Down with the Sickness

No, not that sickness, the good old fashioned New England holiday mixer sickness that has settled in the lungs, making basic things like breathing and sleeping a nightmare. Every year I get sick right around the holidays but this year it has been a little bit more virulent. It all started after Thanksgiving and I've been trying to fight it off by mostly ignoring it and spending lots and lots of time out riding my bike in the cold. For some strange reason, this course does not seem to be working and the back to back 2 hour stints in the dark cold the past couple of nights have thrown the knockout. I give up.

As such I am going to break down and go visit the doctor, or at least the nurse given that she was all I could get in to see on short notice. I'm sure that they are going to tell me that I probably have a touch of bronchitis and that even though I could live without it, have some penicillin just because we have an abundance and we love to prescribe it. Oh, and since you're here and you are old and we also have an abundance of flu shot meds that are going to go bad if we don't get rid of them, let me jab this garden hose sized needle in your arm. Sure, it might make you sick for 7 - 10 days but you will be all set to go after that. Apparently Flu shots and beer share a common trait, they have a short shelf life and go bad in the fridge if you don't use the right up. Speaking of beer, think I'll drink beer tonight, or maybe this afternoon. Did you know that modern cough meds (like the 'Tussin DM/CF) contain no alcohol what so ever but you need to show an ID for them? With no alcohol, why the hell would anyone want it and at $7 for like 8oz. that stuff would have to pack a pretty awesome buzz anyhow.

Merry Christmas! Next year I'm not leaving my home for the holidays and nobody is invited to come visit me either.

Ho, Ho, Ho

So far, I'm not very impressed.

One Fu@&!ng Speed

The rally cry, "One Fu@&!ng Speed" or "One is all you need". It's not just the stuff of cheezy decals, it's a whole mindset. These days there is a whole counter culture of fixed gear and single-speed fanatics that want to be part of the hip and trendy urban crowd. I've been involved with single-speed mountain bikes for a little over ten years now.

My buddy PK and I got into it along with the now defunct Wachussett Puke Boys. Many of us experimented with single-speed conversions of various frames typically using crappy old parts we had lying around. These parts would ultimately fail during inopportune points like a really steep grunt climb, at which point you would usually endo or drive your knee into the stem or fork crown or something like that. Ah the good old days!

I can't say that my reasoning for getting into single-speeds was necessarily more noble than the hipsters. We got into it because it was something new and different and afforded a different perspective all together on some of the same old trails. It also afforded us the luxury of drinking PBR pounders before they were the trendy thing to drink. In terms of providing variety though, the single-speed in it's strict minimalist form has been a recurring, go-to theme for me over the years. It has provided a way to do something that is very similar and familiar, something that I truly love to do, in a slightly different and often more exciting way. Think of it like being similar to your normal spouse or partner with big old implants, making something good just that much different and fresh :)

The way you ride a single-speed in the woods is very different than you ride a geared bike. A geared bike allows you the luxury of being reactionary to what the terrain throws at you, in many ways where as a single-speed requires you to be proactive in anticipating and preparing for what is coming up. Momentum is a key factor and you need to maintain it at all costs, so as not to get bogged down in a climb or technical feature due to your static, and in this case, inappropriate gear choice.

Mitigating that inappropriate gearing is the principle around which all single-speed riding revolves. By inappropriate gearing I refer to the fact that a static gear will never be perfect for varying terrain. Sure, you can choose a gear that is better than another but unless the terrain and conditions are static a single gear ration will never be ideal for all conditions. Around these parts most of us run a sub 2:1 ratio for 26ers mountain bikes and even lower for 29ers. The most common gear ratio for my 26er crowd is 32:18 though I had recently switched to a 32:17 before trading in my 26er for a 29er. For the 29er trail riding crowd a 32:20 is typical though I run a 32:19 and have done both a successful XC race and Kingdom Trails on this gearing. I also regularly ride our local trails on it with no issues. My current MTB is a Soul Cycles Dillenger with a 100mm RockShox Reba up front.

A few years later our interests had turned more toward road riding so once again, PK and I put together converted single-speed road bikes and did a ton of miles on them. It was great in the same simplistic way that single-speed mountain biking was and still is great. Within the last five years, many of us have jumped on the cyclocross bandwagon in a big way. It only made sense that a single-speed cyclocross bike would be just as much fun as it's siblings. I've had a few different versions and I think my current setup is pretty darn good. It's a Cannondale CAAD9 with a Team Beer BB30 EBB. It's light, stiff and works really well so far. I train almost entirely on the single-speed cyclocross bike and I've done some racing on them as well. A couple years ago I did Brockton (bad idea as it was too much road) and Ice Weasels SS. Last year I did the MRC race, Ice Weasels SS and Ice Weasels Elite with one gear. This year I did Porky Gulch cross (bad idea as it was too much high speed road) and will likely do at least Ice Weasels SS again.

In terms of the actual specifics of a single-speed, even though they are far simplified versions of the bicycle, there are actually certain issues that a single-speed drivetrain presents you with. The primarily issue is simply how to tension the chain correctly. There are number of methods to address this issue and I have tried most of them. The simplest approach is to use a normal bicycle frame with vertical dropouts and employ some device to take up the slack in the chain similarly to a multi-geared bicycle. You could use an old derailleur or any one of the numerous tensioners specifically designed for this application. The purist however, will argue that it just isn't right. I'll argue that because bicycle drivetrains are not perfectly round, it would be ideal to have some variable tensioner that can account for the minor imperfections. That said, those imperfections are usually within tolerance of a static system and you just live with the fact that your chain will be tighter in one section and looser in another. Most people start their single-speed career with a tensioner and graduate to a single-speed specific setup due to the fact that tensioners are a royal pain in the butt and require fiddling or just plain fail, frequently.

The most popular approach for single-speed specific bicycle frame makers is to use horizontal, slotted dropouts. This allows you to hand tension the chain with the drivetrain in place and the wheel on the bike and then tighten down the rear axle in the proper position. The downside is that it typically requires nutted axles that require tools to tighten/loosen and they can slip. The fix for that is to use a BMX tensioner, which works well but requires special tools to adjust. Also, the fixed nature of brake position either with road, cantilever or disc brakes come into play when you change the final resting position of the rear axle in order to tension a chain. Bottom line is that I used this method for years. It's a fine approach if you don't mind living with the issues.

The tensioning method that I now employ on almost all of our, yes our because in my house we have two of everything, one for me and one for Cathy, is the Eccentric Bottom Bracket or EBB. The nice thing about this method is that the tensioning is done at the bottom bracket rather than the wheel which means that you can use normal, vertical dropouts, a normal wheel with a quick release skewer and the brakes don't become an issue. The down side is that you change the seat angle, seat height and bottom bracket height by rotating the eccentric to tension the chain. The EBB is also usually heavy and they tend to creak. Personally, I can live with that and actually like this adjustability in most cases. For instance, my Cannondale single-speed cross bike had a lower bottom bracket and longer top-tube than my geared Ridley race bikes. The EBB allowed me to run the bottom bracket higher and forward such that I could slide the seat forward and retain the seat tube angle while effectively shortening the top-tube length.

There are also some other designs that use sliding dropouts and newer super custom designs that use pivoting dropouts. The latter seem like a really cool idea and could easily be the best solution if done right. The former have issues of their own, primarily that they are just cumbersome.

Anyhow, just like in everything, variety can be a really good thing. The same can be said about simplicity. Not having multiple gears to choose from dramatically simplifies the ride and allows you to be more one with the bike. It teaches you lessons about adaptation and overcoming as well as just working with what you have at hand. You learn to anticipate and prepare for an obstacle as well as to value and preserve your momentum. These practical lessons then become invaluable once you get back onto the geared bike.

Bicycles are not only utilitarian tools, they are also toys to be used for fun. I think the single-speed helps accentuate that fact.

More for the Money

Back in April of this year Cathy and I decided to adopt a pair of kittens. Thus started our search for just the right pair. Our primary search vehicle was Petfinder.com, which was great, except that like everything on the Internets it is constantly out of date. That means that once you pour through the countless pages of available pets, setting your hearts and hopes on specific animals, you pull the trigger and nervously contact the shelter typically only to find out that this particular kitten has already been adopted. Sort of the equivalent of driving to WalMart at 5AM through a snowstorm on Black Friday only to find that the $499 62" LCD flat screen TV's in the ad are all sold out because they only had one of them to start with and the store manager set it aside for himself.

Don't worry though, we were told, it is "kitten season" and there will be plenty more coming up in the near future. I guess spring really is kitten season as there were more and more showing up in the ads every day. Unfortunately, many of the shelters are not shelters in the normal sense. They are rescue leagues that are all volunteer based and have no physical property for a shelter. Instead they use foster parents for all of the animals that need a home. Another side effect of the entirely volunteer basis of these organizations is that there isn't someone sitting by manning the front desk, responding to emails. That means it could take a while to get a response, which can be a bit unsettling after you have already set your heart on a particular kitten.

After a string of bad luck and missed opportunities we finally had a promising lead from a rescue league in Waltham, the Cat Connection. They were very helpful and glad to hear from us. Although our first choices (from the web ads) were already adopted (don't tell Opie and Ellie they were second choices) we arranged to go visit a siblings from the same litter at the foster parent's home in Waltham. We both new that if we committed to going to see them we would end up with them. How could you not? And so we did. They were 7 weeks old at the time and so tiny. Because we were deemed such "good parents" or possibly because the foster parents wanted them gone, we were allowed to take the kittens a week later, which was earlier than they typically allow them to go. We were overjoyed and despite the occasional transgressions they make, have been since.

Both Opie (OP) and Ellie (LE), I thought that was clever, I was probably wrong, have also changed a great deal since we got them. It became visually evident to me today, as I was looking at them in their pet bed together. Here are some comparison shots over the course of the past 8 months or so.






I think that they may need a bigger bed as they are sort of overflowing that one. That isn't the only thing that they have outgrown either. We just bought them a bigger Pet Taxi for the long trips to Maine as the two of them didn't really fit in the old one. I wouldn't say that they are huge cats, I've certainly seen bigger. That said, we weighed them a couple weeks ago and the boy is over 12# and the girl, who although slightly more petite than the boy, has a slight weight issue, is over 13#. That's a whole lot more kitten for the money.

Thanksgiving in VT

Every year Cathy and I make the trip to my parents home in VT for Thanksgiving. This year we were in ME for the entire Thanksgiving week taking care of some chores so we drove over to VT for the day from there. My brothers both still live in the area so they attend as well with their families and my aunt and her husband also join and we all visit and have a traditional dinner of turkey, ham, stuffing and all of the other staples as well as an abundant variety of desert pies. As I've mentioned before, I don't actually see my family very often, recently just a couple of times a year at the holidays. Everyone is busy and the distance seems to make it tough.

My parent's camp

The view of the Presidential range from the camp

My dad and I took a ride up to my parents camp that they build a few years ago. They bought 10 acres of land up on a mountain and have been improving the land as well as building the camp and shed. The camp also has a perfect view of the Presidential range and Mount Washington. The road in to the camp is only seasonal and is actually a snowmobile trail in the winter, so there is no access by car. In fact, you would be really hard pressed to be able to get a car vs. a truck or something with enough ground clearance up in there even in the middle of the summer. The camp looks good though and the land is much nicer now than when they bought it.

Back at my parent's house my father was also anxious to show me the progress that he has made on his latest Rat Rod, based on an S10 truck frame with a GM 350, auto tranny, front and rear end with a '34 Ford pickup cab that he sliced 3" out of and home-made bed with fenders made for a boat trailer. This is the third rig he has built and each incarnation keeps getting better. The radiator is a high end aluminum model that he got slightly used. He is leaning toward an electric fan on it which will address a couple of issues for him. At present the steering column has just enough room to clean the static header. He will need to create some more clearance though to account for the rock of the motor firing up.

The latest Rat Rod as it sits

My parent's home and barn made from salvaged pallets

As usual, we ate a ton of food, and spend the day visiting. My brother's two boys and daughter and my other brother's boy all combined to add color and sound effects for the day. As usual Cathy and I both ended up catching a cold shortly after and are sick as dogs at the moment. Coincidence?

Cathy's parents also came to visit us from Ontario, first in ME and then came back to MA with us. It was a full weekend of family. For sure.