2021

Experiments mounting a phone to clip-on bars

/ cycling, technology / 2 Comments

I’ve been playing around with the best way to mount my phone and headlight on the aerobars of my distance bike. This is a weird setup: most cyclists use bike computers that are considerably smaller than my iPhone 11, most don’t also have a bike light hanging from the same mount, and most definitely don’t have both of those mounted to clip-on bars instead of their regular handlebars.

I started with this bridge-style mount I found on AliExpress. It’s a mixed bag. The aluminum parts—the bridge, the computer-mount base, and the GoPro mount—are well made. The plastic parts—the bar clamps and Garmin mounting “biscuit”—are worthless: both the Garmin base and clamps quickly cracked. I like the bridge design, and thought it might give me more flexibility to mount other stuff, but in reality, it gets pretty crowded on the bars, and having two clamping points just makes it harder to adjust the clip-on bars.

I wound up getting Kevin Brown to machine a couple of very skookum aluminum clamps to replace the original plastic clamps, and I used the business end of a QuadLock intended for a motorcycle to replace the original mounting base; this is reinforced with some Sugru to stabilize it on the bridge.

This works. This is the setup I used in my abbreviated attempt at TABR 2021, and it didn’t give me any trouble. It is absolutely stable, but it is kind of heavy for what it is: 124 g.

The QuadLock mounting mechanism is excellent. I tried using the QuadLock mount by itself, but couldn’t quite get the phone positioned right, and in any case that didn’t give me a way to mount my headlight. There’s an articulated arm between the Quadlock mechanism and the bar clamp with toothed interfaces at each end, so that the angles between parts are stepped; the arm also has a little rise to it. The mount is all injection-molded plastic, and is probably adequate but nothing special. In hindsight, it looks like using a QuadLock out front mount pro sideways on a clip-on bar might work.

I then tried out this mount from 76 Projects. This is all 3D-printed and shot-peened plastic (a manufacturing method I’ve never heard of before), except for the screws that hold it together. It clocks in at 47 g. It uses velcro straps to mount to the bars, and comes with a set of spacer tubes to make up the space between the central mount and the strap blocks. Getting the spacers exactly right is fiddly, but you only need to do it once. The spacers and central mount fit together with toothed interfaces, and this is the only clip-on bar setup I’ve seen that lets you adjust the angle at which the phone faces you.

The 76 Projects mount is made of a much higher grade of plastic than came with my AliExpress mount (I also ordered a Garmin stick-on adapter for my phone from 76 Projects, which is similar): despite also using a Garmin mount, I haven’t had any problems with that. The problem I do have with this mount is that it it’s not rigid: either the velcro straps have a little play, or the stacks of spacers do, so the whole assembly wobbles a bit, probably exacerbated by the weight I’ve got on it. This is more of an issue for me because I have a headlight hanging from the GoPro mount on the bottom, cantilevered on a short extension, and it’s distracting to have the beam wobble up and down.

I backed a Kickstarter project from Peak Design and wound up with their out front mount. This clocks in at 101 g with the GoPro attachment. Normally I wouldn’t use an out front mount with clip-on bars: it would need to be located between a clip-on bar and the stem; this would force the bars to be moved outboard, which I don’t want to do. This one, however, comes with 7/8″ shims (which fit clip-on bars); the mounting surface works when rotated 90°; and by a stroke of luck, when mounted to my clip-on bars, this almost perfectly centers the mount: my clip-on bars are spaced 124 mm OC, and the Peak Design’s mounting surface winds up being 65 mm inboard. That 3-mm deviation from center doesn’t trigger OCD for me; for anyone who wanted to use this system on bars spaced much differently, their motorcycle bar mount puts the mounting surface on an articulated arm (somewhat like the QuadLock one), so it should be possible to center. The out front mount is pretty beefy, and the motorcycle mount is heavier still.

This mount is nicely made and well thought out, with all the major parts being aluminum. Everything feels very precise and substantial; the GoPro mount fits in place of a little conical washer and snugs up just so. The attachment mechanism is clever: magnets snap the phone to the mounting surface in exactly the right position, and two spring-loaded claws click into recesses in the phone case/adapter. It’s very satisfying and easy to clip the phone on. Two buttons on the underside of the mount retract the claws for removing the phone (only one claw really needs to be retracted). I found that the release buttons were easy to operate with thin gloves on, but might be a problem with more heavily insulated gloves.

I did find that without having the clamp really tight, the mount did rotate slightly after riding on rough roads. It would probably be a good idea to put a strip of helicopter tape on the bar to provide a little traction, especially if you’re using carbon bars that shouldn’t have too much clamping force applied.

This is the first one-sided mount I’ve really used on this bike, and once I got it set up, I realized that my clip-on bars are splayed out slightly, so in addition to being slightly off-center, my phone winds up being angled parallel to one bar. This will be easy to fix, but using a bridge design sidesteps the problem. I really like this attachment mechanism and will probably wind up tinkering to see if I can improve the connection to the bars.

None of these weights include the cases/adapters that goes on the phone, but those weights are minimal.

For a while, I have been noodling over the idea of an accessory mounting plate that would secure to the clip-on bars at four corners. All of the loads could be attached inboard of the corners rather than cantilevered, so each attachment point could be lighter—perhaps just a velcro strap and rubber bumper. Bikepacking racers frequently have a bunch of stuff on their bars—some combination of two headlights, two bike computers, a water bottle, a Spot tracker, a GoPro camera. If you could get even half of that stuff on a single plate, you’d be ahead of the game.

New Mac adventures

/ technology / Leave a Comment

I recently bought one of the new Macbook Pros. This is the first time I’ve bought a new computer that I knew was way more computer than I needed. But I tend to hang onto computers for a while, and by the time I replace this, it will probably be showing its age. I realized when I bought this that Apple has now been through 4 processor families (Motorola 68K, PowerPC, Intel, and now Apple Silicon), and I’ve had two daily-driver computers in each of the previous families (plus a couple of laptops that were secondary computers), starting with the original 128 KB Mac.

I had been waiting on the announcement of the new series of Macbook Pros, and ordered one as soon as it was announced. There was a considerable delivery delay (it travelled from Shanghai to another city in China, waited there for about a week, then in rapid succession to Incheon, Anchorage, Louisville, Austin, San Antonio, and Austin again), so I had plenty of time to prepare for the transition, and had a document where I gathered notes.

Setup

I made the decision not to use Apple’s Migration Assistant. It’s excellent, but I had years of cruft on my old drive and wanted to be more deliberate about what ended up on my new drive. In the end, this worked pretty well, but did take some work.

This post on using a shell script with Homebrew was very useful and saved me a bunch of time with setup. I’d already been using Homebrew, mostly for command-line programs, but I am happy to use Homebrew to manage desktop apps too. I did need to go through the list of desktop apps that can be installed with Homebrew, and make my own list of apps that I wanted to install.

One thing that didn’t work for me is inheriting my old Time Machine backup. I followed these instructions, but the process failed. I’ve still got the old Time Machine database and can navigate it in the Finder, and I have a lot of room on that drive, so I’m using it for the new Time Machine database. This is less than ideal, but I’ve nuked old Time Machine backups before without losing sleep.

One thing I overlooked in the migration process was some of the fonts. I have most of my (non-system) fonts managed by Rightfont, but there were a few third-party fonts that were installed with my system fonts, and I still need to recover those.

Other than that, I manually copied over everything in my home folder, except that I intentionally did not copy of the Library folder. I did copy a few specific items inside it.

Problems

One weird problem I had was with my trackpad. I have been using one of Apple’s older freestanding trackpads for a long time, and I think there was an incompatibility between the old trackpad and the new trackpad software (which enables “force clicks”), possibly exacerbated by the excellent BetterTouchTool: I was seeing a lot of “ghost clicks,” which was not something I could live with. I replaced my old trackpad with a new one and the problem disappeared.

As a test, I tried plugging in the Mac to a third-party USB-C charger with a third-party cable while it was running. This charger nominally supplies slightly less wattage than the factory original (60 W vs 67 W), but the laptop seemed to be staying at 100% charge. I need to do more testing, but this seemed to trigger a weird and seemingly unrelated problem: files I downloaded after plugging into that charger could not be opened or deleted. Plugging in the stock charger and rebooting solved the problem.

The new Macbook Pro has a fingerprint sensor. In theory, this is great, but in practice, sometimes it doesn’t want to read. I haven’t figured out what causes this.

Notifications stopped unexpectedly. Apparently this is a fairly common problem. Killing the NotificationCenter process via Activity Monitor seems to fix it.

Update

Two days ago, the new machine had a major freakout, showing the same symptoms described in this article: the screen would flash pink, then it would reboot; it continued rebooting at roughly 1-minute intervals. I managed to boot it into the recovery partition and ran Disk First Aid. No problem there. Tried doing all the finger-gymnastics to zap PRAM and reset the SMC. Initially this didn’t seem to help, but after a few more reboots, it seemed normal. This happened around noon. The problem flared up again around 7 PM. I couldn’t fix it, called Apple support, and the tech on the line couldn’t either. One of the problems with the Mac in this state was that it couldn’t see any networks or Bluetooth, so Internet Recovery was not possible.

Went to the Apple store the next day; of course it booted up fine, but we did a nuke-and-pave on the spot (which took longer than expected). If this doesn’t fix it, it’s probably a hardware fault.

Other observations

This thing feels like a tank, at least as Apple products go. It weighs half a pound more than the “Touch Bar” Macbook Pros (3.5 lb vs 3 lb, which feels like a bigger difference than it sounds like), and is very slightly heavier than the 2013-vintage machine it is replacing.

I haven’t gotten used to the Globe key–which also acts as the Function key. An unexpected consequence of it is that the Function key on my external keyboard also acts as the Globe key. I do need to toggle between Japanese and English inputs sometimes, so I can see the benefit of it, but command-space is hardwired into my fingers, so I don’t imagine using it. In playing around, I discovered that I can make a quick tap on the Caps Lock key toggle keyboards–again, I probably wouldn’t prefer that, but it might be a handy option for some.

Epoch-Caldwell 300K

/ Epoch-Caldwell 300K, Ride Report / Leave a Comment

After scratching in TABR 2021, I decided I needed more experience with distance riding before I attempted it again, so I joined the local randonneuring group. Randonneuring has two kinds of ride—brevets, which are organized date-and-day events, and permanentes (or perms), which you can ride whenever you want. There are certain standardized distances in either case, and yesterday I rode a 300-km perm. I covered about the same distance on Day 1 of TABR 2021, although that was cold, rainy, and windy; yesterday started out cool and warmed up to be pretty hot, with a slight tailwind on the outbound leg and a stronger headwind (it certainly felt stronger) on the return. In any case, this was only the second time I’ve ridden this distance.

I started out at 6:00 AM in darkness and rode for about an hour before there was any sunlight. After that, the morning was very misty, and whenever I would ride through a low-lying spot, visibility was probably only 50′. The mist burned off by 8:30 or so. Riding through that was surreal. I was mostly on roads I know well up to that point, but not being able to see around me made them unfamiliar territory.

I pushed on past the first control in Taylor, about 40 miles in, without stopping. After that point, the route took me on unfamiliar roads to get to a familiar place—Apache Pass—and then to Rockdale, where I did stop for a snack at the second control. Pushed on from there through the community of Black Jack, which I had never heard of, to Caldwell, where I discovered I had crossed from the burnt orange zone of football allegiance to the maroon one. Stopped at a Subway for solid food, topped off my hydration pack, had a Snickers bar for good measure, and headed back.

I had been making pretty good time to this point for relatively little effort, but knew I’d be facing a headwind on the way back. I can see now that my average heart rate for the first half was 120 bpm, 125 bpm for the second half. In hindsight, I think I could have pushed the pace on the outbound leg a little more, but I was mostly concerned about having enough in the tank to make it home.

When I made it back to Apache Pass, at mile 132, I was dealing with hotfoot and stopped to give my feet a break. That helped a bit, but not enough, and not for long enough. I stopped again in Taylor to fill up on water, even though I probably had enough to make it the rest of the way back. I wanted to give my feet another break, and I wasn’t sure how long the next 40 miles would take, since my speed was dropping steadily.

Sometimes I can ride through hotfoot and get comfortable again. That didn’t happen. I just toughed it out. Apart from that, and being generally sore and tired in all the ways you’d expect, I felt pretty good when I finished. My left knee felt a little tweaked over the last 30 miles or so, but was not concerning. I didn’t feel any of the Achilles’ tendon trouble that I did in the TABR. I ate half a family-sized King Ranch Casserole from Central Market for dinner, and went to Bobo’s for a beer.

This morning when I woke up, I did not feel pretty good. I had a headache and nausea, in addition to fatigue. I can get by for a long time on a deficit of water, electrolytes, and calories—I rode the recent 200K brevet on four Clif bars, one Snickers bar, a bottle of Gatorade, and the water and electrolytes I was carrying from the start—and I think I set a personal best for 200K. But clearly my limit for riding on deficits is somewhere short of the 300K mark, and I’m pretty sure it was the insufficient water and electrolytes that did it. I took in a couple glasses of electrolytes (I use Vitalyte, fwiw) and felt a lot better.

This was a lucky shot. The light was changing very quickly, and as soon as I stopped moving, my glasses fogged over.
You don’t usually see a lot of longhorns. Unlike most cattle, these guys were curious about me and were approaching as I shot this.

Wildcard Bicycle Novelties

/ cycling / Leave a Comment

wildcard bicycle novelties headbadge

Something reminded me of a website I visited years ago, Campy Only, where Campagnolo aficionados would congregate to rejoice in their shared disdain of Shimano. I always thought this was silly, and when I built up my Bob Jackson (more than 20 years ago now), I made sure that it had one Shimano part mixed in with what was otherwise Campy parts, just in case I ever ran across one of those guys. That website is long gone (its creator went on to start a blog, which seems to be abandoned), but I got the idea of recreating the old Campagnolo oval logo, but with “Shimano” in its place, thinking it would tweak any Campagnolo purists out there. I noodled around with that and was pleased with my results, so I kept going, reimagining some other logos.

I decided to do something with those designs, so I had them printed up as stickers, set up a Threadless shop for print-on-demand t-shirts, and set up Wildcard Bicycle Novelties as a storefront. Any profits I make before the cease-and-desist orders roll in will go to World Bicycle Relief.

Mueller-Lexington-Mueller 200K

/ cycling, Mueller-Lexington-Mueller 200K, Ride Report / 1 Comment

I’ve been vaguely interested in randonneuring for a long time—after I completed my first Austin-Houston ride, I met a guy who was into it, who suggested I ought to check it out. More recently, I started lurking on the local randonneuring group’s mailing list. After my failed attempt at the TABR, I decided I needed more experience at long distances, so I finally joined RUSA. The first ride organized by the local group after that happened to be on the 100th anniversary of the first brevet organized by the sport’s governing body, Audax Club Parisien. That seemed like an auspicious beginning.

Most (all?) of the local brevets start and finish at a convenience store that’s barely a mile from my home, which is convenient for me. Yesterday’s ride had 16 people sign up, which I understand to be a good showing.

I had laid out my stuff the night before, aired up my tires, etc, so I’d have a minimum of things to do in the morning. Got up at 5:00, ate breakfast, got suited and booted, and was out the door by 5:20.

We were all at the start with time to spare. Jeff, the ride organizer, gave some preliminary instructions. It seemed as if everyone else knew each other—I was clearly the only first-timer, and there were quite a few PBP veterans. Jeff pointed out a couple of guys to me and told me they’re fast—that he knows I’m fast, but I shouldn’t feel like I need to hang with them. I told him I was planning on riding my own ride.

We were rolling on time 6:00 AM. We agreed to ride together for the first 20 or so miles, at which point we’d stop at a picturesquely decrepit old store for a group photo, and then ride at our own pace.

This and the neutralized start at TABR are the only times I’ve ridden in a group in many years; this was the first time I’ve ridden in the dark in a bunch perhaps ever. Our route out of town was mostly new to me—occasionally we were on streets that I’d ridden before, but for the most part we weren’t. The dark, the new streets, and the riding in a pack all made the first hour or so a new experience.

After the photo op in Cele, we got back onto the road in small clots of a few riders each. I was in the first group back on the road, and after just a mile or two, I wanted to get moving. Partly this was to warm up. Partly this was to make good time before the day got hot. Partly because I’m out of the habit of riding in a group and was ready to ride on my own. And partly this was because, although brevets are not races, I do know the riders pay attention to times, and as the new guy, I wanted to lay down a marker. So I shot off the front.

At this point, I was mostly on roads that I’ve ridden before. I hunkered down on my aerobars and jammed. Despite having had a cold for the past few days, I felt good.

At mile 40, one of the two guys Jeff had pointed out to me as being fast rolled past me like I was going backwards. We said “hey” to each other and he was gone. I forgot his name. Very tall, very thin, weird setup with bars set super-high using what I think is a Bike Friday stem. In any case, I didn’t see him again.

Made it to Taylor and kept going. The route after that was mostly roads that are new to me. I had my bone-conduction headset on, reading me directions and playing DJ sets that I’ve downloaded to my phone.

The country between Taylor and Lexington is pretty flat, agricultural, not a lot of trees, and a lot of the fields had been harvested recently, so were bare dirt. I was mostly just in the zone, focused on my riding.

Made it to Lexington, where the ride turns around, at about 9:30. I think there’s a restaurant in Lexington where I could have gotten solid food, but I didn’t look for one and the only one I knew of—Subway—was closed at that hour. Stopped for a big Snickers bar and a bottle of Gatorade (I’d eaten a couple of Clif bars up to that point). As I was rolling out of the parking lot, another one of the brevet riders—on a heavy-looking Soma with flared gravel bars—rolled in. We said “hey” and I kept on going.

There’s a spot just outside Lexington where the road is under construction and narrowed down to one lane; instead of flaggers, there are stoplights controlling traffic. When I rolled through this on the return leg, I saw most of the other riders were waiting to get through on the other side. And a bit further on down from them, I saw the one guy participating on a recumbent trike.

Made it back to Taylor, thought about stopping for tacos, didn’t. Kept going. Had an energy bar when I got just past town, in the shadow of a privately operated prison.

When I got back to that old store in Cele, I saw there was a couple of cyclists there hanging out. Initially I thought they might be part of our group, and was puzzled that they would have gotten past me. It turns out they weren’t, and we had a nice chat. It seems that the Cele store is only open weekends, and has good barbecue. Which was tempting, but I still had 20 miles to go and didn’t indulge. My legs had been threatening to cramp up a little before this, and stopping for a bit seemed to hit the reset switch on that, but I didn’t want to linger for too long.

Most of the remainder of the ride was on the new-to-me roads we had rolled out on, but now I could see them and place them in context. They avoided some unpleasant roads that I’ve ridden on many times just out of habit—I’ll need to add them to my repertoire. I made it back to the starting point without incident, and then back home.

Early in the ride, I thought that I might be able to hold my average moving speed at 18 mph for the ride. I have the RwGPS app report my stats every 15 minutes, and I had a few 15-minute periods where I was rolling at 19.9 mph, which is great, and was keeping my average at 18 mph for pretty much the first half, but it slipped slightly on the return, and over the last 10 miles, it slipped considerably. My rolling average wound up being 17.7 mph—I’m still quite content with that, and this was by far the fastest 200K that I have the receipts for. I didn’t eat enough (4 Clif bars, 1 Snickers bar) and maybe didn’t hydrate enough during the ride. Writing this the next day, after a big post-ride snack, a big dinner, and solid night’s sleep, I’m still a bit tired.

The weather wound up being perfect. A little on the cool side to start. The day did warm up, but wasn’t brutally hot. The wind was that rarest of things, still for the outbound leg and a slight tailwind on the return.

Bike gear capsule reviews

/ cycling, TABR 2021 / 1 Comment

I bought a lot of bike stuff preparatory to riding the TABR. Here are my comments on some of it.

Parts

Redshift Shockstop seatpost

  • I’ve got mine set fairly firm. I rarely notice any bobbing except on smooth roads when I’m really grinding at low RPM.
  • Can’t compensate for big hits, but does take the edge off a lot of bad pavement. I notice the difference most on textured pavement, which it really smooths out.
  • As much as my ass hurt in the race (a lot), I cannot imagine how much more it would have hurt without a suspension seatpost.
  • Cane Creek makes an elastomer-based suspension seatpost that I’d be interested in comparing with this.

Redshift Shockstop stem

The effect this has is more subtle than the seatpost. It’s a little weird watching the handlebars move up and down relative to the bike, but it doesn’t seem to affect handling.

Just Riding Along Mahi Mahi wheels

Good price, seem reasonably fast, good customization options (they offer dyno hubs, which was key for me). These are the only wheels I’ve ever had with deep-section carbon rims, so I don’t have any basis for comparison. Didn’t give me any trouble.

Dyno hubs are expensive, but they make a lot of sense for an event like the TABR.

Speedplay Zero pedals

I used Bebop pedals for a very long time. I still would, if they were still in production. These are the nearest equivalents. I’m not thrilled with how fussy they are to set up and maintain, or the fact that they use a unique drilling pattern, but they do give numerous degrees of adjustment and wide ranges of adjustability. In short, I am able to ride comfortably in them, which is what’s important.

The first day of TABR 2021 had very foul weather, which is kryptonite for Speedplays. My right cleat became extremely difficult to disengage. By the time I scratched, the left bearings had almost completely seized up. Both cleats became difficult to engage. Speedplay recommended re-greasing every 2000 miles under ideal conditions—which did not prevail—and I didn’t bring a grease gun. A lot of riders bring spare cleats on the TABR, but the problem with Speedplays is the cleats are left/right-specific, so you need to bring two spares to cover your bases. I brought none.

Now that Wahoo has redesigned them (after I bought mine), they claim that re-greasing is no longer needed. Not sure how effective the new seals are. And they don’t need a 3-hole/4-hole adapter plate or special 4-hole shoes anymore, which is nice.

But my take-away is that if you can ride comfortably in SPDs, those are better for an event like the TABR. Shimano’s pedals are solid, the cleats are robust and spares are easy to carry, and riding in walkable shoes is an advantage.

Bags

I had a total of ~27 liters of storage capacity between four bags on my bike. My logic in packing was to make sure that stuff I would need frequently would be easy to get at, and stuff I might need could be shoved away in a less accessible place.

I think years of going to burn events has produced in me a tendency to over-prepare. I think of this in terms of percentages—do you want to be prepared for 90% of situations you might encounter? 95%? 99%? Each step up the preparation scale requires more stuff, sometimes a lot more. So I was carrying spare spokes and a fiberfix spoke for field-expedient repairs. I was carrying a spare derailleur hanger, a bit of extra chain and a master link, a spare derailleur cable, and random nuts and bolts just in case. I was carrying enough clothes to deal with freezing weather.

The Tailfin had by far the most volume, and if there’s a problem with it, it’s not with its workmanship or design, it’s a philosophical problem: it has 20 liters of capacity, which is a lot for a bikepacking race, so it doesn’t force you to edit your gear list as severely as you might otherwise. That said, there’s very little of what I packed that I would have left behind even with the benefit of hindsight, and one or two things that I probably should have brought that I didn’t.

Tailfin Aeropack X

  • Beautiful construction, meticulously considered design.
  • Rock solid. Doesn’t noticeably affect handling except for the sail effect in strong crosswinds. It really feels like a part of the bike.
  • Unless you’ve got a lot of seatpost showing, get the “extended seatpost connector” so that the bag can open clear of your saddle.
  • When transferring the seatpost clamp to the extended connector, be careful with the screw post that mounts it, as it is easy to round out the hex-key opening. Ideally this would have a torx head or a steel screw post.
  • The rubber bushings that fit in the “fast release” mounts are not retained well. I’ve now seen that Tailfin recommends gluing them in place with some CA glue. Even with that, the smart thing is to keep the mounts shut at all times, whether on or off the bike.
  • In addition to its main opening on top, it has a zipped side opening and a small zipped stash pocked on the other side. I’m not sure either of these do much good.
  • Really expensive.

I kept my minimal sleep setup, extra clothes (in stuff sacks), and spare parts in this bag. It doesn’t sound like much, but the bag was pretty full.

Apidura Racing Frame Bag (4 L)

I got this at the last minute when I decided that my Tailfin bag was going to be overstuffed.

It has a main compartment accessed from the right, and a flat stash pocket on the left. I kept my printed cheatsheets on the left (never actually used them–I also had the cheatsheets on my phone as an e-book); on the right I had my first-aid supplies, toiletries, second pair of gloves, and probably a few other things.

The only criticisms I can make against it are that when my legs were covered with road grit on Day 1 and they would sometimes rub against the bag, my skin got really torn up. Also, this bag and the top-tube bag especially are hard on the frame’s paint job. I should have had a layer of helicopter tape on the frame at the contact points.

Apidura Racing Long Top Tube Bag

My intention was to keep stuff that I knew I would need frequently in this bag. In practice, it wasn’t quite big enough for all that. It has a divider across the middle, and two-way zipper, so you have a little bit of compartmentalization with it. It has a shielded pass-through in the front, and that’s where my USB converter and power bank lived. I also kept my pump, chain lube, Dynaplug, and multi-tool in here.

On the advice of a fitter, I got my frame one size larger than I normally would, to get the added stack height. Between that and this bag, I could barely clear the top tube when standing over the bike. This wasn’t a big problem, but it wasn’t ideal.

When I was running a cable from the USB converter (in the bag) to my phone (out of the bag), a little rainwater did intrude because the zipper wasn’t fully zipped, but I can’t criticize the bag for that.

Kaibab Customs custom-made bag

This was a small bag that slung under the aerobars and mostly carried snacks; my satellite tracker was also held in place by the velcro straps that attached the bag to the aerobars, which gave it good exposure to the satellites it communicates with.

In hindsight, it would have been better to have this bag made with a cable pass-through in the back so that my USB converter and power bank could live inside it–the disposition of my gear would have been a little tidier that way.

Camelbak Classic

I know Camelbaks are not popular among roadies, but during the pandemic, I wanted to be able to carry a lot of water so I wouldn’t need to stop, and they excel at that. I found that I prefer using a Camelbak in some ways. This has a tiny pocket on the back. I was riding tubeless tires, and used this to carry a couple of just-in-case innertubes, tire levers, and patches.

Drawbacks:

  • I haven’t found a good way to secure the end of the hose. I wind up tucking it under the shoulder strap. Camelbak makes a magnetic retainer that hooks onto the shoulder strap, but the way it hooks on is so insecure that it’s not usable.
  • The mesh surface facing my back tears up my jerseys.
  • A lot of people complain about getting a sweaty back with a Camelbak. No argument there. I think this is a bigger problem in cold weather than hot, though. I can deal with the heat. But in cold weather the ability to evaporate sweat is an important aspect of your ability to stay warm and comfortable; with a hydration pack on, I find that the part of my back directly under the pack is sweaty and well-insulated, so it stays warm; there’s a ring on my back around the pack that is sweaty but not insulated, and this gets clammy or downright cold, regardless of how I’m dressed. In practice, this did not wind up being a showstopper, but it did contribute a little bit to discomfort, especially on long descents in cold weather.

Electronics

kLite Ultra-low drag road kit

This consists of a headlight, USB converter, and pre-assembled wiring harness with a switch, designed to work specifically with the SON Delux hub (which is what my front wheel has). Everything worked without giving me any trouble. The connectors and wires are all very robust, and although I would have been willing to solder up my own wiring harness, I’m pretty sure the prefabricated one is better than anything I would produce, which is reassuring.

The illumination was more than adequate for my needs. I didn’t do a huge amount of night riding in TABR 2021, and didn’t do any high-speed descents. The light head has three emitters, the third of which only comes on at higher speeds (about 18 mph, I think). It would be cool if this third one was targeted farther ahead than the other two; cooler still if the light used shaped reflectors like a B&M light to more effectively target the light on the road. It does include a standlight, and I was impressed at how long that runs for—I saw a little bit of residual light even an hour after stopping.

The USB converter does what it needs to do, and is always on. kLite 3D prints a bunch of its ancillary parts, including the housing for the USB converter, so it is chunkier and heavier than it needs to be, but overall, this doesn’t make a big difference. I do wish kLite outsourced production of those ancillary parts to someone who could fabricate them from aluminum.

The switch controls whether all the dyno output is sent to the USB converter, or is sent preferentially to the headlight, with any excess power going to the converter. Below about 6 mph, it seems, neither one receives power. This could be a problem for mountain climbs at night.

There weren’t as many racers using dynamo-powered lights as I expected. I noticed a few racers with doubled-up battery lights. I did have a Lezyne battery light as a backup myself. It throws enough light and has decent runtime, but the big drawback with it is its charging time. Looking at the nearest current model, it supposedly offers about 4 hours runtime and 4.5 hours charge time (if using a 2-amp USB source). Four hours of runtime is probably OK for a midpack rider. 4.5 hours charge time would also be OK for a midpack rider who’s staying in hotels, but this is faster than I’m actually seeing charging my own light. I think that charging time is the real limiting factor ultra riders will run into with battery lights.

Aftershokz Aeropex bone-conduction headset

I refuse to close off my ears when I’m on the bike. I know some ear buds, like AirPods Pro, can feed through ambient sound, which might be a reasonable option, but I decided to go with these.

The audio experience with these is almost exactly like having a small speaker hovering near each ear. They can drown out quiet sounds, but other than that, you hear everything around you; they can also be drowned out by loud sounds, such as wind noise. The physical experience is almost nonexistent—I barely notice I have them on. If I turn up the volume loud enough, I can feel a little vibration at my temples. They’re more comfortable to wear for extended periods than my earbuds. Sound quality isn’t bad, but won’t win any awards.

It seems that every wearable Bluetooth audio-playback device has its own set of control gestures, which is annoying. The gestures this uses aren’t bad, but if you use more than one system (I do), it is hard to keep track.

There were a few other riders in TABR 2021 using these, and overall, I think they’re a great benefit if you’re using the spoken turn-by-turn directions in the Ride with GPS app (I was). I didn’t spend a lot of time listening to music, but it was nice to have the option. I did miss a couple of turns when I had the headset turned off or there was a lot of ambient noise, but I resolved those mistakes quickly. On balance, I’m pretty sure they helped me stay on track better than I would have without them.

iPhone

Finding a good mount has been a challenge. I have used a couple of third-party Garmin handlebar mounts and slapped an adhesive Garmin “knuckle” on the back of an iPhone case. The problem I had, repeatedly, is that the tabs in the Garmin insert in the mount—the part that retains the knuckle—would get shredded on bumpy roads. This may be chintzy plastic, or it may simply be that the iPhone exerts too much torque on the insert. Interestingly, the knuckle never showed any signs of wear. I’m currently using a Quadlock mount, which works well. To be precise, I’m using part of a Quadlock mount intended for motorcycles, and bolting that on to an aerobar bridge that I found on Ali Express. That bridge came with useless P-clamps (although the bridge itself is quite sturdy), and I had some custom clamps fabricated to fit on the aerobars.

Battery life is sometimes cited as a concern when using a smartphone instead of a proper bike computer. I do agree that battery life will be shorter, but it’s not as bad as one might think. For one thing, I keep the screen off most of the time and rely on audible updates—Ride with GPS reads me cues (when I’m following a planned route), and also have it read my stats at regular intervals. On a recent ride where I was out for 7 hours, I had 50% left in the tank when I got home, and this was also playing back a mix of streaming and locally stored music over my aforementioned Aftershokz headset for more than half the ride. I do a couple of things to extend the battery life: turn off wifi and put the phone in low-power mode (which clocks down the processor, but is almost unnoticeable). On the TABR—or anytime you’re riding out of cellular coverage—it makes sense to put the phone in airplane mode. This requires you to have stored the route on the phone, rather than relying on the cloud version of it (RwGPS defaults to the latter).

Using a dyno/USB converter or external power bank, it is in theory possible to keep the phone topped off all the time—except when it’s raining. Modern iPhones are water-resistant, but part of that water resistance depends on detecting water in the Lightning port and disabling it. I found during heavy rain that it would not charge, although once it had a chance to dry out, it would. This could get to be a problem in a multi-day event if the rain persists and you have minimal rest periods when you can charge it off-bike, but that’s true for any battery-powered gadget.

Clothes

Castelli Nano Flex Pro Race Bib Short

  • Brilliant. Super comfortable. They basically disappear.
  • I was concerned that the lack of leg grippers would let the hems ride up, but that hasn’t been a problem.
  • Hem seems to be cut lower in front than in back, which is a little weird.

Galibier Tempest jacket

Rain jacket that also provided some additional warmth and windproofing. Packs down to fit in a back pocket: in addition to wearing this in the rain, I would put this on before a long descent following a long climb.

There are other rain jackets that are lighter and fancier, but they’re also much more expensive. This was a good deal.

Jerseys

I’ve given up on short-sleeved jerseys. Riding in Texas, you might think you’d want as little coverage as possible, but I’ve found that a lightweight long-sleeved jersey isn’t really hotter and gives me some sun protection. Such jerseys aren’t exactly common–I’ve found several companies making them, and have tried three.

Stolen Goat Topper Bodyline Jersey

Fits well. I like the raw-cut sleeve edges. Would be nice if it had grippers in the hem, but it seems to sit about right on me even without them. Has a side-zipped security pocket that I don’t really use, but seems like a nice idea. This would be my go-to jersey.

Pactimo Ascent Aero jersey

I’ve got a slightly outdated version of this that I got on closeout. I like the fit. Not thrilled about the abbreviated collar. Don’t like the pockets, which have very high openings that are hard to get into.

Gloves

Gore-tex C3 Infinium gloves

These did a good job of keeping my hands warm on pretty chilly days, even on long descents, when the windchill would have been severe. They’re very close fitting all around, which for the most part is good, but they’re very difficult to take off when wet. Generally comfortable to wear and offered good dexterity for things like typing on my phone, although adding a conductive pad to the middle finger would have been nice.

They have minimal padding, and what padding there is may not be optimally placed. I wound up with very slight nerve pain in the “valley” of the palm (which I have learned is called the thenar) from riding on the ramps. Not surprising after riding 550 miles in 3½ days—not sure if I can blame that on the gloves.

Also, one of the gloves started coming unstitched along one seam after less than 1000 miles of use, though as luck would have it, this was on the day that I scratched. If the durability were better, these gloves would be ideal.

I got these in high-vis yellow, and they are shockingly bright.

Specialized Grail

No complaints. They just work. Minimal padding seems to do its job. When new, there were tiny elastic bands along the outsides of the wrists that quickly fell off, but I haven’t noticed any change in fit or comfort as a result.

Northwave Extreme GT 2 shoes

  • Very nice construction.
  • Use Northwave’s Boa-like closures, which are slightly less convenient than real Boas (getting out of the shoe is a two-handed process). The dials got hard to loosen after Day 1 of TABR 2021, during which they got liberally spattered with rain and road grit.
  • The openings dig in a little bit around the inside of my ankles. So far this has been no worse than slightly annoying. Put pads in that seem to help a bit.
  • I would get hotfoot on training rides after about 70 miles in these. They do come with a pretty good footbed with a metatarsal bump; I’ve tried aftermarket footbeds, which maybe help a little, but what really helps is moving my cleats rearward. I also found during the TABR that simply leaving the closures looser, perhaps coupled with the fact that I wasn’t riding as hard, eliminated hotfoot.

More on scratching

/ TABR 2021 / 14 Comments

Realistically, my race was over before I even finished the first day: I stopped for pizza in Monmouth OR about 20 miles before my intended stopping point, and when I got back on my bike, my Achilles’ tendons were super tight. They got tighter and more swollen with each day. I tried a few things to remedy them, to no apparent avail.

And I know that all racers are dealing with this, but I was not prepared for how much my ass would hurt. And my knees were a little delicate, which made standing to take pressure off my ass a problem.

I called Gwen from my bike and told her “This isn’t fun. This isn’t even type-2 fun.” And I had a moment of clarity later in the day when I realized that I was riding an amazing route through an amazing landscape, and by any reasonable measure, this should be one of them best rides off my lifetime. But all I could think about was pain.

During my training, I had tried to have all my problems before I would have them in the race. And I’m sure there were a bunch of problems I was able to solve in advance. But there were some I could not, and in some cases, I think I was solving the wrong problem.

First of all, there’s no way to train for mountains when you live in the hill country. The experience of a single hour-long climb is just different.

Second, I thought I had more or less inured myself too ass pain through long training rides. Nope.

Third, I was riding harder on my training rides than I did in the race. I thought I had an idea of the aches and pains I’d have in the race based on my training rides. In fact, the pains I was experiencing prevented me from riding as hard in the race as I would on a training ride, so the experiences were pretty different. My average heart rate on a training ride would be in the 120s, which it was for Day 1 of the race. But it went down quite a bit after that, meaning fewer calories burned, less muscle aches.

Fourth, I just don’t know how I could have anticipated or prevented the tendinitis. I’ve never had a problem like that before.

. . .

I don’t regret having tried. I’m disappointed to drop out. But more disappointed to discover that I am not a person who can do this.

Ride report: John Day, OR

/ Ride Report, TABR 2021

I had hoped to make it to Prairie City today, but the hotel there was full, so I stopped a little early.

Stopped in Prineville to visit the bike shop, in order to replace a missing bar plug. Seems like a minor problem, but their absence has caused some vicious injuries.

Today has its ups and downs, literally. There were two passes, closely spaced, flanking the town of Mitchell. The first climb was long and gradual. The descent was seven miles long and a screamer —it was nerve-racking, mostly due to the buffeting winds. At one point, the wake from a semi going the other way almost blew me off the road. I was slightly light-headed by the times I reached the bottom.

Mitchell is home to the Spoke’n Hostel, one of the most popular stops on the Trans Am. The folks there pretty much put themselves at the rider’s disposal. The feed me, we chatted, it was really nice. Glad I could be a part of that tradition. I left there feeling much more like a human. I was heartened to see that the two race leaders stopped in to sign the guest book.

The climb out of Mitchell was long, steady, and straight. It led to a descent that must have run at least 20 miles. Like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

These two passes seem like the dividing line between pine forests and high desert. The plant life and geology seem different on the two sides.

My ass is still a lava field, and my Achilles’ tendons are more swollen. If anything knocks me out prematurely, it’ll probably be that. My body’s ability to regulate its temperature seems to be all messed up. But today was the first day where I could enjoy the ride some.

It’s showtime, folks

/ TABR 2021 / 2 Comments

Ready for day 3.

Looking at the map, there’s a long stretch between good stopping points, so this will either be a relatively short day or a long one. Meaning it’ll be a short one.

The chest band for my heart-rate monitor is already loose.