Brentani’s Cycling Blog

There aren’t so many good options for wheels (to replace the Ritcheys) on my current Circle A, given that it’s a campy bike. I could get a campy wheelset, or a Mavic of some sort that comes with a campy option, but the Ksyriums are really as low as I’m willing to go quality-wise, and those are a little pricey. Ideally, I’d do something like the Ultegra/Open Pros I just got for the cross bike, but that’s not really possible with campy. If Campy still made hubs lower than Record, sure, but that’s not an option any more, unless I scour ebay for some centaur hubs, but then I still have to find a wheel builder and have them build it, etc. Additionally, my plan to use the chorus/open pro rear wheel from the Gazelle has been thwarted by the fact that the bearings (or the bearings and the cones, or whatever) are shot or almost shot. I took it off the Gazelle yesterday, and it felt a little crunchy as I spun it, so I took it in, only to be told that the parts alone to fix it would be 160 bucks. Screw that.

So instead, I think I will take the plunge and get myself a new Force or Rival rear derailleur, which, if one believes Leonard Zinn, will work fine with Campy shifters. The advantages to going this route are, as I see it:

• I can run my new Ultegra/Open Pro wheels on either of my new bikes
• If/when I get a set of race (climbing) wheels somewhere down the road, that can also be used on either bike. (that would mean I’d have one bomb-proof set for cross, training, riding on dirt roads, etc, and then a second set for hillclimb races, but because I plan on using both bikes (depending on the exact race characteristics) for hillclimbs, I’d want to be able to use the race wheels on either bike, not just the cross bike.
• and most importantly, I don’t have to go out and buy a wheelset immediately, since the ultegra/open pro is sitting at Circle A. And since I can buy them from Circle A individually, I could always grab a second rear wheel so that I don’t have to swap them continually when I get the new bike.

The biggest disadvantage is that I can’t use any of the wheels from these bikes on the gazelle, but that’s not such a big deal anyway, since I never once used the Ritchey’s on the Gazelle. I’ll probably ride the chorus hub until it dies and then figure out what to do for a wheel on the Gazelle. Maybe just pick up an old Mirage hub (which seem to be dirt cheap on ebay) and rebuild the wheel.

That also means I’ll be left with a medium cage chorus rear derailleur, and 2 cassettes (11-25 and 13-29) that I won’t really need any more, but are probably not worth enough to get much money out of…I may try to upgrade the Gazelle to 10 speed at some point, since all I’d need are the shifters, but those things ain’t cheap, even veloce.

My obsessive searching for the steepest hills on the planet led me to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. The blogs and listservs where people post their favorite hills make for some interesting reading, but usually don’t produce too many interesting results. It seems that almost no matter what hill someone describes, there’s always someone happy to chime in that “the hill right next to my house is steeper than that.” Usually they’re completely full of shit. So when I first came across this post contesting that Baldwin Street was the steepest hill in the world, I was a little skeptical. Not because I believe that Baldwin is as steep as the Guiness Book of World Records says (according to my calculations, which I don’t stand behind at all, Fargo is steeper, and John Summerson’s book claims that Canton Ave in Pittsburgh is an average of 37% top to bottom for .1 miles).

The problem is that “steepest” is such a subjective thing. Steepest average gradient, top to bottom? But what if the hill is only 100 meters long? Would that really qualify? I always figured that there must be sections longer than Fargo of higher gradient on Scanuppia, even though the whole thing, top to bottom is *only* 17% (the first 2 miles average 24%, which pretty much makes the end of Lincoln Gap look like a walk in the park.) If you go by “steepest section,” what’s the threshold? I’d say 20 feet is the smallest distance that might actually be noticeable, but even that depends on the context – i.e. how much momentum do you have going coming into that section? And, if we’re talking about difficulty, I would submit that climbing (based on comparing, say, Jenckes to Mount Tom) climbing 1/2 mile or more at 12%+ is exponentially more difficult than climbing 12%+ for .2 miles. But at the same time, I don’t think beyond a certain threshold that length adds exponential difficulty. Just look at climbing times for Washington and Ascutney. Ascutney is about 1/2 the distance and the same gradient. Riders generally finish Washington just slightly longer than half the time they take to get up Ascutney. Based on personal experience, I’d say that somewhere around the .15 mile mark, if the road is steep enough, for me, any momentum I had going into the climb will be gone (and at 30%, that distance will be much shorter). I base this on the fact that I usually hit a wall just before the top of Jenckes, but George Street is sprintable top to bottom.

Back to Tenerife. Calle Monroy was the hill selected to challenge the previous claimants to the “steepest hill in the world.” Based on available data, Canton and Fargo are probably a little bit steeper, top to bottom. Calle Monroy, however, is almost a half-mile at 28% (i.e. 5 times as long)! The last half of the climb is mostly over 30%, so I’m guessing you could easily pick out a 1/10 mile section that would beat either Canton or Fargo. This also means that this hill gains almost the exact same vertical distance as Mount Tom in half the distance. I mean, really. Most people – most of my cyclist friends – have never done a hill harder than Mount Tom. (Certainly the two I took there last year haven’t done anything harder before or since and they’re still pissed off at me for making them do it.)

Then I noticed that Calle Monroy keeps going after the end of the pavement with what looks to be decent dirt. Adding that section, the distance jumps to 1.2 miles, and the average gradient actually goes up by .2 percent to 28.2%. Completely nuts. I wonder if anyone ever done this thing on a bike?? Extended 30% gradient is something I have no experience with. There’s a little section of 30% on Mount Tom, but you carry a little momentum into that because the road dips just before the last kicker at the top. The 30% section at the top of Bowen doesn’t last more than 5 feet, but even that is enough to make people fall over sideways if they lose momentum on the cobbles. My friend Andy recently did Fargo recently and I think had to do switchbacks. But keeping it up for a whole mile? yikes. Even with extremely low gearing, say my 39/26, 11-36 setup on the new cross bike, I don’t know if you’d be able to keep the front wheel on the ground, and it seems like rear wheel skidding would be a nightmare on the dirt section. The whole area around Calle Monroy also looks to be littered with hills almost as steep as well.

ok, I’m ready to go live with my new site. I’ll still be tweaking it, so don’t be surprised if things change or things stop working inexplicably for a few minutes. Here it is:

http://brentacol.com/

Basically, it’s just a searchable database of all the hills I’ve been making gradient maps for. Only now, I can keep the pictures organized, re-generate and tweak the resolution and all that. And the biggest feature is the addition of a rating scheme, which I’m calling “brentacol.” It’s based on the Belgian COTACOL system. You can read about how the system works on the about page.

I welcome any and all feedback, especially subjective opinions about the validity of the ranking scheme. I was pleasantly surprised how well it matched my own feelings riding the hills, but I know everyone has different experiences while climbing. (For example, Woonsocket Hill Road, which I had pegged as #4 in RI, after Bowen, Blue Hill, and Jenckes. Because of their relative shortness, Jenckes and Bowen are downgraded slightly by the system (and I’m still working out a way to factor in the cobbles on Bowen), but Woonsocket Hill Road becomes the hardest in RI, just beating out Burlingame, but still easier than Blue Hill.

I spent the Labor Day weekend up in Maine with Carrie’s parents at their A-Frame on Small Point. The riding there is pretty much idyllic and the terrain, while not containing much in the way of big hills, is relentlessly rolling and makes for a great work-out. It requires constant shifting between big rings. Possibly a place where the compact crank isn’t such a good choice. With a 42 or 39 instead of the 34, you might be able to stay in the little ring most of the time. Anyway, as much as I love riding there, I’ve gotten a little tired of my usual route. To mix things up, I decided to start trying some of the dirt roads that are almost as plentiful as the paved roads. The first day, I did my normal loop of riding out to Fort Popham, up Parker Head Road. But instead of going all the way to Phippsburg, I took a left on Sam Day Hill, a road I knew would connect me back to the main road. Not much of a hill, but the dirt makes it a little more difficult. Nice road, anyway.

That night, I perused a topo map and noticed Morse Mountain Road. It was only about 3-4 miles from the A-Frame, so I asked my father-in-law. He said the road was dirt and in pretty good condition, with even some paved sections. I went there on Sunday, only to be turned back by a guy at the gate. They apparently don’t really let people take cars up during the summer, and wouldn’t let me take my bike. The initial section is a nice easy gradient on nice smooth packed dirt, with a few rocks. Since we were staying until today (the day after labor day), I figured I could come back this morning after the entire state of Maine had packed up and left for the winter. I was right. I rode up the initial section, which was mostly the hard packed dirt, with a few sections of broken up pavement. That part only lasts maybe 1/4 mile, and then you dive back down and cross the tidal marsh. Stinky. The “pavement” here is nasty. It’s all egg-sized rocks, that seem to be neatly arranged like cobblestones. It felt like riding on cobblestones, too, except that the “cobblestones” had a nasty habit of kicking up and hitting my shins and my frame. Needless to say, I rode that section nice and slowly. Once you cross the tidal marsh, the real hill starts. The surface constantly changes the rest of the way up between dirt, rocks and extremely broken pavement. The pavement sections were actually the hardest to navigate. The hill is too short to be too difficult, but there are some really steep sections, and dealing with the transitions between the different surfaces were challenging.

Then there was the descent. 1/2 way down, I flatted. It was at this point that I realized the whole area was completely infested with mosquitoes. I didn’t really want to change my flat under those conditions, so I walked back to the road (~3/4 mile). Back at the road, I had to change the flat, even though there were still mosquitoes everywhere. It was at this point that I also realized that lycra does nothing to stop mosquitoes. Or that’s not quite true. It does stop you from noticing that a mosquito has landed and lets them suck with impunity. I changed the flat as quickly as possible, and went back home. I counted 21 bites, some of which were probably clusters of 4-5 bites, since they were about 1 inch in diameter.

For those who have ridden with me, this post is probably the biggest shock imaginable. I’ve been milking every ounce of life out of my pair of zens that I bought back in 1996. (To add to their nostalgia-factor, they were purchased at a little shop in Cesanatico, Italy…Marco Pantani’s home town.) When I returned to riding 2 years ago, the nose-guard was pretty gummy, and gradually deteriorated over the course of the next 2 months. Eventually I just took off the guard, and clipped off the two little tabs. I’ve been riding with them like that ever since. I wasn’t ideologically opposed to buying new glasses, I just could never decide on something I liked. All of the new Briko designs were pretty lame. (Nothing bug-eyed enough.) I was close to pulling the trigger on a pair of ekynoxes, but they just weren’t quite nice enough to convince me. I followed several ebay auctions for Zens and Stingers, but was unwilling to pay 100+ for a used pair of sunglasses. (In most cases they were going for well above what retail was.)

And then Briko released the X-peed. (A rather unfortunate name.) They seemed to be pretty much a new version of the Zens. So I set about to find out a bit more information about them, and to order myself a pair. This is when I realized that Briko has, for all intents and purposes, dropped off the cycling map. While their website prominently displays the glasses, there seem to be almost no retailers actually selling them, and no pros seem to wear them any more. (What happened to the glory days when Pantani, Bartoli and Cipolini were never seen in anything other than a nice set of Brikos.) The only place that seemed reputable was eyeshop.com, located in France. A google search for the glasses turns up just about nothing. Half the results are in Japanese, and all the images available are commercial pics. I was hoping to find a review or some indication that someone actually owned a pair of these things. Nothing. Now, most people would say, “hey, I should probably get something a little more tested and less obscure.” Not me. I bought them immediately thinking of the immense Euro-cache that I would get from having these almost-completely-unavailable-sunglasses. Plus, I figured this post would rocket to the top of google searches for information on X-peeds, so that’s a plus for publicizing this blog.

Now, for my reactions to the glasses. I opted for the X-peed Duo. The only difference between the Duo and the Solo is that the Duo comes with an extra pair of lenses. Figuring the obscurity of these glasses, coupled with the fact that Briko doesn’t distribute in the US, I just went ahead and got the extra lenses. I don’t feel like organizing my thoughts tonight, so here’s a bulleted list:

• Aesthetically, they are a little less bug-eyed and a little more “ski-mask,” but still look pretty nice, I think. (For those of you who aren’t as big a fan of the bug-eyed look as I am, they probably look better.)
• The fit is a little more snug, but possibly a little less comfortable. The part that goes over your ear (I can’t believe I can’t think what that is called…) curves in a bit more, so there’s a bit of a pressure point behind the ear. Those sections, unlike on the zens, are hard plastic, so that adds to the pressure. I’ll let you know if it becomes an annoyance after a long ride…right now it still seems pretty comfortable.
• the lenses are one solid piece, but there is a plastic bridge that runs behind the lens in the middle. I think it’s kind of a nice touch.
• The plastic looks a little cheap. Not horrible, but it kind of reminds me of the plastic you’d expect on sunglasses from a gas station. But they are noticeably lighter, so that might be a plus.
• Lenses. Mine came with a dark (grey-brown) and light (pinkish) lenses. The pinkish seem to be for low-light applications. (I really know nothing about optics, so take the rest of this with a grain of salt.) They seem crystal clear. Maybe my old ones were just getting too scratched up, but these look really nice. (Don’t ask me about “polarization” or anything like that. I have no idea.)
• peripheral vision is as good or better than the zens. (Which was always a strong point for the zens.)
• they ship with an extra nose-guard! So when the one on there disintegrates in 10 years, I can pop on a new one. I’m excited about that feature, since if the nose-guard hadn’t died on the zens I probably wouldn’t have bought these in the first place.
• It comes with a very nice case, which will hopefully keep them nicer longer.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for, here are some pictures:

Every time we did Mark’s Rhode Island Smack Down (RISD) ride, I hobbled home after only 35-40 miles feeling like I had just been put through the proverbial wringer. The funniest part was that every time, Mark would finish the ride with some sort of comment to the effect of “jeez, you guys were killing me” or “I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep up some of the time”…but every time, the rest of us just looked around and scratched our heads. The person who had been making all of us suffer the whole ride was Mark, and pretty much Mark alone. On one ride, I lamented the fact that we didn’t have the (then new) Versus work-load calculator that shows the percentage work being done by various members of a breakaway. On the RISD rides, our work-load monitor would have shown that Mark was doing 75%, with the remainder of the 25% being done by the rest of us, who were only barely surviving. Mark, however, never saw it that way and sacrificed himself for the good of the group and to give us all the beating we clearly needed.

Just back at the end of March, Mark sheepishly downplayed expectations as we turned onto Mount Tom. As soon as the ridiculous pitches started however, the other three of us watched Mark calmly ride away, seated the whole time, as if 25% gradients held no particular fear for him.

And why should should they have? He was, at the time, silently battling a recurrance of his brain cancer he had beaten a few years back. Just 2 weeks ago, he was still leading the RISD ride and still making the rest of us suffer (except me, sadly, because Tuesday night rides no longer fit in my schedule). Mark, you will be missed.

Here is Mark Greve’s announcement on the Refunds Now page, and here’s his obituary.

first collegiate race in 10 years. Either the B’s have gotten faster, or they’ve always been faster on the east coast, or I’m not as good as I was back then. Pretty embarassing in fact. oh well…the full report is at the new refunds now blog (which isn’t really fully cooked yet, so I probably shouldn’t be linking to it, but oh well…)

I went back to Mount Tom on Saturday, and this time I took some teammates to see it as well. For all that I tried to prepare them, I was the only one who opted for lower-than-standard gearing. Last time I had a 24 tooth little ring, with a 13-26 cassette on the Gazelle. This time I took the Circle A w/ the 13-29 cassette (and a compact crank), which meant I’d be using a much higher gear than I did last time (24-26 v. 34-29), but still much, much lower than some of the others. Mark had a compact w/ probably a 25 for the low gear. Aaron had 39-25 for his lowest, and Marcus made due with 39-23. After all that, I ended up finishing 3rd. Mark left us at the bottom and made us all pretty much look like chumps. He seems to have done the whole climb seated, to boot. Marcus and I were pretty even for most of the climb. He lost traction and had to unclip on the sand right at the bottom, and gradually caught up with me. Marcus, Aaron and I all stopped to catch our breath about 3 or 4 times. The last time, Marcus started up again before I felt able to, and made up the last little bit of advantage I had, then leaving me a bit before the top. Aaron finished not more than a minute behind me. Then we rode back to Hadley where our car was parked and down the other side of the CT river to Mount Holyoke. We did that one twice and I was fourth both times.

All in all, even though I definitely did better on Mount Tom than last time, I’m not really pleased with my form. I’m about 10 pounds heavier than I’d like to be, and last summer I was beating Marcus up most hills, and Aaron, who is a great time-trialist and not generally known for climbing, really shouldn’t be beating me up a hill like Mount Holyoke. Anyway, I at least managed to get some photos this time, although you still can’t see just how tough the gradient is in most of these:

(I need to get this off my chest, and this blog seems like a decent place to do it. It’s a little cycling related, since every time I ride, I have to ride on this street.)

I’ve slowly come to the realization that the street I live on, Pleasant Valley Pkwy, is the most ridiculous and f-ed up street in providence. And for those of you that live in providence, I’m sure you know what a bold claim that is.

Exhibit A: 2-way traffic on what should be a 1-way street

Pleasant Valley Pkwy (PVP) is a street divided by a little park and stream. It used to be one way on either side of that park. Google Maps still says that it is. However, there are clearly posted signs informing you that 2-way travel is, in fact permitted on either side of the park.

Exhibit B: Speed Limits

Technically, the speed limit on PVP is 15 mph. I have never seen someone drive that speed. I’ve never seen anyone (except maybe one or 2 people who were hopelessly lost – which happens easily around here) go less than 30. I once saw someone fly through the intersection of death (see below) at about 60, with a cop car stopped at the stop sign. needless to say he had more important things to do than to pull this guy over.

Exhibit C: Street Continuity

Providence drivers should be used to streets that stop and start inexplicably by now. A classic example would be Benevolent on the East Side. you’ll be walking down the street looking for a number, when the street dead-ends into a building. A Providence veteran will quickly realize that the street will probably pick up one block later on the other side of that building and walk around. It’s pretty easy to understand the logic of this, even if it creates headaches for anyone who hasn’t lived in Providence their whole lives. (It WOULD be the same street if that building weren’t there.) But PVP brings this concept to a whole new level. Peruse this map:

As you can see, PVP starts out as a large commecial highway, only to become Raymond one block later (which then becomes Oakland a block later). The block before it became PVP, it was De Pasquale, and the block before was Dean. So the same street has 4 different names in 4 blocks. Somewhat later, PVP begins again, but now has absolutely no relation (I can’t even see any kind of metaphysical relationship between the two halves of PVP) to the first section. They aren’t even going the same direction.

Exhibit D: The intersection of death

If that wasn’t enough to convince you that PVP is the stupidest street in Providence, this intersection should do the trick. Here’s a diagram:

Basically, all of the factors come to a head at this one intersection. PVP makes a hard right, but there is also a break in the park, w/ a stone bridge along the ends of the park sections. At this point, headed west on PVP, your options are to follow the road around to the right, cut across the bridge and turn onto the other side of PVP, cut across and continue on Justice St. All of those options are also open to people travelling west on the South side of the street. Coming east on Justice, you are also free to continue on either side of the parkway without yielding, or turn and head north on the northbound section of PVP. Surprisingly, I’ve only seen 2 accidents at this intersection. First, a car full of LaSalle Academy kids took the turn way too fast and smashed into a tree in the park, taking down the tree. Second, (I didn’t actually see this one), I returned from a few days out of town to find one of the sides of the stone bridge completely smashed to hell. I can only assume that accompanying car crash was quite a sight.

Since I’m not riding much these days, which has more to do with raising a 4-month-old child than the weather, I’ll put up a new hill to keep my blog from completely descending into darkness. I’ve never done this particular hill, and I don’t know if I will. It’s the big hill on Route 6 headed towards Providence. It’s the same geological ripple as Route 101 Westbound. It looks imposing, even in a car, so I’d expect it to be fairly difficult, but there’s just so much traffic on Route 6 there’s probably not much reason to actually ride it.