Duopage with Jeff

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Metin's Black Friday Populaire

Happy Thanksgiving

Today started with a fun snafu. A few minutes after rolling out with John and Mitch at 4am, I discovered I couldn't shift up on my cassette. I pulled over to diagnose the issue and discovered my right shifter was dead. Great. Probably the shifter got left in a depressed state leaning against a wall overnight and now needed a new CR2032 battery. This is such a dumb failure mode. It's way too easy to happen, and it's happened enough to other people that it's disappointing SRAM hasn't solved it. Idea 1: time out and turn off after 30 seconds of continuous shifting. Idea 2: sell a shifter cover to place on the shifter while the bike isn't use that prevents the shifter from getting pressed. Idea 3: add a locking piece to the shifter that prevents the shifter from being used. Come on SRAM, you can do better. I think Di2 has the same issue.

The person who was most likely to have a spare CR2032 rolled past me 10 seconds after I had stopped. I headed back to the breakfast area to see if any of the volunteers or riders there had one of these batteries. No dice. I'd have to make it 100k to the first control and see if I could pick one up there.

Now well behind my rollout group, I tried to catch up using an effectively 2-speed bike. I could shift the rear derailleur manually but it required dismounting and generally would sacrifice more time than it saved. Apart from the lightly rolling terrain, the roads were straight as an arrow for miles, and I could see a collection of tail lights way in the distance. I timed the gap between us by waiting for the lights to disappear whenever they'd crest a hill and find the difference once I got there. This group was tired, and I knew I'd easily make up time on the ascents. On the downhills I had to spin like a hamster to avoid falling further behind. Eventually I caught up and found that one of the riders did in fact have a spare CR2032. Unfortunately none of our multi-tools had a small enough Philips head screwdriver in order to remove the battery cover in the shifter. SRAM, why do you make life so difficult? Looks like I'd be going that full 100k regardless, this time with the objective of picking up a screwdriver.

I split off from my group at the base of Rabbit Ears Pass since with my coarse gearing it would be awful trying to match anyone's climbing pace. Russ Dorobek caught up to me at the top, and then we caught up to Byron Welch just before the long steep descent into Steamboat Springs. A construction crew had closed off one of the lanes on the descent, and there was a fresh layer of loose gravel for the entire descent. Eventually a pilot car led the 3 of us down, and a train of cars followed us. This was a sorta sketchy descent. We followed the pilot car at 35-40 MPH, and while most of the descent was not technical at all, the layer of fine gravel made me hesitant to take the curves at speed. But we did. Byron got a frightening speed wobble at one point but recovered nicely. To my knowledge all the other riders made it down fine too.

The gas station at Steamboat Springs didn't sell a small enough screwdriver, nor CR2032 batteries so that I could return the one I was given. Fortunately Ian Hands arrived before long and had the one multi-tool on the ride with just the right tool. Byron helped hold the shifter hood back while I removed the plate, and after I paired everything again, I finally had my 22-speed bike back. Yay!

I regrouped with Russ at Yampa and we later met up with Ian at the Kremmling grocery store control. Ian was concerned about an approaching storm front. While deciding what to do, the storm caught up to us, complete with lightning and thunder, and it immediately dumped a volley of hail. Jason and Metin had joined us at the control, and Metin advised waiting out the storm. We waited for a while, but eventually we decided we'd probably get wet no matter what, and hey, let's ride the tailwind on this storm that's headed the same direction as us! Ian, Russ, Jason, and myself set off into the cold storm and enjoyed a massive tailwind as our reward. Poor Metin probably lost the better part of an hour of sleep with his wise decision. :(

I got flat tire #4 of the ride once the storm subsided, but it was a quicker fix with company this time.

Later during a rushed and windy clothing change, I couldn't figure out how clothing worked. Vests typically have 4 openings: left arm, right arm, torso, and head. When worn properly, all 4 openings will generally be utilized. In this case I managed to get my right arm and my head through the same opening, and I didn't notice until we all started rolling. I rode like that until whenever it was the group needed to stop again later on. A good while.

On the way back I played "How far away do you think that landmark is?" and then added silly variations to try to mess with Russ. We got back to Walden with daylight to spare, which was a very favorable result.

Bonus video of Russ interacting with some cows: https://youtu.be/uuU35BzLYHQ

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Duopage with Jeff

1337 p4g3 m1llz

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Metin's Black Friday Populaire

Happy Thanksgiving

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