Category: Cycling

Spitting Coffee through my nose

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

I made an application that grabs the latest news from NPR, CNN, and my three favorite comics and delivers it to my Outlook In-box first thing in the morning – I know, I’m a dork.  Anyway, one of the ‘toons made me roll with laughter and I spit my fine latte out of my nose.  About two years ago I was cycling through the fields of North Germany, along narrow country roads, with a friend and neighbor who just could not stay warm on the ride.  The cold wind was just cutting into him so he pulled off, grabbed a paper full of glossy adverts from the ground and started layering them flat inside his jersey.  I laughed and laughed at him all the way home and would snicker for months afterward when we would ride together.  I had completely forgotten about it until yesterday morning when the comic below opened up in my morning Geek-mail.  Coffee should never be spewed from the nose: it is both painful and messy.  My laughter/coffee fountain was also a source of delight for the other cube-dwelling Engi-nerds that surround me.

yahuda stuffing newspaper

Santa Claus-like body fat percentage

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

As far as my overall fitness lever:  I have never worked this hard to look this bad!  I REALLY miss being 19.  The days of drinking lots of beer, eating crap, still looking decent, and performing at an elite level are GONE.  I am officially almost old and I have outrageous cookie-handles/spare tire, my arms have shrunk, and my body fat percentage is bordering on Santa Claus level.  The months of inactivity after the most recent surgery and gorging myself on coffee (triple Grande one pump mocha with whip…), 1-liter wheat beers, donuts, more beer, cookies, and brownies did little to prepare me for the coming summer.  I have been doing yoga at home weekly, but want to find a local class/studio to visit for a weekly or bi-weekly session.  Yoga really adds to my climbing and as I have decided to focus on my core (keeps me from stressing robo-shoulder) and my agility, it compliments the abundant AB work – which is not going well since I am starting from scratch again.  All the work last summer and fall was for naught. I am slowly working back into my pre-cartwheel down the stairs groove.

The Bionic Shoulder is doing SO much better.  I still need the second surgery, but it can wait – no serious rush – and I can do 15 push-ups without it hurting.  I have been real careful not to stress it as I am going to need it in as good a shape as possible if I snag a slot on the Alpine Club of Iran Climber Exchange trip that I am hoping to be selected for.  I am climbing all right, but I have been hesitant to frequent the rock gym or bounder on plastic holds.  I have found that it is REALLY easy to over train and tear something on plastic.

I have logged about 90 running miles in the last 6 weeks, Nike+ has helped with that, but I have been neglecting my two-wheeled mistresses.  I may have ridden 120 miles in the last 7 weeks…  It is my new commute and the spring rainy season.  The ride home has a shitty hill at the end of the 15mile ride and I have to fight traffic some so that puts me off, but more than that, the sun has been shy of late.  I am by no means a fair weather cyclist, it is just that rain + traffic + cold + hill = me screwing off instead of riding.  I have already paid the entrance fee for the annual Seattle to Portland ride, so I have to cowboy-up and get a bunch more training and commute mile behind me.  Speaking of rides: I am also signed up for a Duathalon in June, a couple of 10k road races and a half Marathon this summer, all in an attempt to keep myself on target for the STP ride, the possibility of climbing in Iran and to keep my cookie handles in check.

Santacyclingsantarun

Comics for Cycling Geeks

/ Matt Talley

There is a special place in my heart for the daily comic strip.  I have a tool that feeds my three favorites to me in an e-mail each day so that I start my morning off with a little laughter.  One of my favorites, Yehuda Moon, is for bike geeks, but has been on hiatus for a couple of months. Rick Smith, the cartoonist behind the strip took some time off to recharge his batteries and I have missed my daily dose.

Yehuda is an old-school Luddite cyclist that commutes everywhere – in all types of weather, rides a heavy-weight steel framed steed, sports a wool sweater and cycling cap pulled low, is a militant cycling advocate, and owns a bike shop with a guy named Joe who loves carbon bikes, technology, and speed.  Joe serves Hardy to Yehuda’s Laurel.  I see a little of myself in Joe and a lot of me in Yehuda.  He pulls shenanigans that the evil inside me sing with glee – painting cycling lanes on main street in the middle of the night, relieving @sshat drivers of their keys, giving bike thieves a u-lock beat down, etc…

2008-03-11yehuda-red-light

On May 2nd, new panels will be available, but this week there have been a couple spin-off funnies available if you check at the main site.

2010-04-242010-04-262010-04-27

New Wheels for My 9-Speed Steed

/ Matt Talley

Friday was payday and you know what that means…  a 16oz yummy Starbucks coffee, paying the mortgage, lunch at a restaurant (not carried to work in my Marvel Super Heroes metal lunch box), and if there is a few bucks to spare, something small like a new chisel, a jersey, or a new climbing cam.  This was an exceptionally good Friday!!  Not only did I get my $55 REI year-end dividend (just enough for a blue Patagonia  pullover off the clearance rack), but I also found a super-sweet deal on a new set of wheels for my bike.

The set I am currently rolling have about 7K miles on them and they are real heavy.   While they will continue to work for commuting wheels for another 2,500 miles or so (15 months..?), they are not great for rides and races.  A fact that became painfully obvious last fall when 113 miles into a 104 mile charity ride, climbing up the correct mountain after some jokester swapped some route signs that led a group of us up the wrong mountain.  I was in my biggest gear sweating away, on the precipice of dry-heaving, watching the front wheel flex on each down stroke of the peddles – robbing me of substantial forward momentum.  I have been keeping my eyes open for replacements and after applying a store credit for a failed part, I picked up a set of Bontrager raceXlite Aero wheels for the whopping sum of $38.00.  It made me feel all funny in the lower abdominal region when I carried them out to the car and I felt a little paranoid, like I was doing something a little wrong and a touch naughty.

I spent an hour or so on Sunday in the garage cleaning and installing a 12-25 cassette, taping the rims, putting on my set of racing tires, and filling the tubes to 105 PSI.  I am going for a 50-mile timed road ride on Good Friday with them and I can hardly wait!

22nd Annual Seattle Old Bike Swap

/ Matt Talley

I will attend most any type of gathering with “bike” in the tittle.  Throw in “old”, “classic”, or “retro” and I will be there to see the doors open.  When my wife brought home a flyer for the 22nd Annual Seattle Old Bike Swap, with a drawing of a Penny-Farthing right at the top, it was decided then and there that Palm Sunday would go on with out me at our local center of worship since the meet was scheduled for 7:00AM till noon on that particular feast day.

I got there a little after 07:00 to quickly have my hopes for finding hi-wheel brethren and secret troves of Bone Shaker accouterments dashed.  There were a couple of 19th and early 20th century 2-wheelers, but the swap was mostly dedicated Schwinn Stingrays from the ’60s and ’70’s as well as classic BMX bikes from the ’80’s.  If only I would have kept that PK RIPPER with the Mag wheels and the tiny Uni seat…  Now, I wouldn’t say “NO” to a 1967 green Stingray 3-speed with a chrome spring bat holder if I just happened to be presented with one, but they just aren’t the thing that make my chest thump with longing and desire.

Anyhow, while there was some decent stuff here and there, most of the show was taken up by bike junk vendors and used-car salesman-esq “amateur” bike dealers who wanted a way too much for their wares.  I found a 1982 Raleigh Super Course Carlton frame (both the brand and bike model dear to my heart) that had a goodwill sticker still attached.   I thought about building it up with some spare parts as a Coffee Shop/Errand bike.  The incredibly obese vendor laying claim to it quoted me $250 for the pleasure of taking it home.  As it was MAYBE worth $40, I slowly put it back in the bed of his rusted El Camino and backed away form the obviously deranged former ward of the state.

The Fixie is Officially dead… Long live derailleurs!

/ Matt Talley

The fixed gear craze, like disco before it, is now dead – see link below.  I will observe a moment of silence at 7:00 PM this evening with beer in hand – pouring one out for all the hipster hommies who will need a new trend to follow.  I will then forever remove the 16t track cog from my flip-flop hub and place it lovingly on a lonesome nail in my garage.  Maybe my son won’t make a “ninja star” out of it and it will be there waiting, much like polyester and bell bottoms, for the day when it is once again socially acceptable.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/700C-Men-s-Mongoose-Cachet-Fixed-Speed-Bike/13398142

I will continue to spin my Single-Speed to and from the grocery store/coffee shop and will occasionally ride my one-geared beauty to work.  She has made me a better, stronger cyclist and I DO love to ride that bike.  I can’t and won’t give her up just because of the semi-share pedigree with the now passe wanna-be track bikes sold by the likes of Bentonville.

My multispeed, derailleur equipped, steeds are at this very moment spinning their wheels with glee.  No more dismissive looks and snide velo comments from the day-glow orange rimmed and narrow barred bikes locked up at East Street.  Yes, it is now their turn to snicker as my bike chain goes click, click, click – moving down the rear cassette, propelling my 9-speed racer ever faster away from soon to be re-purposed and repainted frames and into the reclaimed future of cycling.

the new bike route home

/ Matt Talley

Today was my first commute home from work to the new house and the first commute since they cut on my shoulder. My wife dropped me and the 9-speed off this morning at the J-O-B and it was a scene out of a not so funny ’90s movie: me standing on the curb, backpack over flowing – slung over one shoulder, bike in one hand, lunch/coffee in the other, watching my ride pull away with a mixed expression of fear and excitement, knowing that I only had one way home – the pedals.

Now the sun was scheduled (per the interwebs last night) to shine for most of the day, but it seems that there was some sort of confusion with the powers that be and the time table was shifted to accommodate an interview with rain and a meeting of high winds. I got smirking weather reports every few minutes from co-workers who had access to the arrow-slit windows in our building (my position doesn’t warrant such perks) and who relished the anguished expression I gave when told how cold, wet, and dark it was becoming outside. A little after 4:30, the rain stopped and the sky turned from dark to light gray. I sucked it up, changed in my assigned mop & buffer pad-filled cleaning closet, and started my ride home. During my now 14.3 mile one-way commute there were a couple of route-finding challenges, some major potholes, sunshine, rain, sunshine with rain, a wicked headwind, tunes from the iPhone, and a monster hill. The shoulder felt OK and my quads are not as strong as the need to be, but they will come back in force by mid-summer. It took me an hour and twenty minutes to get home this time, but think that I can shorten it to an hour and ten on a normal day.

It felt extremely satisfying to get out and ride after work. I immediately rewarded myself upon arriving home with some Girl Scout Crack as you do when you have a cookie addiction.

Seattle Bike Show 2010

/ Matt Talley

Since I have this bicycle fetish, I rode my Single Speed to the 2010 Seattle Bike Show on Saturday and got to take a look at some great new bikes as well as some killer classic race bikes.  The show was on the small side – held in one of the cruise ship terminals, but there was maybe 500 Sq. feet of space on the mezzanine for a show of CLASSIC Jack Taylor and various other old track and racing bikes.  It made my heart pitter-patter.  Some of the steel steeds had derailleurs that only a machinist could dream up, there were oil headlights and canvas bags strapped on here and there, but my favorite jewel of a find on the classic bikes was what appeared to be the first cycling computer – a stopwatch strapped to the handle bar of a velodrome bike – VERY cool.  My Penny Farthing is SO getting one of these.  I have already started the CAD work on it and will try to sweet talk/bribe our machinist at work to hook me up.

Some of the new bikes were outstanding as well.  There was less of an aura of “the fixie” than I have seen at other shows, and more bikes geared toward commuting in the PacNW and work bikes.  I saw a couple of ideas that I am going to incorporate into my own shop and cycle fleet: single digit break levers for the Single Speed, a wall clock for the shop made from an old chainring, the aforementioned “cycling computer”, a crate and light for Laurels bike, etc…  There were also some unique wooden bikes.  They were gorgeous! and the engineering that went into them was impressive, but I am not ready to swap my steel or aluminum frames out just yet.

I do have to give someone a plug:  I am apparently an idiot and left my camera on all night and I only noticed that the batteries were completely drained as I took my camera out of my bag to get a shot of an enormous 60+ tooth chainring.  I made a mad scramble for some AAs and struck out with the venue coordinator, the concierge, and at random booths.  I finally happened upon the Kenmore Camera photo booth.  I spoke with Dave Guinn and asked to buy any AAs that he had, even in a camera.  He didn’t have any models that used AA had he hadn’t brought any with him, but this guy picks up a display model and hands it to me to use, like I had known him for years.  I put my SM card in and was set to take pictures at the show (I will link a few below).  I left my battery-less camera with him – not that he asked me too, but I thought it would be a gesture of good faith, and walked around for a couple of hours snapping away.  With that kind of attitude, you can bet that I will be doing all my medium format and 35mm portrait film shopping with them and when it is time to upgrade my equipment; I will stop there first.  Again, Dave at Kenmore Camera really saved my day.

My own personal groundhog

/ Matt Talley

Spring is a comin’…  The Girl Scouts are marshaling their pig-tailed, freckled forces for an assault on my waistline and dental health.   I don’t need to check on the ground hog’s shadow.  Spring for me comes with the first box of Somoas every year.  In case I hadn’t noticed the change outside from confines of my sugar-coma, the new grass is starting to sprout in our yard and a local nursery is selling seeds and bare-root plants.  I have spied a number of cyclists, clad head to toe in isolated spandex, on the bike paths and in the city.  I cannot wait for the warmer weather, sunny days, cycling to work, trail runs on something other than mud, and new sprouts in our garden.

Cleared to Ride

/ Matt Talley

No matter what the reason, sitting in a doctor’s office exam room is a stress inducing affair – even when expecting good news.  I went to the see my Orthopedist yesterday and my shoulder is healing fine.  I am now cleared to ride and run and even engage in limited climbing (though I am not sure what that means…).  No more excuses for not getting off my ever-expanding ass and getting outside into the mud and just- sprouting greenery.  My surgeon said that I will still need to have my supraspinatus tendon repaired, but that it could wait until fall and after summer cycling/road trips/our wedding.  It will also give me some needed time to finish some projects at home.  I think the key is listening to my body/shoulder and no pushing things over the limit – listening to the first tinges of pain and backing off before I hurt myself further.

Laurel has a list for me to take care of this weekend – in addition to my own projects, but I am going to spend an hour on the bike and will run in a park by the house on Saturday.

cyclocross-mudjpg-78c3ff99c818fb1eCSM001742

my two-wheeled mistresses

/ Matt Talley

I ended up going for my first test ride on the bike Saturday.  It felt REALLY GOOD spinning the chainring.  I made an easy 3-mile loop, jumped a couple of curbs – didn’t hurt – and made a few stops around the neighborhood.  All was fine until I made the steep 500’ climb back up to the house.  Holy shit! I am out of shape.  I was on the single-speed and even with the 18t rear cog installed, the climb SUPER hurt.  I almost puked.  It is a long way from punishing Team Discovery-clad Freds on the Interurban this summer; letting them attempt to pass and then dropping into the 54t big ring and spinning up for a mile or so, watching them try to keep pace and then fading into the shrubbery, covered in sweat and despair, while I giggled at them.  I will ride again this weekend, maybe going to Cedar Creek to stretch my legs a little and let my lungs burn.

Also, I didn’t get in trouble for riding before my Doc said it was OK.  I got the stink eye a little from Laurel, but there have been no major repercussions thus far.  I still get to sleep in the house and no mysterious locks have appeared on any of my two-wheeled mistresses 🙂

Jonesin’ for My Bike

/ Matt Talley

It has been almost two months since I ever so gracefully cart-wheeled down the basement stairs in my wife’s pink robe.  I had my first shoulder surgery in December and go back in February for an evaluation for the second one.  I feel a lot better that I did and really NEED to get on one of my bikes.  It was sunny and warm this past weekend and I was shaking like a crackhead eyeing a fresh pipe, just thinking about taking a spin around the neighborhood.  Laurel said “nuh-uh!” and I spent some serious time staring out the window like a kid with chickenpox watching his buddies play baseball – pouty bottom lip and furred brow included.

I am going for a little clandestine “test” ride this weekend if I can sneak out of the house, single-speed in tow, without getting caught by the wife.  If she finds out I am planning to ride AMA, then all bets are off and I will likely get to mop and do dishes all weekend.  Now, if she catches me AFTER the ride, we that is a whole different story.  Then, at least I will be guilty of something and will smile as I wash and scrub, thinking about peddling.  Better forgiveness than permission.

Commuting with Bear Spray…

/ Matt Talley

Man, Some days my bike commute (1200+ miles so far this year) is the SHIT!… Warm sunshine, crisp air, blue sky, mountains in the background, little traffic, all the lights are green, etc… Then there are days like today that I get home ragged, twitching, in a foul mood, and in need of quite time. I got off a little late so the sun was setting as I started the 40-minute ride home. Traffic was tight, exhaust fumes hung thick in the air, some asshole swerved at me to be funny – I hope, two douche-bags laid into their horns as they sped past me while I was climbing a hill, a lady in a Honda almost hit me in the cross walk, and finally this dick screamed at me with his head hanging out the passenger window of a truck as I was coming to yet another red-light. I got up out of the saddle and mashed the peddles for all I was worth, getting mentally ready for the beat-down I was going to give the ass-hat. Just as I got within reach of the bumper, the guy driving ran the light. I hate assholes!

I was hit 5 times in 3 years of living in California and I learned that you have to watch drivers like a hawk. After a while you become intuitive of their no-signal right turns and you can feel when that lady on her cell phone is going to look right through you and pull out, so you hit the brakes and avoid a crash that she was never aware of. The Burbs and industrial district south of Seattle is a whole other hot mess indeed. Unlike in the city proper, there aren’t too many of us bike commuters, lots of busy mid-level managers talking into the mobile phones, and it is a battle every time I get on my bike. There is a guy in a dark blue Chevy Malibu van that has the same schedule as me who will squeeze his van against the curb if he sees me coming so that I can’t pass him at red lights – no cutting in line! I get honked at daily, had a Burger King bag tossed at me back in June, and once had a semi-homeless (living in his car) dude (there are a bunch in S. King County, WA) try to chase me down and steal my bike – really!

Now, if I had caught the guy at the light I would have hit him at least three times before he got his door open. Then it would have been two good-sized fellers on a skinny guy in spandex and funny shoes. I would have given pretty good, but I would have bleed some and I don’t know if that would have taught them the proper lesson. Ruminating on that and the possibility of assault by one of our local street people, I have decided to not fuck around with my safety. I have a wife and kids and it is my job to come home safe every night (and contribute heavily to two college funds), so I sat down at my bride’s sewing machine and made (with her patient help) a snazzy black nylon pouch to hold my bike-commute insurance policy: bear spray. Yep, a big ol’ canister of Ursine-Off. If it can stop a charging grizzly, then some asshole that takes a swipe at me because I am on a bike and look like an easy target is going to have a very spice-filled evening. I see it this way: If you’re a prick and you try to touch me or run me over, you get a nice even coating of Oleoresin Capsicum, I call the cops, you learn a valuable lesson, I go home safely, have a yummy dinner, you may get to post bail, I have a beer, you spend the rest of your evening itchy and red. Everyone wins!

A normal day:

/ Matt Talley

Alarm at 6:50
Snuggling for 10 minutes after the snooze
let the puppy out
shower/shave
make coffee
have breakfast
Kiss Laurel bye
Hang out with puppy for 15 in front of CNN
Get clothes together
Pack bag
Forget belt
Ride to work
Change
Discover belt missing
Say dirty, hateful things
Get dressed
Shirt untucked 🙁
Sit at desk and e-mail/draw for 4 hours
Quick lunch at desk
Walk to Starbucks
Coffee, coffee, coffee
Make a few calls about new house
Back to work
More e-mail, meetings and drawings
Work late
Change
Bike home
Kiss Laurel
Play fetch with Brodie
Talk about our day
Eat dinner
Clean up kitchen some
Watch part of DVD
Work a little on computer
Laugh at puppy
Organize some writing drafts
Get ready for bed
Catch up daily journal
Read a little
Lights out
Serious snuggling
Pass out ~12:30

Laurel’s new steed

/ Matt Talley

We finally got Laurel’s bike back from the shop. I built it from a found frame that I happened upon in Hamburg in August of 2008. I stripped it, sanded it down, put the base coat of paint on, and bought a few parts before our move to Seattle. After our things were delivered to the house here, it was my second project. I got it completely finished and took a test ride. She wanted a plush yet sporty ride and this was it! Big bouncy tires, internal rear hub, front suspension, upright riding position, special sparkly undercoat on the paint, comfy seat – oh yeah! The only one hitch was the hub was stuck in second gear… I took it into a SRAM dealer as the hub was under warrantee. Fast forward three months and 10 e-mails to SRAM later, we got her bike back.

Bamboo bar ends, the finished product, and a shot during the painting process.

My sweet commute

/ Matt Talley

My single speed on the edge of Interurban Trail with Mt. Rainer in the background. click on for large image

My 3-5 times per week commute to work on the bike is going great. Even when it rains, it is still a good time out and offsets the amazing amount of time spent in a chair in front of my computer at work. I have just put new wet-condition specific brake pads on my road bike as well as removable fenders and treaded commuter tires. I will swap out the wheels and remove the fenders for long fast road training rides or for any races that I do this year. In addition to my regular road bike, I have been riding my single speed into the office part of the time. I take off after work along the river trail and do 15 to 20 miles of flats before meeting Laurel in the valley after she gets off and put the bike on the roof for a hill-less, pain free ride home. On clear days, Rainer sticks up and I get to look at the snow-capped mountain for ¾ of the way home. There are worse views. “The Hill” is still there. It gives me a small sense of accomplishment everyday when I top it, but that fact doesn’t make it any less of a beast. I have tried a couple of other ways home (will try one more this afternoon). It is the same overall elevation gain from work to home no matter which path I choose, some routes have longer, more gradual ascents. The longer ride to the house is great on pretty days and lessons the chance that I will keel-over from exhaustion one fine afternoon.

My own personal OCD tracker

/ Matt Talley

As far as the inter turmoil of nerdy/sporty that I have going on, I did better in 2008 than I did in 2007. A breakdown of the last year’s numbers looks like this:

2008
2007
Running
139.5 Miles
15.7 Miles
Cycling
945.5 Miles
346.8 Miles
Days Hiked
10 Days
2 Days
Books Read
41 Books
37 Books
Days Off
98 Days
59 Days
Gym
33 Times
11 Times
Miles Traveled
61,341.3 Miles
68,234.2 Miles
Camping
8 Nights
10 Nights
Overtime Worked
0 Hours
300 Hours

I rode more and ran more. Went to the gym and still managed to read a ton of books. Though I did spend entirely too much time surfing Wikipedia, bike sites, and CNN. I am learning to balance my inner geek, though the process is somewhat like a 12-step program where I fall off the wagon occasionally and spend hours designing tool jigs, watching episode after episode of Dexter or Heroes, or ogling over bike frame geometry on the net. I then pick myself up out of my techie gutter and go to a “meeting” by running in the sunshine, exploring a new trail, or flirting with my cute little wife.

The Hill of Pain

/ Matt Talley

I LOVE being able to ride my bike to work! Being within biking distance and somewhat near a long bike path was a prerequisite when we went house hunting in Hamburg and Seattle. My ride in Hamburg was 8 miles each way, VERY flat, and I cut 15 minutes off my commute time compared to riding the train. The only downside to my Hamburg ride was the horrific weather in North Germany nine months a year. That’s right, we moved to Seattle for better weather…

Last weekend, I suited up and got on my 9-speed road bike to take a test run to and from work – 15 miles round trip. Since I hadn’t been on a bike in three months (long story), I decided to try the ride with a few gears before committing myself to single-speed epic – I am SOOO glad I had a little forethought that particular morning… The ride in was great, fast, and a little scary. There is a +16% grade hill about ¾ of a mile long right by the house that I bombed down in amongst some sparse Saturday AM traffic. Holy crap, living in the flat land for 2 years made me forget what 50mph on a bike felt like! I passed a couple of cars on the right and made the drivers look at me crazy. I wish I could say that I was in full control, at the top of my game mentally and peddling for more speed. Sadly, that was not my experience. The road was gravely, my bike was shaking under me, I was right on the edge of losing control of the bike (lots of hamburger and road-rash at that speed), and on the very precipice of pissing my bike shorts. I survived the hill and the rest of my ride in was fairly fast and uneventful – 25 minutes from door to door.

The ride back was not as cool. I peddled back to the bottom of that monster hill and fired myself up for a little pain. I got a lot of pain and humiliation. For a cyclist, walking a bike up a hill is loathsome and reserved for fat sunburned tourists with grip shifters and gel-pads on their saddles. I shifted up to my biggest rear cog and stood in the saddle, mashing! About ¼ of the way up (I was on the sidewalk, which is already a weenie thing to do), my legs and lungs joined a union and started picketing my brain. I slowed to a crawl and started to weave slightly. Half way up my tongue was hanging out, I was sucking wind, sweating like a whore in church, and my vision started going a little blurry. About ¾ of the way up, I swerved into the grass and fell over a little – I stuck my foot out before actually hitting the ground. I then committed the ultimate roadie sin – I walked my fvcking bike the last 50 yards up the hill. I could feel the cold, laughing stares of the drivers as the passed me clicking along the sidewalk in my $200 carbon soled racing shoes, pushing a carbon and aluminum speed machine. I could even feel the hate coming off my bike. I felt absolutely defeated and like a big ol’ vagina.

Three days later I rode to work, and prepared myself for the battle with the ego-killing hill. I took some Tylenol, ate a bagel and raisins before leaving the office, got some sugar in my system, and slowly warmed my legs up on the approach to the hill. Again I attacked it and again it left me slobbering, bleary-eyed and defeated, though I did get a little closer to the top. On my ride of shame the rest of the way home I had an epiphany – when I moved to Hamburg, I had removed the 12-25 cassette group from my rear wheel and replaced it with an 11-21 group as I wouldn’t need the bigger cogs on the roads there. Hot damn! I went the next day and swapped the two cassettes and now I have two more gears to aid me in the coming grudge-match.

One side note though, I MAY have gotten in trouble when I was prepping the 12-25 to put back on. It was a little greasy, so I decided to clean it up. Naturally, I chose to do this in the bathroom sink. About halfway through, I looked down, saw the rings of grease in the sink and the thousands of black specs covering the entire counter and thought, “Oh SHIT, she is going to come in here, see this, and threaten me with violence.” I warned her about the lapse in judgment as I was called to dinner and cleaned up my mess right after so that I would have a warm and welcoming bed to sleep in that night..

Update 3/4/09: This afternoon, just as the sky faded into dusk, I started up the hill. I took the first 100 yards sitting down, getting out of the saddle and standing in the peddles at the last possible moment. I felt good going up the first bit with the 25-tooth cog whirling under me. I made it halfway without much hassle and wasn’t breathing too hard. I hit my previous high point and just as I started huffing, but I just kept mashin’ away. I topped the beast still riding hard and would have done a ‘Rocky at the top of the steps’ impression, but I couldn’t focus my eyes and was afraid of falling over and someone calling an ambulance – the one thing that would more embarrassing than having to push. The last 20 yards were real tough, but I knocked the bastard off and now I can approach the grade without dread and without the stigma of a coming walk of uphill shame.

My AWESOME wife:

/ Matt Talley

It is windy and raining today and we are sitting inside snuggling with the heater in the living room, but the weather last weekend was nice enough for us to get out and ride our bikes to the city center on Saturday and to Altona the next day for coffee and books. My muse/wife was also gracious enough to let me snap a few pictures of her. She is her own special Betty Crocker/Jenna Jamison/Laurel stew and I couldn’t ask for a better friend or wife or partner in crime.

Fact: My bike is cooler than yours.

/ Matt Talley

Earlier this summer, Laurel (my amazing wife) and I took her bike to the shop to have it repaired – warranty issue. While there, we saw a Penny Farthing (also called a Hiwheel or a Bone Shaker) in the window of the shop with a price tag on it. You NEVER see these things for sale! Some guy will have one is his window as advertising or just to be cool, but they never sell them. Well, we found a place that did. Laurel wouldn’t let me leave the shop without taking this baby home: that is how cool she thought it was. She even let me stay in the shop stroking it sweetly as she went to an ATM to get cash. I love my wife!

I am not going to tell you what she paid for it, but it wasn’t much. We had to walk my “new” bike home because I was wearing flip-flops. About halfway there she looked over and asked me, “Umm, can you actually ride this thing?” Fvck yes I can!! I went right home, put some real shoes on, and took it for a cautionary spin around a local school yard to practice mounting and un-mounting – it has been about 22 years since I was shown how by a visiting clown at my elementary school. Just like riding a bike…

After a few adjustments, I rode the thing from the house to downtown Hamburg, around the Klein Alster Lake and back – about ten miles. I turned heads and made people smile and wave (neither is a common site in Hamburg) wherever I went. I even let some old guys have their picture taken with it. Not a chick-magnet, but it pulls old dudes out of the woodwork to talk about classic bikes. I had a lot of fun that first day, but paid a high price. The seat that came with the bike was an old unicycle saddle with no springs to cushion the cobblestones and bumps. I ended up getting a blister on the tip of my tailbone that hurt so bad I couldn’t ride any of my regular bikes for a week.

Our first ride together

My Boneshaker on the Alster in Hamburg

Over the next few days, I found out more and more about my new stead – the original builder’s son still runs the company that built it and really helped me out with info about the bike. She was built by Rideable Bicycle Replicas in the late 1970’s as a copy of an 1875 French Boneshaker and brought to Hamburg along with 20 or so other hiwheels for a bicycle show. My bike was one of 13 that were sold to a guy who rented them out for TV shows, movies, as decoration, and to museums. By 2008 he only had 4 left and mine was the most complete, as it had spent the last ten years in a puppet museum; sparing it a hard life. He sold my bike, two other complete, but ugly/bent ones, and the heavily damaged forth hiwheel to the bike shop owner who then put the best one in the window. The only notable damage to mine is where some jackass drilled strait through the headbadge, the head tube, and the fork to suspend the bike from the ceiling so an evil little puppet could sit astride it – sorry it sort of feels like thinking about my wife kissing some old boyfriend – makes me twitch a little.

Since the initial tailbone trauma, I have installed a new seat (two different ones actually), new bars, given her a good scrubbing, and ride her around town for errands on the any weekend afternoon that the sun is shinning. I even rode her to a local wilderness park to get on a few trails with my wife– not recommended. I didn’t go ass-over-tea-kettle, but it is not the greatest bike I have ever ridden on dirt. To be completely honest, I have had one accident thus far: the cobblestones on my street were wet a couple weekends ago and I slipped off while mounting in front of about fifteen neighbors. They think that I am ‘that crazy American that lives in the red building’ anyway, so it only hurt me pride a little.

At the Niendorfer Gehege Park in North Hamburg

Riding on the paths in the Gehege after a picnic lunch

Single-Speed love

/ Matt Talley

Gabby, my new two-wheeled mistress. Hold your curser on the pic to see what she looked like on our first date…
My Singlespeed/fixie:

I fell in love with singlespeed/fixed gear bikes a long while ago. What’s not to love? They are quick, light, there is nothing on them to steal or screw-up, and they have a certain cool factor that is generally limited to things like Triumph bobber motorcycles and Hellbilly music. After my admiration started to border on obsession, I thought about picking a new pre-built and ready to ride Raleigh, Alta, or Giant up from a local shop. When I casually mentioned this “plan” to my loving wife, she MAY have exploded… She may have also pointed out that I have 3.5 (the .5 part is my unicycle – see “Nerdy” post below…) other bikes taking up space, time, and money in our lives and that there was NO WAY that I was going into a store and drop 500-800€ for a new “toy.” After some time had passed we reached an agreement of sorts: I could built a “new” bike if I spent less than 150€, slowly over time, and invested some sweat-equity in the project. Seeing an eventual path to my goal and not wanting to start Armageddon over a steel-framed bicycle, I agreed to her proposition.

I started right away looking on eBay for a suitable candidate bike, but the sellers there were all pretty savvy and I would have blown my budget on the frame alone. I checked most of the used bike shops in town – I stopped counting after sixteen – and while some had just what I needed, their frames didn’t match my budget. I pined away for a few weeks and finally decided to stop looking for the ‘perfect’ frame and to maybe start checking at junk shops for something that I could make do with. The very afternoon I made that decision, Laurel and I were out walking and found a wrecked bike in the trash. It was in BAD shape: Missing the front wheel & misc. parts, a shattered rear wheel, rust and dings everywhere, but the frame was straight, the forks were still there, the chainring was OK, and other than being filthy and banged up, the cranks were just what I needed. It was like Manna from Heaven. I took it home, cleaned it up, and stripped it down to the bare frame that same night.

For the last couple of years I have been a daily visitor to fixedgeargalley.com for my morning dose of bike-porn. Many of the bikes there started their lives as crappy or moderate road bikes that were switched to single speeds. Some of these bikes are God-awful ugly: pink and lime green or with strange attachments bolted willy-nilly to the frame and bars, but the majority are sleek, well built, and very functional. The site served as my daily inspiration to complete my own bike. After looking at the entire 6000+ bike image library, I had a pretty good idea about what I wanted for my own bike in terms of look and function.

It turned out that the found-frame was two sizes too big for me and that the steel forks were an inch and a half out of true, but the frame was solid with no serious imperfections and no rust bad enough to cause structural problems. The drop bars were in good shape too, so I flipped them over and chopped them off to make narrow bullhorn bars. Work got hectic at that point and the frame hung on the wall in my basement for a couple of months, as I told anyone who would listen about my new project. For my birthday, my most dependable riding buddy bought me a bike jersey at the local messenger/track bike shop. Somehow this speciality shop had evaded my attention until that point. There I found what amounted to singlespeed Heaven. For that same birthday, my wife gave me 50€ to buy whatever bike parts I desired. Off we went on the afternoon of the 34th anniversary of my birth and I picked up a flip-flop hub, a 16-tooth freewheel for one side, and a 16-tooth fixed track gear for the other. I may have fondled it, wearing a perverse smile, all the way home.

I spent a couple of hours the next week building the rear wheel from a rim that I have had for a while. I had some trouble with calculating the correct spoke length and used the late Sheldon Brown’s online calculator to set me straight (Sheldon forgot more about bikes than I will ever know and his site was a crutch I used during the whole build process.). I went to a local BMX shop for new spokes and when I found out that they wanted 50€ for them, I laughed at them and left. The wheel and bike frame continued to collect dust until after Christmas with me picking up a few parts here and there: used brakes, a new seat, used seat post, and a used chrome track fork. I found that the original stem/neck on the bike suffered the same fate as the original forks, so I picked up a cheap lightly used one. The track bike shop, Suicycle, ended up building the rear wheel and supplying the new spokes for the same price quoted by the other shop for just the spokes. I was more than happy to let them do it as it saved me time and aggravation.

Shortly after the holidays, we sold my wife’s super-cool Moulton travel bike for a profit and went to buy her another bike that better suited her sense of aesthetics (long story…). While at the shop she spotted some pedals that I had been looking for. They were 75€ new and we got a lightly used pair and a used MTB handle bar for 30€ total. Oh, it was a happy day! She found a great bike for a lot less than she sold the other for and with some of the leftover funds I got some parts for my project. As I built the bike up I realized that we had been sold two LEFT side pedals… Laurel had business near the shop and was sweet enough to go there twice; the first time they didn’t have a RIGHT side pedal and the second to argue about a refund. I ended up buying a new set of similar ones at a local roadbike shop.

I had changed my mind about the cow horns. I wanted something sleeker and bars better able to fit between cars as I made my way through traffic to work in the mornings. There is a current fad among messengers and messenger wannnabes to chop the bar down to ten inches and your thumbs rubbing the underside of the stem. That is somewhat squirrelly for my taste and doesn’t afford me the space to mount brakes. As I have two kids to put through college, I need breaks on my bike. I cut the MTB bars down to fifteen inches, chose 2-fingered MTB break levers, and installed rubber grips to make for both a functional and nice looking setup. I did end up using the cow horns on my folding train-commuter bike. They turned out VERY nice.

A couple of weeks later, I spent a Saturday sanding, priming, and re-sanding and re-priming the frame. Over the next couple of days I put two nice, even rattle-can coats of matte black automotive paint on it and hung it up in my attic to dry. When the painting was done, I made one touch up, and then hung it in our shower with a wallpaper dryer on it all night to help cure the paint. The next day I cut the fork threads to length, installed the bearings, enlarged the brake calliper mounting holes, greased everything (including inside the seat tube) and put it all together in our living room, making sure to fit it as closely as possible to the geometry and measurements of my race bike. Everything did not go exactly as planned: My special ordered chain didn’t fit and my rear break calliper was too short. Those two things took a couple of days to sort out while my bike patiently waited for me in our living room. Did I mention that I have the most understanding wife ever?! Not only did she give me cash for my obsession and go to shops for/with me, bought me bike tools for Christmas, and in addition to not flipping out to bike parts all over her dining room table for a week, she was supportive of my little obsession the whole time.

On the first semi-sunny day (not a frequent occurrence in the cold north of Deutschland) that we had after I finished the build, I took the bike out for a ten mile shakedown ride on Hamburg’s streets, sidewalks, bike lanes. HOLY SHIT!! My new single speed/fixie is all that I could have wished for. It made me want to be bad… I found myself weaving through cars at red lights, passing perhaps too closely to pedestrians, shooting through spaces not ordinarily thought of as bike-friendly. I am old enough to realize that this behavior was something that would get me in trouble at home, but it was just so much damn fun!! The steel frame was smooth on the cobblestones, it was really responsive, and it tracked great when riding with no hands. The bike is light enough that hopping a tall curb took very little effort, the small bars were really comfortable to ride with, and I got a bunch of compliments while in a bike shop and while waiting for lights to turn. The only slightly negative comment that I have is that it doesn’t exactly stop on a dime, but that has to do with the brake lever that I used and can be fixed with an upgrade to BMX levers and stiffer brake pads.

In the interest of full disclosure, I spent about 100€ more than we agreed upon, but in my defence the forks were half of that and the bike still cost about a third of what a new bike would have cost. In addition to learning an absolute ton about gear ratios, inside bike builder tricks, wheel building, and rider fitting – I also had a hobby to occupy my time for almost a year, time that could have been spent bugging my wife and getting on her nerves. One COULD almost reason that a year free of certain aggravation might be priceless… If you see my wife and she is still ticked about the cost overrun, you could remind her of this, you know – if you want…

Like all my other bikes, this one has a woman’s name: Gabby – after Gabrielle Reese the pro volleyball player and model. She is named so because like her namesake, she is too tall for me, is quick, responsive, beautiful, agile, sleek, and if you don’t pay her the proper amount of attention while riding her you will likely end up on the pavement broken and bleeding.

I took pictures of the build process, and have put them here, if you want to take a look and the specifications for my home-brewed bike are below:

Frame: 80’s model 12 speed Raleigh roadbike, originally white.
Forks: Chrome Heson track forks from Holland.
Stem/Neck: Aluminium one piece from Italy.
Chain: Shimano BMX.
Pedals: Wellgo Commuter/SPD Shimano knock-offs
Crank: Solide 170mm aluminium from France.
Front Wheel and hub: 700cm Mavic Reflex by Wheelsmith and Dura-Ace hub.
Anti-theft front wheel skewer.
Rear wheel and hub: Mavic Wheel & flip-flop Phil Wood hub.
Handlebars: Bontrager MTB flat bar cut to 15 inches.
Brakes: Shimano 105 front and a 1970’s German Weinland for the rear.
Levers: One for each child. No-name 2-finger trigger.
Cables: Shimano
Chainring: 42 tooth aluminium that was found on the bike, flipped.
Sprocket: 16t freewheel and 16 tooth fixed
Saddle: Selle Italia Filante.
Seat Post: No-name fluted aluminium with shim.

Still ride’n Nerdy

/ Matt Talley

It is official: I have become an enormous dork. No, you say, not Talley… Well, lets add it up and see: I haven’t biked or lifted or run for shit this year and I have gained ten+ pounds of lard. I have not scaled one single peak or boarded one run. On the upside, I read 37 books – mostly non-fiction, am a board game winning machine, have been writing a Linux script to make my job easier on my off time, have become the master of the spreadsheet at work, and I spent a good deal of my Christmas break playing Guitar Hero: Legends on an X-Box 360. I have even been surfing the web for cool nerd tattoos. I have to admit that it has gone so far that I asked my wife to buy me a calculator watch for Christmas… I am so ashamed… All I need to do is start going to D&D gatherings and become a cyberthug on some obscure web forum and the damage will be irreconcilable…

How did this happen? Can I stop its progression? As I see it, I am a just a bit over the cusp, but if I can pull back a touch I may be able to return to the land of a flat belly, big arms, and cycling while maintaining just enough geekiness to excel as an engineer.