The Call of the Wild

Why would a died-in-the-wool-jersey roadie, who rode this racing bike in 1980 (the royal blue version in the box)...

and this racing bike in 2010....

... be spending the last two weeks obsessing about a heavy, fat-tired bike, with geometry so relaxed it can handle pavement, dirt, gravel, and even single-track? Oh, yes! And featuring -- shudder -- disc brakes??

It's a long story.

I went to my LBS -- Hampshire Bicycle Exchange, a great shop and a subject for another post -- a few weeks ago looking for the fattest tires that would fit my Giant OCR 3, so I could turn it into a little more of a dirt-road bike. No luck; the best I could fit were 25 mm tires, barely wider than road racing tires.

While I was there, the owner, Chris, planted a seed. He's a enthusiastic fan (and dealer) of the fun, unique bikes Salsa have been making out in Minnesota for a number of years, and he personally owns one of the earliest examples of their Vaya, the roughneck bike described above. He suggested that perhaps I was trying to make an orange out of an apple, and should consider purchasing a more rugged rig.

I went home, looked up the Salsa, and it turns out there is a small legion of passionate fans out there. They ride for fun -- to get out in the woods or the fields, to spontaneously turn off on to a gravel road just to see what's down there. The kind of fun I'd been dreaming of, only half-aware, since Mrs. V. and I moved out to this beautiful rural area replete with farm fields, hidden mountain bike trails only vaguely hinted at in oblique conversations, and tons of intriguing roads too sketchy for my thoroughbred, skinny-tired CAAD 8.

I gobbled up every post and page I could get get my virtual hands on. One beautiful and inspiring site (created by an employee of Salsa) was especially instrumental in whetting my appetite for some Salsa, with many lyrical posts like this one.

Finally, I returned to the Exchange on Friday afternoon, hoping to have a conversation with Chris about how we could make a Vaya affordable to me. Guess what? He'd ridden his in that morning, so I could test-ride one right away. Guess what? He's exactly my bike size.

And guess what? He had just recently decided to sell the very bike I was about to test.

No!  Yup.

After a quick and encouraging ride in the parking lot, he generously offered to let me ride it as long as I wanted on Saturday. I sped over there eagerly yesterday morning on my Cannondale, jumped on his bike, and headed off for a true adventure. He'd told me about some trails a few miles south of his store, and I was itching to try them.

Woah... this riding-bikes-in-the-forest thing is really cool! Wow, the trees are really close, they're practically hugging me as I ride! Wow, smell the pine on the breeze! Woah!!! Downhill on roots and piles of leaves is scary! But FUN! WOAH, speeding over big humps is like being on a rollercoaster!! Let's do that one again!  And again! Wow... look at that beautiful pond! I've ridden near here hundreds of times and never even knew it was here! Hey, I'm learning how to pick a line, how to steer with my hips like I've always heard you should, how to trust the back wheel to steer the front! This is GREAT!!!

Many, many wows and woahs later, I headed back to the shop. I'd stayed out far longer than I expected, because I was having so much fun I couldn't make myself leave. On the way back, I even pulled off the main road onto a couple of dirt and gravel "roads" -- one of them just some muddy double-track, calling to mind Salsa's verbiage about the Vaya: "... designed to take on any surface that someone might consider a ‘road’."

It's been a long, long time since I've been that excited just to be on a bicycle. It looks pretty likely that this one is coming home with me soon. (Update, 4/13/11: I just returned from putting half down on it, and will be picking it up in about 11 days. Can't wait!! Thanks, Chris!!)

As an homage to the lovely posts on gnatlikesbikes, here are some more shots from the wilds yesterday:

Beauty and the Bridge

Wheeee!!!

"I took the one less traveled by..."

Double-track and the Holyokes in the distance

Promise?

The four elements: Earth, Water, Steel and Rubber

In Flanders Fields the Flahutes Grow

Did I lie? Did I even exaggerate? Was the 2011 Ronde van Vlaanderen not an epic? The last 40 kilometers were among the most exciting racing I've watched. What fun!

If you merely glanced at the picture above, you'd be forgiven for thinking  it was from last year's edition, especially when compared to the shot from that race I posted this weekend. Same spot. Same cobbles. Same rider. Same "smile" on Cance's face. Even the same kid screaming in his ear! But wait -- who's that insane guy clinging to Cancellara's wheel? Could the Swiss legend have been pedaling with feet of clay? Ah! Therein lies the tale.

Here's hoping Paris-Roubaix, the Queen of the Classics, is at least as much fun next week!

The *King* of the Classics

If you're a racing fan (and a traditionalist), you're supposed to light on fire every year for Paris-Roubaix. I like Paris-Roubaix; I've seen a few of them, and they're fun. I even have the documentary, a great piece of work. But the races I've seen don't hold a candle to those fabled, mud-spattered, gore-fests of yore. And the terrain... it's too wide-open, somehow inaccessible.

As far as I'm concerned, you're not a classics fan unless you know by heart how to spell the Tour of Flanders in Flemish.

The Ronde van Vlaanderen is intimate, intense, fast; more small-town Belgium than epic France. The hills are bite-sized; maybe it's because they're like the terrain here in Massachusetts that I can feel the quad-burn of the climbing in this race more vicariously. And, then there's what the younger set, the illiterati, call an "added bonus:" smaller hills means witnessing tough climbs happen at a ridiculous pace.

And while the Queen of the Classics is known for its cobblestones, don't you miss the pavé sections tomorrow -- they're juicy, jolty and jumbled, every bit the real thing.

Finally. There are. The. Fans.

It would be hard to name one country the most rabid cycling nation in the world, but if Belgium ain't the most feared contender, I'll eat Eddy Merckx' 1970 bike shorts (don't forget: made of wool and real leather chamois). A peek at last year's edition bears sufficient witness:

Cancellara soaks in the Flandrian atmosphere

Need I say more?

Just pray that the Internet gods allow 1) a decent feed site, and 2) sufficient bandwidth tomorrow morning, or you'll hear my scream of pain from one end of the state to the other.

For extra-genuine flavor, throw a paper cone of pomme frittes in the air when Cancellara breaks the tape -- again.

Spring Has Sprung and so has my Knee

Ah, spring -- when a middle-aged man's fancy turns to thoughts of old injuries.

It's becoming increasingly apparent that every spring is going to involve what Paul Fournel calls (and I'm paraphrasing here), "a revival of an old argument with a cantankerous knee." I successfully tried running through the whole winter at base/moderate levels, my cardiovascular capacity climbing while my legs retained some of their strength from last cycling season. But, for the fourth year in a row, once we hit March and April and I start adding intervals and hills, my left kneecap starts getting that lovely mortar-and-pestle feeling.

By now, fortunately, I know not to panic. Mostly.

If I stretch a lot, increase intensity slowly, and in the meantime just accept the aches and pains of an aging human body, I'll probably be strong and fit by May. (We'll see; moderation is still not my strong suit.) Even so, every year, it's a little annoying and worrisome.

Ah, the rites of spring.

Falls Road Rondo

Sunday morning. As my second cup of coffee cools, and a Flemish announcer murmurs sweet Gent-Wevelgam nothings in my tiny computer speakers, I sit reminiscing on a somewhat Belgian ride yesterday with Racer Rob.

We set out from his house in Sunderland under clear blue skies, with temps in the mid-30s, and the stiff, relentless March winds off the Connecticut River soon made clear what the deal was going to be. We turned off the main road and wended our way up rolling hills that only partially protected us from the gale. Fields folding upon fields, fences and old farmhouses stretching in the sun after a long, hard winter, we climbed a steady ten minutes, and were rewarded with views of humpy northern Mass, with the river peeking in and out of the picture, too.

(Wow -- heroic finish to Gent-Wevelgam!)

Down and around the hummocks we flew, a peloton of two, chattering away about tire sizes, vacation plans, and job changes. When we hit the flats, another reward: a brisk tailwind, which always makes me feel fitter and faster than I am. (Have you ever noticed how risky it is to sit up no-hands in a tailwind? The wind shifts imperceptibly, and it's like someone yanked on one side of your bars. The hands go back on real fast.)

South on Falls Road, and one more reward:

The eponymous feature of Falls Road

With the river riding high on the banks directly behind us, we took a quick couple shots of the falls and a hit or two of H2O. Never seen the falls this full before; I guess record snowfalls have their upside.

Home stretch. Rob always picks up the pace right around now, and even when early-season unfit, he's absurdly fitter than myself. I internally set a realistic goal: Just stick to his wheel up the half-mile five-percenter that leads to his driveway. Before I know it, he's getting smaller and smaller, and my thighs feel like running lava. It always ends this way; I wouldn't have it any other way.

By the time we roll up to his door, we're finally warm. The final reward? Five minutes with Rob's adorable boys, one running around playing fireman, and the other in his lovely mama's arms, giving me the heart-melting darshan like the Buddha he is.