Rubber Gone

Tuesday Night Worlds is the sort of unbridled ride that no legally accountable organization wants to own.  The riding occasionally strays into reckless, rude or illegal territory.  Incidental poor judgement is not what defines the ride.  Enthusiasm and race-like intensity makes it popular; the other stuff is just good shorthand for the vibe.

So about that tire...  the group had just come back together after chasing down a hilltop flyer.  The road was typical New England:  pockets of development, stone walls, ponds and a little narrow.  It followed the land's contours so that there is rarely a straight and nary a hard turn.  The curve ahead was shallow enough to negotiate without a thought.  But the trees had filled in and there was enough arc to hide oncoming traffic.  Or a big delivery truck attempting a three point turn, which is exactly what lay in wait.

I was repeating a question to a buddy and so was a couple of milliseconds late to react.  The delay led to an overlapped wheel.  The overlapped wheel led to some crazy body english and a locked up brake.  Observant readers will note the rubber missing from the photo above is not exactly centered on the tire.  It indicates the extent to which I slid sideways.  I didn't notice at the time because I was furiously trying to keep  my front wheel from leaning hard against the rear wheel it had overlapped.  My front tire was touching the left side of rear tire and I threw my weight left while skidding my rear wheel right to remain upright.  I fully expected to be rammed from behind, but the cycling gods were smiling upon us.  Everyone stayed upright.  The GPS says we barely slowed down.

Brief bout with terror aside, the ride was a complete blast.  The adrenaline rush came from burning the proverbial matches without a thought to what's left in the pack. This time of year, there are lots of matches and boy do they burn bright.  The recklessness is an unfortunate side effect.

Rubber Porn

There is something absolutely wonderful about new tires.  It makes me wish I were a better photographer because the magic is there but I can't capture it.  No luck with my phone and a real camera only improved the focus.  I want to see the soft depth of the rubber contrasted against the gun metal of the rim.

It's not just the contrast.  New tires hug the rim; tubulars doubly so.  Even just stretching on an old rim, tubulars have a lower profile.  That first photo was too tight.  The context of a worn out OpenPro rim and a Campy hub with about fifty thousand miles is completely lost.   Here's the the wider view:

Of course, it looks just like an ordinary old bicycle wheel.  It's not.  Photography is clearly not my medium.  Even I can't find the spark that I see as I hold the wheel here in my hands.

New rubber has such perfection:  no nicks, no wear.  I stopped myself from posting a photo a while back after inflating a new Conti Force.  The tubulars were just too much.  The other tire is stretching on a old Bontrager rim.  The tire has it going on but the rim is missing the eclat of the OpenPro/Campy combo.

For the record, I don't have a secret cache of tire photos.  I know a dog that is crazy for latex.  She'll eat gloves, bandaids, anything made of latex.  There's no creepy fetish or compulsion here.  My day involves a regular parade of handy work.  It is rare that I stop and admire a finished project, especially one where 99.9% of the craftsmanship happened somewhere else.  But I always stop to bask in the warmth good, newly mounted tires.

The Jury's Out

I was scheduled for Jury Duty today in Quincy.  But my better half is traveling for work this week and my smaller thirds are not.  My commitment to civic duty engaged in mortal combat with my distaste for being the person who has to explain to the judge why they can't be seated on a jury.  It lasted about six hours before I deferred until CX season.

Instead of spending the day in a warm, dry jury pool, I layered up, embrocated down and headed out the door.  And brought along a bug courtesy of a generous team mate.  I'm not sure about the choice of light rain, moderate winds and steady temps around fifty over bureaucratic comfort and the slightest chance of empanelment.  Nor am I sure about the wisdom of digitally recording my workouts and posting them online.  One might say that the jury is out.

Guardian satellites watching over me yielded some excellent data and some less than excellent data.  The little heart shaped loop on the far right represents a loop around the neighborhood trying to decide how bad the weather was.  The red line from 95 to Framingham is the hour I spent warming up along 135.  Most of 135 has enough paved shoulder to feel safe in the rain.  The loop next to Sherborn is the workout:  one test lap and three hard runs up Glen Street and easy back down Farm Street.  The rest of the red line is my warmdown.  It involved some very cold and uncooperative fingers.

On the upside, the HR data was much better than I normally get.  The GPS missed the start of one of my efforts, so I had to back out the HR, speed and splits.  My altimeter registered fifty percent more climbing than the GPS.  I thought atmospheric changes might have artificially boosted my climbing until I looked at the GPS elevation profile.  The four identical, concurrent laps I rode showed up as a vague rise and three hills, each one smaller than the one before.  I guess climbing data is a downside.

The big question is what to make of my warmup being the sixth fastest recorded segment along 135 but my all out effort coming in 44th on Glen Street.  I'm pretty clear on the reasons behind the rankings, but I'm a lot murkier on the wisdom.  I'll sleep on that for now.