Monatsarchiv: Dezember 2007

thats what happened saturday night ..

• This is not just a cool bike. It is appropriate for everyday use and for racing. The vibration damping is a performance advantage on longer rides. Each frame is built to order and every frame is a unique. Tubes are selected for the weight of the rider. The geometry of the frame can be any of our usual geometries: Pro, Tri or Cross. Custom frames can also be made.
• Details. The bike is made from Bamboo that has been smoked and heat treated to prevent splitting. Lugs are available in carbon fiber or hemp fiber, for the all-natural look. The chainstays are available in carbon fiber for extra stiffness in the drivetrain.
• Finish. We coat the bamboo with Tung oil to seal it up.
• Awards. Calfee Bamboo bikes have won awards for Best Road Bike, Best Off-Road Bike and Peoples‘ Choice Award at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.
• A Calfee Bamboo bike won 1st place in the open class at the Great Western Bicycle Rally’s Concourse d’Elegance show.
• If there were an award for „Bicycle with lowest carbon footprint“ (least amount of carbon dioxide emissions in the production of the frame), this frame would win, hands down.

From Calfee Design

Later, I veered off the road to the Mendenhall Wetlands, a long mudflat at low tide, thinly blanketed in snow. This kind of terrain is difficult at best, impossible at worst, and I locked into the single-minded pursuit of staying upright amid shallow channels of water, snow-covered clumps of grass, sudden steep banks and pockets of sand so deep it felt as though someone had lassoed my back wheel and was trying to pull me backwards. The landscape was so barren and yet so intricately detailed. My goggles had long since become uselessly wet, and I squinted against the sharp snowflakes, focusing on abstract shapes through my blinking tunnel vision until I lost all concept of where the ground ended and my bike began. Then, suddenly, like a white explosion, a flock of seagulls erupted from the snow right in front of me. I jumped off my bike, completely startled, and paused a moment to let my heart rate slow as the birds swirled and tumbled and settled again on the snow.

From : Up in Alaska . This should give us some courage to ride out here in Japan in winter. There seems to be more worse weather conditions elsewhere in the world.

For this coming weekend, I’m planning to add & attack Togebaka No.4…a very obvious one: KAZAHARI (Honjuku up). Anyone joining?

Two more variations for Kazahari: KAZAHARI (Okutamako up) and KAZAHARI RINDO (with 18%)

Beautiful but cold er solo ride today — past Takao and Sagamiko on National Rte 20, then on Rte 76 ovto Doshimichi (Rte 413) and back home again – 413, then Kanagawa Rte 20 and along the Tamagawa again. I remember taking the same ride I took with Tom, Michael and David J. in February. The thermometer on a sign half way up the hill west of Takao read 2 degrees C. I pushed some on the hill and was shocked, up my return home to see that my time (7-11 to the view area just over the top, was faster than Tom and Michael last weekend! How long will this ‚record‘ stand? Nice view of Fuji today. The Cervelo responds instantly, climbs effortlessly, but is still very comfortable over bumps.

Anyone interested in some cold weather riding this weekend, Dec 15 or 16?
I’m 80-90% over a nasty cold, but have a late Friday night ahead — dinner and ni/sanjikai — so I don’t want to ride early Saturday. I could either start late on Saturday, or better yet, early-ish on Sunday. David L.

A reader recently sent in pictures of their dining room makeover. Let’s begin by looking at this rather conventional dining room:

And now, let’s take a look at the same dining room, after its recent makeover:

From the FAT CYCLIST blog.

Comment: I don’t want to make the obvious comment, which is to speculate on what would happen if I would do this to our living room. But still I wonder, if this living room make-over was initiated by „her“, what happened to „his“ dolls displayed before the make-over?

…just checked the „official“ Wada Hill Climb Time Trial results of 2007. Interestingly, 6 of the 10 top guys (with times ranging between 14:12 ~ 16:20 / and body weights less than 60kg -except one at 61kg) are using normal cranksets, i.e. 39×25. I am myself reverting to a normal crankset for the more serious rides and races. The compact crank has become too much of a treadmill (especially on the downhills) lately.

Dear all,

Before the mountain roads get icy and unsafe, how about squeezing in a few more toges before the year is out? As usual, I’ll be on the saddle both days this coming weekend. Could do half day or full day rides (flexible as usual) RdV Sekidobashi @ 8:30…

Cheers,

Tom

PS: added Togebaka No.2…Wada Toge (from the bus stop pole to the memorial stone facing the „witch house“)