On The Road Again

Farewell to cyclist, commentator--and, above all, château expert--Paul Sherwen:

The death of the respected cycling broadcaster and former professional rider Paul Sherwen has been confirmed at the age of 62.

I'm not that old, but I'm no millennial either (who, I guess, are also old now; I think we're onto Generation Z at this point), and so I remember what it was to have to forage for non-mainstream video entertainment instead of simply punching up even the most obscure content on the personal computer or hand-held cellular phone.  BMX and skateboarding videos were expensive, so like a castaway trying to suck nutrients out of shoe leather I'd suffer through some dumb movie like "BMX Bandits" or "Gleaming the Cube" for a few seconds of seeing what tricks looked like when executed by pros. Bleary-eyed, I'd stay up late into the night, waiting for episodes of Monty Python or the Young Ones so I could capture and preserve them on VHS tape.  (Sure, theoretically you could set the timer, but anybody older than 40 knows that there is no more difficult technological feat than programming a VCR.)  Then there was the Headbanger's Ball--I'd watch innumerable awful hair metal bands with the volume off in the hopes that I might snag that one Bad Brains or Agnostic Front video they'd air towards the end, the tape cued and my finger hovering over the pause button on the remote.  I mean sure, I could listen to the Bad Brains or Agnostic Front whenever I wanted, but there was just something so thrillingly subversive about it traveling through coaxial cable and appearing on millions of televisions that I just had to be a part of it.

When I was older and started to get interested in professional cycling I found that attempting to follow it was a very similar experience to being a teenager into Britcoms and hardcore.  Maybe I'd get to some bike racing here or there in the form of Olympic coverage or Tour de France highlights, but to really see what it looked like for more than 10 minutes I'd have to wait for the World Cycling Productions tape that came free with my Cycle Sport magazine subscription--until OLN started broadcasting entire races as the Armstrong era reached its peak and you could actually watch this stuff on cable (in between bass fishing and dog shows or whatever the hell they used to show on OLN, I don't even remember.)

Of course Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen were the voices of the sport for people like me, and so he'll always represent the thrilling sense of "This is it!" that used to come with watching a pro bike race, and when he'd commentate on the Olympics or something it was sort of like when a band I actually liked would pop up on Headbanger's Ball--"Hey, that's our guy on regular TV!"

Anyway, lots and lots of people go way further back with Paul Sherwen and the sport of cycling than I do, but that's what he represented to me, I'm grateful for what he did, and I'm sorry he's gone.

Moving onto more mundane matters, for the first time in many weeks I went for a ride on a road bicycle with skinny tires this past Sunday--and that skinny-tired bike was the Renovo:

Please note this picture was not taken during that ride, as you can probably tell by the verdure.  It was cold, the trees were mostly bare, and twigs and leaves littered the roads since it's been raining here incessantly.  However, I failed to photograph the bicycle during this most recent outing, and so my photo editor inserted the above image as a placeholder.

As for the creaking which has plagued the Renovo of late, I'm simultaneously pleased and baffled to report that it was more or less completely absent for the duration of the ride.  Could it be that wooden frames are somehow self-healing?  Is the bike actually alive, perhaps germinating from some soil secreted in that beefy (well, okay, woody) bottom bracket?  Or could it be that the barometric pressure and temperature somehow conspired to silence the frame?  Or, maybe it was just that I was too distracted by the sound of the rear wheel rubbing on the grit that had accumulated in the tight clearance of that seat tube cutout.  (This is something that happens when you ride the Renovo after lots of rain.)

Whatever the reason, I savored the ride, and it did feel quite good to be on a smooth, fancy-pants bike with fast tires and electronical shifting.  Mostly I've been riding my Milwaukee, and while I'm no longer using mismatched tires the front derailleur needs to be replaced, and the tires I am using, while kind of fun on dirt, are basically just overpriced hybrid tires:

My current thinking is that road/gravel/whatever tires like this are kind of silly, at least for my purposes.  A pair of Paselas work just as well with the added benefit of actually feeling good on the road.  (These feel like Citi Bike tires on pavement.)  And if I'm exceeding the capability of a pair of Paselas I'd rather be on the Jones anyway.

So why don't I just change them?  Because I'm lazy and/or busy, depending on how charitable you want to be, and it's easier to just grab my exotic wooden bicycle when an all-pavement ride is in the offing.

Of course it being autumn and all what I'd really prefer to be doing is riding offroad as much as possible.  However, that freak snowstorm we had a couple weeks back made all the leaves fall off the tress at the same time, and since then it's been raining a lot, which means the trails are either muddy or covered in like three feet of leaves or both.  The upshot of this is that I've gotten very little trail riding in lately.  I did, however, manage to get a quick ride in on Thanksgiving morning.  See, I had to go to Whole Foods to pick up the turkey, and the Whole Foods happens to be right next to the mountain bike trails.  Furthermore, temperatures were somewhere around 20 American Freedom Degrees that morning, so I knew the ground would be firm.  Therefore, I had two (2) choices:

1) Throw the bike onto the car, drive up to Whole Foods, squeeze in a quick ride, and then grab the turkey;
2) Ride to Whole Foods, hit the trails, and attempt to carry an entire cooked turkey home in my backpack.

After much deliberation, I chose the former, and put the Saris Super Clamp EX into service:

I rode for maybe an hour, picked up the turkey and various other comestibles, and spent the rest of the day eating, drinking, and patting myself on the back.

And isn't that what Thanksgiving's all about?

Besides that, I also knocked around on the Jones last Monday, which was perhaps a bit ill-advised since I was suffering from a skateboard injury, which is a story for another time:

Don't worry, nothing's broken except my dignity.

In any case I'm looking forward to some dry weather because I continue to absolutely love the Jones Plus SWB Complete and at this time of year the smart move is to ride offroad as much as possible until the next big snowfall comes and it's no longer an option.  I'm pleased to report all the stock components on the bike are holding up beautifully, including the tires.  In fact, here's a holiday gift guide, and it consists entirely of one (1) item:

Gift it to yourself, you'll be glad you did.