To Grimp and Not to Grimp

Here is your delayed report for the Grimps since the last post. Two Thursdays ago we had a nice showing with a couple more new riders. Brahma Mamma brought along Sandbag’s wife Robin. Also in attendance was Jay, all the way from Greensburg. A month ago he was almost a Grimpeur but missed the official ride by a few minutes and had to ride around with Phallose. I actually would have paid money to see those two together, one pushing hard from the left and the other checking from the right. I’m surprised they both came out of the mountains alive. The group was rounded out by Lord MonkeyButt himself and me, The Flanders Fat Cat.

The ladies started up the mountain a couple a few ticks early while the guys fussed about with their bikes at the bottom. I wanted to go with them, but the new Goldfish/ no one left behind rule kept me behind. Damn those rules and their unintended consequences. The Fat Cat is unaccustomed to the role of ascent bridge man. Hanger on and dropper off are more the job description. Nonetheless, by the spring turn, the catch was made. MonkeyButt and Jay, who is hereby bestowed the name “Greenie” for both obvious and ironic reasons, took off ahead and I stayed back with the ladies. Hey, as King Grimpeur, The Fat Cat is obligated to evaluate the form of new supplicants to the order. I could have taken the summit—really, I swear.

According to Brahma Mamma, Robin doesn’t do much bicycling. She is mostly a runner and helps coach cross country. Usually that sort of stuff doesn’t really translate and these runners are broken to bits by the bike. However, Robin broke the mold and did just fine, never really looking in distress. I’m sure her razor thin build didn’t hurt on the hills. I swear to you, some day we are going to have a “weighted” ride. Every one of you lean machines is gonna hafta tote around 50 or 60 lb weights to match up with The Fat Cat. Where will you be the, huh! Probably still in front of me. Excuse me a minute while I wash this donut down. Ahem, ok, that’s better. Now, as to a name for Robin—Bhrama suggested “steady spaghetti” but I can’t spell spaghetti consistently( shoulda thoughta that before I chose Brahma) and it’s “basghetti down my way, anyway. I think I’ll go with “Runnin’ Razor” or “Razor” for short.

Once we got to the mountain top, we meandered over to Bruceton on Skyline Drive, took Hileman back over to Lake-o-the-Woods (were we sniggered as we passed Sandbag working on a patio) plunged down Wymps Gap and shot across 857 back to Haydentown. Thanks to all the new riders. Y’all come back now, ya hear.

Last Thursday The Birdman showed up. We had an epic ride—to Ruby and Ketchy’s restaurant in our automobiles. Seems Birdman forget his cycling shoes. Oh well, You know the new rule. I couldn’t leave him behind. It was best that I did my Clydesdale training, anyway. Gotta keep that weight up.

Grimpin’ Days Are Here Again

Late summer and early fall- these are indeed the best of times to be on a bicycle. The air is soft and sweet. The year has mellowed with age and the Sun looks on with smiling eyes, not yet weary with age. The days are no longer unpredictable youths, tempestuous one moment and benign the next, nor are the days yet chilly and indifferent with snaps of cold brutality. These are the days when the surging legs and the furnace in our core are at equilibrium with nature. The porridge is just right and we all feel unnaturally strong. The ride is not a fight, it is a dance. ( Can you tell I’ve been reading Somerset Maugham.)

And so it was on Thursday last. The Grimpeurs took off under cloudless skies. The temperatures were such that sweat need bead up only at the extremes of effort. Even then, a gentle breeze quelled any rising fires. The lot under the bell-tower in Haydentown was full of the area’s finest, eager to take on the mountains in perfect conditions. Boyscout was there, so were Legs and Birdman. Phallose the black-sheep was missed but he was otherwise engaged in internet battle. Good old Sandbag came down from atop Wymps Gap to join in the fun (and probably to steer us away from raiding his house for refreshment). Goldfish was in the lot, all 140 lbs of him, tending to some mechanical issues when the Fat Cat arrived. But, most importantly, a new member petitioned for acceptance into the order. Fran is well known in the local cycling circles for her good nature, her even style and her tenacity. As expected, she acquitted herself well and is dubbed, Brahma mamma. (Not to be confused with Bahama Mamma, whom I knew in college.)

Notice: The Charter of the grand and ancient Order of the Grimpeurs is hereby amended to include the following amendment. No Gimpeur shall be left at the mountains foot, no matter his fearsome skills.

Some of the Grimpeurs took advantage of Goldfish’s tire fiddling Thursday to get a head start. All the way up Mud Pike, The Fat Cat assured everyone that Goldfish was sure to come flying past at any moment and make the summit first, despite his late start. When events were not as foretold and after some time waiting at the top, the group decided to go back down and see what was the matter. It was just then that BoyScout, who had, of course, stayed behind with Goldfish, came huffing and puffing up the hill. It seems that the tire fiddling was not simply pumping up the old rubbers. A nasty hole was the culprit. Repeated attempts at a patch were to no avail and all the extra tubes were strapped below seats and heading up the mountain. Sadly, Goldfish was forced to go home and Boyscout was left to time trial himself dizzy to catch up. All apologies to you Goldie.

The Grimpeurs took Skyline North. Several times, when the pace got spirited, the host looked back to check on the newest Grimpeur. Seeing no sign of her, he rode up to the front to reign in the horses only to find Brahma mamma in amongst the frontrunners. She’s a sly one, she is. Legs had “the draft taken right out of his mouth” when his suggestion to stop at the Summit Inn was voted down. We had to think of the kids, after all. The Fat Cat hit a good 55 mph down the smooth and winding Jummonville descent. The rest were right behind. The group made good time down Hopwood-Fairchance road and made it back in plenty of time to pick up Kids from school. Legs even got that draft that had been so rudely taken from him in the highlands.
Thanks to all who showed for a little lunchtime fitness and fun. Legs, have fun cycling the Alps and watching Worlds. We’ll leave the light on for you.

The Tyranny of the Cyclocomputer and the Power of Two

The sweat of self doubt piled upon the perspiration of excessive physical effort. All was not going as expected. Everything hit rock bottom when that stupid little machine beeped and shut off on the hill coming out of the river valley. The little handlebar mounted tormentor, with its single digit curling like a snide smile, stopped recording because we were going so slow it thought we had stopped.

To think I was excited at its arrival. I opened the package like a Red Rider BB gun on Christmas morning. It was the spoils of my victory, the reward for my effort, in the big Tour internet challenge. Well, actually, it wasn’t really due to any top placement in the virtual race. It was more of a random award, you know-name out of a hat kinda thing. But, isn’t that really apropos…a random award for a random rider. Anyway, it was only the second time I had won anything. The first was after winning a running race at some kind of family picnic. I was one amped up 8 year old. What did I get as a reward for my first, and only, big win- a handbag made of old milk jug pieces crocheted together with orange yarn. I bawled inconsolably.

You’d think I would have learned, but when my major award came I quickly forgot the lessons of the past. I stayed up late into the night setting up the cadence meter, calibrating the wheel size, strapping gizmo’s to tubes and testing the heart rate monitor. It had been a year or so since my last cyclocomputer conked out and I never got around to replacing it. How great was it going to be to see the blistering speeds and Herculean efforts that propelled my little blue and white Cervelo?

I took the Tuesday Grimp over to Carmichaels to accommodate Lord MonkeyButt. The prospect of a fully monitored Grimp was apparently so exciting that I had been unable to sleep the previous night. With great fanfare (a barking dog and mewing kittens) we mounted up and took off across the freshly tarred and chipped roads of fabulous Greene County Pa.

The expectation was a moderate ride registering a respectable 15 mph avs or more. It quickly became apparent that it wasn’t going to be so easy. There is some sort of evil magic associated with The Grimp. Though there be easy flat to rolling courses all around, the legs are inexorably drawn to the steepest climbs and the deepest drops even in the sweltering heat. After a mere eight miles, and this is no exaggeration, I was really ready to stop.I needed to stop. Had this been a race I would have abandoned to the comfort of the broom wagon. I struggled mightily to keep the average reading from dropping below a measly 12 mph. There was an irrational, yet palpable, fear at the prospect of seeing 11.9 mph register on the little screen. The rest of the thirty miles was spent huffing, puffing, sweating profusely, complaining internally (and occasionally out loud). My eyes were glued to my little screen as though it were the electronic manifestation of Mesmer himself. It was a desperate time trial of the unwittingly unfit. Apparently, without something to watch over me, I had taken to old man pacing spiked with delusions of speed. Now, I was consumed with the piteous task of pushing liquid crystal a few tenths above my lowered expectations, 12.0, just to see it slip back to the bottom and dimly suggest .9 for an instant. I had become a Sisyphus in spandex with a cylocomputer starring as Lord Hades.

And so, beaten, I plodded on through to Saturday. I didn’t want to, but I had to ride if I was to serve my lord of the average speed and climb the fitness slope, yet again. Feeling like a lumbering tortoise, I relented when my nine year old asked to come along. We took the tandem and instead of the bike path, took the roads I would normally tackle. I set a time goal but didn’t expect to make it, tied to the boy on his first real road ride and all. But, by God, he was a force back there. He never complained and always pedaled harder when I asked. In, fact, I had to teach him moderation, lest he flame out before the hills between Masontown WV and home. Not only did we make it back in time we made it back 15 minutes ahead of time. It was two and a quarter hours of good old family fun.

So Sunday I came back and taught that cyclocomputer a lesson. Fourteen of us did 50 miles of terrain similar to that hellish Grimp. It was fast, it was a whooping good-time, and the cyclocomputer choked on its own electrons, having to show an average speed of 16mph. I guess you’ll just have days like this and that.

An outsider's view

We did Have a great grimp Tuesday. The gods pushed aside the rain clouds so that The Fat Cat, Phallose and Legs could have fantastic weather for a quick little romp through the Appalachians. Phallose toyed with the other riders, dodjing ahead and turning around, sometimes getting them to take a playful swat at him. Since Sandbag was in the mountains but not on the ride, the Grimpeurs invaded his hideout, tucked in beside a mountain lake, and demanded refreshment. The performance enhancing pills Phallose was pushing did not seem to help those who chose to serve as lab rats. The post ride recovery drink provided by Legs was much more effective.

Here is an article from PezCycling about West Virginia riding. It claims we're better than Europe. Check it out.
http://pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=7389&status=True&catname=Latest News

Something Old, Something New

My rainbow-it was overdue. (Look closely, it's there.)

So, what has happened in the wide world of Grimping over the past few weeks you ask? Truth be told, I can barely remember what I did yesterday. Still, I’ll try and render a semi-lucid account.

I used the Tour De France to try and kick start my cycling level back into something other than bike trail tourist. I did manage to ride every day the tour did and tried to emulate the stages. In the end about 700 miles were logged and nearly 40000 feet were climbed. I came in at 130something in the world out of 17,000+ in mapmyride.com’s Tour Challenge and- drumroll please- number one in West Virginia. A “major award” is even on its way as we speak. No, it is not a lady-of-the-evening fishnet stocking leg lamp. I’m not THAT lucky. (If you get that reference, well then, merry Christmas and don’t shoot your eye out.) Now please, don’t go getting any ideas about the old Fat Cat because of those results. They were more points for persistence and stubbornness rather than having anything to do with strength and speed. Hey, you take what you can get.

For the first time in a while an invite to the Grimp was sent out via the net a week or two ago. No one showed. However, I did run across a misinformed straggler from another ride and initiated him into the Grimpeurs with a trip over Wymps Gap and around Bruceton Mills. I put in 78 mountain miles (it was a climbing stage that day in the Tour) and Glen made for good company mid ride. He even gets an official Grimpeur handle even though his attendance was accidental. I call him Rocket Man (because associating him with John Glenn was the only way I could remember his name). The best part of that Grimp was the torrential downpour that turned the road into a canal for the last 10 miles. It was rejuvenating. The harder it came down, the more I smiled. Apparently, whoever is in charge of scary weather took offense to my insolence. Rain so heavy that cars were stopped on the side of the road was followed by high winds on top of thunderbolts and lightning. Still I rode on. That was the last straw. From on high hailstones pelted the landscape. Imagine bags of white marbles dumped from a 747 on your head while you are blindly time trialing through a deluge. Doesn’t that sound great! Glad I had a helmet on.

Last week a Grimp was called and some of the old faithful took heed. Goldfish, Killer Bee and Boyscout teamed up to beat the snot out of The Fat Cat. Killer bee had a new Madone, Goldfish had a new Ridley (I think) and both were eager to give them a workout. By the time I was ¾ of the way up the mountain, all three of the others had taken their mid-day tea at the top, discussed my whereabouts, and decided that they had better come back down and see if I had a flat tire or maybe a heart attack. And there you have the theme for the ride. Hurry up and then wait for the Fat Cat. If nothing else it was a helluva workout for me. The tough guys were shown who was the boss on the way down, though. I had my own private tea-party at the bottom.

LOSING TEETH

There I lay, in the deep weeds along the roadside. My back was screaming, my legs were burning, my friends had left me, the mountain was laughing and worst of all I had lost the last of my teeth. As I stared at the sky, sharp breaths whistling from my maw, I thought about how I ended up backside down and rubber up.

I had been doing just fine with winter riding and felt pretty strong in January. It promised to be a good season. After that, though, things somehow just started going downhill instead of up. I don’t know if my will started fading first or if it was the wheel problems that cut the legs out from under me. I do know, however, that my collection of wheelsets was quickly whittled down to nil.

All through the early spring, the spokes of my rear wheels started snapping like last fall’s left-over twigs. Ride after ride was cut short by rims rubbing breaks and nipples tumbling about loose in the rim. It didn’t even matter if I had just taken the wheel to the shop the day previous- next ride, SNAP! There goes another one. Fifty and sixty mile rides to exhaustion had been cut to ten milers or less. I lost count of the number of times I hobbled home, spokes taped to one and other. (Yes, it got so bad that I carried a roll of black tape along with my spoke wrench.).

On one occasion, I was tooling along just fine with a small group of fast riders and one visiting outlaw when I was gripped with the fear. We stopped to check my wheel and the sucker was wobbly as a WVU undergad on Saturday night. It had more loose screws than a psych professor. By the time I got home, I had wrenched the wheel to within an inch of its life and had reached an equilibrium point with three spokes out and taped to their neighbor. It was at about that time that I started loosing teeth.

The first time was on a group ride up Snake hill and across Preston County, Appalachian wonderland. I was down to my deep dish carbon Hed wheels, not at all suited for this type of ride other than the fact that they were intact. I did alright up the first incline, but later, a strained look down and back revealed that I was one cog down from my normal. Next thing you know, pop-goes-the-tubular, and I’m laying on my back in a soft thatch of high marsh grass. All that was left was a call for evac while my fellow riders soldiered on ( soon to become a recurring theme). What’sthat saying- If it wasn’t for bad luck…

And so it went all spring, each ride was punctuated by some mechanical mishap. With each passing week of down-time the rear cassette got smaller and smaller and the hills got bigger and bigger. Pretty soon, thinking about riding wasn’t too exciting. It’s kinda hard to smile without any teeth.

That brings us to the beginning of our story. I had finally gotten a new set of wheels after much tribulation. (The acquisition of those seemingly benign little hoops is a story unto itself. I’ll leave that for some other day.) I caught wind of a group ride through my old mountain stomping grounds. Before I knew it my bike had me hot on an intercept course.
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At the bottom of Mud Pike, some tikes screamed, Look! There goes another bike.” I knew I was close. Once in the mountains, I took a short cut through a hellish stretch of gravel. I reached the pavement and, as luck would have it, there were The Grimpeurs. Well I guess it was more the opposite of luck. For a few miles I grimly hung on, desperately clawing at my bottom gear. Finally, I had no where else to go but down, literally. I begged the last of my nursemaids to leave me for dead. As soon as he was out of visual range I rolled into the ditch.

And that’s how I got where I am today. Do they make a 37 tooth? Better yet, maybe I can put my 39 tooth front ring on the back.

Things Have Been Happenin', I Swear

Okay, a quick look at the old blog shows scenes of winter still on the front page.
I promise to try and put something out this weekend for anyone still hangin' around the old place.