I'm Too Fat For This Sport! - part 1

I am now of an age where I must occasionally suffer the indignity of a rather invasive procedure.  I'm speaking of a  colonoscopy.  I have scheduled this dreaded procedure for sometime after my Wintergreen ride.  While I was doing the self-care bit, I scheduled a regular physical since I hadn't seen my PCP since 2009.  I've been pretty active and have done quite a bit since my last visit so I wasn't expecting any surprises ....

In April of 2009 I stayed with my good friend Jean-Christian in France ... for a whole month!  My sister Sarah had just graduated from pharmacy school at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charlesston, SC. and the wife and I gave Sarah a vacation in Paris as a graduation present.  This trip was a combination of a long overdue vacation and playing tour guide to Srarh and Richard her husband.

What a vacation it was: touring Paris with my Sarah and Richard, climbing, skiing, climbing some more, just being in Paris, and who could forget the food!

Jean-Chri arranged, through a colleague, a small apartment for my sister's use in the Les Gobelins area of Paris.  This is a beautiful, centrally located area of Paris with nice cafes and a great market.  I spent a week with my sister while Jean-Chri finished up some work.  After that, Sarah and Richard spent time by themselves in Paris and then headed home.

We did manage to kidnap Richard for a day of climbing in Fontainebleau, the premier bouldering site in the world!  Sarah doesn't climb but she does shop so we left her to her own devices in Barbizon, a beautiful village in Fontainebleau.

Sarah is a very out-going sort and will make friends no matter where she is.  Here she is with "un petit cadeau" from an unsuspecting shopkeeper in Barbizon.

Meanwhile, back in the forest, we ran into trouble and had to claim ignorance lest we be run out of Fontainebleau!

Caro, me and Richard

Jean-Chri, Caro, and Richard

Another good friend Cyril - Very strong!

After a week in Paris, we left Sarah and Richard and headed south for the Alps!

Road Trip!

Our first stop was Guillestre.  Caro's father and step-mother have an apartment in Guillestre which sits right on the road that goes up to Col d'Izoard, a high mountain pass used in a number of Tour de France races.  A trail leads up to a hill with great views of the surrounding mountains and the Queyras.

I'm not much of a skiier so we went to Risoul to get a measure of how I would fare.

It was typical spring skiing and the weather was fantastic!  I did a couple of red pistes and one black piste.  Jean-Chri is ever the optimist and declared that I was ready for more challenging skiing even after I managed to break a ski on the very first day!

My next challenge was randonneur skiing in the Queyras.  This is kind of a mix between telemark and down hill skiing.  The toe of the binding has 2 pins which fit into the toe of the boot which allows the heel to lift up when in telemark mode and also allows the skier to move up a slope with the aid of skins.  The heel of the binding can also be rotated and the boot locked in place for down hill skiing.

We drove to a small village in the Queyras Valley to the base of a hill and prepared for our adventure.  Skins were applied to the skis and our bindings set.  My first lesson was an 800m, or 2625ft, ascent up the slope.  It took a while to get the hang of using the skins but I finally succeeded.

We only saw 3 other skiers that day.  Awesome!

By this time my shins were taking a beating and I needed a day off.  Jean-Chri had arranged for a guide at La Grave, an extreme skiing mecca in Les Hautes Alpes, to belay him and another skiier across a dangerous col.  Meanwhile, Caro would enjoy the one marked piste on the glacier (double black I believe) and I rode up the telepherique to the glacier, had a cup of coffee, took some pictures, and rode back down to enjoy the day in the town.

Those little dots are people!

La Meije!

We packed up our belongings and headed into Haute-Savoie, to visit with friends and do a little more skiing before heading back to Paris and Font.  We stayed with friends at La Recorbaz, a small village just south of Annecy.

We reached our destination in the late afternoon and, after unpacking, were treated to my favorite meal, cassolet!

Yummy!

The skiing plan fell into place during the evening.  In the morning we went to La Clusaz for some more skiing.  I must say that the resorts in France are just huge compared to the ones I've seen in the U.S.  Our hosts, Matthieu, Emmanuelle, and Jules accompanied us and had a great time.  Jules is fearless and will be a very good skier when he gets older, just like his father!

Jules and Emmanuelle

A rest day was in order the following day so we all drove into Annecy for a day of sightseeing and just relaxing.  Annecy is called the Venice of the North because it sits at the outlet of Lake Annecy and much of the old town is surrounded by water.

Caro & Emmanuelle

One more day of skiing awaited us ... Chamonix and Les Grands Montets!!!  3200m and double black is the only way off the glacier to the snow slopes.  This was a fantastic way to end the skiing portion of the trip.

Perfect weather ... at the top!

Jean-Chri ready to go

I was sad to leave the south but time marches on and we needed to get back to Paris.

We did manage a couple more physical accomplishments before I left Paris.  The biggest was that I finally sent La Marie-Rose, the first 6a in Font.  Here is a previous attempt by me followed by a better shot of another climber.

Cyril spotting me

 

Anonymous climber at the crux

After conquering La Marie-Rose I almost flashed a 7a, L'Ange Naif Droite but it was not to be so now I have a project when I go back to Paris to visit my good friends Jean-Chri & Caro and now, their daughter Alice!

I spent the last few days walking around Paris.  I visited Serge Gainsboug's grave site at Montparnasse Cemetery and left a metro ticket and, on May 1st, Labor Day, I marched with my friend from Montparnasse to Bastille in the annual labor protest.

What a vacation!  Non-stop!



to be continued ...

100% Orange

Yikes!  Only got 3 weeks until the Wintergreen TT.  The intensity is mounting in my training regimen.  I did hill repeats earlier this week and today was threshold intervals on a busy street, during rush hour no less.  This is really the only flat spot with enough room to ride for 5 minutes straight at threshold.  Surprisingly, the drivers were pretty good to me.

Hill repeats again this weekend ... sigh.  I'm supposed to do another hill climb this weekend but I'm tired of driving out to Skyline Drive just to find a hill long enough to get the time.  MacArthur Blvd is 1 mile long but the grade is a little less than North Morgan.  Maybe I just just relax and do the shop ride.

My teammate on Team Results, Marius, is riding Wintergreen with me.  We both want to pre-ride the route but our schedules don't mesh until a week before the event!  Not much time but it's all we've got.  Marius climbs like a goat so I don't really expect to see much of him on the except when he passes me!

My cycling friend Mark is in Paris France on vacation and he's been sending pictures back that show just how much of an insidious influence Orange has had on him.  He just can't get it out of his mind!  When he should be paying attention to the City of Lights, he's thinking Orange:

On a humorous more note ...

I have a Brooks Imperial prototype on my Calfee and a dark blue Brooks Swift on my Orange Bike.  These are comfortable, all day saddles and I wouldn't trade them for anything.  That being said, there is no way in Hell I'm riding without cycling shorts:

Freshjive Moving Pictures - Bicycle Seat from freshjive on Vimeo.

The tune is kinda catchy, huh?  Otherwise this is just plain wrong!  Lol!

I Didn't Die

The re-christening voyage of my Orange Bike went very well indeed! The weather was great! Sunny and warmer than the last time but there was still ice and snow near the top of the first climb (note to self - take a small point-and-shoot with you, or at least don't forget your cell phone).  Josh and Marius came along with Josh driving his truck this time.  Marius met us at the front gate to the park.

Josh arrived before 7:30 and we just tossed the bikes in the back of the truck since Josh doesn't have a bike rack.  The lack of a secure rack was offset by the sound system in his truck.  Simply put, awesome!! Unfortunately, I've got persistent tinnitus, or ringing in my ears, that is pretty loud plus I think I'm losing my hearing anyway so some of it was lost on me (getting old sucks!).  The music selection was fantastic with everything from Pink to Coltrane to classical.  I was a little disappointed that Josh had no Frank Zappa!

The biggest change to the Orange Bike (I think I need a name for my bike.  What do you think?) was the crankset change, 53/39 to 50/34, and swapping tubulars for clinchers.  I'm new to tubulars and I was worried about the tires staying on the rim after my first failed attempt to glue them.  The gluing was inconsistent and I could pull the tire away from the rim with little effort so I ripped the tire off the rim and reread and watched at least three different methods for gluing tubulars and even asked Bill over at the shop about gluing technique unitl I settled on a method that seemed to be reasonably safe; 3 thin coats of glue on the rim and 2 coats on the tire.

Here's the Rear wheel sans tire:

 

Closeup of the hub and counter-weight

I haven't finished the front wheel so I'm using an ebay find until I'm done.  I did the glue thing on the rear wheel but I'm contemplating Tufo Tubular tape:

I don't race so I think the tape will be fine.

The tubies stayed glued to the rims, even on the screaming descent down Skyline Drive back to the front gate so the glue job appears ok. I did however miss the 53/12 combination on the ride down.

I do like the way the tubulars ride!  More supple than the Conti GP4000s that I normally ride.  I just have to see how they hold up on the road around here.  I've been lucky that I haven't had many flats at all on my rides and I know I'm not the most careful rider out there.

I get another chance to ride the Orange Bike tomorrow on a Paris-Roubaix tribute ride, Ronde van Aarlandria:

My good buddy, Kirk at Velo Works, stitched this ride together from all of the climbs in the area.  It will be tough going with all of the climbs:

I got a great bit of encouragement from the guy that built my frame:

It was unexpected but absolutely made my day!  Cool beans!  I'll post results on the Ronde van Aarlandria later in the week!

Training!

My Pergoretti Marcelo is almost done!  I changed out the regular 53/39 cransket and square taper bottom bracket for a Campy Centaur Ultra Torque compact double for my upcoming Wintergreen Time Trial and MS150 ride.  Since I had the bottom bracket out, I decided to re-cable and clean everything else.  Today I received the small torque wrench in the mail today so now I can finish installing all of the small bits.  She's a beauty and here she is in all her glory:

Just in case you can't read the small print:

I'm going to put tubular wheels on her.  I snagged a couple of classic Ambrosio Nemesis rims and laced them to a set of older style Campy Record hubs (you can see the rear hub in the last pic above ... gorgeous IMHO).  I plan to take her out to Skyline Drive this weekend.

This is the first time riding sewups or tubulars and I had a time gluing the tires on.  It's not as hard as some have made it out to be but I think next time I'll use the glue tape.  I think I got the tires on reasonably straight.  I'll find out this weekend on the Skyline Drive descent!

I have one more wheel to build then I'm done with that for a while!  I took a wheel building class with Bill Mould through Spokes, Etc. that was excellent.  Bill now has a DVD, Master Wheelbuilding, that is great.  It fills in the holes with exotic lacing patterns, spoke tension, etc.  I've had a lot of fun building the wheels and I find that I prefer the aesthetics of Ambrosio rims and older Campy Record hubs.

I've been in training for my upcoming events and yesterday and today were good days for me.  Yesterday was an endurance day:

• 20 min warm up
• 12 min Z2
• 5 x (1 min Z3, 1 min Z2)
• 5 min Z2, 100RPM cadence
• 5 min Z3, 70RPM
• 5 min Z2, 95RPM
• 5 min Z3, 75RPM
• 5 min Z2, 90RPM
• 5 min Z3, 80RPM
• 5 min Z2 85RPM
• 10 min Z2 w/10sec surge/min
• 10 min Z3
• 10 min Z1

Today was threshold work

• 20 min warm up
• 4 x (5 min just above threshold, 1 min rest between interval)
• 20 min cool down

Thomas Bailey at Velo Works put the plan together for me and I feel very good right now about my progress.  I just need to remember "don't go out too fast".  I blew up early and often last year and had a terrible time.


Oooh!  Best of all, this week the rest of the Rapha kit arrived!  We'll be sporting these on the MS ride:

I'm working on getting some ride specific graphics added and will post pics after that's done.  The quality of these items is amazing!  There are a lot of details that have been looked after and make these well worth the cost.

Well, it's late and I'm off to bed.  I'll let you know how Skyline Drive goes this weekend.  They got 3.5" of snow last night but the weather is supposed to be sunny with highs in the mid 50s!