Commuter Season - can you see me now?

Spring.... ahhh, spring!  Finally!

That means commuter season is upon us...!
Sure, there are some - used-ta be me - die-hards out there for whom the season never stops, but, for the rest of the 90%, this is when we dust ourselves off and re-mount for the next nine months.  It's time to get your steed, and yourself, ready:

Please give your local bike shops a chance to earn your business.  The one GIANT thing your Amazon account can't get you is the vast compendium of experience, class, expertise and genuine, hands-on customer service which our local shops deliver.  For the southern KC-area, I highly recommend the following, in no particular order:

Bike Source  in OP              Velo +  in Lenexa

Either shop has a great selection of racks, bags, front & rear lights, locks, clothing, and knowledge to help make your commuting experience a success.  Check them out!

If you're not in the immediate area, however, or they just can't get it, check this out:  first off, I didn't even know Amazon HAD such a thing, but it's pretty slick - and sorta how I'd set up my own fantasy bike-store that I'll own in the future:

Amazon's Bike Commuter Store

Now that you know where to go... today, I'll focusing on a few quick tips:  
This episode:  reflectivity and safety.

1)  Reflectivity is good, and passive:  you don't

UPDATED: Grand what? (a tire report)

UPDATE:    Nov 1st, 2014:

I'm filing this under "do better research."  I'd made some assumptions in the post below, and this comment (immediately below) from "PB" corrects those assumptions.  Compass Tires and Grand Bois tires are distinct from one another - the Compass-branded tires are NOT, as I'd indicated in error, a replacement of Grand Bois.  Grand Bois tires are still made and sold.  I'd also blended Compass and Boulder Bicycle together in some early sentences - they are also distinct entities, which happen to nicely complement each other.  My apologies to the companies referenced, and to my readers for the confusion.  No miss-information had been intended!  I learned quite a bit about both Compass, Boulder Bicycle, and Grand Bois after receiving this comment, and I remain grateful for "PB" having taken the time to set me straight.
kG


The reader's valuable comment:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Grand what? (a tire report)": 

Hi Keith, nice write-up! You've got a few details smushed together. No harm done, but it may be helpful to your readers to sort it out.

Executive Summary: Compass tires did not replace Grand Bois, they are a new/different line of tires. Jan Heine at Compass sells tires and other parts, but doesn't sell frames. Mike Kone at Boulder Bicycle sells Boulder & Rene Herse frames, and also sells parts.

The Compass tires are a new line spec'd by Jan Heine, who owns Compass Bicycles and publishes Bicycle Quarterly. They do not replace theGrand Bois tires, which are still being produced, and Jan still carries Grand Bois. His Compass tires have some modified designs and improvements, best to get the details from his site.

The Boulder and Rene Herse frames are spec'd and sold by Mike Kone, at Boulder Bicycle in CO, not by Jan. The Boulder frames are built to Mike's specs by Waterford, the Rene Herse are custom-built for Mike by Mark Nobilette. 

Mike does also carry both Compass and Grand Bois tires, along with a bunch of other components.

We are in a Golden Era of awesome hardware made for unracers. Lots of steel frames designed for wider tire clearance, for fast but comfy riding. Lots of incredibly awesome lightweight and supple wide tires. Wider rims, wider gearing, great saddles, racks, bags--I could go on and on. But I'll spare you.

Best,

PB


Other notable links relating to this post: 
http://grandbois.jp/
http://www.renehersebicycles.com/
http://www.boulderbicycle.bike/

ANY reference to Compass Bicycles actually "making" the Grand Bois tires is incorrect;  so please forgive me if any untouched passages re-state that impression.  I have re-worded and crossed out many things to show the original notion, and the truth.  Some passages have been removed entirely, as they no longer offered relevance to the review of the tires themselves.

Thanks, all!

...and now, the original post:
-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Welp, I drank the kool-aid and bit the bullet on a set of tires offered by Compass Bicycles, purveyors of fine cycling goods and Bicycle Quarterly magazine. 

In possibly BQ's most-read and referred-to article series, they tackled putting to rest all the conjecture, tribal-knowledge, and wives'-tales about the rolling resistance of bicycle tires, all things considered:  width, volume, air-pressure, contact patch size, tread composition, casing, construction.  Exhaustive research revealed interesting results, well worth the read.  The culmination of that research, spanning eight years of data-gathering and testing, has yielded   the Grand Bois line of tires, now simply sold as   "Compass" tires.  These, however, are not the tires I'm reviewing.  The Grand Bois tires are available from Compass Bicycles, but are produced by a different company and are imported and sold by Compass Bicycles.  The tires I'm posting about here, specifically, are produced/commisioned by Cycles Grand Bois, and have the model name of "Cerf."

I wonder how much of the name change had to do with the   I'm not really sure how to pronounce this name, as I imagine it would be sometimes comical to answer the phone at Compass and struggle with all the variations of the "Grand boys"  vs. "Grand bwaa" pronunciation conundrum.  ...and that's only taking the 2nd word into consideration.  Gran?  Grand?  Grawn?  

They're Compass tires now.  Problem solved.    Nope!  Grand Bois tires are still being made, and they are sold by Compass Bicycles.  The Compass-brand tires are different, and are the real culmination of BQ's research.

Take it as it comes

Taking into consideration the recent posts about biting off more than I can chew, etc., ad nauseum, so-on... so, take this as it is, but; some decent ideas have floated to the surface.  

2014 needs to see some organized rides from this camp - however non-frequent.

- DSR:  these are SUCH a good time, but it seems the full moon always sneaks up on me, and - of late - every time I *think* I have an evening free, something is on the calendar requiring my attention.  However, even if it's just ONE ride, in July, far apart from any other local rides... heck, all I need to do is put something on the calendar and commit to it.  That's do-able, and not biting off too much.  

- OCC:  Who's down with OCC?  Yeah, you know me... (played...)  The Olathe Commuter Club should come to fruition, and - again - it'll be non-frequent enough to avoid being front-loaded with schedule conflicts and personal stress against something that SHOULD be a blast.  Once a month - haven't decided when, but something like "First Friday" or "Third Thursday" or... something else alliteratory in nature... The micro-tiny constituent of Olathe-based residents who happen to work in

Five Years Gone

It's turned out to be a far more active and interesting winter than I'd planned on.  Instead of, like years past, wallowing in the seasonal duldrums - well, okay, maybe some of that has been happening, and that's natural - I've been stepping back, having productive discussions with myself and friends, and have kept commuting at arms-length, as opposed to constantly feeling guilty about not doing it.  Combined with a sharper mental outlook on things, I seem to have maintained focused and have held my head a little higher lately.  This is all good news -- and since most of you read this blog for the CYCLING, I won't go into tiresome details here.  I'll save that for when you .....

(drumroll, please)

Come out this spring for KCUC's brevet series!
No, really.... we even have a few 100km rides this year!  Two-hundred-too-much?  We hear ya... come out for our metric rides!  
KCBrevets.blogspot.com   Do it.


(shameless plug complete)

...and share a few miles with me, perhaps.  To date, however - despite it sounding a lot like history-repeating - I have managed to get to my lowest personal weight since January of 2012, I have turned the occasional cross-training into an actual

Feed-Reader Demons Vanquished

  Order has been restored... and, as a result, some of you will be enjoying (regretting) your Saturday morning coffee and feedreader session with a healthy dose of c'Dude posts dating back to early November, despite the posting dates appearing to have all occurred this AM.  So, it looks like I've been busy.  You're welcome.  

After finding the issues, it's also come to my attention that I've been pushing the boundaries of ye-olde Atom and XML feed limits, and adding header tags that I shouldn't have been... non-traditional punctuation, weirdly linking to videos, stuff like that.  That's all been debugged, and I've also optimized the feed itself with feedburner's help - so, now it ought to work with a much wider variety of readers.  Part of that process involved limiting the maximum number of feed posts to about 20, to avoid loading and syncing issues . . . so, if you're looking for any posts older than roughly the last 20, please visit the commuterDude.com page itself.  I appreciate it!

Finally - with great apologies - there are SIX of you out there whom had (through no fault of your own) subscribed to an auto-generated feedburner overflow URI (sorry if this is too jargony) -- so, you may have suddenly noticed your feed has either disappeared, or has stopped updating.  Circularly, since you were reading offline, you likely won't get THIS post... but, maybe you'll notice a lack of updates, and you'll find this post eventually.  My apologies... not sure how it happened, but having two URIs fighting against each other had been part of the issue, so I had to delete the smaller one.  If you re-subscribe, you should be in good shape.  

Okay - business aside, back to work on the Knob Noster ride report!  

Thanks for reading, as always -- now, go ride!

Feed reader issues?

It has come to my attention that Feedly, a popular feed reader for Android and Apple in the wake of the old Google Reader, hasn't updated any posts for this site since the Mighty Peculiar post back in November.  I'm looking onto a solution, as its likely a known issue.  Of course, if you're using Feedly, you won't see this anyways.  Aw, heck.

Stay tuned . . .

Knob Noster goes to eleven!

Wrapped up the ride today at about 7:22pm, just a smidge over 12 hours; but, that's not bad considering Terry and I took a side trip to Whiteman AFB east of Warrensburg, and worked against a headwind for most of the return trip.  I'll have to look back at my time from 2009, the last time I rode this route, but - the Biggest win for me today was personal vindication on Hammond Road's monster "wall" of a hill.

  I honestly expected that I had  grossly overrated this hill five years ago, the byproduct of having to walk it.  The real reason for walking it was likely buried in dehydration, malnutrition, body weight, lack of training, wrong technique...whatever.  Returning to the Knob Noster route, though, has reminded me that these hills in rural Missouri are still pretty serious... But not impossible.  Don't sell yourself short, as I had.  You should ride this route, because I'd forgotten how scenic and awesome it really is.  That said, bring your legs - the first and last 7 miles are a test, and really, a compact or a triple is a good idea if you want to salvage anything resembling cadence.  With my 39x27 maximum climbing gear, I had to grunt and zig-zag the grade a couple times to prevent wheel lift and traction issues... but I made it up without unclipping.  Yeesssss!!

The rest of the route is fine; it really is just one, single, solitary hill on Hammond Rd. that will awaken the senses and challenge the spirit... But do not let it stop you.  If you walk, you walk.  My biggest failing, perhaps, was not allowing myself to be okay with that fact.  I chose to make it a vendetta, and while I'm happy to have slain my own personal dragon today, I tend to carry chips on my shoulders which really shouldn't be there in the first place.  The whole vengeful drama is over.  It's weird, because I feel more relaxed about my riding suddenly.  Accomplishment does that.

Now... What next?

The usual ride report and photos to come!  Stay tuned!

The Dude Garage - simple projects for the OCD randonneur

Not sure this will become a regular feature, but it HAS crossed my mind -- so, occasionally, you might see this kind of thing pop up now and again... it's...

Projects for the OCD-afflicted randonneur, from the Dude's Garage!  (yea...)

So, let's start with the latest advancement in rando-science, the OCD-headlight hat / koozie for the safety-conscious / beercan anti-ejection sling:

Once upon a December dreary, I bought a koozie - not thinking clearly - from Casey's it came, with intentions, best:  to keep my bottles from freezing, but the plan failed the test...

TADA!  Yeah, I'm a flippin poet, and you didn't even know it.  Sir Alfred Lloyd Dude, esquire.

Most randonneurs, despite the wide array of terrific LED battery headlights now available, still insist on the ease of use and endless power provided by a generator headlight system.  Most lights, therein, tend to be mounted low - typically to the front fork, or to a front rack.  The result creates a nicely integrated package, ready for endless miles of night riding or commuting.  That's where the genius of the following idea stops for most riders, however - unless you find yourself in my particular situation.  If you have a pickup truck, this is useless.  If you have a minivan or SUV, and can transport your

History repeating

 In preparation for my mostly-mental assault against the Knob Noster permanent route next Monday, I took to re-reading my old post from 2009 (available in the archives link on this page), to see how things went, to see if I could spot any preoccupations, equipment differences, changes in approach - and I was surprised at myself.  Not only does history repeat, apparently, I have some serious issues with my memory.  

First, the timing -- at the time I had just finished my first R-12, and had been set on continuing it; at the end of that ride, however, I had sincere doubts about the future of my long distance riding, period.  The post doesn't really reflect this, but I remember how I'd felt.  Tired, grumpy, hacked off by flats and stumped by a local hill, and frazzled by the last few miles of traffic that I'd managed to time perfectly with that evening's rush hour.  I'd also been a month deep into a personal weight loss quest, and had been curious about how the lost of 10-12 lbs. would have me fare out there, that day.  

Today, five years later - same bike, largely the same equipment ( I have no notes in that post about tires, but I'm fairly certain I'd been running the same old Paselas ) and the exact same weight concerns.  While I'd like to think THIS time around might go differently, I'll not be a bit surprised if I find my finishing time and rolling

Going Through the Motions

I'm at a loss for words for this latest ride, and I'm not entirely sure why.  I've uploaded photos, and have let the days slip by, letting the memories arrange and steep inside the cauldron of roiling thoughts and bubbling movie quotes and song lyrics... yet, nothing.  Was the ride so dull?  Has randonneuring become so pedestrian?  Perhaps something else is happening... a quieting of the mind, real relaxation, or successfully zoning-out and just riding?  I've no idea.  None.  

Out of the ashtray... into the ashtray...

January has come and is gone, and the theme of wandering ride date remains in place from December.  Plans, yielding to broken plans.  Cards in hand.... now what?  Forecast watching.

Bitter cold, repeating.

In brilliant red, the Border Patrol route cards sit and wait to be used.  Socks and pajama-pants optional.

Perhaps this is the new approach to winter.  I don't