11.5.2015 | 7:13 am
Right now I’m traveling with my twins to Michigan to ride the 100 Miles of Nowhere and talk at the Camp Kesem Leadership Summit. I’m excited.
Back in Provo, UT, however, there’s something I desperately wish I could see in person. Racer at Racer’s Cycle Service has been working on something kinda special for me: a new bike.
Yes, a new bike. My first cyclocross bike.
A Felt F FRDX frame, with ENVE M50 Fifty wheels, seatpost, bar, stem and computer mount, and SRAM Force 1 drivetrain and hydraulic disc brakes.
[Full Disclosure: SRAM and ENVE both provided products for this bike build]
It’s kinda killing me to not have been there for the build, but Racer’s been nice enough to have been sending me photos as he built it up.
Spoiler alert: it’s gorgeous beyond words. Which is why I’m going to show you a bunch of pictures, concluding with the actual finished bike.
When you see it, you will conclude — as I have — that this is a perfect bike, and is in fact way too nice for the likes of me (i.e., someone who has not up to this point ever owned a CX bike at all) to be riding. I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually been too good for a bike I’ve owned. Which is to say, every bike I’ve ever owned is capable of doing things I am completely incapable of.
Really, as a fairly pedestrian rider, I should be riding boring bikes.
But I don’t want to. I love beautiful, light bikes with amazing engineering. I don’t care if I never drive or own a Ferrari; I love that I often get to ride the bike equivalent, and can — by virtue of being pretty darned thrifty otherwise (my car is nine years old) —afford to ride bikes that are just mind-bendingly wonderful.
That said, this bike has taken this conceit to a completely new level.
Specifically, while I have never raced cyclocross (OK, once or twice more than a decade ago) and am terrified to even try it, I am now the owner of what I am pretty sure is the nicest cyclocross bike a person could own.
How will I use such a bike? Well, what a fine question. I’m glad you asked. Here are the uses I currently hope to put this super-dream bike to:
- CX Racing: This is the obvious one, but also the one I’m most afraid of. Which is to say, I am afraid that I’m gonna get hurt, due to the fact that of all the humans on this earth, I am the least flexible of all of us. I don’t even know the names of the tendons and ligaments I’m going to put in danger when trying to do a running re-mount of a bike, but I’m sure I’ll learn, once I’m in the emergency room.
- Crusher in the Tushar: I love this race (and promise I will finish my writeup of the 2015 version soon). So far, every year I’ve raced it has been on a mountain bike, and every year I’ve watched people just blow by me. For 2016, I hope to set a new PR on what I lovingly refer to as “Fred X.”
- Cedar City Fire Road 100K: The Hammer and I raced this Leadville 100 qualifier last year, and I expect we’re gonna race it again in 2016, primarily with the objective of me acting as a domestique for The Hammer (and Lindsey and Ben if they want to join the train). I will be working to get her (or them) into a Silver Corral upgrade. I think it’s entirely do-able, and will be an important part of helping The Hammer get a solo sub-9 at Leadville.
- Local Riding: There are a lot of dirt roads in the mountains close to where I live, and they look like they could make for some extraordinary riding. To date I don’t really know them that well. For 2016, I think that ought to change.
- A Gravel Grinder? I’ve never ridden a gravel grinder race like the DK200, but let’s face it: there’s a pretty good chance that this may be the most perfectly-suited kind of racing there is for a guy like me. Big miles, not highly-technical. Sounds like me all right. The only reason I haven’t signed up for the DK200 is that it coincides with the Rockwell Relay…and you all know how I feel about Rockwell.
- Road Riding: My beloved Tarmac S-Works SL4 is hardly a four-season bike. Fred X should be good for taking out onto the Winter and Spring roads.
Now, with all that said, allow me to invite you on a little show and tell of the Fred X bike build.
First, The Frame
Behold the Felt F FRDX.
This happens to be one of the lightest carbon CX frames you can buy (and it’s available only as a frame, which is exactly what I wanted), but that’s not the reason I bought it (OK, it might be part of the reason). I own a Felt 9 FRD, built using the same Felt “Textreme” carbon layup tech, and I just love the way that frame feels. Oh, and I dig the checkerboard appearance:
ENVE…Mmmmmmm
Anywhere I can put ENVE on a bike, I do. It’s just that good. Yes, it’s incredibly light, but that’s not the reason why (OK, it might be part of the reason). It’s just full-on bombproof, looks amazing, and feels perfect.
Here’s an interesting little factoid: I have ENVE wheels on six bikes right now (four of which are actually mine). Two of the wheelsets have been on those bikes (the Tarmac and my Stumpy Singlespeed) for three full seasons of riding.
None of the ENVE wheels have ever gone out of true. Ever. At all. Even once. None of the rims have ever had any problems whatsoever, in fact. And I’m not the kind of rider who has one set of wheels for training and another for racing. I use the same ENVE wheels all the time. They just stay strong, true, dependable, and beautiful.
As far as I’m concerned, ENVE makes the best, most beautiful, most reliable wheels in the world. Yep, I’m going with all those superlatives.
So. Check out the wheelset I have for Fred X:
These are M50 Fifties. They’re the same wheels I have on my Felt 9 FRD and the Cannondale F-Si. So yeah, I guess you could say I’m a fan of these wheels.
Why these instead of a tubular wheel? Because I’m a big fan of tubeless, and tubulars are impractical for rides like the Crusher…where I’ve seen more than one person out of the race because their tubulars weren’t up to the terrain challenge.
And don’t worry…I think you’ll see that these wheels didn’t exactly make the bike excessively heavy or anything. More on that later.
I did do one thing kind of new on this wheelset, though. I asked Felt to give me the Pantone colors for the red and blue accents on the frame, and then gave that info to ENVE, which created a custom version of the ENVE decals to beautifully match the frame:
And they didn’t do it just because I’m a much-beloved, award-winning blogger, either. It turns out this is an upgrade ($100) ENVE has available for anyone who wants their already-gorgeous wheels to match their frames to a whole new degree.
More ENVE
Fred X isn’t just rolling with ENVE wheels, though. Here’s the stem (100mm, JFYI):
And then the bars (I went with 44cm, which is wider than I’d go for a road bike, for extra row-ability). And I even added the ENVE computer mount, just to maximize the ENVE-ness of this incredibike.
And from another angle, just because I have it:
And it goes well with Chipotle burritos:
Use the Force
With the new Star Wars movie coming out soon, there’s no way I’m the only one talking about SRAM’s Force 1drivetrain in terms of Jedi-ness, is there?
No matter. The fact is, SRAM’s 1X drivetrains are just killing it.
A lot of people have asked me why I haven’t been riding single speeds lately. SRAM 1X drivetrains are why. They have a quiet, direct feel that is similar to singlespeeds…but you can shift. Reliably, beautifully, every time.
Ooohhhh…it’s all starting to come together:
And you’d be able to see exactly how much of a believer I am in 1x shifting if you went into my garage, where there are currently no fewer than six mountain bikes with SRAM 1x shifting.
Going with SRAM Force 1 for Fred X was an easy choice.
How’s It Look?
By the time it all came together, this is what Fred X looks like:
Oh my. I believe that Fred X is the most beautiful bike I have ever owned.
And here’s how much it weighs:
It’ll be closer to 17lbs by the time I add pedals.
And How Does It Ride?
Here’s the thing: I haven’t ridden this bike. It’s all finished and ready to go…and I’m flying to Michigan.
I feel this problem acutely.
You can bet I’ll be taking this bike out really soon. Too-good-for-me-ness notwithstanding.
Comments (20)
11.3.2015 | 8:16 am
Had I time to write
Endlessly
I would
That would, perchance
Be more than you would want
To read
Alas!
My problem runs
In the other direction
I find myself swamped
Utterly
Do not cry!
Wipe your tears
Away
For I have many cool things
Which I will post about
Anon
For now
Just let me say
That this Thursday
I am flying to
Michigan
In the company of my twins
Where we will be congregating
At the Camp Kesem
Leadership Summit
There, accompanied by Bill
(Who is certifiably insane)
And some friends of his
I shall ride 100 Miles
Of Nowhere
And talk to kids there
About How to Raise Money
For Good Causes
Huzzah
I shall have more to say
About this
In the near future
Perforce
But today!
Before I go and do
My day job
Which is currently also
Kind of bleeding into my personal time
(As day jobs sometimes do)
I want to show you
A few images
About which
I am pretty
Excited
First, I am
Pleased to say
That trail-building in my neighborhood
Continues apace
And betimes astonishes me
With the money and time
Invested into said trails.
Consider!
This lovely bridge
Connects Corner Canyon
Which is already wonderful
To Bonneville Shoreline Trail
A glorious Vision!
Now being realized
Within riding distance
From home
But wait!
There’s more:
Here the Hammer poses
Making the new 100MoN jersey
Look fantastic
She is standing in front
Of a tunnel
Newly hewn through rock
In this selfsame
Bonneville Shoreline Trail
I tell you
This is some good stuff
And it’s all close
To home
And finally
Please take a look
At these several images
(and one video)
Images which no doubt
Have portent of new adventures
And dangers
In store:
I suspect
I shall have more
To say and show
On this matter
Quite soon.
Thank you.
Comments (17)
11.2.2015 | 11:09 am
A Note from Fatty: Carlos is pretty much a Superfriend of Fatty. And of everyone else he meets. He’s just like that. He’s also the kind of guy who gets things done.
Specifically, he recently orchestrated a $50,000 donation to World Bicycle Relief. I find his attitude and willingness to think big and execute really inspiring, so I asked him to write up how he did this, to share on the blog.
$50,000 Brass Ring
In the middle of my trip home from a long conference week in Las Vegas, I stopped in JFK airport in New York City for my connecting flight to Boston. Five hours on a plane is plenty of time to miss important stuff at work, so I quickly loaded the corporate mail app on my phone.
The first e-mail read, “Hi Carlos, YEF is extremely pleased to inform you that World Bicycle Relief has been recommended to receive a YEF Impact Grant of $50,000!”.
Wait.
What?
$50,000!!!
That’s a lot of money.
If you know me, you’ll very easily imagine that I didn’t care who was looking and started dancing for joy in the middle of a very busy terminal.
How It Happened
But let’s rewind a bit. How did this grant come to be? Last year, I found out that Yahoo (my employer) had a fund called the Yahoo Employee Fund (YEF for short). The company describes it thusly:
Founded by Yahoo employees in 1999 with leadership from David Filo and Jerry Yang, the Yahoo Employee Foundation is a grassroots, philanthropic organization that gives Yahoo employees easy and accessible ways to give back to their communities. YEF is funded through employee donations – many of which are matched by Yahoo itself. Employees are then eligible to champion grants for organizations they believe in for groups of representative Yahoo employees to vote on.
TL;DR: employees ante into the pot and then they decide which charitable foundations end up getting the money. There are millions of dollars in said pot and several rounds of funding each year.
Anyways, I found out about this fund and a lightbulb went off. I immediately set up my paycheck to auto-donate a portion of my earnings and I found the paperwork to start applying for grants for WBR.
World Bicycle Relief has been near and dear to my heart since Elden introduced us to them a few years ago. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to donate a few bikes a year since. And even more luckily, I was a winner in one of Elden’s famous “Grand Slams” and ride an Ibis Ripley now because of it!
After looking at the paperwork, the first round of funding we were eligible for was $1,000. I reached out to the amazing and wonderful Katie Bolling of WBR and let her know we had this opportunity. Katie and I filled out the paperwork and applied. It was really as simple as that.
A few weeks later, we were notified we were approved for a $1,000 grant! I can’t express how low-hassle both YEF and WBR made this application process. All I had to do was explain why WBR deserved the grant and talk about how much I love the organization – two seriously easy things for me.
We went through one more $1,000 grant cycle successfully before it was time to apply for the big kahuna: a $50,000 Impact Grant. I got back in touch with Katie Bolling and Tricia Puskar at WBR.
The big difference this time was the even more extensive research the YEF board does into how the funds will be used and the impact that usage will have. After a few weeks of putting the necessary information together and one very close call with the deadline, we were fully submitted for consideration. Now it was time to wait. This was July of 2015.
Big Day
Back to October and my return from Las Vegas. We got approved. Pure elation was running through my body. Four long months of waiting were over, and we had been selected. Doing my happy dance in the airport looking like a total buffoon.
Doing the math in my head I realized that we’d be able to put more than 250 bikes in the field in Kenya. That’s 250+ students with better attendance, better grades, healthier lives, and more time in their day to do the things they need to do. Thousands of lives changed. I was/am just a little proud that we got this crazy grant approved.
Not So Crazy
Reflecting on the process though, I realized it wasn’t that crazy. The hardest part of it was the waiting. It made me think about how many friends of WBR work for awesome companies like Yahoo. How many people have at least a donation matching program with their empolyer?
My bet is that there are a lot of you out there.
PS: If you’re on Twitter, think about tweeting @YahooEF and @Yahoo your thoughts on the grant. I think they deserve a huge pat on the back!
Comments (18)
10.30.2015 | 10:56 am
A Halloween-Related Note from Fatty: Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope you all plan to eat as many Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups as I do. Although, come to think of it, that may not actually be possible, since I plan to eat 50.1% of all Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups that exist in the universe.
Those of you who have seen me in action know exactly how serious I am here.
Speaking of serious things and Halloween, I’d like to show you a couple of pictures of my twins, in the costumes they’re wearing to school today for Halloween.
First, Katie. She is going as Dean Winchester, from Supernatural.
I’ve never seen the show, but I’ve googled it, and she did a pretty darned good job.
Meanwhile, Carrie is went with something a little more Halloween-traditional: a zombie.
Killed it. (Literally?)
Big thanks to my eldest son’s girlfriend, who does stage makeup and got up at 5am today to set the twins up before school.
A Hundred Miles of Nowhere Note from Fatty: I’m really excited to start the tradition of weekly 100 Miles of Nowhere race reports. And while many of you will be doing the 100 MoN next weekend, Jim Tolar has already done his.
As a result, he wins the “First Report Completed” prize, and we all get to read about how he’s set up the 100MoN as an amazing friends-and-family tradition with a big extra helping of fundraising.
Enjoy!
I completed my sixth 100MoN last Saturday, October 24th. It coincided with, as it does every year, our 100 Miles to Nowhere (Dobson Ranch Edition) bike ride, so I had plenty of company.
“Why is your event called 100MtN when the real event is 100MoN?” I can imagine you asking.
Good imaginary question.
Way back when Fatty started the 100MoN and I joined up, I thought it would be fun to get my family and friends to make a day of it and all ride bikes and eat brats and raise money. So, we did, and we had a blast. All the kids and grandkids had fun and it became clear it would be an annual event for us too.
And it has been.
“But what about the name?” I imagine you asking again.
Oh yeah, the name. Turns out, I made a mistake when I first organized the family event and called it “100 Miles to Nowhere (Dobson Ranch Edition)” instead of “100 Miles of Nowhere (Dobson Ranch Edition)”. All the kids and grandkids and friends learned it as 100MtN, so that has stuck. What are ya gonna do?
So, every year I sign up for the 100MoN and we put on the 100MtN. By signing up, I help raise money for Camp Kasem. The participants of the 100MtN then help raise money for our charity, the Cardon Children’s Medical Center Pediatric Oncology program.
We have historically held the 100MtN sometime in the late Spring because our Phoenix weather gets hot early and stays hot long. This year we switched things up and held it in October and it was fantastic. We’ll probably switch to the Fall for a while and see how it goes.
Our course is flat (7.5 feet of total elevation change) and fast (unless you’re slow, in which case it’s flat and slow).
We had around 40 participants this year, and raised around $3500 for the Pediatric Oncology progam!
There were many notable participants. First and foremost among them was my Mom, Jean Tolar, who has pretty much retired the age-group distance record for the 100MtN, completing 25 miles at 87 years young. She is also the 65+ distance record holder with 40+ miles (set last year). But next year I’ll take that record from her…
Out of the 40 or so riders, we had two 100MtN Centurians this year, both repeat Centurians and both completing their third 100MtN Century.
Three-time 100MtN Centurian, Russ Trotter:
Three-time 100MtN Centurian, Jim Tolar:
Each year we solicit names for our Honor Board, a list of people for whom we ride in support of, or in memory of. Here is this year’s Honor Board.
You might imagine it takes a big support crew to run an event of this magnitude, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Here they are:
And finally, here is a collage showing many of the other participants that make our 100MtN (Dobson Ranch Edition) the success it always is:
You can see all the photos and reports from this year and previous years on our Facebook page.
Comments (14)
10.29.2015 | 12:20 pm
A Note from Fatty: This is part 3 in my “Sometimes you’re the windshield; sometimes you’re the bug” series. Click here for part 1 or here for part 2.
From time to time, I think about what I write for my blog, and how the posts you read can vary wildly depending on a lot of factors. What time during the day I wrote it, how the day’s been going, how well I slept the night before, things I’ve been thinking of, what I’ve been reading lately, and a lot of things I’m not writing here (as well as some I probably haven’t even considered).
Take yesterday’s post, for example. It was pretty serious, especially toward the end. I would imagine that a lot of that has to do with the fact that I’m spending a lot of mental cycles on the short story I’m writing for Ride 3, and that story is both serious and difficult to write.
So: no big surprise that my blog post was a little more contemplative than it might otherwise have been, in spite of the fact that during the ride itself, I actually had a lot of fun. People were really great about accommodating me when I passed. A lot of people recognized and said “hi” to me. The trail was in great condition and was a lot of fun to ride.
Look, check me out in this photo The Hammer took as I finished the ride.
See, I’m happy. It’s a really rare ride when I’m not happy, due to the fact that I enjoy riding bicycles.
I know: weird.
Today’s post, in contrast, will still be somber in tone, with a tendency to lead toward the whiny. This, however, is not because I am still working on my short story (even though I am).
It’s because I had miserable run.
No, Please, Let’s Continue Chatting
The range of emotions I feel when doing a Triathalong — any triathalong, whether an Xterra, a half-iron distance or that one ironman I did a long time ago —is pretty remarkable.
Before the swim, I feel pure dread, because pretty much the only two times in my life I’ve ever experienced pure panic are during Triathalong swims.
As I transition to the bike, I feel giddy with excitement: I’m about to do the one part of this race I’m good at! And that feeling is compounded by the fact that I know a lot of the people who are good swimmers (and therefore start the bike portion of the race well ahead of me) are as bad at riding as I am at swimming, which means I will shortly be startling a lot of people.
And then, as I transition to the run, I feel resignation. The good part of the race is now over, and now I have to plod along for what will seem like forever, moving in a vastly inferior way: running is a small fraction as fast as cycling, but hurts an order of magnitude more.
Now that I think about it, I really wish they’d change the order of events in Triathalongs, so that the final event is cycling.
Anyways, as you might expect, I finished the ride with a heavy heart. I was slower than I had hoped to be, and now would be having to do the 10K run, which I had prepared for the whole summer by never running at all.
As I came into the corral, the announcer to the race — standing in the corral with a mic in his hand, saw me and recognized me.
“It’s Fatty, of fatcyclist.com! How are you enjoying the race, Fatty?” he called out.
I didn’t reply because I had a job to do, and I didn’t want to waste any time talking.
No, just kidding. I was absolutely happy to talk. I walked over and said, “I really love this course, and am just amazed at how well-run this event is.”
“Thanks Fatty!” he replied, then turned away and continued talking about something else, leaving me a little bit sad, because I had hoped the interview would go on for twenty minutes or so.
Hey, I’d have made the time.
How to Make Your Husband Feel Slow
I haven’t talked much about The Hammer in my writeup for this race, but she’s to thank for all the photos, as well as for setting my stuff up in the best possible place at the second transition.
Here I am in a photo she took, changing shoes. Sitting. Taking the time necessary to tie them really well.
Yeah, I’m super fast in the transitions.
And here’s a photo she took as I was heading out of the transition area.
I included that photo because it’s pretty much the only one she got of me actually running. Because pretty soon, I looked a lot more like this:
La di da. No hurry.
But wait a second. How is it The Hammer got the photo above?
Or, for that matter, this one below (where I’m going downhill, so am actually running again), in a completely different place?
In order for you to know this, you need to know a little about The Hammer’s day.
See, after I took off on the bike portion of the race, The Hammer went on a nice little seven-mile trail run on trails by the reservoir.
Then she drove up to the ski resort, where she took pictures of me as I finished the bike ride.
And then…she asked if I would like her to join me as I did my run.
You know, for company.
And of course I said yes.
Weirdly, she had a big bag along with her — containing clothes, sunscreen, water, camera, snacks, phone, a rubik’s cube, and other miscellaneous stuff she hadn’t had time to put in the car and so thought she would just bring along.
Weird.
We began running and soon got to the really big climb that the 10K begins with. The Hammer slowed to a fast-paced march and said, “Don’t worry about me, you can keep running.”
I slowed to a march.
“You can keep running!” she encouraged me. “You don’t have to slow down on my account.”
“I’m not slowing down on your account,” I said.
Complain, Complain
Eventually, I would start running again.
Then, within moments, I would stop running, and start walking.
Then I’d start running again, and then start walking.
The Hammer, to her credit, never gave me any grief for my inability to run for more than a quarter mile at a time, and was happy to chat with everyone who was passing me.
And there were a lot of people passing me.
I began to complain. Mostly about how stupid I felt, being so slow and having so many people pass me. And about how embarrassing it was, having to slow to a walk, when she could clearly have run the whole thing, even carryng the big grocery bag full of stuff. Even after having already run seven miles.
I complained that doing this race had been a bad idea, that I had no business doing this race this year. That I was an embarassment to myself.
And as I complained, I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have had The Hammer come running with me. Not because of anything she was doing, but because with her there, I had an outlet for my frustrations — I had someone to listen to me grapple with my weakness.
And somehow, by saying the things I was thinking out loud, I had legitimized them. Made them more real, somehow.
By saying, “I just can’t do this” out loud, to a sympathetic ear, I had convinced myself — nearly — that I couldn’t go on.
How to Make Your Husband Feel Really Slow
Which is not to say that I quit. Really, I’m not sure how I could have quit at that point. It’s not like a car was going to come pick me up, and walking down was pretty much what I was doing anyway.
So I trudged along, running from time to time just to see if I could.
And then The Hammer got a phone call.
“Oh, hi!” she said. “No, I’m not really doing much right now, just walking with my husband on the 10K of his Xterra. Sure I have time to talk!”
Picture, if you can, my extreme joy at doing this race alongside my wife as she carries a gargantuan grocery bag and talks away on the phone.
And I’m still barely able to keep up with her.
Big Finish
On a day when you are not at your finest, the Ogden Xterra has one really wonderful saving grace: it has a downhill finish.
It’s a race you can finish at a run, even if you haven’t been running.
Why am I sprinting here? Because I’ve just discovered a man is trying to pass me in the final stretch of the race, and for some reason I did not want someone to pass me at the finish line.
And when he saw I was sprinting, he took up the chase in earnest, even saying, “Oh no you don’t” as he drew close
I’m pleased to announce that when put to the test, I was able to deny Mr. Willis the satisfaction of being pretty much the ten zillionth person of the day to pass me:
I then got a photo of me with The Hammer:
And we were outta there. I felt no particular urgency to wait around and find out if I’d made the podium (I hadn’t; I’d taken fifth in my age group…and would have taken fifth in the 50-54 age group, too).
“Promise me,” I said, on the way home, “That you will never let me do a race I am so unprepared for, ever again.”
And really, that was the big lesson of this race. Racing matters to me not so much because I love to be at races, but because I like to get ready for races: I love training with purpose.
In this case, I had instead just shown up at the race without having done the work to do well.
I’m serious about this never happening again. I either race prepared, or I don’t race at all.
Hint: I plan to come back to the 2016 Ogden Xterra. And I plan to be prepared.
Comments (17)
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