I awoke this morning to the sound of muffled tires on pavement. This meant only thing–snow. This little burst of winter has caught me out a bit–I don’t have a winter bike build up yet, and I’ve been considering just using the Surly all winter. So off I went into the snow, our street already covered with a fine coating of powder. Lesson number one: the bottle dynamo doesn’t work in the snow. Within a block it was covered with slush and not really spinning at all. A few blocks later, traffic was backing up on Jancey, and peering down Hampton, I decided to skip the short hill, which, at this point was completely snow covered. Approaching Stanton, I looked up the hill to see an endless line of traffic. The road conditions were a bit worse, too, with some of the snow now packed into slick pseudo-ice. This led to lesson number two: the 28mm tires on the Surly are not cut out for these conditions, especially when the front wheel is loaded with weight.
Enough, I thought. I pointed the bike up Stanton, rode up one block, then went down Morningside Avenue, which was, in spots, very icy. Good choice to turn around, I think. Now I’m working comfortably in our office, surrounded by boxes of Christmas stuff recently removed from the attic. I don’t feel terribly bad for skipping the commute today, though part of feels that I had I been better prepared, I could have stuck with it. I’m seriously considering finding a used mountain bike for just such an emergency.
Posted on 5 December 2007
Sardis-Saltsburg Loop
Note: map does not accurately reflect the ride. More below.
Call it the Oddball Ride. I meet Dan (recumbent rider) just down the hill from the house, on my Albatross-bar’ed fixed gear (sans basket). I waffled quite a bit about the bike choice, but when I put the Bianchi on the stand to put on the pedals, I noticed that bottom bracket finally gave up the ghost, requiring an enormous amount of force to turn the cranks. I quickly removed the basket from the Surly, and as I spun the front wheel, I heard a periodic *ting* as the wheel spun. Eh, whatever, I thought, and pulled out. As I braked going down Baker, I heard *ting* *ting* *ting*.
Eh, whatever. Who cares if my wheel exploded 20 miles from home? Not I.
Off we went, along that purgatory known as Allegheny River Boulevard. This road, along with its sister across the river, Freeport Road, is something I only tolerate. Traffic? Check. Road kill? Check. Chip seal? Check. Huge spots of ice? Check. Soon enough, it was over, and we were pointing our wheels upward on Plum Road. I had assumed before the ride that this would be an adventure on the fixed gear. It was not, however, as bad I thought it might be. While the climb is long, it is punctuated with short bits of flat, and the steepest bits are mercifully short. It really is a nice climb–albeit one that makes you work. The road surface is a mix of chip seal and asphalt, and the road is never quite level, with dips and bumps and off-camber turns.
At the top, I pause briefly to examine my front wheel again. A quick spin reveals a broken spoke. Fun. I pull it out of the hub, and open the release on my front brake so the now-wobbly front wheel doesn’t rub on the brake shoe. Here’s hoping the wheel doesn’t fail….
From here, well, we got a bit lost. Not completely lost, but we missed a turn on Hamlin, and rather quickly we were losing hard-earned elevation. We found our way, but not after dealing with a short hump or two on Hulton. Once righted, there was a long, gradual descent to Milltown. Whee! Spinning, and on to Milltown. And more hills. It’s been some time since I’ve done any sort of distance on the fixed gear, and I’ve decided that it really is true–the fixed gear makes rollers just a bit easier. You can naturally carry momentum through the hill, and the single gear forces you to maintain your speed. I certainly wouldn’t want to climb anything terribly steep (or long), but I think the fixed gear was a fine choice for this terrain. It is worth noting I did a horrible job avoiding potholes and other road deformities. Each time I grimaced and waited for front wheel to wobble uncontrollably.
Onward and upward to Logan’s Ferry/Sardis Road, the meat (and highlight) of the ride. It’s amazing how quickly the suburbia of Plum turns into the rolling farmlands of Westmoreland County. The road is quiet–enough so that we can ride two abreast and chat comfortably. Riding atop the ridge, we can see for miles to the left and the right, green hills spilling out. When Sardis intersects Saltsburg, Dan and I say our goodbyes–he’ll continue to Murraysville, then home through East Pittsburgh. I’ll suffer up the climb over the Turnpike on Saltsburg.
Saltsburg passes quickly with roller after roller. Nothing steep, nothing long, just up-down, up-down. A longer descent leads to climb over the Turnpike. I’ve dreaded this as well, but it’s not as bad as I fear. My pace has dropped at this point (especially with a bit of headwind), but I make good progress, and soon enough I’ve crested the hill. It’s (mostly) all downhill from here. I relax a bit on the final descent to Verona, feather the brake the whole way, rather than deal with another 200rpm stretch. And then, back into the purgatory of ARB. I did manage to forestall The Bonk, but at this point the clouds have rolled in, and the ever-present headwind is slowing my pace. My feet are cold, and my neck a bit stiff. Wah. At least I’m nearly home.
Posted on 1 December 2007
Today was the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Hot Metal Pedestrian/Bike Bridge, and since I work all of a quarter of a mile from the bridge, I thought I would ride over during lunch. I’ve been anxiously awaiting the opening of the bridge, as it allows me to avoid a few nasty stretches of traffic on my commute home each evening. The ceremony itself was packed–Nate snapped a few photos of the crowds. The number of cyclists was impressive.
Riding home tonight in the darkness over the bridge was a treat. There wasn’t another soul on it, and I was gliding above the traffic stopped on the lower section of the bridge. The city’s lights danced on the surface of the river, and soon enough I was in the (relative) darkness of the Jail Trail.
Posted on 28 November 2007
I have, yet again, re-configured the Surly for commuting. I decided I wanted to ditch the basket, primarily so I could ride the bike on the weekends without the added weight. I put on my old Carradice saddlebag, and tried to carry the laptop in my messenger bag. After a day’s commuting, I had two observations:
1. The saddlebag is the perfect size for commuting. It swallowed a stuff sack full of my day’s kit (clothes, food, tools, food, and various other small items) with ease.
2. The messenger bag is not at all perfect for carrying my laptop case.
Back on went the basket.
These days, I am using the basket for the laptop case and the saddlebag for everything else, and it’s worked out quite well. The Carradice is holding an amazing amount of stuff, and in yesterday morning’s deluge, it kept my stuff bone dry. The weight on the bike is better balanced, making it easier to throw it over my shoulder to get up and down the stairs to the porch. Ideally, this winter I’ll move to some sort of porteur rack in the front, which would have much smaller profile than the basket, but this requires at least a new fork for proper mounting.
Monday was the first real dose of miserable fall/winter-ish weather, with rain and lower temperatures. I made two mistakes with my kit:
1. Nylon pants
2. No gloves
I actually think #2 was good idea, since my fleece gloves don’t keep my hands warm or dry in the rain. But #1 was a mistake. I probably should have gone with kneewarmers and shorts. That combo would not have kept me dry, but at least I would have been warmer. Conditions like these are always difficult to dress for, however, since it’s not quite cold enough to break out the soft shell (and water resistant) pants, but cold enough to be a bit miserable if you are wet.
Posted on 27 November 2007
Hunter Road Loop
Short ride today, but on new roads. Plum/Hunter Road out of Oakmont is really nice climb. Long, too, which is surprising, given how close it is to the city. I could see linking Hunter with something like Coxcomb or Logan’s Ferry for a relatively short but difficult ride.
In other biking news, I have mostly committed to riding the criteriums at the Oval next year. I’ve been hesitant to ride in the past because I’ve envisioned the C race (Cat 4 and 5 riders) being incredibly fast and difficult, but several folks have convinced to give a go. I’ve got no real goals, besides minimizing the number of races where I get dropped and/or lapped. I’m sure my recently-latent competitive side will be awakened, but any proper training would be unlikely to happen.
Posted on 25 November 2007
Old Mill/Saxonburg Loop
I’ve wanted to do this ride for some time, and just haven’t gotten around to it. Few folks are interested in the last bit of Old Mill Road, with its mix of dirt, gravel, and chip seal. Personally, I find this quite inviting. The full length of Old Mill is really a great road–the surface is never really all that good and it is peppered with momentum-sapping humps. All of this is worth the final stretch, though: a long mixed surface descent. Nothing like cruising at 25MPH on dirt on a road bike.
The return on Saxonburg was less than pleasant. With temperatures in the high 30s, riding into a headwind after climbing Indianola was cold, to say the least. Add to that the speed-sucking chip seal, and it was a character-building experience. I also found myself just off the front of the Dirty Dozen group as they descended Middle Road from the Berryhill climb. More power to them.
Posted on 24 November 2007
Starz Road/Guys Run Link-up
I intended to ride farther, and into uncharted territory, but a later start and looming rain clouds kept me closer to home. My plan was to just do the Starz Road ride, but when I got to Freeport Road, there was still daylight to burn, so I turned the bike up Guys Run. This ended up being nearly as long as my intended ride. Oh well. It did include one three star ride in Guys Run, and another should-be-three-star-ride in the Starz Road climb (golly gee, that’s a nice stretch of road).
Posted on 17 November 2007
It is currently snowing, and the grass in our backyard is frosted with with white. A veritable winter wonderland.
And it’s not even December.
Posted on 16 November 2007
Four Hills, Plus
I finally managed to make it out with a few folks who were doing their Dirty Dozen training. We did High Street/Seavey Road, Center, Ravine, and Berryhill (the only one I haven’t done before). Another good learning exercise. The High Street/Seavey Road combo felt pretty good, even on a minimal warmup (all of, oh, half a mile). I really dislike Center. It isn’t terribly steep, but it is very straight. It wasn’t that I thought that I couldn’t do it, I just didn’t like it. Ravine felt pretty good as well, and I managed to turn the screws a bit on the final stretch of Sharps Hill. Berryhill is quite steep, but very short. I lucked out by lolly-gagging at the Saxonburg crossing, and I avoided a bit of traffic on the hill.
I did not, however, bring enough food, and I popped pretty good climbing Nadine. The final few miles (all generally uphill) were quite a grind. Note to self, bring more food.
Posted on 11 November 2007
Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
— Dante Alighieri, from The Divine Comedy
Over the summer, our oven stopped working. We ignored it for a few month because, really, who needs to turn on the oven when it’s 95 degrees. Finally, I gathered the motivation to order the defective part and replace it. This did nothing to actually fix the problem. We called a repairman to discover that, indeed, we had replaced the proper part, but the replacement wasn’t correct part (even though it was supposed to be). $250 later, our oven worked again.
There was much rejoicing. And pizza.
Then, a few weeks ago, Jen hurt her ankle thanks to a climbing fall. We’re still waiting to hear the results of a CT scan, but she is hobbling around with a rather large brace.
Around the same time, our washer gave up the ghost. This was not the first time. A year or so ago we had to replace several parts. This wasn’t terribly painful, as we haggled with Sears and managed to get it covered by a warranty we really didn’t have (we inherited the washer from the previous owners). This time, the drain pump wasn’t working. After briefly decided it was, in fact, the pump that was shot (and not a blockage) we went to Home Depot to buy a new one.
I hate spending money on appliances. Actually, I hate spending that sort of money on anything but bicycles or climbing equipment. But I girded my inner cheapskate, and off we went. We wandered around for a bit, looking at things like energy ratings, and finally decided on a front loading job.
Yes, we said, we’ll take it.
Sorry, they said, that’s not in stock. In fact, they said, we have very little in stock.
Why then, I thought, do you have all of these washing machines out?
The salesman did do quite a bit of legwork for us, and found a 2007 floor model that was fairly scratched and dented, nearly 50% off, and under full warranty. Appearances meant little, given our basement, so we took it, loaded in my father’s truck, and off we went. Whee, we could laundry. And clean the bucket of cloth diapers.
Soon enough, the machine we hooked up, and we put in a test load. Look at those clothes wash! And we could wash our sleeping bags! The last time mine was washed was when we lived in Shadyside. And we’ve camped quite a bit since then. I shudder at that thought.
Then we noticed the timer was stuck at 15 minutes. It just sat there. And sat there. And sat there. Jen restarted the load. Again, it just sat there. And sat there.
I drained the water, and we tried again. Same thing. Yep, our new washing machine didn’t work. And hey, look at that, guess what didn’t work:the drain pump. So now, we will wait until Wednesday for a service call. At least it’s under warranty. We take comfort in the fact that maybe the whole thing is shot, and we’ll get a new (a real new) machine. Or maybe we’ll just be able to do laundry again.
I wonder what will break next?
Posted on 10 November 2007
