that back to the
shop...I'm going to want a new wheel on warrantee (even though the
bike is now 2 years old), because the hub seems to have been defective
from the word go, and I've broken more than a few spokes at that same
place.
Peter's brother-in-law, luckily, had a Cannondale R500 which he
doesn't ride much, which fits me just fine, so he lends that to me.
It fits well enough that I don't have to adjust a thing. We mount up
and go.
There were a few adjustments that I had to make, mentally. First was
the brakes: My Jamis Aurora's cantilevers are very very powerful.
The Cannondale's brakes are dual-pivots sidepulls; strong enough, but
they felt different. I had to make a panic stop (misjudge a left turn
and nearly become a Ford Explorer hood ornament) and lock up the rear
wheel--it fishtails. Let me never ever do that again.
This was my first time on a modern, close-clearance road bike. I have
to say it was a blast--for twenty-five miles of their thirty-mile
loop, I was constantly itching to go out in front. Peter would attack
me, just as a joke, and I'd counterattack with surprising (to me)
combativeness. On one stretch, I cranked it and opened up two
minutes' gap on my companions. The bicycle demanded to be ridden hard
and fast--not like my Jamis, which reassures me and calms me to ride
at a steady pace. Maybe someday I'll have a real modern road-racer.
I'll have to think about it.
My absence from the bike really showed up in the last five miles
home--towards the end I was barely hanging on to Peter's wheel. The
legs that I had earlier that morning were gone. It was frustrating,
because I remember when i used to be able to ride faster, harder,
farther. I was consoled, somewhat by the fact that I had tacked on
sixteen extra miles (riding to the meeting point, instead of driving),
and was riding a borrowed bike.
So overall, I was pleased that I could still ride reasonably fast (for
a man of my weight & fitness). But annoyed at the broken spoke on my
own bike.
