A rough ride...

Hello there. Yes, I'm back, to tell you about my second ride of 2010. Yup, you read that correctly. Life getting in the way of things (actually, more like work, but the impact is the same) and cutting out my riding.

So, today I went riding with two of my good friends. And it wasn't pretty.

About 80 kilometers, on roads as flat as a pancake (the two biggest inclines were less than a km each). A sunny (finally, we have had miserable rainy weather here for what seems like weeks) but rather chilly day (temperature around 4 C when I left the house at 8:30-ish). But hey, no worries, a day of relaxed riding, shooting the breeze with friends and nothing to worry about. Right?

No.

I was in trouble right away, struggling to keep up with a relaxed pace (50x17 or thereabouts). And simply shelled of the back as soon as there was any incline at all.
Not even a pleasant slice of pie and great caffè espresso were able to help.

Oh well. I guess it can only get better...

On a more positive note, one of my friends was out on his first ride on his new bike - he just purchased an immaculate Colnago C-50 with full Record 10 speed. No paint, simple carbon fiber look. Fantastic looking, and (so he tells us) a joy to ride. Comfy, fast descender (not twitchy at all) and an all round solid performer.

Almost made me jealous, but I have my Cervelo R3, after all...

In any event, a bad day of riding is still waaaaaay better than a good day in the office, so I am content. Let us see what tomorrow brings. Hope you all had a more pleasant day out than I!

Tomorrow will be a good day.

Nice, I like the large Vredestein logos.

Friday evening. Just finished replacing my clinchers (tomorrow will be the first ride on my new Vredestein Fiammante DuoComps) on my recently trued Fulcrum 7s.

Tomorrow I will ride with my cycling buddies. Nothing heroic, maybe 75km with the guys with a nice espresso stop halfway through the ride.

The weather is forecast as being wonderful, sunny, not too cold, just perfect. Probably will not even need shoe covers or heavy gloves.

Sitting by the door, ready for tomorrow's ride.

The anticipation is almost as sweet as the ride. I am sure it will be a very pleasant day. Hope your weekend will be filled with many fun-filled kilometers of riding with your friends.

Rough day...

Today I had hoped to be able to post about a wonderful ride with my riding buddies, but alas, it was not meant to be.

10 kms into the ride I look down to see my front wheel 'snaking' all over the place. I quickly pulled over and realised that a spoke had popped on my Fulcrum 7 front wheel. And as we all know, these pre-built wheelsets with low spoke counts are fine until you break a spoke - the high spoke tension wreaks havoc with things, making the wheel almost unrideable.

So I slowly rode home and realised that I did not have an inner tube mounted on my spare wheelset. I quickly transferred the inner tube from the wrecked Fulcrum, and proceeded to pump up the wheel... and, due to my haste, pulled out the valve from the tube. After muttering a bit under my breath, I understood that this was a sign of displeasure from the cycling gods, took the hint and abandoned the day's ride.

Must admit that this decision was easy, given that I did not have a replacement inner tube, and riding a front wheel without an inner tube is... challenging.

A quick trip to my local shop resulted in a fixed and perfectly true wheel.

Always a thing of beauty to behold.

And, as I was short of tubes and my clinchers are on their last legs, I stocked up on things.

Five Vittoria inner tubes (should not run out for a while now, I hope).
Two Vredestein Fiammante Duo Comp clinchers (Hhhmmmm).
A cassette tool and chain thingie. Hate to have a clean chain and dirty cogs...

Helping the economy...

The weather is turning bad. So I will have my espresso and then settle down to some maintenance, or rather tender loving care for my beloved ride.

So, in the end, the day was not a wash. Got to spend some quality time at the bike shop. Checked out all the new stuff. And will get to lavish much needed TLC on the wheels.

I will let you know what I think of these Vredesteins over the next few days. A bit curious really, as I have been a religiously orthodox Vittoria man for quite some time now. Any thoughts?

Just a nice ride...

Looking South to Monte Cavo in the Castelli Romani area

I have not been posting lately due to a huge amount of work in the office... but I have been riding - just not letting you guys know about it!

Yesterday was a horrible day here in Rome, with absolutely awful thunderstorms that wreaked havoc with traffic throughout the city. But not today. This morning I woke up to cloudy but sunny skies, with the temperature eventually reaching 26 Celsius.

A country road parallel to the beltway... this is actually formally within the City of Rome

So I went to a short circuit just outside of town (right beyond the beltway) and rode about 75km with a friend. Enjoyable day. Great riding. Happy Pete.

Clouds are getting a bit menacing, but still a great day.

Just felt the need to share...

How was your ride today?

Ppppssssssssssssssssssss...........................

Grrrr... hey! Check it out! Beta tools... only the best for Pete!

This evening, I am annoyed. Really annoyed. Saying lots of bad words annoyed. Grrrr.....

Why?

If you recall my review of the Kona Jake the Snake I mentioned the fact that I am now riding on Schwalbe Marathon Plus clinchers. I chose these heavy beasts after a string of flats at rather inopportune times (which raises the question whether there really are opportune times to deal with a flat?). These flats stemmed not from the quality of the clinchers (usually Vittoria) I was riding, but rather terrible Rome roads as well as the heavy load the bike was carrying... especially with the two panniers filled with work related material and clothes.

Why the Marathon Plus model? Well, everything I read indicated that these babies had the ride qualities of a tank tread, and weighed slightly more than that. BUT, every review I saw indicated that this was the closest one could come to puncture-free nirvana. You see, as is obvious in the diagram below (straight from the Schwalbe US site), not only are these heavy clinchers with a LOT of material, but they also incorporate a special protective layer (Smartguard in Schwalbe marketing speak) which is meant to offer '...particular resistance to shards of glass and flints'.

The Marathon Plus clincher diagram. Notice the blue Smartguard protective layer.

As the Marathons are well nigh impossible to find in Italy, I ended up ordering a set (at significant expense I might add) from good 'ole Germany. To my wife's question regarding their price (well in excess of the higher performance clinchers I mount on my road bike) I responded informing her that flat would now become a thing of the past for me. Never again. Mai più. Plus jamais. Nunca más. Well... you get it.

When they arrived, I was amazed by how rigid and heavy the dang things were. I felt slower just looking at them. The Schwalbe marketing blurb assured me that they would roll as smoothly as any other clincher. They lied. They are heavy with awesome rolling resistance. No chance of dropping anyone when riding with these!

But that's not why I had purchased them! I began to commute on them every day. I declared that I was flat-free. And so it was. And it was good. Jokes aside, I was actually impressed. Nice investment, Pete. Puncture free Pete. From June till... this evening. Pete is not so happy anymore.

This evening, as I was riding home at lightening speed (as always, of course), less than 1 km from my front door, I hear the dreaded 'ppppppssssssssssssss' at each wheel rotation. I make it home with some pressure left in the front tire. Dejected and depressed. To discover this....

Can you see the shard of green glass in the tire?

Yup. A shard of glass in the tire. Looks like it sliced straight through the Smartguard. Hhhmmm. Let's pull this sucker out and see what has defeated our mighty Schwalbe-ness.

Yup, needed the pliers. Gratuitous sexy hairy leg shot. No racing this year, no shaving. Deal with it.

After a couple of minutes I am able to pry the shard out. It is quite large and very sharp - probably it has been stuck in the tire since the start of my ride, slowly working its way through the Smartguard...

There it is. Dog gone it, that is a big shard of glass...

Later this evening I will see if I can still ride this tire (I suspect so) - if the gash is not too wide.

Of course, on a 'normal' clincher this would have blown and the tire would have been a throw-away. Hopefully our Schwalbe investment has not gone down the drain. Any comments on the size of the hole? Is the tire still good? Experienced Marathon riders, what do you have to say?

Can you see the hint of blue? That is the puncture-proof Smartguard layer! ;-)

Disclaimer: I am really rather annoyed at having had a puncture. So when I wrote this post (I meant to take the night off, need to ensure that all you pastatrail readers don't get too used to regular posts!) I slagged Schwalbe, which is not fair. No clincher is 100% puncture proof. The Marathons are a great set of commuting clinchers, and the puncture protection is well worth the significant weight and comfort penalty that is part of the trade-off. I also love the reflective band on each side of the tire - I commute year-round, so I love all the reflective bits that I can get. Better dorky than dead!

So, if you commute/ride on rough glass and debris strewn roads, get 'em. They work... almost always!

What did he say?

I was just re-reading my Italian post, and realised that I had not provided an English synopsis for my rather significant (no really, hundreds... LOL) number of English language speakers. The post is about traffic and courtesy, or rather lack thereof, that I have noticed since coming back from my recent vacation in the US.

Now, as a European, I realise that it is my duty to complain about America. That's what we do! But one plus week of riding back in Rome, notwithstanding the fact that the city is almost deserted for August break, has me disgusted. The roads are in horrible shape, the way people drive is downright dangerous (especially for pedestrians and cyclists!) and there is litter everywhere. Maybe it's the big city mentality, but people simply are not courteous to others.

The exact opposite to my experience in South Carolina. The road infrastructure was fantastic, there was little or no litter by the roads (and Americans have volunteer adopt-a-highway programmes - something that is completely foreign to the Italian mentality), most drivers were quite courteous and extra cautious when passing me. It was a real pleasure to ride in the US.

I don't know if I was simply very fortunate, if Aiken is actually a cycling hotbed and everyone rides (if they do, I did not run into the cycling hordes), or if I have some kind of 'foreigner: be polite to him' mark that was secretly placed on my cycling jersey that all Americans take heed of.

So, as an Italian I am a bit sad and annoyed by this state of affairs, which is, unfortunately representative of the 'state of nature' which we Italians seem to have accepted here (at least in Rome).

Oh well. Time to get excited about another ride. No matter how others act.

Riding in Aiken... part II

Proof! I really did ride there!

This evening I raced home from work to be able to squeeze in a training ride on the R3 before dark. Made it home, changed into my cycling clothes (I ride in mtb shorts and a t-shirt for my work commute on the Kona) and hopped on the R3 for the ride.

Rome - Ostia - Rome - about 32 kilometers on a high traffic road. Why would you ride on that kind of road, Pete, especially with Italian drivers, zooming by you at high speed in cars and scooters?

Well, dear pastatrails blog reader, it is the quickest way for me to get a quick training ride in! All I have to do is exit the front door and start riding. Reach the sea (Ostia), turn around and come home. There is a decent (kind of) emergency lane both ways, so cars usually (occasional morons excepted) leave me alone. Not so the motorcycles and scooters, but we'll leave that to another day...

It's not beautiful, quiet, smog free. And has crap asphalt too.

My, I am painting a pretty picture here, aren't I?

So, riding this evening while trying not to breathe too deeply, I began to think about my Aiken, SC rides again. I returned to Rome from the US on Sunday the 16th. So it's only been a few days. And a universe away from rural South Carolina...

So I though I would share with you what it's like to ride there... with another few pictures.

Enjoy.

Toolebeck Road. I took this while riding, which brings us the weird effect. Whatever, I think it's cool.

Wire Road. Cotton, or so I am told. As a Euro, I found this fascinating... first time I have ever seen it!

Old Dibble Road. Just look at all of that traffic. Unbearable, really.

Wire Road. The best for last. This is my favorite picture from the entire vacation.

Oh, by the way. The Cervelo is wonderful. A hot knife through buttah. Superlative. Smooth. Tight. Fast. Click, click, change a gear. Stand up. The bike jumps instantaneously. I found myself giggling on a longish downhill. The problem are the legs...

Kona Jake the Snake Review

2008 Kona Jake the Snake

Ok guys... now that I have owned and commuted on the Kona for the better part of a year, I feel that I am in a position to review the bike. And yes, before you ask, apparently August is review Pete's bikes month. So deal. :)

The pictures of my bike are here, on one of my first posts on this blog. No reason to clog up bandwith posting more pics of the same thing, so click the link (or scroll down the page) if you want to see what she looks like! The full specs (I have a 54cm) can be found on the Kona website here.

The Kona is, I am ashamed to admit, the bike that I ride the most. On average five days a week, to and from work, on either an 11 kilometer route or a shorter 7 kilometer one... occasionally, when I have the daylight hours and the weather is good (and I sneak out of work around 17:00), I will extend the home leg of my commute. So this bike does get its fair share of riding, around 80 kilometers a week if I stay on the conservative side. The bike, as any commuter I suppose, is ridden in any weather, and in the fall and winter, spends most of its time riding after dark with lights. Subject of a forthcoming equipment review, I suppose, but I digress...

My commute is not very challenging either in terms of road surface (all paved, Rome pavement, which is pretty bad, but paved) or in terms of hills - I have a couple of short grades in that can be used to add some pain to the ride, but nothing serious. Having said this, with two panniers full of clothing, a laptop computer and assorted odds and ends (sometimes 10 kgs of stuff), the cyclocross gearing (46/36 chainring up front) comes in handy. The frame is heavy (compared to a road bike), but very solid, and the ride predictable. This is no downhill carving uberbike, but you will have no nasty surprises in handling terms either. The frame comes across as a very sturdy, and with the included eyelets for a rack, is an ideal (IMHO) light commuting bike...

The bike comes with Shimano 105 components, FSA Gossamer crankset, Avid Juicy cantilevers (good braking, hard to avoid some brake squeal, but very low maintenance), Mavic Aksium wheels, and rather gnarly Maxxis tires.

The Mavic wheels, contrary to what I have read on the net, were very poor performers. I apparently got a bad set, they creaked to no end (seriously, people in Rome traffic could hear me from 500 meters away) and the only way I could fix'em was to get rid of them. Replaced with a set of cheap Shimanos, not much better in performance terms, but at least no noise!

After rather poor experiences with the stock clinchers in rainy conditions on asphalt (very exciting... in a bad way) I went through several different sets of clinchers. All poor performers for what I needed. I have now settled for a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Plus... they are expensive, weigh a ton and are not exactly speed racer tires, but punctures are now a thing of the past. And they appear to not be wearing at all, which is also a good thing!

The Gossamer crank is absolute crap. The allow appears to be soft butter. The shifting is only just acceptable, and the rings are not even very true out of the box. I am simply using it because the gearing's right for commuting, and because trashing it will not hurt my inner cycling self...

The 105 components are ok. Very clunky shifting, as I have mentioned in other posts, but maybe there is a bit of lack of love for maintenance on a commuter that affects their performance. They are light years behind my Campagnolo Chorus in feel as well as in ease and speed of shifting. Then again, that is the way it should be, as we are obviously comparing apples and oranges in the two component lines. In any event, the step down in performance from Ultegra (please see my review of the Specialized) is noticeable. If you can possibly spare the cash, go for the better group. And I will be substituting the 105 bits for a hodge podge of Campagnolo parts once I have the chance.

So, along with a set of Arkel T-28 panniers (they are great, by the way), that is the set-up. To sum things up, this is a very capable bike, which is a bit let down by some components (obviously
the spec is built to hit a price point). I recommend the Jake the Snake for light touring, commuting and I cyclocross (I guess, never used it for that, though). The frame is tough and made to last. The components, as you can surmise from my review, can all be changed out for something better.

Hope you found this review helpful!

My commute...

While I have a number of potential routes, my standard commute is about 7.5 km each way, through my neighborhood in southern Rome to my office. As you may or may not know, traffic here in Rome is absolutely hectic. At rush hour. Actually, all the time. Always. As an Italian and Roman I am used to it now, but I notice that whenever family or guests visit us from the United States (or anywhere in Europe), they are absolutely terrorized.

You see, the whole concept of heavy traffic and safety distance is different here... notice the beautiful weather (last week) and... what is normal traffic on my way to work!

Remember, there are 60-odd million of us in a country the size of a rather small American state. And a road network that was designed by Roman (as in the Roman Empire) city planner, oh, about 2-odd thousand years ago. And chariot size and traffic density is not the same as a whole lot of Fiats on the road at the same time! Which of course means that things are rather tight. I read U.S. blogs trying to enforce a three foot minimum distance when passing. If I am right, that is about a meter, and let me tell you, I am shocked when I get that much distance in rush hour traffic...

In any event, I am not trying to present myself as a hero. The roads in this part of town are relatively new and modern (Mussolini's city planning, built after the war and finished for the 1960 Olympics). So I cannot complain. And, as I may have mentioned, I absolutely love the commute... it gets me to work (traffic, red lights and all) in less than 25 minutes on a slow day - about half the time it took me in a car on a good day. Combine that with the rush, and after my shower and changing into my work clothes, I always feel like I am getting away with something for the first few hours in the office every day!