Really Big Gears!

Saw this bike yesterday while on my ride:

Classic Old School speed machine!

The owner told me that it was a 68(!) tooth ring. The inner ring looked like maybe a 62, but he wasn't sure himself. i forgot to ask who built the frameset, but was told it was titanium and about 25-30 years old. The original fork was replaced with a Kestrel carbon unit. It appeared that the rear brake was fitted to an adapter mounted on cantilever studs. Given the generous clearances, i wonder if it was originally built for cyclocross?

Jacques Anquetil would be envious... T.A. rings, 225mm Bullseye crank arms. Minimal ground clearance!

The rider had just come in from riding a rather rolling circuit. Looked like he had a 13-25 freewheel mounted. i asked how he got up those hills, and he said basically that he just takes a good run at them. i couldn't imaging turning over that windmill crank at any speed under 25mph! It reminded me of pictures i'd seen of the time trialists  in the old British cycling magazines, back when road racing there almost exclusively consisted of 25 and 50 mile TTs.

The guy was probably about my age or so, meaning late middle aged. As i get older my choice of the big rings has gone from 53, to 52, to 48, down to 46T... i have a bit of envy for a fellow whose knees and leg muscles can still turn over those gears!

If i encounter this rider and machine again (and it will probably be in the parking lot as there's no way i'd catch him on the road!), i'll try to take more pics of this unique bike. If you have an idea as to its origins/builder, pass them along? Thanks! 

Oh-for-Four

Last Saturday i made an attempt at a 300k rando. i've attempted that distance three times before. Only once was i able to complete the distance, but that time finished two hours over the time limit. i came to the realisation sometime around the seven and a half hour mark that i was not fit enough to face the coming hills and the rising heat. After turning around, i felt almost no pressure to make any kind of speed on the return trip, except that i really wanted to get back to Delavan before Brody Beef (-the best italian beef sandwich and fries north of the Illinois border,) closed. Didn't make it... sigh.

Still hoping to get a longer ride done sometime... the next 300 attempt will be next year. Meanwhile, i'll be content to plug away at 200's as perhaps the Slowest Randonneur in the Midwest.

Update

Charles E. Pickett, 50, of Battle Creek, Michigan, has been charged with five counts of  Second-degree Felony Murder in the deaths of the cyclists near Kalamazoo last Tuesday evening.

In my humble opinion, it's about friggin' time a prosecutor took such incidents seriously.

We will wait to see if these charges get pleaded down. ( i have to wonder, is there such a thing as misdemeanor murder?)

Vehicular Homicide

This Wednesday morning i awoke to the radio news reports of the carnage in Kalamazoo. A group of nine cyclists was mowed down by a man with a pickup truck. Five persons lost their lives, four more are in hospital.

Notice the nuance here: a man mowed them down, not a pickup truck, not a vehicle. The vehicle was merely a weapon and at the controls of that weapon was a man. 

Some of the reports i've read or heard state that the people were run down by a pickup truck- as if the pickup truck were an autonomous thing with its own will and beyond human control.

Some reports called this event an "accident" as if it were a fated thing beyond human involvement or prevention. This was no "accident," but homicide, if not willful murder.

As of this writing i haven't heard if any charges have been laid on the driver. We have heard that he was apprehended whilst attempting to flee the scene on foot as he had struck the people with such murderous force as to render his vehicle undrivable.

Think about that for a moment: the force and speed required to cause such extensive damage to a two-plus-ton steel and iron machine by something as soft and fragile as a human body.

As of this writing i have yet to hear if the driver, the person at the wheel, was intoxicated or suffering a physical ailment or distracted. IF charges are laid, one wonders what sort of defense this person will put up. One wonders what charges may be laid and if he is proved culpable (remember, the laws here state "innocent until proved guilty,") what fitting penalty is in order?

Other people more articulate than i have been expressing themselves over this event, and i find myself too heartsick and angry to continue much longer today.

Here are a couple of websites that may allow you to help the victims of this driver's action:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1732473983657485/permalink/17324785...

http://www.kalamazoostrongorganization.org/

If you should have any ideas that may help bring comfort, please let me know and i'll post  them here. Thanks.