Cincinnati: Now Rainier than Seattle and Portland

The drench-o-meter at the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky airport shows 10 ½ inches of rain this April, an all time record.  You’d think that’s like Portland rainfall.  Not even close.  Portland’s average monthly rainfall for April is a wimpy 2.4 inches.  Even in the cute rubber rain boot capitol of the US, Seattle gets only 6 inches of rain in its rainiest months of December and January.  We passed Seattle rain two weeks ago.  Before you start feeling like one helluva hardass for not missing one training day due to rain, consider our 10 ½ inches is a third of the average monthly rainfall at Kukui on the Hawaiian Island of Maui, where at an elevation of 5,788 feet, the average monthly rainfall is 32.81 inches.  According to Velominati’s Rule #9, you’d be one hell of a badass to ride in Kukui or get killed trying. 

My cassette looks like a chocolate Krispy Kreme donut stuck in my spokes.  Black silt covers my fork like a beard.  A dull gray sheen has come over my silver Sram Red brakes.  The sad thing is my bike got the full-meal-deal cleaning last week.  I even overhauled my headset, for the 2^nd time this winter/spring.  It’s easier said than done to HTFU when you start feeling like rain is acid falling from the sky chiseling ruts in your rims and rounding off your cassette.  Just like riding with a wet chamois, it’s not so much the water, but that fine layer of grit that’ll make your groin and bike beg for mercy.  Here are some tips to save your bike in the rain.

Make Your Friends Buy Fenders

That way your bike doesn’t look dorky, but you get the benefit of not having to drink or wear their road spray.  As an added bonus, you’ll get to sit on the back of the ride and avoid pulling because no one will want to ride behind you.  Use the $30 you saved on fenders for some nice white bar tape and bust it out the first week of summer sunshine.

Ride The Least Expensive Drivetrain

A friend expressed shock that I was riding my sweet carbon Kuota KOM in the rain instead of my IF Planet X cyclocross bike.  “The Kuota’s plastic,” I said.  Unlike the Planet X, a carbon bike isn’t going to rust.  Sure the Planet X is supposedly an all weather bike with sealed water bottle braze-ons; it’s also steel and has a Sram Red drivetrain.  When it comes to wear, it’s much less expensive to replace a workhorse Ultegra chain, bottom bracket and cassette than swanky super high end race stuff.  Brush, clean and lube your drivetrain after every rainy ride.

Ride Your Square Tires

Hanging in the garage, we all have a set of tires that’s as square as Will Smith’s Fresh Prince haircut with a few cuts and divots in ‘em.  Put ‘em back on.  Sure they’re not going to have that new tire grip or match your bike, but why kill a set of new tires.  Rain water picks up every spec of dirt and glass, sticks it to your tire, and turns a new set of skins into old ones in a week.  Save the nice tires for a whenever this rain stops or August, whatever comes first.

Monkey Pick Your Brake Pads

You’ve seen the Monkey’s at the zoo picking fleas out of each other’s fur.  Do the same with your brake pads.  Sharpen a spoke and monkey pick the grit out of your brake pads after rainy rides.  However, if you’ve been dying to get new wheels, but find it impossible to justify the expense, ride through every single puddle you can, then ride through a beach and slam on the brakes a few times.  Then show your wife the concave braking surface on your wheels and tell her you’ll stop buying Cheetos at work for the next 2 years.  

Top 10 April 1st Cycling Headlines

Hipsters Beware

Hipster Killed Locking Bike To Top of Electric Fence

Shotgun Out: Ohio Valley CX Gun Club Race To Get Rocket Propelled Grenade Start

Jimmy Carter Wins Nobel Peace Prize For Ending Cyclocross Air Pressure Debate

Cobble Gripping Suction Cup Tires To Debut at Tour of Flanders

Pure CO2 Inflation

Topeak Unveils New CO2 Tire Pump: “You Blow”

Mr. Katie Compton Changing Name to Mark Fucking Legg Compton

Border Patrol Agents Seize 47 Pounds of Weed In Frame of Downhill Mountain Bike

Tire Scab: Stan’s Revolutionary Bio-Tubeless System Uses Animal Cells To Self Heal Punctures

Model of Cobble Sector 14

Worried About Hip Fracture Hincapie Training For Paris Roubaix on Nerf Cobblestones

Weight Weenie In Hospital After Failed Test of Nylon Helmet Stuffed With Packing Peanuts

Deer Creek Ohio Cycling Road Race Video

Deer Creek Road Race from ohio cycling on Vimeo.This is the best locally produced video I've ever seen for a Cincinnati area race.  The bar has been set.  Features great commentary, main footage from the Cat 1/2/3 race, finishes from all fields and a good wrap up.  Nice job.

Bike On The Moon But First, Antarctica

(Houston, TX - 04.01.09) The hatch of a former Apollo space capsule slammed shut this morning behind a pair of French ultra endurance cyclists who will spend three months of isolated training to simulate conditions for an upcoming attempt to circumnavigate Antarctica on a tandem mountain bike, funded by Fulzaprilidev, a private Russian space travel company.  The two must now live in the cramped refrigerated facility until the experiment ends 104 days later, allowing coaches and scientists to assess the effects of isolation and cold on their minds and bodies.  If successful the duo will proceed with their plans for Antarctica and may one day ride on the moon.

 

"How do I feel?  I am very motivated. There is a kind of relief. We have been working for a long time and finally we are getting to the start point," French Captain Avril Tompe Le Jour told reporters just hours ahead of the experiment.  "The challenge is to live and ride with the same person for a long period but it is a positive challenge. I think we are going to learn a lot about each other," added his Stoker teammate Très Drôle.  "The aim is to test the physiological and psychological effects of cold and isolation.  And, like the moon and Antarctica, this capsule is without a bicycle shop," he added.

 

(pictured left: Avril Trompe Le Jour on an training ride in the French Alpes) The two climbed into the facility at Houston’s Space Institute of Biomedical Problems (SIBMP) at 12:01 am CST and the hatch was firmly closed behind them.  They will not emerge again for the next three months unless they decide to pull out of the experiment for health or personal reasons.  “Unfortunately, we will miss half of the Tour De France,” Le Jour joked.  The cyclists will be allowed to take small personal effects like books, laptops and DVDs into the facility but, aside what would fit in the packs affixed to their specialized tandem bicycle will otherwise be sealed away from the world.  They will be travelling nowhere, but the aim of the experiment is to imitate the need for full autonomy that the three month circumnavigation of Antarctica will entail. 

 

As with a real trip, the supplies for the expedition have been painstakingly worked out in advance and no additional goods will be allowed to enter the capsule once the experiment starts.  In a bid to precisely simulate possible scenarios of a tandem circumnavigation around Antarctica, communications with the outside world will be limited to the battery life of a satellite phone.  They will be limited to two sets of cycling clothes each.  The workouts have been personally designed for the athletes to allow them to almost exactly simulate the rigors of riding on the ice for hours at a time. The former craft has been transformed and is made of three modules: one tent-size for sleeping, one refrigerated room that houses the knobby treaded tandem on rollers with a computer to track mileage and measure vital athlete biomedical information, and a third, just big enough to store the tools, food and supplies that would normally fit into panniers and highly modified carbon fiber trailer. 

 

The experiment is a joint project between a Fulzaprilidev, the SIBMP and the Ultra Endurance Cycling League (UECL) and will eventually lay the path for an as yet unplanned privately funded lunar attempt.  The three organizations are planning at the end of the year to send two more cyclists into the isolation facility for 205 days -- the estimated duration of a tandem bicycle trip around the southern pole of the moon. 

 

The two were chosen from a pool of over 4109 elite cyclists including American Triathlete April Foolsday.  

Amstrong Gets Carbon Collarbone

(Nose Hit News Service 25 March 2009)  Call it bionic.  In a five and a half hour surgery March 25^th, seven time Tour Champion Lance Amstrong received what experts believe is the first carbon fiber collar bone replacement from Technosteo Inc.  Lighty patting Lance’s new shoulder at Amstrong’s Austin home, Astara Team Director, Johan Bruyneal hinted that this breakthrough should allow Lance to recover more quickly and possibly be competitive in the Giro. 

“Heat molded on-site according to specifications from an earlier MRI, Lance’s new collarbone will perform just like Lance’s old bone, but will be lighter, more impact resistant and have the vibration damping qualities of carbon fiber,” according to Dr. Van Nostrand, Chief of Surgery at the Costanza Institute for Sports Medicine in Houston.  Previously the carbon fiber bone replacement had only been performed on hip replacements.  “Carbon is the building block of life.  The possibilities of carbon fiber are endless,” said Doctor Van Nostrand.  He added, “The human body is less likely to reject something made from carbon as opposed to alloys.  In addition it can be more precisely tuned to better mimic the functionality of human bone.”  According to Technosteo Inc.’s website, the manufacturer of the high tech carbon fiber bone replacement, Lance’s new carbon collarbone weigh’s a scant 121 grams, roughly the same as a Ritchey WCS stem.  A typical human male collarbone weighs 256 grams.

Early April Fools.  Typos intended.  This is a fake news story.  Get well soon Lance!  

Caveman And The Zipp Carbon Wheels

Zipp wheels free.  Caveman won at season end OVCX raffle.  Me love.  See happy cave drawing below.  Wheels still in box in garage.  Every two or three moons, when in cave, me open, pull out, marvel at like a monolith and tuck back in box.  Garage locked, alarmed, filled with ferocious dogs and army of Lycra cavemen with clubs.  Caveman protect carbon wheels to death.  However, caveman bummed.  Me can’t ride wheels without tubular tires, brake pads for carbon rims, a glue job and air.  Me grunt and pound on dirt floor.  Caveman has taxes to pay and cave to insure.

Me got air.  Air free, but bike shop say parts and labor cost near $300 with tax.  Caveman taxes due in twenty some sunrises.  Cave insurance due in nine.  Cavewoman reason taxes and insurance come before bike stuff.  Me grunt and pound floor. 

Caveman industrious and inventive.  

Me see solution like spark lead to fire.  Caveman skip weekend races.  Save money.  Work on taxes.  Me thinks there might be more floor pounding before me ride wheels.  Caveman get quote on home & car insurance this week.  Caveman figure how much money left under rock after taxes and cave insurance.  Me spend left over money to finish wheels.  Me want Continental GP 4000 S tubies.  Caveman sees light.