Too many bikes, not enough riders. Tell your friends.

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haven’t been on the site in a REALLY REALLY long time. nothing new on the cycling front until early next year with the tarmac pro gets built up. hope you all had a nice holiday season, and have a great new year!!!!

weather can be a funny thing sometimes. last week we had a few days when it was in the upper 30’s, and a few nights when water froze in a cup on the porch. but this week we’re back in the 50’s. regardless, i decided that it was time to get back into trainer mode again.

i actually found a perfect home for the fetish track bike on the trainer. with the fixed gear, i can pedal both backwards and frontwards and work on different muscle groups.

the one thing that did change was the type of trainer i’m riding on now. last year when money was more scarce and i wasn’t working at the bike shop, i had to settle for this cheap 5 speed adjustable magnetic trainer from performance. not a terrible product if you’re on a fixie, but it was loud, and unstable on uneven surfaces.

i wouldn’t say that i splurged this year, but i did upgrade to the cyclops fluid 2 trainer. not able to sit there and dilly dally as much with this trainer, because even at its ‘lowest setting’, it’s still necessary to use a modest amount of effort to actually get going. it’s actually louder at low rpm’s than at high ones – not really quite sure why, and it’s not really that important to me…i guess i just have to ride harder to not wake up jennifer in the mornings.

i’ve delayed the tarmac pro build date by a little bit. my rationale is that since i can’t ride in the winter anyway, there’s no point building it up in the winter. just like last year with the orbea. i got it in january, but didn’t build till april.

i’m actually excited for snow to come this year. the route that i go now to work is much better maintained than the streets that spanned from bridgeport to the city – and since i don’t ride on the path anymore, all of the streets are main thoroughfares and well plowed. i’ll finally be able to get in some gary fisher time too. woot!

the first ride of the 50 (degree) under club for me happened around two weeks ago. it was the oddest thing. on sunday for the marathon here in chicago there were record temps of 88, and by wed/thurs, temps had dropped down into the 40’s. of course this is the time of year that i look forward to: no one on the recreational paths, relatively crisp air, and if the wind comes in just right, a fast easy ride to or from work. conversely if you happen to have a 15mph head wind like i did this morning, your face gets a little uncomfortable.

so in preparation for the ride i had two weeks ago, i had on a reasonable amount of clothing – long sleeve spandex shirt, then a sleeve-less jersey, all followed by you know – a fleece lined light jacket. (think the inner shell of a parka…) on the ride to work i got really hot, which was fine. my mistake was stripping off the jacket the moment i locked my bike up in our bike room. although it wasn’t in the 40’s in the bike room, it was probably in the high 60’s. but my internal sweaty temperature was probably in the mid 80’s to low 90’s, and the moment i took the jacket off – BAM! got REAL cold REAL fast. and i thought, “oh shit…this is gonna be bad.”

sure enough by noon i was cycling through fevers and chills, so i went home for half the day. the following day i was on meds the whole day, and on friday i could only stand about 2 hours of work. now i’m reluctant to say that i had the flu outright, but i think that i was experiencing flu like symptoms. and since i had been hopped up on OTC meds for the past two days, my stomach was feeling pretty bad, so i resorted to using a mixture of homeopathic, eastern, and western techniques.

first up was a product from a french company called boiron. the product is called Oscillococcinum, and although i felt a little better, it still didn’t cut it. which brought me to asian cupping. it perhaps has more exposure now that gwenyth paltrow showed up with little bruises on her back at some awards show. basic concept: cups create a partial vacuum against your skin, increasing blood flow, thereby increasing circulation. if done intensely enough, dead neutraphils will be brought to the surface in the form of little bubbles. so with a couple of 1 hour sessions, i was able to get out a lot of these little bubbles.

and so for 4 more days, i was just really tired and weak, but it was better than being outright sick still. i took the remainder of the week off from riding, which brings us to this work week. started out with two 50 degree days, and today the “feels like” temp was 41. i actually wore knickers under my shorts today, and i went for the sleeve-less jersey with just my jacket again. THIS time – though, i didn’t take my jacket off until i got into my office, and i feel just fine.

so after riding the new fetish for a couple of weeks now, i like it. i discovered that for the past few years, i’ve been riding with my seat too low, and i’ve finally found the right height. my left leg is about .5cm longer than my right leg (very common, actually), but i found a height that allows me adequate extension in both legs without causing aches or pains in my knees. the surly 1×1 tensioning from below is working wonderfully – i haven’t had any skipping issues, and my chain has only fallen off once when i went over some railroad tracks too hard. because the frame is smaller (and shorter lengthwise), i can corner a little faster and more aggressively as well – something i couldn’t do with the fixed gear bike for fear of pedal strike or losing my balance pedaling too fast through a turn. i’m gonna hold off probably till january to start building up the tarmac pro, but there’s still time. i don’t plan on riding it through the snow anyway.

named the new fetish kaveat, because buying any type of fetish bike could be a “warning” in some way form or fashion. it could be good: “get out of my way or i’ll smoke you” as in adam’s case with his freccia, or it could be bad.

pics are up on the bike page.