If the riders completed their run to Kensington and back, they'll hopefully get a few hours sleep. The DNF's are mounting. Two riders I know personally didn't finish and they were joined by one more. Of those two, I'm not sure of their issues yet. They both returned to Atwood just after midnight. That's a great time for them and beat my time last year by about 3 hours. Clearly, something else caused them to stay in bed or abandon their efforts. This morning, if you're at least a somewhat astute observer, you can pick out those who will and won't finish. Despite only about 3 hours sleep, when we headed out last year, I was raring to go - 100% confident. But, I left my partner behind. He was already in zombie mode and couldn't manage to change a tire that went flat as he slept. I asked one of the other riders who had withdrawn to give him a hand. You can't allow others to have too much of an impact on your ride. It's hard to believe but every minute counts as the ride moves forward. Another guy and I started out but I had my doubts about him also. There's a nice, long climb out of Atwood as you head back to the west. I dropped him in the first mile of that climb and never saw him again that day. He abandoned the ride about 11 hours later. My partner managed to get on the road about 30 minutes after I left and he abandoned around midnight when he could no longer balance himself on the bike. The first city they'll hit on today's ride is Bird City - a short 27 mile ride from Atwood. If they're smart, they'll stop and eat at the little cafe there. Since no one has accused me of being smart, I kept rolling towards St Francis. They'll ride only 180 miles today but the real challenge is making it to Anton before 6 pm. The only store for about 50 miles is there and if they arrive after 6 pm, there's no food. We were lucky - several of the riders' support teams took up a collection and had food there for us upon our arrival last year. If I had stayed to help my partner, I likely would have missed out on the food. For those who arrived after about 10 pm, there was nothing except the food & snacks in their bags. If they didn't plan well, they're SOL. That can be a tough hurdle to overcome. The rest of today's ride into Byers is only 50 miles. I don't recall most of that since the exhaustion was setting in. I was riding with a Canadian and we both decided it was time for a nap on the side of the road down in the deep grass. That last 50 miles took forever. There's one guy on the ride who must be working on a personal best. The first day, he rode the 251 miles in 18 hours - not fast - but he was out of the control in under two hours (in at 2100, out at 2355). No overnight sleep...not even a few hours. He completed the 219 mile out-and-back yesterday at 1730 hrs and was only in the control for just over 2 hours. He's already arrived through the Byers control at noon today. This is where the majority of the people will arrive well after midnight and sleep. He was on the road again by 1300 hrs. With only 103 miles to go, I suspect he'll be done by 6 pm or 7 pm tonight. That's 750 miles in about 64 hours. The lady who simply killed it the first day appears to still be doing well. She was back in the control last night at 1906 hrs and appears to have had at least 5 hours of sleep. Decent amount of rest. The weather appears to be slightly in their favor. Winds are out of the south-south-east as the're heading literally due west. Temps are in the high 60's. They're probably getting a little wet though.
Crap. I've managed to avoid a serious case of new bike lust for a while now. That kinda went down the tubes when I saw Niner's new gravel grinder. I wants it...even with the Aqua-Fresh colorway, I wants it. Complete specs and propaganda here: http://www.ninerbikes.com/RLT9
I've heard too many stories about tires burping to go tubeless. Lemme know how it goes. Second race of the season coming up in Germantown, Md on Sun at 1145. In theory I should be starting on the front row. ...assuming that the refs have fixed their goof that is. I WAS in the race last Sun. Promise! M
I am sure it would ride great, but it looks like it would kick the shit out of you on the gravel around here..... I do like the looks of it and the specs look nice.
The guy I mentioned above finished at 1925 or 7:25 pm. Most of the rest won't finish until tomorrow afternoon. .
Not been keeping up on this read of late, and I'm sure this question has been answered a bunch of times, but. . . . . Wife's touring/commuter bike, a 2000 novara randonee, is really in need of new wheels. The tiagra hubs need a bunch of little parts that are hard to find (dust caps, cones, etc.), the rims are quite worn, and the spokes are no-name straight gauge things. And she's put tens of thousands of miles on the bike. I'd like to get her a new wheelset, nothing too fancy, but higher quality than what's on there. Lightness is not a concern. I'm leaning towards a tiagra or LX hub, Mavic open sport or A319 rim, 36 spoke. Supposedly her bike is built with a 132.5mm rear hub spacing, and can use either 130 or 135 mm hub. Any thoughts? I'd like to stay in the $175-250 range, and I'm not looking to build the wheels myself, especially when it doesn't seem to save me any money.
handspun wheels (sold through QBP) are quite well made. cheaper than you can buy the parts for, too. most any dealer can order these from their QBP catalog. maybe... http://harriscyclery.net/product/di...a-mavic-open-sport-silver-sku-we9216-qc49.htm plus http://harriscyclery.net/product/di...a-mavic-open-sport-silver-sku-we9212-qc49.htm mavic open sport are a real nice rim. thats a 36H rear, there's a 32H version too.
Those are what I'm looking at. I guess a big part of my question is: what's the difference between a LX hub and a Tiagra hub- is the mtb hub actually sealed better against dirt and wet, or are they basically the same hub except for spacing. And is there a better price/quality group- I would normally look at 105 components, but what I've read so far is that the tiagra hubs are as good as anything shimano makes when it comes to touring.
You could also consider spending a little more and getting her a dynamo front hub so she can run dynamo lights. Just a thought since you said it's her commuter/tourer.
Pretty much, you get incremental improvement as you go up from the line in weight and quality, but it is not really noticeable until you get up around XT, XTR.... For most uses Tiagra is really good. I would second the dyno hub.
For sure, that's a gorgeous bike. They really nailed the colors and graphics. But, I'd never even consider buying an aluminum bike to ride gravel. They have carbon and steel HTs in their arsenal. They should know better. I have to assume they've got others (carbon?) in the works. Agreed.
XT/XTR is on the mountain side. The Road stuff goes, 2200 < Tiagra < 105 < Ultegra < DuraAce. I think Tiagra -> 105 is mostly cosmetic, the newer Tiagra functionally is excellent. those Mavic Open Sport rims are excellent too, very sturdy, reasonably light. btw, I said Handspun, but I guess now the 'sport' grade stuff is branded Dimension, its still made by Handspun, and sold via QBP Dimension: http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/39d43067#/39d43067/1042 Handspun: http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/39d43067#/39d43067/1062 (and the next several pages, moving from Sport to Peloton to Pro grades for increasingly high prices. (thats QBP's 2013 catalog)
I dunno. Everybody's "gravel road" is a bit different. Around here it's neglected fire roads loaded with rocks, ruts and potholes. They suck on a MTB. Up in S. Oregon they're wonderful crushed gravel or DG tracks with nary a blemish that you can ride on a road bike with 28c tires. Both of my CX rides are Al and I've no real complaints re: ride quality. The Scott has a carbon fork and rides like butter. The Norco is of a much lower spec with an Al fork and was a bit buzzy and harsh. A Fulcrum CX wheelset and some Clement X'plor MSO tires pretty much fixed that. An RLT9 in steel or Ti would be cool too, but I think the Al frame should do the trick. I think having to listen to rocks ping off a carbon frame all day would give me heartburn. I did this ride today on my Scott CX. 50/50 dirt to pavement. As I said earlier...like butter. <IFRAME height=405 src="http://www.strava.com/activities/82425652/embed/e942dc298e42e20b5204a281013f610c82d3c012" frameBorder=0 width=590 allowTransparency scrolling=no></IFRAME>
I ordered from qbp a set of what I'd consider basic mtb wheels with eyeletted rims for a guy. We were surprised of the value and ordered a 2nd set for stock. Magic hoops are my favorites for wheel building. My last set of open pro's laced to ultegra hubs lasted 3 cross seasons and thousands of training miles. I'll never used pinned rims again, welded all the way. - Michael
I went out today to do an easy 25. Did I feel like doing 25? No, I didn't. I felt like doing fuck-all. But I was glad I did, in the end. I had a very nice ride, the weather was wonderful and I was able to pass a couple of very scenic riders more than once if you get my drift. All that and Horner takes the Vuelta. Good day. Now I'm on the piss undoing all 25 miles.
The '4PM Mtn bike ride' happened somewhere around 5PM today. Got busy in the store and those of working on the floor got sucked into doing stuff. I was feeling pretty good till I got to a ditch appx 5' deep with a muddy section on the bottom. Lofted the front wheel to get over the mud and promptly found myself on my ass as my rear wheel slid out from under me in the mud. On the way down I whacked my knee pretty good on the TT. Gonna make racing fun tomorrow. The other 1:20 went fairly well again aside from an achy knee. M
Ugh. That one wasn't nearly as much fun as the last one. More details to follow after I've mowed the grass M
Tour of Britain tech: Ummm Alessandro, don'tcha think you should be on a size or two bigger bike? :eek1 M
Sportif Cup race #2 went into the books today. Germantown, MD was the course location. We were riding in an open field going up and down the side of a hill. Technical? not in the slightest. LOTS and LOTS of turns tho. Like the course designer had a bowl of spaghetti and tossed it on the hill to see what looked good. Lots of up with what seemed like not enough down. Have I mentioned how much I'm NOT a climber? My 2 of 3 of my teammates were involved in a first corner crash. S'what happens when your starting chute is 50m then a 90deg corner. Shoulda had the start line somewhere else... I suspect they will next year. I suffered thru the first 3 laps, working my way thru people till it strung out enough that I wasn't picking em off any more. Then I got passed by one of my teammates that had crashed in the first lap. By then, I'd looked down at my Garmin, noticed I was within 2 beats of completely blowing sky high and backed off some. Ahh. No wonder I feel like puking! Still maintained my 'hard but not hard enough to blow' pace. So I didn't pre-register 'cause I'd spent myself into a pickle. S'allright! I've got a call-up! Nope. No call-ups if you don't pre-register. Oh well. Lesson learned. Good thing to know for the Super 8 *IF* I get a call-up there. I registered as #41. Think I finished 14th. I guess I was just a little dyslexic... Co-worker of mine came over with bike issues. He and another co-worker were furiously changing out his chain for my emergency chain when co-worker #2 noticed the problem: worn out inner chainring! :eek1 So, my bike managed to race 2 races today. *I* only did one. I gotta tell ya, my Altamira CX 1.1 is a great little bike. You'd think coming from a Van Dessel Full Tilt Boogie that it'd be a step WAY down, but you'd be incorrect. Stiff. Light. Handles well. All-in-all, good stuff. I haven't ridden em back to back to compare, but I'd say its a close-run thing to chose between the two. So, what did y'all do today? M
