Spring 200k

11 Monday Mar 2013

Tags

a. homer hilsen, Biologic, cyclemeter, Escape from Seattle 200k, garmin, Hahn Rossman, iphone, jan heine, rando, rivendell, Seattle Randonneurs, Selle Anatomica, SIR, son 28, SON Delux, Titanico X, Wool

Randos!

I started my rando season yesterday with a 200k that conveniently began and ended within a mile of my house. There were probably 100 folks that started this ride. It was a great day with temperatures ranging from 38-65 F resulting in little need for more than a couple wool jerseys and a vest. No rain – just a bit of fog for the first few hours with sun breaks at the tops of any hill over 300 ft.

Jan and Friends

Jan Heine was at the start with his lovely chrome rando bike, and was the first one out of the gate with his friends and riding partners including Hahn Rossman who was test riding a Mad Fiber bike. I rode the whole ride with my new pal Bruce, and was grouped up for a while with Asta and a friend who had ridden up from Portland the day before. Wow – 200 miles up, and 200k for the ride. Solid!

Cockpit

This was a test for me in a couple of ways. The most mileage I have put into a ride in the past 8 months was a 38 mile training ride. I have been commuting over 200 miles a month for the past few years with 3-4 days per week the norm. I also end up doing a lot of climbing on my commute, so this definitely helped. I also benefited from a few longer rides last year, as well as a bike fit. I found a few things that didn’t work once the mileage got over 50 (plain B17, lack of consistent nutrition and water). On this ride, I started eating and drinking right away, and never really stopped. My riding app (cyclemeter) said I burned 7500 calories on the ride, and I’ll bet I only had a slight deficit by the end, although 2 bowls of chili and a beer definitely went down with no problems!

Pit Stop

I also got to put some miles on a Selle Anatomica Titanico X which I’ll write up later. Verdict? No saddle soreness with my Ibex wool knicker/tights. The iPhone Biologic rig worked, but it took finessing to keep it charged. I ended up having to turn off the display and lights to keep a charge going to the battery. Verdict? Use the SON28 (more output) on these rides, and leave the Delux on the other bike for now. That or look into a smaller battery powered GPS, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to jump back to the Garmin without giving the larger SON a try first.

Beautiful Day!

Overall, at the end of the ride, I felt tired, but great. My right knee was a bit sore, but the pain was gone by Sunday night. I think a 300k is actually in my sights. It was a great start to the season!

Extra pics from the ride on Flickr

A Stop at Rivendell Headquarters

23 Thursday Jun 2011

Posted by Stonehog in Cycling

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Tags

a. homer hilsen, albatross, Bombadil, Grant Peterson, Hunqapiller, Moustache, porteur, rivendell, SimpleOne, Wool

I was on a tech conference trip in Santa Clara last week, and decided to make the trek up to Rivendell headquarters since I was in the area. This was my second visit since getting my A. Homer Hilsen in 2009. A co-worker tagged along for the ride, and we had an enjoyable morning in Walnut Creek. After I found my way up to the garage that is HQ, we walked into the first bay, and true to the last time I visited, nobody was there. We were browsing around for only a short time, when who else but Grant Peterson himself came in and asked if anyone was helping us.

I asked him if I could take a couple bikes out for a spin, and he asked me my PBH. Within about 5 minutes, he had set up 4 different bikes for me to ride. They were all different in a big way:

58cm Hunqapiller (with diagonal tube) with drops bars
54cm Hunqapiller (no diagatube) with moustache bars
58cm SimpleOne in single speed mode with Grip Kings and albatross bars
60cm Bombadil (with diagatube) and bullmoose bars

My observations were that the Hunqas felt very similar from a frame perspective – they both felt like a nice solid steel frame mountain bike. The cockpits were different, and I found that I really like the moustache setup. I think it felt familiar to me since I’ve ridden the VO Porteur bars quite a lot. The smaller frame was also a comfy setup for a mtb for me. It was probably my favorite ride! I found the Bombadil to be a bit large for me, but only when I stopped and moved up towards the bars – that tube slopes up quite a bit. I didn’t really dig the bullmoose bars, but these were the very long reach versions, and since it was a big bike, it was just sized wrong for me. Besides the sizing, I was in love with the frame, and I felt that the weight was not noticeably worse than a simple diamond frame. Same observation on the Hunqa. The SimpleOne was great, but I didn’t like Albas on it, and the Grip Kings weren’t better than my RMX Sneaker pedals (at half the cost), so it sort of fell down my list of bikes to eventually get. I think I like gears too much.

I picked up some shifters, pedals, wool, and various other items, and vowed that I’d be ordering something soon. Everyone we talked to there was helpful. Grant’s got a great business, and his customer service model is to be envied.