Into the Orange

In 2004, the wifey and I went back to Columbus, OH to reprise our marriage ride on Tour of the Scioto River Valley (TOSRV).  TOSRV is a great, well organized, 2-day, back-to-back century ride (a little more if you stop for breaskfast on the first day), on Mother's Day weekend, from Columbus, OH down to Portsmouth, KY and back.

We got married in 1992 on the second day of the ride at Mead Park in Chillicothe, OH.  As luck would have it, the wind was blowing away from the park thereby saving the 6000 wedding guests (ok, so maybe there were 6000 riders not wedding guests) from the sulphurous fumes that emanate from a paper plant.  Unfortunately, the news crew got the wrong day and came on Saturday (really!) so we had no press covering the event!

My new sister-in-law, Gwen, attached balloons to our bikes after the ceremony and Becky and I headed out for the last 50 miles back into Columbus.  That was a pretty long ride as I recall.  Staying in the park too long had allowed our muscles to stiffen right up.  We made it back ok, a bit later than we'd have liked, but satisfied ... and married!

As we sat in downtown Columbus after the ride, a guy rode up to us.  He was a wedding "guest" and had seen us get married during the ride.  He reached into his jersey and held up a small vial of sand.  The guy was apparently in the Army and participated in Desert Storm.  He brought the sand back as a good luck token.  And then he handed us the vial as a wedding gift wishing us as much luck as he'd had while carrying it.

Anyways, back to the reunion tour ....

Riding in May in Ohio can be surprising.  The first year I rode TOSRV, it was wet and cold.  I had never been so glad to get something dry on than on that first day.  Brrrrrrrr!  I had to pry my hands from the bars at the lunch stop they were so cold and stiff.  Another year it was hot for May and we had tailwind that matched our speed.  It was like riding in your own little sauna; I was sweating like a pig.  The weather was pretty good on this trip.

Becky and I drove to Columbus on Friday with both bikes and all of our gear in our Ford Explorer.  Everything was going great as we're heading west on I68 in Western Maryland until we hit Garrett County.  I guess the police were doing some fund raising because as I topped the rise I see a state trooper pointing his radar gun at me!!!!  The speed limit is 65MPH out that way and I'm doing 70 so I figure I might be able to slide by.

Not a chance!  I got pulled over.  I figured I'd just be supporting the local law enforcement agency with a small donation via the ticket.  The officer asked for my license and registration and then he tells me that he caught me doing 90MPH.  I was stunned ... absolutely stunned.  After I close my mouth, I tell the officer that I didn't think the Explorer could do 90 (I also had a small wheel alignment issue which caused a serious shimmy above 75 so I always kept it below that).  As this is going on, Becky is quietly trying to get me to just shut up.  I heed her advice, accept the ticket, and we go on our merry way.

[aside: The whole ticket incident was weird.  I thought that anything 20MPH or more was automatically reckless driving.  The ticket I got was for simple speeding.  I ended up paying the $350 fine for the ticket because it just wasn't worth the time and effort it would have taken to fight the ticket.]

We have a good sized group of friends and acquaintances associated with this ride.  My connection to this group is through a friend and former co-worker, Ed (we worked on a government IT contract in the late 80's).  People came in from NYC, San Francisco, and D.C. (that would be us).  Some drove from different parts of Ohio.  One friend, a non-rider, lives in Columbus with his family.

The idea was for all of us to have dinner on Friday night and catch each other up with our lives, ride the ride, and then reconvene for dinner on Sunday night before we scattered to the four winds.

We picked up our ride packages and headed over to a friend's house to decide on dinner plans.  We settled on a Chinese restaurant nearby and had a great time getting re-introduced to each other.  Then it was off to an early bedtime in hopes of getting enough sleep for the ride.

Here are Ed, Mark & sons picking up ride registration

Don modeling state-of-the-art rainwear

Ready to take off!

Mark & sons

Portsmouth, KY - Half the ride is done!

It was great riding with the group and especially riding behind the tandem with the tag-along, nice draft!  We all had a nice time and an even better get together after the ride.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Because all of the stuff above and my riding prior to 2007 is preorangehistoric.  The stuff that follows is a testimonial conversion Into the Orange.

Fast forward to 2009 and another organized ride with a smaller subset of the same friends.  This time the ride is in Santa Cruz, CA, Strawberry Fields Forever.  This is a one day ride with 3 route choice, English and Metric centuries and a shorter route.  The scenery is great with breath-taking views down to Half Moon Bay.

One of the guys in the group, Mark, lives down in Bowling Green and brought both his sons along for the 2004 TOSRV ride.  This ride Mark can only bring one son with him and they rent a tandem in SF.

The idea is that we'd all meet in SF early in the afternoon and drive down to Santa Cruz the day before the ride (This was before flying with your bike required a 2nd mortgage!).  Our flight got delayed in transit by a very inconsiderate passenger who decided to have a coronary which required a detour into Denver so he could see a doctor.

Becky and I arrived in SF 8 hours later than planned.  Life is good and we bundled ourselves and our 2 bikes into the rental van which already has the rented tandem strapped in along with a boatload of gear.  We make one last stop to pick up a new group member, Becky's cousin Alex, and we're off to Santa Cruz!

The trip to Santa Cruz was a little slow since we got a later start but we made it in a reasonable amount of time.  After we checked in to our hotel, we assembled our bikes (a bunch of others riders were checked into the same hotel as us) and then headed into town for dinner.  We found a good Mexican restaurant and chowed down!

In the morning, we get everything packed into the van, check out and Mark takes the van over to the ride starting point.  The rest of us mount our bikes and ride over.

It's sunny and a little cool; perfect riding weather!out to the starting point.  I'm riding my Orange Pegoretti, feeling the wind in my hair and I overflowing with Orange!  I just exude it.  The others noticed this and a deep philosophical discussion ensued about getting in touch with ones inner orange. 

We had a nice ride but, being from the East Coast, I am overwhelmed by the amount of climbing that had to be done.  I admit that I had to stop a time or two.  However, the last descent back into Santa Cruz was absolutely fantastic!

Back to the present and where all of this ties back together ...

I got a message from Mark on FaceBook the other day:

"John, back when we rode on the west coast with Ed and Viviek, I decided I should fix this old beater tandem for errand running. I decided to paint it orange after we were joking about getting in touch with ones inner orange." - Mark

 Mark's son Sam with the orange tandem

I wasn't joking!  And now the orange has rubbed off on Mark and will subsequently pass to this children!


Bwaaahahahahaha!

I Had a fantastic ride today on Skyline Drive from the Front Royal entrance with Marius and Josh!  The weather was perfect if a little cool at the start.  Only 30 miles but with 3500' of elevation gain.

As I said, it was kinda cold at the start, right around 40F but with very little wind (a change from the norm around here of late)!  I was comfortable in my styling Rapha + Paul Smith Merino Jersey (go ahead and call me a shill but this stuff just works!), a light wind jacket, a pair of bib shorts, and gloves.

[aside - I know it's not orange but the orange bike is in the shop getting prepped for Wintergreen and my MS150 ride among other things.  Compact crankset, new cables, wheels (tubulars), and new tape.]  The jersey matches my purple bike pretty well don't you think?

Marius weighs like nothing so he demolished Josh and me on the climbs.  The first 6 miles of the ride are just one long uphill to 2100' at around 5%.  I was able to get into a good groove and controlled my HR so I didn't blow up.  Climbing felt good!

The descents were another matter entirely!  They were awesome, especially the last 6 miles.  Hoooo weeeeee!  Josh and I crushed Marius with our superior weight going downhill!!!

I Like Orange

Orange is my favorite color.  I have orange tee-shirts, socks, baseball and cycling caps, dog (well she's kinda orange, ginger she might be called), and of course an orange bike.

I've had other orange bikes.  My first foray into the orange vibe was with a 2007 Orbea Orca:

I had been riding a 2003 Fuji Team.  It was a nice bike, Ultegra equipped aluminum frame with a CF fork.  However, the urge to upgrade into the orange overwhelmed me early on in 2007 and I ordered the orange Orca frame set you see above.  It was a complete frame redesign for the Orca and it came with a bold new color scheme.

The frame set arrived in mid-February 2007 and at first I was excited.  The frame was plenty stiff and super light.  I built it up the bike with 2003 Campy Record that I stripped from a LeMond Tete de Course.  The ride was nice but something wasn't quite right.

I thought about my situation for a while and it finally hit me that, not only was the ride a little dead to me, but the bike also just wasn't orange enough.  I mean, think of orange and what do you come up with?  I think of Creamsicles (mmmm!), my dog Squid (she's such a sweet old girl), and who could forget Molteni (and Eddy Merckx):

Now that's orange!

I now had to have an orange bike and it had to be made out of steel!!!  At this very moment in time, the stars aligned and Bicycling Magazine ran a profile piece on Dario Pegoretti.  That was all it took.  I had to have a Pegoretti made orange steel frame.

I drove 3 hours and got sized by Kyle at Cycles by Kyle.  My wife and I took the Imron paint samples outside and studied the orange samples carefully and settled on just the right shade of orange.  Under the advice from Kyle, I left the paint scheme and decal placement up to Dario.  The frame was ordered on 4/28/2007.

I did not know at that time that Dario had been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing chemo-therapy.  Production slowed to a crawl ... tick, tick, tick ... My frame finally arrived 4/2/2008; almost 1 year after the order was placed:

At

At first I was disappointed with the paint job.  I think I was expecting a wild Pegoretti paint job.  The more I thought on it the better I liked the paint scheme and decal selection and placement.  It was perfect!  Now to build it up with a proper Italian gruppo.  I used the 2003 Campy Record group from the Orca and sold that frame set on eBay.

I now have a styling orange bike that rides like a dream and looks even better!

MS Rides

Ever since I was diagnosed with MS in 2006, I have ridden in at least one MS ride a year.  I'm selfish, it's in my own interest to raise money to help find a cure for this disease.  These events raise a lot of money and most of it actually goes to research (you can find out more at the National MS Society).

I had ridden for other teams in the past; I rode with Lockheed Martin one year, they sponsor various teams across the country, and I rode on a friends team for a couple of years.  Last year, my friends team collapsed and I found myself riding for a team with only one member, me.

Enough!


I formed my own team this year with members coming from riders I recruited from my LBS, Spokes, Etc. in Alexandria, VA.  Team Results is a pretty diverse group in background, profession, and, to a lesser extent, age.  But we all have one thing in common and that is a passion for cycling.  I set my team goal pretty high so we're going to have to hustle to make it but it can be achieved.


The donation link is to your right so please stop by and support our cause!

Team Results would not exist without the generous support of our sponsors, Results Computing and Rapha.  So thanks for the support!

It's early and I'm losing sleep.  'Nite all.

Welcome!

MyOrangeBike is now under construction.  I hope to keep you entertained and informed on issues ranging from my bikes, I have an orange Pegoretti Marcelo and a purple Calfee Luna Pro, bike gear, and how my Multiple Sclerosis affect it all.

Stay tuned for updates.