My first Brevet

Yours truly somewhere around Shoreham.

My brevet card listing the controls with accompanying initials and time registers. These get turned in and certified. 

The rider just visible in this photo I started referring to as "the grail" since he was  just out of reach for about 25 or so miles.  I was grateful he was there because he gave me something to focus on. He moved on at the next control not to be seen again.

Saturday I entered my first official brevet; a 200 kilometer course.

A brevet is any of a series of long, non-race, timed rides that form the basis of the randonneuring tradition . It is a spirited ride in which the rider must complete the course (unsupported) within an allowed time limit. No one wins a brevet although there is the personal challenge of seeing how well one can do and the motivation of ones fellow riders facing the same challenge as you.

According to wikipedia: "A rider who has successfully completed a 200 km brevet is called a randonneur. This is a lifelong title." Once my brevet card is officially certified I will have the proud honor of calling myself a randonneur. 


With some apprehension I signed up last Wednesday evening without being fully committed to doing the ride, but allowing for the opportunity should I decide I wanted to. By sometime Thursday it was clear that I wanted to do this and started to work out the logistics of equipment, getting to the start at The Old Spokes Home in Burlington at 7:00am, food, clothing, etc..

The 200km (the ride was 131 miles all said and done) needed to be completed in 13.5 hours to qualify as a successful completion and --having not done one of these rides before-- I was allowing for the possibility that I might not finish or finish very close to the time limit.

Riders are given a cue sheet that dictates the route. Stops are indicated along the way which are referred to as "controls". The controls are most often a cafe, a gas station, or some other place to stop for refueling and getting water. Each rider is responsible for having their brevet card signed with the time noted at each control. In some events there are secret controls not listed on the cue sheet, but there were none on this ride.

The ride itself was quite a pleasure with some moderated climbs in the early stages, some short but tough hills in the midsection, and then some merciful terrain for the last 30 or so miles back to Burlington. There were a crop of strong riders I rode with to the first control in Richmond but then fell behind as we moved into the hills. Throughout the day I hopscotched with 2 or 3 other riders and fell in with two others for the last fifteen miles or so back home.

As it went, I finished handily in just under 11 hours. That felt very good and gave me a benchmark for future rides of this nature.  Other then a sore knee, I felt as good as I might have hoped for a ride of this distance.

Over the course of the season there are longer and longer brevets: a 300k in June, a 400k in late June, and a 600k in August. I'm not committing to anything at this point, but I am intrigued and motivated by a really great experience this first time around.

It was so much fun to be with a clan of like minded riders and to be a part of a venerable and old cycling tradition that emphasizes a certain degree of collegiality and focused but easygoing competition.

Hats off to Mike Beganyi who organized this route and managed the event. You can read his post and see more photos at littlecircles.

Bag in Process

Awaiting assembly

Parts cut

The original

Jeremy has been using a nice little black saddle bag for years to carry his essentials on his commuting bike. The bag seems fitting for an old English three-speed; it's black, mounts under the saddle, and has a nice understated luggage look to it. Alas, the bag is falling apart and has been held together with duct tape for a while and is in need of replacement.

I love the opportunity to make a bag, so when Jeremy asked if I might be game to make a replacement I was glad to take on the project. The bags I'm making (one for Jeremy, one for sale) will be almost identical in size and configuration to the original but will be made out of waxed canvas and leather, whereas the original was a mix of plastic-y faux leather fabric and leather straps. The original had cardboard riveted to the inner side walls to give the bag shape; I'm not quite sure what I'm going to use for stiffener, but I'm going to conceal it within a pocket so you a.) don't see it, and b.) gain small storage pockets on the interior.

I'm quite pleased with the effect of dark green waxed canvas, black leather, light cream/green stitching and brass hardware. It has a nice quality Carridice/Brooks look to it.

I just ordered leather that I'll use as edge trim, so I'll do a little more assembly and then wait to finish the bags when the trim comes in. Fun stuff.

Sugaring

We've had a brief yet successful little sugaring season. Many people have had taps out for many weeks, but my experience has been that the sap really doesn't flow enough to bother until you get some truly warm days. We're set up to hang about 40 taps at this point and every year I seem to find another maple or two to tap, so little by little our humble operation is expanding.

I know some of what follows is obvious, but I feel like I've figured out a couple of things from our 7 or 8 years of doing this:

-Sap quantity is the key. For a long time I was relying on a bunch of trees deep in the woods that just don't put out much sap, so my runs and ability to produce much syrup were meager. Felton pointed out some big mature trees right at the edge of the field and those three or four trees pretty much doubled our sap production. Now its not such a challenge to get a bunch of syrup by the end of the season.

-Steady-as-she-goes fire tending: I used to really labor to keep the fire continuously super hot and I was sort of hostage to the boiler. These days I still try to keep things hot, but I just stoke up the arch and then go do something else for a half hour or so and then come back and stoke it again. This way I can be doing something productive while maintaining the boil. Its probably a little slower to do it this way, but that's okay with me.

-Staying local: For the first few years I tapped trees up on my uncle's land in Fayston, about 6 miles away up a really steep muddy dirt road. The sap run was great, but the repetitive muddy trips over there were a drag. Now I keep it all within walking distance.

The easy part of sugaring is getting the buckets hung, the hard part is getting the sap from the buckets back to our sugarhouse. In the past I've used sleds, the car, and just plain old hauling 5 gallon buckets to get the stuff in. This year I came up with a great solution: a yoke. Without a model or any real idea of what a yoke looks like, I whipped one up from some lumber I had kicking around and it turned out pretty well. With the yoke I can carry two 5 gallon buckets at the same time from the woods back to the sugarhouse without feeling particularly stressed. The yoke distributes the weight and takes the burden off he arms and the shoulders and makes the whole process a lot more manageable. Without the yoke, I couldn't carry the buckets more then 50 feet without feeling like I had to rest my arms and shoulders.

Its been a sudden and full force turn to spring and it may be that the sugaring season is already over; the forecast is for very warm days and nights for the next week. It'd be nice to do a little more, but we got three gallons of syrup without a lot of effort and we really don't need much more then that so it's okay if that's all we do. We still have a reasonable amount left from last year.

Biking on Ice

Fishtailing on purpose

Randy riding my all purpose mountain bike I've sometimes referred to as my "Fakendell" because it's paint job looks deceptively like the colors of a Rivendell Atlantis

At the starting line

Last weekend we had a blast goofing around on the ice of Lake Champlain on both bikes and skates.

Since the winter has been almost completely bereft of snow, skating is kind of the obvious choice.I was vaguely aware that there was some activity going on up on the lake centered around skating and biking on the ice and whatnot. Turns out there was a whole series of playful yet organized races and other events organized under the banner of Great Ice, centered on enjoying being out on the ice, and as luck would have it the day we decided to head up there were a series of fun bike races planned. It was early in the day when we decided to go and the sun was out and we didn't have any other commitments so I flew into action and got a bike I've had in a state of semi-disassembly for the last couple of years down off the hook in the basement, threw on the studded tires, replaced the shifter cable, mounted a saddle and called it good. Nance grabbed skates and we drove up to North Hero, which is a village up in the Champlain Islands.

When we got there there were awards for the kids who had participated in the fishing derby and there were some impressive fish. After registering I got myself ready to take part in the bike races. There weren't that many cyclists there so it wasn't like a big scary scene or anything--the guys that were there were glad to have another biker to fill things out a little. I've never ridden a bike on glare ice before, soI tried getting used to accelerating and turning and all that. I wasn't falling, but it felt like I could easily. My sense was I'd have to take corners pretty carefully and certainly not lean into them.

The first event was a drag race down a long strip. I did poorly but it wasn't so much a matter of ability as it was the nature of my studded tires compared to other guys who had installed a zillion sheet metal screws so their tires really had spikes whereas mine were nubs. The next race was a kilometer loop. I did poorly again for the same reason. At that point if felt like just staying up was impressive enough. When I got to try out some of the spiked bikes the difference was such that it didn't even feel like you were on ice, you just went as though you were riding on crunchy snow.

Nancy cheered me on a bunch and did some skating as well. There were people there who were skating on what are called Nordic skates, which are a lot like a mix of a speed skate and a cross-country ski. You wear x-country ski boots and click into the binding like you would a ski, so your heel is free. The skate its self is very long and flat except for a little curve at the front. It seems to be the new big thing and apparently very fast. You can rent them at Hero's Welcome, the general store right on the bay.

That night I called Lize and Randy and raved about what an excellent day we'd had and encouraged them to go give it a try when they got the chance. It turned out the next morning they decided to head up to check it out themselves. When I heard they were going I couldn't resist the opportunity to go indulge in another round of fun, despite bailing on some responsibilities at home.

Randy brought a bike with spiky tires and we had a great time just cruising around. Here's the interesting part: he tried out my bike and discovered that in fact the tires on my bike have an amazing ability to SEEM like you are going to go over but when the bike is angled over a little, the studs grip and you just go faster. His discovery totally changed my sense of riding and I found myself almost slaloming on the bike, swishing my rear wheel for grip and cruising on the center. It seems that the designers of the tires really knew what they were doing --it just wasn't obvious at first. I left the first day's races thinking I'd need to spike out my tires to really compete, but now I think maybe what I've got is really right on because you can get the grip you need if you swish a bit, but you don't have the resistance that a million long spike create

Maia and Solveig and Lize skated around a bunch and I had fun with the girls breaking open the semi-frozen holes in the ice left by fishermen. Lize rented a pair of Nordic blades and was pretty into the experience. Given that she and Randy are dedicated skate skiers, this seems like a natural cross-over.

Raleigh Twenty

My 1971 Raleigh Twenty

I rebuilt this wheel with a new alloy rim laced to the original Sturmey Archer hub

The cottered crank fixed to the oh-so-cool Raleigh heron profile chainring. See those herons?

My first introduction to the Twenty was at a talk given by John Allen a few years ago who seemed quite proud of his bike and gave it a promenant place onstage alongside him

About two years ago I somewhat rashly purchased a folding bike through eBay called a Raleigh Twenty. The idea was that I would bring this thing with us on an upcoming trip to Florida as luggage and have a reasonable bicycle while on vacation rather than be victim to whatever the local rental places might have to offer.

As things go, it wasn't practical to bring the bike and I highly doubt if I could have folded the bike compactly enough to work as baggage. Also one of the crank arms had been bent in shipment; it was rideable but not ideal.

So, for the last couple of years the bike has hung from the rafters in the basement waiting...

----

I recently began a job in Montpelier that requires me to walk 4-5 blocks distance from where I park to where I work, which is just long enough to have to add time to the commute. Thinking about the situation I suddenly saw where the Raleigh Twenty could fit into my life! The next time I drove into work I brought the bike with me, conveniently folded and placed in the back of our car. Upon arrival, I swiftly removed the bike, unfolded it and biked the short distance to work. Voila!

The Raleigh Twenty gets its name from it's wheel size--a 20 inch rim. This model of bicycle was made from the late sixties up through the mid-eighties and at one point in the seventies was Raleigh's biggest seller. As modern folding bikes go it is something of a tank and does not fold all that small, but it is a bike with a great heritage and a really fun, stately, retro-groovy vibe that I am completely enamored with.

Since I've started using the bike I've been researching how to put this charming object on a diet. It weighs more then my intuition expects when I go to pick it up. Everything that might be alloy today on a bike is steel on this thing, such as the wheel rims, the seat tube, the fenders, the handlebars, etc... Even crappy bikes today have lighter components then this thing does. Steel rims, in addition to being heavy are also notorious for poor braking, so that's where I've focused my first effort at revamping the bike.

I acquired some cheap yet fine BMX alloy-rimmed wheels from a local bike coop called Freeride in Montpelier. As luck would have it BMX sizings often overlap with the Twenty and I was able to dismantle one of the rims and re-lace it with the original hub from the Twenty front wheel and create a lightweight wheel that provides improved braking surface. Having never before built a wheel, I was quite pleased with myself and somewhat surprised at how easy it is. Buoyed by this experience I carefully measured the rear Sturmey Archer three-speed hub and ordered spokes so I can build up a rear wheel with the original hub laced to a better rim.

These new wheels are a great step towards improving the Twenty's weight and stopping power. Next up will be switching out the brakes. I'm going to start with the front (since that's where 70% of the stopping power happens on a bike) and perhaps work on the rear after that.

Some people go really far with re-habing their Twentys, but I want to retain as much of the original look and feel as possible while improving the weight and function at the same time.

Sheldon Brown was a big fan of Raleigh Twentys.

Winter Riding

This has been a mild winter and to my surprise I'm still riding my bike. In fact, on New Years Day I pedaled to the top of the Appalachian Gap and then back home--not something you'd ever expect to do in January.

When I lived in Boston I rode year 'round. Since I biked to work every day my ability to dial in what clothing to wear could be adjusted with small changes day-t0-day. These days I am a little less able to intuitively "know" what to wear on a chilly, cold, or really cold day.

Its been ranging from the twenties up through the thirties the last few weeks and I've found I can be pretty comfortable on my bike right down through the mid-twenties. I haven't tried biking in anything colder, at least not recently.

One weak point has been --you guessed it-- my toes. In hindsight, I should have relied on previous experience sooner, but for whatever reason, I've been lacking the imagination to try out different solutions.

My typical warm weather shoe on the bike tends to be a pair of Converse sneakers. They are great for many reasons, and recently I've been reluctant to give them up when the weather gets cold. To counter the cold I've been doubling up on the socks and then donning a pair of neoprene booties. I'd say this has worked somewhere in the range of poor-to-moderate.

Back in my Boston commuting days what I did was wear a pair of roomy slip-on loafer-ish leather shoes that allowed for a couple of thick pairs of socks without constricting my feet at all. I found this worked extremely well and the shoes passed as office-acceptable so I was good to go from bike to work.

I have a pair of similar shoes and last night I decided to try my old method. Wallah! It worked great and I was completely comfortable for the seven or eight mile ride home in the dark with temps around 26 degrees.

Beyond the question of feet, I wear two thin long sleeve wool undershirts, a sweater over that, and then always have my plastic neon yellow shell. I love wearing knickers and last night had my Ibex knickers with long thick knee socks and then a pair of corduroy knickers over those. If it were to be a longer or more serious ride, I would have had wool instead of corduroy but these worked fine last night.

Another experiment has been wearing a ski helmet and goggles.

With respect to the goggles, I didn't know my face could be so comfortable. It is though your face is in a small climate controlled room looking out on the world. The downsides were the tinted lens and the perspiration that built up as I climbed the hill out of the village. Also, I find they limit my ability to glance back over my shoulder to see if a car is coming since the walls of the goggles block that sight line. Regardless, the goggles are a definite thumbs-up.

The helmet is fun, and works well with the goggles, but seems not quite as versatile as a standard bike helmet with a hat underneath. Ski helmets are meant to keep people warm who are not necessarily generating a lot of heat and I sense it would be easy to get too warm with the helmet. It does have removable vent covers and ear flaps, so maybe taking those out and putting on a hat would be a good solution.

Its been a thrill to be able to bike right up through the fall and into winter!

Making a handlebar bag

The bag doing its job admirably

Mounted on the bike

The new bag next to it's (smaller) inspiration, a worn TA bag of unknown vintage

Cutting pieces, sewing on the leather trim and attaching hardware

The bag starting to take shape

Since we finished building the house I've been able to redirect some of my attention to making bags again for the first time in a long while. Ever so slowly over the last handful of years I've been refining my skills and working out solutions to challenges that get in the way of a satisfactory result. The first bag I ever made was a replica of the Rivendell Bicycle Works 'Hobo' handlebar bag. It was a great jumping off point for me; I got all excited while I was making it knew I was on to something, but the bag itself was not going to last forever. I sewed it on my mom's portable Singer, which she inherited from her mom. Since then I've been incrementally getting better at crafting bags. The acquisition of an industrial sewing machine was a big step.

Since the summer, I've been slowly building up my bike to accommodate a traditional French-style handle bar bag. The first step included some frame repairs which allowed for installing a new front rack which in turn provided the mount for installing a generator hub powered lighting system. The last piece of this project was the bag.

Having come across a beat up old TA bag, I used this bag as a model for my new bag but sized it up to what I thought would be a useful size. I used the TA bag briefly and found it too way too small for anything other then light duty service.

I drafted all the fabric pieces on brown paper and then cut them out to make full scale patterns. I then transferred the patterns to the heavy waxed canvas that I was to make the bag from, allowing me to then cut and assemble them.

Sewing the bag was pretty straightforward and went well. The most challenging aspect was sewing the leather edge trim on. I found actually hot-gluing it in place before sewing made the process a lot more controllable and in the end made the process work pretty well.

When the bag was complete I affixed the decaleur through the leather to a strip of maple on the inside of the bag. (A decaleur is a metal fixture that attaches to the back of the bag and seats in the handlebar mount attached to the stem). With some work, the bag now sits just where I want with the bottom of the bag resting on the Velo Orange rack below it.

To my satisfaction, the sizing of the bag worked out just right. It is large for this style bag, but I see no drawbacks and only positives for my needs. It fits a lot of stuff and can accommodate most of what I'd need for almost all of my trips, be it a work commute, a daylong trip, or going out to get some groceries. The top of the bag sits just about at bar height and this to me is one of the unheralded wonders of a handlebar bag: it becomes a very effective windbreak for my hands in chilly weather.

There are a few things I still need to do, such as purchase elastic cord to complete the pocket cover closures and decide on the best way to close the large top cover through the decaleur posts. I'm getting closer to solving that.

This is the first bag that comes close to meeting my expectations in terms of quality of both materials and construction. I've whittled away at the process a little more and look forward to further improvements gained from this effort. I'm proud of this project, but aware of the shortcomings as well. Each one brings me a little further along.