Time Warp

Friday already. This week flew by. Next week will fly by even faster, with the Green Mountain Stage Race starting on Friday. The website says the course for the Saturday stage is still subject to change. I'd heard we would not be racing on the Roxbury course from last year, which is kind of a bummer because I liked the course and it was the longest, if not the hardest stage. The rumor is we're going back to the old circuit course, which I've never raced on, but those who have seemed to have liked it. The stage will be shorter though, only about 90k instead of 130k. We'll see. Rain outside my windows right now. Tommorow in Deerfield, scattered showers and highs around 70 are forecast. This will probably be about perfect for the D2R2, except the 6 am start might be a wee bit chilly.

Last night I got water bottle cages installed on the boss-less cross frame, using Zefal wraparound mounting brackets. They should hold up for the day. I also broke from my religion of ratty handlebar tape and re-did the bars with some plastic, but nice feeling "carbon wrap." I'm an old school Tressotar black cloth tape guy, but the mondo oversize bars on my cross bike require three or four rolls to wrap properly (you gotta increase the overlap if you want it to last for as long as I do), and I didn't have that many. I'm wondering if a clipon fender might be a good idea for the mud, but I think I'll go without. We're heading out to Meg and JD's tonight, as they are graciously letting us park our asses at their home so that I can make the early start. Thanks kids!

I wrote back and forth to some of the Benidorm Team guys who are also doing this thing. They are expecting a very long day in the saddle. Matt D is taking his cross bike with a 38x25 low gear -- ouch. I'm still optimistic that this can be done in not much more than seven hours, but I'm a little concerned about the fit of the cross bike (which I've not ridden in months) on such a long ride. The past few days I've tried to get used to going back to Look pedals, because I don't want to wear my Rocket 7s if it is muddy, so that rules out Speedplays. The MTB shoes just don't have the support, so that left the Looks. My old Look-equipped Northwaves are in great shape and were always pretty comfy, so this seemed like a great choice. The problem is, while adapting to the extremely thin-soled, low-profile Rocket/Speedplay combo, I guess I've increased my effective seat height quite a bit. And it has been working. Going back to the high-rider, thick soled Northwave/Look combo, my standard 765 mm center of BB to seat position felt way low. I've tweaked it up at least 5 mm, but it still does not feel natural like the road bike. Part of this can be attributed to the other differences like the higher bars and Q-factor, but going into what may end up being my longest day on a bike ever, it's a little scary. Grizzly details of how it all turns out will follow on Sunday. Thanks for reading.