Carbon Fridays

Still no frame yet. Waiting and waiting. I put my name in for another waiting game just the other day. After all this time you'd think I'd be sick of it, but now I'm preparing for some more. A recent opportunity came along that might jeopardize my 2009 race bike selection. In a good way. You know I'm talking to you. I am ready to throw down big time. I am stepping it up huge this winter. I want some. I want to not falter once this season. I don't want to be the best, but be my best. I want to only be slow after ridiculously hard and long efforts of endless fun and pain.

If I don't trip your trigger. Don't worry. I'll fill you in on all the juicy details anyways. I'll dangle pictures of awesome rides and awesome friends (mostly new I hope). I'll give it my all either way. I'm just down that way. I also won't promise you that I won't falter. Sometimes those days just come a long. One thing I will do is drive myself into the ground to finish with out those little evil letters DNF after my name. Those letters are just about the worst letters I've ever seen in my life.

I also promise to be myself. That's all I ever am. I am obsessively technical by nature. I don't rest til I can provide the best possible service to my clientele. I know you can't ask them, but if you did they would tell you that they sometimes wish I would shut up. Others will tell you I go to know end to make sure their equipment is the most quality, smoothest running around. I come from a backround of techs that make me question how I opperate and conduct myself every day. I thank them for that. At my most impressionable time in life and probably the peak of my personal irresponsibility, they helped influence me to be that obsessive, but professional tech.

Enough rambling. I want this opportunity though. Got in the Gunnar Rockhound Roadie's fork in today. A brand new Easton EC90 SL fork. They had a nifty little threaded portion of their steerer tube so that you install the compression plug. That way there isn't any dropping it into the bottom of the fork and such. Nice. I love Easton's carbon products. I just wish they would make a wider carbon flat bar. Same with Bontrager for that matter. Salsa's wider bars are insanely popular in carbon and aluminum. Are you guys paying attention to the market? Oh well Bontrager's Race Lite Big sweep is as light as their Race X Lite carbon bar anyways.

On another note a customer of mine finally came back to talk about her replacement for her kind of ancient Trek 1600 WSD. We had talked about getting her into a 700c wheel since Trek has kind of dropped the 650c wheel. Which isn't bad. At all. So I thought she might want to get into a carbon frame, but little did I know she was ready to roll. She didn't buy but went straight for the 5.2 WSD. It had the Ultegra SL components she wanted, and after talking about their new seat mast design, she really was interested with the smoothness it provided. I wouldn't lie about something like that. It really is smooth.

Otherwise I had to deliver that little carbon goodness over to El Jefe's so that Rockhound could get his pretty in pink Roadie shorn up. I had ridden into work so I rolled across town and plowed some snow and ice. Got to Jefe's in decent time and hung out for a while. I'll tell you this much, riding with a backpack with a carbon fork box sticking out bumping up against your helmet is interesting. Everything went as planned. Then I turned around, rode back to Coralville for a minor beer tasting session at Regal Liquors. Drank 4 samples of beer I had never had. My father showed up and decided I needed a 6er to take home and a Samuel Smith Winter Welcome. This made for a heavy slow ride home. After 20 miles on the Monster Truck (50% harder and heavier to ride than my other bikes, but way more fun on snow) I had 6 more to go. With the majority of climbing to come as I headed home, I tickled my 30t cog and lived in my 26t.

Long day, long week. Now I just need to get out and ski sometime this weekend. It is going to have to be early am or late pm seeing as I work all weekend. I'm out.

American Routes

I get kind of ticked when I have to work on Saturday nights. Then I remember that I get to listen to Prairie Home Companion, and American Routes. Prairie Home Companion you ask? You are only 24, not 45. Well kiddies I used to listen to this little gem of an old school radio show when I was but a whee lad. I went out on errands with my father on Sunday afternoons and we'd listen to jazz on the radio and on the way home, we'd listen to PHC. At first I didn't get it. At first I didn't listen. Then good old Garrison Keillor wiled his way into my brain as did most of the folk and country music.

As I turned to adolescence we moved and didn't do errands on Sunday anymore. I grew up, got irresponsible, and generally didn't care about anything but Delltron and the sort. Then some responsibility started to creep back as I started checking out some of the IC folk scene. Mike and Amy Finders, Ben Schmidt, that awesome old school fiddle player whose name eludes me. Edit: His name is Al Murphy. Do yourself a favor and check him out.

Well anyways I was working one Saturday and was looking for a little more out of the typical classic American rock that inundates Iowa radio. I landed on a familiar voice and fell backwards through time into that little blue Honda, cruising down Dodge Street towards I-80 towards our little farm home in Springdale. We didn't farm per se but rented the old house from our neighbors.

It was enough to make me sit down next to the radio and just listen for at least a half an hour. Guy Noir always got me piqued when I was a kid. The show ended and I just kind of hung out and tuned some skis. After doing some base grinds and edging (both loud activities) I started waxing. I don't know if you've ever waxed skis and just been listening to some tunes, but it is about as close as you get to getting high without doing anything illegal. It is pretty darn relaxing.

I start listening to some good soul that transitions to some down down blues. I was taken back again. This time not to my childhood, this time to the present. It took me out of the groove of scraping and sat me down again. American Routes is probably one of the best histories of recorded American music from the past century and some change I have ever heard. It covers a spectrum covered only found in text books and old record collectors homes.

To my local NPR carrier 91.7FM, Bring me back my American Routes. You see they reformatted and took my lone Saturday nights of relaxing music away from me. You did well and replaced it with 4 hours of jazz, but it just doesn't have that flavor. It doesn't have the same soul especially following up Prairie Home Companion. It has that old radio show feel that is dead. And due to these two shows, not dead at all.

Cheers American Routes, and cheers to you Prairie Home Companion. Now for the hazing.

Recovery Wednesday

Nothing really fun today. I bled the rear brake on the Codes and then went on some repairs. Fixed and elliptical and threw a new AC cable on a Landice. Went and downed a hearty taco, a sourdough burger with swiss and mushrooms and half a plate of french fries. Got back to work to work out the minor headset kink with the EX9. It had a minor click coming from the lower cup. Seeing as I had never laid hands on a 100 headset I was a little suspicious of this little gem.

The I got to thinking. Old Mavic Crossmax ST wheels with aluminum spokes. Sure they creaked a litte, but they had a seperate creak from the headset one. I pulled the cups and cleaned them with isopropyl alchohol as well as the frame. I had already faced the head tube and was a little suspicious of the thin coating of cutting oil I hadn't cleaned up the best. But it is a press fit. And you think a little lube would do that? Neither did I.

So then I got to looking at my customers "crown jewel" which is his Push'd Fox XTT Trail Tune fork. This little beauty had me suspect when his old Cake had a cracked rear triagle and shock brace that ran between the seat tube to the down tube. My main concern was the condition of the stanchions where the bushings run over them. I mean how many cycles does it really take until these are worn enough to effect performance.

So I put on a RS Tora off of a EX5.5 and installed the Cane Creek crown race then put it on the EX9. No creak. I now started to suspect the crown/steeer assembly of the Fox. The Tora just had so much flex that I couldn't call that good. I pulled the EX8 off the floor and slapped it on the EX9. Torqued on the bar ends side to side. Nothing. The little mystery might be solved. Mind you I reinstalled the old Fox just to check it each time after installing the old for to confirm that I hadn't installed something incorrectly. Needless to say I installed and uninstalled a suspension for and changed crown races about 5-6 times in the matter of about two hours. Talk about getting proficient at something. By the time I was on the last swap it was taking not time at all to do the swap.

So the old Fox goes on one last time. Torque all bolts to spec, install the caliper. What do you know creaking/popping comes back again. The fork has just seen it's time come as has most everything from his old bike. We thought we might have been able to use it, especially since he loves the jewel, but sometimes old dogs just need laid down.

Next up Fox F32 RLC QR15. I better get on the horn to I9. And who says wait times are all bad....

My EX...

Well not mine, and not an ex but an EX. More specifically an EX9. My customer finally brought me his frame, and bis old Cake to do some parts swapping. The only things we were removing was the Fox Fjork (shout out to Dicky) which is his baby. It's been Push'd and he cannot live without it. The chain and cassette were also removed considering their 2 months of use. And the front derailleur. That got replaced when I refused to work on his SRAM XGen front derailleur. Or should I call that pile of crap.

The parts were ordered and things look great. The Cane Creek 100 headset is awesomely smooth. I love the machined finish it sports. It wasn't buffed down before ano. The only thing tricky is Cane Creek only warranties it for 2 years! HEAR THIS. Only 2 years. So no lying to people and telling them they warranty it for 100 years like it's similar brethren the 110 headset. Not the case. Either way, My Dillinger will probably be getting one for the sake of carbon/suspension cross compatiblity between bike. So I don't have to swap crown races.

The bars and post sport some new jazzed up graphics for 2009 which look good. The basically added white. Hot. Race X Lite bars, stem and post. They held up to two years of abuse under this guy and never quivered. Tough stuff. Especially the post. Just as white will probably be making a little scoot out of style I bet this season. Maybe not though. Either way it looks good. Other control goodies feature Avid Code Disc brakes and X9's laced up with some Matchmakers to clean things up on the bar. Goodness.

Codes being overkill you say? No way. More pad life, later braking and only a slight weight gain over Juicy 7's. We were going to step up rotor size on a new set of Juicy 7's when I got thinking. The Juicy's feature lever bushings that go to sh*t over the course of a season. Yes the are easily replacable, but when you can have sealed bearings why not. Also when you can have that lighter rotor on a wheel which is rotating and larger pads for that extra stopping power, why not. Also the smaller rotors due build heat faster, but that's what the 4 pistons are for. Larger pistons dissapate heat faster as due more pistons. Also smaller rotors resist warping better I feel due to being stiffer at a similar thickness to the larger rotors. I always have more run out on my 180mm front rotor than the 160mm fronts I run.

The bottom bracket is brought to you by Chris King folks. Silvery and slippery smooth, and hopefully long lasting as this customer needs it. He kills 1 or two of the GXP style bb's a year. Hopefully this will take care of that. Also since his passion of hatred for Shimano (not his fault, he had a first run of the 960 XTR stuff, non shop guy mistake, never buy a first run of anything) I got him a clean looking Deus XC crank in silver. Classy and styley while featuring chainrings and spline interface that is worth a darn. Yes I am pointing at you FSA. Your old spline on the MegaExo carbon cranks that had to be loctited were a joke!

Otherwise the build rounds out with XO rear derailleur, his old X9 front derailleur, PG990 cassette. His wheels are currently in que down in Ashville, NC being laced up by the fine folks at Industry Nine. Black hubs, Silver spokes, and Black No Tubes Flow rims. Tires will be Weirwolf UST's with hopefully a future upgrade to a non UST but equally tubelessable 2.3 version.

So that was my Monday. The weekend was spent watching the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona while on the trainer on Saturday, and skiing for about 2.5 hours on Sunday. Rode into work on Monday and dominate some snow. Today I am going to get on the trainer and hopefully get the ache out of the legs. Enjoy the pics

I lied.

Yeah I forgot the stupid camera so no sweet pics of the wheel build. Just google Inustry Nine or something. Anyways the rear wheel built up great as well. I did notice that the rear drive side spokes when up to tension were pretty much threaded all the way into the hub. Considering the customer had problems with his 355's I wanted to set these up towards the high end of the tension spectrum. We had a discussion about the possible results of this on the No Tubes rims (not eyeletted) and he is well aware of the benefits vs. the possible outcome. Which would be possible cracking over a shorter time period.

Edit: So cell phones continue to blow my mind. Pic of hub after lace up yesterday. Did you know you can upload your pics to your cell phone account online? That is crazy.

I figure with the switch to Arches and the consistent tension this should be enough to make them solid. Still I am surprised at their choice of drive side spoke length. The fronts run one length and have plenty of thread on either side to work with. I couldn't even over-tension the rear if I wanted to. The spokes on the front were setup towards the high end as well. The way they tension up even when properly lubricated makes it seem they would bind pretty badly even if you tried to over tension them. They definitely wind after a certain tension indicated by the (sometimes permanent) rotation of the laser etched logo.

Otherwise lots of exercise crap and a fair amount of downhill and xc skis. Tis the season I suppose. I got lazy and "forgot" to get a pair of our rentals so I could get some skiing time in this weekend. I think since the hip is better I might have to get the fixie out for some fun winter play. In it's current configuration it should handle the conditions well. I do need to gear it down though. The 35/16 combo is a little tough with the 42c Mythos out back. I am thinking of gearing down to 34/17 or even 35/18 and then switching the rear tire to match the front XDX.

My customer also left me the old 355's. The front is a little bent, but it would be nice to see if I could get that one straight. The rear is spot on and only ridden about 200 off road miles. I would almost like to relace my fixie cross to those rims. Then I can run the worry free tubeless. I might just have to try out the Cyclocross rimstrips first.

The other thing I want to have done is have my canti mounts relocated. The frame in question is made of ti so it could get costly. I might just have to try a Paul V-brake. That might take care of the issue as well as be a pretty sick match up to my Arch Supreme front brake (ironically the other matching brake would be relegated as it sits now to the drawyer where it is already residing.)

Peace out for the week. I'll post up something this weekend if I am feeling bored. Which this time of year happens. I am not down with the daily posting stuff, nor the norm/trend of not posting on the weekends. As nobody really reads this anyways, this is really starting to become some kind of "journal." I would like to think that it is more along the lines of a personal highlight reel and place to spew all the crazy bike related ideas I get.

Word up.

Edit #2- So Paul Components make a brake that rocks. And from what I remember they ask you if you either like pirates, or celebrate pirate day. I am ordering one of these brakes on Monday.

MOTO BMX

Do you want to put 1 3/8" (mini) wheels on your standard BMX frame? How about 700c wheels on your mountain bike? These brakes are the answer. Our unique pad mounting system made it easy to offer this variation. In both cases a short reach lever is recommended. Drop bar levers work great too.

I was Laced...

Well not with drugs, but with wheels. A customer of mine came in yesterday with a rather shot I9 29er front wheel. Standard wheel with No Tubes ZTR 355 rims. The front rim was definitely jacked. I let him know after pulling the tire that he had some issues. So we talked it over and decided on relacing to No Tubes Arches. Easy enough swap. The 355 and the Arch feature the same ERD.

I grab an Arch down, and tape the two rims together to swap. I slap it in the truing stand to check out the situation. As it turns out I taped the Arch to the right side. Simple enough attack. Take out non-disc side outer spokes, clean and prep threads with silver based anti-sieze (they told me boiled linseed oil which I thought was crazy), and place on the counter. Then remove the inner right spokes one at a time clean and prep install in the new rim. Then move on to the outers.

The I9's are awesome because due to the design, if you mess up lacing them you are a jerk hole and shouldn't be working on bikes. Yeah it would be easy to cross thread a spoke into the hub, but if you take your time things go well. I make it to the disc side. This is where one of the problems was with the old wheel. There were two longer length spokes in this side of the wheel. I9 didn't seem to stoked to find that out, but whatever man. They handle thousands of spokes a day of numerous colors and lengths. Things get mixed up. No big deal. I can understand that. It isn't like it killed the wheel.

So anyways these wheels are bitchen to lace. They take a little time to prep, but once you get towards rounding and final tensioning things are amazing. The rigidity of the hub and spoke combo make rounding these wheels and exact science. An eigth to quarter turn and there is a visible movement of the rim. Steel spokes are just too elastic sometimes to get results such as these.

I'll post pics tomorrow of the rear wheel build as I do it. I forgot to take a long a camera. Plus I have to go out on deliveries. Cheers to I9 for building a crazy product.

I'm in...

SSWC09 will see me toeing the startline with some heavy hitters. Well it was all hard work and crayons. I'd like to thank D9 for not hosting an online registration process so sleepy heads like me could sleep and then color my butt into the race. I'd also like to thank them for supporting the oncoming zombie apocolypse. I hope I don't have to pop a cap in one of your... All in all it has been stressful.

Seeing as yesterday was spent on the slopes of a major climb in France, I rode home in some snow and ate some food. Jame-o beckoned my name as well as the couch and the road bike is still in the automobile trunk. If I don't get off this damn computer sometime soon I might not have balls anymore so I'm out.

Cheers to Durango. Glad to see that the Omaha Connection made it in.

Computrainers for Obama

Well today I spent some time on the trainer. Yesterday was about 30min. followed by 45 minutes of snow biking into work and 45 minutes home. Today I woke up to watch the Inauguration of our 44th president of the United States. Anyone else see the look on GW's face? Didn't look too happy. Oh well. I'm not crying seeing him leave.

So I decided to eat some oatmeal and hop on the trainer after soaking up some internet and 'tube. I spent about an hour on that monster and did some intervals. My favorites recently have been 2min on, 1min rest, 3min on, 1min rest, 4min on, 1min rest, 3min on, then cool back off for around 20-30 minutes. Over this course I watched Obama get sworn in, a lovely poem read, and his speach. All good stuff.

Ate lunch and got the bike ready to go to the Physical Therapist. He has been hashing out my lower back/medial glute issues I've been having. So we get the bike on their and plugged up to realize he forgot a cadence magnet. Not being the total bike geek I am, No I do not ride with a bike computer. End of story. Drove to work and picked one up and some gels to prepare for the pain to come.

He had an incoming patient at 2:30pm so I got to "play" on the trainer while I waited. Looking through the list being the genius I am I decide on the Alpe d'Huez file. Terrible idea. While fun, I had already put in an hour of work, and done about 25 minutes of warm up before tackling the Alpe. The first 5.5 miles of the program is flat, then you take a sharp left corner into the heavens. You go from 0% grade to 10.5% within about 1/4 mile. My heart rate pegs, and I am grinding (and I mean grinding) in my 39/23. Damn myself. Why don't I ride a 13-26t cassette on my trainer wheel.

After some damage control and suffering things start to level out a little. This holds for about .5-.7 miles to around 7 percent. Then things pitch back up into the stratosphere. Around 12% for about a mile. They drop back down to around 9 %. I hit the 9.5 mile mark. I am 20oz. of water in the hole, 2 Powergels (all this on the trainer you say? Just try it.) and I am gassing. I decide at the next major pitch up I am going to call it. at around mile 10.1 I am thrown into the stratosphere. The program ramps up to 13% and climbing and I give out. Done.

All in all not a bad effort. As I said before I don't use a computer or Power meter, but I do occasionally check out others efforts they post in their blogs. I wound out at 45 minutes. Average speed of around 13mph I think (I was a little dazed) Average RPM was 82, and average power output was 240watts for the effort. I refused the heart rate monitor due to the fact that it scares me to know how high it gets sometimes. It doesn't tell me jack other than confirming that I am pegged. And back off up a 12% gradient while riding a 39-23 equals more grindage of the 45rpm variety as opposed to the 55rpm I was rocking.

It was (and I can't believe I am saying this) a really fun day on the trainer. Now the Short Cake is coming home and I am taking her out to dinner. We are going to eat some pasta at the Brown Bottle. And she is going to have a glass of wine. She is handling a huge insurance roll over at her business and is feeling her first in depth carreer related stress. I mean big stress and exhaustion. She deserves a treat. Then a little pant shopping for Megan and Nabil's wedding. Can you say non pleated pants. I can "cause that's what I have been rockin' and that is apparently a huge fashion no-no.

Peace out. Alpe d'Huez I'll be back. Maybe someday for a taste of the real thing.

Rest

After 17 of the past 20 days being spent at the Evil Place, I will be enjoying a day of relaxation. And by that I mean I'll either go back and pick up a pair of skis only to disappear immediately from that place. The second option would be pump up the tires in the cross bike and go cruise for a couple of hours. I can't decided if being on the bike is a great idea this time of year. The commute works out well on the Monster Truck. Slow and steady with punches only on the climbs. If I ride, I'll try and find some cool pics. I also might have to head towards Millstream and grab a beer. Been a while since I've done that ride.

Screw that. Today was coldest.

Temps were bitter cold for IC today. I don't care if you live in Canada and it was -40F. Life around these parts got rough and fast. The wind wasn't terrible. Work sucked a little until a nice little package showed up to the shop. Apparently the boys and girls over at Chris King ship in an extra fast manner. Also if you are interested they apparently have all of their tools for their new outboard bearing BB's available. Tasty little morsels those are. They are going to make so many people's lives better with that little technilogical advancement.

I have a nice red one on the way and the previously named Cakeman, now named EX-Man has one on the way. The brushed aluminum of the EX9 will look mighty fine with a silver one stuffed in between a silver Race Face Atlas crankset. Little does he know what he is getting. Now I am regretting the black hubs on the I9's that he is getting. Still I think those wheels will be unstoppable.

On another front, LH Thomson should start making their 31.6mm layback posts in silver. Has everyone forgotten about silver components? They are getting rarer and rarer. You have to do some work to find metal as opposed to carbon these days. This coming from a guy loading up on carbon and all sorts of good bits to mate with his carbon frame. At least I'm not running carbon cranks. I know they look nice, but I am an aluminum crank kind of guy. Maybe Edge Composites should hook up with Mr. Stan and get some bead hook technology.

And in other note the Shortcake wants mentioned more often. Or more so at all. Her booty cheeks are cold. Not a surprise in these temps.

Cold, Colder, Coldest

Well things are cold here. Not as cold as Canada. Nor as cold as Minneapolis for that matter. Either way it is the coldest it has been here since probably 2 or 3 years ago. My feet practically froze in my Sidi Boots on the way home. On the way to work I had the tail wind which helped seeing as we got 7 inches of snow last night into this morning. The plows hit the roads well, but not the bike paths ar 9:00am in the morning. Plowed through the deep stuff and went to the post office. I sent this to Durango.

The rest of the ride was pretty good. Just smooth sailing. Lifted a pool table off of another pool table. Heavy. Tried to move a treadclimber. Heavy. Then I realized how windy the ride home was gonna be. Oh crap. Picked up a face mask and some toe warmers before I took off towards home. I of course being the intelligent one I am didn't happen to think that I didn't need the face mask. That actually tended to be true. I also being the smarter person I am decided to be lazy and slap my shoes on sans toe warmers. BAD IDEA. An exclemation point doesn't even express the coldness that set in at about the 35 minute mark.

In other good news I went and XC Ski'd for a couple of hours yesterday. I ran into the local fast biker guys who were throwing down. I definitely got there after one, skied for 2 hours and left and he was still going. Ridiculous. It was a gorgeous day out there though. I had a blast. It was my first time out at Macbride Rec area on skis. The groom a lot of trail. Not Wisconson a lot, but darn good for Iowa. I picked up this nice shot while out there. If you set it up as a desktop it has a nice tunnel effect without me messing with any photo settings. Not that I know how to do that anyways.

In bike news I got my rim order in the other day. I got my confirmation on my "first" hub order, and got my account setup for my second "hub/rim" order. I got some stuff in the works as far as wheels. It is a little on the ridiculous side, but I am stoked. This bike is by far going to be the nicest bike I have ever owned. I have been diligently taking pictures of all the components I have purchased so far and will start posting them up around March seeing as that is the new date of arrival of my frame.

To Trek Bikes. Please (see I can ask nicely) do not mess with me. I hope you were sincere when you said March. I will jump with joy if it is Febuary, but will be a little dismayed if you were messing with my/our collective heads. By our meaning everyone else waiting on your frame. You know who you are.

Cold, Colder, Coldest

Ice and Rivnuts

Well after a day of deliveries under the belt, and no ride into work, I was feeling a little antsy. So I decided to get in a ride. Outdoors. Even though it was cold. And really windy. As is the norm around here all the trails are closed. Mostly for the sake of hunting. The reason this gets me is these people use this state land that is maintained by cyclists, and hikers year round. Now this wouldn't be a big deal, but they always seem to be hiking on the trails. They don't go to the public hunting areas to try and pick up a big one, oh no, they have to come and hike all over the trails.

Either way it creates a pretty sliperry and foot-printed mess. I guess I wouldn't be as salty about the whole situation if I would just quit being cheap and get some of those stupid expensive (but worth their price) studded tires. I would really like to keep all the possible income focused on my new bike project and the other important project I have going on in my life. And do not think that I do not appreciate hunters. They keep the deer levels to a dull roar. Plus a fair amount of that deer ends up being consumed by me. I just need to live somewhere I can ride my mountain bike year roung I guess.

On the bike front I got my headset in today. I'm keeping this one close to the chest as It was pretty difficult to come by this early in the year. I only found one distributor that had them and they had two. They probably won't be hard to find in two months, but then my bike just wouldn't feel complete without it.

The rivnut situation happens to be a good lesson learned. Do not, I repeat, do not use an impact on rivnuts. Now all you bike friendly techs out there probably realize this having maybe replaced one or two in your day. But when you throw a Dewalt impact in an individuals hands who thinks that fastest is bestest (intentional) you get one loose rivnut.

That's all I got. Trek-Send me my frame. I am impatient. It is 7 days into the month. If this were Febuary that would be the 1st quarter mark.

The Bus is in the Shop...

So the bus is in the shop, and it is running. I don't know who all is getting on board, but we definitely have two riders in the mix. Maybe three and if we could get a fourth, well we might as well start a union. No one probably gets that much. Except for the other possible bus passengers. Oh and my bus has a carbon hood. And by special it means it is going to run some people over.

In other news SSWC09 registration has openned. That may or may not be a good thing. It would be good if you happen to be particularly creative, artistic, or downright dirty. Luckily I am secretly the last of the three. My big question is whether or not to stay in the lines. The adult in me is aiming at yes, but the little kid inside every "grown" adult male has to question that descision every second.

Single Speed World Championships 2009

So get those entries rockin'. Or the SS Party Patrol is going to smack down your b***h a***s.

Ice Road Bikers

So here was the weekend report. Got my hours of riding in this week to start the new year? Check. Went to work? Check. Got some fun snow biking in? Check. Slid out on some ice? Check. Almost fell on some slippery ice? Check...Check..Check. Crack cell phone outer screen even though it was "safely" stored in my book bag? Check.

You get the point. This was not a fun end or beginning to a week. Monday is going to have to be an off day. And by off I mean still go put in my 9 hours and wonder when the new frame is going to show. I am also going to think about how much ice sucks compared to snow. I am disliking all the warming/cooling cycles we've been getting this past December. The trend is now continuing into January. Hopefully by the 15th or so it won't warm up past 20 degrees. Hell I'll even go with 15 just to get what I want. I just don't want to see anymore ice covered roads and trails. I don't really want to have to drop some buck on some of these as I have other things to use those dollars for.

This week sometime I will start chronicling the build of my new steed. I don't have any specifics for you all just yet, but I sure will soon. Most parts are sorted already, but there are still some to be purchased and some descisions to be made. I will try and take some spiffy picks of the components as I pick them up. My pile has started and has already been thoroughly eyeballed by the yet to be coined GF.

Hopefully I will get out on Tuesday for a nice longer cruise on the Monster Truck. I am going to have to figure out which Professional Monster Truck the Dillinger would be. It is definitely a little liberal, a little in your face, and all TRUCK.

Iowa Mountains

Nothing spectacular to report here. No new ground breaking news. No sweet pictures of the crap ton of money I dropped this week on sweet parts... Wait why not? Mostly cause it's Friday night and I as well as you can wait. Considering nobody is reading this yet, what do you care? Anyways I had a good ride to work today. Nothing spectacular just about an hour and a half total to and from work. I was a little bored with the usual snow drifted bike path in Coralville so I started looking around. Mostly all I see is ice, and some snow. Then as I pop off the path I decide to cut across the street.

Things have been all snow, melt, snow, melt around here recently. You know the process. The powder flies, you pull out the XC skis or snow shoes or whatever you poison. But that hasn't been working on a consistent basis recently. So back to the street. All the snow we have has about .5-1in. of powder over a nice solid frozen/packed base. Pretty optimal for snow biking really. As I cross the street I just roll right over the curb as there is a nice amount of ice/snow pack to eliminate the curb.

Now I am just riding down that nice little strip of snowy grass towards someones driveway when I see the giant snow pile they've been working on so far this winter. This nice pile of snow is all their hard work they've put in shovelling their driveway. Now I think time to ride around it...now why would I do something stupid like that?! Everything is all nice and packed and icy, let's just roll it and see what happens. Boom! I pop right over. Now that was fun. Now the half mile stretch of neighborhood before the next bike trail (currently an ice skating rink) becomes more interesting.

About 10 snow piles and one nice decorative rock in the yard later, I am back to the ice rink of a bike trail. Luckily it is only another half mile to the shop. As I roll out of tunnel under the interstate and climb the tiny riser ice rink path a behemoth snow mound is right before my eyes! I totally get a little trigger happy and pretty much charge right for it. I get on top and look around the top. This pile is about 50-60 ft long of frozen perfectly built mountainous ridge line. All these years of snow biking and I have never ridden such a nice snow pile.

These things have been sitting in front of my eyes and I have never taken advantage of them. My recomendation to you is go to you closest local grocery store, mall, Wal-Mart (not to buy anthing just hold you horses) and ride some of those giant snow piles! You will be surprised how amazingly fun they are. These will now forward be referred to as Iowa Mountains. We don't have mountains in Iowa. But we sure do in winter. Go ride some and see what you've been missing!