Curling Begins Today

Today I am bottom bracket deep in whiskey and watching olympic curling. That's what I'm doing all day. To stay active, whenever someone else gets up to get a drink, I'll vigorously sweep the floor in front of them. 

Keep your feet on the sheet and watch out for the hog line.

Winter Riding Part 2: Depantsing the Myth

The shortest path between points A and B can go to hell.

(Part I of our winter riding blog can be found here).

We've had a lot of winter this past week, and I find myself with a few more things to say about winter riding. By the way, there is no shame in hanging up the bike and hibernating all winter. However, what if, when you were in the fourth grade, you'd realized that no one locked the school at night, and you could enter after everyone else had gone home and play Oregon Trail and jump around on the gym mats and climb the cargo net? Winter riding is kind of like that.

This bear is having a recovery winter. There's no shame in that, bear.

For the winter rider, winter has four phases, and these phases don't always occur in a particular order. The absolute worst phase almost always comes toward the very end of winter, and often in early spring, but we'll get to that. 

The first phase is fresh snow. This phase is usually awesome. No ice has formed yet, and you can ride basically any bike you want through the powder and if you crash you land in powder. Then comes the icy phase. This is when you want those studded snow tires. 

Let's pause for a moment to talk about gear. Chances are, you already have most of the winter riding gear you'll need. Everybody owns lots of insulating, breathable stuff, as well as some kind of waterproof jacket. Pants, however, can be tricky. No matter what kind of pants you wear in the winter, you may feel as though you've worn the wrong pair. For fresh snow and ice, it really doesn't matter what kind of pants you wear as long as they keep you warm. Often, long underwear, jeans, and gators will suffice for trips that are five miles and shorter. I usually wear softshell pants, but I'm fully aware when I walk into a coffee shop that I look like a blaze orange doofus. On really frigid days, you'll want a balaclava. I know, I know. Nobody has ever been at their best in a balaclava, but you'll be glad you have one. Also, make sure your balaclava has a mouth hole. There will be a lot of moisture buildup as you breathe, and if you don't have a way to spit every now and then, you will begin to drown in your own mucus. If anything can make wearing a balaclava worse, it's dying in one. Get one with a mouth hole.

The third phase is where the temperature reaches thirty-three degrees or the sun comes out and the snow and ice start to melt. This is where your pants become critical, especially if your bike doesn't have fenders. Your tires will throw oceans of black road sludge up at you, covering your butt, legs, and face with tiny black droplets that are a mixture of magnesium, car grime, oil, and goose poop. These black droplets taste exactly how you'd expect. Fenders, waterproof shoes, and some weather resistant pants are important. Goggles work better than sunglasses, but beware that they compound the doofus spaceman effect of your orange pants. 

The fourth and worst phase of winter only happens once or twice a year, and it usually happens in April, the day after you've stored your winter clothes in that inconvenient drawer under the bed. On this day the temperature will hold rock steady at thirty-three degrees while it dumps snowmelt on you. So far, I've had no luck finding pants that can withstand this kind of day. Softshell pants for sure can't, and even Gore-tex has failed me. Once they start to leak, water will run into your shoes. Even if you periodically stop under shelter to remove, overturn, and empty the ice water out of your shoes, your feet will experience a sensation beyond cold that words will not be able to describe until we invent a new expletive chain for it. 

Because I'm tired of buying expensive pants that are awesome every day of the year but this particular one day in April, I've decided to do one of two things. If I don't have far to ride that day, I'll wear cutoffs. If I do have far to ride, I will stay home and wear no pants at all. 

Winter Riding: Not Just for Those Unencumbered by Common Sense

After I finished grad school, many things in my life changed at one time. It might be fair to say that in some important ways I fell apart. My desire to be a part of the literary and academic worlds disappeared almost entirely. As a result, I took an easy job on a whim and ended up there for three years. One of the reasons I kept that menial job for so long was that it afforded me some time to put myself back together. The job was dog walking, and in those three years I had eons of time to think through some things as well as listen to hundreds of books on tape. While my appetite for fiction had always been insatiable, I'd never given non-fiction much attention until then, and many of the books I listened to while walking dogs have influenced me greatly. That, however, is not what I want to talk about.

My dog walking route included walks all over town, and I was commuting between visits somewhere around twenty-five miles per day by bicycle. I hadn't been cycling for too long when I took that job, and I spent most of my first winter day splayed out in the street while the constellation of my scattered belongings drifted smoothly away from me across the icy road, as if I were the sprawling Milky Way and my belongings were distant galaxies in the ever-expanding, cold, and merciless universe. The metaphor is wardrobe appropriate, too, as I was basically dressed to venture into outer space. My outfit was ridiculous enough that one of Denver's prime time news anchors once saw me locking up my bike downtown and scoffed at me as he climbed into his limo. Individual snowflakes were actually bouncing off of his hairdo, by the way, and he could barely cross the icy sidewalk in his leather loafers. 

I bought some fenders, studded tires, and wool clothing and seldom encountered trouble thereafter. In fact, Denver's nastiest days were some of my favorites. Yes, there were cars sliding into intersections everywhere, but the city's customary racket and hustle were absorbed into a wintery sponge of peace and quiet. Those rides felt for the glamor and brilliance of the landscape almost like journeys through outer space (I imagine).

By no means am I alone on the bike path come winter, but there are few enough of us that the populace at large assume we're all insane. We're not, though. Riding in the winter is as much fun as sledding. It's as much fun as skiing, and you don't have to drive in traffic for three hours to get to the ski area. Really, the big hurdle is fear, and that's a hurdle that I have to force myself over at the beginning of every winter. Once you're out there, though, you realize you're not going to freeze to death, and you quickly begin to enjoy yourself. In fact, you'll probably marvel that not everyone is riding in the winter all the time.

If you've never ridden in the winter, you'll need a few things. Clothing that insulates when wet. Merino wool works best for the layers next to your skin, and it's incredibly effective once your body warms up. Even when it's as cold as 10-15 degrees out, you won't need much more than a wool t-shirt and a lightly insulated shell. Some big mittens and waterproof shoes are also important. You can find all sorts of expensive options out there, clipless or otherwise, but I've been using some hiking boots I bought on sale for $80 for the last three or four years, and they're perfect. Oh, and if you don't already know, the city maintains the bike paths like they are Hickenlooper's mother's fine china.

You'll also need the right tires. If you're riding on packed snow, knobby mountain or cross tires will do nicely. Be sure to run a low pressure. If you're riding on ice, buy studded tires. They're expensive, but they'll make your bike reliable in any weather, and they're cheaper than car insurance. I've had great success with 700x42 studded cross tires and 29x2.1 studded tires. There really isn't much they can't handle. Snow over 12 inches deep starts to wear you down, but you won't loose traction. 

Appropriate winter enthusiasm.

Finally, make sure the key to your U-lock is on a key ring with lots of other keys. Dropping a lone key into ten inches of snow and having to search for it with your bare hands is not as much fun as it sounds. At the risk of making winter riding more complicated than it is, I'll also say that if your commute is relatively flat, consider a single speed. Cassettes have a tendency to freeze up on longer rides, and the rear derailleur pulley puts enough slack in the drivetrain that your chain will just slide over the frozen cone in which your cassette is preserved like an ice age mummy. 

Wipe down and lube your chain every day you ride in the snow or crud. You'll be amazed when your chain rusts overnight. 

If you haven't tried it, do! Your snowy commute to work could soon be the best part of your day. After three winters of riding around, I developed new career aspirations. It's a stretch, but one could argue that Yawp was conceived one frigid February moment as I fought my way up the endless hill on 44th Ave. head-on into a blizzard and found myself grinning--yes, grinning like an insane person.

The Surly Snowgre, or something like that.

Once you begin riding in the winter, you'll begin looking for excuses to leave your house when it snows on your day off. I had no place to go this morning, so I made up some pointless errands for myself. I ended up at the Tattered Cover, where I happily came upon this non-fiction pearl.

If you aren't familiar with Mr. Leonard's Semi-Rad blog and you in any way enjoy being outdoors or the idea of people who do, please go here now.

If it snows tomorrow, I'll see you out there.

Read Part II of our winter riding blog here.

Coverage of the 2014 National Cyclocross Championships

I, like many of you, traveled to Crunchy Country this weekend past to watch the National Cyclocross Championship races. What happened was: I took the above picture and then my camera died. What that means: you'll have to imagine everything in your own head, just like you did in the 1930's. It also means: I can report whatever I want and you have to believe me because there's no photographic proof to the contrary.

Let's begin first with the day's attire. I own or have access to at least the following costumes, but probably more: Batman, velociraptor, tiger, hula girl, and Osama Bin Laden. I also own some tightee whitees that I can wear over pretty much anything. Did I wear any of those things? No. In fact, it was one of the few times in my life that I dressed exactly right for the weather. This makes me, I think, something of a failed human being. Anyone who passes up a chance to run around shirtless in the middle of winter in a Batman mask must be dead inside. So what I'm asking is: I've made a New Years' resolution, and is there anyone out there who's willing to bail me out of Texan jail after next year's Nationals?

Here are just a few of the things that I saw, but almost everything that I remember:

-A woman from Drunkcyclist.com passing out Natural Light. I'd never had one of these beers before. Beeradvocate.com rates this beer at 43%. Yawpcyclery.com rates this beer at 70% because it was free. If it had been purchased, maybe 5%. Yawpcyclery.com also had a flask full of Stranahan's in its pocket, so there was some kind of law of averages at work.

-Beer expertly sprayed from a spectator's mouth into a very fine mist alongside the 5280 run-up with the hopes that such a mist would add to the racers' enjoyment, and yet despite the expert technique the beer fog was manufactured repeatedly into the wind and thus condensed not upon the racers but upon the human vaporizer's very own eyelashes (et al). The human vaporizer was, in fact, a compatriot, and we hope that in some way this makes up for the very sensible outfit (see above).

-Flights of stairs ridden up without pause or even, it seemed, effort.

-A vuvuzela planted in a pit toilet in the same way one might plant a flag on the moon.

-Pro cyclists riding the brakes because they were afraid of a corner. This makes the lot of us here at Yawp Cyclery feel deep relief.

-A golden retriever puppy so soft that your hand could pass all the way through him without touching anything but fur.

-Some very very very very very very very good cyclists wadding it up in a creek bed.

-A lot of people from cycling's relatively small community whom I knew, or recognized and wished I knew. 

-A large galvanized tub full of Sierra Nevada Torpedoes, which did subsequent damage to the integrity of many a hull.

Did we see you? If we didn't, we wish we would have. We would've had a good time together.

Cold Medicine

Most of this post about a bike ride down the Splat River will be written by cold medicine. That is to say, we are operating without the benefit of Yawp's charm, wit, and good judgement. For this, we apologize, but we no longer have the good judgement to go ahead and not write the following.

Last week I went on a ride with two friends and a banana. The banana was the most cheerful of all when the ride began, swerving its bike into all of the puddles and honking its hoota honka horn about six million times. My friends and I were looking back and forth at each other like maybe we should try to drop that there banana, but the banana turned out to be in better shape than I, and thus we were stuck with the banana and its stupid puns.

A majority of the path was dry, but there was lots of slop and slush and messy goose poop to ride through. Not every cyclist's kind of ride, but there were still a lot of riders out, one of whom passed us singing AC/DC out loud despite his not wearing earbuds. The banana honked persistently at this.

In the photo below, you can see my friends up ahead riding at a "conversational pace." I, the photographer, am hammering out of the saddle with the camera zoomed all the way in so that they appear in the photo to be cyclists and not schmutz on the lens. The banana was behind me, ramming my rear wheel and doing its Robin Williams on cocaine impression. 

All of a sudden, the banana--as bananas are wont to do--turned. We didn't see it after that. 

I don't think this ride had anything to do with the virus that is now wrecking my body, despite the general uncleanliness and weird smells of the Splat River. I imagine I contracted this cold as I contract many of my diseases; by habitually opening doorknobs with my mouth.

Until next week.