2012 Coffeeneuring Challenge

As soon as I read about the 2nd Annual Coffeeneuring Challenge I knew I had to give this a try.  7 different coffee shop rides in 6 weeks? Thata's my kinda challenge! I wanted to avoid going to Starbucks, and since my usual days off are Sundays and Tuesdays I needed to find local coffee shops that weren't closed on Sundays.  I enjoyed finding a couple of new coffee spots, as well as hitting some of my usual places.

Day#1: Aversboro Coffee
Sunday, October 7th I started the Coffeneuring challenge with a visit to my favorite local shop here in Garner, NC- Aversboro Coffee, at 1401 Aversboro Rd. I'd invited others to join me for a 40-50 mile ride, but the weather was looking iffy.  I got a café mocha and waited a little while for anyone to show.  Soon it was apparent that 1) we were about to have a big thunderstorm and 2) no one was coming.  I quickly rode home and waited out the storm.  A couple of hours later it was all clear so I went for a solo 45 mile ride on the LeMond, finishing once again at Aversboro Coffee for a small coffee and a brownie, just to make sure it counted!

Day#2: It's A Grind

My second coffeneuring outing was Sunday, October 14th.  I met Geof for a casual ride in Cary on the condition that somewhere along the way we'd stop for coffee. I'd been building an early eighties Italian Ciocc, and I wanted to take it for a spin.  He led me on a 45 mile ride and we stopped at an It's A Grind at 2000 Boulderstone Way in Cary, NC. I got a small iced coffee, and a brownie from some high schoolers outside having a bake sale for charity. 

Day#3: The Coffee Mill
I skipped the next Sunday to ride the NCBC Fall Rally so I went for a coffeeneuring ride on my other day off, Tuesday October 23rd.  Luckily the rules allow for those of us whose jobs don't have the typical Saturday & Sunday weekend.  For this trip I rode solo down to Clayton, NC to check out a shop there called The Coffee Mill at 105 S. Lombard St.  The shop is attached to The Flipside restaurant, so along with my café mocha I ordered some lunch- a very good burger and fries. I'll probably do this run again, since it gets me a nice 25 mile workout and a good lunch too!

Day#4: Godino's Bakery

I'd been riding the Ciocc quite a bit and really enjoying the bike, but it still needed a couple of key parts: I needed to replace the Kalloy seatpost with a Campagnolo one, and the rear wheel skewer was a Shimano- I needed to get a matching pair of period correct Campy skewers.  Cycles deOro in Greensboro was having it's annual Tweed Ride and swap meet on Sunday, October 28th so I decided to drive over, look for some vintage parts, and show off the bike a bit. I met up with some friends earlier in the morning before the Tweed Ride for a tour of my old haunts in Greensboro and a visit to Godino's Bakery at 1007 Hwy 150W for a cup of coffee and a muffin.  It was a nice 16 mile ride, some roads, some greenways, casual pace and lots of fun.

Day#5: Benelux Café

I traded days off with a coworker so he could close on a house, so this week I had Thursday November 1st off.  I did a quick solo ride to downtown Raleigh and back for a stop at another favorite coffee shop- Benelux Café at 309 Blake St. in Historic City Market.  I had a medium coffee and got in almost 15 miles on the carbon bike.

Day#6: Cup A Joe

Sunday November 4th was a busy day for me, but I wanted to squeeze in a photo shoot of the Ciocc and a coffeeneuring ride.  I started at City Market, and took pics of the bike on the cobbled streets, then I rode through downtown to Cup A Joe at 3100 Hillsborough St. near the NCSU campus. I ran into Jon Turner there, he'd just finished pacing the City of Oaks Marathon.  I just had a regular cuppa joe, and we talked about bikes and endurance events before I rode back to City Market to head home.  It was a short ride- less than 6 miles!  For good measure I had an espresso at Benelux before driving home.

Day #7: The Morning Times

My final coffeeneuring run was on Tuesday, November 6th- my usual day off.  It was cool and overcast, threatening rain. I spent most of the day working on projects at home, then squeezed in a ride late in the afternoon. I rode the NYCBikes commuter to downtown Raleigh to visit The Morning Times, 10 E Hargett St. and have an excellent latte. Just a 15 mile ride, with the last half in the dark.

That does it for the Coffeeneuring Challenge- it was harder than I thought it would be, but I found some new shops to frequent and ingested large quantities of caffeine. I got to ride with some great friends and also had a few solo outings. Most of all I enjoyed not having a schedule to keep- the rides started whenever they started and I never rushed anywhere or tried to reach some goal of speed or distance.  The caffeine dictated the pace...

Bella Bicicletta - How I built my Ciocc San Cristobal

I've been eyeing classic Italian steel bikes for awhile now.  Always on the lookout for a Bianchi, a De Rosa, a Pinarello, a Colnago...  I hadn't even heard of Ciocc until my friend Todd mentioned that he had one in his basement.  I told him I might be interested and a few days later he introduced me to this lovely early eighties frame and fork.

I love the chromed seat stays and fork, the original paint and decals were in very good condition, and it had a Campagnolo Record headset and bottom bracket that were both in excellent working order.  I found out more about the history of Ciocc- The signature on the top tube is that of the frame builder Giovanni Pelizzoli.  His nickname was "Ciocc," meaning "poker face" in his local dialect.  The model San Cristobal was made in honor of Claudio Corti's 1977 amateur World Cup victory in San Cristobal Spain atop a Ciocc bicycle.  Giovanni Pelizzoli sold the Ciocc brand in 1980, but still makes bicycles today under the brand name Pelizzoli.  He was the subject of a documentary called "Anima D'Acciaio," Soul of Steel.  I've found the trailer on YouTube, but I have no idea how to get ahold of a copy of the full documentary.

I'd thought about building it with a mid-nineties Campagnolo 8 speed ergo group I have lying around, but decided instead to look around for more period-correct eighties parts.  My first stop was Bryan Hoffman, I knew he had some boxes of vintage Campy stuff.  He let me pick through his stash and I left with a pair of C-Record downtube friction shifters, a Record brake set, some C-Record brake levers with white hoods, and a pair of Record 8-speed hubs.  So far so good.  Some of the parts were more of a mid-nineties vintage, but I told myself that an original owner might have upgraded the shifters, brake levers, and wheels anyway.

Next stop was eBay.  Soon I became obsessed with vintage Campy stuff on eBay, but I did well and in short order I had won auctions for a Super Record crankset and a matching Super Record front and rear derailleur.  Man, Campy made some beautiful bicycle components!

I sprayed the inside of the frame with Frame Saver to prepare it for the build.  I also decided I just had to restore the one decal that was missing.  Todd told me that a previous owner had removed the Columbus tubing decal from the seat tube, and with it had peeled off some paint.  He had covered it with some electrical tape.  I found the correct decal by matching it to the Columbus decals on the fork, and found a place online where I could order the replicas.  After peeling off the electrical tape I could see that someone had scraped the old decal off.  I filled the scrape marks with touch-up lacquer and sanded the area smooth before applying the replica decal.  Amazing how satisfying it is to fix something so small!

I already had an Italian 3TTT stem and handlebars from the Kona, so I filled out the rest of the parts bit by bit.  I bought brand new Mavic Open Pro rims from All-Star Bike Shop instead of trying to source vintage rims.  I'm going to ride this bike, not just hang it on a wall, so I wanted a good solid wheel set.  I took the hubs and rims to Matt Lodder to build the wheels.  I ordered a San Marco Regal saddle in white perforato and a set of Vittoria Open Corsa Evo SC tires.  I went to Cycles de Oro in Greensboro for their swap meet, looking for a Campagnolo seatpost and a pair of skewers, but didn't find them.  I did get a pair of Classic Rendezvous vintage looking bottles, though!  The last couple of bits came from Gilbert Anderson at North Road Bicycle Imports in Yanceyville- he had the perfect Nuovo Record 2-bolt seatpost and a nice pair of wheel skewers.

I think the bike turned out beautifully.  It rides like a dream, too.  I love to take it to club rides and show it off.  It turns heads at the coffee shop too!  I couldn't be happier with my first Italian steel bike!