From Nothing to Too Much

   Knowing that eBay has a time limitation on its buyer protection policy, I thought I should formally notify them of the long shipment delay of the Bottecchia frame. Amazingly, just minutes after I had opened a case on Saturday morning, the mailman pulled up in front of our house and pulled a large box out of the rear door of his van!

   The most important consideration when I opened the box was that the frame appeared in the expected condition, although the seatpost, which wasn’t pictured in the auction listing, was extremely rusty. However, most of the problem is below the insertion point, so I should be able to clean it up sufficiently so that it functions properly without getting stuck in the seat tube.

   I was holding off on the purchase of a few small parts to complete the project until I was sure the frame would actually arrive, but this isn’t the only reason I didn’t jump right into putting the Bottecchia together. On Thursday a gentleman from Connecticut stopped by to complete a swap he had proposed for my Bianchi “Pantani” build. John had a 2007 Cannondale bicycle that was a bit too big for him and had tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer. The SystemSix Team Si 1 is a top-quality racing bike with a composite frame made up of an aluminum rear triangle and carbon everywhere else – the complete machine weighs about 16 pounds!

   The bike has top-of-the-line Shimano Dura-Ace components, including a newer wheelset that is clincher and tubeless tire compatible. The bike also has some upgraded parts, such as Ritchey WCS carbon handlebars and a Thompson Masterpiece seatpost. The bike was listed at $4800 new!

   John also had a 1996 De Bernardi Veloce that he warned was a bit rough around the edges, just sitting around in his garage. He asked if I would like that, too! This was a bicycle that he used to race when he was younger and cost over $1300 new – not cheap back then! It has a mix of lower-level Campagnolo Veloce and Athena components, but it does have the ErgoPower shift/brake levers. For a mid-‘90s, non-professional-racer-build on an Italian import frame, the overall quality is not bad at all!

   Again, John had upgraded some parts, such as a beautiful set of Cinelli bars and a Mavic wheelset. The wheels are actually mismatched, with a classic Open 4 CD rim on the front and a deeper CXP30 aero on the back, but their similar gunmetal finish pairs them well visually. The bike does have some rust issues on the “sweat points”, where the paint is beginning to bubble, and some of the chrome is pitted badly.

   After helping to get the two bikes out of John's car, we laughed at how heavy the steel bike felt after removing the the Cannondale, which you really could lift with two fingers. The funny thing was the De Bernardi is made of Columbus Thron tubing, the same as my Colnago, and it really is fairly lightweight for a steel bicycle - it's a racing bike, after all.

   I felt I was getting too much of a deal in my favor and gave him $50 for the De Bernardi.I think someone would like this bike as a “beater” or commuter bike, and I should be able to get a couple hundred out of it with some new tires and bar tape.

   I'm beginning to notice a lack of open floor space in my shop, and the need to get these two bikes cleaned up and ready to sell became even more of a priority when a neighbor dropped off a couple of cruiser bikes that required some attention. Linda had expressed the need for more than three gears to ride and recently purchased a Schwinn Admiral, an off-the-shelf bike that she (wisely) didn’t trust to the Walmart employees for fine-tuning.

   The bike she was replacing, a 1981 Schwinn Collegiate, needs a bit more work, particularly a good cleaning. It also badly needs a new set of tires (I’ve never seen the sidewalls fall off of a tire before!), and the rickety saddle has to be swapped for safety’s sake. I started a preliminary wipe-down of the bike, and the paint and chrome started to shine nicely. I’m thinking that someone headed down to the shore this summer would get a kick out of this oldie.

    For the first time, I had a chance to take my Bianchi Cross Concept on some of the unpaved rail trails in the area, now that most of them have dried out over the last few days. The bike performed exactly how I wished it would, with the grip and stability of a mountain bike but the speed and agility of a road bike. The carbon fork and rear stays noticeably dampened a lot of the rocky ride one would experience on portions of the trails that have been scrubbed of their usual cinder top layer.

   On a couple sections of the Perkiomen Trail, where it gets less sun, there was still a bit of snow, and I rode in the mushy tracks that some of the Park Service vehicles had left behind. Things turned a bit crazy when I hit a spot that obviously gets NO sun and the ruts were solid ice! I felt like I was on the Olympic bobsled team, except that I was sitting three feet above the banked curves with a totally unstable, high center of gravity.

   I was glad that I was wearing a knobby pair of MTB-style cycling shoes, so that I had some traction when I put my feet down. I was in one of the steep-sided ravine parts of the trail, and although there is a split-rail fence for protection, I had a fleeting vision of careening head-over-heels, 40+ feet down into the creek below.

Definitely one of those instances where being on a bike trail, away from car traffic may not actually be safer!

I've got nothing...figuratively or literally!

   There are simply some times when I struggle to come up with a topic to write about. Oh, I could drone on and on about pro cycling, but I realize not all readers are interested in that topic, particularly when it seems the sport can’t crawl out from under its shaky reputation. Every few weeks it seems someone else in the pro peloton is being scrutinized for some questionable blood test - some of these guys just don’t get it!

   I will mention that I read through a good portion of the recently released 227-page report by the Cycling Independent Reform Commission on cycling's doping culture, but it got a bit heavy in medical jargon in some spots, and I started to skim. The parts that were readable really didn’t tell me much more than I already knew, and the report definitely wasn’t critical enough of former UCI officials and the way they let Lance Armstrong manipulate the system.

   My writer’s block was unfortunately cured by another round of bicycle project bad luck. It seems the Bottecchia frame is M.I.A., as the tracking information sent by the eBay seller provides no information, other than that the package was accepted at his Ljubuljana (Slovenia) post office. You may wonder, based on my past experiences, why I bother with international shipments anymore, but this wasn’t a complete bicycle, just a frameset. I order parts from Europe often, and I seldom have incidents.

   I was very patient as time went by, waiting for the frame to arrive, but as it is now well past eBay’s conservative five week estimate, I decided to contact the seller, Tomaz. From our exchange of messages, he seems to be a very nice person, and I forgot that I had actually purchased from him previously. Because the tracking info was supplied a couple days after I paid, I had always assumed the package went out, but he even sent along a photo of the shipping label applied at his post office, as proof that it was shipped.

   I immediately thought that Tomaz must be very thorough, but then it occurred to me that he might be taking all of these precautionary steps because of issues with Slovenia Post in the past. Someone at the office told him about logistical problems with USPS that they have been dealing with for months, but the person there also guaranteed (whatever that means) the frame wasn’t lost - they just don’t know where it is right now. Wait a second, isn’t that the definition of "lost"?

   Tomaz filled out some type of claims form to open an inquiry about the item's location and was told he should receive some written notification. He encouraged me to take a similar action here, but I've been informed that our postal service doesn't have any information about packages overseas until they come into the USPS system.

   So right now I have all the parts to build a bicycle, but nothing on which to build it. Who knows, maybe the frame will show up on my front porch in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime I attempt to gain some luck-of-the-Irish by celebrating today’s date with some photos of legends Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche, as well as current stars from the Emerald Isle, Nicholas Roche (Stephen’s son) and cousin Dan Martin (son of Stephen’s sister Maria).

Making a Mess of Things

   Congratulations to Team Sky’s Ian Stannard for his repeat win at the Belgian semi-Classic, Het Nieuwsblad, not only because of his comeback from serious injury, but for his masterful job of outfoxing three breakaway companions, all of which were from the same Etixx-Quick Step team! I want to be fair to Stannard and say how smart the Brit played the situation and how strong he rode in the last few miles, however the “EQS” teammates really blew their strategy, but we’ll get back to that part of the story later.

   Het Nieuwsblad, is named after and sponsored by the region’s newspaper, and is usually marked by bad weather. Some cyclists said this year’s event was the coldest they’ve ever experienced! The race’s route covers some of the legendary cobbled climbs featured in the Tour of Flanders. Traditionalists (I’m one of them) like to point out that Het Nieuwsblad also covers climbs that used to be in the Tour of Flanders, since its race organizers chose to make the route more corporate-friendly.

   The historic race was altered to include a finishing circuit so that the cyclists would pass V.I.P. tents several times. Fabled climbs, such as the Bosberg and Muur de Gerardsbergen, were completely eliminated. “The Muur” (see photo above from 2010) was a frequent point for a decisive move during the race, and as a result, a gathering point of hordes of cycling-crazy spectators!

   This route change may be great for “the suits”, but what about the fans and the tradition of the race? Perhaps the one positive is that the semi-Classics can boost their profile and create their own special atmosphere by including these forgotten climbs.

   Stannard looked set for a big season after such an impressive win at last year’s Het Nieuwsblad, but only three weeks later he crashed into a ditch at Ghent-Wevelgem and broke his back. Ian had to wear a body brace (see photo left) and stay off the bike completely for three months, as he gained weight and totally lost his fitness. Finally in September, in his first competitive ride during the first stage of the Tour of Britain, Stannard crashed again and broke his wrist, effectively ending a season that pretty much never was!

   So it was really great to see Ian following the dominant EQS team as they powered up a climb called the Haaghoek, in an attempt to create a gap with about 50 km left to go. 2012 winner Sep Vanmarcke (Lotto NL-Jumbo) had originally made this group, but suffered an untimely tire puncture and was left to chase with BMC’s Greg Van Avermaet and, yet another Etixx rider, Zdenek Stybar.

   In hindsight we can question if maybe it would have been a better strategy to let the three chasers catch up to share the remaining workload (that is, IF the Etixx four could have gotten their three opponents to contribute evenly), but there are no guarantees there wouldn’t be a flat or mechanical failure to throw the advantage out of balance. At that moment they had three to one in the break, the powerful Stijn Vandenbergh, last year’s Paris-Roubaix winner Niki Terpstra and Classics legend Tom Boonen, four-time Roubaix and three-time Flanders victor. Pushing the current advantage seemed the best strategy – and it really should have been!

   The problem was that the Etixx trio was left to do all of the work up front, while Stannard just sat on in their slipstream, saving all his energy. He was outnumbered, and if the others wanted to shed him from the break, it was their responsibility to attack and do so. They just waited too long, and Stannard proved to have plenty left in his legs to respond.

   I said to Sue that their best move was to have Boonen go first because he is the fastest of the three and would take Stannard the most energy to catch, which is exactly what happened, but the Brit was fresh enough to slowly reel Boonen back in, with the other two Etixx riders following him in line. The following move was predictable and Stannard completely saw it coming, when he managed to regain Boonen’s wheel and Terpstra immediately attempted to make a break.

   What wasn’t expected was that Vandenbergh went with Terpstra, and when Stannard jumped across to them, Boonen was left alone to catch up. Stannard then made what proved to be the winning move by accelerating past Terpstra after the catch was made. Vandenbergh, who had done the most work in the day’s breakaway, was toast at this point, and Terpstra’s response to reach Stannard dropped the struggling Boonen.

   Terpstra actually took up the proper position at the front down the finishing stretch, in an attempt to force his Team Sky opponent to come around him, but the Dutchmen started his sprint way too soon, allowing Stannard to close into his slipstream and slingshot right around him at the line. I actually let out a bit of a yelp - it was so fun to watch it unfold!

   If you are interested, Cosmo Catalano puts together brief, humorous highlights of the year’s big races, and you can see the video of this event here.