I'm riding a lot lately. I'm seriously anxious about being a quality ride-leader for the El Cerrito High School Mountain Bike Racing Team, and the first official team practice for the new season is Sunday (11/11/19). Trying to get in shape enough to begin training, I've been riding a lot. My standard Strava weekly goal has been 200 miles a week. Also on Strava, I noticed that my first ever fully documented 5000 mile year is within reach, so I'm driving towards that. I've already placed a 10,000km goal for next year (6214 miles). There's still an outside chance that I could make it to 10,000km in 2018, but I'd have to ride every single day and ride at least 30 miles every single day for the rest of the year. If the weather cooperates, it may be possible.
Packing on a bunch of miles has me also working on spreading the love around my stable. Rather than regarding my fleet as a rack of sweaters, I'm focusing on just two or three at a time. I'm using that subset of bikes as the 'active rotation' until I've logged over 1000 miles on that bike on Strava, then I move it out of the active rotation and put something else in its place. As of today, the three active rotation bikes are: 1. my Gunnar "Doublespeed", which is my daily commuter. My normal daily commute is ~37 miles round trip, so that commuter slot racks up mileage pretty quickly. The Doublespeed is at 441 miles as of today, so I'll probably get that bike to 1000 miles in 3-4 weeks 2. Leo Roadini, which is my all road bike. Once a week I do a full road ride into my office with my more normal bike + BART commute back, making a ~58 mile day. Sometimes I'll do a longish road ride on the weekend as well. That bike is at 700 miles, so I'll probably take that bike over 1000 miles with the Uvas Gold 200k brevet on December 1. 3. My Niner Air 9 carbon mountain bike. Its at 950 miles, and I've done a few rides on it on the build up to Mountain Bike season. I'll be using it plenty in the next several months, so I'm in no particular rush to get to 1000 soon. This process has me kind of thinking about 'beausage' in a different way. I've normally thought of beausage as the wear and tear that makes a used thing more beautiful. It's like a justification for equipment being beat-up looking. Now I'm thinking about it in a different way. A bike that is being used is beautiful because it is being used. If you are 'not in love' with one of your bikes, ride it a lot. If you start riding a lot and you can't stand doing it, get rid of it. You might find, though, that riding that bike a lot makes you like it more and more. "Beauty from usage" says nothing about fraying edges, scratches and holes worn through. That thing is beautiful because you used it. I'm going through that process with my Doublespeed. I call it Doublespeed because it's a singlespeed with two gears, a 'climbing' 35x19, and a 'cruising' 38x16. It is my least-loved bike, in a way. I live up in the East Bay Hills. My morning commute starts with a 1/4 mile 15% climb, and my evening commute ends with a ~3 mile 6% climb. Those climbs are hard in the 35x19, and I kind of hate doing them. What I'm finding is that since I'm 'forcing' myself to get these 1000 miles in, that the hate is getting less and less. The benefits I'm getting by grinding out these climbs seems significant, and in the process I'm liking my Doublespeed more and more. It's making me tougher, and it's so quiet and cool. Add that it's got a dynamo front wheel and my awesome huge Swift handlebar bag, and it's just a great commute bike for my 37 mile round trip. It has me almost dreading hitting 1000 miles because I'll have to take it out of rotation. Despite the separation anxiety I might feel rotating bikes OUT, there are two or three bikes that I'm eager to rotate IN. 1. my 1983 Univega Gran Rally. This time-capsule stock 1983 road bike is my "Eroica bike". I'm excited to start riding this bike a lot in preparation for a run at Eroica California 2019 2. my Legolas. This is one of the prettiest bikes I've ever seen but it's not beautiful because it's not being used. It's time to start hammering out some cyclocross pain 3. A used Ebisu all-purpose. I just picked this up, and have the build underway. Will a classic, level top tube road bike with thinner walled tubing feel any different from my Leo Roadini? We'll see... Anyway, we all see For Sale posts that read "I love this bike but I just don't use it enough". Instead of giving up and selling it, surrender to RIDING IT! A LOT! Who knows what may happen? Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, CA -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
