Safe travels TI'ers...

Here's to clear skies and a tailwind, y'all...

[photo: lincoln to ponca, july 22, 2006]

Lincoln Continental / Rapha Ride Report

Rapha has published an extensive Daniel Wakefield Paisley slide show, his essay, the Matt Wills plotted cue sheet and map, and the film from last spring's Lincoln Continental ride — more informally known 'round these parts as the Ponca Ride.

Lincoln Continental Road Journal

"We are in The Coffee House in Lincoln, Nebraska, in our kit. It’s 6:30 am and still dark outside.
"It’s also just begun to rain — harder."

Read the rest of Daniel Wakefield Pasley's road journal from Rapha's Lincoln-to-Ponca ride — complete with a short film and photos of our wet-then-dry-then-very-long day — at the Rapha web site.



To see all the Lincoln Continental posts, click on the "Rapha" tag below.

150 Miles Of Dirt In Nebraska

The images are trickling in and they're about as epic as you'd expect.


What you'll find at In Flagrante Photo is the still photography work of the two video dudes on Rapha's Lincoln Continental ride — Dave Christenson and Adam Kolkman — as blogged by Carey Schleicher-Haselhorst.

More (video and stills) to come, fo sho.

Thoughts In Anticipation (slight return)

Behold.

This is the spirited steed that I'll be astride for the Rapha Ride tomorrow — the Salsa Podio.

While it’s no custom ti beauty or some jealousy inducing classic steel rig, don’t be mistaken, it's a very fine road bike judged by any standard, and in the two months that I've had the Podio, it’s stood up respectably on all the stages I’ve pushed in out onto — rainy afternoon journeys, a few Wednesday worlds, and the ultimate platform (at least for the immediate future), gravel road rides.

The shape you see it in here is exactly as it will be piloted all day on Tuesday — 100psi 25s, a fresh computer, a spare tube, and a pump. Simple. The forecast is for rain and more rain, so it’ll also be covered in a wet grit, but it’s no more and no less than any of us will be needing on our century and a half north to Ponca.

We hope.

The rest of our companions are on their way here right now from MLPS and should arrive just in time for The Oven and a beer, and then all the anticipation will be done.

Long live long rides.

Lincoln Continental

As you may have read over at Skip’s, it’s Rapha Continental season, and two of their Continental Calling 2009 rides are being hosted by Nebraska residents: Today’s M22 ride in Michigan led by the EnduroSnob himself and a the Lincoln Continental (Lincoln to Ponca) hosted by Wills and myself.

The route to Ponca is a familiar one for a pretty big group of local gravelers, but when the call came and the ride was tapped as one of the springtime epics to be added to Rapha’s list of rides, it was accompanied by the question: “It can be done on road bikes, right? That’s kind of our deal.”

“I guess.” Was my answer.

So the past few months have been … I don’t want to say an experiment, but more like a good excuse to explore the limits of slickys on gravel roads. Turns out, the limits are zero-to-none. In fact, as Woodman, Wills, Pool, and others will attest, riding road bikes on hilly country gravel and dirty minimum maintainence roads has much to offer in terms of low traffic, scenery, steep grades, and the occasional slippery turn.

“So what.” You’re saying.

So next week, Wills and I are hosting these dudes we don't know — who in one form or another have done something like 30 big rides in 40 days — on a weirdly clandestine version of our annual Ponca Ride. Yeah, the one where we leave at like dark o'clock in the morning. Yeah, the one that’s like twelve hours of ride time. Yeah, the one that’s usually done on MTBs.

Rapha Riders' longest stretch of gravel so far? Seven miles.
Lincoln Continental's longest stretch of pavement? Seven miles.

We should be fine (he he).
I guess.

P.S. Don't forget the real run-what-you-brung Ponca Ride on June 19th.

The Crosso's Back

Nope, this is not -KW's bike... I got my own Chili Con Crosso built, just in time for the Good Life Gravel Adventure this weekend. It's the same one I raced last season, but it's been torn down and sitting as a frameset since the end of 'cross season last year. To say it's good to have it back is an understatement too. I can't believe how light and responsive the CCC is! Amazing.

After ripping the derailleur hanger clean off his own bike on the Tuesday night ride (courtesy of a big stick in his rear derailleur), Fob's gonna' race my Salsa La Cruz in the GLGA, so both of my 'cross bikes will be out on the road Saturday. Pretty cool...

Hope to see lots of you out on two wheels this weekend -- it's going to be a beautiful one!

unique

Headed to a long gravel bike race this weekend in the Flint Hills of Kansas—one of the most peaceful places I've been.

From Wikipedia:
"Beginning in the mid-1800s homesteaders replaced the American Indians in the Flint Hills. Due to chert in the soil, farming was not practical, and cattle ranching became the main agricultural activity in the region. Sparsely populated today, the Flint Hills contain most of the remaining tallgrass prairie in the world."