L'Eroica Dreams

KitchenCru, Portland’s nexus for culinary start ups, hosted a great, no grand, late afternoon luncheon for me, my family and friends. The food was exceptional as only Michael and ‘Cru can do. The company was equal to the food and we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon that should be a window to next week.

You can follow KitchenCru on Twitter @kitchencru and on Facebook. Best to catch Cafe Velo at the Portland Farmers Market on a Saturday or have a coffee at the shop downtown.

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The table after the meal, but before dolci.

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The table is set for the grande pranza.

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Training for L’Eroica is a steady stream of morning short rides, weekend or holiday longer ones and the near constant considerations about preparing the bike and the psyche for the ride. Social media is spiking with more and more mentions of the ride including many more Twitter mentions. (I recognize that I have not quantified what “many more” is, but my iPhone app seems to be filling up faster each day in the column that captures L’Eroica related tweets.)

As mentioned, the kit has arrived and it’s very dark. My concession to comfort and performance, Dromarti shoes, had their first workout this morning. They are beautiful to behold, fit well and make a very tight connection to the pedals. So tight, in fact, that they may need to be modified a bit or I will be constantly fooling with them to get them in the pedals.

With less than four weeks to go, issues I never considered begin to enter my mind. How much light will we have on Oct 2? By the undisputed accuracy of free, online calculators, it appears that there will be slightly less than 12 hours of “civil” twilight. According to Wikipedia, ” During this period there is enough light from the sun that artificial sources of light may not be needed to carry on outdoor activities. This concept is sometimes enshrined in laws, for example, when drivers of automobiles must turn on their headlights; when pilots may exercise the rights to fly aircraft; or if the crime of burglary is to be treated as nighttime burglary, which carries stiffer penalties in some jurisdictions.”

I suppose if penalties for burglary are stiffer after civil twilight, then I better get my L’Eroica riding done before the street lamps come on. To reduce this to a goal, it means that I must average roughly 18KpH for the entire day, which will include stops, if I wish to complete the ride. Since this post is nominally about training, I can say that training rides, including those with considerable climbing, are ahead of that number on average. However, none of those rides have reached anything close to 205K, so we have a ways to go.

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My brother, who will join my wife and many members of my family to support my ride, ask me how the training was going. “Just fine,” I said, even if I haven’t ridden significant distances. I suppose I can say that with nearly three months of training time ahead of me. Or, can I? The longest ride I’ve taken so far, 60+KM from Sisters, Oregon to the McKenzie Pass and back, was wonderful and done on the tandem with Sue.

The Moseman and rider in the team kit

Even so, the climbing was constant and exhausting and I was glad when it was over. L’Eroica will be more than three times that distance, though the climbing may not be so difficult.

But, I keep at it even if it is at small increments. I’ve finished the conversion to “vintage” bicycle with the addition of the Campy pedals detailed previously. I even slapped on a pair of tubular wheels, even if they may be a bit more contemporary than the ones pictured on the various L’Eroica sites. And, what a pleasure to ride them. Fast, smooth and rolling like nothing else.

Here are a couple of gear pictures, which seem to be the ones that most readers, however few there may be, prefer.

The shoes, so far

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