New Outside Column!

Here's my latest Outside column, and it's about the folly of ticketing people on bikes:

Please do not read this as a self-serving "Woe is me, I had to pay a fine!" screed.  Frankly, as a semi-professional bike blogger a $190 ticket is merely a relatively small business expense that has already yielded me not only a column in a mainstream publication (see above) but also a new brand name for me, that being Tan Tenovo:

See, I was ticketed while riding my erstwhile Renovo; the cop noted it a "Tan Tenovo" on the ticket, and this in turn served as the genesis of my latest alter ego.

So no, if anything the ticket was a gift I'm still wringing material from a year and a half later, and what I'm lamenting is all the people out there for whom a $190 fine is actually a crushing blow and yet another reason to swear off bikes and say, "Fuck it, I'm leasing a Hyundai."

Speaking of the Renovo, when you're done reading the column you can swing over to Classic Cycle and pay it a visit.  It is, quite literally, a museum piece.

On The Air Again!

Good morning!  It's been an edifying long holiday weekend, complete with a trip down to the finest legal singletrack Manhattan has to offer:

Hey, the neighborhood's not as gentrified as Bentonville, but still.

Now however it's time to get back to "business," so fire up the ol' transistor this morning for some radio action with my special guest!!

My name is not Even but yes!https://t.co/sHgk63Svmr

— Bike Snob NYC (@bikesnobnyc) December 2, 2019

Expect about nine minutes of talk and 51 minutes of "Freebird" played repeatedly while I go to the bathroom.

When it's this nice out you go for a ride. That's the rule.

Today was an unseasonably warm and sunny day:

Of which I took advantage by setting out for a leisurely interborough bicycle ride.

My original plan was to head over the bridge pictured above, but sometimes I just feel compelled to stay inside the city limits, so I wended my way down to Central Park instead.  I also relieved myself in a public bathroom on the Hudson River Greenway I've ridden by about a thousand times but never actually used:

The beautiful thing about both cycling and New York City is that you never stop discovering new things, and that includes urinals.

Speaking of micturation, I was almost home when I stopped behind an Uber at a red light.  As I stood there, I noticed the driver side door open, and minutes later multiple rivulets of urine started flowing from beneath the car and right in my direction.  Thinking immediately of my fancy Donnelly LCV tires I scuttled out of the way just in time.  So voluminous was the urine cascade that it was clear the driver hadn't been urinating; rather, he was no doubt emptying the pee bottle every for-hire driver keeps under the seat.  (It's usually a Poland Spring bottle, and the curbs and gutters of New York City are littered with them.)

By the way, I shared this anecdote on Twitter, upon which one user reminded me of this:

I really should do t-shirts.

Finally, since I mentioned the Donnelly tires, I might as well follow up on how they're doing since I've probably crossed over the 100 mile mark on them by now.  Basically, I still think they ride beautifully, and despite being a lightweight race tire they still show no cuts, even after being ridden in a rainstorm and through glass-strewn city streets:

I mean sure, it's only a matter of time, but at least for now they truly make my New-To-Me Titanium Forever Bike sing:

The streets are alive, with the smell of urine...

You Don't Have To Worry About Your Cyclocross Remount Technique If You Never Dismount In The First Place

This past weekend, that zany style of bike racing where you have to jump on and off the bike and stuff once again came to New York City--Queens, specifically--with the annual running of the Rainey Park Cylocross event.

Just as people don't usually associate the Ozarks with bagels (sorry, couldn't help it), they also don't tend to associate New York City with cyclocross.  However, over the years we've had a cross race on Staten Island (now defunct, alas), there is a long-running practice on Randall's Island, and now with Rainey Park on the calendar you can race right there on the East River with the New York City skyline for a backdrop in a venue that's easy to access by bike or public transportation.

These days, I'm mostly retired from cyclocross, choosing mostly to rest on the laurels of my highly auspicious career:

(via Cross Results)

Alas, since I seldom do the cyclocrossing these days I no longer have a proper cyclocross bike.  This means on the rare occasions I do partake in a race I need to piece something together for the occasion, kind of like when you get invited to a wedding and realize you don't own an actual suit.  For last year's race at Rainey Park I re-configured my travel bike in singlespeed guise, thusly:

I liked the idea of riding the singlespeed race again and would have happily used this bike to do so, albeit with a much lower gear because I really screwed up in that department last year.  However, the singlespeed race was the first race of the day, and this year my older son was going to be racing as well.  Therefore I opted for a later race that would afford us time to leave home at a decent hour, allow me to get him all sorted out first, and then race myself after he was done, thus necessitating a geared bike for me.  So I decided to use the Jones Plus LWB:

I've had great results using the SWB in this capacity.  (I mean "great results" as in "the bike was great and I had a lot of fun," not as in "I won the race.")  However, the Rainey course is quite twisty owing to the diminutive size of the park (make no mistake, they make a fantastic course given what they have to work with), and I wondered if the LWB might feel unwieldy and awkward due to its ample proportions.

It did not.

As with the SWB, the Velcro-like grip was revelatory in a cyclocross context, and as stable as the handling is the bike also went around those tight corners like a tetherball.  Not only that, but I was also able to hop the barriers instead of dismounting.  In fact, for my purposes it was better than a cyclocross bike, and the only time I might have preferred one was when I carried the Jones up the stairs, since it probably weighs about twice as much as your garden variety Ridley:

But even this turned out to be a non-issue.  After a couple of laps, a bystander told me to ride up the stairs instead (people like to yell at you to do stuff when you're riding a bike like this in a cyclocross race), so the next time around I rode up the grass on the right-hand side.  The bystander then told me they meant I should ride up the actual stairs themselves, and while a better rider could probably do that on the Jones, I'm not that rider.  So for the rest of the race I just continued to ride up the grass, though afterwards I noticed someone moved the stake at the bottom so that it blocked the line (you can see this in the photo), most likely to obviate such unscrupulous behavior by others for the remainder of the day.

Anyway, the upshot of my ethically dubious line choice was that I could ride the entire course without having to lift my bicycle or even put my foot down, which no doubt had a positive impact on my finishing position.  See, on a regular cyclocross bike I would certainly have finished dead last (I may suck at riding but the running really kills me), but on the Jones I finished a few riders ahead of dead last.  Also, a photographer was kind enough to send me some photos of myself in action, including one with other riders nearby so I can pretend like I was actually in contention:

[Photo courtesy of @shatterkiss]

In reality, however, everyone rode away from me pretty quickly and most of the time it was just me, like this:

[Photo courtesy of @shatterkiss]

In all it was a great day; not only did I have lots of fun bringing up the rear on my comically oversized bicycle, but my son also lined up and successfully completed what was probably the most physically difficult undertaking of his life so far--in jeans!  I only wish they held this race every weekend, though given the work involved I suspect as far as the promoter is concerned once a year is plenty.  And even if there was a local cross race like this every weekend I'd certainly have no need for a cyclocross bike, since the Jones picks up where my road bike leaves off quite seamlessly.

If only my transitions were so seamless.

"I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you, or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future."

Well, despite my best efforts to use the Tresca for my wet rides and spare my other bikes the indignity of moisture, today I got caught in the rain on my New-To-Me Titanium Forever Bike, shown here shortly before the first drops fell:

You know those rides where it starts raining and you think maybe you should turn around because you've already gotten a good ride in, but then you also think, "Hey, it's raining anyway so I might as well keep going," so you do in fact keep going and by the time you get home your feet are frozen because you didn't wear shoe covers?  Well it was one of those.

Even so, it was an enjoyable ride, and thanks to the dated ceramic coating technology on my dated wheels I didn't have black rim grime all over my tire sidewall afterwards:

Not only that, but there was barely any pad wear:

I guess the idea of ceramic rim coating still lives on as Mavic's "Exalith" treatment, but as discs continue to take over I suppose all of this is of rapidly decreasing relevance.

In other news, as I mentioned Wednesday, I wrote a little feature for Outside about my trip to Bentonville this past summer.  As someone who writes on the Internet I expect criticism and make a little game of trying to anticipate what shape it will take with each new endeavor.  In this case I mostly figured I'd get crap for saying positive things about Bentonville, and I did indeed--though not quite  in the way I expected:

i really do appreciate that people from all over the world come to northwest arkansas and write about it because I think more people should generally know that arkansas is Good. but friends, I gasped SEVERAL times pic.twitter.com/6j2nVbLDYV

— Olivia Paschal (@oliviacpaschal) November 21, 2019

Hey, I get that someone from the area would find my "clueless New Yorker pleasantly surprised by Bentonville" take irritating.  If anything I was poking fun at my own provincialism, and if that didn't come off then I guess I failed.  Even so, I've been perusing the excerpts that apparently elicited gasps from her, and to be honest I'm still a bit confused.  Consider this one:

Is it really so odd to find this juxtaposition incongruous?  Did I miss something and the rest of the world associates the Ozark Mountains with bagels?  And it's not just an Arkansas thing; frankly I'm equally surprised when I find bagel places in California or any other place far from the New York City metropolitan area, for two reasons:

1) Attempts to export the bagel are generally unsuccessful (and that's not even counting all the shitty bagels right here in New York);
2) I'm not sure why they even bother exporting the concept because frankly bagels are overrated anyway.

Now, at the risk of eliciting more gasps, I am in no way suggesting Ozark Mountain Bagel Co. does not make a good bagel.  For all I know they may be the best in the world.  However, I didn't try them because I've developed a wheat allergy for some reason (if you remember my hives it turns out that's why I was getting them) and no longer eat bagels.  Furthermore, because I no longer eat bagels, I've now come to understand they're basically overrated gut bombs, and really what I miss most about them is how convenient and ubiquitous they are.  (It turns out you can even get them in Arkansas.)

Of course, you may be tempted to point out I only think bagels are overrated because I can't eat them anymore, and that I'm suffering from sour grapes syndrome.  (Or, if you prefer, stale bagel syndrome.)  This may very well be so.  Nevertheless, allowing that this may be true, and also allowing that Ozark Mountain Bagel Co. may very well be the best bagel shop in the world, I was still amused to find a bagel place in Arkansas.  Sorry.

I can't tell if she's annoyed because I should have expected to find a restaurant in Bentonville that was pretty much identical to every third restaurant in Brooklyn, or if she's annoyed that I ate in a restaurant in Bentonville that was pretty much identical to every restaurant in Brooklyn and liked it.  Granted, she could be annoyed that I ordered my hamburger on gluten-free bread (lots of people do find that annoying), but I really didn't feel like having a gigantic hive attack on those fantastic Bentonville mountain bike trails.  As for how I was feeling in that restaurant, honestly I was one-third disappointed that downtown Bentonville was so similar to Brooklyn, one-third disappointed in myself for really liking that it was so similar to Brooklyn, and one-third disappointed in myself for feeling so at home with what Brooklyn has now become.  In short, I don't know what irony level she's working on, so it's hard for me to understand what made her gasp here.

Okay, this museum is absolutely amazing, and honestly it was the real revelation of the trip.  I really did forget where I was because I was so wrapped up in it all, so it was funny in an endearing way when I'd hear someone explaining the art to somebody with an accent that brought me right back to Bentonville--and I'm not trying to be condescending at all.  It would be no different if you were visiting the Guggenheim from Arkansas and Joe Bagadonuts from Bensonhurst was giving someone insightful commentary on Picasso in thick Brooklynese.  Furthermore, your mentioning this in your subsequent article would elicit no gapsts from me.

This is true, at this point I felt like I was in Portland.  But yes, I certainly should have realized that I was in Bentonville, and yes, my inability to reconcile these qualities with my preconceived notion of Bentonville is admittedly lame.  I guess overall she's offended that I came to Bentonville and was like, "Wow, they have bikes and art and fancy food!"  Fair enough.  At the same time, we all have our preconceived notions of places we've never been, and we all often find those notions dashed upon the rocks of reality when we get there, which is what this story was all about.

More confusing to me than all of this is why she didn't include a link:

The article is published under my own name in a widely read publication.  How is linking to that doxing?  I'm not going to burst into that thread and interrupt the party but people are welcome to tweet angrily at me, I can take it.  Still, it's more fun to watch people tweet among themselves:

Wow, he catches on quick.  I mean it's right there in the headline:

Then again, in his defense there was no link, so he wouldn't know that.

Ugh.  The Hamptons?  Off-season?  Puh-leeze.

There's culture in DC?

Uh, do I really need to note something that obvious?  Anyway, I'm only pointing out it smells near Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, which it does.  Go check it out if you don't believe me.  And that's not even meant as an insult--smell aside it's a really nice airport, and about a thousand times better than LaGuardia, where you just want to kill yourself immediately upon deplaning.

In any case, I'm sorry Bentonville confounded my expectations (not that I had bad expectations, just different ones) and that I think it's a great place.  I've certainly heard of people visiting New York City and having their expectations confounded, like when they discover the "pushy New Yorker" thing is mostly BS and people here are generally very friendly and ready to give you directions (unless the subway doors are about to close, that is), and it seems to me that, when it comes to travel, confounded expectations is a good thing.  And again, as far as my Bentonville story, the clueless rube is supposed to be me.

Anyway, if you do go to Bentonville, let me know how the bagels are.

High Praise and Flat Tires

I'm pleased to report I have a new feature-length story on the Outside Magazine Internet Presence, and it's about my trip to Bentonville, Arkansauce:

I'm sure the fact that I really enjoyed Bentonville will compel someone to comment that I've sold out to Walmart.  Yeah, whatever.  Go ride there yourself and tell me it sucks.  Anyway, it's not like Walmart gets my money--we don't even have Walmart in New York City.  No, when I need a wide variety of inexpensive items under one roof I go to a local mom-and-pop called Target.  Because it's all about supporting the independent retailer.

Also, yesterday I wrote about the Tresca:

And its minimal rear tire clearance--which, again, is presumably limited to the prototype I'm riding:

Anyway, this morning I headed out on the Tresca yet again, and when I was about five or six miles from home I felt a bit of a ker-thunk and my rear tire went flat like it had just taken a bullet from a sniper.  Whatever had caused the flat was no longer in the tire, but it had left a gash about an inch long, and I was forced to boot the tire with a $1 bill in order to get home.  (I am truly illiquid; all my money is quite literally in bikes.)  I wish I had a photo to share with you, but alas I had my phone switched off to conserve battery.  See, the charger port had stopped working, and after my ride I had been planning to head right down to the local phone repair jernt to get it fixed.  (My phone is basically 10 speed and I refuse to go to 12 until parts are no longer available--or 5G really happens, whichever comes first.)

In any case, I have no idea what caused the gash, but I can't help wondering if the minimal clearance was a factor--like maybe some large piece of something got stuck to my tire and it got pressed in there when it passed under the brake bridge.  Then again, a year or two ago this happened to me on more or less the same stretch of road and I had clearance to spare, so really you never know:

I'm just glad I didn't ruin one of those Donnelly tires.

Clearance Revoked

Firstly, I will not so subtly direct your attention to the right-hand margin, where EH Works is back among my patrons and cohorts:

Buy one for yourself, then buy another as a gift for someone else.  Then laugh heartily when that same someone presents you with a tool roll, leaving you with two tool rolls--which is great, because all your bikes should have them:

See that?  You're done with your holiday shopping already.

Alas, I don't have tool rolls for all my bikes, for the simple reason that I have too many bikes.  One of these many bikes is the Tresca, which I've returned to this week after letting it lie fallow since September:

I'd like to say that I put the Tresca back in the rotation because I missed its spirited ride quality.  However, if I did I'd be lying.  I mean sure, I kind of did, but the real reason I've been riding it is that it's been pretty wet out the last couple days and I didn't want to get my other bikes dirty.

Of course I do have a dedicated be-fendered road bike in the Milwaukee, which is what I'd ordinarily use:

But it is in desperate need of maintenance which I have as of yet not gotten around to performing.  So pending that, I reached for a Fresca--er, Tresca.

This isn't to say I find riding the Tresca onerous--not at all.  My lackluster racing experience on it aside, I quite enjoy it.  It's just that, you know, I like my other road bikes more.  Even so, it's been fun riding it again, and I've been getting it rather dirty indeed:

See?

As it turns out, however, the Tresca is not an ideal rain bike, and not just because it won't take fenders.  See, this bicycle is a prototype, and according to Tresca the rear brake bridge is a "bit lower than where it should be," resulting in reduced clearance.  Until now this was a non-issue, and inasmuch as this is not a production frame I didn't bother mentioning it.  However, when it's autumn and the streets are gritty and wet and strewn with leaves and other plant matter the situation is tight enough that you can hear whatever the tire picks up rubbing against the frame.  Here's a shot of just how little clearance we're talking about (this is with 25s):

The incorrect placement of the brake bridge is also evident from looking at the brake caliper itself--note that the pads must be "slammed" in order to line up with the braking surface:

(Slam those pads!)

Anyway, things are snug enough that debris even gets caught in the brake caliper.  And while tight clearances on road bikes are certainly not rare (my Tan Tenovo with its aero seat "tube" was also tight enough that it could not accommodate a single staple), there's also no reason for it on a metal bike in 2019--though of course this was not intentional, and certainly Tresca will correct the problem when the bike finally goes into production.  (If you're wondering when the bike will go into production, the answer is "I don't know.")

In any case, apart from the gritty sound whenever I rolled through a puddle or something the Tresca was perfectly serviceable.  I've been meaning to swap some parts to see if I can improve the ride quality somewhat, but I have not yet done so because: A) I'm lazy; and 2) Honestly the bike's mostly fine anyway.  I did obtain two (2) pairs of high-end Donnelly tires in order to put one pair on the Tresca, but I like them so damn much I've decided to simply save the second pair until the spring instead.

I do still plan to experiment with the Tresca, but in the meantime was curious to know if anyone else out there was riding one, so I consulted a popular search engine, which directed me to a new-ish review on Bike Radar:

They seem to like it, but this puzzled me:

While I wouldn't call the Tresca "smooth" compared to my other road bikes, I also notice no discrepancy in smoothness between the front and the rear.  I do agree the bars could use some softening up, but new handlebar tape seems like the easiest and most effective way to do that.  

Welcome to winter in New York City, Tresca.  If you can handle this you can handle anything.