(re)gluing tires

As some well known blogger (bsnyc) once wrote, you're not serious until you've started to use adhesive to mount your tires. It seems like everybody and their pet chihuahua is blogging these days about proper tire gluing technique. Its been a while since our last post and we here at team BT, after long deliberation at team meetings (the bar), have decided to prepare a tutorial for our ever faithful audience on how to properly mount a tubular (or power bottom). Now a few words of caution, team BT's interest in tire mounting as of late has come about by the early season cross races that have tested our gluing techinique more than the limits of our strength and endurance (nobody on the team even broke a sweat at nittany). So far the team is 2 for 3 in the last three races in how many times a team member has rolled a tire.

Discalimer: none of these were glued at the shop.

So when asking about mounting technique our ever verbose wellspring of knowledge Mikey Green had this to say:

I would, but I'm out of town.

Just make sure you apply several layers to each the rim and the tire using thin even coats. I've found the V.Mastik to dry rather quickly which makes it a bit difficult the control.. Here are some tips:

work in small sections. Apply a bead of glue between spoke holes and spread. Once you get the flow, work slightly larger sections.

Rim, rim, tire, tire. By the time you've glued each four components, the first glued will be dry enough to apply another layer. Aim for three coats on each tire and rim. Remember thin even coats covering entire base tape and edge to edge on the rim. It's easiest to inflate the tire to keep shape and bend it to a figure eight.

Once all layers are on and dry, apply a bead all the way around the rim and spread it quickly. This is the wet coat. Tire will be mounted almost immediately.

Take deep breath.

Get your tire and insert the valve stem. Stretch the tire and set it in the rim bed in 6 inch increments. Stretch evenly. By the tome you get to the final section it should snap on with a little thumb effort.

Now make sure it is straight using the base tape around the stem area as a reference. Spin it and adjust any high or low spots as needed. Inflate more and make micro adjustments.

You're done. Now do it again with the other wheel and grab a victory beer.

M.g.

Or you can take Jacks approach: "its arts and craft time, lets glue one thing to another, C'mon we learned this in grade school"

Kirkwood

We can all learn some lessons from the 4 race at Kirkwood this past weekend. For starters, if you want to block for a teammate on a breakaway, all you have to do is ride like 95% of the Tuesday night Drives Ride. Act like you just don't quite have what it takes to pull through to the front, but refuse to drop out of rotation. Andrew Satinsky nailed that act this weekend, allowing me to get enough of a gap on a two-man break that I thought we might be able to stay away.

Which brings us to lesson two: Know the guy next to you. If he makes you a little nervous, ignore it. It's a 4 race, for crying out loud. Everybody is a little shaky on race day. But if he makes you a lot nervous, trust your gut. He's probably going to half-wheel you down a hill and put you into the split-rail fence at the bottom. By the time we got bikes untangled and got rolling, the main field had us in their sights again, and the break was over. Time to sit up and get some rest before the inevitable bunch sprint, right?

Wrong. Lesson three: The punishment WILL fit the crime. Andrew was pretty harshly punished for his excellent teamwork, and got hung out to dry on the front of the pack for the better part of a lap. On a pretty windy day, no less. By the time we pulled on to the final straight, a mile long false flat into a steady headwind, our fate was sealed. I didn't have enough left in my legs to bring the pace up and string things out, so when I looked back at 1k to go and saw Andrew over my shoulder with the rest of the field spread 6-deep across both lanes just behind him, I knew our fate was sealed. God bless him for trying, though.

And after he went for it, and the pack engulfed us, and we chatted across the finish line into 22nd and 23rd places, there were a few LHLs in the trunk to take some of the sting out of bitter, bitter defeat.

We'll conclude today's exercise with lesson four: If you're going to lose, do it in good company. It also doesn't hurt to know that there's a bushel of steamed crabs waiting for you just a 15 mile ride away, to know that you're going to spend the evening breathing clean suburban air tinged with horse manure instead of whatever it is that fills the Delaware, and that in the morning you're going to ride home shoulder to shoulder with people you CAN trust not to edge you off the road.


















Oh, and smores. Smores help too.

Brownstown 2/3 Race Report...

Last weekend, Team BT was represented in both the 4 and 2/3 races at Brownstown. Ansel, Andy, Mike Mast and Brendan did the 4. Dan, Willem and I rounded out the squad for the 2/3. I’ll let the boys in the 4 race do their own race report.

It was really toasty when we lined up…somewhere north of 90 degrees. However, there was a steady breeze throughout the race that kept things from getting too hot and also made position in the pack very important.

The course was great…it was relatively flat, with a lot of turns and a super fun section with a loose chip road.

The Team BT plan was to sit in for a while and see how things went before trying to animate the race. Willem attacked a few times early and Dan kept things interesting as well, trying to bridge solo to an early break and then trying to get away later in the race. I hadn’t raced since Turkey Hill the first week of May, so my strategy was to sit in and see if I could seize an opportunity at the end.

As per usual, the break that stuck was one that we didn’t get into. 7 or 8 guys got away, with plenty of teammates in the field to block/chase down attacks, so with about two to go we were working on getting a good result in the field sprint.

For some reason, I lost track of which lap we were on…I thought the penultimate lap was the last one, and put in some good work moving myself up to 5th wheel. I sat on the wheel of everyone trying to get up the road, maintaining my position but definitely drawing the ire of some of my fellow racers. I buried myself keeping this position and readying myself for what I thought would be the final sprint.

With about a mile and a half to go, I heard a spectator call out “Great job, only one more to go!” My heart sank. While this wasn’t as dramatic as sprinting to “victory” on the penultimate lap and then realizing there was still one to go, I was pretty cooked and dropped back into the pack. I worked my way back up to the middle of the pack on the final lap, but couldn’t get any closer.

In the end, Dan factored into the field sprint, placing 13th overall (and 1st Cat 3!!!) . I wasn’t close enough to the front to bother with sprinting, so I rolled in at 29th overall, 10th Cat 3. Willem got gapped a little bit with 4 to go and ended up getting pulled.

All in all, a good day on the road and we celebrated in our usual fashion with beers immediately after the race. Even if the race doesn’t go exactly right for you, it’s always a good day when you finish with the rubber side down, drinking a Magic Hat in the parking lot.

Rapha Gentleman's Race - Cornwall, CT

Last weekend, Team BT was lucky enough to be invited to Rapha's East Coast Gentleman's race.

The course started in Litchfield, CT and went into MA and NY at points. ~115 miles, somewhere between 9000-12000 feet of climbing (depening on who was counting!), 40% gravel roads. You basically have teams of 6 and you all have to finish together. They stagger the start times of teams based on perceived team strength.

Our squad of gentlemen included myself, Gerald, Brendan and Mikey Green. Our good friends Joe Reynolds and Donny Green were nice enough to ride with us as ringers to round out our group. They ended up being awesome additions, riding strong all day.

BT ended up 3rd behind Eastman and Team Embrocation. However, we had the 2nd fastest time of a team that finished all six dudes. Jonathan Adler got 5 people finishing ahead of us, but were DQ'd for losing a guy.

I have never suffered on a bike they way that I did on Saturday. I had been in Wichita, KS for the past two weeks, riding nothing but flat, straight roads. I got back into Philly at midnight on Friday and was on the road for CT at 4:30am. Not a great start to what would end up being an insanely hard day.

The majority of the climbing was on two endless gravel hills...I'm not sure of the exact distance of each, but the first one took about 45 minutes to get up. 45 minutes of 8-15% grade on gravel. I'm talking going 7mph spinning a 60 cadence in my 39x26. I'm usually totally solid going uphill, but I did not have it this day. I was cramping by mile 40. I actually had to stop for a little bit going up the second big climb, and I'm not too proud to admit that Joe pushed me uphill on at least two separate occasions. These climbs were evil...they just kept going and going and going.

As a cruel joke, they sent us up one last insanely steep, shorter hill about 10 miles from the finish, aptly named Everest Hill road. I had to paperboy it going up. I hit some gravel on the side of the road, both my thighs cramped and I came to a complete stop and tipped over. A lot of the ride was being photographed by Rapha and I was very glad that they didn't catch that!

All of the parts of the ride that didn't suck were some of the best riding ever...I've never been up to that area before and it was beautiful. The roads were great and scenic there were a few long, fast descents with switchbacks that were amazing and so much fun to ride. If you asked me immediately after finishing if I would ever do that ride again, I would have said emphatically "fuck no", but by today I've forgotten how hard it was and how I can't wait to do it again next year!

Big thanks to the folks from Rapha, not only for putting on an awesome event and also for putting us up (not to mention putting up WITH us) for a few nights.

The ride was documented extensively by Rapha with photos and video, and I'll be sure to post links as soon as they hit the web. I apologize for the lack of details in this report, but I spent the entire 7.5 hours in the pain cave and my memories are pretty foggy.

Results:

1: The Eastmans (7hrs 43min)
2: Embrocation 6:40
3:Bicycle Therapy 7:25
4: HUP UNITED 8:15
5: Rapha Racing NYC 8:00
6: Rapha Continental 8:17
7: Geekhouse 9:23
8: Seven 9:38
9: Fifth Street Cross 9:45
10: Independent Fabrication 10:10
11: Bilenky 10:55 (all tandems)
12: Adler *Finished a man down 7:15
13: Pedro's *Finished a man down 7:30
14: BH/Garneu *Finished a man down 7:34

Race Report: Farmersville Road Race 2/3

Tough race on Saturday...8 laps of 6.6 miles...~54 miles total. It was pretty flat, with a lot of long straightaways and then a lot of sections with tight turns.

Out of ~70+ starters, I ended up 14th overall and 4th among Cat 3s.

I had a bad start off the line as well and i spent 6 of the 8 laps in the back 1/3 of the race. I was really hurting on the first couple of laps and wondering why I even do this. There were a bunch of turns and I was sprinting out of the saddle to catch back on after every turn. Seriously, the course was like a giant 9-corner crit.

Once we hit an hour in, you could tell that a lot of the really powerful crit dudes who usually only race for 60 minutes were slowing down. I was moving up little by little and the more I moved up, obviously the less work i was doing.

On the last lap I was moving up on the side just as an attack went off the front...in the confusion, the field strung out a little and cleared the road enough where I was able to catch on to the back of the attack, which put me at fifth wheel or so with 3 miles to go.

There was a United Health Group dude off the front who nobody was interested in chasing. There were a couple of fake attacks, but everybody was interested in racing for 2nd place it seemed.

I messed up a little bit responding to one of the fake attacks just before 1km to go and lost my solid position and ended up on the front. I stayed there a little too long and lost a couple of places when the next attack happened. I was able to catch a wheel going into the last turn, but I was now far enough back that I knew I wasn't going to have a chance to win the field sprint.

I picked a few dudes off on the finishing stretch, but I was kicking myself for losing my spot with 2k to go. I totally had a moment when I panicked and thought to myself 'what am I doing here, I don't belong here, these dudes are all 2s, how did I end up at the front?' and lost concentration long enough to end up in the wind a little too long...so I ended up sprinting for top 20 and not top 10.

Still, i'm psyched on the result. I feel like i've been just riding and not racing in races so far this season, and I was definitely racing at the end yesterday.

Andy picked up a 6th in the Cat 5 race...I'm sure he'll post a race report as well.

What was looming in the distance. Subtitle: Battenkill and it's aftermath. Pt. 1

When you sign up for a race with a five month wait til you're actually on the start line you tend to find yourself thinking about it a lot. It becomes a centerless and uncertain way of thinking and planning for an event . Questions start coming into play that challenge your best laid plans, never mind any actual tangible obstacles such as sickness or injury, those roadblocks swell to the level of the point of abject failures.
Of course, I write of the Tour of Battenkill. As many times I tell myself that the race is a paltry sixty-something mile ride the likes of I've done countless times prior in my riding habits, I think back to previous experiences I've had in the race or one of my team mates is there to co-conspire my tranquility with their own anxieties. The kicker is that this is an ongoing theme for five months. Five months. I am not a man born of complete consistency, nor do I have the desire or attention for too many things too far in the future. My way of going into this is to lay out a decent plan where I might be able to get a bit more caught up in one week following the next and so on until the last few weeks are in sight. When I get troubled or need a little reminder of what's to come, I tend to shift my thoughts to things more insignificant and palpable. One of my favorite reminders being equipment. Let's look at tires, will I want to change my saddle, will these bottle cages eject my belongings as soon as I hit the first dirt section? These thought remind me that the race is coming but give more footing as far as I feel like I am planning the right way more so than the physiological guessing that I can easily get wrapped up in. Will my legs work, am I overdoing this, do I go up hills decent enough?
It's easier for me to quell my team mates' concerns that it is to quiet my own. I tell them it's a not that crazy of a race. I know that it's not, but no one is too assured when I say it. Not even me.
Let's not get too involved in the lead up to the race, at least not the first four months. Suffice to say that I got on the bike a lot, both here in the frigid north east and in sunnier climes of Florida, I got out on some fantastic long rides, I made sure to hit up some dirt roads for good measure. I'll also spare you the details of getting sick and feel like there was never any way I was going to be in good enough shape to race. When you feel like everything you are doing is preparation for something, the sense of purpose in you has a way to exaggerate all fears to an ultimate finality.
With a month to go all nagging questions have to be stifled. Again I typically turn towards preparing equipment. The basement becomes a whirl of work, glue and grease. After riding through the thaw here much needs attention. Bottom brackets come out, get cleaned and re-installed. Oh good, that creaking is gone. Race wheels get pulled out from the bags and inspected, new tubulars get stretched and prepped. I search around all my parts and wonder why I have so many used cassettes lying around and if they'll work with my chain. Nope, they sure don't. Time to buy an new chain and cassette. (Do I throw out the used ones? No way. Damned if I know why I don't.)

The day to glue new tires is a fun one for me. I like the process, I truly do. The way I feel about it is like this: If I'm going to glue one set of wheels, I'd might as well glue a few more. The process becomes that much bigger and demands more efficiency. Total like. A team mate drops a set of wheels he wants glued and now I've got a party on my hands. On a nice day I like to do this outside on the patio. It looks like this:
A miniature service course. With all mechanic duties finished, the last part of the wait time is to be filled with travel arrangements, finding pretty much the entire accumulation of apparel and accessory you might have given the unpredictability of the weather up in the northern reaches of eastern New York, and the finishing touches of training to ready one's self for the upcoming task. That'll be part two. Soon.

Union Grove 2/3 Race Report....

After getting split from the main field in the crosswinds at the Philly Phlyer, I was down in the dumps. I finished the race, but off the back. I felt like I’d forgotten how to keep a wheel in front of me, and when I rode the Drives the following Tuesday, my fears were compounded when I kept letting gaps open in front of me and was having a tough time closing them back up.

I had a long, easy ride to NYC on my calendar for the weekend, but with Battenkill looming a mere 2.5 weeks away, I felt like I wanted to get some more racing in my legs.

I saw the Union Grove 2/3 race on BikeReg, and asked if anyone else wanted to get some racing in over the weekend. Willem signed up before I had even made up my mind to race and then Gerald was enlisted after some gentle arm-twisting.

For some reason, the idea of doing a 2/3 race terrified me. As a recently upgraded 3, I had cut my teeth on 4/5 and 4 races, doing only the occasional 3/4. Doing an elite race conjured up images of Dominique Rollin lapping the 1/2/3 field at Greentree in 2008 without breaking a sweat, or the Rite Aid boys dropping the hammer from the whistle at Lower Providence that same year, shedding 75% of the field in the first three laps.

The race was going to be 11 laps of a 4.6-mile circuit. We didn’t really talk strategy on the drive out to Amish country, we talked survival. We figured that we’d hang for as long as we could, and would consider it a success if we were still in the main field with 5 laps to go.

We got to the race, and there were two French-Canadian riders with international licenses signing in ahead of us. Their licenses said Cat 1 and their tan lies said that they had probably been doing a lot of training/racing someplace other than Montreal. They told the promoters that they were Cat 2 in the U.S. Willem shot me a knowing glance…we were outclassed. Totally fucked. We’d be lucky to make it through the first lap without getting spit out the back.

We lined up and tried to keep things light, chatting with a few friendlies from TriStateVelo about cross and drinking (Team BT’s two favorite subjects.) Looking around, lining up for a 2/3 race was a lot different than a lower category race. Now I know that looks can be deceiving on the starting line of an amateur bike race, but our starting group was a goober-free zone. There wasn’t a helmet mirror or hairy leg in sight. We took our position where we thought we belonged…towards the back.

The starting whistle blew and off we went. Of course it took me two tries to get clipped in. I looked up, expecting to see the field a half-mile down the road already. Nope, they were still there and I caught right on.

A funny thing happened as we started the second lap. I felt good. I was riding well and I felt comfortable within the group. The speed was high, but the race was smooth. It was a lot different than even the 3/4 races I’d done…everybody seemed comfortable riding really close to each other, nobody slammed their brakes going into turns and there was a lot less of the hot-headed in-race verbal instruction that is all too common in the lower categories.

The course was pretty fast…only a few corners and a few power climbs. Nothing really hard enough to cause a big selection, but enough technical sections to keep it from being a straight-up drag race. There were a couple of straightaways through wide-open farmland where positioning within the pack was key to avoid crosswinds.

As the race went on, I felt more and more comfortable and even moved up and spent some time up at the front. Gerald never met a break he didn’t want to try to get in, so he tried his hardest to get away, to no avail. As the “Laps to Go” sign ticked down, I kept waiting for someone to drop the hammer and outclass us and out us as the soft posers that we came into the race feeling like we were.

It never happened. I kept feeling better and better and started feeling more like I was racing than just trying to hang on.

I wish that I could conclude this report by saying that Willem and I formed a leadout train for Gerald on the last lap, putting him in perfect position for a sprint victory.

Unfortunately, this isn’t that kind of story.

A couple of guys stayed off the front to win. Another small group chasing those guys got in a few seconds before the main pack.

However, we all finished with the main pack. Gerald rolled in first at 17^th, I wasn’t far behind at 35^th and Willem ended up 54^th after getting caught behind a guy who broke his chain.

If you are a numbers person, it was a pretty unimpressive result for Team BT. Nobody in the money, and aside from a few of Gerald’s attacks, we didn’t really animate the race or try to play all of our cards.

However, considering the fact that we were hoping to simply survive half the race, we considered it a wild success, and we celebrated immediately afterward in true Team BT fashion with some cold Lion’s Head Lights and peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches.

We do this for fun, and any time you finish the race with the rubber side up in a better position than you thought possible, it’s time to celebrate.

Now on to Battenkill!