2010 ASSOS Catalog[ue]

This weekend dropped a whole lot of snow on the entire eastern seaboard. Also it dropped the terrible wrath of H1N1 on me from about Wednesday through Sunday. I've been mostly locked in my room, but my understanding is that it's been pretty cold, single-digit temperatures.

On Thursday, while the doom of swine-wrath was still building, I received a phone call, from the guy who lives where I used to live, in Kittery. He said "there's a package for you here; I don't know what it is." It being late December, I figured it might be something worth risking personal health for. So I head out in the Hoth-like temperatures, and across the memorial bridge to Maine. I might add that the wind on the bridge was terrible with gusts around twenty miles an hour, and the wind chill index was well below zero. Anyway I made it, and got the package. It was flat and postmarked from Switzerland. I had forgotten that I had ordered their catalog a year and a half ago, and am once-annual mailing list.

Ah, the 2010 ASSOS catalog. The cover of it has a picture of three guys drafting about five centimeters off the back of the official Assos Mercedes-Benz SaG-wagon. Attached was a cover letter. From the cover letter:

Dear Assos Fan,

The new Assos catalogue is here. Creating unique and extraordinary catalogues has always been a little passion of the Assos Centro Studio. No more two seasonal catalogues, instead, one yearly "ASSOS BIBLE" featuring every Assos Product and a large part of the Assos experience for you to be part of.

Wow, fancy. Throughout the catalog[ue] were the various product lines, geared for the exact temperature range. Assos spends a great deal of money on marketing to indicate that there is high-tech, high-precision science behind every single article of clothing. For example, there are no fewer than eight "climate range" lines:

Unfortunately the coldest one was only ready to handle 21°F, which is a high that I don't think the temperature will be reaching any time before April. These guys are from Switzerland, I guess I thought they would have bike clothes in which you could ride up the Matterhorn. But let's face it, no one here can afford this stuff anyway. Not that I know how much it costs; the prices aren't listed. This isn't the Sears catalog after all--you can't order direct. It's like when you go to a real fancy restaurant that doesn't have prices in the menu. If you have to ask how much, then you can't afford it.

The famed ASSOS girl, the ASSOS Cycling spokesbabe is of course another highlight of the catalog. Here, she peeks out from between the pages. But don't be intimidated, gentlemen--she doesn't actually know how to ride a bicycle. In fact, my sauces tell me that she lives in a castle in Monaco and gets her jollies smashing fabergé eggs. The sauces never lie. No, but seriously: I noticed a lot of search engine traffic last time I mentioned Assos, trying to find out what the model's deal was. I dug around but couldn't find anything. She's a model, not an athlete. Check out that sauce link (might need to log in to facebook), has some non-Assos pictures of her. Meh.

Anyway, the catalog's full-color, full-gloss, heavy paperweight, 150+ pages of great marketing design. They call it the Assos Bible, and that's what it is. Maybe one day I'll own some Assos products, right before I get an $8,000 wheelset, and right after I get a doctorate in dentistry.

Touring Equipment: Arkel T-42 Panniers

Okay. I got the bike, I got the best bike rack. The next logical step for a bicycle touring setup is the bags, which are called panniers when they are on a bicycle, for whatever reason. My approach to buying cycling equipment is to do research on my own, online, then go to the local bike shop to buy. This is as opposed to the obnoxious habit that some people have, which is to spend the bike shop sales guys' time with questions, then buy equipment online. With that in mind, I scoured the internet for best option for panniers, and everything came back to the same Canadian manufacturer, Arkel. It happened that Bicycle Bob's was one of their vendors, so I went there to order them.

They had quite a few options, but I ended up going with the T-42's. The Arkel T-42 is so-called because the pair has a total capacity of 42 liters, or 42 litres for my Commonwealth readers. That's not to say that you can put five gallons of water in each bag. Also, some nerds might point out that 42 liters of water would weigh about 84 pounds, which is more than the 60-pound capacity old man mountain bicycle rack which they will attached to. The T-42's are billed as being for "weekend touring", while my trip is for an entire month. The next larger pannier, though, had a thing to carry a tent, and a detachable fanny pack. I'm not camping, and if you're thinking I'll get caught dead wearing a fanny pack, you are gravely mistaken.

Here's what the pair of panniers looks like empty and off the bike. The Arkel site shows them individually, over-stuffed, and off the bicycle. As you can see from the picture here, these saddle bags have reflectors on the side and rear. That isn't photoshopped or anything, that's just from the camera's flash! They also have a few cool features that make them great. Without getting too much in to the website's copy which you can read for yourself, they have good features like ease-of-access zippers and really sturdy tear-proof fabric.

A couple people have asked me about front panniers. No thank you. I am entirely uninterested in having weird awkward weight on my front wheel. So far I've used my bags for groceries a few times, and having like 30 pounds sitting underneath my center of balance is weird enough. I can't imagine having to swing more weight around every time I wanted to make a turn. Forty-two liters of capacity will be more than enough to carry the few things I'll be bringing.

Home Workouts

I don't have any of the weight equipment in this video readily available, but here are some great workouts for folks like my brother, who has two of his own.

Best of Craigslist: Portsmouth

Every once in a while I'll peruse nh.craislist.com/bik and make a post about what's there. Yes, as a matter of fact I did pilfer the idea from BSNYC's Worst of Craiglist, however since New York City is almost twice the size of Portsmouth, there aren't enough posts for me to make a weekly theme out of it.

However, I did across this:

Super Christmas gift! Shiny Low Rider. Velvet seat, side mirror, front light and wheely bars. Well taken care of just out grew. $150 or B.O. local delivery if needed. Call Jake or Chris or email me with questions.

http://nh.craigslist.org/bik/913139800.html

I'm skeptical about the "wheelie bar" -- I can't imagine how it would be possible using physics to make this beast do a wheelie. Also banana seats freak me out. But I would like to see this being ridden around by someone. That would make me smile.

Honka Hoota!

It's a bit of a gambit, having a bell or horn on your bike. It's not PRO. It's not PRO at all. And we all want to be PRO. Yelling is PRO. "Ching-ching!" . . . not so much.

This summer I decided to shun conventional wisdom and purchase a Honka-Hoota. I think it's hilarious to honk at the most inopportune times. Or pretty much all the time. There is never not a good time to honk. I don't know what it is--they are just fun.

I never looked at their site though--who knew there was such a rich cultural history to the honka hoota?

The Honka Hoota was originally designed by an out of work chinese chicken sexer, Mr. Pedro Honka Da-Hoota.

He migrated to Australia and started selling contraband to the Gold miners.

He required a loud audible warning device to alert the miners working underground of his arrival.

I am not making this up, it's on their Honka Hoota history page.

Blood Drive

Cyclists are the one of the most blood-obsessed demographics--just behind hematologists and vampires. For years, cyclists have known that maximizing your blood's ability to deliver oxygen to the muscles was important. Sprinter Della Casa tries to get his hematocrit over 50% (whatever that means) simply for his own amusement. Personally I think that it's easy to get blinded looking at numbers and statistics instead of actual race results--call it junk mileage for your whole body--but that's neither here nor there. I myself am not bothered by the sight of blood at all, in fact I find a nice bleeder exciting. Maybe it is because when I was a kid, a massive bleeding head wound was one of the best (most effective) ways to get attention.

As cyclists, we have high-performance blood. We've been loading it up, maybe boosting our iron, who knows. Iron it always in the back of my mind. But the essential thing is that there's a trade-off to high-performance blood. Blood dopers who use EPO and similar blood-thickening products will have a huge performance improvement while on the bike, but athletes in the top echelons of the peleton have very low resting heart rates, and thick blood can be fatal.

Even for non-dopers, higher-performance blood has its drawbacks. Blood uses iron to bind the oxygen that it moves from the lungs to the muscles, but when your blood cells eventually break down, they leave the free iron in your blood stream, where viruses and bacteria are free to use it for their own nefarious purposes, or it just oxidizes your body cells as free radicals. You can green a gallon of anti-oxidant green tea a day, but the quickest way to reduce excess iron is to reduce excess blood.

Another thing is that here in the low-lands of the New Hampshire seacoast area, it's like impossible to find any decent hills or altitude. Professional athletes head to the Alps, or maybe even the Andes to train in the rarified air. Major travel isn't a luxury that is available to me so I have to find another way of gimping my oxygen supply while training in the off-season.

In order to emulate high-altitude training, I tried putting a bag over my head but I could only do one interval before I passed out. Relax; I'm joking. To get that coveted high-altitude training feel and also to clear out some of the free radicals from summer's iron-boosting, I decided to donate blood. You can file this as another seemingly altruistic act that is mostly based in personal interest, but whatever. People need blood, and I need to get rid of blood, so it works out. If you're in the area and can spare an hour of time and a pint of blood today, here's your key information:

Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Portsmouth
Redhook Brewery
35 Corporate Place
9:30A- 2:30P
Tuesday, December 16, 2008

If you're interested in donating blood another time, check out www.givelife.org--they have a thing where you can look up blood drive times.

Cyclists That Annoy Me: Sidewalk Riders

With the high price of gasoline, and finally multiple consecutive days of nice weather, people are riding their bikes as much as possible, before it gets too cold. This is good--I like seeing people on bikes. The more people on bikes there are, the more drivers and everyone else are aware, which is safer for everyone. Mostly.

Every rider is like a critical mass of one, and they can either be conscientious and set a good example, or they can be a total ass-hat, being a danger to themselves and others on the road.

For Example:

I work as a doorman at the Red Door. My job mostly entails just standing outside the door on State Street, which is one of the last roads in downtown Portsmouth on the list to get redone with the nice wide brick sidewalks and such. That is to say, it has a narrow sidewalk--more than three people couldn't walk abreast.

To paint the scene, I'm standing there, outside the door, and I glance over to my right, up the street, with a sense of puzzlement bordering on alarm at the sound I hear coming towards me. Suddenly I see this dude come charging at me on his mountain bike. I'd estimate that he was going about 17 miles an hour. I was leaning against the wall, so I wasn't directly in his path. He blew right by me. I didn't have the presence of mind to body-check him off the bike, but man, that really pissed me off.

There's a bountifully wide two-lane one-way street with a nice, low speed limit of 20 less than ten feet away, and this jerk feels like it's a good idea to go bombing down the narrow sidewalk. A narrow sidewalk with a dozen businesses and people entering and leaving. Then there was the intersection about 30 feet to my left--a driver isn't going to expect anything to come off the sidewalk at that speed. An accident is almost assured. Not riding the sidewalk in a situation like this shouldn't even be common sense. It should be natural instinct.

Aside from riding on the sidewalk like that being dangerous, it just looks stupid. you're not seven years old any more; why don't you ride in the street like a grown-up? Because, seriously, you look like a doofus. It's cyclists like these annoy the heck out of me. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you want the rights, you need to accept the responsibilities of being a cyclist. There's no license, no written test, no three-week educational course--the only requirement for riding a bike is to demonstrate your ability to balance using the gyroscopic effect of a bicycle in motion. But really--please use common sense, okay?

Try that, Poseur!

Today, Wednesday, much like every other Wednesday, is the Slouch Potato Ride. It's a fun, quick, short group ride. Six o'clock this afternoon at Portsmouth's Prescott Park parking lot. Come join us. It will be awesome.

Ducati & Bianchi

Ducatis are cool. It's just a fact. Girls fawn over a dude on a Ducati. However, I wasn't aware till today that they had a deal with Bianchi making bicycles. Check out the Ducati Corse:


I don't really care about Italian bikes--Ducati brand, Bianchi frame, Campagnolo groups... But the custom silver Selle San Marco saddle is cool. The silver bar tape looks rad too but I imagine it doesn't feel great and/or would turn murky quickly.

Worst of Craigslist: Seacoast New Hampshire

Hey, this one's for the NorEast guys. I'm sure you read BikeSnobNYC and have seen his "worst of craigslist" posts. Apparently someone on the NorEast team has earned the affectionate attentions of someone on the roads near UNH:

light grey & red spandex - m4m (between Durham & Newmarket)
If I blow off the gym in the morning and go to work late, I usually see you on your bike heading south on 108. You wear light grey and red spandex. I have to say you have the hottest body I've seen on a bike. Some people should not wear spandex but you look incredible in it! Your have beautifully muscled legss and it looks like you have an incredibly tiny waist too. Someday I'm going to be taking pictures of you as you ride by.

Haha, oh boy, have fun with that!

I'm always on the look-out for a fourth bike, too; here's what craiglist's NH bikes are showing:

Ritual Cycles Single Speed/Fixed (NEW)
Set up single speed. Has flip/flop hub for fixed gear
Everything Brand New.
Frame: 100% Cr-Mo frame & fork features Euro bottom bracket, water bottle mount and frame & fork are drilled, ready for brakes. Fork is triple butted Cr-Mo. 1 1/8" Ritchey threadless headset.
Wheels: Weinmann DP 18 Deep V Track Wheels Flip/Flop Rear Hub (Silver).
Fenders: Planet Bike Freddy Fenders (Custom Hawaiian Hibiscus).
Crank: Pake Track 170mm.
Brakes: Campagnolo Veloce.
Bar Tape: Stella Azzurra Pro Cromo.
Saddle: Selle Italia Nova.
Stem: Titec Big Al.
Handlebars: Tranz-X Bullhorn.
Pedals: Bear Claw.
Tires: Panaracer Extreme Lite 700x23c.

This guy is building custom bikes in Portsmouth/Seacoast New Hampshire area now, under the name Ritual Cycles. All the bikes/frames/groups are new. The frames are Fuji-made lugged Cro-Moly steel, but the paint detail is done by hand. Check it out.

And everyone, if you ever sell a bike on craigslist, here's a classic example of how to do it:

SPECIALIZED ALLEZ W/BREAK SHIFTERS!!!! - $500 (NEW HAMPSHIRE/MAINE)
BEAUTIFUL 2007 SPECIALIZED ALLEZ BIKE VERY LIGHTLY USED COMES WITH SPEEDOMETER I AM 6'3 AND IT FITS ME PRETTY WELL THE SIZE FOR THIS BIKE RANGES FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE 5'10-6'6 VERY FAST BIKE YOU BARELY HAVE TO PEDDLE, I LOVE THIS BIKE BUT ITS TIME FOR A NEW ONE SO HURRY AND JUMP ON THIS DEAL A $800 DOLLAR BIKE FOR ONLY $500

CALL [deleted]
OR EMAIL ME AT [deleted]
PICK UP ONLY NO SHIPPING.

What first attracted me to this post was the attention-grabbing ALL-CAPS headline advertising BREAK SHIFTERS. If there's one thing I like, it's a good fixer-upper, so broken shifters sounds like a good learning opportunity. The rest of the post is also in ALL-CAPS FOR EASY READABILITY, and a no-nonsense, no-punctuation affect--a consideration that a lot of other craigslisters don't make. The seller didn't mention the size of the bike, but he did say it would fit anyone within the over 20cm height difference range of 5'10 to 6' 6", which is me. What's more, the bike is fast (even if you aren't) and peddling is barely required. In the picture, you can see that the bike even has a new custom paint job (all-white powder coat) which is a nice touch, looks better than the regular 2007 Specialized Allez. To my chagrin it's PICK UP ONLY, but fortunately it's in MAINE/NEW HAMPSHIRE, which is only 42,764 square miles, so no problem.

Exeter Criterium

Yesterday, Tuesday July 1, was the Exeter Criterium. I didn't race (need to upgrade to category 3) but I did go down to watch. There was plenty of excitement: PRO teams (Bissell Racing, Kelly Benefit, and more). Bad Weather. Crashes. Crazy Fans.

One thing about going to the races is the equipment. Where there's PRO teams, there's PRO gear. Bissell Racing's Pinarello Princes make my shorts tight. And then theres the guy from BOB Cycling who is now famous for no other reason than that he has a HED3 rear wheel:

A good race always draws out the crazed fans, like Borat in last year's Tour de France. Check out this guy in the speedsuit, sandals, and American flag. I assume the aerodynamic speedsuit onesie is to make up for the drag coefficient from the flowing cape:


Women's Race
The action started first with the women's race, after a delay for a thunderstorm that dumped a bit of rain on the course on the otherwise perfect day. Hub Racing from Washington, D. C. had several riders and pretty much dominated the race. NorEast had one rider in the women's field, I think it was Kristie Reynolds. The finishing sprint was pretty good; sideline videos aren't much to look at but if you're interested I found the women's race final sprint on YouTube.

Men's PRO/1/2/3 Race
The men's race started off with the announcer mentioning a few of the riders to look out for. I don't remember their names (I'm horrific with names, I'd probably forget my own if it wasn't stickered all over town).From left to right, they are the overall leader of the New England Bikeweek series, the rider for the United States Armed Forces' team, and last year's winner, now riding for a professional team. I got a minute to talk to the USAF rider after the race. The sponsors pay for their bikes and stuff, and they get flown around to whatever races they are doing. How awesome is that? It's just like Forrest Gump playing ping-pong.

The roads were still wet despite the sun having come back out from the clouds, and a tight turn in to Phillips Exeter Academy was not good, with the men's field taking a crash. Maybe five riders went down. One of the Bissell riders got pretty hurt--looked like a dislocated shoulder or broken collarbone from what I could see. Someone nearby got video:

Then, at the end, came the men's final sprint. The race was won by Shawn Milne from Team Type 1. Team Type 1 was created in 2004 to inspire people living with diabetes to take a proactive approach to managing their health and overcoming the obstacles often associated with the condition. In 2006 and 2007, the squad won the eight-rider team division of the Race Across America and finished runner-up in 2008 while consisting solely of athletes who have Type 1 diabetes.

So, there's the Exeter Criterium, hosted by NorEast Cycling. Now we're looking forward to September, the York Criterium, and the Portsmouth Criterium.

My New Bike

Well after all that last week about How To Buy a New Bike, and with the mechanical issues I've been having with Tachikoma, I couldn't help it--I bought a new bike. A beautiful red-and-white carbon Lemond Buenos Aires.

I'd been vaguely on the look-out for a new bike for a while. I only had the one bike, but a bicycle is a serious investment; I've spent a long time not-seriously looking. In the end it was the non-antagonistic but knowledgeable expertise of Gus' Bike Shop mechanics that got me. And the test ride I took. I'm embarrassed to say that I'd never ridden a full carbon bike before--and wow. It's nice.

When I mounted up and turned the pedals, it just took off. I didn't really feel like I was in control of it, it just went as if of its own volition. When I tapped the brakes, it almost tossed me off, it was so responsive. It's really smooth, too. The pedaling is smooth, not mushy like my old bike. The frame's geometry makes the steering really twitchy and kind of terrifying. I felt like I was riding an untamed horse, bred for speed and performance, that really didn't care if its rider knew what was going on. It was pretty awesome.

If I wasn't sure I wanted it already, the fact that it was red and white--to match my team kit--sealed it. Plus, due to Greg Lemond's public speculation about Lance Armstong's possible usage of illegal performance-enhancers, Trek, Lemond's Distributer, put Lemond-branded bikes on clearance, and I got the bike for about $450 less than the MSRP. This is my perfect bike, fitting my priorities in buying a bicycle: speed, style, and price.

As I've said before, naming your bicycle is fairly important. With a model name like Buenos Aires and this sexy glimmering red paint job, I was thinking something Spanish, like roja. Then I realized that was stupid and not nearly nerdy enough. Taking the 'untamed horse' angle from the first impression I had when I first rode it, I'm naming my new bike after the region of middle earth ruled by the Rohirrim cavalry: Rohan.

Rohan. It has a nice ring to it. I'm psyched.

Cycling Style: ASSOS

When I checked my mail this weekend, I was surprised to find a package postmarked from Switzerland. I had forgotten all about the ASSOS catalog I had sent away for several months ago--it finally arrived, with a Zurich post mark and everything. It came just in time, as I need something bike-related to stimulate me while I take time off my bike to recover from my bike crash injuries.

ASSOS is a brand of high-end cycling apparel. The type of stuff that has very specific washing instructions, and you have to use their own proprietary brand of soap, or else . . . Or else I don't know what. I think having a set of ASSOS cycling apparel is probably like having an Armani suit or something. I wouldn't get one, because I'd ruin it in the first week I got it, but the catalog sure is pretty.

The ASSOS catalog has an austere design, mainly white and black, to highlight the products and content. Moody models show off the perfect fit of the lycra jerseys and bibshorts. It also has a lot of the sort of statistical stuff that doesn't really mean anything to me. I don't know how they can say "23% less volume" or "18% more muscle compression" in all seriousness. I guess that's what justifies 120% the price. But I'm obviously just complaining because I'm jealous. The stuff looks good--real good. And ASSOS does have a reputation as the finest, most comfortable cycling apparel in the world.

That is, if you're in to that sort of thing. Some people are not in to the road-cyclist style, spandex and tight jerseys and such, and I respect that. I've mentioned my admiration for Copenhagen Cycle Chic before--"style over speed." But as for me, and what I like to wear . . . I'll be ogling the ASSOS catalog for the next couple of days.

Bicycles: What's in a Name?

Surprisingly, one of the questions I'm asked most often about my bike is what its name is. Like, what I named it. And if it was a boy or a girl. The first time I was asked, I was taken off-guard, having never even thought about it. I don't know, I just had it. It's a bike. Fuji Newest 2.0. Just a beater sport bike, but all I can afford. But after having ridden it for a while, I realized that it does have a bit of personality--or at least its own quirks.


After thinking about it for a while, I came up with the name Tachikoma. The tachikomas, or think tanks, were spider-like robot tanks in the cyberpunk anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. The tachikomas are blue and silver. They are genderless and Japanese. Kind of like my Fuji. In the storyline, they slowly grow their own quirks and individualities in their artificial intelligence. This happens because their caretaker, Batou, used 'natural oil,' which caused an interaction with the proteins in one of the tachikoma's neural processors. They become unstable and are decommissioned from combat use, and sent back to the factory where they were assembled, and they are given other uses (without their weaponry). In they end, they break away from their separate assigned tasks, and come back and sacrifice themselves to save Batou, and thus proving their sapience, despite their programming.



It's a story I like, that makes me feel good. The tachikoma physical characteristics match my Fuji, too. And sometimes I use natural oil instead of synthetic. So, there's my bike: Tachikoma. Does your bike have a name? A story? A gender?

Bike Adventure! Long Ride

Wednesday when I left the house, I didn't even put on my jersey or anything--I wasn't planning on going on a particularly long ride, in fact I was just running some errands. I wore a jacket and brought a bag with a pair of street shoes in it, just in case. As I left, though, I thought, I better bring a patch kit, just in case. No, wait.. I'll just bring a whole tube.

I did my errands--some part-time bike courier stuff for work--and then decided to head off on a short cruise down those bike paths I'd found before. I took a slightly different route on the recommendation of one of my teammates, which went through the beautiful wildlife refuge on Pease, and popped me out in the middle of Newington--the part of it that's not dominated by the mall, which in turn comes out at Great Bay, and the bridge to Dover.

I figured if I was that close to Dover, I might as well take a ride to visit my mother who lives there. By then the sun was getting pretty hot, and I was wearing this stupid motorcycle jacket, which I took off (while riding, PRO-style) and stuffed into my messenger bag. So I'm carrying this stupid over-stuffed heavy messenger bag on my shoulder.

I get there, and I'm parched. I realized I didn't even bring any water bottles. So I'm lugging this cumbersome, unwieldy bag, I'm not carrying any bottles, and I'm wearing some super-ratty pants that I once got covered in unwashable mud, so I don't even bother washing them at all any more. I am generally looking neither PRO nor chic, unless you count homeless-chic.

So I visit my mom, have a sip of water, and head on. I wasn't sure where I was going, but this chick on a bike rode by, wearing a jersey and lycra shorts, so I figured I'd follow her for a while--she was probably going somewhere interesting. But as we started up the hill on Central Ave heading towards Somersworth, she turned her head back over her shoulder and gave me The Look, which not only pierced my soul, but also my tube--I felt that crappy rumpling feeling of a soggy rear wheel within a minute.

I pulled over and changed my flat in someone's front yard. It sucked. It's a good thing I brought a whole fresh tube, though--the valve stem was torn; you can't patch that. Also I don't have a proper frame pump, I have this tiny horrible pocket pump, which takes about 3 pumps per each PSI. I got to 80 PSI (recommended is 120) and gave up, that was good enough. I figured I'd head for the closest bike shop and use their pump, and continue my ride from there.

I made my way towards Durham; there is a bike shop there on campus. I finished pumping up my tire with their floor pump, took a couple of spins around the block to check out the UNH talent (it was good), and then headed off for home. I took the road through Newmarket, though, because I didn't want to just go back over the roads I'd already been on.

Newmarket Road-Rt 108 is a pretty crappy road. It's one of those roads with a soft shoulder, and the pavement drops off in one five-mile-long pothole right at the white line, so you have to bike in the road. Also the speed limit is like 40 or 45 or so. It's not for the squeamish.

So I take that road towards Newmarket downtown, and there is a road closure and a detour. I take this detour down Elm Street, circumventing the downtown area, and as I come over the crest of a bit of a hill, I see, at the bottom, something I find absolutely irresistible: a speed trap. I mean, come on, a speed trap at the bottom of a hill--how awesome is that. The speed limit was 25 there, too. So I bomb down the hill, and I get about 37mph, the sign angrily flashing in red to my delight. I hope it's also the kind that takes your picture so that the cops can mail you a ticket; take that!

So the detour dropped me off on some road on the other side of downtown, and I took a right because that's how you get back to Route 33, and by extension Portsmouth. I was pretty messed up by this point because I hadn't had a drink or anything to eat in quite a while, so maybe that's what allowed me to ignore the fact that I was totally, TOTALLY going the wrong way. The late-afternoon sun was in my eyes--that should have been a clue. I saw a road sign that said "now entering Lee." When you're entering Lee, you're lost--period. Nobody goes to Lee. They just end up there. Going places I've never been before is one of my favorite things about biking, but being lost, as the sun is starting to get low, and you have to work in like two hours . . . that is not good. So, I turned around.

I did find my road--I was supposed to take a left, then a right, after that Newmarket detour. Wow. So I headed back through Stratham, Newfields, Greenland, Route 33, pretty much without incident. I stopped at a gas station on the way and got some water, somewhere in there.

It was a good ride. I did a lot:

• Fixed a flat, roadside, for the first time ever
• Got The Look from some cycle-cutie
• Got fairly lost, far from home
• Hit up 9 towns (Portsmouth, Newington, Dover, Durham, Newmarket, Lee, Newfields, Stratham, Greenland)
• Total Mileage: >50 miles
• All that with a stupid heavy bag on my shoulder

Not bad for a training ride--my legs are kind of killing me now. When I got home, I ate like everything in the house, took a couple vitamins, and kicked back to check the NorEast team forums. Apparently the race schedule changed at the last moment, and my first race ever is Thursday. Yes, this Thursday--the 17th. I wouldn't have gone on my longest ride yet this year if I knew I was going to have my first race the next day!

Anyway--expect a full report on that on Friday.

Cycling in High Heels

One of the blogs I read, Copenhagen Cycle Chic, is dedicated to "bike advocacy in high heels." You won't find any lycra there, just chic women on nice bikes. It started in Copenhagen a while back, and now people send in chic cyclist pictures from all over the world.


When I came across this classy lady on my way in to downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I thought wow, now that's Copenhagen chic. I'm the kind of guy that loves lycra and being covered in advertisements. I like bikes that are fast and light. I like all the things that most people hate/don't understand about road cyclists. But I can't deny the beauty of a chic lady in heels riding an old English three-speed through town. Cycling is hot.