Rushin' dressing

Things were kind of busy last week. Nothing too weird, but I had to coordinate some variables outside of the usual rut. It ramped up through Saturday, which has been the last day of my work week lately.

For the park and ride commute, I wear Diadora touring shoes with a smooth rubber outsole that goes easily into a pedal with a toe clip. I bought them years ago. I forget how many. Because I can walk and drive in them, I can put them on at home and have one less thing to worry about when I get to the parking spot.

When I'm in a hurry, I sometimes tie my shoes too tight or unevenly. I hate that.

On Saturday, I left the house in some haste and disarray. I got to the parking spot, made final adjustments to the load on the bike, and launched down the dirt road. It's basically a continuous descent for more than a mile, with some entertaining roughness and a bend or two.

I noticed that my right foot felt funny in the pedal. Like all walkable bike shoes since the late 1990s, these can be converted to use with SPD cleats, by cutting out a defined patch on the sole. A previous pair of wonderful shoes from Specialized became much less wonderful after the SPD patch on one of them spontaneously detached. I really hoped the Diadoras hadn't just gone the same way.

I had to check. Something was definitely sticking down off the right shoe.

It was the cleat. I had put on my right road shoe and my left touring shoe. I had bought them at the same time and they have nearly identical uppers. I had grabbed the  mismatched pair out of the milk crate where I keep my riding shoes, and hadn't noticed.

I don't know how I managed to load the car, drive several miles, get the bike out of the car, make final preparations, and take off without realizing something was up. That's the power of a full and jumbled mind.

The worst part was having to ride out in the same mismatched footwear that night. The cleat doesn't fit that pedal very well. At least I did have a pair of beater sneakers in the car so I didn't have to drive with the cleat on.

Mildly amusing, no?

Dogs in the morning, bears in the afternoon

On the way to work this morning, on a dirt road in North Wolfeboro, I had to get past these dogs. I almost always hear barking when I ride by this particular little farm. Occasionally, I have been chased. Today, two dogs I had never seen here before were already out in the road, long before I got there.

I talked to them until I got a clear shot at the downhill to escape.

I didn't remember turning the camera on. I was surprised to see that I had. I noticed it when I got down to College Road.

After a pretty placid day, we knocked off at 4. Back out in North Wolfeboro, nearing the top of Bryant Road, I spotted bear cubs trotting out into the road. I stopped to let them go on through, figuring the mother was somewhere nearby. That's assuming some intrepid gunner didn't blast her over a pile of old doughnuts last month, or chase her down with baying hounds after baiting season ended.

This time of year, one hears the truckloads of howling bear dogs passing on the road, usually very early in the morning. Being intrusive seems like it might be part of the appeal for bear hunters. It does help me get the cats back indoors so I can have them safely contained before I leave for work.

Nothing new about driving

As we roll into the part of the year where I have to do more driving, I see all the usual things.

A trip that takes less time feels more tedious.

Driving may be faster, but it isn't instantaneous.

Being in the lane with other motor vehicles is way more stressful than being able to let them go by or thread their tangles on a small two-wheeler. When you're driving, you might go for miles on a bendy two-lane road with some impatient jackass six inches behind you because you're speeding, but not speeding enough. You may impede the progress of some superhero who can see in the dark, or through fog, and wonders why you can't.

You might be on a straight road and still end up tightly followed by some lonely person who wants to be close to you.

Then there's the other side of the relationship: the driver in front of you who does 45 miles per hour for the whole stretch in which 60-plus would be totally fine. This is usually the same driver who continues at 45 once you get into town and the speed limit drops to 30. It's not a good idea, so you can't say it averages out unless you have terrible judgment.

The best driving in driving season is during a big snowstorm. Little snowstorms are dangerous. Big snowstorms are just a pile of fun, especially if the snowbanks have lined the road with frozen guardrails. I don't mean one should let it rip with no sense of responsibility or personal safety. But big storms finally reduce motorist numbers, provide an entertainingly slithery surface and attractive visual effects. It's really peaceful, wallowing along by yourself.

I'm not impatient for snow. It comes when it comes. Sometimes it doesn't come at all. Other times we get more than we need, and at totally inconvenient times, too. Last winter, for instance, our customer base was too buried to leave home, and each major earning period was either wiped out by warm weather (Christmas Week) or buried by a blizzard (every other holiday period).

The car creates a false sense of security along with very real creature comfort that can be downright tranquilizing. I'm glad I don't drive too many places. There are compensations to relative poverty. One of them is fuel rationing. If I don't have to go somewhere, for work or a utilitarian errand, I don't go.

After a couple of months I'll be a pretty typical Type A asshole behind the wheel. I control it, but I can't deny it. That's always been a big reason I keep going by bicycle. I can let out pent-up emotions to the limits placed by my physical condition. When I can get out to flail around the ski trails, that serves the same function. I've even observed that I act like the worst kind of Boston driver sometimes out there on the trails. Pass left, pass right, follow too closely until I get to pass... total jerk.

Knowledge is power. Once the realization dawns I know I have a responsibility to control myself. The metaphor of driving helps there. Be cool, be cool. You gain nothing worth having by acting like a jerk.

The bridge periods are the hardest. I treat the need to flail with bad fiddling and whatever scraps of my old conditioning program I can force myself to perform.

An update on my crotch

A leather saddle is a long-term relationship. Most people seem concerned about the initial break-in period, but my experience with the Brooks Colt on my Cross Check started deceptively comfortably. I did not have discomfort until early this season.

Sometimes, patience pays off. I rubbed in some extra Proofide in the trouble area and kept riding. The saddle seems to be altering further to reduce the pressure down the center, which has given bike seats in general a very bad reputation among riders and non-riders alike. The narrow saddle is one of the first things a new bike purchaser wants to change without even getting on it.

I picked up a B-17 Narrow in case the Colt did not improve. Now I'm not sure what to do. Put the B-17 on the Cross Check and move the Colt to my road bike? Hold it in reserve for a bike yet to be named? The B-17 has a flatter top profile than the Colt. The Colt was more like the Turbo I was replacing. The difference is the all-leather construction of the Colt versus the plastic shell with dense foam and thin leather cover of the Turbo. A modern saddle wears out. A leather saddle wears in.

I hope things continue to go well. The Brooks saddle wasn't cheap, and it isn't going to wear out anytime soon. I'm prepared to work at this marriage.

Details

The Bike That Never Was rides again.  Handlebar tape was the last detail.

Wind the spiral inward so when you reach the brake lever your figure 8 wrap will give you a straight piece up the outside.

The V on the inside is usually shallow enough to be covered by the brake hood. You never need those short pieces wrapped around the back of the lever clamp. Just always remember to spiral the correct way on each side.

The bike has interrupter levers, so I finished with the housing emerging a couple of turns before the end of the tape. 

Yellow tape shows this nicely.

The owner arrived to get the seat put on and do a basic fitting. I forgot to get a picture of the finished bike. Despite its age and some incipient rust issues, the frame is basically pretty sporty. The parts make a good basis for another bike should this frame fail. Primitive stuff lives on and on.

The life of my tire for the life of a snake

South Effingham has some beautiful, rugged terrain. I used to ride it on my mountain bike, but I got out of the habit. Every time some business takes me through there in my car I make a note to go back on a bike.

The last glacial period left its indelible mark on the terrain. The route I planned starts on the valley floor, undulating glacial till covered by mixed pine and hardwood forest, and wetlands. It then climbs through wild ravines covered with dark conifers.

I looked forward to taking the trusty Cross Check on a little more dirt than usual.

These 700X32 Panaracer T-Serv tires have handled a lot of unpaved surfaces. I tried running some 38s early on, but they felt really bulky.

My phone is earnest, but not smart. The signal can be pretty sketchy in the boonies as well. So I carry a paper map to refresh my memory at intersections that often turn out to be unmarked.

After a couple of miles on pavement I got onto Wilkinson Swamp Road. Nice afternoon. Dry, cool air. Sunshine.

They call these glacial erratics, but I've always found them to be steady as a rock.

Things usually get a little rougher when you pass a sign that says this

Things apparently got rough here at some point in a different way. Larger caliber bullets than usual were used on this mailbox.

Beyond the bullet-riddled mailbox the road descends a series of gentle grades, eventually reaching Wilkinson Brook. Wilkinson Brook follows an almost circular route from its origin on the slopes of the Green Mountain massif down to its confluence with the Pine River. The wetland around most of its length was described as "primordial" by the wetland scientist who traversed it as part of a research project several years ago. The road is rustic, but hardly primordial.

Coming down the last little grade before the brook, I heard the sharp hiss of a large and drastic sliced tire. I pulled off at what turned out to be the scene of someone's luau.

All that remains are discarded Tiki torches. They did not help me fashion a backwoods work stand. None of the trees had projecting branches at a good working height, either.

I had known by the sound that the news would not be good. The tire had a slice up the sidewall as fine as a knife cut. I wondered what I could have hit. This would need a reinforcing boot to keep the tube from bulging through the slash. I knew I had brought my wallet for some better reason than mere identification.

There's something bitterly appropriate about stuffing actual money into a nearly-new tire you know has been ruined.

My plans to spend a couple of hours riding the less-traveled roads bled into the sand as I fit the tire, laboriously inflated it, saw that I needed to re-position the the folded dollar bill inside it, deflated it, worked one bead off, corrected the problem with the boot and laboriously re-inflated the tire. Even if I could have gotten it to full pressure before nightfall, the deformation of the casing showed that this would not be a good idea. The idea of riding even farther from home and having another flat seemed like an even worse idea.

Feeling silly and defeated, I trudged up the little grade where the puncture had occurred, hoping to see a jagged fragment of broken bottle, or twisted sheet metal. Instead, all I found were some pieces of blue stone with sharp edges that still did not seem capable of the blade-thin slice in the tire.

In all the times I've banzaied down a gravel road, using exactly the same type of tires, I have never had tire damage like this. But maybe Effingham bought singularly vicious gravel. Stone age people fashioned cutting blades from rocks of the right composition. Seems like a stupid choice for a road surface, even for car tires. Must have been a good price.

I needed to get home so I could fix the tire properly. I hopped on the bike and pedaled slowly, savoring the forest. I had reached the section where houses and cabins appear again, when I spotted a garter snake stretched out straight in the dirt and gravel. It was so sluggish when I poked it the first couple of times, I thought I might be too late. I almost always am. But it came abruptly to life when I picked it up.

It was hard to photograph, because it wiggled so adamantly. I warmed it in my hands for a couple of minutes before carrying it to a sunny rock away from the road, in the yard of an unoccupied camp.

The rare Northeastern Pretzel Snake

If I had not turned back because of my tire, I would not have happened upon that snake. Since I usually arrive too late to save any of the small creatures whose bodies I see along the road, I felt slightly compensated for my loss and inconvenience. I'm still pissed about the waste of a good tire, but it's not the first time and probably not the last. And the stupid snake might crawl back onto the road today, or tomorrow, or next week. I'm not going to argue with the momentary happiness of saving a creature who probably found the whole encounter very disturbing and feels no gratitude. For some reason I like animals.

Hands black with tire grime and smelling of snake urine, I wended my way back out to the paved road, and onward to home base. After washing up and having a bit of food, I pulled out a new new tire I had not expected to need until some time next year. I always try to have one around.

The damaged tire had a version of the classic Titanic Puncture. The true Titanic Puncture is a sidewall gash you get in a brand new tire on its first ride. This tire wasn't on its maiden voyage, but it hadn't been on the bike for more than a few weeks at most.

First step: asset recovery

The gash crossed enough sidewall cords to ruin the casing. The slice is three times as long as the part that actually cut all the way through. It cut through the tread almost to the crown of the tire. I don't want to be ripping down some steep descent or drafting a truck on that. I see trucks I want to draft a lot less often than I used to, but what if? I tested it with more air pressure after I got home and saw the slice spread wider, showing the folded bill. The tube would stay in, but the tire itself can't be counted on to be stable when I need it the most.

The Titanic Punctures I've gotten in the past were all on the road and came from pieces of metal I was able to find, even though I had not spotted them soon enough to avoid them. The somewhat mysterious origin of this one makes it more disturbing. I've ridden that bike through that road a number of times.

If it had just been a snakebite I would not have had to turn back. So I'd get the bite and the snake would die.

Life is weird.

Another "Valley of Death" rim

This is a Bontrager AT550 hybrid rim, 622X20 mm. It has the troublesome Valley of Death, where inner tubes meet a premature end. The skinny rubber rim strip can slip aside, uncovering a tiny fang on a spoke nipple. The inflated tube distends down into that deep channel, stretching unevenly. Sometimes tubes fail just from that. In other cases, the thinned part in the channel is more vulnerable to chafe.

Throw in the life line!

Ordinary clothesline fills the ditch. You have to allow for the valve hole.

Then top it with rim tape.

This cumbersome process brought to you by The Bike Industry and the fine re-labelers at Trek.