The Sal Bike Blog: What We Wore (with apologies to Tim O’Brien)
Triple Crankset is honored to to share a ride with Sal Ruibal, who recently completed a 23-year run at USA Today. At the Nation’s Newspaper, Ruibal covered 10 Olympic Games and six Tours de France, a couple of Giros, Paris-Roubaix and Flanders … and on and on. His Sal Bike Blog was a favorite online stop for thousands of fans and he is now visiting several cycling web sites that graciously accept unpaid submissions. Oh -- he’s also a 2007 Inductee into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame and has several top-10 finishes as a master in national and international ultra-endurance events.
Mountain bike Hall of Famer Sal Ruibal.
News that a snowstorm was approaching Washington, D.C. sent a chill up my spine. Or perhaps it was the result of fetching the New York Times off my porch wearing nothing but a pair of Pearl Izumi bike shorts and a Bikes Belong T-shirt.
The storm was expected to dump 25,400 micrometers of snow in our woods, so we just had to experience nature in its most dangerous forms. I called upon famed outdoor photographer David Brooks to document our mountain bike descent into White Hell.
Brooks wears his scars proudly: a wrist burn from the pull-rope of a balky lawn mower, his limbs mere feet from the whirling blade; a thick mound of flesh on his right index finger that he sculpts with fine-grade sandpaper to maintain the precise PSI needed to send electrons at the speed of light towards his target, be it man, beast or bicycle.
It was the latter we were seeking on the dark gray morn before the storm. In my underground sanctum, I prepared the gear we would need for our mission.
In my line of work, every layer counts. After a pot of Peet’s, I debated myself over the merits of workaday Chamois Butt’r versus an unopened jar of Rapha crème de Crack, a potion that contained precious fluids from the embalming of Fausto Coppi blended with a nice Port. For my guys, only the best, so I went with DZ Nutz cut with pharmaceutical-grade petroleum jelly.
Before I pulled on my Arctic-certified Boure’ bib knickers, I hesitated. Should I break with centuries of tradition and embrocate under Lycra? With the prospect of facing the certain-death chill of minus 4.4444 Celsius, I reached for a jar of Mad Alchemy. But the jar was skimmed nearly bare from a ride on a coolish morning in May. So I went with Vicks VapoRub, including two swaths in my nose for full pulmonary efficiency.
With my epidermis properly slathered, I turned my attention to my feet. With the daunting prospect of 25,000 microns of white stuff, I knew that trench foot was a distinct possibility. Chemical toe-warmers inside Smartwool socks under neoprene booties stuffed inside Sidi all-conditions winter survival bike boots? At least one answer was simple.
For my fingers, I had to pick from the two dozen types of gloves I keep in a special gloves-only drawer. Hobo mitts under lobster claws? Thick-fingered single layer or silk under Oakley Factory Pilots? I settled for basic Pearl Izumi, but covered all possibilities by stuffing three pairs of various thicknesses into my CamelBak.
Of course, the first upper body layer had to be Castelli, but would it be too cloying to have Castelli on Castelli, specifically a multi-layered Radiation Jacket with aluminum body heat reflecting technology? Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I added a University of Colorado cycling team jersey to avoid Castelli vs. Castelli.
Father Cold knows that if He can separate the head from the rest of the body, victory is His. So even though the Radiation has its own tight-fitting hood, I added an L.L. Bean balacava, thinking that it could serve as an emergency blotter for a sucking-chest wound. I also smooshed two Buffs and a Hanuta bar into the CamelBak. In keeping with my emphasis on the simple, I took only water in the bladder.
For my head, I chose a favorite Specialized helmet because it was the only one I had that would fit over a wool Belgian cycling cap and two hoods. I was told by a company source that the size was known internally as “Eddy MerckxxxL.”
I then waddled out to the patio to prepare my steed. Navigating the treacherous trails at Wakefield Park required both power and dexterity, so I selected a fine young Ibis Mojo HD. But the back tire flatted a few weeks ago and I hadn’t got around to fixing it. So I went with a rigid 29er Gaansari one-off designed in Dayton by Gary Boulanger as the perfect vehicle for Birkibeiner. But there was a problem with the rear brake so I went to my backup, an alloy hardtail once raced by John Stamstad . It had not been off the wall in the bike room for several years, but still looked very fast. Sadly, the tires were dry-rotted and I was looking very hard at a folding Dahon cowering in the corner.
Then my iPhone4 rang (well, more of a faint br-rrrrrrr emanating from the depths of my snow gear). It was Brooks. The chain-rings of his ancient Korean bike (a rare Long-Dong Ho model) had somehow dislodged themselves from the bottom bracket and ended up in his V-brakes. The ride was off before the first flake had fallen.
Dang, don’t you just hate it when people aren’t prepared?
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