Rides and Races - Boston rides

Oh my goodness: http://www.rushinrevolution.com/crosscrit.htm

Damn dude your gonna have to get some man clothes if want do this one ... your doing La Calavera right? so we'll miss this anyway.

Damn dude your gonna have to get some man clothes if want do this one ... your doing La Calavera right? so we'll miss this anyway.

Uh-oh, has my panty line been showing again?

Unless I can leave for NYC wicked early Sat morning, I will most likely be missing this in favor of a race I'll most certainly lose, and probably die in the process. Fun fun fun. Who else is doing La Calavera again? For those who are, where are you sleeping? I need some leads...

EDIT: I'll feel bad missing the crit, considering I *ahem* won the last one.

Pimp. I'll stop by for sure - I'm in my lab on Albany St. right now anyway and even have my Steamroller with me. Unfortunately, I'll just be there for two seconds since we're trying to get out posters for this conference/do homework.


MIT at 10:30 tonight people, and we're having some food & drink at the squealing pig beforehand at 8 or so.

****ing GRE. Enjoy all the various events folks. Will resurface first week in November.

GREs are good for you!

But seriously, good luck with the studying, although my guess is you won't have too much of a problem with it. It's basically a glorified SAT (the general GRE, that is). I felt like the math was easier than the SAT, but the vocab stuff was harder. Then again, I do math all day and don't read as much as I used to...go figure. Writing part wasn't hard at all provided that you can form coherent arguments quickly and write properly (grammar, etc.). Now, the physics GRE...that's another story, which (a) I don't want to tell and (b) no one wants to hear.

Summary of my post: We'll see you when you get back!

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b185/rithem01/FLYER.jpg

Layer up! this could get a bit chilly

thanks man. I have to say that amongst the pool of applicants in statistical bioinformatics, I'm not too worried about how my verbal or writing skills will stack up. Its more about training myself to not make any mistakes on the stupid math section. One or two dumb errors, and, well, you know, suddenly I'm in like the 85th percentile.

Mainly, I've just had to work on being able to sit still for 3 hours straight. Freaking ADD.

Was that really sideways hail on the Mass Ave bridge this morning?! Probably it was just half-frozen water hitting my face at 50mph.

Hey rithem, any of those action shots turn out from the Franconia ride? It'd be a friggin miracle.

It'd be a friggin miracle.
what you talkin bout? I'm a professional man have some faith. I haven't finished the roll yet. That there was a fisheye camera, the shots should come out fine.

This weather is frickin awesome. I got up over the MassPike on Huntington and thought I was gonna lift off. I was scoping out handholds on the Pru radio towers for when I went flying by.

It was grueling battle and we were touch and go at points, but in the end we totally made The Notch our *****. I can't wait to see the photos.

This weather is frickin awesome. I got up over the MassPike on Huntington and thought I was gonna lift off. I was scoping out handholds on the Pru radio towers for when I went flying by.

I wore my rain gear today, and that stuff acted just like a sail. Which would be fine if the wind was behind me. Instead, the wind was swirling around me from every direction, like my own personal cyclone.

rithem, I forgot that was a fisheye! I can't wait to see!

Just getting home from my 11 hour day in the wind today. I got blown across three lanes of traffic, into the curb on Stuart, and put over my handlebars onto my elbows by a tailwind on W Brookline today. They're saying maybe snow tommorow! Wooooooot!

Just maybe: Wednesday: A chance of snow showers before 9am

I might just have to get up early for this. I learned today that I have a forced-air heater near me and it did a superb job of drying my stuff today. Nothing better than having warm, dry gloves and socks to put on for the ride home.

i guess we didnt get any snow... anyone going to the track thursday night this week? i've been riding an older bianchi veloce with full campy, definitely a sweet ride and the reason i'm going campy on my bikes from now on, but i want to know if i should put it back and get the track bike out of back bay's basement for the events to ensue.

yeah what do you guys all have to say about the viability of riding in winter? I was thinking about getting some treaded tires for my 27" wheels... and maybe getting, you know, some gloves. I remember previous winters here, this whole city it a ****ing wind tunnel.

A cyclo-cross tire on the front can be helpful. Thinner tires cut the snow better. Good luck on the 27" tire front. You might want to think about going to 700c, although the tires don't make that much of a difference. Keep an eye on brake pads if brakes are your thing. Seriously cold weather can do f-ed up things to cheap brake pads. Clean your bike 5x more than in the summer, and keep an eye on all your components. Sand, salt and sludge in your BB and hubs will take their toll if you don't, and the last thing you want is component failure in a blizzard.

As far as clothing goes:

Good gloves + glove liners are a must. My philosophy for cold weather, long exposure biking:

3 GOOD layers and a good breathable waterproof jacket for the top of the body. Working 10 hours a day in the cold last winter I rocked a North Face long sleeve thermal wet-wicking undershirt, an army issue polypro turtleneck, and a thin wool hooded sweater, with a Marmot waterproof rain jacket over it all. Bike shorts, leg warmers, and a pair of thermal tights under a pair of Dickies for the legs. Two pairs of wool socks, with some backups in the bag, and if it's REAL cold and you rock clipless shoes, booties. I'm already wearing my thermal poly-pro headband with a waterproof baseball hat and a beanie over that. Arm warmers and leg warmers are really nice to have around.

Good luck, winter biking isn't always fun.

Winter is far too dangerous. Only foolhardy maniacs ride in the snow.

I LOVE THE SNOW, RIDE RIDE RIDE.

http://static.flickr.com/24/48587424_efccffcd4f.jpg


way to go and edit your posts after I quote you Trevor.

I have 700cs too but felt like the 27s would be better and more stable... thanks for the advice, jacobs.

RE: the dickes: you gotta roll up the legs right? I bet ankles get cold... I was just thinking about that today.

I use big clip things so I don't have to roll them up, but it doesn't make much of a difference. I put the bottom of the leg warmers inbetween the two layers of wool socks, leaving no exposed skin. The dickies aren't really providing that much warmth, more just an outer shell that will dry quickly and block wind.

well regardless I can afford about none of that so I am going to be pretty cold very soon

but it's good to know anyways

if you go to back bay bikes and inquire about the student discount you can get up to 25% off your purchases, which is awesome on pearl izumi stuff, since it's marked up double the price of cost.

If you're just commuting it's not that hard. Invest $10 in some wool socks. Get some polypro long underwear at Target. I like some wool gloves under my bike gloves, though cotton jesey gloves work too. A wool sweater is good for me, though I've done a sweat shirt too.

Expect your brakes to be more or less worthless. The temperatures are just right that all that snow likes to melt up around your brakes and rim and make it all generally very slippery.

Damn. That headlight on my bike is ghetto fabulous.

the BBB people are too elitist for me. a friend of mine just threw down for a brand new bike from there, it's been a month and they're already make snyde "bike messenger pipe dream" comments to her. Also they have never mentioned that student discount thing to me even though it's pretty blatant I'm a student, is this one of those things you should automatically know to ask for everywhere you go?

trevor, good to know... I'm fixed so I am slighly better off on that front, what concerns me is slipping sideways under a bus or something.

is there anything on the agenda for tonight? i've been pretty damn busy the past few weeks with work, but i definitely would like to ride tonight.

Yeah, does anyone want to play bikes tonight? I stopped riding a week and a half ago so's I'd have excess energy for my test-thingy. Now that that's done I plan to be in the saddle for the next four days as much as humanly possible.

I would guys but I'll be mapping my route for La Clavera tonight, doing laundry and getting ready for my 7am bus ride into NYC from Prov. Have fun tonight get plenty drunk and I'll see youz guyz next week!

No can, it's the wife's birthday. We're going to a fancy restaurant. People in sneakers don't even go to this place!

im up for some MIT track racing tonight if anyone is down

meatball, i feel you on the snydeness of BBB, i work there and sometimes i can't even stand it. yesterday for instance i wanted to fight everyone in the shop. i came in to work as a favor for the manager who's cool, but the guy chris and the service manager dave are complete *****holes. and the student discount thing, you have to mention it to get it, since they try to sell everything for retail, so if they don't have to, they don't like to give out discounts. (yeah, its rediculous) the best time to go there is weekends, especially sunday when i'm working, generally the cooler, nicer people tend to work on the weekends.

Hey, how did that Copley Square crit turn out? I was too pooped from 80 miles and excessive partying the day before to make it.

I'm down for riding tonight, but I might be late.

go4broke: glad to learn not everyone there is down with that attitude, I feel you man. There are definitely a couple cool people who work there but they people who are jerky have pretty much turned me off completely and I usually just go to Boston Bicycles if I can't make it to Cambridge now. Sorry to ****-talk your place of employment... seems like you have similar feelings tho so I don't feel too bad :P

Alright, guys, I'll probably try to hit up the track at 10:30 tonight. No promises, though, I may get involved in a prolonged pie eating contest.

Besides biking, I've abstained from eating baked goods for the last two weeks.

Alexi says he'll be there at 10:30.

just got back from BBB, took the bianchi back and picked up my IRO for tonight. **** never changes there... i took the bianchi out for a brief 16 mile jaunt over summit ave, and out through newton, just to get on the bike again, since i've been sitting inside for so long due to all the rain. of course, the mountain biker mechanic is all like "thats not even long enough to be worth riding, you guys only did 17.5mph? i could do better than that, and i'm not even a road biker. you should start shaving your legs too, etc, etc". the day he decides to put a road bike between his legs and come on a ride with me, will be a very sorry day for him... sorry for my rant

Crap. I really need to get those tires for my GT, so I can put a "proper" (re: gearing, among other things) bike out on the track.

Oh yeah, I just got back this afternoon from a few days in Denver, including some hiking up at 10000 feet and mountain biking at 7000 feet (that was awesome). Anyone want to do the Charlie Baker TT route (in Concord) with me tomorrow morning? The motivation being the nicely increased red blood cell count...

heh, i wonder if other BBB employees are on here.

Dear, Boston.

WTF?

No, really.

I just put together my Litespeed this morning, go to give it an inaugural ride, and saw this.

Gonna be 60 tommorow though.

Wow, a Litespeed. What's up, big spender?

I seriously miss this kind of random weather. Dublin is a lock at this point and the weather there is pretty predictable and frankly not so awesome.

I saw that about tomorrow and was sort of laughing to myself. When I went to Broadway earlier today it was about 10 degrees warmer.

I got it so cheap it'd make you whimper.

Wait a minute...are you living in Dublin?

I'm confused.

Is Trevor abandoning Boston for Dublin? Find out on next week's "Tales Of Boston Bike Geeks"

Indeed.

It looks like I'll leaving my warm little nest in the hub of the universe around the 1st of December. I'll spend some time in Dublin, then some time in Mountain View, then back to Dublin for good to work for a well-known search engine and general Internet company.

It makes me sad. My hope is that they'll one day open a Boston office (http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2005/05/30/story4.html) and I can move back.

Until then, I'll be taking advantage of 20 euro last minute air fares to Madrid.

Damn you.

By the way, were you (Trevor) in Central Square around 1:30 today?

I was, in fact. Did I see you? I thought I might have. I was inbound, you were outbound, our eyes met across the yellow divider line...

I had to wander over to Broadway to grab an 18t cog for my 3 month Bay Area excursion which accompanies this little adventure. I'm going 3/32" while I'm at it, scandalous, I know!

Actually, I was walking on the sidewalk (inbound side) down to school to play some (intramural) football. The snow made it more fun, of course.

Before you leave for good, we should have a proper send-off. Maybe the Thursday before Thanksgiving?

My GT is 3/32" - does that make it a fake track bike? Oh yeah, finally ordered tires for it...they'll be here next Friday. Expect to see it at the Ghettodrome soon enough.

3/32 doesnt make it a fake track bike, but if you're running no brakes, i'd want as much chain strength as i could get, so thats why most run 1/8 over 3/32. i once saw a kid in the muddy river park that had one of those KMC 3/16 BMX chains, his reasoning was that if anything got caught the chain would be able to tear right rhrough it. i can vouch for that chain's strength, i was once grinding things on my bmx bike down at gov't center, and noticed one of the sideplates had bent off the pin, rendering most chains useless and prone to snapping in the next pedal stroke. this chain lasted some more sessioning and a ride all the way back to/up mission hill.

3/32" is just fine for nearly all applications. 1/8" is about as important as inch-pitch chain, it's a throwback for anything other than BMX street freestyle.

That's funny that I thought I saw you on a bike when you were there but walking.

We should definitely have a little do before I leave. I'll also be back with some idle time in mid-December before I see the fam for the holidays and then do my 3-month indoctrination in CA.

Psst - I was just joking. My GT will kick your track bikes' asses any day. Suckas.

Note that I have yet to claim that I actually have the legs to back that statement up.

So unless there is a lot of disagreement, I say we make Thursday, November 17, the Thursday Tribute to Trevor. That was a lot of t's. We'll have dinner/drinks at the joint of Trevor's choosing (provided it isn't completely nauseating) and throw down (weather permitting) at the Ghettodrome one last time for the old fart. Oh, and you all can tell me about how cool Chitown was. Sound like a plan?

Oh ****s! Plans?!

Ok, Thurs, Nov 17 it is. Someone will have to help me remember. My old fogey memory ain't so hot.

As for venue, All Asia is obviously among the closest, though maybe not my favoritest place. Triple D's is pretty swell for me, but I understand that's an acquired taste. Let's say the Squealing Pig. I feel like I should go there more. It's a ride to the track from there, but I'm sure you're not scared of a few extra miles.

Who knows, maybe we'll get distractedon the way and end up riding downtown instead of going to the track.

Maybe plan on something earlyish, say around 8:00, so that I can eat and then digest and not be yakking on the ride.

Of course in typical waffling fashion, I can be talked out of any of the above.