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Bike Club Rides Again!

My good friend Derek runs a great Bike Club at Lake Harriet Community School. Lucky for me he always gets a big enough group that he needs an assistant. This fall he's got about 50 kids signed up to get out and ride together for an hour after school. Lake Harriet is about 6 blocks away from the school, so we typically ride to the lake and do one loop of the lake after a quick stop at the bandshell concessions stand (mini donuts, popcorn, cookies and more!).

There's always a lot of fun and smiles mixed with a bit of drama at bike club. At today's ride we got to the lake and through the snack stop, but shortly after that one of the boy's bikes had a major bike break down (oops, my pedals won't spin... well son, it appears that your derailleur fell off). So as I'm looking over the bike to determine if anything can be done (not really, just pretending I might be able to do something, but clearly there are absolutely no options here) the bike club quickly disappears around the corner. Being that I'm on my nifty Airnimal Joey I realize that I can get my seat low enough for this 4th grader to ride it. So I send off my new Airnimal rider to be with the group. I turn back before I took off kickbiking the other direction to see him ride off on my beautiful bike with my Arkel Briefcase pannier fully loaded (Powerbook, cameras (still and video) and many other daily essentials.

Good news! When I got back with the group my rider, bike and pannier were all with them. Whew! That loss would be difficult to explain without me looking like an idiot.

When I got home my daughter who should have been at high school tennis was home. When I inquired about this she pointed out that it totally looked like a storm after school so tennis practice was called off. Bike Club 1, Southwest High School Tennis Team 0!

Great Job Bike Club.

Over 20 years ago I got a job at Alternative Bikes in uptown Minneapolis. Jay Erickson was the owner of this upstanding neighborhood bike shop that specializes in selling Bridgestone bikes, skateboards and snowboards (early adopters). Another big specialty was overnight repairs. I worked as an overnight repairman. I learned a lot from Jay. Plenty about repairs and bike shops, and whole lot about myself (working late with the pressure of getting through a massive pile of repairs will do that to you). I worked for the Alt for 2 years and it was the last place that my paycheck was signed by someone other than myself.

Jay's sons were little kids going to elementary school back then, but now one of them (Jesse) has teamed up with a workmate (Ben) to design a nice quality, highly versatile frame that they are marketing as a Handsome Cycle Co. bike.

I spotted this frame at the big industry trade show (Interbike). It was being used to showcase some accessories in the Topeak booth. This model was labelled  as a "Devil". It sure looked like a nice start from which Handsome can grow from. The catalog lying below the bike was nicely styled without being over-designed. Cool.  Good work guys!

Here's a bike that gets in a lot of miles on the paths around the area. Phil rides a lot and has used a variety of bikes over the years. The past few years have been all about the RANS crank forward bikes. He likes to go fast in an ergonomically friendly position.

The handlebars and riser are custom modifications that have helped make the bike very comfy on the wrist, shoulders and hands. Instead of using the stock "straight" riser, this bike is set up with a RANS curved riser which brings the handlebars back about 3-1/2". The handlebars are swept back cruiser style handlebars with Ergon Grips with built in bar-ends for a variety of hand positions.

Forza 145mm Crankset with FSA chainrings

The other major modification this bike has are the 145mm Forza cranks. These are a nice, triple crank option that can work for a variety of bikes. The Forza cranks are available in 145, 155 and 165mm lengths and the bolt hole pattern is 130/74mm.

Phil is out putting real miles on his bike. I see him on the trails regularly and he's always smokin' down the trail at a quick pace. Looking good Phil!

The forecast was for a 40% chance of rain around 1pm and partly cloudy in the morning and late afternoon. A friend said to me later that he figured they meant to say that we'd get 40 inches of rain all day long... We met at 5am and it started drizzling then. From then until the end it was either drizzling or raining.

There were three of us on the ride. A fourth was all set to go, but thought that we were meeting at 5:30. Oops, 5:00 is a half hour earlier and thus we were on our slow 'n' steady ride by the time he showed. Bummer! Later in the day when were absolutely drenched with over 90 miles left to go, Derek says with the air of a high school boy "Marlin is sooo missing out!". At this point we all busted out laughing at the thought that someone would be disappointed that they were NOT with us.

The fact is the ride was a blast in spite of the rain, but it's hard to think about the ride and not think about the quantity of water we were dealing with. From the 80 mile mark up to 150 miles the rain was non stop. I kept saying that rain comes and it goes and we'd be sure to get a dryer weather cycle soon. Ha!

I rode a Bacchetta Corsa while my two riding partners were on lugged, steel road bikes (Concorde and Trek). The recumbent proved to be an amazing bike for this ride (again, only more so). While the high bottom bracket on the Corsa doesn't make for a very nimble city-riding bike, it is a comfy speed demon out on the road. At no point did I feel in doubt about riding the 200 miles.

We got in 100 miles by noon and took the afternoon and much of the evening to get in the next 100. I finished with just over 200 miles total and averaged a bit over 15 MPH. We held pretty true to the 5 minute breaks in the morning and lunch break wasn't much over 30 minutes, but as the water seeped into every wrinkle of clothing, the need for slightly longer and more frequent breaks was needed as a survival tool.

We never talked about quitting, but we often talked about what fools we were (and how dumb Marlin was for not being along for the fun : )