Listin’ To Me….

So as of last Sunday there's been a link to this blog at http://www.finishlineusa.com/, probably because I mentioned their products in the first entry. Apparently 9 people have read it since then. 3 of them have been me. However, one of them was Bulgarian, and to him I say, Здравейте, Моя луд приятел!

For those of you who don’t know, there’s a race going on in Ireland right now, the FDB Insurance Ras, known in its heyday as the Milk Ras. Although this year’s edition has the misfortune of occupying the same space on the calendar as the Giro, and now the Volta a Catalunya as well, and has lost some of the cache it had back when names like Roche and Kelly were on the start list, it’s still a race of considerable pedigree, not to mention difficulty. This year, it will include, for the first time in its storied history, a team from Bulgaria, Team Nessebar. One of their riders, Martin Grashev, came in a solid fourth in today’s stage, and now sits in seventh overall, nine seconds back of the leader. Късмет, Martin!

Incidentally, if any of you are wondering how I know about the Bulgarian reader, take a look at www.google.com/analytics. Sick, yes, but don’t get all worked up about how I’m monitoring your browsing habits while you’re innocently reading this blog, because I’m not, and you won’t get any unsolicited emails with photos of me shaving my legs or anything like that. To be honest, I don’t even really care how many people are reading this, or what connection speed they’re reading it at. Mostly, I love the thought of how unbelievably global cycling is. I wonder what the riding’s like in Bulgaria…

Anyway, when I heard there was a link to this blog on Finish Line’s website, I read my first entry again, and immediately decided to write another one, if only to get the first one archived and hopefully out of the public consciousness, where it clearly has taken up a most stubborn residence (9 people makes it public, right? 8, no, but 9….) It’s not that it was all bad, it’s just that I really waxed way too poetic about lube, forgetting that you order the Happy Meal for the toy inside….

So what I’m going to try this time is lists, sort of like what Samuel Pepys, the Original Blogger, did in his Journals…

What I Could Have Done In The Six Minutes It Took Me To Read The First Entry Of My Blog

• Filled a Chain Cleaner with Ecotech Multi Degreaser, clamped it on my chain, run the chain through, dried the excess off with a rag, lubed the chain with Pro Road CR, eaten four black cherry Clif Shot Bloks, wiped off the excess lube, and had a drink of water, in that order.
• Sprayed Speed Clean on my rear rim, wiped off a month's worth of road grime, repeated on the front rim, and inflated my tires to 100 psi, not 120, because they're Michelin Carbon Pros and seem to handle best at 100 or else.
• Done the same on the V7 rotors of my Hayes Stroker Carbon brakes, then inflated my Michelin Tubeless tires to only 30 psi, or dreamt of doing that, because I want that equipment but will never be able to afford it. In fact, I'm currently using a 1997 Judy SL with a 1" steerer, and a head tube reducer installed in the 1 1/8" head tube of my Ellsworth so that it'll fit. I've convinced myself that it's retro, and therefore cool. Girls pick up on it immediately.
• Played with my dogs.
• Sprayed my embarassingly filthy Trek 5500 frame with Bike Wash, wiped it off, using a rag to get between the cables and tubes and making certain not to forget the underbelly of the downtube, then sprayed it down again with Teflon Bike Polish and wiped that off as well, all the while delighting in what I believe to be the fragrance of watermelon as it wafts into my nostrils.
• Ridden one mile on said 5500. Yes, six minutes for one mile works out to 10 mph. It was a long winter.
• Called my mother, asked how she was doing, then hung up halfway through her weekly rant about how irresponsible it is for me to still be "working on bikes at this age."
• Made an appointment with a therapist.
• Dipped the wire brush from the Finish Line Brush Set into a can of Citrus Degreaser, shifted my front and rear derailleurs to the largest ring and cog to open them up, brushed out the insides of each parallelogram with the moistened brush, sprayed any remaining dirt out of the derailleurs with Speed Clean, ate four margarita-flavored Clif Shot Bolks, wiped the derailleurs off, and sprayed them both down with Teflon Plus to keep them running smoothly at the pivots.

Yes, that last one would only take six minutes, actually around five and a half, because I just went out and did it to make sure. And here’s the kicker: if you added up the first, second or third, fifth, and ninth points above, in other words all of the ones that actually have to do with maintaining your ride, you would end up with a perfectly clean, lubed chain, clean rims, inflated tires, a clean, polished frame, and clean, lubed derailleurs – all in twenty-four minutes.

And you’d be bouncing to go ride, because those Black Cherry Shot Bloks pack 50 mg. of caffeine apiece.

You Smell Nice

You may have noticed that I mentioned something earlier about the fragrance of watermelons wafting into my nostrils while I’m cleaning my frame. It’s not because I hide watermelons in my garage so that aliens don’t take them, because that wouldn’t make sense, now would it? I mean, it’s not like they can’t get into my garage...

Mostly, "watermelon" is what I call the smell I associate with Finish Line's Bike Wash. In fact, I've been sniffing their products since I began using them at the first shop I worked at almost twelve years ago. Allow me to explain why by describing a day in the life of a first-year wrench....in a list....

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday In Hell

• I hobble in with yet another herniated disc from a collision with a car, and get handed a pile of repair tickets and a bucket of soapy water. "You're late again. These are the repairs you didn't do yesterday. Start by cleaning them." It's 9:30. The shop opens at 10....incidentally, Bike Wash wasn't around at the time, and soapy water took about three times longer, mostly because it leaves streaks.
• The first customer in the store buys a full Yakima roof rack with ten bike attachments for his new BMW, then asks if we have any bikes under $200. "Install roof rack," writes The Owner on a repair ticket, and slips it into a slot on the repair board under Bill's name. Bill removes it and slips it into a slot under mine.
• It gets busy, really busy, because The Owner tells us we must sell a bike to every single person who comes into the shop in order to make room for the order of 40 Treks that happens to be coming in right then while we're trying to sell bikes and get caught up on repairs and eat the half a Clif Bar we found on the floor by the pump.
• I get dollar bills thrown at me. This sounds great, but it isn't, because it's The Owner who's throwing them at me while screaming, "This is what you're doing every time you blow out a tube because you didn't seat the goddamn tire!" It's my third day, so I can see why he's upset that I haven't learned to do this correctly yet.
• It's ninety degrees in the shade, except there is none and I'm trying to install ten bike attachments on a roof rack that takes four. It all feels kind of loose, but we don't have any bikes under $200 anyway, so it's not like he's going to put anything on it....
• The Owner tells me that the UPS truck sounds like someone kicking an empty box down the street, which is beautiful and poetic.
• We order burritos during a lull, then get too busy to eat them, and there's no room in the refrigerator because of all the burritos.
• "Didn't you wash this bike like I asked you to? It's got streaks all over it. Do it again...."
• Don lies slumped over the Saf-T-Kleen tank in the small basment with no ventilation where he was soaking chains in Saf-T-Kleen, then reinstalling them on bikes, then blowing them dry with compressed air, which vaporized the Saf-T-Kleen solvent so that he inhaled it and died. Since he's the third mechanic in two weeks to die this way, The Owner finally decides to drain the tank and replace the solvent with Citrus. Parts come out as clean as they did before, the shop smells like oranges, and everyone, much to their chagrin, stays alive.
• Yadda yadda yadda
• It's the end of the day. I break down boxes out back while the air cools like an engine in the humid twilight. I lift my own bike, mine, onto a stand, and begin going over it carefully, and lubing the chain link by link with Cross Country, because it's supposed to rain in the morning, and it's the Island, so the rain is salty at that. And then it hits me, a smell like jasmine, I kid you not, wafting up from the lube, and I lean in closer, and it's jasmine, I'm sure of it. But the stars are flicking on and that means it's time to go, so we lock up, throw a leg over, and ride our separate ways, disappearing like shouts into the night, streaming...

Maybe I have some kind of olfactory dysfunction that translates odors into floral fragrances, because not everyone agrees that Bike Wash smells like watermelon, or Cross Country like jasmine. Anyway, that was one of the most beautiful summers of my life, and since we were a Finish Line shop, and used only Finish Line products on repairs, every time I smell one, it brings it all back.

Neal, if you’re reading this, thanks for giving me the start.

The Toy In The Happy Meal

Last but not least, check this out:

The photo on top is taken from http://silentkblog.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/north-american-handmade-bicycle-show-feb-10th/, the one on the bottom from the current issue of Mountain Bike. Both depict Independent Fabrications’ one-off BMX bike featuring carbon tubes and titanium lugs, as displayed at this year’s North American Handmade Bicycle Show. I’m 6’3” and have the bike handling skills of a drunken giraffe, yet I want to ride, nay, race BMX after seeing this thing. I want to start with the most entry-level bike out there, learn the sport from the ground up, and earn that thing, even though they’re not going to put it into production, and I couldn’t afford it if they did. But it’s beside the point: great products ignite passion, and this is one….

Speaking of BMX, check out this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHSLB_0KcDE

Hilarious….you can practically learn how to form the superlative in French just by listening to it….

‘Till next time, when I’ll explain why I seem to always be writing about bike maintenance in general, and Finish Line in particular….

Благодаря ви за четене на това

Stephan

How To Ride Faster , No Credit Check Required

From The American Heritage College Dictionary

maintain tr. v. –tained, -taining, tains. 3. To keep in a condition of good repair or efficiency.

From www.urbandictionary.com - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=maintain

1.	maintain	133 up, 13 down
	To keep your composure even in the most adverse and drunken circumstance. Dude I need to maintain or I won't make it to the next bar.

I’m Stephan and I like to ride bikes. You probably ride a bike, too, and if you ride a bike, you like to go fast. Maybe you like sitting up on your cruiser with your arms out and the wind pushing you along, maybe you like winding your 54x11 to 200 rpm and holding it until you feel an aneurism forming, maybe you like finding hills so steep that you have a 2.3-inch wide callous on your tailbone from where you sit on your rear tire-

whew....trackies, BMXers, and 'crossers will get their own postings....

-but however you do it, you like to go fast, at least sometimes, maybe always.

It seems that magazine editors know this at least as well as I do, because they’re busting the bindings of their publications with info on how to go, not fast, but faster (my favorite contributions to this body of knowledge come from Bicycling, like this month’s “Legs Of Steel: Do This Now”). You read them, and suddenly what seemed fast before seems slow now, and what seems fast now will be slow later, until any given ride becomes just another stage in the the maximization of your cycling-specific athletic potential. Eventually, you become page 68 of The Cyclist's Training Bible....

Alright, I'm being overly dramatic, and God knows there are many of us who don't even know what The Cyclist's Training Bible is, though it is a good book hah hah hah. But there really is an overwhelming amount of info out there on how to ride faster, jump higher, and hopefully stop more effectively. And it’s hard to look away, because who doesn’t want to learn how to suffer less in a headwind, or eke a little more rhythm out of a trail. But blessed be the readers who flip through those magazines and laugh it all off, or better yet amuse themselves by heading straight for the increasingly bizarre classified sections (while you’re looking at this month’s Bicycling check out how the ad for a “2 Seat Bike – Drives Like A Car,” is placed right next to “Spoil Her For Valentine’s Day! Send Her A Pajamagram!” Chances are anyone who buys the first then tries to do the second will end up turning in frustration to the inflatable companion sold on the following page).

Because the fact is, fulfilling as maximizing athletic potential can be, Cycling ain’t something you can do wearing a pair of sneaks and an old t-shirt; “cycling,” yes, but “Cycling,” which is what the magazines are talking about, not so much. It’s a technical, equipment-intensive, and potentially expensive sport. True, there are plenty of trends that celebrate the simplicity of the bicycle, like beater-bike races, or the fixed-gear fad that’s probably passing its apex as I’m writing this, but the fact remains that if you grow addicted to riding fast relative to others or to yourself, that is to say, if you become a Cyclist, you’ll eventually learn why “upgrade” is heard in bike shops as frequently as “presta or schrader?”

Ironically, the exception to this is the Professional Cyclist, particularly the Professional Road Cyclist. I say “ironically” because when it comes to the best equipment, the Professional Road Cyclists has it all as a result of possessing the talent to not actually need it. Entire bike companies stake their reputations on the performance advantages their products supposedly offer, but the fact remains that, when mechanics of practically all the pro road teams have to tape weights to their riders’ bikes so they're heavy enough to meet the UCI’s minimum weight limit, the most significant performance advantages have to come from the riders themselves, either from training or diet or….well, enough has been said on that topic, so let's look to the future. Go Slipstream….

However, you’re not a Professional Road Cyclist, not even close, despite the twenty or so percent of you who think you are, based on those occasional reader polls on the subject. In your case, upgrades are often directly related to that coveted sweetness of speed. And unless you have an unlimited amount of money to spend on equipment (true for more than you may think; check out the Master’s B field at your next local race), or are willing to live out the back of your Corolla on a steady diet of Rahmen noodles to free up the rest of your so-called income for your bike, you’re going to need to pick your battles: upgrade your tires or your chainrings? Get the stiffer stem or the seatpost with adjustable setback? Replace all of your steel bearings with ceramic ones at a cost equal to one month’s rent without utilities, or get four ounces of chain lube for less than a pack of condoms?

Not that I'm suggesting you give up safe sex in return for a smooth, efficient drivetrain, although....no, I'm not. But if you're a guy and you ride, conventional wisdom says you're useless for that kind of thing anyway, and if you're a girl....well, make him buy 'em.

Chapter 10, In Which He Finally Comes To The Point

Sorry, I got a little distracted there....Now, I know the improvements in performance offered by a full ceramic bearing upgrade and a lube aren’t necessarily equivalent, but here’s what I’m saying: a couple of weeks ago, during a rare warm spell here in upstate New York, I rode a friend’s Cervelo Soloist Carbon after he’d upgraded all of the bearings, and I mean all, right down to the derailleur pulleys, for about $350, just like CSC does with their bikes. I should say "only $350;" he got them wholesale.

I’d ridden the bike before, and I immediately noticed the difference. It was worth at least a gear, possibly two, and I’m sure it would have been easy to quantify with a power meter. Considering how many races are won by half a wheel, one could say that, all other things being equal, it was a race-winning (or, in non-competitive terms, faster-making) upgrade.

But the thing that kept coming to mind was what the ride reminded me most of, qualitatively speaking: a clean drivetrain lubricated with a quality lube.

Which, of course, you can get for about $340.01 less than the ceramic bearing upgrade….

Again, I know I’m exaggerating here, but really, I think you can see what I mean, and I really do believe that the improvements in performance are not all that dissimilar. As a mechanic, it’s always blown my mind to see the lengths people will go through to imitate the pros, without ever considering the humble combination of degreaser and quality lube that every pro mechanic spends hours utilizing, from making the choice of what lube to use for what condition (more on this in another entry), to cleaning riders’ bikes both efficiently and thoroughly (more on this in another entry), to knowing what parts to lube, and what parts not to (more on this in another entry).

INTERLUDE: An Ode To Lube

If you really want to imitate the pros, consider this. Lube is beautiful, it’s lore, the stuff of legends, tradition, technology, sublime as a Rapha cycling cap. The knowledge of how to apply it correctly, in a manner that will make the difference between winning and losing, between needing a bike change at a ‘cross race and not needing one, is the bailiwick of that old Belgian mechanic who cut his teeth on the infields of the Ghent Six, the one with the tired, lined face and fingers sensitive enough to tell by plucking the exact tension of a spoke, but strong as steel pliers, making them unsuitable for the derrieres of French podium girls. Not that he cares; he’d rather sit in the back of the team truck under a single light bulb, lubing his riders’ chains one….link…at….a…..time…..because he knows. He knows that tomorrow he will not be the one leaning out of the team car window, trying to squirt lube onto a chain at 28 mph. while the break disappears up the road in pouring rain. No, tonight he will use Finish Line Pro Road, and tomorrow smile, maybe, at the victory celebration before shrugging his way into the cold to clean off the bikes and begin all over again his ageless pursuit….

C’mon, are you telling me you don’t want to be that guy?

And even if you don’t, consider this: I mentioned above how the ceramic bearing upgrade felt like a clean, well-lubed drivetrain. That feeling is worth a ton in intangibles; it belongs to a whole category of other feelings that make you faster, like the feeling you get from a tailwind, a draft, berms on a trail, the banking on a track….it’s like Leipheimer said in the January issue of Velonews, about the sensations he experienced as he was getting his time checks during his awesome final time trial at last year’s Tour:

And that builds, you know. You’re able to push yourself all that much harder…

In the case of lube, you're talking momentum for less than $10. You’ve gotta love it.

And best of all, you can do it yourself, unlike the ceramic bearing upgrade, which I would be willing to wager you cannot, unless you’re a fairly confident bike shop or team mechanic with access to tools like a bearing puller. And even then….all I can say is that, by the end of this week, my friend was complaining that it sounded like Captain Crunch had taken up residence in his bottom bracket. The kid who installed those was no Alejandro Torralbo, and neither are you (to the first person to correctly identify Alejandro Torralbo goes a free 4 oz. bottle of my current favorite lube, Finish Line Pro Road CR; “CR” stands for “Ceramically Reinforced;” more on why that’s brilliant in another entry....)

And let’s not forget one last and exceedingly important point: cleaning and lubrication don’t just enhance the performance of a drivetrain. They protect it from early wear, essentially saving you more at each turn of the crank. Last time I looked (this morning, in a fit of lust), a Dura-Ace group was retailing for about $1,300….

So the moral of all this yapping: you need to clean and lube your chain anyway, so you may as well do it, do it right, do it often, and reward yourself by riding faster for less.

Before I go, I’d like to address a question that I feel is insufficiently asked by bloggers of themselves….

What gives me the write?

Nothing, really, an admission I’m making in the hopes that my humility will make me seem like more of a good guy than I actually am. Technically speaking, I suppose what qualifies me is ten years riding, racing, living, and breathing bikes, and what I’ve always held up to myself as a relentlessly objective view of everything in the cycling industry, including my own abilities and habits as a mechanic. I’ve worked in shops, as a service manager, store manager, buyer, and seller, and I've also worked for manufacturers, mostly in marketing, because I like to tell tall tales, then cut them down to size.

And did I mention that I like to ride fast?

Thanks for reading (as Tyler would have it; curious to see what he makes of Rock Racing),

Stephan

Which reminds me: if you haven’t seen it yet, CHECK OUT THIS EXCELLENT SPOT BEFORE IT DISAPPEARS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEXSi1kiUbw