Training tires. Those words mean different things to different people. For some, it means old race tires. This makes the least amount of sense unless your training tires stay on the trainer or rollers. Otherwise, those tires are probably pretty thin to begin with and have no puncture protection. And since they've been raced on, they're even thinner. That might work in other areas of the country, but not here in the Pacific Northwest. The rain keeps the shoulders and bike lanes full of debris. No place for thin tires. And this winter has brought us something extra special - snow. Portland has no real infrastructure to handle snow removal. Its answer is gravel. Lots of gravel. Eventually that gravel gets swept from the roads to - guess where - the shoulders and bike lanes. Pretty much making them unrideable or a flat waiting to happen.

So, another option is a "training" tire. To me, that used to mean a cheap tire. One that was heavy, had a steel bead, and thick rubber. They ride terribly, though, and don't always last that long. And cheap means no puncture protection layer. Now training tires are super fancy, culminating in the current version of the Continental Gatorskin. Not that heavy, with decent ride quality and all sorts of puncture protection. All that technology is pretty expensive, though, and I still wind up flatting more than I'd like to. And I buy them in 23mm because they look like race tires and I want to feel fast when guys lay it down on training rides.

This year I decided all of this was silliness. Due to my work schedule and baby, much of my riding will be alone and I shouldn't worry about being super fast on a training ride - going hard is going hard, even if the mph doesn't reflect the effort! And my work commute is nice, but not exactly rural country roads. It's mostly a step down from a local highway. Good shoulders and bike lanes, but still lots of traffic kicking debris to the side. So I bought touring tires.

Touring tires are meant for high mileage, and for handling the worst roads, paved or unpaved. Mostly the purview of Rivendell and recumbent folks, but perfect for our current riding conditions. They are heavy. Very heavy. And supple as a brick. But the ones I got are supposedly unflattable. That's right - the Schwalbe Marathon Plus is advertised as unflattable. Most of the reviews I've read seem to agree. Did I mention they have a reflective sidewall? Yep - that cool. And a steel bead that is amazingly difficult to work with. But who cares? Once they're on, I hope to not change a tube for a very long time. Initially I put the 28mm one on my fixed gear/ss cross bike. It's been perfect. I steer towards the gravel just for fun and they haven't picked anything up yet. If you don't pump them to max psi they ride ok and you still don't have to worry about a puncture or pinch flat.

I was hooked and ready to make the switch on my fendered training/rain bike (training season and rain season are the same in Portland). A fat 28mm tire wouldn't fit with the fenders and even I would agree that it's a bit obnoxious on a road bike. Luckily, Schwalbe makes the Marathon Plus in a 25mm width, too. FYI, it's a very big 25mm - there is a tread, and it is tall, not just some weak, gimmicky siping. There is a tiny bit of rubbing on the front fender which I can't seem to fix, but I figure that a millimeter off the top of this tread isn't going to hurt me.

So, you might pass me when you are on the rivet during an interval this winter even though I try to keep up, but I might be passing you back as you fix another flat on the side of the road.

And of course, I'll have some silly thin and ultra-lightweight tires on for race day. I hope it helps!

Here in Portland that beautiful white, fluffy snow is leaving. It is slowly being replaced by the worst form of precipitation - freezing rain. This has made quite a mess of unplowed side roads. The original snow was tacky and compacted nicely without icing over. Now there are big ruts where tires have traveled most frequently, and often shiny slick spots where those tires spun without traction. If there isn't a shiny slick spot, it's a hole in the bottom layer of frozen slush track. Put those holes and slick spots every foot or so, and it's an alignment-wrecking drive from our street to the main road.

The current conditions have put an end to fairy tail winter mountain biking in the snow, although I did ride the mtb to work on Tuesday and it was quite an adventure. The usual 50-60 minute commute took an 1 hour 20 minutes. I got bogged down in a few intersections downtown and yes, I fell once. And laughed.

So I've been riding the rollers. I've had a mental block on using the rollers this year. Some years I get obsessed and do 3-4 hour sessions without blinking. Some years I get antsy after 5 minutes and just ride outside no matter what. I thought this year might be more like the latter, but riding the rollers has been fun. Well, as fun as riding indoors can be. A buddy just let me borrow a bunch of Roubaix and Flanders videos from the past few years, and that keeps me pretty well entertained. That and breaking the time down into 5-10-20 minute sessions where I work on one thing or another.

Up until this year, I've always used old, ratty bibs to ride the trainer and saved my new kit for team rides and racing. I've recently had the epiphany that this is the wrong way to go. I wore some new bibs yesterday, and could not believe how much longer I could sit without some uncomfortable feelings in the chamois region. When you're on the rollers (or trainer), you don't often move around very much and there isn't a lot of air circulating down there. Combine that with a thin, worn-out chamois and it's not pretty. New shorts are perfect for indoor riding - no rain, grease, oil and general road spew to fall upon them, and you don't wear them as long as you would for those long outdoor rides. You do sweat a lot in them, so I wouldn't wait around to wash if your sweat (like mine) eats shorts pretty aggressively!

Time for another roller session and class is in session. Today's pick is Belgians Taught German Lesson!

This morning I did something I haven't done in a very long time. I rode my mountain bike. It was a toss up - I almost took the cyclocross bike, but DW wanted to ride mountain bikes and one look outside at the accumulating snow confirmed that mtb was a better choice. And it was epic.

Three of us met at the coffee shop and then rolled up to Forest Park. It's probably been over a year since I'd ridden the mtb. Everything felt weird. 175mm cranks instead of 170's. Slack angles everywhere. A spongy shock on the front end. And small wheels with fat mtb tires. Those tires were killing me. I felt like every pedal stroke was ripping velcro, so slow.

It was tough to hold back the grin, though. We were riding in a winter wonderland. The snow has been dry and fluffy, Colorado-style, not the wet Portland melt-as-it-hits that we usually get (when it snows once a year). Very few cars were venturing out and we pretty much had the whole road to ourselves.

We hit Leif and it just kept getting better. There were lines, and if you didn't take them all of a sudden things got very slow, crunchy and a bit squirrelly. We stopped for an adjustment and lo and behold, a gaggle of 'cross riders were rolling up - the new Hammer team. Very nice crew, so we joined them for a while. But 'cross bikes were not the weapon for the snow-laden trail so we eventually cruised through.

At some point we turned off the main trail and all fun broke loose. We turned to the black market of off-limits hiking trails, but it was totally deserted out there and no chance for trail destruction. And so the next few hours were spent. And neither the snow nor the grinning ever stopped. Even with a few nice endos as my mtb skills reluctantly returned. Yep, I'm still smiling hours later. Very tired, but smiling.

White Christmas in Portland - I'll take it!

I did something yesterday that I thought I would never do. I wore a neck gaitor for the work commute. Yep. A neck gaitor. Granted, it was a very fancy Castelli Dade Windstopper one which, at the pull of a cord, becomes a sweet hat resplendent in euro coolness. But that's not how I was wearing it. I wore it like a bank robber's mask, up over my nose to the rim of my glasses. After twenty minutes I had warmed up enough to remove it from my nose and mouth and just use it around my neck, but I wouldn't take it off. It felt nice. I looked in the mirror when I got to work and had a good laugh. So did everyone else.

How cold does it have to be for me to wear a neck gaitor? The weather people say it's 20 degrees, but feels like single digits. Cold. At least by Portland standards.

In addition to my gaitor, I wore these crazy Etxe Ondo arctic bibtights I've had for years. Completely fleeced with windstopper panels all along the front of the legs. I bought them when I first moved here - they were on sale, and I thought I'd get some use from them a few times a year. Nope. Every time I've worn them, it's been in the 30's or 40's and I've become a steaming pool of sweat within a half-hour of riding. Not so yesterday morning. They were absolutely perfect. I felt no cold or wind whatsoever, and no sweat.

The road conditions were fine with my fat 28's, as long as I didn't mind riding in the traffic lane. Way too much ice and pounded, crunchy snow in the bike lane. And I did walk the bike for a total of three blocks, each of which were a sheet of glass.

Truth is, I prefer the bitter cold that gave us snow to the current weather - this evening has warmed up to the mid/high 30's and the snow has turned to a freezing rain that has covered everything in a sloppy slush that would make a bike drivetrain and brakes cry for mercy. I don't mind riding in cold and snow, or regular Portland winter rain, but this stuff is really ugly. I trade the bike for the car about once a month for one reason or another, and I think I have a good reason for tomorrow. Be safe out there.

Warm ridings,

Joshua/CycloSportif

A while has gone by since the Fixed Gears and DOMS post. That initial ride was a rude muscle awakening, but adaptation was pretty quick and it somehow turned to obsession. I love my hour-long commute. Each way presents fun fixed gear challenges.

The way to work starts with challenge one: a 1/4 mile descent right outside my door. Nothing like spinning like mad only two minutes into a ride at 6:30 am. I try to make it all the way to the very bottom and then keep a good cadence along the flat section for another minute or so. I try.

After that pleasant warm up, I wind my way through downtown Portland and among the city's huge bike commuter population. The crowd thins quickly, though, as I keep riding south of town and hit challenge number two: slightly uphill time trial. 4 1/2 minutes. The last 90 seconds are absurd, I'm all over the bike, trying to keep my cadence up. I start making excuses why I should cut the effort short. Where is that stupid marker already?

Barely able to catch my breath, I slowly roll through two stop lights to challenge three: short uphill with false flat. I haven't timed it yet, but it's longer than it should be. I'm going fine up the hill and then the false flat is there and I'm ok for a bit and then it's only three more blocks and I can't seem to hold it and I'm almost there and I'm done. Done sometimes means I made it all the way to the light. Sometimes it just means I'm done. With 20 meters to go.

Oh, well. time for challenge four: another 1/4 mile downhill, maybe a little shorter. The key to the downhill is the transition at the bottom. Try to keep a high cadence all the way down and over the bridge at the bottom until the trees on the other side. Watch out for groggy, impatient morning drivers turning into the convenience market near the bottom when I'm at full speed and my legs are a little tired for sudden stops.

Just two more challenges to go and the hour is over!

Challenge four goes directly into challenge five: three minutes of steady uphill. That's really what makes challenge four a challenge - keeping enough in reserve that I can recover at a good pace and slowly ramp it up on challenge five's long uphill. I can fully recover when I hit the 6-mile sign at the top. The fast food taco place means I'm halfway there. The transit station means I have to dig for that final minute. Ahhh. Roll slowly to the stoplight and recover.

Challenge six: one mile or so of very fast descending all the way to the office, with a few stoplights to keep it interesting. It's actually a blessing if I have at least one stop light as an excuse to slow down for a brief moment. I give up one final cadence burst as the downhill ends and smile if I make it to the sign.

That's it! Easy roll for a few blocks to the office.

Now do it all in reverse and you have the commute home! I usually take the way home pretty easy if I went hard in the morning. Not if I'm in a rush to make it home for my six-month-old daughter's bath time, though. Then it's a fun time trial effort starting with a one-mile climb. Did I mention this all happens with a laptop in my backpack?

So why is this entry called three teeth? (If you're still reading.) Because up to this point I've been able to do the workout better and better each week. Last week I switched out my 39-tooth chainring for a 42. My rear cog is a 17. I had no idea how much harder those three teeth would be to turn over on all of the uphill challenges. I admit - I've cratered on a few efforts since the 42 came aboard. It will be an interesting experiment to see how long it takes me to build up to it. I have nothing to hide - I'll let you know if I make it!

I must write of a beautiful convergence this past weekend: Oregon, late November, and it's a perfect crisp, clear Sunday. No cyclocross race to sling waffles and clothing (Kruger's was happening, but I had already said I couldn't do it - sorry, Kris). And some riding buddies were heading out for four easy hours. What could be better?

Nothing. Except for two minor items, barely worth mentioning. One: I am sick. I'm definitely on the mend, but I"m still stuffed up and my cough is "loosening." Two: I have not ridden my bike for more than my one-hour commute in I can't remember how long. Well before 'cross season started. Those two minor items hit me pretty hard after two hours of riding. We were riding easy. Mostly easy, anyway, except for Cliff who isn't working right now so he rides all the time and he loves climbing fast always because he can. I still tried to keep it easy.

So I'm a bit tired and then we come to a point where the Pallet Factory Loop (a nice 3.5-hour ride) can become the Kansas City Loop (a nice 4.5 to 5-hour ride). And Doug is loving the ride and wants to keep going. And I know that's what my mind is thinking and my body is not. So I listened to my body for once and turned toward home. Home was still 1.5 hours and a few miles of climbing away, and it turns out there was a headwind. Even on the exposed lower half of the climb. I actually turned the wrong way at the top and extended the journey a little longer.

When I got home, that easy three hour ride felt like a hard five hour ride. I was wasted. I wanted to eat everything. Luckily, we don't have much food in the house except the delicious tofu chocolate pudding I had made the other day - it's tofu, eat as much as you want!

So glad that it's November and I have just one more weekend of cyclocross before I can start using those two special days every week for their divine purpose: Winter training.