Don't ants ever sleep?

Think I overpacked?

I was an half hour late leaving the house for a S24O outing, that being a Sub 24 hour Overnighter.  That time deficit had me concerned as my goal was the peak of a local mountain that used to have a fire lookout tower on it, now just a steel scaffold and a block building for some electronics and the associated antennas.

It was the type of experience that I think about a lot, but seldom act on; loading up a bike and heading for the hills just to get away and sleep under the stars, then being back home by breakfast.  I have all the gear for it...soft bikepacking bags, shelters of many colors and shapes, home made stoves, etc.  I love the idea of it; getting out and pedaling all loaded up, knowing that it will be the next morning before you get back home.  It actually strikes me as odd each time I do it.  the problem is I don't do it at all, hardly at all anyway.  It is inconvenient.  It is a bit uncomfortable.  It is more than a bit odd.  I need more of that in my all too convenient, comfy and 'normal' life, methinks.

Back on the bike, and as I pedaled out of town and up and up and up, it occurred to me that I should have caught a ride from the wife and gotten a head start to make up for the lost time.

I am not that smart or at least I AM THAT stubborn, so I pedaled on, watching the clock and the setting sun.  It was going to be close and I had a LOT of climbing before I hit camp.  I also did not estimate how slow I would be on a lightly loaded 29er hardtail as compared to my typical times up this paved canyon road on my road bike.  One hour turned into 1.25 hours and that trend continued.  Each section took just a bit longer than I expected.  I turned off the pavement and onto a forest service road marked with all kinds of dire warnings.  Interesting how public roads can be so private all of a sudden.  With no budget to do any repairs or at least no interest in doing so, we have less campgrounds and open roads and trails in my area So Cal then when I was a kid.  It's a shame, really.

And So Cal has recently seen some semi-apocalyptic weather and some big rainstorms.  Brief but big.  The next few miles of steep dirt climbing, a section of dirt that I recently climbed on my gravel bike, was now nearly not a road at all.  The water deluge had been hard and fast and the sand and rock that came pouring out of the gullies had changed the landscape in a big way.  Lots of walking in sand too deep to ride, at least when going uphill.  Fat Bike country.

The power of a bit of water.

SO it was a slow grind to the next sandy pour-out from the hillside above, and a shaky dismount to push over the nasties, then back in the saddle for another 100', rinse repeat.

Tick tock, tick tock.  I hit the saddle that marked half of the dirt climb and time was not on my side.  The next few miles of climbing were better...less washouts, but the water had washed all the topsoil off the road and left miles of hen's egg size rocks and small ruts to negotiate in the fading light.  My legs were fading too and I was sweat soaked, thinking I might stop short of the summit and salvage some light in which to set up camp.

But I really wanted to bag the peak and be there for the night, so I pushed on, hitting the summit in near darkness.  I could not find my Petzl head lamp before I left home, so setting up the bivvy and such with one hand holding a flashlight was less than great.  Down went the groundcloth, then the pad gets inflated, bivy then bag, etc.  About then I noticed the ants.  Lots of them.  Small ones.  Medium ones.  Hmmm.  Shouldn't they be bedding down for the night soon?  Surely so.

A quick search of the surrounding area showed more of the same, so I guess where I was is a good as any.  My bivy sack has a mesh screen head section, so although that was a bit 'enclosed' feeling, it would be bug free.  It occurred to me that I was still in my bike clothes and now as the body heat faded away form the climb, I was getting cold.  Ok...dancing in the dark as I stripped and got into the camping jammies, etc.  The moon rose twice that night.

Morning light reveals the drying rack.

Dinner was hardly the casual affair I had envisioned, snacking on chicken and biscuits as the sun went down and the stars came out.  Rather it was a ravenous moment of gnawing on a hunk of bird in the dark, famished by the 3 hour climb, and spitting out the gristle parts.  Sigh.

How romantic.

I also could not find the bug repellant before I left so I hoped that I would be far enough away from water to be decently mosquito free.  Almost.  I did have 4G phone reception though, so I texted those that cared and laid back, watching the night sky move in as the quickly fading sunset glow moved out.

Stars.  I had forgotten how many there are.  And shooting stars too.  Nice.  You can't see those from in front of the TV in the house.  The only sounds were from aircraft and crickets.  I zipped in and settled down, all snug in my cap for a quick summer's night.  Then the buzzing began.

I know what mosquitos sound like...high pitched and faint.  This was bigger.  And louder.  And it wanted me very badly.  I never tried to see what it was, but it apparently was partying with the ants that also did not need to sleep.  I would hear it land on the mesh screen but I kept my skin a proboscis length away as I never felt a bite.

I drifted off, warm and reasonably secure in my cocoon.

Looking east at sunrise.

Morning happened and the sun was creeping up fast, fog laying in the canyons below.  Awesome.  All packed up...trail mix eaten...bike pointed downhill into a long, rough descent to a remote canyon, wet and green even in summer.  Then a 45 minute climb out of the canyon to the last 8 miles, all downhill, of pavement home.

Ritchey P29...great bike for such adventures.  The seat pack is a Blackburn product I was trying out.

A cycling buddy dropped me a strategic water bottle before the long climb out.

Foggy morning in August as I dropped into home.

Rolling in home I was tired and a bit dehydrated, but throughly satisfied with myself.  I could have planned better and I think the romance with bivy sacks is about over, but the important thing is I put down the remote, turned off the laptop, and denied the tyranny of the urgent and the comfy.

And I learned that ants don't sleep much.

On the road side….

Well, I am on my second road bike of the decade now.  After building up the steel Ritchey Logic bike, a project that really came out well, I decided that I was liking it well enough to dive in a bit deeper.  The Ritchey was built with SRAM Rival 10spd (love Doubletap), an FSA Mid Compact crank with 52/36 rings running into a 12-28 rear cassette, FSA brakes, stem, and seat post, Ritchey bars and tape, Ritchey pedals, and a Specialized saddle.  The wheels were American Classic tube-type Hurricane wheels with Conti 700x25 GP4000s.

It came in at 18.5 lbs with pedals and was really a fine bike.  It rode like a steel bike…smooth and silent... and that carbon fork kept the weight down.  I did a few centuries on it and some all around group rides, training rides, etc.  It was obvious that road riding was not a fad for me and I rode it more than anything else all summer.  But there were a couple of things I wanted to change a bit, so I began thinking about the next road bike.

The 59cm frame was just slightly long in the reach for me.  I was barely ok with a 10cm stem and that was a short as I feel is good for a road bike for someone my size.  It was a great handling bike all in all, but I was thinking I would like to back off the HT angle a bit from the 73.5° setup the Ritchey had.  I was also ready to try a good carbon frame and 11spd shifting.  What I was not ready for was disc brakes, thinking that the refinement is still happening on the road side.  Next bike, for sure, but not this one.

So I began looking around to see what was turning heads and setting the bar for endurance/sport bikes without costing me a fortune.  As much as I would have appreciated the higher end lay-ups in carbon frames like the S Works or Hi Mod type of stuff, I did not want to spend that much.  This was not going to be a 'super bike' build then, but just really, really good.  Working on a budget then, I looked at three bikes that were at the LBS:  The Specialized Roubaix SL4, the Cannondale Synapse Carbon, and the Giant Defy Advanced.  All were similar in spec and weight, and I only was able to ride them in the basic bike shop parking lot situation, hardly ideal.

Reading about the bikes as much as I can, I knew that the Giant Defy and Defy Advanced had set the bar for the endurance road bike market.  I had recently bought my wife the women's version of that bike, an Avail Advanced, and she absolutely loved it.  The Roubaix was where the modern endurance bike met the masses and it was loved by MAMILs everywhere.  But the Synapse had been re-done for 2014 and the new carbon layup, combined with a more sporting geometry than some others in its class, really had me intrigued.  Riding them, the Roubaix seemed a bit stodgy.  The Giant was likely the best of all and had a great, stable, yet fun feel to it.  The Synapse was the sportiest of the three and snapped up pretty well when asked to, but was as comfy as any of them.

In the end, the Synapse worked out the best for me as I was able to get it with a lower spec'd grouppo and work out my plan of replacing the parts and putting my own stuff on there.  So, since the frames/fork are all the same across the bottom few models, I bought a Shimano 105 bike and stripped it.  On went a complete SRAM Force 11 speed group and a compact crank in a 172.5mm length.  I was finding that the 175s that I run everywhere else…MTB, SS, etc, seemed to be a bit tiring to spin all day on a road ride.  I used the same model of Ritchey bars, added a Ritchey stem and tape, and the same model in a Specialized Ronin saddle.

The wheels were a pretty big step up.  A set of American Classic tubeless Argents with special graphics  shod with the same 700x25 Contis looked amazing and are darn light and stiff.  Tubeless ready, but not yet for me.

The end result was a bike that weighs 2 lbs less overall and accelerates and climbs better than the Ritchey, although the steel bike still out-smooves it.  I also got a better fit in the 58cm Synapse and even with a 110cm stem have a cockpit that is 1/2" closer at the brake hoods.  Perfect.  I also got a bit more stability in the overall vibe of the bike, something I notice on rough, fast corners and even on long straight sections of road, in the wind, etc.  Except for the slightly reduced comfort and the loss of some uniqueness, the Synapse has been total win.

T.R., have I told you lately...

...that I loved your bikes?  But, sadly, it was an unrequited love.  When I began riding MTBs, there were two brands that I remembered as being prized above all:  Ritchey and Fisher.  Gary Fisher was still doing some fillet brazed stuff like the Mt Tam but was moving fast toward outsourcing to TIG'd assembly line frames.  Tom Ritchey's work was the I-Ching of bikes IMO.  The Timbercomp was my dream bike.  I even loved the name.  It sounded like something you would want to just disappear on over the horizon, dashing and dancing through the Aspens.

There was a local guy that was the Ritchey 'dealer' and he would do these CRAZY big rides back then...50 to 100 milers when we could barely ride ten miles.  He was a small 'g' god.  Even the production P23s and P21s were very cool, even though they were a bit racing focused for me.

But now we have this:  The Ritchey P-29.  Oh baby.

There is a lot of controversy right now on an MTBR thread on just how pure and authentic this is since it will be made on some assembly line instead of being birthed by hand by Tom Ritchey hisself.  Bah.  TIG is just fine.  Brazing is nice for artisans and allows for some give and take in tubing spec, but really it is not an issue.  If Tom actually designed the tubing, and the P-29 is not the realization of some quirky idea that 29ers need to be sporting some super steep and quick handling geo, etc, then this thing will be at the top of my wish list for a steel hardtail.

Why?

• Well, for one it is just drop dead gorgeous.  Some bikes just look right.  Some do not.  No odd bent top tubes like some broken backed camel, no weird angles or twisted sister tubes...just pure triangles of graceful steel.

• I hope that TR, at this point in time, is not just a bandwagon jumper for the 29er parade.  If he has been on big wheels (and I think he is a pretty tall guy), then I have to believe that he knows how to do it up right.  He sure has the pedigree.  I learned more about bike/frame design in 30 minutes of talking with Joe Breeze then I had learned in years of hanging around other folks.  These guys know what is going on down there and why.

• Pure emotion.  I love the fade color.  Man, that just takes me back.  And somewhere in the back alleys of my psyche is a signpost that says "Ritchey Parking Only.  All Others Will Be Judged Accordingly."

I will never have a Timbercomp, but the dream just got a bit of a B-12 vitamin shot just seeing the P-29.