My United Way offer was for transportation there, the opportunity to ride the 90 km course the triathletes do two circuits , a chance to cycle up the toll road to Whiteface Mountain if so inclined and dinner at the Lake Placid Brewing Company before the trip back to Ottawa.
Amazingly, there were several bidders for the chance to ride with me or drink beer and after the auction the winner, Gwyn, and I agreed to pick a suitable date once the weather became good enough to do the ride. This Sunday we were fortunate as the weather was perfect. Departing Ottawa at 6 a. For some reason, the creatures of Upstate New York were attracted to my car, including a large wild turkey hen that looked at us and then jumped into the road ahead of the car.
But no harm done The Ice Center where the famous U. By a. There was a clean washroom there as well and I changed into cycling gear and just after a. We passed a big horse show taking place at the local fairgrounds. The course, which I downloaded from the Internet at www. Unfortunately, Route 73 has more traffic than I would have expected on a Sunday morning, with the majority of traffic being large pick-up trucks, many towing boats. Although we enjoyed the downhill parts, it was with some relief that we turned onto Route 9N in Keene.
The road was quite lovely, with a small river to our left and very few cars to contend with. We played road tag with two triathletes out on their bikes, and we were to see a great number of them during the day. Lake Placid, traditionally a huntin' and fishin' place and then a low-key summer resort, has found a new role catering to very thin and very fast tri-geeks.
The Ironman race held each July here since is one of only six sanctioned by the Ironman organizers in the United States.
Unfortunately, our enjoyable ride along 9N towards Upper Jay was interrupted by a flat tire. My rear tire was not actually flat but was clearly losing air. I discovered I had not brought my Speedlever to change the tire and I was apprehensive about getting the very tight-fitting Hutchinson tubeless tire back on so we could complete the ride.
So I just inflated the tire with a CO2 cartridge and hoped for the best. Of course, that is not always the best policy since a few miles on the tire had clearly gone soft again. Luckily, Gwyn had some tire levers and when I put in the tube I was able to get the tire back on without too much difficulty.
Using my second and last cartridge, everything worked perfectly and we were back on the road in less than 15 minutes. It was clear that I had tried to take the tire one trip too far since the Hutchinson tread was looking pretty shredded. Outside of Jay we turned left onto Route There was a bit of climbing here but nothing too hard although there was some traffic.
Reaching the village of Wilmington, we turned right onto Hasleton Road, an out-and-back leg where we saw a lot of triathletes. Doubling back after 8 kms, we returned to Route We passed the road to Whiteface Mountain the 8 mile climb was a bit more than we wanted to do today and headed towards High Falls Gorge. This stetch of road was also quite lovely, with a rapidly running river to our right.
We saw fly fishermen standing on the rocks and high cliffs above us. It was beginning to get hot but, as if on cue, a dark cloud passed over. No rain but it cooled the air nicely. Main Street, Lake Placid The last third of the course is a gentle climb and was easy to do. At one point, I rode with one of the training triathletes. She looked very fit but when we came to the climb she definitely could not keep us with.
I think if I had been riding my time trial bike I would have not gone as quickly either, given gearing and geometry. With 92 kms under our tires, we rolled back into Lake Placid. The organizers of the course had been smart to put the big descent at the start and the gradual climb at the end, but the final climb back up into the town itself was pretty steep for tired legs! But it was nice to have over meters of climbing in the bank Sampling our Beer Sampler After getting cleaned up as much as possible, we walked along Main Street, which was bustling on this late Sunday afternoon.
After a bit of effort, we found the Lake Placid Pub and Brewery , which operates a small bar and restaurant, and we were able to get a table on the deck outside. We went with the sampler of their six available beers to get started. They were very good, and I was surprised at the coffee flavour that you could detect in the Sunrise Stout. Back to the car and we were on the road again with a quick stop at Mountain Mist Ice Cream to celebrate our excellent ride.
We were back in Ottawa by 10 p. Posted by Sprocketboy at 3 comments:. The Raleigh Heron As someone not immune to the collecting mania, I have tried to limit myself but have not been too successful. From stamps as a child to classical CDs and cycling books as an adult, if there is space I will fill it. However, I was able to limit myself in terms of bicycles and actually sold several over the last year.
But I was always attracted to classic steel and since my current road bike, a Specialized S-Works Tarmac E5, is pretty close to state-of-the-art, I thought that perhaps I would go backwards rather than forwards in terms of new bikes. There were only around 26 of these frames built, and they were painted as Raleighs and marked as having Reynolds steel tubing, when in fact they were built out of Columbus tubing.
As well, Connie Carpenter scored a gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics on one of these bicycles. The frame did not seem to be in bad shape from the photos. It had a braze-on for a race number, something seldom seen on consumer bikes but invariably on pro ones. The fork, a unicrown Tange thing, was clearly not original, but I was puzzled by the seatstays, which looked nothing like any Marinoni I had ever seen before.
He was kind enough to check with a mechanic from the team, who was a bit discouraging: It appears that one of the custom frames in the Raleigh catalog may have similar fastback stays? I can't remember anything about "real" Raleigh's from back then, but was an Olympic year, and Raleigh had all those Olympic "superbikes" built, and this frame seems much lower quality than any of those bikes or the Marinoni bikes.
I don't know what it is, but it looks fake to me, or just very low quality. Perhaps not junk, but collectible? I don't think so. The owner said it was a very good frame, and the filework was even better than on his Waterford. He said it had been raced with a Dura-Ace build-up as that was a team sponsor, but a better Campagnolo Super Record rear derailleur was used, with the Campy markings scratched out!
Marinoni said that they could refinish it for me and build me a correct-style fork. The owner was able to provide a serial number and with this the mystery was solved. The frame was indeed a Raleigh, but a very special one. Unable to resist, I put in a bid for the frame and soon afterward Raleigh Professional SB was mine. It actually cost more to ship the frame from its owner in Kansas City to me than I paid for the frame, but I was about to discover that the frame was only the first and nowhere near the most expensive part of my project!
The owner had packed the frame so well it took me an hour with a very sharp knife to free it from its shipping box. The frame actually looked better than it had in the photos and my wife, who had been appalled by what she thought was going to be a piece of rusty junk, was highly impressed. The decals were quite good, as was the paint unlike the notorious quality of Italian and French finishes from the s and the only rust, which was very minor, was to be found on the under-tube cable guides.
The bottom bracket and headtube were very clean and the frame looked to be quite straight. The SB unit is best known for pioneering and proving the new Reynolds lightweight tubing in although it made Reynolds framesets as well. Initially, almost all production was for the TI Raleigh Team which was equipped with frames from the season onwards and other European teams with each team member of the Raleigh squad getting two or three frames per season.
From it bought out most if not all of the tubing from Reynolds both Raleigh and Reynolds being part of the TI conglomerate of course making it exclusive to Raleigh. The was offered in track, roadracing and special time trials frames in the famous team livery, midnight blue or champagne. Initially Ilkeston turned out about 25 tubed frames a week c. The piece went on to say that due to their lightweight nature, frames in particular were prone to damage but that a good SBDU frame was a high-quality one, and, indeed highly collectible since never more than frames per year were built at SBDU.
The Internet yielded further gold: a Yahoo discussion group devoted to high-end Raleigh bicycles and I learned a great deal about my new acquisition. A similar frameset, available both in Reynolds or , is shown in the Raleigh catalogue. I have since acquired a dealer catalogue which shows a built-up version of the same frame, and which I will use as the basis for my rebuild.
The Yahoo group experts told me that I could determine what kind of tubing was used by the diameter of the seatpost. I had my local bike shop check with an electronic caliper and they confirmed it was Before bidding for the bike, I made sure not only that Marinoni would refinish it for me, but also that I had a source for new decals, one of the difficult points of any rebuild.
I was able to source suitable decals from California, Australia and the United Kingdom, so everything was good there. A Restored SBDU Bike My purpose in buying this bike was to bring it back to life and get it on the road so that I would be able to experience a state-of-the-art racing bicycle. SBDU frames are supposed to be lightweight and highly responsive and this one was clearly very good-looking.
It turns out that now post bicycles are not allowed in the event, so my choice has become all that much better. A beautiful frame deserves suitable parts but this meant I had to make a decision. That said, I was not going to go insane trying to build a perfect period-correct bike—the fork problem alone would prevent that.
As a practical matter, I did not want to use tubular tires, although they would have been authentic but would have a new wheelset made using old Campy SR hubs and new silver Mavic Open Pro box rims. They would be hassle-free and in addition I would not have any worries about old parts failing. The other area of concern was the stem and handlebar. It has taken a great deal of patience to locate nice Campagnolo Super Record parts but they have come in: from Virginia, Florida, Australia, Naples, Berlin and who knows where else.
With the exception of a few small generic mechanical parts, almost everthing has arrived except a suitable seatpost. I have a great-looking Selle San Marco Regal saddle, a model that has been produced for decades and features big copper rivets at the back.
I have brand new Super Record brake levers with hard-to-find amber rubber hoods in perfect condition. My hubs were overhauled and my new wheelset constructed. All the Campagnolo parts look really gorgeous.
Secure online payment is through PayPal using your PayPal account or a credit card. The registration, payments and online agreement to the terms and conditions will ensure no additional forms or contact will be required at the event other than collecting and returning your sanitised race numbers. Please make sure you complete the information in the form correctly. The start sheet will be setup in advance the evening before the event and all details will be emailed out later in the evening with your start number, time and any other important event or safety information.
Results post race will be published online, please do not approach the timekeepers at the finish line. For the two weekend 25 mile events on 29th May and 18th July we will provide the option of riding a 10 mile or 25 mile distance. CTT requires all riders to have working rear lights with 50m visibility for both Open and Club events: there will be no exceptions to this rule.
Our sponsor, Owens Cycles, has made a small number of rear lights available for loan at events. Ryan, was 10th, Evan 13th and Lewis15th. Cheese Grommit!! Graham grits his teeth and takes a flyer. The team was impressive nonetheless.
Ryan Storm opened up hostilities almost from the gun, and Ian Harris and Graham Lang provided worthy counter attacks. Ian found himself accompanied by Kyle Foley of ACT midway through the race and the two hammered out a fifteen second advantage, the largest lead of the day. With Foley back to the fold the race lost momentum as the riders seemed resigned to another field sprint. Connor, Lewis, Evan and Ryan were all prominent in the final kilometer but came into the last turn just a bit too far back to contest the win, finishing 7th, 9th, 10th, and 15th respectively.
Results-wise the weekend was successful, but more importantly each rider achieved specific process goals and overall the team took a huge step in learning to ride as a collective.
This was the first weekend that the team dynamic was able to gel and a real effort was made to strategize as a squad. Race Notes: Liam Quigley had the unenviable task of riding his first stage race, time trial and criterium with a pinched nerve and a head cold. Khary Ward has all the makings of a criterium specialist, and none of the technique. Like Liam this weekend was also his first stage race, time trial and criterium.
In the process Khary earned a bit of a reputation as the team wrecking-crew, all the while masterfully holding himself upright through a series of equipment-chewing misadventures.
The tally so far: one rear-derailleur, a quick-release skewer and some spokes. Mike Fraysee holds yet another future star in the start tent at the ITT. CRCA got the ladies in the tent! Lewis, Nina Santiago, and Filip, warming-up.
Posted by c2 at AM. Bear Mt. Juniors: Back with a Vengance.
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