Evolution

Saturday Giro heading out

Evolution is driven by change in the environment, and enabled by the random "experiments of nature" that occur, by design, with each new generation. Most of them are abject failures or dead ends, of course. Bikes are kind of like that too. Some experiments, like 20mm clinchers and 650C wheels turn out to be dead ends, while others, like disc brakes and electronic shifting, survive just long enough to continue an evolutionary path that eventually absorbs and displaces their ancestors, as modern humans did with Neanderthals. If you get a new bike only once per decade, the leap from one generation to the next can feel pretty dramatic, like "should I go ahead and mate with this attractive Homo sapiens, or stick to my own kind?" More on that later...

Sunday Pass Christian Ride

Last week was another 300+ mile week for me, thanks mainly to slightly cooler mornings and the notable lack of recent rain that once again has salt water creeping up the bottom of the Mississippi in our direction. That mileage was despite a slightly shortened ride on Tuesday when I flatted somewhere out on the Lake Trail. 

As I did last week, I rode the regular Friendly and Fast Friday ride at the lakefront, and then hustled down to the river to meet up with the Tulane coffee ride group for some easy cool-down miles and a stop at the relatively new coffee shop on Maple Street - Shug's Bagels. It did not disappoint, except that there is only minimal outdoor seating, and what is there is directly in the morning sun. It'll be better when the weather is cooler, I think.

On Sunday we had a big group of Tulane riders making the trip over to Bay St. Louis for a 75 mile ride with a 55 mile option. I think we started with around 20 riders. This was more or less a shakedown ride for the Tulane riders planning on doing Six Gap or Three Gap next weekend. The Tulane riders' plan was to do a couple of longish threshold intervals during this ride, but as it turned out the pace was quite fast enough to make that entirely unnecessary. For some, I suspect most of the ride was pretty close to threshold. The timing with the short and long rides fortuitously turned out perfect, with both groups pretty much meeting up at the store stop, and again at the finish. I was taking short and relatively rare pulls on the front, already cognizant of my accumulated weekly mileage, but actually felt pretty good throughout, and arrived at the finish none the worse for wear despite the fact that the pace was definitely one notch faster than the usual BSL rides. I was glad to see that everyone planning on doing Six Gap next Sunday survived. I think we lost a few riders in the last ten miles when there was a sustained surge into the upper 20s, but that was to be expected under the circumstances.

Some assembly required

So a little over a week ago I made an uncharacteristic impulse decision and ordered a new bike that was on clearance sale. It's a 48 cm Cervelo Soloist with the 12 speed Ultegra group, which is kind of in the same place in the Cervelo road lineup as the Bianchi Sempre was in the Bianchi lineup. The last Cervelo I had was also an entirely new bike (a very rare thing for me), a Prodigy, that also represented a big jump from one generation of bikes to another. In that case I was going from a 6-speed friction shifting all-steel Cinelli that I'd been racing on for a decade, to a 9-speed Campi Ergo setup with a carbon fork. This time, I'll be going from a 50 cm 11-speed with Campagnolo stuff and rim brakes and 170 crank arms to a 48 cm 12-speed with Shimano Ultegra Di2 semi-wireless setup, hydraulic disc brakes, 165 crank arms, and frightenly wide carbon wheels with huge 28mm tires. For someone who  raced on 22 mm, 28 spoke 280 gram rims with 190 g tubulars, these wheels seem insanely wide and heavy, but this is where evolution seems to have taken us. Perhaps the added cushiness will be a welcome relief to my ageing back and neck without the collateral damage of getting me dropped out the back. Remains to be seen.

This changeover is going to take a little while. Electronic shifting is a whole new world for me, and I guess I'll be watching YouTube videos about it for a while and then still reaching for the missing thumb shifter. Even assembling the bike is going to take a little time, thanks to some of the usual short person challenges. I'm going to have to cut down the aero carbon seatpost since it hits the cutout part of the seat tube well before it's inserted far enough for my normal saddle height. I guess they provide the same length seatpost regardless of frame size. I think this seatpost is about as long as the entire seat tube. I will probably have to use a longer stem (it comes with an 80mm one) since I'm right at the top of the height range for this size frame. Getting the handlebars in the right place will have to wait until I have the seatpost sorted out, and since the battery is in the seatpost, getting the shifters set up will also have to wait. So all of that is now on hold until after Six Gap since I also need a pair of pedals, bottle cages, and a cutting guide that can handle the aero seatpost. Of course I could just eyeball the seatpost and cut it freehand, but I've always wanted to have a proper guide, and there is really no urgency.

Meanwhile, I need to get the trusty Bianchi Sempre, which has thus far logged 132,670.9 miles according to Strava, set up for Six Gap. That involves installing the Roadlink derailleur extender, and changing the cassette on my carbon wheels to the 12-32 that I reserve just for this ride. Neither of those are really recommended for this short cage derailleur, but the setup, if something of a kludge, served me well the past couple of years and should at least keep me from having to walk up the 12% segments!