Presta Valve Locknuts, aka Valve Rings

Introduction

As you’ll surely agree, this post is long overdue. It stems from my post “10 Fascinating Facts About Inner Tubes” that I wrote over 13 years ago. Fact #4, “Valves can fuel sibling rivalry,” described the war I fought with my brother Geoff over Presta valve locknuts, aka valve rings:

We had an ongoing disagreement about the usefulness of valve rings. I argued that they helped you keep the valve straight, helped you get the pump chuck on there, and enabled you to ride a flat without the tube bunching up around the valve. He argued that … wait a second, this is my blog, I’m not going to bother giving his silly arguments! He can comment on this post if he wants his position articulated.

Geoff was forever stealing the rings from my bike’s valves to deprive me of them. I had to keep spare valve rings on me in case I discovered his treachery too late, like during a ride. In retaliation I was forever putting rings on his bike’s valves. There was a lot of cussing.

(There’s more to that story, which you can find here.)

In response to that post, M—, a guy on my road cycling club, who raced with Greg LeMond back in the day and who has always been our club’s Obi Wan Kenobi, replied, “Valve rings, as you call them, were always the sign of novice nerd-dom, like crank bolt dust caps. Your brother was right.” This really stung, since a) it came from our guru, and b) I never used crank bolt dust caps, because I knew better, but somehow I didn’t know better about these locknuts. (For more on crank bolts, click here.) From that day forward I mended my ways and stopped using valve locknuts. (I did keep one in my toolkit for roadside repairs.)

End of story, right? Well, not so fast. In cycling circles, widespread debate about Presta valve locknuts still bubbles up from time to time and has done so for decades. It’s the perfect hot button issue to tackle on albertnet because it gets people bickering good-naturedly without ruining friendships or landing me on either side of the currently raging culture war. So I decided to poll the members of my bike club on the topic, along with a couple other cycling pals and my brother, and describe in these pages the current Presta valve locknut zeitgeist.

The bike team weighs in

Curiously, more East Bay Velo Club members came out against valve locknuts than in favor, though I suspect more of my teammates use them than not, as I shall get into. I know with certainty that one of the “con” votes was from a guy I ride with all the time who does use them, as he told me himself … but that’s not what he put in writing.

Trigger warning: this is not a short post. If you have attention span issues, I recommend you either a) visit this page instead, b) request a vlog version of this post, or c) print it out and store it on your toilet tank to work through over time.

Okay, here’s what my bike club had to say:

1. I’m a nay on the ring. Need to reduce weight as much as possible. Plus, it just slows you down when having to change tubes—yes, I have still not gone tubeless. And last, if you have them on they loosen up and rattle...

2. Tubeless all day. Pro. [This is a tacit “for” vote … more on this later.]

3. I save them all for making bike bling bracelets, necklaces, etc. Still they continue to pile up. Need any? [He included these photos:]

4. Con. They work their way lose and rattle and it’s annoying.

5. Perhaps  we can add the little cap to the fray. That said, I once had to change a tube with a short stem in a deeper wheel, and it was impossible to insert the pump [chuck] as there was very little length left outside. I have since bought a screw on type, but still put in the nut unless it is a Michelin tube or TPU… [Not clear what “a screw on type” means here but I suspect either a screw-on pump chuck—more on this later—or a valve extender, which is a whole other topic. More to come on TPUs.]

6. I am very much on the pro side of piston rings, which sound like they should be mentioned in the same breath as valve rings, but which of course are entirely unrelated.

7. [From M—] Growing up riding on sew-ups (“tubulars” to youngsters) I never saw a stem nut. I don’t use them on clinchers either but could see how they’d be helpful for some people. The combination of unnecessarily long valve stems and ham-handed pump technique puts a lot of leverage on the stems, which I’ve seen damaged. This probably applies to pumps that attach directly to the stem vs. ones with a short, flexible hose. Both valve caps and stem nuts are largely useless. However, as collectors’ items, the former are vastly superior. [He included this photo of his prized valve cap collection.]

8. Since I’ve been a tubeless guy for 12 or more years, I can’t really see life without valve rings. That said, I recall also liking [pre-tubeless] to have them on tubes cause they frankly made it easier to get the pump chuck seated on to the valve before pumping the tire. So, for those guys who are against valve rings, tell them to SUCK IT!

9. I was talking about your forthcoming post on valve stem nuts on my ride today and someone pointed out that some of these modern TPU tubes don’t even have threads on the stem. No Nuts! 

My responses

There is so much to explain and respond to here, I feel like a kid in a candy shop, or more accurately an ectomorph with a pet tapeworm at an all-u-can-eat buffet.

First off, the locknuts do make it easier to get an old-school pump chuck on there because the valve doesn’t get shoved down into the tube. Is it the case that a valve that’s pulled out too much can interfere with seating the tire and cause it to blow off the rim? Yeah, that can happen. But it’s also the case that cramming a chuck on lockring-less valve can damage the tube, because the valve can get torqued around and, worse case, the tube rips at the valve. So there’s no free lunch, really, with traditional pump chucks.

That’s where M—’s input comes in, about the modern mini-pumps with the short, flexible hose. Not only do these not torque the valve around, but because the chuck isn’t shoved on there but instead just screws on (using the same valve threads that the locknut uses), there’s no need for the locknut. But the screw-on chucks have a downside, which is that they tend to unscrew an under-tightened valve core, so when you finish unscrewing the chuck and pull it off, the core comes with it and—WHOOSH!—all the air escapes. And unless you have a valve core tool in your kit, you’re pretty much screwed. I see this several times per season when coaching high schoolers. It also happened to me recently on El Toyonal, a road that is closed to cars. I’d have been stranded except I was able to screw the core in far enough with my fingers to make it (sort of) work. I couldn’t believe I managed that. It felt like an 80-yard Hail Mary pass (and as you can imagine I am useless at football).

Any argument about saving weight is a joke (perhaps literally). This is a case, I think, of the person supplying a merely ostensible reason because he doesn’t actually know why he does what he does. (Or she.) I don’t own a scale sensitive enough to weigh a valve locknut. I suppose I could gather up all the ones I own (probably at least twenty, spread out over several boxes, toolboxes, the little nipple holder on my truing stand, and elsewhere) and take the average, but I can’t be bothered. This tiny locknut couldn’t even weigh a gram. If you want to save that much weight, just blow your nose before you ride, or alter your diet. Or better yet, to M—’s point about unnecessarily long valve stems, get the ones that are only just long enough for your aero rims … I see a lot of “stem inflation” (pun intended, sorry) and I don’t like it. The valves look like they’re aroused.

Let’s proceed, then, to the most common criticism of valve locknuts: they come loose and rattle. This is sort of a legitimate complaint. Why only sort of? Because not only is it not always true, many cyclists will tell you that the opposite is true: that part of the purpose of the lockring is to prevent the valve itself from rattling. So which is it? I think this has everything to do with your specific setup. I used valve locknuts on the cheapy Araya rims that came with my Miyata 310; on the Super Champion Gentleman rims I had on my Mercian; on the Wolber 58s I use for my commuting bike; on the Mavic MA-40s I trained on for many years; on the 16-spoke Shimano aero wheels that I had briefly before they disintegrated; and on both pairs of my Mavic Ksyriums. In zero of these cases did the locknut rattle. And I didn’t tighten these locknuts with pliers like an idiot (though a friend of mine did this in junior high and thus couldn’t fix a flat out on the road once and had to call his mommy). Are my fingers possibly stronger than those of the people whose valve locknuts rattle? Possibly, due to all the years I worked in bike shops. (As we always liked to tell people, “Bicycle mechanic bleed on the inside.”)

So if you, gentle reader, were to install valve locknuts, would they rattle? I’m gonna say probably not. As I look back on all the hundreds, perhaps thousands of cyclists I’ve ridden with, I honestly cannot remember a single instance of valve lockrings rattling. This isn’t because I have a faulty memory; after all, I remember the kid in junior high I just mentioned who’d over-tightened his lockrings, and that was over forty years ago. Meanwhile, I distinctly remember the converse: a valve rattling, which bothered several of us on a ride 16 years ago. It couldn’t possibly have been a locknut because the valve was on a sew-up (tubular) tire. I have photographic proof. Look:

This was during the 2009 Sierra Century (details here). Mark got so frustrated with the rattling he stopped at a rest stop and accepted assistance from the staffer you see above, who was beyond stoked at being able to help, even if that only meant holding Mark’s bike. I’m pretty sure she’d fallen in love.

Okay, you’ve probably stumbled onto the theory that I’m just deaf and/or willing to ignore an annoying noise. I will concede that the latter may be true. I know I mentioned mere moments ago being bothered by Mark’s rattling valve, but to be more specific, it was his complaining of the rattling that actually bothered me. My own bikes have made various noises over the years and yes, I’ve managed to tune them out. Humans are harder to ignore. I was once accosted repeatedly during a ride by my pal T—, who complained incessantly about my pump rattling until I finally did something about it. And I’ve had people complain about my wheels making some kind of noise that I always took as a cry for help (the noise of the wheel, not my friends) but that I figured would take care of itself when the wheel inevitably died. My friend C— often apologizes for the noises his bike makes, and almost invariably I don’t even know what he’s talking about.

(There was one notable exception. One day back in 2007, his bike was making an awful creaking noise that seemed to get progressively worse, and he apologized repeatedly. I have to confess, I  really was getting annoyed, I mean the noise was that bad. Finally I turned off to head up Lomas Cantadas, just to get away from the din, but to my horror the noise persisted. It wasn’t C—’s bike after all, it was mine … my fricking frame was broken! The seat tube had cracked down near the front derailleur, and right about at the turnoff to South Park Drive it sheared completely in two. By the time I got home the noise had grown to the sound of Satan eating a steel garbage can.)

If you’re using a Presta tube in a rim drilled for Schrader, you need more than a locknut—you need a rim grommet, which looks like this:

I’ve used those and they absolutely require a locknut because more often than not, they pucker out like a hemorrhoid which is really gross to look at but is well hidden by the locknut.

Now, if you’ve been paying attention, first off congratulations, and second, you’re probably wondering about my assertion that more of my teammates use valve locknuts than not, despite what a majority of them have indicated in my email survey. This is because I’d guess over half of my teammates are now running tubeless, which setup practically requires lockrings. (It’s not 100%—as I’ll get to—but they certainly help.) So shouldn’t the modern debate be about whether to run tubeless tires or not? Isn’t that where the rubber meets the road? (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) But the tubeless-or-not debate is actually pointless, for the simple reason that this matter is entirely cut-and-dried. There is an obvious right answer, and I have it, and I shall give it to you.

But first, I have just one other tidbit from the reader comments to address, which is piston rings. I found that aside so comical, I read it out loud to my wife. She is a curious sort (and a recovering journalist) and asked, “What are piston rings?” So I started to mansplain them to her, and about a minute in I paused and asked, “Are you actually interested in this?” She replied, “No, I’ve stopped listening. I was only wondering if they were part of a bicycle.” I assured her they weren’t but that they were absolutely integral to the function of a car engine. She asked, “Do all males know what piston rings do?” I said yes, of course. “Why?” she asked. I asserted that all males find such matters intrinsically fascinating. (If you are a male reader and disagree, please set me straight via a comment below.)

So, there is a lively debate, online and IRL, about tubeless vs. tubes, and many of my pals have weighed in during our rides over the last five or more years. Until recently I was a bystander in this because my wheels, though insanely cool, couldn’t accommodate tubeless tires anyway. Well, I finally came into some tubeless-ready wheels, contemplated the matter for about thirty seconds, decided to ignore all the horror stories about how hard road tubeless tires are to mount, pulled the tubes out, stuck the valves in, dumped some goo in the tires, reseated and inflated them, and ditched those inner tubes forever (unless I have a rude awakening ahead of me in which case I’ll blog all about that when the time comes).

Here is the point: if you’ve made it this far into this post, it’s almost a given you’ve spent thousands of dollars on a bicycle. So you want that bicycle to ride as beautifully as possible, right? Tubeless gets you there. Nothing else matters. So don’t give me any song and dance about maintenance, punctures, mess, ease of installation, whatever. What is your bike for: to ride, or to fix?

Here’s an analogy: suppose you’re a happily married man, with all the children you want (even if—or perhaps especially if—that number is zero), and you’ve just gotten a vasectomy. You’ve had the follow-up semen sample tested, it came back negative, and the doctor has just left you a voicemail saying, “You can have all the unprotected sex you want.” Now, would you continue using condoms? “Well, I’m used to them, and it’s less messy,” no sane husband would ever say. So it is with tubeless: you’ve gotten rid of a pesky bit of rubber that no longer has any place in your life. The road feel is better with tubeless, cornering is better, and rolling resistance is lower. (And to the weight weenies calling for skipping locknuts on your inner tube valves to save weight, get real: I knocked a quarter pound off the weight of my bike by ditching the tubes. I only put an ounce of sealant in each tire; when it dries up I’ll add more, no biggie.)

So what about TPUs? In case you haven’t heard of them (I myself hadn’t until recently), these are tubes made of thermoplastic polyurethane instead of rubber or latex. This brings the weight down by about 20-30 grams vs. traditional tubes, while also offering lower rolling resistance. They’re also easier to mount. All this being said, they’re $20-30 each, and the special patch kit required is $8 or $10—both way pricier than standard, and needless to say pricier than that ounce of sealant. And yet, at the end of the day, the TPU setup is still heavier than tubeless and still doesn’t ride as well. To continue my vasectomy metaphor, they’re like fancy lambskin condoms … better, sure, but more expensive, and still unnecessary. And why don’t TPU tubes accommodate locknuts? Because, as you saw above, the valves aren’t ribbed (i.e., threaded) for anyone’s pleasure!

If you persist in arguing for inner tubes based on less hassle, etc. you need to accept that the tubeless technology is not the problem: you are. If you are serious about riding an excellent bicycle jolly well, mounting tubeless tires is just something you need to get good at, like typing and being organized and knowing how to scramble an egg (or, for the vegans among you, properly prepare tofu). Setting up tubeless is not that hard. Suck it up. I even have step-by-step instructions for you, here.

Okay, fine, there’s one non-trivial argument against tubeless tires, particularly for road bikes, which is the idea—not without anecdotal evidence—that the tire can blow off the rim. So here’s what to do. First, choose the right tire for your rims: if you have hookless rims, you need hookless-type tires. Consult the manufacturer’s compatibility charts to be sure you have the right combo. Then, read the recommended PSI for the tires you’re using, and for the rims you’re using. Go with whatever is lower. Still nervous? Use a fatter tire and go down another 10 PSI or so. Thousands of professional riders use this technology … it’s mature, it’s commonplace, and it’s arguably as safe as any other aspect of road cycling. All this being said, note that I’m just a blogger, not an industry expert, a certified accountant, an Internet influencer, or a medical doctor. Caveat emptor (translation: don’t sue me).

Now: can you run tubeless without valve locknuts? The conventional wisdom is that you cannot, because the locknut holds the valve firmly in place so it can make an airtight seal with the rim. In fact, ENVE claims that if you don’t use their special Pressure Relief Valve Stem Nut (PRVSN), your rim could actually explode. I doubt you need $5 PRSVNs, but I do recommend valve locknuts based on my own experience. (If you’re curious about what happens without them, see Appendix A. If you’re curious about other stuff, see Appendix B.)

This made me wonder: if tubeless basically requires locknuts, why didn’t my tubeless-ready valves come with them? Answer: they did, but the locknuts were just floating around loose in the box of accessories (reflectors, etc.) that my bike came with. Check it out: the locknuts are black to match my wheels. How cool is that?! I’d never seen (non-plastic) black valve locknuts in my life!

Synthesis

So what’s my ultimate verdict on valve locknuts? As follows:

• If you have a commuter bike with Presta valves, use the locknuts or not, at your whim
• If you have a backup “rain bike” that you mainly ride on the indoor trainer, you better be using noise-canceling headphones, in which case you can use locknuts or not, because who cares if they (or your valves) rattle?
• For your flagship road or mountain bike, run tubeless with locknuts, and if anybody makes fun of you, send them this blog post.

One more thing: do I ever hear valve locknuts rattling on wheels with tubeless tires? I’ll give you a hint: no. Still stumped? Here’s another hint: I don’t.

Appendix A

Tubeless-ready wheels came with my new bike, but the tires were mounted with tubes since it’s impossible to know how long a bike might sit around in a warehouse, its tires going flat (which could break the seal and cause sealant to ooze everywhere). So I dug through the bag of accessories (reflectors, a bell, owner’s manuals, etc.) and found the valves that came with the wheels. They didn’t have locknuts in the little bag, so I assumed locknuts weren’t necessary. (Obviously I could have installed some from my stash, but M—’s admonition about “novice nerd-dom” was still ringing in my ears, 13 years later.) Despite all the mythology I’d heard about setting up tubeless tires, I not only managed to get the tires to seal without lockrings, but did it with ease. My assumption, that the pressure inside the tire would hold the valves in place, seemed to pan out.

The problem is, not all seals are created equal, and tubeless-style valves (at least mine) do not have a round base. The rubber part that butts up against the rim is rectangular, as it’s designed to sit in the rim in a specific way, and if it gets twisted the seal is slightly compromised. I learned this on my fifth or sixth tubeless ride: before heading out, I topped up the air pressure, and when I removed the screw-on pump chuck from the valve, it put up a fight (as it often does) and must have twisted the valve. About 90 minutes into my ride the tire pressure had dropped to about 40 PSI, maybe less. I thought I could pump it up and get home, but as I mentioned before, halfway up El Toyonal the tire was again almost flat, and that’s when I had my mishap with the valve core.

So yeah, use locknuts with tubeless, to make sure the valve stays straight. The locknut also helps when you tighten down that valve core good and snug. (If you use a screw-on chuck and don’t have a valve core wrench, buy one immediately.)

Appendix B

I’m still working on Appendix B. Check back next week. For information about giraffes, click here.

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume XXIII

Introduction

This is the twenty-third installment in the “From the Archives – Bits & Bobs” series. Volume I of the series is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume XIV is here, Volume XV is here, Volume XVI is here, Volume XVII is here, Volume XVIII is here, Volume XIX is here, Volume XX is here, Volume XXI is here, and Volume XXII is here. The different volumes are unrelated, except by disposition, in the sense that they are all completed, published, and not debatable, unless you want to comment below (which would be a first). You don’t need to read the previous volumes in order, or frankly at all, for this one to make sense; in fact, it won’t make sense no matter what you do. That’s not really the point.

Which begs the question, what are albertnet Bits & Bobs posts? Well, imagine you’re cooking something tasty, like spaghetti carbonara, in a big hurry, so you’re kind of trashing your kitchen in the process. Now imagine you look down on the floor and see all these tasty tidbits—bits of bacon, a few peas, maybe a few blobs of crème fraîche—and you think hey, this stuff is still good! You’re way past the five-second rule but you don’t care, and as you clean up the floor you pop these tasty morsels in your mouth. You tell yourself this is good for your immune system. Well, these Bits & Bobs posts are just the literary equivalent of that. They’re taken from letters I wrote to family and friends.

The below dispatches all date from 1990. The first three are from my UC Santa Barbara days. The rest are from when I was at Berkeley.

February 1, 1990

Tomorrow will be my second day at the Associated Students Bike Shop, where I now work 4.5 hours per week. Like me, most employees work minimal hours, just enough to enjoy the privilege of buying bike stuff wholesale. We keep track of our hours on sheets in this binder, on standardized UCSB Work Study log sheets that have, for each day, a space for “Project” in which we’re supposed to write what we did. I guess this has its applications for jobs with some variety, but at the shop it’s a joke. My friend A— had written down “Ego Stroking” for Tuesday, and I thought that was pretty funny. I said, “Hey, do we get paid time‑and‑a‑half if our project is stroking the bossman’s ego?” The boss is this really ornery guy. He overheard some of this dialogue. “What’s this I hear about time‑and‑a‑half?” he yelled. “Oh, I was just joking,” I replied. He fired back, “Hey pal, there are some things in this shop we just don’t joke about.” Then another mechanic said, “You know, that actually isn’t true.”

March 16, 1990

I was pretty excited because I finally got something from the Admissions Office at Berkeley, which I’d been expecting for some time now regarding whether or not they accepted me [as a transfer student], so needless to say I was pretty nervous opening it up, especially after the bad omen of opening the other piece of mail, which was a notification from my bank that my rent check had bounced due to my unscrupulous financial records and the fact that my parents have been totally flaking on sending me cash, the upshot of which is that had to apply for yet another Visa card, this time from the Wells Fargo bank so that if I bounce another check in the future, which is really likely to happen to be perfectly honest with you, Wells Fargo will cover the check and put the balance on my card so I can pay it off when I finally get the money, which I’ve generally been able to do eventually, even if the amount is something large like tuition, which I also just wrote a bad check for after being disenrolled from UCSB for not paying on time, so now my attendance at UCSB next quarter is in jeopardy, which of course ties in to the future plans which seemed destined to unfold before my very eyes today as I got ready to rip open the envelope, my roommates C— and T— watching in suspense as well, because as any college student knows, a small envelope like the one I was holding in my hand is rarely a good sign when you’re hearing from a college because generally if you get accepted they send a huge packet of registration materials and whatnot, instead of the small envelope which I was preparing to tear open, fearfully, as I described my apprehension which was not exactly calmed by my spectators, who were saying pessimistic things, but for no good reason it turns out because upon finally ripping the envelope open and looking at the first line the first word I saw was “Congratulations!” which seemed an obvious indication that I had been accepted and was enough reason for me to say, “Yeah, I’m in!” while C— yelled, “Yes, he’s out of this dive forever!” which really hit home but eventually turned out to be perhaps a bit premature because after I had finished reading the whole thing I discovered there are all kinds of conditions that I still have to meet and which I’m really dreading because they mean all kinds of bureaucratic hurdles and also some dumb-looking classes which I’ll probably have to take next quarter before Berkeley will formally accept me, and meanwhile the whole letter was written in a very general terms, its tone more hypothetical than actual, which has me really confused, to the point that I’ve been trying to talk to the admissions folks on the phone but in vain because I keep getting this goddam answering machine where you’re supposed to press 1 if you want information on admissions, et cetera, but it’s pissing me off because I press 1 and nothing fucking happens (which is especially annoying since it’s running up a long distance bill which means trouble because I can’t afford this month’s phone bill because T— alone ran up over $100 in long distance which he can’t pay for right now, so we’ll probably have our fucking phone disconnected again which is just typical) so with all these weird requirements and classes it looks like I’ll really be busy next quarter, which sucks because all I really want to do is race my bike. [All this is excerpted from a much longer sentence.]

May 31, 1990

I decided to write you because I am too distracted to study anyway. For one of my English classes I’m reading a book of really weird short stories written in the ‘60s. The book, which I got from the used bookstore, smells like pot. Maybe that’s what I’m missing, because I can’t understand any of these stories. Some of them have no punctuation or anything and some are nothing but dialogue and you can’t figure out who’s doing the talking. One story is about zombies. You’d think that would capture my attention, but it’s just too far out there.

July 27, 1990

The reason I’ve moved up here [to the Bay Area] is that I’ve had this lifelong ambition to have a 415 area code. I don’t really know why; it’s just a personality quirk. It’s not too bad living up here, either; I mean, they have a university that’s actually supposed to be pretty good, and plenty of jobs. I’ve hooked up with a couple of employment agencies and I’m hoping they can get me some work pretty quickly before the fall semester starts. My roommate B—, who graduated last June from UCSB, works for a chemistry lab, and he just got this neat mug (almost as neat as the thrift store “Harris Dracon” and “Lincoln Title Company” mugs you gave me) which says “I passed the SYVA drug test.” I think it would be even cooler to have a mug that says “I failed the SYVA drug test,” because I could go out and sell pencils out of it on the street.

[Picture generated by Copilot]

The lingo is a bit different up here. I hear the term “hella” quite a bit, which means “very.” I also hear “shine” a lot, which means to decline to do something. Like, “This hotshot Subaru/Montgomery rider wanted to lengthen the ride but I was going backwards [i.e., riding poorly] so I shined and went home.” But the new vocab word that really threw me was “hosed.” I haven’t heard that term since my Colorado days, when to “get hosed” meant to have sex. But out here, “getting hosed” means the same as getting clocked (i.e., drunk). So my roommate’s friend asked me, “Have you seen B— get hosed yet?” I about had a heart attack, and figured the dude had to be some kind of perv. What a relief when we ironed that out...

July 29, 1990

The Levi’s 501 jeans that I’ve had since high school finally wore out. A lot has changed since the last time I bought jeans: you may now choose among standard, stone‑washed, acid‑washed, shrink‑to‑fit, pre‑shrunk, straight-cut, student‑cut, pre‑faded, colored, and corduroy. My old jeans were standard denim (was there any other kind in 1987?), and were a size 32 waist with a 40 inseam (effectively a 31 waist by 36 inseam, according to the bizarre sizing scheme Levi’s had developed for shrink-to-fit jeans). I guess I’ve stretched those bad boys out because the new jeans I finally settled on are 34 by 36. I might have chosen a larger waist, actually, but the longest length I could find with a 36 waist was 34 inches. This seemed really strange so I asked the sales clerk about it. It’s no mistake: even though they offer eight different styles, they only make jeans for either basically fat or basically thin people—nothing for people who are just all-around big. Anyway, I wore the jeans out of the store and I’m really impressed with them because they don’t feel new. They’re stone‑washed, which means pre-broken‑in. Who ever heard of such a thing? Everyone knows new jeans are like cardboard; that’s kind of part of their charm. But these ones, in addition to being slightly faded, with the tag above the right rear pocket already soft and unreadable, aren’t stiff at all. In fact, I’d almost swear these are used jeans. But I love them because three months always seemed like too long to have to break in a new pair. I guess over the last 140 years the Levi‑Strauss company has actually made some technological advances.

July 30, 1990

Concerning that missing invoice for the 3,000 gizmotrons . . . c’mon, you remember me, your old friend from Colorado? Remember, the really skinny guy who used to eat your family out of house and home? Ah, now you remember. Gosh, it’s been so long since I’ve written you that I almost forgot your address. I should include a disclaimer with my letters: “Please allow four to six years for delivery.” Anyhow, sorry for not keeping in touch. Let me catch you up on what I’ve been up to for the last two years. There was mainly a lot of hanging out and racing bikes and wasting time with friends. Oh, yeah, I also recall there were some college courses. (I guess this girl ruined me, too, but it wasn’t anything serious. She was easily replaced by a couple other girls who also ruined me.) Now I’ve moved to the Bay Area and, facing unemployment (not for the first time), I am trying to get temp work which means basically hanging around hoping the phone rings. For the last hour I’ve been trying to fix a typewriter cassette ribbon that had stopped working. I bought several of them at once, and they’re all defective, so I decided I’d better figure out how to fix them. As soon as I pried open the casing all these springs came flying out like a jack‑in‑the‑box or one of those cans that snakes jump out of. Well. I guess that’s about it. Write me back and let me know what you’re up to. For now, I’m going to sign off by quoting my old roommate: later days and better lays! (Disclaimer: I am quoting him ironically.)

November 1, 1990

I just opened a letter from the phone company stating that my service will be disconnected unless they receive payment by November 2. That does not give me much time to act. I will have to call first thing in the morning and give them Pathetic Excuse #27: “I just stumbled across my payment envelope—my stupid roommate forgot to drop it in the mail. Can I have a one-week extension?” I once got a whole month of extensions, for excuses ranging from “I didn’t get my financial aid” to “I ran out of checks.” Of course, doing business over the phone isn’t always so easy. Once I had to get out of this travel club (which I joined to get the free Walkman), but I failed several times to cancel because for every excuse I’d give (e.g., “I just don’t travel that much”) they have some pat answer I couldn’t recover from. It’s like they always do their homework and I never did. So finally I got a bit smarter about it: I called up and said, “I was just put on probation for a year and can’t leave the state,” to which the woman replied, “Yes, Mr. Albert, but . . . oh, wait … gosh, I’m sorry. I’ll refund your membership fee immediately.”

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Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2025 Vuelta a España Stage 14

Introduction

The Vuelta a España is kind of the Dr. McCoy of the three Grand Tours, with the Tour de France being Kirk and the Giro d’Italia being Spock. That’s why the Vuelta might seem grumpy. (Dang, this metaphor is already starting to get away from me.) This race usually isn’t the boring blowout that the Tour is, and with Tadej Pogacar—a rider so dominant he’s the first one I mention when he’s not even here—not here, it’s actually an exciting race, with less than a minute separating the top two contenders. If you haven’t been following this Vuelta, check out my coverage of Stage 9 last week, and as I give you this biased blow-by-blow I’ll gradually catch you up on the stages in between.

What do I mean by “biased”? I’m not a journalist, I’m not neutral, and I tell it how it is, which either means pointing out obvious doping—which so far I happily haven’t noted in this Vuelta—and poor behavior of any kind.

Vuelta a España Stage 14 – Avilés to La Farrapona/Lagos de Somiedo

As I join the action, there’s a very large breakaway a little over five minutes ahead of the red jersey group. There are about 60 kilometers (35 miles) to go, meaning the riders still have two major climbs ahead. The commentators on my Peacock coverage, Christian Van de Velde and Bob Roll, are talking about a heroic feat achieved by Victor Campenaerts (Team Visma – Lease A Bike) today, which was to bridge up to this breakaway mostly by himself, scooping up Gijs Leeimreize (Team Picnic-PostNL) in the process. Actually Campenaerts had been in the break but punctured and lost almost two minutes and had to chase back on. This last detail I gleaned from cyclingnews.com and their blow-by-blow report. Which begs two questions: 1) am I cheating? and 2) why wouldn’t you just read the cyclingnews coverage, instead of this? Answers: 1) yes, of course, and 2) because they don’t give updates often enough, and they don’t even try to be funny. Whether or not I make you laugh, I will always try, which means you can silently mock me when I fail. Which is even better than laughing.

So, who is Gijs Leeimreize, and how do you pronounce his name? And, will I continue with this question-plus-response format? Answers: 1) who knows, I’ve never heard of him; 2) I have no idea but I’m guessing it’s pronounced “jizz”; and 3) yes, probably.

Imagine going through life with a name like “jizz” in a country where pretty much everybody is fluent in English. That can’t be easy. No wonder this athlete is so driven.

With about 52 kilometers (32 miles) to go, the breakaway is on the foothills of the fearsome Puertu de San Llaurienzu, a Category 1 climb. Here’s the profile of that bad boy.

The breakaway has 6:25, which is starting to look like a big enough gap to produce the race’s winner. It’s a pretty big group, two dozen souls, almost all of them complete nobodies (which is why they’ve been allowed to go up the road like this). There are only two riders in this group I’ve heard of before: Campenaerts and Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). These two are heavy hitters whose main job is to support their team leader. For Campenaerts that means supporting the current GC leader of the race, Jonas Vingegaard, and for Soler it means Joao Almeida, who sits second, only 46 seconds behind Vingegaard. So what are these two domestiques doing up in this breakaway? Well, I’ve been waiting for one of these commentators to use the word “satellite,” and bingo—one just did.

What is a satellite rider? It’s a rider who has achieved such a high speed he’s gone into low earth orbit and will probably be purchased by Elon Musk, possibly in a hostile takeover. Ow! Damn! My fact-checker just punched me in the neck! No sense of humor, that guy. (Full disclosure: I have no fact checker.) Actually, “satellite rider” is one of these  terms that the American announcers have invented and that they use so often, we viewers are expected to know what they’re talking about. This is a big step forward, mind you, from the early days of cycling coverage when the viewer was assumed to know nothing, and commentators would explain things like, “Near the finish line everyone will go even faster. This is called a ‘sprint.’” I am not making that up, and you could call it mansplaining except it was the former Olympic champ Connie Carpenter who actually said it. Anyway, other terms these American announcers have come up with are “daylight,” “back on terms,” and “the cat is among the pigeons,” all of which I will explain in due time, after I (finally) tell you what “satellite” means and how it pertains to this situation.

But wait, something is actually happening on the road! They’re interviewing Sepp Kuss (Team Visma – Lease A Bike). Or, rather, they’re playing a previously recorded interview with him, which arrangement they don’t bother to explain. How confusing this sport must be to the newcomer, who is already confused by all these strange terms and is now looking at a rider just standing there while a race is on. The newb must be like, wait, did they get this guy to stop and stand in the road for a bit to do this interview? And then the rest of the racers have to go around this cameraman? Is that even safe? Anyway, here’s the interview.

INTERVIEWER: Today is another big mountain day. Will you get the victory Jonas tried to get yesterday?

KUSS: Do you mean will I get the victory? Or do you mean Jonas?

INTERVIEWER: I don’t know. Either, I guess. I confess I didn’t really plan what to ask you; a staffer was just running around trying to find a friendly person willing to be interviewed, and came up with you.

KUSS: Friendly? Me? Really? Did he say I was friendly?

INTERVIEWER: Not in so many words, but yeah, he must have decided you seemed friendly.

KUSS: I ask because not everybody thinks I’m friendly. I try to be, but my girlfriend’s BFF said I was kind of a dick. Which my girlfriend decided was worth bringing up to me.

INTERVIEWER: What’s going on? How did I get here?

KUSS: I have no idea. This is the weirdest Vuelta stage ever.

If you’re new to albertnet, I guess I should disclose that I don’t try very hard to capture these interviews verbatim, especially when they’re boring, which they typically are. I’m forced to invent things, such as everything you just read other than the opening question. Kuss’s actual response was some roundabout way of saying, “We’ll try.”

Gianmarco Garofoli (Soudal-QuickStep) attacks the breakaway, quickly establishing a huge gap. This doesn’t warrant an exclamation mark because he has no chance, no hope.

See? Look at this, mere moments later: the breakaway has reassembled itself, loosely, though a handful have fallen off and will gradually get scooped up by the peloton.

Okay, so, a satellite rider is a domestique who gets into a breakaway so that when his team leader needs his help, he can just drop back and provide it. Since dropping back means loafing, he’ll be pretty fresh and can then bury himself for his leader. This is a lot more feasible than a domestique who’s been sucking wind on the back just trying to keep up who is now expected to go to the front and put the hammer down (or whatever else his leader needs). Why does this satellite tactic work, when presumably the breakaway riders had to work pretty hard to be in the breakaway in the first place? Simple: politics. Breakaways gain time when the peloton is loafing. So it’s circumstance, not heroics, that lead to their big gap over the field. (Note that there is brutal work involved in establishing the breakaway, and in the case of Campenaerts, catching back up after his bike problem.)

With about two kilometers (1.2 miles) to go on this climb, the GC group has shrunk to maybe a dozen riders, with UAE Team Emirates-XRG driving the pace on the front. Leading is Juan Ayuso, which is somewhat remarkable because it’s really the first time he’s actually worked for his team leader, Almeida. Ayuso will be leaving this team after this season and has evidently lost his desire to support it, riding instead for himself (to good effect, it must be said, as he’s won two stages). He’s gotten a lot of well-deserved bad press for this, and maybe he finally read the memo. (Do you like what I did just there? Tweaked the cliché to be “read the memo,” suggesting it’s been sitting on his desk the whole time? You won’t get that on cyclingnews.) Just behind Ayuso in this group is Jay Vine, in the silly polka-dot KOM jersey and (unfortunately) matching shorts. Vine won a stage here in truly badass fashion and gave a great interview afterward … I really like that guy.

So here’s what’s happened since Stage 9 (i.e., since my last report). Stage 10, which featured a Category 1 mountaintop finish, is the one Vine won, solo. In stage 11, a lumpy circuit starting and finishing in Bilbao, Vingegaard and the rider sitting third overall, Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team), broke away together and it looked like a very exciting showdown was brewing until a bunch of damn protesters wouldn’t get out of the road and the officials had to end the stage early, taking everyone’s time with three kilometers to go. (Needless to say the protestors had zero influence on the world affairs they’re concerned about.)

The breakaway is over the summit of this penultimate climb. It’s down to ten riders. I can’t get a good photo because I’m too slow on the draw. Peacock, in addition to showing endless ads (for products I will now boycott, on principle), blocks screen grabs. An anonymous commenter on my last post suggested I switch to a monthly FloBikes plan (requiring a VPN that makes it look like I’m in Canada), and I might investigate that, but a) I already paid for Peacock and am the world’s cheapest man, and b) that sounds like a lot of hassle. On the other hand, this commenter added, “No ads and you can join me in speculation about whether Hannah Walker and Koen de Kort are an item.” That certainly sweetens the pot.

The GC group (what’s left of it, that is) crests the summit, just a little over three minutes behind now.

Getting back to my recap, Stage 12 had a couple big climbs, and Ayuso broke away with Javier Romo (Movistar Team). If Romo took the stage it’d be the first for his Spanish team in years, but at the end Ayuso outsprinted him pretty easily. Then, yesterday, on the queen stage of this Vuelta that finished atop the fearsome beyond-category Angliru climb, Almeida and Vingegaard broke away, with Vingegaard sitting on Almeida’s wheel the entire way, as poker-faced as a mannequin. Almeida took the stage with absolutely no victory salute because it was a sketchy finish stretch and he was completely knackered. He took some bonus seconds and shrank his gap to Vingegaard in the GC. And then it was now.

This is amazing: I’ve seen more ads during the two weeks of this Vuelta than cumulatively all year. It’s like five minutes of coverage, then five minutes of ads. Maybe I will look into this FloBikes thing. In the current ad, some redneck-looking football player is sitting on a deer in a living room eating Little Caesar’s pizza with some fans. Weirdly, the pizza doesn’t even look good in the ad. Couldn’t they use CGI to make it more appetizing? This will be an easy boycott for me.

With 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) to go, Ayuso goes out the back. At least he did his job today and can feel good about that. When Almeida won yesterday, it must have felt weird for Ayuso at dinner, not getting to celebrate with the others because he hadn’t helped. Maybe that’s why he finally stepped it up today.

The breakaway is on the final climb. Everyone is grinding away at a steady pace right now so I’ll define some more of these made-up American commentator cycling terms. “Daylight” simply means a gap big enough that you can see daylight through it, which isn’t really that descriptive (though it alludes to how closely these riders draft one another). I would say “getting some daylight” isn’t among the most useful cycling terms we have, but I suppose it engenders camaraderie between the announcers to throw it around together. “Back on terms” simply means to catch up and regain the pace of a group you’d been briefly dropped from, and I can’t even hazard a guess as to its etymology. It reminds me of a frequent feature of my horoscope when I was a teenager, when the astrologer, Omar, would advise me, “Define terms.” What did it mean? I never knew.

With 17 kilometers (10.6 miles) to go, two riders have attacked the breakaway and have—wait for it—daylight!

It’s Soler and Johannes Staune-Mittet (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team). Hard to see what their gap is but—wow, look at this, Soler accelerates again, and drops Staune-Mitttet!

At some point Campenaerts dropped back to the GC group, and now he’s fetching bottles for his teammates. In terms of the satellite metaphor you might say he’s splashed down.

Soler continues his solo effort, his hips rocking like he’s some kind of dancer. Kind of an odd looking rider, honestly. Gangly. He has no bottles and nobody to bring them right now.

I thought once the final climb was underway I’d get respite from the ads. But it’s yet another commercial intermission, this time an ad for the Ryder Cup, some golfing event I was already boycotting (because it’s surely much less interesting than, say, a documentary about how golf balls are made).

This final climb is a beast. Not as steep as the last one, but hella long:

I can’t see how this is a very smart move for Soler. First of all, he’s probably doomed, because once the GC battle gets going, that three minutes isn’t likely to be enough. Second, he ought to be focusing all his effort on supporting Almeida, who will need all the help he can get to unseat Vingegaard. Third, given his own well-earned reputation for riding for himself instead of his team (famously, in a 2019 Vuelta stage when he was on Movistar and threw a tantrum when told to sit up) and within the political climate of his team, he should be extra careful about looking selfish. So by the end it may well be a case of trying—if not failing—to do the wrong thing. So I’ll employ another commentators’ cliché: it’s like dogs and cats living together. (Okay, no Peacock announcer has ever said that. It was Bill Murray.)

With 10 kilometers (6 miles) to go, the GC group is still at steady tempo, with Vine on the front. More and more breakaway riders have been diapered (to coin a new cycling term of my own).

Soler takes a bottle from his team car. Depending on how organized the team staff is, that bottle may contain a powerful laxative, to put the self-serving rider in his place.

Peacock now shows two Capital One ads in a row. Can they do that? I wish I could boycott this bank twice. Fortunately, Peacock isn’t advertising its own coverage of this race. That would present quite a conundrum.

Who knows, maybe the UAE team management is on board with this move. (After all, their director, Mauro Gianetti, is a complete maniac.) Maybe they’re thinking hey, we’re already known as a cesspool of infighting, we might as well go all-in with that. It’s pretty funny to see Soler off the front while his team leads the chase group behind. Of course they’re not really chasing, but just setting up Almeida for a big attack. So … if Almeida “gets daylight” on Vingegaard, then will Soler drop back?

Given how awesome a rider Vingegaard is, it does seem unlikely Almeida could actually beat him in the GC, but then Almeida is fresher because didn’t ride the whole Tour de France this year (having had to abandon after a crash), and you never know when a relatively young rider like him will find a new level. And yesterday, he put down such a high pace, Vingegaard couldn’t do anything. The Dane might not have shown it, but he must have been on the rivet. Almeida well deserves the full sacrifice of every teammate, like Vingegaard has been getting. (Not that his team has always done the right thing…)

Vine pulls off and it looks like he’s done for the day, cooked.

Felix Großschartner is taking up the effort for UAE. He has the hardest name to type in all of cycling. Most of the time when I see it onscreen it is represented as “Grossschartner.”

I opine, to my online correspondent, that I think Soler is being kind of an idiot. My correspondent replies, “UAE are dipshits.” I have to agree. They should call Soler back because even if he does get this stage win, he’ll be too fried from the effort to support Almeida very well in the final week. UAE needs to run their tactics as though Almeida actually had a chance. It can’t be good for his morale to have the team authorizing all these stage win efforts.

Vingegaard has two teammates with him, Kuss and Ben Tulett. Whoa, maybe I spoke too soon … Tulett is now blowing chunks at the back. (That is a standard cycling term, but not one these commentators ever use, oddly enough.)

They keep showing the gap between Soler and his next closest chaser. Which is totally irrelevant. What’s the gap to the GC group?

OMG, look at this climb.

Back in the GC group, Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull – Bora – Hansgrohe) is driving on the front for his leader, Jai Hindley, who rode really well yesterday and sits fourth on GC, three minutes behind Vingegaard.

Presumably Hindley will attack soon. I’m surprised Almeida hasn’t. Once one guy makes a big move, though, this détente should finally get blown to bits. I long for that.

And there it is, Hindley busts a move!

Only Vingegaard and Almeida can respond! Hindley is flying! He’s left Pidcock in the dust and may overhaul him on GC!

Wow, we’re closer to the finish than I thought. Soler approaches the line and has now got the stage win. He does a weird victory salute where it looks like he’s trying to nibble his friendship bracelet. Maybe trying to chew it off, because Almeida gave him the bracelet and Soler knows they’re not friends anymore?

The GC group comes in not long after. Vingeegard and Almeida duke it out for second!

Vingegaard takes the sprint and another few bonus seconds.

Almeida needed to take time today, not lose it. It’s hard to know what the UAE leaders are thinking, if they even are.

Here’s the stage result. Kind of remarkable how close the top ten was, given this hard a stage it was and this far into the Vuelta.

Soler gives an interview.

INTERVIEWER: We are 14 stages into this Vuelta, and UAE have won seven of them.

SOLER: Unbelievable. I cannot explain. Fifty percent of the stages we’ve won, so, yeah.

INTERVIEWER [withdraws, without asking a single additional question. Presumably he only collared Soler to settle a bet: is this big dumb jock able to do arithmetic?]

Tomorrow’s stage has a couple categorized climbs but they’re in the first half, so it most likely won’t be an important GC day. And here is the new GC.

Check it out, three Americans in the top 10! It’s been an interesting fight for the white jersey of best young rider, with Pellizzari and Matthew Riccitello in virtual lockstep, finishing sixth and seventh today and staying just over 30 seconds apart on GC.

Here is Soler on his phone, probably ordering some Little Caesar’s pizza.

As a special treat, Vingegaard, when getting his red jersey, gets to interact with a podium girl, the first I’ve seen in this Vuelta.

Now Vingegaard poses with the former Spanish champion Sammy Sanchez.

Instead of flowers, Vingegaard gets a stuffed bull. I wonder if it has testicles. Probably not. So it’s technically a steer. Why give a rider a stuffed steer? There’s no such thing as steerfighting, no Running of the Steers. This animal represents nothing, expect perhaps castration. Is that any way to honor the race leader?

They interview Vingegaard.

INTERVIEWER: So, is today’s second place sweeter than yesterday’s?

VINGEGAARD: No, second place is never sweet.

INTERVIEWER: How would you describe the flavor, then?

VINGEGAARD: It’s a complex flavor, redolent of gauze and young moss, that initially caressed my tongue, but then took an unexpected detour into light fizz, like fermented peaches at a salad bar, with just a hint of bong water.

INTERVIEWER: So not such a good taste, then. How do you think the victory tasted for Soler today?

VINGEGAARD: Sweet as honey, of course, but the taste in his team’s mouth must be like hard, bitter scab.

INTERVIEWER: Who eats scabs?

VINGEGAARD: Exactly.

I somehow missed Soler’s podium ceremony. That’s okay. I’m tired of that guy.

And with that, my coverage is almost complete. All that’s left is, as promised, to define the last US-commentator-buzzphrase: “The cat is among the pigeons.” To be honest, until Bob Roll said it today, I’d never actually heard it. Looking it up, I see “throw the cat among the pigeons” is a British phrase describing an outsider causing a disturbance. I’m delighted to discover there’s a similar expression in Dutch, “De knuppel in het hoenderhok gooien,” which literally translates “Throwing the bat into the chicken shed.” I love it. Who has ever done such a thing and what would a bat even do among chickens? Granted, a bat is a predator, but chickens are so much larger! But then, if it’s a vampire bat? I’m going to start using that expression constantly.

For various reasons, I probably won’t cover next Saturday’s final mountain stage, but you should check back here anyway. There will surely be something for you to read.

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