The damage looked terminal. I stripped all the Campag parts off the bike, sold them and bought a new bike, a Specialized Roubaix. I asked around if the titanium bike could be repaired. Apparently, the place it fissured near the seatpost/stays/top tube interface is a common place for a crack. One specialist (retired) welder said he’d not seen a crack propergate through the weld in titanium in quite that way before.

I phoned a specialist company who make titanium bikes and asked them about a repair. The first guy I talked to said “oh yes fine no problem”. The second guy said “no way, it’s not a viable repair”

All this was a shame, because it was a great frame. The fit was excellent and titanium as a material gives a good ride.

The bike festered in the back of the garage for over a year. I did PBP on the new carbon bike. Then I heard that some one I knew had had a similar problem and had got it repaired. They’d used a welder and bike fixer from up north. He’d welded up the cracks and put a reinforcing collar around the effect area.

I called him up, sent some emails with photos of the cracks and then the frame. A few weeks later the frame returned.

I’ve rebuilt it with a single front chainring and a wide range MTB cassette at the back. It still rides nicely and I’m looking forward to using it again

Answers

Tool 1 – Cyclus fork crown race remover – I’ve never used it as it doesn’t fit the carbon forks I got it for
Tool 2 – Circlip Pliers – these are for removing the clips that often hold in freehub sealed bearings
Tool 3 – Headset cup remover – remove fork steerer, push in the head tube and hit with a mallet. Most satisfying .
Tool 4 – Wipperman Chain tool – fold up chain tool, It has a secret compartment for a spare joining link
Tool 5 – Spokey – Spoke key
Tool 6 – Shimano Alfine right hand dust cap remover – I’ve had had some trouble with my Alfine RH dust cap
Tool 7 – Ice Toolz fork crown race remover – This did fit the carbon forks and removed the stuck crown race in seconds
Tool 8 – Chain Whip – used to remove cassette
Tool 9 – Park Tool outboard cup remover – works on Campag Ultratorque and Shimano Hollowtech
Tool 10 – Park Tool large 10mm allen key with handle – good for Campag Ultratorque BB and removing Shimano freehubs

But after a while I started using it with Google Maps to aid navigation during events

More recently, I’ve been trying out an application called “Strava”. This is designed to record all your rides and upload them pretty much automatically to a website. I was previously using a website which did manual entry (www.mycyclinglogs.com) but after a couple of days of using Strava I could see the advantage.

This is how Strava works. As you set off, you set the Strava program on the Android phone running. It uses the GPS to record where you go. It also records the time. When you get to your destination, you stop recording. Then the phone can upload the record of your journey to the website with another easy click of a button.

So far, so convenient

However, after a couple of days I noticed that the amount of climbing on my regular commute to Taunton had varied wildly. On closer inspection, here is what had happened.

The GPS track had somehow pushed me just north of the A38- which is where I actually was. Then it had realised and suddenly snapped me back. This process had added a lot of non existent ascent to the trace

If this just happened once in a blue moon then fair enough. But I’ve only been using it a couple of weeks and Tuesday morning this happened

I noticed this because the distance and ascent is quite wrong. Unsurprisingly, as the GPS has recorded a point that clearly isn’t on my route and then added this onto the journey

Tuesday evening, I started the recorder at work as usual. But when I downloaded the route later it was short. The data from the first few miles of the route was missing.

Back to the drawing board for Strava I think. I assume it works better on other devices, like Garmin GPS.

Riding to Brest quick and back slow

I wanted to have a realistic plan for an enjoyable PBP. PBP started this time between 6pm and 8:30pm for the 90h group start I was in. I had a planning spreadsheet and after a little fiddling around it became apparent that one approach would be to

1. Get in a early(ish) start group
2. Ride to Brest straight through with a catnap. I hoped to do this in 32h
3. Have a longish sleep at Brest
4. Do the return route without much of a plan but plenty of time in hand. It was my impression from last time that the retour was easier riding than the outbound
5. Use up most of my 90h allowance with extra sleep

That was the plan. What actually happened was

1. I did get in an early start group, thanks to spotting Steve Abrahams at the start and following him through the scrum. I was in the 2nd group away at 18:20. This meant that I wasn’t trying to beat any records getting to Brest.
2. I got to Villaines at 4:10am the next morning which was pretty much on the plan. After Tinténiac outbound I was starting to feel sleepy on the bike. This is normal for me this time of day after being up all night. I had a 15 minute road side nap in the sun and this worked surprisingly well. I was ready to leave Carhaix a little later than expected but I was with a friendly group. I managed to stick with someone to talk to all the way up the initial ascent. The tour of Brest’s industrial areas was seemingly endless but eventually I got to Brest at 3:13am, 33h after starting
3. Unfortunately there were no proper beds at Brest or even any mats in the hall. Fortunately I have been in this situation before and had a sleeping bag liner, buff to cover my eyes and earplugs. The spectator stall at the end of the hall might look like cold, hard concrete to you. After nearly a day and a half of riding it was a featherbed to me.
4. The next morning I left Brest as quickly as possible in the fog. I only covered 250km before I decided to have a nice stop. At Tinténiac, I had a glass of wine with my dinner, a shower and 6h in a proper bed. This is a holiday, not an endurance test
5. I left Tinténiac with 3h in hand. I teamed up with some pleasant company and found at about 9:30pm that night that I was at Dreux with much time in hand and just 65km to go. As I’d slept properly the night before I felt ok. I was with some mates. It seemed like the best idea to just carry on and finish…so I did, in much less than the 90h

All in all the plan worked. I’d certainly try to do it that way again.

Ultremo ZX 28mm tyres

When I fitted these tyres I was hoping that they would be comfortable, with good grip, fast and reasonably hardwearing. That’s quite a long list but they are fairly expensive tyres, so I lived in hope.

First, comfortable. PBP is a great test of if a bike part makes a bike more comfortable. This is because you are sitting on it for several days. The Ultremo ZX tyres in 28mm are potentially very comfortable. This is because the size allows a low inflation pressure and the construction is that of a flexible racing tyre. Most 28mm tyres are not constructed like a racing tyre, they tend to be thicker and more durable. I tried them initially, before PBP, at 90 psi / 6.5 bar front and back. However, I realized that they could go as low as 6 bar. So for PBP I had them at 6 bar front and 6.5 rear. After the first few hundred km of PBP it was clear that for comfort on a 28mm tyre these were supreme.

The grip seemed fine. There were some wet conditions and they were not skittish. There were some (thankfully dry) fast corners on descents and they had reassuring traction.

Speed wise, the bike accelerated like a good ‘un and the tyres contributed to this. I didn’t break any downhill records but I did put up a cracking pace on the flat.

Speed and grip are difficult to judge in the context of one event but I wasn’t disappointed. I was slightly disappointed by the durability. In the 1230km of PBP ( and approx 1500km since they were fitted) the tyres did not suffer any punctures. The central strip of the tyre, which is in contact with the ground when the bike is moving in a straight line, showed no wear, no knicks. It was perfect, even after PBP. But the shoulder and sidewall was damaged in two places on the front tyre. If there was just one bit of damage I’d put it down to “just one of those things” but there were two gashes in the rubber. There was no bulging and no puncture however. I’ve sealed the holes with superglue and will rotate the front tyre to the rear.
I don’t know if the low pressure of the front tyre contributed to this problem but 6 bar is at the low end of the recommended range.
Overall these were good tyres but it looks like they are really just a small improvement on the Continental 4 Seasons I used last PBP in 2007.

Brooks with a hole in

I get on well with Brooks B17 saddles but on super long rides I have, in the past, got a little let’s say discomfort in the front saddle area.

When I got my nice, new shiney Specialized Roubaix last autumn it came fitted with a Specialized Avatar saddle. I swapped this out for a B17 and I put the Avatar on my summer commuting bike.

Two things became apparent. First, the padding on the Avatar seemed to cause unpleasant rubbing on longer rides. Maybe this is just me, most people like padding. Second, the channel down the middle seemed to add a certain something to the saddle .

I did a bit of research and then attacked my broken in B17. As it costs £150 to replace and takes a few weeks to break in properly this was a bold move. Initially I had lacing fitted too which didn’t work. But after a bit of riding the saddle and my backside settled down and it seemed ok enough to take with me to Paris.

I can report that I finished PBP with no discomfort whatsoever in that area. Adding the hole definitely worked.

Using a Barbag

My ride companions later in the PBP commented that I seemed to be going well and put it down to my “nosebag”. I was straining ahead to get the food in my barbag, like a cartoon animal chasing a carrot on a stick.

Food supply was the main advantage of the barbag. I could have a lot of food items stacked in it and select easily without stopping. Same went for the endurance/electrolyte tablets I was using. The other advantage was that I had my “valuables”- password, money, brevet card etc in the barbag. At controls or cafes I just removed this from the bike. There was no need to carry a large saddle bag with lots of clothes in.

Gore Bikewear Ozon bibshorts

Gore Bike Wear Ozon II shorts

As it turned out the weather was simply temperate, not especially hot.

But the shorts were great, did all the stuff shorts are supposed to do!

I first met Jo with an old guy, also German just before the secret control. At the control I gave them both a fig roll biscuit and suggested we work together.
The old guy was pretty rapid on the flat but slowed on hills quite a bit. I had to soft pedal to keep him there. Jo pulled ahead, leaving me with the old guy. I towed old guy for a bit then I jumped to the rapidly disappearing Jo to ask him why he was leaving us behind. He explained that he’d kind of got saddled with the old guy and didn’t really want to ride with him. He didn’t have anyone else to ride with.

Me and Jo rode 2 abreast at a good speed for a while, chatting. We became aware that we had people behind, this was Arvid and Phillipe. Arvid was dutch and on a recumbent. Phillipe was French.

Me and Jo towed along for quite a long time.
After a while we asked the others to take a turn and we had a group. We swapped about and all rode on the front.

When we got to the place that the rider had died we stopped for a minute, out of respect.

Pace was brisk but not silly, approx 35kph on the flat. On the rolling section Arvid got up to a ridiculous rate. The others were better descenders than me. At one point after a descent Arvid and Jo were ahead and I had to do 54kph on the flat to catch on. Phillipe had to work to catch on too.

On the last bit before Tinténiac there are some fast riding roads with rollers and Arvid was going like the bomb. The most difficult bit was judging when to do safe overtakes of the other groups on the road.

We got to Tinténiac at 21:30. We ate together in the Canteen. We all slept there but left at different times. I was 90h and had a ton of time in hand so got 6h sleep. Jo was 84h so was in more of a hurry.

I left Tinténiac at 6am with a east coast American and then as it got light joined an Australian couple.

Next fast bit was much later that day on the run in to Druex. I’d met my friends Joth and Emma on their swishy tandem at Mortagne-au-Perche. We’d stuck together for quite a while but I lost the tandem in the hills.

How I lost them was quite amusing. We’d ridden through a village where they were ringing the church bells. Many, many km late I could still hear the bells. If I tipped my head sideways it seemed to stop. I suspected it was an aural hallucination. I stopped to check. Yep, it’s only happens as the air whooshes past my ears. Ooops, the tandem is a long way off now.
I chased for a bit, but there was too much downhill: we’d just done quite a lot of ascent. They were gone. Shortly after this I went past the ruins of a chateau. I felt rough, stopped to put on gilet and eat something. A group passed of approx a dozen, including Dave Khan and other Brits. So I hopped on the back.

Pace was ok but not particularly fast, maybe 26kph. I was happy to follow and participate. Then a Swedish 2 up passed. I’d worked with them earlier so jumped onto their wheel. Dave Khan also jumped. We all pulled in this group of four and did a good speed. Not sure how fast, my computer had broken.
We passed several people on their own. One guy joined us for a bit but then didn’t rotate correctly / as the Swedes liked so he rode off the front. Think he was Canadian.

After a while of working I spotted the Tandem ahead. The Terrain was flat so it was visible at a few km. When it was my turn I went a little harder to try and close. But as all of us worked tandem didn’t get any nearer. Next turn I really pushed. Shouts of annoyance from behind. We got to maybe 200 metres off the tandem. One of the Swedes “what are you doing, you are riding crazy” I explained I was trying to catch my mates ahead. “You go then, we don’t want you”. So I kicked off the front of the group and bridged to the tandem. Dave Kahn later said it looked quite funny my bike with a Carradice bag shooting off like a scalded cat and leaving the lightly equipped Swedes behind.

It turned out the reason we’d been having trouble bridging to it was that the tandem was trying to catch the triplet. This had three large germans on it. Just outside a town, the tandem did the catch. And Emma gave the triplet a little wave. We trundled into the control behind the speeding tandem.

Back home after PBP. Filthy bike, achy knees but feeling great

Finished last night in approx 80h
Highlights included

Sunset Sunday night
Many Pain Au rasin
6h sleep in a real bed at Tintinac
Chasing Tandems in the flat section

Sandpapering the Mitts

As previously reported the new Specialized mitts I got have a rough patch inside the thumb. So I attacked both pairs with ultra fine grade metal repair emery paper. This seemed to work, not causing much damage to the material. Most of the sharp edges that were causing the problem have been removed

And I snipped off the care labels while I was at it, sometimes they rub too

Better rear light fittings

The RSP Astrum rear LED lights are super bright, reliable etc. They are ideal as the “permanently attached” backup lights for my PBP bike. The only little problem is really a feature of the extravagantly shaped stays of the Specialized Roubaix. The brackets do fit the lights on but they tend to rotate as the stays are not round. So I’ve got some metal putty and filled in the gap down one side of the bracket/stay interface. Don’t fret about the bike, carbon fibre fans: the stay is covered in electrical tape at that point