Orny's Cycling Journal

… the season for a rambling update, because I haven’t shared anything since early September other than turning sixty, which you can read about here. So what has been going on? Let’s see…

As alluded to in my Livestrong Challenge blogpo, Specialized warranty replaced my rear wheel’s carbon rim after a nasty rock strike in the aforementioned ride. Summarizing my feelings about that:

Feeling ballsy

Friday Truancy ride

Tour of Watopia celebration

Zwift PMC group rides resume!

Zwift fondo series returns

• Boy, am I glad I wasn’t running a tubeless setup, because my day would have irrecoverably ended right there. Thanks to my butyl inner tube, I continued riding without getting a flat. I didn’t even notice the break until I got home!
• My first carbon wheel lasted just six months, or about 4,000 KM. That’s disappointing, unacceptable, and bullshit.
• It took Spesh four weeks to replace the rim, which meant I was off the bike for a whole month during peak riding season. I need to remember that I have recourse to my indoor trainer and my folding clown bike.

In other news, I’ve purchased a couple new goodies. First is a cycling jersey from the Buddhist Bicycle Pilgrimage: a two-day northern California ride that I rode back in 2012. Read about that whole trip here.

Of greater impact (pun intended) is my one noteworthy birthday present: an Ekrin Bantam cordless vibrating mini massage gun, nicknamed my “Fun Gun”. I’ve long had lingering calf pain during training season, and addressed it by doing tapotement, a Swedish massage technique that involves rhythmically rapping on the muscle with one’s knuckles. Now I’ve got a portable device that can do that work for me, and so far I adore it.

If nothing else, this has been an excellent year for cycling purchases, as I’ll detail in my usual year-in-review at the end of the month.

On a less satisfactory note, the name decals I crowed about in this post failed miserably by de-laminating. I suspect the Texas heat got ‘em, but the manufacturer asserted that my carbon frame’s coating was still “off-gassing”. We’ll see, as I have reapplied a second set of decals.

And speaking of the heat, it got cold fast! We were in full-on summer mode until October 29th, when a strong cold front blew in and dropped temps from about 22°C to 13°C in about an hour, ushering in certifiably cold nights and cool days. Not ideal for riding the stationary trainer in an unheated garage! But other than that cold snap, the weather’s been pleasantly seasonable.

But that brings us reluctantly back to Zwift and the indoor trainer. Anticipating a warmish Texas autumn, I wanted to avoid the trainer and ride outside as much as possible. But then temperatures dropped, Zwift released some nice new roads, the Pan-Mass Challenge’s online group rides started up again, and Zwift moved the always-tempting “double XP” Tour of Watopia from March to October. So even though the weather was often fine for riding outdoors, I put the bike up on the trainer and started riding indoors again.

This year I rode 19 Tour of Watopia stages (plus two half-stages) totaling 950 KM. In the process I hit XP Levels 57 and 58, with new route badges giving me a head start on the road toward Level 59, which I will achieve this month. This year Zwift only awarded double XP the first time you completed a Tour of Watopia stage, but no one stopped you from almost completing one multiple times! In addition to the usual, regularly-scheduled group rides, this year you could also complete stages on your own schedule as free rides.

Then today – December 3th – I celebrated five years and 25,000 KM on Zwift by repeating one of my very first Zwift rides: their December fondo.

Thanks to my recent riding, I’m feeling strong and have regained all the fitness I lost during that month-long break due to my broken rim.

For the remainder of the year, I’ll be focused on reaching my 8,000 KM distance goal, trying to decide what I’ll do for the 2024 Pan-Mass Challenge, and putting the final touches on my inescapable annual year-in-review blogpo.

So as I was saying, after a very short acceptance test ride, I bought my new bike last Monday.

Of course, it rained Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday and Friday and Saturday, too. But finally it cleared up last night, and stayed clear for half the day today, which was enough to get a 61-mile shakedown cruise in with the Quad Cycles folks.

Mind you, it wasn’t exactly ideal weather for a ride. After all that rain, there’s been a lot of flooding. But worse than that, the wind was blowing at a sustained 30 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph! Not only did that make biking difficult to begin with, but it also brought down a ton of wet leaves, wet pine needles, and whole branches of trees. It was a bit of an obstacle course out there.

But this post isn’t about the weather, but about the bike. For those who care, it’s a 61cm 2006 Specialized Roubaix Expert Triple. That means a couple things.

First, it’s a Roubaix. They’re designed for long distance riding, and are especially designed to handle rough roads. I have to say that even at 120psi, where you’d feel the road painfully on most bikes, the Roubaix rode like buttah, but without feeling like you were riding in an Oldsmobile. Responsive, but compliant.

Second, it’s 61cm. Bike stores don’t carry *anything* in 61cm. That’s Jolly Green Giant size. So it was going to be a special order right from the start, which meant I was probably going to pay list for it. But the sizing feels great; it’s the only bike out of all the ones I test rode that actually feels comfortable and natural, where I wasn’t constantly conscious of the bike’s fit. It just feels right.

Third, it’s a 2006. I rode a couple 2005 Roubaixs, but they didn’t knock my socks off, so I took a couple extra weeks and waited for the 2006s to come out. Well, actually, I snuck a few looks at the 2006 line on some UK sites, since they were released there earlier than in the US… But eventually they were released in the US. The differences are noteworthy: a different wheelset, carbon fiber cranks, a more attractive paint job, and—most importantly—the newer 10-speed Shimano Ultegra group instead of the old 9-speeds that they had on the ’05s. Of course, since I ordered the bike as soon as it was available, that’s another reason why I wound up having to pay list for it.

And the triple. A lot of riders think having three chainrings is wimpy, and that the few ounces of weight savings is significant. They’re cracked. First, I’m used to my hybrid and its mountain bike gearing, which ranges from 29-108 gear inches. In other words, it’s got crazy low gears. And I do a lot of mountain climbing, so I need low gears. The Roubaix double—same price, by the way—only goes down to 36 gear inches, while the trip goes all the way down to 30, almost as low a gear as my hybrid had! Second, I’m rapidly becoming an old man, and I stopped falling prey to the brainless machismo thing more’n a decade ago. I need those low gears. The third reason might surprise some people: the triple has a much higher high gear than the double! The latter tops out at fairly moderate 112 gear inches; the triple has a high gear that reaches all the way up to 120 gear inches. So not only do I get a much easier low gear, but I also get a much bigger high gear!

Now, the bike is all carbon fiber: frame, forks, cranks, even the seatpost! Hence its nickname of “Plastic Bullet”. When you tap the frame with your fingernails, instead of a metallic ping, it sounds like you’re tapping a plastic cup. But it’s light, and it climbs like a gazelle.

The one big change from the hybrid is my saddle height. The guys at the bike shop set me up with the saddle a full inch higher than I had it set on the hybrid, which is an immense change to my pedaling stroke. I can’t say it’s better yet, but I’ll give it a shot for a while and see how it works out. I will say that my chafe points moved, but that’s probably just a situational thing. So far the saddle is working out very well, which was another one of my big concerns moving to a road bike.

So how did it ride? Well, it’s smooth, sleek, and strong. I really feared moving from a fairly mooshy ride to a tighter frame, but the Roubaix really eats up the ground shock. It really was a pleasure to ride.

The one overriding thing I felt was that I had a lot more power at my disposal than I ever had on the hybrid. I don’t feel like I’m riding at my limit most of the time; at any point I could jump, with a lot more high-end speed than I had before. It’s a really nice feeling of power.

Of course, it comes at a bit of a price, and the price is my vanity slash ego slash machismo. Because the bike’s so much more capable, it really shows my weaknesses more. When I’m on, I can jump and ride with the best of ’em, but if I’m tired or blown, there’s no jump in me at all. So training’s going to be even more important, so that I can call up that additional capacity whenever I need it. But that feeling of power is really nice…

The only other thing I need to mention is that I also outfitted the Plastic Bullet with a new cyclometer that I’ve been lusting after for at least two or three years: the Ciclomaster CM434. It’s outta control geekery. It goes way beyond the usual trip miles, total miles, average and max speeds, and riding time. It’s got (are you ready for this?) current altitude and incline percent; max altitude and incline; total height climbed and descended; current, max, and min temperature; and current, average, and max watts output.

So that’s the ride report for the big shakedown cruise. Ironically, it is exactly five years and one day since I took the Devinci hybrid out for its 50-mile maiden voyage out to Framingham and back.

Oh, I suppose I should mention that the Devinci will live on as my commuter bike. There’s no way I’ll be leaving the Plastic Bullet chained up in any public place, and the Devinci will do good service in the rain and snow. Soon it’ll sprout fenders and panniers and all the accoutrements of a true workhorse. We’ve had some wonderful times, but after five years and sixteen thousand miles, I think it’s happy to relinquish its days of hard riding and long miles.

Happy day! Hopefully the weekends will continue to be tolerable weather, because I’d really like to take the Roubaix down to Great Blue Hill and give it a real serious climb to chew on…