Seven – Page 73 – Seven Cycles

On the Road: Block Island

Every year, just after the high season ends, we make a pilgrimage to Block Island with some friends. The friends surf, if there are waves, and they fish in every other waking hour, which leaves us full days to ride our bikes and explore the Island’s not quite ten square miles.

Block Island is located off the coast of Rhode Island, the state that claims it, and almost equidistant from Montauk Point on Long Island. Both are visible on clear days.

There is not much paved road on the island. You can cover it all in short order if you’re motivated to do so, but things get really interesting once you leave the pavement in search of adventure.

In season, snaking along the paths that hug high clay bluffs overlooking the ocean might not be such a good idea, such is the density of population, and riding bikes on these trails is mostly discouraged. In the off-season, the place is deserted, and we take our smooth 25mm tires anywhere our hearts desire.

Native Americans were on Block Island more than 3000 years ago, and the deer population, not to mention the fishing, suggest they lived a good life. You get the distinct sense of plenty everywhere you look, and the island’s size increases on your sight line, contiguous as it is with so much rolling ocean.

Riding to the north end the first day, we took a meandering dirt road to its end, where we picked up a trail that snaked onward to the water, where we turned south and ribboned along the high dunes, in and out of postcard views, all to the metronomic crashing of waves. That trail eventually spat us out just above the main beach area, where we sat and had a drink and watched seagulls wheel and dive in the wind.

40% of Block Island is conservation land, and though houses cluster along most of the roads, it’s a place where nature holds sway. You get the sense that every dwelling stands at the mercy of the wind and water.

The next day we explored the south end of the Island, another dirt road ending in a trail, this one zig-zagging against the high cliffs and occasionally darting down toward the water, sweeping around the southwest point, it turned back through a low glade, the insects still thrumming as if it were high summer. Finally, we came back out by this gate and were struck by a pang of guilt, which quickly subsided as we’d not seen a single walker on our way.

We made our way gradually down the west side, poking our noses out at each beach access, until we had beauty fatigue. Then we rode hard to the northern point to meet the surfers who’d had good luck with a hurricane swell. We raced them back to town for lunch, just a couple of the restaurants still open, though the day was warm and the sun was bright.

The Point Judith ferry that connects Naragansett to Block Island is roughly 90 minutes from the back door at Seven. From there it’s an hour over the water to the harbor. If we get up early and catch the 7:30am boat, we can ride a full day of wide-eyed beautiful road and trail, and be back in Watertown by evening. Maybe, just maybe, we should be doing that more than once a year.

On the Road: Evergreening Sedona

Looking Down on Sedona

As New Englanders who had ridden in the desert Southwest only a few times, I can confess that none of the plans we made prior to flying into Flagstaff were going to happen. You hit the ground in Arizona and quickly realize that nothing books or the internet could tell you would be sufficient prep for the reality of the landscape, the beauty and the wildness of the place.

Cactus Spines & Tires, Natural Enemies

For example, we thought the 65 miles from Flagstaff to Sedona would be a relatively easy roll, the prelude to a much larger adventure, but the pasture land that stretches between was hard going, rough and rutted, each step the cattle had taken in the drought parched soil was baked solid, and we wondered at the firmness of our fillings before we’d made any progress at all. Given the ground we’d hoped to cover over our week there, we approached Sedona a little discouraged and over-awed. Then came the descent into town. We came around a wide bend, our heads down, churning away at the pedals, just trying to get there, and then suddenly, there it was, Sedona. We almost cried. This is what we came to see.

A Bit Lost

Back at Seven, in the office, we had thought through this trip, a chance to field test our Evergreens, to see how the bikes worked as a platforms for bike packing, and to ride terrain we would never encounter in New England. And in as much as we took our bikes and packed supplies and traveled through the landscape it was a good experiment. But none of that was in our heads once we’d arrived in Sedona and begun working our way through the rideable trails spider webbing out from town.

We just couldn’t look in any direction and not find beauty. Towering red stone spires and hulking sedimentary plateaus vaulted skyward in every direction. At some point, we gave up on stopping to take pictures, we just took pictures when we stopped instead. The trails made for some great technical riding. Our Evergreens clung to the packed sand and clay. It was, as hoped, like nothing we’d ridden before and nothing we could hope to get to back home.

Coyote-less Camping is Good Camping

The camping brought us into contact with wildlife we didn’t expect, but probably should have. We had not seen mule deer before, great lumbering animals, twice the size of our white-tailed deer back home. Though docile enough, the sheer size of the mule deer made them intimidating. We also encountered a small pack of coyote, which we normally only see alone in New England. These were bigger than ours, too. Luckily, they didn’t come into camp, and eating and sleeping was good under the stars. We’ve been riding bikes a long time, all kinds of bikes, in all sorts of places, and we’ve seen some dramatic landscapes, but it’s safe to say Sedona and its surroundings completely blew our minds. The trip was one of those eye-opening, fall-in-love-with-the-world sort of experiences that made us particularly grateful we’ve been able to make a life for ourselves that includes cycling through deserts as part of our “jobs.”

Cold and Dark

The sun wasn’t up when we met in the grocery store parking lot, each of us blowing great gusts of breath into cold hands. This had seemed like a good idea last night, but this was our first cold, dark shop ride of the season, and we stood there, shifting from foot to foot, trying to gather the will to roll out.

The sun filtered through the trees on the way up the first leaf-strewn climb, heat rising in our chests, until we were at the top with dumb grins on our faces. Someone said, “I must have mountain bike amnesia, because I always seem to forget how much fun this is, even though it’s ALWAYS this much fun.”

We passed a dog walker and ran into an old Seveneer, on his own pre-dawn ride. We shook hands and made small talk, and then we went on and dropped down the other side of the hill, crossing the road and the meadow and fording the brook at the wooden bridge. We’ve done this together so many times, that we know where each rock is, each overhanging branch.

Mike found a new way up to the water tower, and he promised us it wasn’t as hard as the usual way, which is a straight grind up a steep pitch. It’s a good trail to understand how fit you are. Or not fit. As the case may be.

The new way is a twisting, undulating serpent of a trail that switches back a few times, but not so dramatically that you can’t keep your front wheel on the ground. We arrived at the top huffing and puffing, but happy to have added a new section to a patch of woods we’ve all been riding for a decade or two.

From the water tower, we dropped back down, our rear wheels grabbing and sliding in the loose leaves, and snaked back through the meadow, across the road and up, and up, until we were on the verge of the last plunge back down toward the grocery store, its parking lot now morning full.

It’s hard to describe how much fun a pre-work ride like this is, except that, as a cyclist, you already know. It was cold, and it was dark, and it can be hard to get out of bed to ride a bike when it’s like that, but wow, this is Tuesday on mountain bikes in the fall. Just some guys from the shop, out for a ride. Complete perfection.

Being World Champion – Mo Bruno Roy

You don’t get to be World Champion by sitting still. You don’t stand on the top step of that podium just by being “talented” either. And certainly, it isn’t a bike that puts you there, although we couldn’t be more thrilled that it was our bike that carried Mo Bruno Roy to the Single-Speed Cyclocross World Championship this weekend in Louisville.

The SSCXWC is an irreverent event. There are costumes. The winner gets a tattoo and a legendary golden swimsuit to receive their medal in, but it’s also a fast race dominated by seasoned professionals.

There are years of work that have gone into this honor for her. So much training. So many races, big and small. Local dirt crits. Belgian World Cup events. Lots of wins, but also lots of finishes staring up the leader board and wondering what more she could have done. Some people call it paying dues, but that’s a negative way to express what Mo has done in her career. What she has done, and what we think makes her so worthy of this honor, is live the cycling life completely. There is a level of commitment there that goes beyond showing up for races year after year or cultivating sponsorships. She brings all of herself to cycling, and that’s why we’re so proud of her and why we’re honored to work with her.

When we see Mo around town, she’s on a bike. When we see her at a race, she might be giving a clinic for new riders or doing an interview, spreading the joy of cyclocross, cutting up, visiting with friends. Cycling doesn’t so much define her as she helps define cycling in the way she lives her life. These are sorts of people you want to work with as a bike builder.

Mo is not a powerhouse. She’s the type of racer who depends on long experience and superior bike handling skills to overcome stronger opposition. Make no mistake, she’s plenty strong, but that’s not what makes her so good. She is a great cyclist, fast, canny, skilled, the complete package.

And now she is a World Champion.

11 Races in 16 Days – Mo Bruno Roy’s CX Crusade

You will notice that we don’t sponsor a lot of riders. The idea that a company who makes good bikes should pay someone to say they are good somehow doesn’t make sense to us. When we have committed to a rider, it has always been because we think they deserve support and because they will give us good feedback on what we are doing. For those reasons, we have sponsored more women than men, and more local riders than distant pros. Our closest pro partnership of the last decade has been with current Single-Speed Cyclocross National Champion Mo Bruno Roy.

Here on the eve of her 39th birthday, we find ourselves admiring the way she enjoys her racing, stays competitive and gives back to the racing community by teaching clinics and giving pointers to amateur racers before big events. She’s the sort of cyclist we’re proud to work with, the kind of cyclist we all want to be.

This was supposed to be a more relaxed season for Mo. After winning the SSCX National Championship last year, a little less travel, a little more fun and a new focus on single speed races was on the docket. But the scheduling gods and a continuing drive to race her bike meant that, clustered around New England’s Holy Week of Cyclocross (GP Gloucester, Midnight Ride, Providence), she ended up doing 11 races in 16 days.

That’s a lot for an in demand massage therapist and yoga instructor, and it tells you everything you need to know about how much she loves what she does. She says of this latest bunch of events, “The level of competition has definitely been upped this season and the growth of women’s cyclocross is apparent as it is quickly becoming a sport for full-time professional athletes rather than the mixed bag of working-pros and full-timers that it has been in the past.”

Near the end of this intense period of racing, she reported “Providence weekend hosted three days of racing: single speed Friday and UCI races Saturday and Sunday. At this point my legs were pretty fatigued, but I was looking forward to the races and the opportunity to win the Golden Ticket for free entry to the Single Speed World Championships in Louisville, KY. The course was full of twists and turns and a few leg-sapping climbs, but I pushed the pace and headed into a steady lead in the single speed race, taking the win.”

Of course, we like to see sponsored riders winning races. It never hurts for people to see riders winning on our bikes, but for us there’s much more to it. The way someone like Mo conducts themselves, the way they make it look fun, the way they give back, those are the things that make us want to support racing and the people, like Mo, who dedicate themselves to going fast.