The weather was cold but the trail was a good challenge and it seemed like everyone had a great time. We had 24 riders start and most finished Plus we had about 8 photographers. We’re waiting for more photos to show up, but click through for the ones we’ve linked so far.

I managed a respectable? top ten finish, and managed to drink a few, so all was well. Veronika survived as the chief of support staff, managing to not have our kid at the race in the -11°C (12°F) weather.

Damien was one of our sponsors, so so official race t-shirts will be making their way stateside this spring!

departing from the house

jay, john, dan and yours very truly set off saturday evening for some stealth camping.  upon arrival, i noticed with some chagrin that my chosen stop was kinda close to the road, a fact that went unnoted last time, cause there were leaves on the trees.  this caused mild paranoia, but we set up shop, started a small fire, cooked some grub, grilled some sausages, drank some bourbon and beer, and settled in for a quiet night.

quiet night. so far...

then the rednecks showed up.

and rocked our world.

we heard trucks/drunken shouting/music.  a tiny headlamp started to bob its way thru the woods.  we dowsed the fire by jumping on it, and killed our headlamps.  still, they kept coming.  in retrospect, they were looking for a quiet place to fire up the bowl.  in the interest of not getting beat or shot, i called out: did you smell the bourbon?  and they came running.  eventually about 10 or 12 of them showed up, one bearing a 3 gallon container full of drunkade, aka cheap cheap vodka and some sort of mango orange gatorade.  there was a mythical cooler of beer that they had supposedly tried to start a fire with, but it being white styrofoam, it rejected their advances.

soon, the drunkade was consumed.  about… a gallon of it.  this, after we had had a bottle of wine, a half liter of bourbon, and a couple few beers.  then the captain morgans came out.  thank god it wasnt flavored.  then the cheap ass weed came out.  and so the night progressed to fire jumping, and the eventual dissolution of our fire wood.

world. rocked.

after much yelling and laughing and much much drinking, they departed, and we slept the sleep of the dead.

now.  who’s up for some bob evans?

the morning after.

all fotos from jay’s excellent photostream.

In 1903 the Wright brothers flew for a few seconds in a heavier than air craft of their own design. They worked outside of typical aeronautics thought, reworking and recalculating established thought. The wooden propeller they developed, hand hewn from laminated wood, was 83% efficient. Modern Propellers, the most advanced among them, are a mere 2 percent more efficient. The Wrights had no computer models, no expensive wind tunnel testing facilities. They were just bike mechanics from Ohio with some spare time on their hands.

In the early days of the century, racers looked down on 3 speed hubs and derailleurs with pulleys. It was thought that the bend in the chain and the rotation of the pulley wheel added friction (with requisite loss of efficiency) to the chain. 3 speed hubs, with their complex internal workings, were indeed less efficient than derailleurs, although they certainly had advantages including a straight chain-line, sealed against the elements, no derailleur to snap off. Fortunately this paranoia of friction had some good outcomes: the invention of the quick release (to change cogs in the back by flipping from one fixed gear to another) and time. Time for the tourists to perfect and explore the concept of multispeed shifting without the undue influence of racing.  Racers in those days prized simplicity and low friction over all other factors.  They were willing to sacrifice ease of use, smooth shifting, and even low weight in this quest for the cleanest, slickest (friction-wise) and more durable gear changing equipment.  This often lead to ridiculous shiftering systems like the Campagnolo Paris Roubaix, the Vittoria Margeita, and the Egg Super Champion.  In fact, there were numberous durable, low friction derailluers on the market, being used by tourists daily.  These cyclotouriste derailleurs saw a range of conditions, and endured incredible distances.  The Cyclo Standard was used on four and seven thousand mile tours, with only oiling and adjustments needed.

Interestingly, hub gears have regressed in efficiency over the years: pre WWII Sachs 3 speed hubs, lubricated with oil have an efficiency of around 95% averaged across the 3 speeds. Contemporary hubs are about 3 percent less efficient. Oddly, the Rolhoff, with its precision machining, is only 88% efficient on average. (Berto, The Dancing Chain: 351-352)  This is mainly because of the sheer number of planetary gears it contains.

Tourists, from say, 1900-1985, knew another established fact of efficiency that has been lost to contemporary cyclists: Bigger cogs are more efficient. The current trend towards eleven and twelve tooth rear sprockets not only prematurely wears chains down (and cassettes and chainrings by default) but also has an adverse effect on efficiency. 12 tooth cogs are 2-3 percent less effiencent than 14 tooth cogs. This is why the old french tourists ran 14-16 tooth cogs as thier smallest cogs in the back.  The current micro-drive rage has come to its logical conclusion in the world of the BMX drivetrain.  Eight tooth cogs and 22 tooth sprockets are the norm on contemporary bikes, and the resulting strains on the chains is seen in the ridiculously overbuilt chains that are needed to withstand the added stress.

I figured we would ride her commute before she had to, to get it down, and if the weather held we could find a better connection from her new job to Točna hopefully with as little road riding as possible.

The commute path was lovely and she was pretty happy about it. So we kept riding. It was nice for a bit, but then we got to some lake where we are supposed to go swimming in the summer and ran out of trail. After a while looking around for a trail we got fed up and pedalled 5 or 6km on a pretty trafficked road.

It dumped us to a town I had wandered to before and I knew a bit where we connected up to some nice doubletrack and singletrack. We rode it for a while, explored a bit more and found plenty more trail. It was all very marked, but with some of the most cryptic marking style I’ve seen. But it was so frequently marked there must be a map of it somewhere.

When we got fed up we turned towards Točna and rode on over. We hit some smooth twisty stuff and Verča was much happier. (She had gotten a little discouraged when she slipped on a wet section of trail and needed some fun parts to boost her spirit again.)

Strangely enough we were confronted by armed local factions three times on the ride.

So I met up with some czechs, belges, and americans here in Prague, made some mallets, and started screwing around on street hockey courts a few weeks ago.

Well this week-end we threw down for real. We started playing some legit games on a newly discovered marble court on a historic platform of the Restaurant PRAHA-EXPO ’58 from the 1958 World’s Fair.

It was a blast. It made me sore.
Check out prahafixed.wordpress.com for more pics and the bike polo page for more details

The best part was when the offending employee came in to install some tape on the bars so he could go for a quick ride…., it took him over an hour to remove all the newly installed safety features.

I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun putting reflectors on a bike.

So for the last week of her full-time work with the research hospital (she has started her new position with the Academy of Sciences now, and still consults with the hospital) Verča had a conference in Vienna, Austria to go to. It was a Wednesday – Sunday deal (6-10 June) , so I tagged along so that we could hang out and do a bit of riding in Vienna if riding was to be found. Also, since I’m not really tied to an office these days, I just put my computer in a bag and was only off work for a day in transit, then telecommuted from our apartment in Vienna.

(Just to warm you this post is about to get long, as I realized I was going to tell a few little stories. You were warned.)

We actually planned to leave on Tuesday morning, but for a series of cascading events that included: me getting a registered letter from the immigration police on Thursday, the US embassy being closed after 11am on Fridays, Mr. President George W. visiting my new home on Monday and Tuesday, then me sneaking into the embassy on Monday morning while W was still in the air(and nobody was looking), getting the signature of the Consul General then getting his signature (and I’ll quote) “super-legalized”, driving to Rakovník and back to pick up Verča’s original birth certificate, registering our marriage in Prague and then driving to Brno (3 hours away) to “really” register it, when the proper office worker wasn’t off at her doctor’s office. Needless to say a more complicated story would need to ensue, before we could go to Vienna.

We ended leaving Prague on Tuesday anyway around lunchtime. We arrived in Lednice on the Czech-Austrian border about 4pm and found a cool little boarding house/pension were we rented a little cabin for something like 14 bucks for the night. It was a cool little one room with a little bathroom. It looked out onto a common lawn and up to the town’s Chateau/Castle.

our little week-end hut

a look across the lake from the minaret

We took a nice long stroll around the big lake/preserve of the Chateau. Verča had studied biology at her university and spent a couple weeks in this region studying in the field, so I quizzed her on some dendrology and she had forgotten most of it, but was able to spout some Latin names. At one end of the lake was a minaret, on axis with the Chateau for no obvious function, other than for some rich guy in the big house to admire. (turns out he wanted to build some Christian chapel, but the church wouldn’t let him, so the old f-you instead!)

the anti-establishment chapel

Anyway we walked around and saw some deer, birds, and lots of fish. The trees and shrubberies were blooming so it was nice. We followed a bunch of signs to try to find a demonstration of birds of prey (falconry, I presume.) But it was a Tuesday afternoon and a bit windy, so apparently no demo for us. We did make it back to the Chateau and wandered around the gardens a bit. On the opposite side from the lake/preserve they had the full-on formal Baroque gardens with 25′ tall 15′ deep groomed hedgerows. It’s a bit difficult to understand how you can justify the maintenance of gardens like this. I mean, couldn’t the old Lord (or whatever) think of something more productive to do with his riches. (Like develop the bicycle a little earlier of something?)

a look back towards the minaret

and up to the chateau

no cycling in the entire park area

Anyway we were hungry, so we wandered through town past a couple pubs stuffed to the gills with drunk locals, til we found a nice terrace to sit on and eat some steak. Then we took a short walk home and played a few games of pool on the outdoor table at our pension. Verča beat me 2 out of 3 with some Czech rules. (Apparently you have to hit the 8 ball in the pocket opposite of whatever pocket you put your last ball into. It makes for an interesting twist and a definitely longer game for the novices like us.) We called it a night early and retired to our cabin. We then got up early the next morning and headed the half hour back north to Brno to be at the office at 8:30 to sort our marriage legalities out. After jumping through a few more flaming hoops than we had hoped for (but expected) we were done and on our way to Vienna by noon, with the super legal Czech marriage certificate.

So a bit behind schedule we arrived in Vienna, and ran in circles to get things sorted out as we were meeting a local named David to go riding, at 4pm at our apartment. The reception checking in to our place in Vienna wasn’t very fun as we argued a bit, sorted it all out, then ran to get Verča registered at the conference and back. We realized we needed food and to figure out how to and pay for parking. It was 3:55 and I was still standing at a park stand waiting for our food a few minutes away while Verča was off sorting out parking, trying to find a store to sell her the 2 hour parking tickets. After not being able to find the place, she went up to some stranger who was taking his bike out of the car and getting ready to ride about 2 blocks from our apartment. She asked him (in German, the language in Austria) if he spoke English and knew where to buy the tickets. He laughed asked her if her name was Veronika (in perfect English of course.) He had recognized her from here on ridelugged.com. See it was David, who we were to meet in about 5 minutes. He gave her a couple of tickets to put in our car, and started back to walk towards where I was. I was a bit amused to find they had already met as I arrived with lunch.

BTW, I had found David (and Sunil, keep reading) on mtbr.com. See you can search users by where they are from so I found a few in Vienna, and emailed them about a week before we were going to Vienna asking for some info on where to ride (kind of last minute, but worth a shot, right?). It turns out all three people who I emailed responded. One was out of town and the other two offered to take Veronika and I for a ride and show us around. We took them both up on it and we were very glad we did. I also posted on the 29er discussion board on mtbr about Vienna, and ended up getting a reply from a guy that lives in my neighborhood here in Prague. I’ll give you the lowdown when we catch up and go riding, too.

finishing up lunch on the ride

So David and I chatted while Verča ran upstairs to change, then we switched places and were off riding away in about fifteen minutes. Wien (Vienna in German) is bisected by the Danube and the Danube canal which run parallel southeast through the city. We were staying on the island between the two, next to a big park and old-school amusement park called the Prater, along the canal. We headed northwest up the canal on what David assured was the best bike path through town. It had been closed at the center of town for 4 years due to construction of a next subway station, and literally had reopened less than 2 weeks before we showed up. There was fresh smelling asphalt to prove it (and fresh smelling graffiti). David spoke of how Wien keeps talking about adding more bike paths, but the cyclist complain that they can’t maintain the ones they have. It’s true that it was a little hard to follow the paths sometimes when the stripes were worn away or signs were missing, but it didn’t seem to matter. There a soo many bike paths in the city that when you wander from a path you are almost immediately on a new one.

a straight bike stoplight

I mean come on, on one way streets, there is a sign saying bikes can go both ways, and then there is a striped off bike path on one side. Verča and I joked that when we walked around town, that we kept taking bike paths everywhere. It was because there are so many. Come on they have three different type of traffic lights for bikes, just that I saw in 5 days.

the public city BMX-ican park

And there is a BMX park in the public park open 24-7. Cars even stopped for me when they had the right of way. Wien is a VERY bike friendly city. The most friendly I have seen (at that time. most of Belgium seemed even better, now looking back.)

bike cross walk

Anyway so we started to ride out of the city, while David gave me some opinions on the local architecture. I looked in a couple places before we left to see if there were any buildings of note. I got a bunch of old non-descript Otto Wagner houses and eastern-blok looking public housing, so I decided we would just wander around. Near our apartment is the Hundertwasserhaus. On the bike path is a new Zaha Hadid project called the Spittelau Viaducts, that looked finished but not occupied (maybe they didn’t pass the Use and Occupancy inspection!)

zaha hadid buildings have plenty of places to lock up

roadie+modernarchitecture=mix of vanities

There is a Coop Himmelblau law office project that I forgot to visit and kind of regret not seeing in person now, as Coop buildings in reality are quite few and far between. Plus a weird but cool gold sphere on top of a smokestack that is actually a trash incinerator also designed by Hundertwasser.

plenty of scenery on the bike paths

So past these and the bike path along the river actually runs underneath a highway out of town (which was nice on the way home, read on.) At the foot of the hills that border Vienna to the north at the start of the Vienna Woods, David gave us two options: either up the steepest road you can ride or the easier way. We of course opted for the easier way having no idea where he would lead us. We wound up though a small neighborhood on the edge of the city and the road turned uphill. It was pretty much as steep as I would like. Then it turned up under some roman era viaduct and proceeded a bit steeper. It was then I realized that in my haste to get unpacked and underway, I had hooked my rear wheel up wrong and couldn’t get to my easiest 4 gears, which killed me. I had to stop on the hill, detach my shifter (it is a quick release thing so it only took about 15 seconds) adjust it and reattach. Then I was on my way and had to sprint a bit to catch Verča and David. That killed me a bit more.

riding with David through dark forests

The hill gradually flattened a little, but it was too late and Verča and I were panting a bit. We were beginning to become somewhat frightened by David’s fitness level, unsure of what lay in store. So 30 minutes in and we were rolling in the foothills through vineyards that overlooked the river and city below. It was very pretty. Then we dumped onto a nice shaded fireroad climb, where we could see that the trails would be kinda wet in spots. David led us mostly through wooded fireroads and dumped onto an occasional fast section of singletrack. I think all of the singletrack was either rolling or downhill which reassured me since i was able to creep away from David when it got more technical. Strangely he kept catching me on the next climb, though. He took us down this little sluice way that was so muddy and slick you had no hopes of control for about 200m. Luckily we all made it though, but were all covered in mud now.

The next 10clicks or so was mostly sandy gravelly fireroad and logging road that weaved in and out of the gullys at a constant grade. We made our way around the ridge we came up to the west and spiraled back towards the top, on what apparently had been a nice section of singletrack a few weeks before. The Vienna Woods is actually controlled by local logging and hunting interests, and the trail we had ended up on was being reclaimed for some selective logging. Logging is a powerful force in this part of the world, and here in Vienna is no exception. The trails were lined with stacked up firewood like a guardrail 2m high 1.5m deep and up to 100m long at a time. Apparently a large number of people buy the cheap (pine) firewood as fuel to heat their homes, much more cheaply than gas, oil, or even coal.

As we began to make our way towards the top, David told scary tales of a very difficult and slippery technical downhill from the peak. But as we neared the top (and passed 2 XC racer types on carbon Scott sub-1kg hardtails) a nasty thunderstorm began to rear it’s ugly head. We opted to not go to the highest point within 50km and took a nice fast fireroad descent that eventually dropped us to the opening for the first bit of dirt we had ridden. From there in a light rain we began our road descent back to the river. And the road kept getting steeper down. This was the harder way up. The road peaked out at 26% for a couple hundred meters or so, steeper than anything in the Tour or the Giro. We were happy to be going down not up. Until we hit the cobblestones at the bottom. It was raining hard now, and with the cobblestones came neighborhood traffic. We all navigated wet and well back to the river and bikepath. (the gloomy weather meant that no pictures of David made it out of the camera, maybe next trip.)

2km or so later and we were soaked but now riding under the expressway we had come up under, so we weren’t getting any wetter for the time being. Getting back into the city, David took a little detour and drug us out into the rain and onto the long skinny island that runs down the middle of the Danube. It’s only about 250m wide, but maybe 15km long. It was made in the 1970′s from dredging the shipping channels in the river, and now is a series of parks, fields and stands of trees intertwined with tons of foot and bike paths. We began to revel in our wetness and even tried to clean the mud off our bikes a bit in the puddles. We took a bridge crossing just south of where we were staying and zipped back through the Prater to our apartment just as the rain stopped and the skies cleared.

Back on the street by our car we chatted and scraped the mud from our legs and chainstays. As we talked an Austrian couple rode up on townies (nice ones. her’s was steel, with fenders, and XT/XTR.) She asked if we had a pump and I reinflated her back tire while we all chatted. He asked David if he worked on his own bike, and David ended up adjusting the guy’s V-brakes and maybe even tuned his rear mech. We all laughed. Verča and I thanked David for the tour and he was on his way; home to dinner with the wife and kids. We snuck in the side door of the pension with our dirty bikes and selves and jumped into a warm shower.

The next morning while Veronika was at the conference, I tooled around Vienna to catch a few more sights. They have a pretty extensive bikeshare program, with access points all over the city and ATM access. I saw a few people using them, but most seemed to be locked up? Maybe it was just a slow part of the day? Also there was a rad fitness center with outdoor pool floating in the river and anchored to the bike path embankment. It moves up and down with the wake from passing boats and changes in river flow.

city network of sharedbikes all plastered in a bank sponsors logos

a floating swimming pool in the river Danube on the bike path, and the super-high-speed ferry link that run between Vienna and Bratislava, the Slovak capitol

So that afternoon, we met up with Sunil, another american expat in Vienna. He lugged us around in basically the same area as David, and although he has been in the city less time, I think he had devoted more time to exploring. We basically went first to the overlook, we had avoided the other day due to the pending storm. It had a big restaurant and terrace overlooking Vienna and the Danube.

Sunil and Verča looking back to the city

Where David knew lots of double track and fireroads, Sunil knew all the little singletrack links from one place to the next. There were lots of steep rooty sections that dropped from on trail to the other, obviously pedestrian shortcuts, that made for some fun sketchy drop ins.

Verča on some more tech trail

There was plenty of good smooth track too, and we even crossed and rode on some of the trails from the day before. Definitely a good ride with a very different flavor in essentially the same exact place. It was maybe 35km vs. Davids 55km but took about the same amount of time. On our way down Sunil brought us to the Am Himmel tree circle, a very cool tree/zodiac circle again overlooking the city. We each found our corresponding astrological tree, relaxed a bit, then zipped back towards the city.

Sunil in the forest

As we were about to cross a bridge off the recreation island Sunil warned of a nice fall-away drop down the bridge embankment. I followed his wheel and zipped down and turned to look and saw Verča walking down the super steep embankment instead of riding it or riding around. oh well.

Verča taking the hard way

Sunil went on his way and we strolled back into the city center for dinner.

i've gotten better at the over the shoulder shot

Again with the wife at her conference, I wandered the city by bike and occasionally got stuck in traffic.

viennese traffic

It really was nothing to come upon groups of 10 or more cyclists of all ages coasting through the mostly flat city center. I even found a messenger in the car free central district rocking what appears to be an Alan lugged aluminium road bike.

local messenger with sandals and lugged aluminium

With that I’ll leave you with Verča hitting some dirt jumps in the BMX park.

Presidents Day week-end 2008
We flew out to AZ to escape the winter in Prague and then the winter in MD, only to find winter in the desert.

assembling the dumb light bike with ominous desert clouds behind

When we landed it was 60s but the wind on the approach and a choppy landing were ominous signs. It seems a storm was a brewin’. A couple of hours later at about 5pm on Thursday it started raining. Winter rain in the Sonoran desert is not the worst thing. It usually lasts less than 12 hours and actually knocks the dust down. Both of our bikes made it on the plane this year, so we were excited. Plus, as always, or better than ever, the Clarks met and welcomed us like their own. So with warm food in our bellies and the bikes ready to go we turned in for the evening. When we woke the next morning it was still raining, but was expected to stop by noon. By then we were already heading north with Wanye III (Damien’s pops) in their eco-suv, the hybrid Highlander. And we were using it since the road, usually about 15 miles or dirt, was completely mud and stream crossings.

moots SS and giant SS with desert snow

This was not looking good.
I had done this race a few years back in the rain, and it wasn’t as fun as usual.

When we got to the venue, Wayne 4 (D’s bro) and friend Zac had already set up camp. They had gotten up there Thursday to beat the rain and all were glad they did. It’s always amusing to see how hard it can rain in the desert. Temps were hovering just under 50 now up at a little higher elevation in the foothills of the mountains.

the wintery airstream and camp

We settled in here too, and started drinking and listening to music in the mostly-renovated Airstream of W3. Food and beer and a nice waterproof trailer made us forget about the rain a bit. Unfortunately we still had to go out to get more cold beer and to hit the portojohns. As night fell 2 things happened. The temps dropped and some virus later determined to have likely found us on the MD-AZ plane caught up with Verča, so she started regular and often trips out to the second option above.

She only hinted to me at her condition that night, but by her mood, I realized all wasn’t perfect. plus when I awoke in the middle of the night to hit the head myself I found 2″+ of snow covering everything. A strange desert site for sure, especially on my friendly cholla, whom I try to piss on as much as possible.

my cholla with a warm spot in the center from my effluent

By late morning the rain had let up, and the race itself got underway, so we rode in circles for several hours and had a generally great time.

Verča had a pretty amazing race, considering she had to stop to desecrate every other cactus every time she rode, due to her shall we say, intestinal distress. She ended up in fourth place in Solo SingleSpeed Female with 6 laps, while essentially riding only on oranges, cliff bloks, and water.

I had only 1 more lap for a total of 7, placing me at 24th in the Solo SingleSpeed Male.

Only after the race (and into the next day) did I appreciate her will, as the evil virus found me and completely incapacitated me. I could barely get out of bed. We even had to stop 2x on the way back to Tucson, so I could vomit/lay on the side of the road and moan.

Funny thing is, we both loved it and Verča, especially wants to go back soon!
(eds. update: although last year 2009 didn’t happen for $$ reasons, and it looks like we are maybe too busy for 2010.)

“You know why else New Mexico is cool? The Shins are from here.
4:11 AM Apr 30th from TwitterBerry

Good morning! Feeding kids and getting ready for school. Luke has the math portion of the TAKS test today.
1:57 PM Apr 28th from TwitterBerry

I remember coming to Moriarty, NM in 1989 and trying to break Mike McCarthy’s junior 25k time trial record. Mom and I road tripped it here.
3:51 AM Apr 29th from TwitterBerry”

So, as you can see it’s mostly drivel, just like every one elses “tweets” that no one reads. But I did want to RT (re-tweet) the pics he posted yesterday of some Shepard Fairey painted bikes that he’s going to be riding in the Tour of Italy.

anyway, I almost missed this picture of some unidentified rider leading Stijn Devolder, Belgian national champion and domestique of the ultimate winner, through the Arenberg trench.

showing the Belge how it's done, relaxed on the tops!

looks like the cameramen saw him coming, though!
go ride your bike, it’s spring!