On Slush

On Thursday November 20 2008 I rode to work. Nothing unusual so far I confess, but on the 19th it snowed, starting in the late afternoon and continued unabated for several hours. At the time the Coppi had no fenders and was still running an ancient friction down tube shift with a six speed free wheel. About the only thing, besides the frame, that I have not changed since then were the pedals that Jeff (from Rochester) and I attached on November 14.

By the time I got to the office, I was covered in slush and mud, head to toe. (The slush was so bad I still remember the date it happened, I did not even need to look it up.) More than a year later I rode that Coppi to work again on December 9, 2009 and like that awful November 20, December 9 had a major snowfall the night before. Only this time the snow turned to sleet by the time I got out the door. Thank goodness for fenders, I got wet but at least the wet was clean precipitation not mud kicked up by the back wheel.

Now despite the fenders this ride was no bed of roses, there was so much slush that it got into my cassette (the advantages of the modern ten speed cassette) and gummed everything up. The slush was so bad I could feel the chain slide over the sprockets with only the most modest power transfer to the hub, if I did torque things up the chain would just slide right over the gears. On the other hand drivers were, for the most part, more respectful. I think the realization that anyone who would bike in this weather is someone worthy of respect, or more likely someone insane enough to bike in this weather is not the sort of guy you want to annoy, whatever the reason drivers were modestly better. Still the ones that cut into my lane and soaked me by kicking up a huge puddle, well couldn't they wait until they had clearly passed me before going right?

At least riding in slush is not nearly as bad as it used to be. Even better, I am still hammering out the miles outside when the roads are dry. On December 12 I went for a ride, I ended up doing 80km in an unimpressive 3 hours (GPS, which auto pauses at under 4.8km/h, i.e. when I am about to stop for a light, said I averaged 27 km/h.) Of course my speed was limited by the hypothermia I got on the way home and the brutal head wind on the way out.

In other news, Trek has published the new Team Radio Shack bikes. Oh my god! There are several artists, and a clothing designer who have no taste whatsoever. Of course since the great and mighty Lance will be riding with The Shack bet your knickers we are about to get saturation coverage of those sinfully ugly Madone-6s all over Versus. I like team CSC/Saxo-Bank, not only because they are decent guys, but they have the good taste, sense, to keep things subdued.

Now I will grant the SRAM Red levers and deraileurs are, to my thinking a lot better than the Shimano Dura-Ace, but the drive train itself, well I guess if SRAM is sponsoring Lance & Co, then Lance better be happy with a pure Red groupo.

Here are some images so you can see, I haven't lost my mind, which is more than I can say for Mike Pfalzgraff (Trek's Design Director).