10.20.2009 | 11:23 am
Believe it or not, today — up until Midnight (MDT) tonight — is the last day you have to enter the “Win An Ibis, Take it Anywhere You Want, and Ride it With Andy Hampsten, Chuck Ibis, and Fatty” Contest.
Just in case you have forgotten, here is what you win with this contest:
- You get a bike. But not just any bike. An Ibis bike. And not one we pick out for you. You get to decide which one suits your fancy best: a Mojo SL? A Tranny? The Hakkalügi? Or a Silk SL? Really, you can’t go wrong.
- You get to take it for a ride. Where would be a great place to take that new bike for a ride? Think about it long and hard. Cuz we’re going to send you there.
- You get to ride your bike with two famous people, and one beloved, award-winning, Internet cycling blog celebrity (me): Andy Hampsten and Chuck Ibis are going to go riding with you at your awesome place. Seriously. Andy. Freaking. Hampsten. And I’m coming too, because Chuck is awesome and because I want to meet Andy, too. And because I love you.
So, that’s not a half-bad prize, is it? No sir, it is not. Especially considering the fact that even if you don’t win, your donation is still doing a heckuva lotta good. Specifically, it’s going straight to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, to help them bring the fight to cancer.
But guess what? Just to help those of you who are on the fence about donating get off the fence, today we’re going to throw in a couple of last minute prizes (and for those of you who already donated, don’t worry: if you win, you still definitely get these prizes).
First off, you’ll get this Tour of California jersey, which is signed by Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, and Bob Roll.
I’ve been holding on to this jersey for a long time (since the Tour of California), waiting for the right moment to give it away. And the last day of the last big contest seems like a good moment.
And, as if that weren’t enough, you’re going to get one more thing:
Yes, that’s right. The winner of this contest gets a pair of Oakley LiveStrong JAWBONEs. Now, I have a pair of these, myself. And I don’t mind saying that they are, bar none, the best cycling glasses I have ever owned. Changing out the lenses takes seconds. The glasses fit so comfortably. And they look good, even on a doofus:
So, you know what I think you should do? I think you should read the contest details here, then click here to go enter.
Thanks.
And Now for a Little Bit About the Ibis Silk SL
You know, this isn’t the first time we’ve given an Ibis bike away. Last year, we had a similar contest, and Friend of Fatty Matt Kreger won it.
Well, he’s had that bike for a year now, and it’s looking darned good:
Along with this photo, Matt emailed me, saying, “As it sits, this bike weighs under 15 pounds. I love my Ibis Silk SL.
And let me add my own two cents. I also have an Ibis Silk SL — currently being built up as a 13-pound SS Road Climber’s Delight project — and I love mine too.
This is a great bike. A really great bike. Which leads us to Chuck Ibis’s final installment in…
The Great Bike and Ride Pairing Miniseries
It’s time to talk about the wine country.
One of the things I’ve been lucky enough to do is spend a lot of time riding in the great cycling regions of the world and in particular Mediterranean Europe: Spain, Italy, France and Switzerland. Even luckier, I get to guide for Andy Hampsten’s touring company based in Tuscany, where he’s found some of the best roads on the planet. Here’s an example (Courtesy of our friend Arnaud).
Not only do Andy and and I have hairy legs in common, we both share a love for riding in Sonoma County, where I live. It’s also where another pro you might have heard of lives, named Levi Leipheimer. The point is, these guys ride all over the world in the best places, and one of their favorites (enough so that Levi lives here and Andy rides here and leads tours here) is Sonoma.
Here’s a picture of me riding my Silk SL out on King Ridge road on this year’s GranFondo route.
The “King” of rides around here is called King Ridge road. That’s only the tip of the iceberg as far as our choices go. Years ago we made a water bottle celebrating our favorite rides in the area.
That’s right, the Safeway pony is one of them.
Raffle Winner, if you choose any of these rides, prepare to smile. And for the rest of you, you might want to save this graphic. If you ever need a ride guide for Sonoma County (and over into Napa) this will serve you well.
After the winner’s glorious ride in Sonoma, maybe a trip down to San Francisco (an hour south) will be in order.
You could do worse!
PS From Fatty: This contest is seriously the best I can do. The last big contest of the year. The grand finale. I’m maxed out here. Exhausted, really. And you’re fighting cancer when you enter. So, one last time: Click here to enter,
And I hope you win.
Comments (26)
10.19.2009 | 7:31 am
A Note from Fatty: Believe it or not, tomorrow is the last day you have in the “Win An Ibis, Take it Anywhere You Want, and Ride it With Andy Hampsten, Chuck Ibis, and Fatty” Contest. If you haven’t entered yet, read the contest details here, then click here to go enter. Don’t delay! Operators are standing by (except they’re not really).
And now, Part III of “The Great Bike and Trail Pairing” miniseries, written and photographed by Chuck Ibis himself.
The Southwest is for Mojos
So far we’ve had a pair of pairings of idea bike and ride locations, mere suggestions for the winner of our contest. Maybe our winner can do us one better?
Today I’m thinking about a much broader geographical area, that of the great Southwest…
…and the Ibis Mojo.
Think about Moab, Zion, Fruita, Thunder Mountain and more.
This one is about as obvious a pair as salt and pepper. Give the Mojo what you want as far as trail obstacles…rocks, ledges, jumps, lions tigers and bears…and oh my it will take what you can dish out.
It’s almost too wonderful to take in. Yeah, I mean both the view and the bike.
But here’s the thing. If you don’t enter, you won’t win. You won’t win the Ibis of your choice, with a ride in a place of your choosing, along with Andy Hampsten, Fatty and me, unless you go and donate to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Do it here. Do it now.
(And now, back to the scheduled post of the day)
What I’m Going to Say In Austin
This week, I’m going to be in Austin for the LiveStrong Challenge and Ride for the Roses. And at some point, the Lance Armstrong Foundation is going to reward everyone who’s worked so hard to raise so much money in this fight against cancer by…having me stand up and talk to them.
That hardly seems fair, does it? I mean, after all these people have done, you’d think the LAF would instead hire a troupe of singing monkeys or interpretive dancers to entertain these good folk.
But having a blogger talk to them? Ew.
But the thing is, I do have something that’s been on my mind. It’s short, but it’s what I’ve been thinking.
Here it is. Or at least, here’s how much I’ve gotten so far.
Fatty’s Austin LiveStrong Speech
Lance Armstrong and I have some very interesting similarities. For example:
- We both like bicycles, and have been known to ride them from time to time.
- We both like the Tour de France, and have been known to participate in it from time to time (I consider viewing an important form of participation).
- We both like the Leadville 100, and have each completed it a dozen times. What? He’s only done it twice? Well, at least we both do it on rigid singlespeeds. What? He races on a full-suspension bike? With gears? Well, where’s the challenge in that?
- We both have earned a measure of Internet celebrity by writing about Lance Armstrong.
- We are both within 3 years of turning 40. ‘Course, My three years is in the opposite direction, but still.
There are some much more serious similarities between Lance and me, though. We’ve both been hit hard and personally by cancer. Lance fought it himself; I fought it alongside my wife. And it changed and focused both Lance and me.
I think Lance would agree that during your own battle, you are — rightly — focused on yourself and your own treatment. When you’re fighting cancer, you’ve got to marshal all your energy — and the energy of anyone who is willing to stand with you — and engage the battle.
Eventually, one way or another, everyone’s personal battle with cancer ends. Lance’s ended with a cure and restoration to health.
Susan’s and my battle ended with her passing away last Summer.
And this brings up another important way Lance and I are similar. Somewhere along the way, we’ve each realized that the fight against cancer is far too ugly, far too awful, and far too painful to treat as simply personal.
At some point, we’ve each decided that we’ve got to do something to help other people in the fight.
Now, there are a couple of other interesting ways Lance and I are similar. We’re each the dad of four kids. Two boys, and two girls.
That’s perhaps not so very unusual, but this part is: my girls are twins, and are just about three weeks older than Lance’s girls, who are also twins.
And when I think about breast cancer and what it did to my wife, and the way it did the same thing to a grandmother I never knew, and how cancer has affected an almost ridiculous number of people in my family — my wife, my grandmother, my father, my sister, my stepmother, my stepfather — and then I think about my girls.
We’ve got to find more and better ways of treating this. Of detecting. Of someday curing it or better yet preventing it.
Because that’s another way Lance and I — and most everyone else — is the same. We’ve almost all been affected by cancer. And the horrible thing is, we’re all probably going to be affected by it again, sometime in our lifetimes.
So we’ve got to do something. For those close to us now, and for those who we don’t even know right now.
Which is And that’s why I’m proud to help raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. I’ve seen, firsthand, the sense of purpose — of mission — in the people here. From Lance to Doug Ulman to Colleen O’Farrell to AnneMarie Rickes to Ron Kolenic to Chris Brewer to many, many others.
These are people who care about this fight as much as I do. And I’ve seen them care about it on a personal level and on a global scale.
I think the fight against cancer always starts as a personal battle. But for me — and for Team Fatty and for Lance and for the Lance Armstrong Foundation — it’s grown way, way beyond that. The fight doesn’t end with your own battle against cancer. It doesn’t end at all. It just gets bigger.
And it never stops being personal.
Comments (56)
10.17.2009 | 9:00 am
A Note from Fatty: You don’t have much time left in the “Win any Ibis, Take it Anywhere You Want, And Ride it With Andy Hampsten, Chuck Ibis, and Fatty” contest. Details are here, and you can go enter the contest by clicking here.
I’ve asked Scot Nicol — AKA Chuck Ibis — to describe which bikes he’d take to what places. This is Part II in “The Great Bike and Trail Pairing” miniseries.
The Almost Unbearable Lightness of Being…On a Hakkalügi in Sonoma County
Being from the wine country in California, I am constantly hearing about parings. Furthering our pairing discussion of yesterday, here’s a wine country pairing suggestion for our future contest winner: Get a Hakkalügi…
…and ride it in Sonoma County.
I know that the “Lugi” is technically sold as a ‘cross’ bike, but it’s unlikely that our winner will want to waste a chance to ride with “the legend of the Gavia” in the form of a 45 minute cross race.
So I have a better idea. Let’s go on an “Adventure Bike” ride, right here in my backyard, an hour north of the Golden Gate Bridge.
This ride will be as tasty as PB&J (another great pairing) and as unlikely as vanilla ice cream in root beer (I think I’m salivating). And it might be more memorable than either.
Our “adventure” rides extend the variety of riding we normally do by allowing us to weave in long stretches of dirt…
…in the middle of a nice road ride.
Bonus: no cars on the dirt.
The photos you see above are from a 72 mile stint we did that was about 2/3 pavement and 1/3 dirt. Lots of scenery. One Pacific Ocean. One Highway One (briefly).
Yeah, you could do worse than choosing the a Hakkalügi / Sonoma County pairing.
There’s just one problem. You can’t win this bike or go on this ride with Andy Hampsten, Fatty and me unless you enter the contest. Which you should do. Right now. Click here, already.
Comments (20)
10.16.2009 | 9:17 am
A Note from Fatty: The “Win any Ibis, Take it Anywhere You Want, And Ride it With Andy Hampsten, Chuck Ibis, and Fatty” contest is in full swing. Details are here, and you can go enter the contest by clicking here.
I’ve asked Scot Nicol — AKA Chuck Ibis — to describe which bikes he’d take to what places. This will take the form of a mini-series, titled….
The Great Bike and Trail Pairing Mini Series
The winner of this fantastic contest will have a legitimate shot at creating one of the great pairings in history. Done right, it could a be more talked about match than John and Yoko and Bacall and Bogey combined.
It could replace all those fond (and to some, kinky) memories of Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima, not to mention Lucy and Ricky.
Could it be a strong enough choice to permanently erase Cheese Whiz and Crackers from one’s cranium?
What we’re talking about of course is which Ibis the winner chooses, and what place the winner decides to go ride said bike.
Today we begin a 4 part dissection of what could be…should our winner be up to the task.
Big Wood and a Tranny
Up in the wilds of Idaho there’s a thing called the Big Wood River. It winds through the town of Ketchum, a place most people generically call “Sun Valley.” I’ve had the great fortune to live in this Wood River Valley, and learned a lot about the trails up there.
An astute winner would seriously consider Sun Valley as the chosen spot for our rendezvous, and a doubly astute reader would take possession of a Tranny, perhaps even of the single speed variety.
They say you can access nearly one thousand miles of singletrack from the greater Sun Valley area. That’s enough for at least two or three days of exploring. On top of that, much of it is smooth like buttah.
Depending on one’s mood or level of fitness, there are rides consisting of easy middle ring climbs, or you could choose high altitude lung-busters.
Consider the White Clouds, up in the Stanley basin above Sun Valley. Our intrepid Tranny Single Speeder Seanny Boy rode his rig up to Castle Peak in the White Clouds recently and filed this photo:
Along with the photo he filed following report: “Chillin’ at 10,000’.”
Brief and too the point, Sean, thank you, we like your style. This same bike is up in Bend Oregon this weekend, doing the Big Fat Tour. You could certainly add Bend to your list, but I don’t think it carries the weight of an Antony and Cleopatra type of pairing.
Here are a few more shots to whet your appetite for some time in the Wood River Valley.
There’s just one problem. You can’t win this bike or go on this ride with Andy Hampsten, Fatty and me unless you enter the contest. Which you should do. Right now. Click here, already.
And now, back to our regularly-scheduled blog post….
Wherein I Try Running Again, In Spite of My Better Judgement
Usually, I don’t write on Fridays, because Friday is the day I dedicate to eating pie, and I don’t like anything else to interfere with that activity.
But I knew that people would be interested in my experience with running. Or at least I like to imagine that you’re interested. In fact, I like to imagine that you’re so interested in my run that to tell the truth you had a rough time thinking about anything else. It made conversation difficult and infiltrated your dreams.
So here’s how it went.
Wherein I Negotiate a Major Concession
My problems with the run started well before the run itself, and manifested themselves in the form of a paucity of correct clothing. This is a weird situation for me, because I can ride every day for three weeks without washing a single item of clothing. Although the neighbors begin to complain when I do this.
Anyway, it turns out that my running shoes are about four years old. It took a while to find them, since I haven’t used them since moving into this house. I found some shorts — you know you’re a cyclist when shorts without a chamois feel wrong — and used a Melanzana Power Dry Shortsleeve as my running shirt. Somehow, wearing something made and purchased in Leadville was comforting.
We’d be running on trail — thank goodness — so I showed up at this runner’s house, expecting we’d drive the mile and a half to the trailhead and begin there.
But she planned to run there.
“You need to understand,” I said, without even a trace of petulance in my voice, “that if we start here and run to the trailhead, I may be finished for the day when we get there.”
I am confident she did not roll her eyes. Though it may have looked that way.
So we drove. I passively-aggressively played Meat Puppets (“Open Wide” and “Another Moon,” both from Forbidden Places, both of which I love and both of which I’m pretty sure nobody else in the world loves) on the stereo, and did not make eye contact.
This Is Not So Bad
I got out of the BikeMobile, which I imagine was feeling very confused to be at a trailhead parking lot without a single bike in the bed.
I expected there would be stretching and warming up, and began to formulate my plan as to how I would pretend like I knew how to stretch and warm up. But then she just started running.
I knew I needed to either feign an injury right then or follow. Panicking, I couldn’t think of a suitable injury, so I ran.
Or, more accurately, I sort of did a fast shuffle-walk, while moving my arms as if I were a speed walker. On me, this looks very athletic and graceful.
The trail was briefly level, during which time I could tell I was in serious trouble as the runner became a speck on the horizon.
But then, something unexpected and good happened: the trail turned up.
And I like climbing.
For whatever reason, running uphill felt like I was using my cycling legs, at least to a degree. Maybe the smaller steps you take when you’re going uphill, combined with the quad-focused effort of moving your body up the hill uses close enough to the same motion as cycling that I was able to get into a reasonable facsimile of a climbing groove.
So within a minute or so, I caught up.
It’s possible this occurred merely because she let me.
Regardless, a weird thing had happened: I had begun to enjoy myself. I’m going to come right out and say it: I like running uphill, on dirt.
Tactical Error
And then, I did a foolish thing: I opened my mouth. “This isn’t so bad,” I said.
“You want to go faster?” she replied.
In my head, I answered, “No, I want to lay down and start planning out what kinds of pie I’ll be eating tomorrow.”
Out loud, I said, “Up to you. I’m maybe at 30% right now.” WHICH WAS A JOKE.
“You’re at 30%?” she replied.
“Maybe 28%, but I figured I’d round up for your benefit,” I (very very stupidly) answered.
And so she turned it on. Which, when I think about it, was the only possible response.
And it left me with a choice. Chase? Or start walking?
I chased.
New Cease Fire Terms
Something that the last season of cycling has taught me is exactly where my breaking point is. I am now very well acquainted with when my body is right at the edge of what it can do, and when it’s going to crack.
So I went up to that edge and did my level best to keep up, and more or less managed to do so.
“Do I need to say ‘uncle’ or something?” I whined.
“You just need to say, ‘Alpha female, please please please slow down,’” she replied, not sounding particularly winded.
Now, I may not have mentioned this before, but I have a certain amount of pride. And just a hint of stubbornness. So I quoted Westley from Princess Bride.
“Death first.”
Which, as the run continued, increasingly seemed like a legitimate possibility.
Capitulation
It will always be a source of pride to me that I managed to keep the runner in sight as we ran this trail. Enough of a source of pride, in fact, that I never ever ever intend to find out if I managed this because I could, or because she let me.
Cuz it would kind of kill the drama of the event to find out that she had simply gone from one level of not trying to another level of not trying, except now perhaps not trying a little bit less.
Anyway, the trail emptied out onto a paved downhill road.
At which point, it took all of ten seconds for me to loudly beg, “Alpha female, please please please slow down.”
On pavement, downhill, I felt incredibly ungainly. There was no rhythm whatsoever to my steps. I felt like I was landing flat on my feet, with the impact going clear up into my skull.
Grace has never been my strong suit. Here, however, I was a thrashing, flailing, bumbling wreck.
“I feel like I’m pedaling squares,” I said.
“You shouldn’t feel like you’re pedaling at all,” she replied, not unreasonably.
Eventually, the pavement turned onto a dirt road that goes along a canal and back toward our starting point.
I must have looked on the pathetic side of pathetic, because several times she said, “If you need to walk, just say.”
“Death first,” I said again, but this time it wasn’t so much a proclamation of defiance as an actual statement of intent.
My “running” wasn’t much faster than walking, anyway. If any.
Eventually, we got close to the start point. She picked up the pace. I responded by failing to pick up the pace. She sprinted. I had no sprint.
She finished strong. I finished, full stop.
Sometimes, that’s enough.
PS: Today, I hurt. Quads and shins, mostly. But not as badly as I expected to. And I do intend to start running a couple times per week. For bone density, and because I simply cannot stand the thought of another winter riding the rollers, Every. Single. Day.
Comments (67)
10.15.2009 | 8:17 am
A Note from Fatty About the Current Contest: Monday, I promised that today i would reveal who the mystery rider will be in the “Pick an Ibis, (Nearly) Any Ibis” contest. You know, the one where you could win an Ibis Silk SL, a Mojo, a Tranny, or a Hakkalugi, then choose a place where you’d like to ride it, and then meet Chuck Ibis, a mystery rider, and me for a ride there.
But really, in terms of sheer awesomeness, the part I did not reveal was the part that goes to 11. But let’s start with a hint. Here’s his legs (in the background of this photo by Arnaud Bachelard, Chuck is politely asking the dog to stop biting his knee):
What, you still don’t know who it is?
OK, maybe this will help:
Yes, that’s right. If you win this contest, you will get to ride with Andy Freaking Hampsten. The winner of the 1988 Giro d’Italia. And two-time winner of the Tour de Suisse. And now the owner of Cinghiale Cycling Tours.
He’s a legend. An honest-to-goodness cycling icon. And good guy.
And you can ride with him (and you will note that I have cleverly arranged so that no matter who else wins, I will get to ride with him too) if you win this contest.
And then there’s the not-minor fact that you could be doing this ride with Andy Hampsten on your new Silk SL:
Though Andy’s totally happy to ride dirt or a combination of road and dirt with you instead, if that’s your thing.
On Monday, when I leaked to Mark (I’m terrible at secret keeping) that it’s Andy who will be the mystery rider, Mark said, “The coolness factor of this contest just doubled.” I believe that is probably true for anyone who really loves cycling.
Of course, if you read BikeRadar, you’ll notice they somehow found out about Andy Hampsten (from Mark, perhaps?) and published it yesterday. Since this leak directed all kinds of traffic toward the contest, I’m all for it.
So, those of you who have been on the fence about this contest (though frankly I don’t know why you would be on the fence about this contest), go enter now.
And now, on to today’s actual post.
I Am Not Sorry. (Sorry!) Really, I’m Not Sorry. (So Sorry.)
I am sometimes reluctant to take people new to cycling on rides with me. No, not because they’re new and will slow me down. I expect that. That doesn’t bother me at all.
But it clearly bothers them a lot.
Most people — neighbors, friends, family — I take out on rides spend between 30% and 90% of their talking time apologizing for slowing me down, making me wait, and in general not magically being as good of a cyclist as I am, even though I’ve been doing this for close to two decades and it’s their first time out since puberty.
“It’s totally fine,” I will usually begin.
“I’m riding with you for the company, not to race, so don’t worry about it,” I will later say.
“Seriously, I’m having fun. Stop worrying,” I will plea, eventually.
“OK, one more ’sorry’ from you and I’m slashing your tires,” is generally my final tactic for trying to stop the apologies. Which causes nervous laughter, mainly because I can — at will — summon a gleam of madness to my eyes. Next time you see me, ask me to do it. It’s an awesome party trick.
For the longest time, I have had a hard time understanding why people will continue to apologize, when I’ve made it clear that I don’t need — or want — an apology?
But now I understand. Because I’m scheduled to go running with someone — a strong runner, someone who regularly runs marathons — today (I’ve got this notion that next season I might do some Xterra races).
And I find myself apologizing already.
I find that I am saying the exact same things to this runner that my non-cycling friends and neighbors say to me when we ride.
I say, “I’m really going to hold you back.”
And, “I hope you already got a workout in today, because you won’t get one when we run.”
And, “I won’t so much be running as moving my arms as if I were running, while I actually shuffle lamely.”
Please note, I have said all these things before the running has even started.
So I’ve been gazing introspectively and deeply into my soul, asking myself the age-old question: “What is wrong with me?” After all, I know this runner knows I am not a runner. I know she knows I will be slow. I know this will be an easy, no-effort outing for her, after which she will almost certainly go get her real run for the day in.
And yet.
I think, though, I now get why new cyclists apologize to me when we ride. It’s for the same reason I’m — against my will — preparing a lengthy list of apologies to use.
It’s because, secretly, in my heart of hearts, I hope to hear, in response to my apology, “Well, you know, actually you’re a natural. I wasn’t going to say anything because I didn’t want to swell your head, but you are pushing me. I am absolutely at my limit, and am starting to cramp up. I honestly do not believe I can hold the blistering pace you are setting.”
And so on.
Which is a useful thing to know, really. So the next time I ride with someone new, I’m going to wait for that first apology, and then say, “I can’t believe you are apologizing! You are doing great! Seriously, you used to ride competitively, right?”
And, in the off chance that the runner I’m about to be crushed by reads this, I’d appreciate it if you’d memorize either or both of the above quotes and use them as appropriate.
Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
PS: Sorry I’m going to be so slow!
Comments (66)
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