The Big Clean

May 11th, 2012

I clean my bike very thoroughly every couple of months, sometimes more often if I’m doing a lot of riding and/or if the weather has been bad. I tear it down almost completely, removing all the gears, the wheels, the tires, etc. and clean everything very carefully. Before heading for France (I leave in four days) I always go a few steps further and replace a lot of things. Today I tore it all down, cleaned it quite well and put on new tubes, new tires, new brake cables, new … [more]

Col de Vence Loop

June 20th, 2010

This is a great route, part of which my friend Connie and I rode last year from the opposite direction. Today I was hoping to add on some more mountain villages and was really looking forward to the ride. That all went to hell about one kilometer into the ride. I left Vence a little after 9:00 am and headed up the Col de Vence. The climb has been featured several times in the famous Paris-Nice cycling race as well as the Nice Ironman race. There appeared to be rain … [more]

Vence, La Turbie, Peille Loop

June 19th, 2010

Great ride today! I slept in later than I usually do, but I got a good night’s sleep and I’m now on France time I think. I finished putting my bike together (really just needed to tighten everything up and tweak a few things), got organized and was on the road around 9:30. It’s mostly downhill from Vence to Nice, about seven miles to the coast (Cagnes-Sur-Mer) and then another three miles or so to the Nice airport. It was so wonderful to be riding in France again. I cruised … [more]

Bike Cleaning

June 11th, 2010

One of the things that is absolutely imperative before a cycling trip to France is giving my bike a very thorough cleaning. Today I broke it all down and did just that. Generally, I’ll remove the rear cassette (the rear gears) and the crankset (the front gears) along with both wheels. I give the frame a good cleaning, clean the chain and the wheels and then really scrub all the gears well before reassembling everything. This time I also put on new tubes, new tires, a new chain and new … [more]

Eze & La Turbie

June 20th, 2009

Our first day of cycling in France (on this trip). We’ve just put two full days of travel behind us (plane rides from Nashville to Charlotte, NC and then on to Paris and a long car drive from Paris to Nice) and we’re more than ready to get on the bikes. This is the fifth cycling trip I’ve made to France and I have a little tradition of heading up to Eze and then on to La Turbie as a kind of warm up day. It’s a great little ride, … [more]

The Clarksville 100 (CRAM)

May 25th, 2009

Last Saturday (May 23rd) I rode the Clarksville Rotary Annual Metric (known as the CRAM) in Clarksville, TN. Clarksville is about 45 miles north of Nashville, very close to the Kentucky border. I finished the 100 mile route with a ride time of 4:31 minutes. That’s a pace of 22.2 miles an hour, a record for me on a century. I rode mostly with a group that Les Wooldridge had organized of about 10 core riders, though that group went up and down in size as the day progressed. The Clarksville ride … [more]