Night & Day...

Alberto's new Exposure lights had arrived on Thursday. He didn't feel like cooking, I didn't feel like doing the dishes, the new lights needed to be tried and I'd never say "No" to a ride... so we cruised down to Westend for some Mexican.

I could have kept riding the entire night, and then some more this morning but we stopped for coffee and then I had to hurry to my massage.

Piccolo Fondo tomorrow ... and then some more riding. I don't know what it is but right now I'm crazy for my bike and I get cranky when it rains... I haven't felt like this in a very long time.

It's all over - apparently

I googled Fixie Fashion last night. Alberto had to work and finally, after four days off work and most of the housework done, sweet boredom set in for a few seconds so I went searching for inspiration.

But oh shock and horror: Apparently it's all over already! Those of you who are regular readers of BSNYC will probably ask "What's new? It was over a long time ago!"

So can I relax now?

It may be over for the rest of the world, but this is Oz and I only just had my first unintentional scare-skid (and loved it)... and since the world had its laughs about fixie-riding hipsters, we can avoid any of the inexplicable Fixie Fashions and just go on and enjoy riding our Fixies from here on without having to worry about looking cool... Thank you, America (and England)!

Now I just need to find myself a piece of string and an abandoned factory building...


One gear No idea from chris akrigg on Vimeo.

...because - obviously - this stuff can't be learnt any other way.

Oh, and by the way, I had the orange rim idea before I came across this clip but I agree with bikesgonewild - on Alberto's bike, not mine! ;-)

Converts

Alberto bought a very stealth looking Singlespeed/Fixie last week. You are probably not surprised and only wonder what took him so long.

And with his natural sense of style and street cool fashion, he had the urban chic down pat immediately, while I have to work on my wardrobe and the uncool grin in my face.

Then John decided that yesterday was the day to breathe new Soul into his Urban by flipping the wheel to fixed and what can I say? The same thing happened to him that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I can't see him going back to Singlespeed anytime soon, if ever. Hooked, I say!

Yesterday afternoon Alberto and I played some more, just outside the house on the street (it's a quiet suburban street so don't start about the helmet!)

And after checking out Alberto's new bike I was back on my own practising track stand and felt like a kid again, hanging out with my best buddy. Who will move first? Who will step the foot down?

While I think Alberto's bike would look good with Deep V rims in white, orange rims for the Peacemaker would look kinda cool.

We are just in from another ride. White-rimmed Singlespeeds everywhere. Maybe it's true what they say that when you buy a certain model car, you all of the sudden see this model car driving around everywhere even though you took no notice of it before. It's because your brain pays attention, powerful stuff ... but those five singlespeeds within twenty minutes of hitting the bike path... I'm sure it's really a new phenomenon and not just my brain being tuned in. It's really taking off.

Anyway: I duck deep into my wardrobe today and came up with this for the Fixie ride. Dee? What ya think?

The weight difference

Fog dipped the Brisbane River into a soft early light. It was a beautiful Friday morning on the bike. San Francisco usually hides it's prettiness in thick fog; Brisbane is less shy and does it rarely, which makes it more special.

Kurilpa Bridge and Brisbane city in the mist

The fog also reminded me of Melbourne, just the air was less frosty. After the excitement of race day and a deep restful sleep I had rolled Alberto's 28T geared Baw Baw Beast (Zipp wheels and tubulars and all) down the hotel hallway into the elevator and through an empty lobby, past a sleepy concierge, and had joined legions of city cyclists on their Monday morning commute down St Kilda Road. I was rugged up to the teeth (beanie, under shirt, knee and arm warmers, gillet etc) and it's merely autumn. I love Melbourne but I don't know how the guys and girls down there cope with riding in winter.

Bike path in St Kilda, Melbourne skyline in the distance

So with all the riding and Yoga lately, I finally managed to loose the three kilos that I happily carried around with me since our Phuket holiday last year and I feel good about myself; except if there wasn't this tiny little problem with relativity. Alberto has been putting me under a bit of pressure lately. 

I don't know how you feel about this (and by you I mean you girls who live with a cyclist) but I hate to be as heavy as my man (or my man to be as light as me - whichever way you want to see it). Like Milan Kundera's said in "The unbearable lightness of being" that it is an essential need of a woman to feel the weight of a man...

You know there is this ideal age difference between a man and a woman, which a vast majority of people seem to agree to be five years.

Is there an ideal weight difference, too?

Alberto was a good 20 kg heavier than me when we met. He lost a few kilos when he started cycling, then a few more when he discovered climbing. We both gained and lost weight within the five kilo range over the past few years but a minimum ten kilo gap remained between us. Now with all this weight weenie business leading up to the Mt Baw Baw race, he ate into my ten kilo buffer (pun intended) and I don't like it. It makes me feel fat and compelled to loose weight, too, to keep things in balance.

Do you feel the same? And if so what is your ideal weight difference?

Mt Baw Baw

Our friend Mick once said after racing the Mt Baw Baw Classic a few years ago that it takes three months out of a racer’s life expectancy. It was the first time I had heard about this annual event on the Victorian race calendar.

Debs also raced it and called it the wrath of Baw Baw that makes grown men cry. Talk like that made Alberto want to race this race, badly!

It’s now more than 24 hours since he rolled over the finishing line in fourth place, drawn cheeks, glassy black-ringed eyes and all shivers, and he still hasn’t said anything about the race, yet. But I’m sure, in time, he, too, will coin some phrase that will be repeated amongst cyclists in Brisbane coffee shops.

Having seen the course and witnessed the struggle from the warmth and comfort of the support car, I certainly have come up with my sentences that summarise the experience for me: Glad to be in a car! and Oh man, I’m going to pee my pants!

Over the past two weeks meal times were not much fun. Alberto refused his usual seconds of my lovingly cooked meal, or only requested light salads for dinner. Anyone with the will power to not even touch the much beloved mayonnaise is serious about the quest for lightness, which I now understand.

A triumphal announcement from the bathroom that race weight had been reached, an uneventful flight to Melbourne, a pleasant rental car and hotel and delicious pasta in Lygon St on Saturday night, the stage was set for an exciting weekend of racing.

But race morning came and Alberto woke up to sneezes. He sounded all blocked up and sniffy and when he asked me to drive the 100km to Warragul, the start of the race, I knew I needed to get him on his bike as soon as possible.

A bit worried I took the short cut to the feed area about 50 km into the race. As I stood there, shivering in the icy drizzle despite beanie and warm winter jumper, I heard more Baw Baw stories from other anxious support crews. "If you are cold now, wait till you are at the top" the nice Italian lady warned me empathetical. Perfect conditions, a friendly young guy told me, because half of the field had apparently abandoned the race at this point in Neerim the previous year. It was his wife’s second attempt after she had climbed in the support car at the bottom of the last climb, the final six kilometres to the Mt Baw Baw resort. Rain and sleet coming down horizontally had made it impossible for anyone dropped and out on their own to make the cut off times.

Lucky, I thought, that 10C and intermittent drizzle was perfect conditions.

Not long and the Masters 4/5 lead car approached, a bunch of thirty riders close behind.

Excited I jumped in the car immediately after passing Alberto’s water bottle, happy to see him in the bunch. A few minutes later I found myself driving second car behind the bunch. Prime position for any winning team, I felt like a true directeur sportive. 47 km to the finish and we were moving along at 30 km an hour. My own water bottle, stuck to the middle console, was almost empty.

The next incline saw a few guys drop off the back. I spotted Alberto up in about tenth place, hidden mostly, racing smart, looking comfortable. Another climb, this time longer and a bit steeper, maybe four kilometres long, more guys getting shed and by the time the road crested, the bunch had wiggled down to nine riders, Alberto comfortably among them.

The discomfort seemed only at my part. The water! I shouldn’t have drunk the entire bottle.

A fast and furious descent! Alberto off the back suddenly. How did that happen? Go, go, go! I yelled into the loneliness of the car. And he went, closing up to the other two guys off the back, passed them, pushed on, connected back to the back of the other seven, passed even a couple of them … I was on the edge of my car seat. And not just because of the excitement... I needed a toilet.

Why hadn't I gone to the loo at the feed? Too late now, there was no way I was going to give up my prime spot in a long line of support cars. Not for a pee. Not right now.

More climbing and more descending through incredibly beautiful fern forest, the pretty winding road was dotted with struggling riders from other grades. Less than 30 km to go but the nine remaining riders were climbing now at a rate of maybe 15km/h. More dropped riders, a whole bunch of them; it turned out to be the Elite Men C bunch, or what was left of them. They had started ten minutes before Alberto’s race, and with them another lead car and support car.

No, no, no, don’t stop me right now…

The commissaire picked up something from the road and jumped back in his car and pulled out onto the road in front of me. When we got going again, Alberto and his companions had climbed way ahead, out of sight. Stuck behind the wrong bunch, I could hardly concentrate. I was going to pee my pants anytime now. Should I stop and find some bushes by the roadside?

Yes, finally, hand appeared out of the car window ahead of me, waiving me pass. About time, and I  started to chase Alberto.

The road looked steep but I knew the steepest part was yet to come. Six kilometres to go. I yo-yo-ed back and forth, and when we hit the clouds, everything slowed down another notch.

The thick fog wrapping everything into grey cotton, ghost riders appearing out of the mist, tired faces passing in slow motion, hands frozen and shivering, not able to hold the camera still... it all appeared strangely surreal.

Only when Alberto and I sat in the warmth of the resort with a cup of hot chocolate, reality set in again. What a marvellous race, what a result!

Does it feel like training?

Sunrise at Mt Coot-tha this morning

Once there was a girl with a road bike. She wished nothing more in life but to become a light and powerful climber. A fairy named Coach appeared and said: Girl, if you do as I tell you and go and do three repeats on Mt Coot-tha twice a week and you will be diligent and consistent in this duty, I promise I will turn you into the fast and graceful climber that you wish to be.

And the girl went and climbed Mt Coot-tha three times on Tuesdays and Thursdays and slowly, over time, indeed became a somewhat better climber.

Now, we all know that the improvement hadn't been fairy magic but a physiological adaptation to exercise, in short: Training!

Eeeeewwww, I said it, the terrible "T" word.

Tuesday night I spent an hour on the rollers after work, just like I had done in the past three weeks. Not just easy pedalling either. I had added some structured intervals just to take the edge off boredom. While three weeks ago I felt nauseous after the first five minutes of tempo (because my body didn't remember how intensity felt like) week after week I was able to add time and watts until, this week, I spent an entire 20 minutes at the "sweet spot" just between Tempo and Functional Threshold.

Monday and Wednesday were Yoga nights and gym sessions will be replaced by Pilates from next week onwards, to try something new.

This morning I found myself climbing Mt Coot-tha again, like in these olden fairytale days but I didn't chase climbing prowess. I simply enjoyed the morning, the sunrise and riding up the hill with fifty or so other cyclists (who were all told by their fairies I believe).

And tomorrow morning I can't wait to again join one of my favourite bunches for a Riverloop.

There were plenty of long weekend rides in the past few weeks, too, not to mention the urban fixed gear adventures and without really noticing it, I raked up between 150-200 weekly kilometers consistently since I returned from California.

So does it feel like training? Strangely enough it doesn't! I mean, let's be honest here: if it looks, tastes and smells like training, it probably is training but in all honesty I'm just having a hellofaloto'fun just riding my bike.

And needless to say: I'm feeling great doing so! Whether it's the change of season with cool crispness and a hint of winter in the air, or the chiropractor visits, the massages that I'm having regularly again or the lemonade... oh, I haven't mentioned the lemonade, yet, have I? Now that's a whole other story, which I will tell you another time. For today I have to go to bed because ... yeah right, you guessed it... I wanna ride my bike in the morning!

I love all my bikes the same

Fifty-one kilometers and not one meter coasted, easily done on a Fixie.

Finally the perfect bike for a gentle Riverloop on a Saturday morning, I still have to adjust my wardrobe though. Lycra doesn't go well with the bike but it's so convenient while it's still hot.

To my surprise Alberto waited at our meeting spot when John and I rolled up to collect Suz. He had left the house much earlier with another friend and I hadn't expected to see him until lunch time. Nice surprise!

The four of us set off and the first thing Suz asked me was if I now only ride my Fixie Inc.

My mountainbike lives a bit of a stepchild existence in the garage while roadie and fixie stay in the house and get equal attention.

Little pangs of guilt while maneuvering through the roundabout, third exit! Not that the mountainbike will ever come inside, it's too dirty for that, but I really wanna make an effort and take it out soon again.

While lost in thoughts about what bike I like best, the Fixie started picking up speed. The fast dive down towards the railway crossing with a sharp right-hander that I love ... on my roadie ... but now it was freaking me out how the bike got faster and faster and with it my cadence and once I started bouncing in the saddle, the legs started squaring off and resisted the high pedal motion. I didn't dare to brake too hard or too quickly. Suz and John already disappeared around the corner behind the tracks, and I could feel Alberto's worried look in my back. But I managed to get control back over my legs and feet and the longer I rode the faster the downhill sections became. I'll have to take my spin-ups a lot more seriously from now.

After coffee I offered Alberto to swap bikes for the trip home but I was secretly glad when he declined because I just loved the outing so much. What a ride!

To be completely honest, I still ride the road bike most often. It takes me much farther and to places the Fixie can't go, Clear Mountain and beyond for example. That's where I headed Sunday morning, by myself and with the Fondo in mind. Sixty-three kilometers, mostly hilly and I could have just lost myself forever.

Clear Mountain Road

With two very steep sections of about half a kilometer length, the view is well deserved. Brisbane in the distance.

And the Glasshouse Mountains way in the distance in the other direction.

Lots of water under the old wooden bridge on Bunya Road where there is usually just a trickle.

Roads how I like them!