Sorry that I did not take a proper photo of my single speed machine while at the race venue, but I had more important things to do, like doing dollar handups at the apex of the fastest downhill turn on the course. Here you can see the details of the 56x26 (2.154) gearing setup that Mavic neutral support mechanic Todd Downs dubbed "reverse microdrive" or something like that. Hey, I worked with what I had. With IBC being the title sponsor of the race and all, it was only appropriate I race a machine that I bought from Harold when he still worked the floor at the old location on Brighton Ave, across from where the big store is now. Twenty years ago, $1895 could buy you a top of the line Italian racing frame with full Campy Chorus and tubular wheels. My 40k TT PR was ridden on this bike. I raced criteriums, road races, and stage races on this bike. I've crashed into and run over 12 year old kids playing in the street on this bike. I've raced track on this bike. And now I've raced 'cross on this bike.
How did it work out? Well, since this was the last race of the season, I'm going to milk this cow for all she is worth, so you'll need to wait a bit for the full race reports. That's correct, reports is plural. Not only was I one of only a handful of competitors sportin' bare knees at the event (yes, there was at least one other), I did the double, taking on the 3/4 masters as a course recon/warmup, and then the singlespeed event. In both cases I started the races on the singlespeed. Now, this was a pretty hastily executed piece of bike building, and originally I did not want to even bother fitting a new chain. My track setup uses 56x17 gearing, so I first tried a 47T ring matched to a 26T cog (the only "single" cassette cog I had in my possession, other than a bunch of 12T and 13T that were needed as spacers). Miraculously, 47/26 was a perfect fit for the existing chain. With these "road" horizontal dropouts, fore/aft wheel adjustment is quite limited, and not every gearing combination can achieve acceptable chain tension, but I was in business. There was no window of opportunity for a proper test ride though, save for donning the helmet light and taking to the local streets at 5:30 am during Thursday's sleet storm. The bike rode OK, the 105 short reach sidepulls did not squeal, and the fit was nice. The chain derailed once though... Chocking it up to not enough tension, I reset the wheel and hoped for the best. And for mud, because 47/26 works out to only 1.81.
Then Friday Colin wrote about how frozen and fast the course would be. I tried to fluff it off, as hell, it's not like I was going to this farce to race seriously, right? I've been doing my best to take a break and not train, albeit not entirely successfully, and singlespeeding is a joke anyway. Yet race morning I found myself with an extra 45 minutes on my hands, so I headed upstairs to retrieve 52, 53, and 56 Campy chainrings, along with a new chain. Five minutes were spent looking for my 54, which remains at large. One of these had to work... First try was the 56, and the fit was perfect, axle in the middle of the dropout. We're off. Completely untested, but we're off.
The short version of the "race" reports: The chain stayed on during my one lap pre-ride. I was pre-regged for the singlespeed, but picked up a number for the masters day of, and then proceeded to pin it on underneath the singlespeed number, even though the masters race was first. The cool thing about a race like Ice Weasels where you know the promoter and all the officials is you can get away with that sort of thing. Especially when you're wearing short-shorts on a 25 degree morning. That even earned me a call up to the front row, and suddenly instead of this being a test ride and familiarization with the course session, it was a race. The 21 turn maze Colin and Thom concocted on the lower forty (hah!) of the family farmage would surely be an endless single-file conga line bottleneck, so this would be a good time to man up and do a decent start. On the whistle I sprinted hard, made it about fifty feet... and the first chain derailment of the day was rewarded with Colin's hysterical laughter. That would all be made better later in the day when I got to see the face he made while choking down malt liquor handups in the 1/2/3 race. By the time I got the chain back on and got going again, I was the last swinging dick in the race, well off the back.
But this ain't the race report, this IS all about the bike. And yeah, it sort of let me down with multiple chain derailments on the day, despite a near perfect chainline. This baffled me, but other than the starting line incident, all the others happened in the maze of 180s, again always while sprinting hard out of the turns. One of them was actually the wheel slipping out of the dropout due to a not-tight-enough skewer. After that one I chose to run to the pit (further than it looked, big mistake) and take the geared bike. All the others it just jumped. With good tension and chainline, the most likely explanation I can come up with is excess flexing of the giant 26 tooth cog under the impressive torque generated by my obviously immensely powerful legs. This thing is also a hyperglide, with ramps designed to release the chain, and it's not made to be sitting by itself unsupported on either side. So I'll need to work on that. I'd still like to maintain the "reverse microdrive" concept in the future (yes, there is a future, more on that later) but the components may need some sort of upgrade. Thanks for reading.
Extra - Gratuitous carnage photos - Not the way to end your 'cross season.
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