Being Eastwardly Challenged

Your internal compass functions equally in all directions.  Mine?  Not so much.  Maybe you lived your whole life in Indianapolis, the Circle City.  Columbus and Cincinnati are like Indianapolis, you can travel in all directions for miles and miles.  Count your blessings native buckeyes.  Same goes for those growing up with a baby bottle of Bourbon in Louisville.  Others, like me, grew up in a world devoid of easterly travel by land.  

A Milwaukeean by birth, while I have a wine aficionado type appreciation for the variety of cheese curds, I am forever directionally disabled.  So is the guy from Miami I met via email this week.

Aside from the Browns, I can relate with people in Cleveland, northwardly challenged.  Being from Milwaukee, like those who grew up in Chicago, I have no concept of east.  I’d assume riders in LA have a hard time with west.  West is ocean.  I was born with east meaning Great Lakes.  Joe go no east.

East is brow furrowing confounding to me.  When I give directions to someplace east of Cincinnati, I lack the typically manly confidence.  I slur out the word east with a slow point to the right.  “It’s about 8 miles eeeeaaaast of here.  Yep.  East.  That way.  That’s east, right?” 

Being eastwardly challenged has its rewards.  Anytime I’m east of town, I feel like I’m only a few minutes away, even if it’s 20 miles.  Being east of home has always meant close to home.  I could never stray too far without getting my feet wet.  My brain is lopsided.  If I were to create a graph, it’s nearly a 2 to one ratio.  2 miles west = 1 mile east in terms of feeling far from home.  This can be dangerous.  What feels like 14 miles, can easily be 30 miles.  Due to my condition, I’m more likely to bonk on a ride east of home.

I got an email from a guy living in Miami last week who asked for advice on the best area to live in Cincinnati and be close to good riding and far away from busy roads.  It was obvious he suffered my disability as well.  Logically, appearing a short drive to the city and an easy escape into rural riding on a map, he was considering Mason.  Mason!  I had to save him from the six-lane freeway as a main street hell-hole.

Mason is a suburban heaven, surrounded by a purgatory moat of traffic jams.  The only saving grace is the right hooks and middle finger throwing come from pretty women driving Lexus SUV’s.  I had to open his eyes to the circle city concept, where living more central to the city affords more pleasant riding in all directions, and consequently, living on the fringes, limits your options.  I live 5 miles from downtown Cincinnati.  I do most of my riding out my front door in all directions, even east.  In 13 years, I’ve never ridden my bike through Mason.  In fact, it’s avoided.  Conversely, the amount of riders passing the end of my urban street on any given week is probably in the hundreds.

When a city offers travel by road in all directions, people and traffic are more spread out.  Imagine how the dynamic of understanding a city would change if you took all the people on the Eastside of Cincinnati or Indianapolis or Louisville, and moved them all west from a centerline through downtown.  Welcome to Chicago, Miami and Milwaukee.  The size of the suburbs is double.

You can’t blame Miami guy.  In Miami, there’s a whole lot of life crammed in that little corner of Florida, let alone King James’ and Pitbull’s entourages.  It was obvious he has no concept of east as well, and occasionally wrestles with south.  There is definitely no east and only a little fart of outlet store highway leading south of Miami to the keys.  Every day, he has to navigate a dense suburban choking hell to lay wheels to peaceful asphalt somewhere north and/or west of the city.  I must have blown his mind when I told him the best places to live and ride in Cincinnati are actually closer to the city. 

The beauty of the circle city is on any given day, I can ride south in to the hills of Northern Kentucky, past the riverboats west along the Ohio River, north on the bike path to Loveland, Xenia and Dayton and yes, east.  Glorious east past the riches of Indian Hill, I can pedal through a covered bridge, down miles of one lane farm roads which eventually turn into switchbacks up the Appalachian Mountains and back down for hundreds of miles before east ever comes to an end with soaking wet feet.

What is a "Snake Alley"

Snake Alley is one way going down
 except for the race.

Before we left Cincinnati we mentioned we were heading to Snake Alley to several cyclist and the response was a pretty unanimous "oh, really?" The kind of response that says "I heard of it, but I ain't never been there." Which, before this weekend, is exactly what I knew of it - there is an alley and it snakes - and of course OVCX regular Drew Dillman has won the hotly contested Juniors 15-18 race two years consecutive.

Today our mission was to find out exactly what this Snake Alley really entails. A preview ride the day before the real race should at least tell us what some of the hub-bub is about, but the real race will be a new experience to all in the car.

Some research on Wikipedia revealed some information about the Alley - or at least I am hoping this specific Wikipedia page wasn't hi-jacked.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Alley

Spencer and Kenzie headed up the bricks

According to the Wikipedia page the alley was constructed in 1894 to connect downtown Burlington, IA to the close by neighborhoods. Due to the steepness of the hill, the alley winds in a serpentine fashion about 275 feet, rising about 58 feet vertically over that span. The resulting grade is approximated at 21% - though that appears to vary if you take the outside line on all the curves. The pictures on the internet give it a Lombard Street from San Francisco feel to it. Wikipedia says, again hoping it is accurate, the crooked section of Lombard is about 1300 feet long, making Snake Alley about 1/10th the size.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_Street_(San_Francisco)

To prepare for this race we had to find something local to Cincinnati to practice. Through discussion and research we found that Adams Road is relatively close to Snake Alley in dimension. If you haven't been up it, head up the Little Miami bike trail to Loveland and head up the hill just north of the downtown Loveland section. Many of you have done this and groan audibly when someone suggest starting a ride up Adams. Now go race up it a few times with about 2 minutes between attempts and your heart rate already spiked.

Closeup of the pavers used

Many of you will agree that sounds hard, but what brings the lore that Snake Alley has earned is the fact that the climb is also cobbled. Yes, it is laid brick from bottom to top creating the opportunity to lose your traction, fall over, slip and have to run up a 21% grade in road cleats. 


I bet this Alley could tell quite a few tales and I hope to capture some to share tomorrow.

Indy Fab Worthy (An OVCX Love Story)

THAT GUY

I just handed THAT GUY my IF.  I’m watching a guy who calls himself Jimmy Road Rash ride out of the OVCX Infirmary Mound race pits on my $5000 bike.  You might’ve heard of him, he writes a blog too (link here).  Now why would I handoff my cherished custom painted Independent Fabrication Planet X with Sram Red and carbon wheels to a guy who knocked out his tooth on a ride a year and a half ago?  Because he’s loveable, awkwardly man-huggable and a BioWheels/Reece-Campbell Racing teammate?  Hell no.  This is an IF we’re talking about.  I get the heebie jeebies when people pick it up to see how light it is.  Well my buddy Jimmy is finally IF worthy, or so I hope.

THIS BIKE

Don’t think for a second that I didn’t worry the second he grabbed the handle bars and threw his leg over my custom painted baby.  After all, the whole reason he entered the pits was because he crashed and bent his derailleur hanger.  I questioned myself immediately.  None of our other teammates were quick to offer their bikes.  I wanted to run back through the woods to the back side of the course to make sure it’d be okay.  That’s crazy talk though.  What was I going to do?  Throw my body under the bike in-case he washed out on the downhill pavement to grass turn?  Tell him to watch the rock and roots in the singletrack?  Make him wait in the pits while I swapped the $2000 Zipp wheels for something more Jimmy Road Rash appropriate like a three-cross open pro?  Sheeeeet.  The reason I handed him my bike instead of making him finish out the race on his 20 pound Ultegra/105 equipped Redline with three operable gears is because prior to his mishap he was laying down the law on OVCX fast guys like Phil Noble, Jacob Virosko, Sam Dobrozi, and Jason Karew on a 20 pound Ultegra/105 equipped Redline.

Jimmy behind at OVCX Infirmary Mound

Granted Phil, Jacob and Jason were on their 2^nd race of the day, but racing is racing.  Ask anybody around the Columbus Ohio venue if Phil and Jason could spank Jimmy even if it was their 2^nd race and I’m pretty sure the answer prior to yesterday would’ve been a unanimous yes.  However, Jimmy Road Rash was in the money in an Elite race.  No longer was he fighting not to get lapped by the Bike Reg pro’s, he was closing gaps, dropping guys and racing mid-pack Elite.  Before his misstep, he had systematically closed the 30 meter gap to and dropped every one of the guys listed above.  For the first time I can recall, the rider formally known as Jimmy Road Rash was looking at an Elite cyclocross payout.  He’s fast.  He also needs the money.

Jimmy at Gun Club OVCX

That’s always been my worry with Jimmy.  Like many riders new to the sport.  Sometimes your enthusiasm and strength grow faster than your skills, experience and knowledge.  That’s when you loose teeth and skin.  That’s when other riders leave a little extra room when they’re on your wheel.  Sure you’re fast…fast enough to drive yourself straight into a tree, fast enough to grab a handful of brake rather than soft pedal, fast enough to not think that a covered bridge may have 3 inch gaps between it’s 135 year old hand-cut decking.  That’s why you keep riding a beat-up 20 pound Redline with 105.  That’s why you sell the parts off the Trek Madone frame you destroyed on a covered bridge to your buddy Joe.  You crash.  Replace.  Repeat. 

Jimmy @ Mohican 100

However, it’s been a long time since Jimmy’s bit it.  It’s been a long time since Jimmy sold the Sram Force derailleur from the Madone to me.  It’s been a long time since I put that derailleur on the very bike I just handed off to him.  He’s finally at that point where I hear about his mishaps less than I hear about those from more experienced riders.  Besides, at the USGP a few weeks ago when I broke my seatpost, in a pit exchange that was ultra pro smooth, he handed me his 20 pound 105 equipped Redline so I could finish out my race.  Eventually, what goes around comes around, even if it’s a gorgeous $5000 Indy Fab Planet X.