Fitting the final details - pt 1

After some soul searching I opted to stick with SPD style pedals rather than going to a proper road pedal such as the Look KEO range which William and a few others had recommended. It wasn't that I doubted the widsom of the advice, but experiences of seasoned audax riders suggest that walking safely and comfortable at stops wins out over strict pedalling efficiency.

With a bit of web research, the Shimano A600 pedals and RT-82 shoes seemed to be an almost ideal compromise. The pedals are light, single sided and have a much larger platform than a conventional mountain bike SPD pedal. The shoes are a touring shoe, also light and with a reasonably stiff sole, and an upper that is much closer to a road shoe design. Sadly, cycle touring doesn't seem to be a big market for Shimano in South Africa and so neither were readily available locally, meaning an online order to the UK was needed. Wiggle were helpful as ever though.

The almost final part of the jigsaw for now,  was the handlebar. In fact, over the first few weeks riding Jolly, I came to like the entry level Giant bars that we'd fitted initially. So by the time my Wiggle order arrived with the pedals, shoes, and Ritchey Pro Biomax II bar I wasn't really sure the new and more expensive bar would add very much. Having spent the money though, I figured I should at least give it a try and after a couple of weeks riding with them I'm very glad I did. Many of the reviews I'd read commented favourably on the the small "speed bump" sculpted into the drops, and I have to agree - it makes for a very comfortable position for riding in the drops especially after a prolonged period.

With these remaining pieces in place it was time to go have a proper bike fitting. A number of the Wannabees riders spoke highly of Erika Green and her husband Spook, of Daisyway Coaching Systems. Rather handily, they are just a short ride down the road from me, so a visit was clearly in order. In fact, we only got part way through the fitting. Spinning on the stationary trainer, Spook quickly confirmed that my saddle height was correct, but also agreed with William's assessment that my saddle needed to go back approx 5mm further than my current seatpost allowed. That's not great news, because it means I have two lovely expensive USE Alien Titanium seatposts that I can't use. Worse still, it leaves me with just the similarly pricey Van Nicholas seatpost as the only Titanium post with a larger setback. We wrapped up this first part of the fitting with a proper cleat setup, and deferred further saddle and stem adjustments until I could get a Van Nicholas seatpost to try.

With a couple of rides done since the fitting, I can already feel the benefit of the proper cleat positioning - definitely helping for a smoother and more natural pedal stroke. I might be imagining it, but it feels like I can lay down more explosive power too when needed, but perhaps that is just a factor of my other training starting to pay off.

Just need to wait patiently now for the new seatpost before we can make those final adjustments - and hope that I can sell the surplus USE ones for a decent price locally.

Photographs of Shimano pedals, shoes, and Ritchey handlebar from the Wiggle cycle store website.

Photographs of USE Alien seatpost picture from Chain Reaction Cycles cyclestore website.

  

Winter gear

Wintry weather has officially arrived in the Cape, and with almost perfect timing also came my Mum's visit from the UK with my new cycling gear for cold and wet weather in her suitcase.


Wednesday's Wannabees ride was the perfect opportunity to give some of the new kit a try out. Free-wheeling away from our house the morning was still dark, and as I picked up speed down the hill to our rendezvous point the wind chill added a nasty bite to the already cold air. I can't say I was toasty, but the new Endura Laser gilet and FS260 Pro arm warmers did a pretty good job at keeping the worst of it out.
 
I had expected to be taking them off quite soon into the ride, in fact I'd originally thought they'd only be on as far as our start point and wouldn't be needed after that. On the first few kilometres to Stellenbosch though, the morning stubbornly refused to warm up, a sure sign that summer weather was now fully behind us. As we climbed the short ramp by Techno Park, Nadine commented how much colder the hollows felt as you sped down into them - something I had noticed moments earlier as we went through the bottom of the dip.

So the gear stayed on. Even at the top of Helshoogte, I resisted the temptation to shed them having built up a nice warm sweat on the climb. And I was glad I had as we rushed down the other side into shadows and more chilly air on the road through Pniel. Despite the early cold though, the day could not have been more glorious - truly a day where it was a privilege to have to be to out riding and enjoying the stunning scenery and magnificent autumn colours. Finally, on the last stretches of the outbound ride into Franschhoek, the day started to warm up and I began to feel over dressed. Luckily, Wednesday is very much an LSD ride, so there was a welcome cafe stop after we'd observed club tradition by visiting the Huguenot monument before turning around. By this stage, it was just myself, Penny, Adolfo and Tom riding, Nadine having turned back at Stellenbosch due to time constraints.

After enjoying a decent cappuccino at Traumerei, and some good banter about the DC and other riding stories, we started back. The gilet went in my jersey pocket for the ride home, it had done the job well, keeping off the worst of the wind chill without weighing me down or building up any nasty sweatiness.

The arm warmers stayed on, their job for the return leg being to keep the sun off as I'd forgotten to put any sunscreen on. One minor failing did come out of this - not in my comfort level, which was just as good on the return leg. They cover  my watch face, and I lost track of time. Our pace was already relaxed, and we lost some time with a snake bite puncture from the railway track crossing heading out of Franschhoek. So by the time I got home Yoli was beginning to stress that something had happened to me, and was also a little annoyed that we were going to be late for our vineyard lunch.

All in all though, a lovely ride and great initial impressions from two of the bits of new gear. I should have tried the full rain jacket, leg warmers and shoe covers on my very rainy hill laps session on Friday. Sadly sense did not prevail, and so I returned wet and cold. I won't be making that mistake again, so with wet weather likely to be a feature of my training rides it won't be long before I'll be able to report back on their effectiveness.

I just wish I'd taken some pictures of the stunning day and ride, although in truth I doubt any quickly snatched snapshot would have captured it well.

What's in a name

'What's in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet.'

Ask Yoli how many times I've prevaricated over joining my local cycling club, the Wannabees, and her answer will almost certainly be accompanied by a rolling of eyes. I should be old enough to know better, but the stupidest of reasons has put me off each time I've visited the website to download the forms: the name.

Daft as it is, the name has kept putting me off - cycling is purely a fun past-time for me. Although I can get extremely competitive with myself, I hope I don't take myself so seriously that anyone one would label me a wannabe. Except now they can, albeit with a slightly different spelling. I have got over myself, seen sense and become a Wannabee member. In the end, the simplest of reasons decided it for me: safety. I've been lucky enough to have very few near misses in the four years I've been riding solo, but cycling accidents and hijackings are on the increase and with Ben and Yoli to consider the risk feels too high. Cycling as a group is generally safer, and having training partners is an added motivation to get out of bed at 6am on a cold and dark winters morning to go ride.


My first club ride was the midweek Wednesday ride a couple of weeks ago. And what a ride it was As if to both endorse my decision to join, and also chastise me for not doing it before, the guys chose a stunning route for my first ride: Clarence Drive, the scenic coast road from Gordon's Bay.  I've wanted to ride that road since I first started cycling in South Africa, but had shied away from riding it solo because of the lack of a safety lane.



The route and the ride did not disappoint, either on that first week or this Wednesday's ride when we went a shade further and turned around after climbing the short but steep hill just beyond Rooi Els. The scenery is every bit as majestic when viewed from the saddle, except that it slides by more slowly so you get to appreciate it more. Not to mention being able to hear and smell the ocean crashing against the rocks, in places only a few meters down from the road. The wildlife hasn't let us down either. We've seen mongoose, seals, and large troops of baboons on both rides. In the next few weeks, we should be enjoying sightings of whales too, as they arrive to nurse their young in the bays.

From a cycling perspective, it's great training too. Riding as a group pushes me to ride faster than I typically do when training solo, especially on the climbs. There's no room to shift down to the easiest gear and grind slowly up a slope if you have a group to keep up with. Even less so if you're taking a turn at the front of the group, I did on a couple of short stretches this week

The final bonus from joining also came with a bit of a moral dilemma - John offered to put my name down on their DC team list.  It meant backing down from the provisional DC team that a group of us from The Hub had started to pull together, which wasn't an easy decision to make. In the end though, the option to train locally with a group of experienced riders who had done the event before was a compelling factor given my always limited time for riding.

So there it is, I'm proud to officially be a Wannabee and Yoli gets to enjoy poking fun at me for being a wannabe every time I don the jersey. Turns out to be more in a name than you might expect.

New wheel's come to life

I wondered if Merry knew that change was in the air. Starting from the gate, the clouds were grey and heavy, and the wind was fresh, bordering cold. I wasn't particularly motivated to go cycling with the imminent threat of rain, and as I started to climb the first hill the rear gear's started randomly slipping across the lower cogs whenever I stood and put pressure on the pedals. I stopped a couple of times to see if I could twiddle the barrel shifters to improve things, but a few Km down the road the real problem became clear. My rear gear cable snapped clean off at the shifter hood.



After a few moments tidying the mess, I turned for home, with the joy ahead of tackling the nasty Yonder Hill climb on my patched up 2 speed - the new gears being hard, and harder. It wasn't yet 2pm though, and Helder Cycles would still be open. Despite the less than enticing riding conditions, I figured rather than waste the afternoon I could nip by and hopefully get the cable replaced and gears fixed. Luckily they weren't too busy, and less than an hour later I was pedalling back up the R44. It took a lot of effort to ignore the slip road at the top of the hill and suppress the urge to head home to a warm couch and some trashy TV.

Merry behaved the rest of the ride, and although the threat of rain never diminished, it also never quite arrived either. Just spots here and there, but nothing to make me want to put my horrible sweaty, non-breathable rain jacket back on. I resolved to go online that evening and actually order the wet weather gear that I'd been slowly mulling over for a week or two.

Closing the garage door, I also wondered how often I'd be riding Merry again. With all the components now arrived, tomorrow would be build-up day for the new bike. Maybe the broken cable was just coincidence - but in over 4 years Merry had delivered trouble free riding. It's bizarre for a breakage to happen the day before the new ride came together,

Pictured left is William of William's Bike Shop part way through the build-up process.

As it turned out, the new bike wasn't quite completed in one go on the Monday. The one component I had decided not to buy purely from internet research was handlebars, and sure enough that was the one item none of the local suppliers had stock of any of my preferred choices. In the end we decided to put a standard 42cm Giant bar on as a stopgap for now to let us complete the build and replace it with something fancier later.

The remainder of the build was completed on the
Thursday, with relatively few hiccups - just the odd screw thread not quite reamed out fully, but all things that William had the tools to sort out.

I'm not a weight weenie, but it was also a pleasant surprise to see how light the complete build had come out - a reasonably svelt 8.3kg. That will go up of course when the light race wheels and saddle are swapped out for their more durable and comfortable audax counterparts.

It was very hard to contain my excitement on the first ride. At last the new bike was a whole machine - not just a pile of components and dreams lying around in boxes on my office floor. That lighter weight was immediately noticeable on the first few climbs. Combined with the stiffer frame it made for a lively and spirited feel. Just the merest extra surge on the the pedal and she leaps eagerly forward, ready to race. The riding position is also quite different, although it felt very natural over the short 30km test ride I did with Marleen. It seems that Justin may have been right about my saddle height - William's setup ended up very close to the 74cm bottom bracket to saddle top height he had predicted. The lower 72cm setup on Merry had occasionally felt cramped on recent rides, but it's surprising it felt good at all.given how large a jump in saddle height 2cm is. I've also got a hunch that William was right about me needing a seatpost with more lay back. It's only marginal, but I did find myself pushing out over the back of the saddle to get into a natural and powerful pedalling position.

That's tweaks and fine tuning for the future though - for now, I'm greatly looking forward to putting some solid kilometres under Jolly's wheels. Oh yes, the name, Jolly. That was in fact my first choice, but my impression Dad's gang had the nickname of The Jolly Boys proved to be mistaken. That minor detail doesn't really seem to matter now though - those first few turns of the cranks put such a huge smile on my face that Jolly is clearly the perfect name. And it'll still be a memory and link to dad, regardless of it only making sense because of my faulty memory.


All photographs by author.

Bike bones

And just like that the long wait was over - the UPS delivery guy was at my gate.

The last couple of weeks settling into the new winter training routine has distracted me nicely, but the excitement returned when I heard the van pull up outside.

Immediately I was struck by how light the package was, but that was nothing to how ridiculously little the frame weighed when unpacked. The look and feel is metal, but close your eyes and the titanium evaporates leaving you holding nothing but air.

Every bit of research I've done suggest that the weak spot, if there is one, in a frame is the quality of the welding. I am no expert, but to my untrained eye the quality of Justin Burl's russian frame makers looks pretty darned good - even and tidy welds all around. Time will tell, but so far I'm very impressed.



Also packed into the box were the USE Alien titanium seatpost, Ortlieb bar bag for essential supplies on those long audax days and nights, and most importantly the Kinesis DC07 front forks. I'd not come across the Kinesis brand until Justin recommended them to me, but they feel reassuring solid without being overly heavy. Importantly, they have discrete mudguard eyelets behind the drop outs, not something you'd ever use on local fun rides and day races but vital for staying dry on long all-weather endurance events.

The last major piece of the jigsaw is the Ultegra groupset. I lucked out on this and got an absolute bargain at the Argus expo a few weeks back.

Hopefully all these parts will come together nicely next Monday on build day, and by this time next week I'll have words and pictures to post from the build up and inaugural ride.

I may also have decided on the new bike's name by then - there's a few candidates floating around in my mind, but I don't think she can really be named until we've connected on that first ride.

All photographs by author.