Brentani’s Cycling Blog

In the 10 years since I bought my Gazelle (pronounced gha-zel-uh), there are a lot of new options. The biggest change (or at least the one that has given me the most sleepless nights) is the arrival of the compact crank. When I first heard the murmurings about the compact, I assumed it was something for climbing, or mountain stages of the tour, but quickly realized people where proposing it as a all around solution. My current bike has the standard 53-39, 12-23 (8 speed), so I figured, I would add the two extra gears to the bottom, since I’ve never felt under-geared in a 53-12. But then comes the compact. A compact (50-34) with 11-25 would give me the same high gear as (slightly higher than) the 53-12, and three extra low gears over my current setup. The bigger jump between chainrings (and the smaller big ring) means that you’re likely to stay in the big ring longer, which seems advantageous in race situations. It also means there is less overlap between the big and little ring. What really sold me is that you can swap out chainrings and put a 52-38 on a compact and have almost a traditional setup. The only problem there is that, with campy, there are different front derailleurs for 14 and 16 tooth jumps. But 52-36 would be a nice setup as well, since it would mean less overlap and still give you the high end. (You’d just have to move the the front derailleur up a bit–Chris is pretty certain that he can put the braze on bracket for the derailleur in a position that will accomodate both positions…otherwise I’d have to use a clamp-on, but those don’t look as nice.) After long discussions with my go-to cycling advice friends, Khalid and Seth, I’ve decided to take the plunge.

About a month ago I made my down-payment for a brand new custom Circle A bike. Circle A is a local independent frame builder right here in Providence. I know what (some of you) are saying: a steel bike? for hill-climbing? are you nuts? Well, yes, I probably am. Some of my teammates have been trying to persuade me that a Ridley Carbon frame would be the way to go. But I just can’t do it. I need a bike that I can admire while I’m sitting at a cafe after a ride. And no disrespect to carbon frames out there (well maybe a little disrespect), but carbon frames are ugly, and so is that damn carbon weave. It isn’t so bad as an accent, but I think it looks horrible as the color for the whole frame. And the weight savings won’t be that drastic when you consider the weight difference as a percentage of the total built frame.

this is roughly color scheme I want (when I showed my friend Seth this picture his exact words were, “I don’t know about carbon, steel, hell make it out of hay if it is going to have that paint job! That is a good looking bike.”):

but instead of the beige, substitute the light blue from this frame:

and here is roughly the mock-up of what I want (and also a fine example of my piss-poor photoshop skills). notice the lettering and rear triangle in grey, and the fork (below the lug section) in blue.

sadly, I just discovered that Greylock will be closed for the next 2 years while they repave. should be a nice ride once they do. But if this is a “Massachusetts” 2-year road project, I may not see the new Greylock in my lifetime. oh well.

http://www.northeastcycling.com/Mtn_Climbs.html (see the red alert down in the in the description for Greylock)

look back soon for a post about my new Circle A climbing rig. (It’s on order, so I won’t have it until next season…)

Radu and I left Providence at about 9 this morning and drove up to Wachusett. We parked in the ski-lift parking lot and headed north (blissfully ignorant of the fact we had a nice tailwind) and rode through Fitchburg and up time trial route. The Fitchburg Time trial is not terribly steep, but it does go on for quite a while, and I think I’m glad I don’t have to time trial it. Anyway, after that we headed back. We had about 40 miles in our legs when we finally hit the slopes of Wachusett. I was hoping to be a bit fresher, as the headwind took a bit out of my legs on the way down. I watched Radu gradually inch away from me on the first part of the climb–which turned out to be the steepest and the hardest. By the time we turned into the state reservation, I was having some doubts about whether I’d make it (I had been struggling to turn over my 39-23, and was starting to feel light-headed). Thankfully, after a couple more steep sections, I was able to recover a bit and kept Radu in my sights for most of the ride. He pulled away some more towards the top, and beat me by about 40 seconds. Unfortunately, we forgot to time our ride up the hill. Next stop, Greylock.

Greylock will be postponed yet again. Radu needs to go up to Fitchburg to check out his course, and while it is close enough to be on the way to drop him off, ride Greylock, and come back, it seems like more of a hassle than its worth, especially considering that I wanted to do Wachusett at some point this summer anyway. Climb seems to be of moderate difficulty–roughly 5 miles, with some sustained steep sections. I’m working on a program to generate gradient maps for climbs, in conjunction with veloroutes, but its not quite ready to post yet. But you will get so see some of the output below. The first way up Wachusset:

http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=1707

and there you have a gradient map for Wachusett 1. the alternate rout up:

http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=1708

as you can see, I still have some problems with the program when it dips below the starting point. I thought I had sorted that out, but I guess not.

the third most difficult climb in the area, to date:

http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=1654

there seems to be a problem with their calculation of altitude at veloroutes. If you look at the “max” elevation (357.1) and subtract the “min” elevation (157.3) that gives you a total elevation of 199.8 feet, and a gradient of 7.6 percent (which seems about right). So I don’t know where they come up with the “total elevation gain” of 345 (which would yield an average gradient of 13, which seems way too high). I also forgot to write down the max gradient, but I think it said 16%.

I took this chance to play around a bit with it. I tried Whipple 4 times in a row with different spacing between the plots. With a frequency of about every 100 feet I came up with a maximum of 13%. Every 50 feet gave me 17%.

http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=1653

Surprisingly enough, this one had a max gradient of 19%, which also seems a little high. but it is a tough little hill.

average gradient 7.6 percent

http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=1652

I think I may switch to veloroutes. it gives you much better information as you’re putting it in. most of it does not appear to be saved. But since it does give you the elvation gain, and the total distance, it is fairly easy to compute the average gradient (in this case 184.6 vertical gain divided by 1463.08 feet distance = 12.6%) Additionally, it displays (but doesn’t save) the maximum gradient and the gradient between each point as you put them in. Shockingly, the maximum gradient that showed up for this climb was 26%. Sweet jesus that’s steep, assuming it’s correct.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1070577

here’s Jenckes road in Providence, which seems to be the steepest hill in the area. It starts from Main St, then up star, and a brief jog on benefit–which is flat, before turning onto Jenckes. H.P. Lovecraft apparently lived on this street. I read somewhere that the gradient was a maximum of about 12, but from my experience (riding on 17-21% hills in Belgium like the Koppenberg) I would judge Jenckes to be a maximum of at least 17%. Based on the elevation information on the maps, it looks like this gains 177.2 feet over .28 miles, producing an average gradient of 12%. if you remove the .03 miles on Benefit, you get 14% for an average gradient. It is pretty consistent, but I would guess that there’s a higher maximum in there somewhere.

I’m hoping to get access to some code for one of these gmaps sites so that I can figure out how to make a better representation of gradient. the one on gmaps is not so nice. And it should be possible to get the average gradient between each point on the map, so you could have much more data to look at.

here’s the ride I’m doing tomorrow:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1069356