Bicycle Kitchen

Aquaponic Geodesic Dome Green House

2012-02-02T14:41:00.000-08:00

1000 gallon tank

Mocking up trays

Attaching the skin

Adding the second layer

Mixing cob in bath tub, a mixture of soil from the yard, sand and straw.

Sealing the perimeter with cob

Dome completely sealed

water tank and filter trays

Rocket mass heater and compost bins

Water gets pumped up, filtered in tank of stone and piped down to plant trays

3 gallon buckets with 50/50 mix of ground coco husk and composted manure mix

Fast Tires

2009-03-28T13:38:00.001-07:00

A short update on the Bontrager XR1 tires.

These are the FASTEST tires I have ever ridden..... by a good bit. They roll sooo fast and have good cornering grip. I am running them tubeless on my 355, American classic, Revolution wheel set with yellow tape. They are a non-tubeless tire with a high tpi count and very soft rubber.
They weigh 488.4g, the lightest crow I ever had was 465.5g but I could not run crows in the front and rear so the XR1 works out to be lighter than the Crow and Karma combo. Though its not the weight that makes these tires fast. The tread pattern is very fast, faster than the Crow`s by a bit. The rubber compound is a little softer on the XR1 giving it good cornering grip. I am really looking forward to see how they will wear in.

My bike with a few new items some of which have not been seen will lower my bike to 19lbs with gears.

Races start

2009-02-27T11:02:00.000-08:00

this weekend. We will be hitting up Colorado Springs and Fort Collins for some crit racing. Not looking forward to the eight hour drive form Durango to Fort Collins. Hopefully I can get a chance to get some riding in at Fort Collins. Whoopeee.

Not impressed yet

2009-02-24T01:31:00.001-08:00

The new Sram XX group set was officially released today. No specs have been released to the public and there will most likely be changes to what you see here.

Upon first seeing the press release I was excited but soon let down to see that the brakes are only slimmed down Elixers with a one piece bar clamp, the front derailleur is a slightly lighter version of the current X.9, the rear derailleur is a mix between Red and X.0 and grip shift is not being offered yet.

The highlight of the groupo is the crankset. The spindle looks to be a BB30 in the picture and the rings are bolted to two different mounts, hopefully meaning it is a low chainline setup. The down side to the crank though is you will most likely be limited to a narrow chainring selection.

At least the brakes should be light.

Parts and stuff

2009-02-15T21:45:00.001-08:00

All the parts are Bontrager, and thats fine. I picked out a bar, stem and seatpost combo that would all lean towards efficiency. The bar I chose was the XXX riser. It weighs a heafty 50g g more than my EC70 but is wider, 580 to 630, stiffer and has more sweep, 5deg to 7deg.

For the stem I chose a XXX stem. This was the hardest decision to make due to my fit. The XXX stem comes in one angle, 17deg, where the model down the X Lite comes in two, 7deg and 17deg. The XXX stem would give me the best fit bewteen my Race Lite Big Sweep and the XXX Rizer, but was 157g vs 114g for the same effectice length. I went with the XXX based on fit and the hopes of superb stiffness and I feel that it has delivered.

For seatpost and saddle I went for the XXX post and the RXL saddle. The post was an easy choice due to its light weight compated to my Thomson, 297g vs. 170g, and its simple design.

The saddle was my only iffy choice. I really didnt want to end up switching all my saddles out and buying new ones but I bought in to try for the spring on the 29er. So far so good, I got my ass sized at the local trek store and ordered up. It has a narrower fit than my custom SLR saddles and was quite comfortable. The bikes new weight as is, is 19.15lbs
More later....

Bontrager XR1 Team Issue

2009-02-13T11:50:00.000-08:00

I just received a pair on Team Issue XR1 tires and I thought that I should share. The tires are intended for fast courses and tubes. There are two versions of the tire, a Team Issue and a Expert issue. The both have the same tread pattern but the Team issue has a softer rubber and thinner rubber. They have a claimed weight of 565g for the expert and 510g for the Team Issue.

My tires came in at 488g and 506g which made me very happy. There is now a tire option as light as a crow but with taller knobs.

Tubeless inflation on my 355 with yellow tape was not easy. It took 80psi form my portable 10 gal air tank, removal of the valve core and a lot of time. My difficulty was based on my past experience with Bontrager tires. Normally I can get Bontrager Tubeless and non-tubless tires to inflate with a floor pump. Any one with quality air compressor should have no problems.

They are labeled as 1.9" or 48/48 but are more like a 2.0 and take on a round profile when inflated. The look small when compared to my Karmas and ACX tires.

More to come once my flu bug goes away and I get a chance to rally them.

Team Mech

2009-01-30T07:29:00.000-08:00

Yay.

Uphill Struggle

2009-01-23T13:47:00.000-08:00

The trails are still to snowy to ride especially with the warm weather. So (as much as I don`t like to admit it) I've been riding the cross bike on the road lately. I put a pair of 25c tires on along with a 53x16 gearing and its been pretty fun. The team has organized rides leaving from Bread at 1:00 on weekdays and at 10:00 on the weekends. The group rides are great for learning new rides and faces. While speaking of the team Crawford is no longer with us but we have two new "coaches" Rutie and Mike. We are now also classified as a "varsity" sport which hopefully will lead to better funding and maybe some scholarships.

I've been working on my cadence and low end power in prep for SSWC which by the way will be super sweet by the sounds of it. Some time here I will be making my bike in to a power transfer machine through new cranks, bars and stem. My hopes are the extra weight gained will be well worth the extra stiffness gained.

Schmidty has been brewing his own beer and it has alot of head.

Eat Shit

2009-01-14T19:20:00.000-08:00

Horse Gulch is fun

Back From ABQ

2009-01-12T16:57:00.000-08:00

My last few days in Albuquerque were spent on an old Specializd rockhopper riding up and down the street practicing wheelies and riding the bike path with Sarah`s neighbors. I also bought a pet rat to keep Sarah`s company while away form her sisters rat. Pictured below is Sarahs rat Olive in my smelly ass shoe, I decided to name mine Pimento to compliment Olives name.

On Sunday we went for a nice two hour ride with the neighbor kids on the bike path and through town. I was with out a road bike so the rockhopper was ridden along with a bitchen helmet that I found in her garage. It was a good bit of fun, the two little ones even through down an attack.

Cyclings future

The scenery in Albuquerque was stunning... if you like carbon copy homes and brown, but to be fair there were some very beautiful mountains to the east of town.

Downtown Albuquerque public art

ABQ

2009-01-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

I had been planing to make a trip down to the ABQ at some point during the break. I found some cheap tickets with Greyhound bus so I bought them. I arrived in Albuquerque Yesterday around 2:00 and walked to Sarahs house with a fully packed XXL Timbuk 2 bag (like 35lbs) which took another hour. Today I went shopping with Sarah and then went for a run.. which was good.. yeah.. it was good. Albuquerque has a huge bike path system which was nice but got a little boring after the first 30 min. For my returning route I got off the bike path and on to the streets where I got a little lost after only five minutes. The area I was in had a lot of dead ends and streets changed names. But after enough running in the direction that I thought was home I found a street that I knew and found home. Very good fun other than my legs being sore from not running in a few weeks.

Beautiful Albuquerque Scenery...

Bike Path

Dog Park

2009-01-01T10:34:00.000-08:00

I`ll miss class for that

2008-12-30T15:06:00.000-08:00

SSWC 09 has been moved from August 6-9 to September 16-20. I hope I don`t have to change my gearing to.

Mi casa

2008-12-26T15:52:00.000-08:00

Since moving into my new house at the start of break its been slow going.

The first week of winter break is over and two remain. Most of the bike team is out of town and its hard to get around making for a boring first week. I really hope the next two wont be as dull as the first week.

As far as riding goes its been dumping snow for the last few days so no real riding has taken place. I have been getting a good workout shoveling snow and when I`m not shoveling I`m listening to music and riding the trainer stand.

Today I shoveled the roof and walk ways which took about four hours.

I hope to be traveling to Albuquerque some time during break to see a friend, check out the local art and warmer weather, maybe even go for a run.

KCCX

2008-12-19T20:46:00.000-08:00

I have a nice 3 week break for "Christmas" and will be spending it here in Durango in my new house with my roomies Dylan and Schmidty, Yayyy.

Our bus broke down so we had to wait for it to be fixed, which eventually turned into us waiting for a twelve passenger van after we decided to buy plane tickets for half the team. We left at 4:00 pm opposed to the scheduled 7:30 am.

Crawfish

Ruthy

Chainsaw

Mad Snow right now

Give it Time

2008-12-09T18:23:00.000-08:00

A metric shit ton of homewrok now, Cross nats this weekend, Finals, freedom for 3 weeks.

Initial Impressions

2008-12-03T16:32:00.000-08:00

The first thing I noticed was a really stiff front end. The steering felt very precise and defined. I was riding "Point and Shoot" style and getting away with it. The other big difference was a huge increase in bottom bracket and rear end stiffness. When out of the saddle climbing it felt very stable. It was like all of my pedal power was going straight to turning the rear wheel.

When descending the rear end did not feel dead but instead snappy and was easy to through around when preforming cutties and rear wheel lifts. Cornering felt about the same but it was hard to really tell due to the slopping and icy conditions. The geometry is unchanged from the Paragon so I guess I'll hype up the new handling characteristics to the rear end stiffness.

Fatttt BB junction = Uber stiff

The Superfly has much narrower stays than the Paragon but still has ample clearance for mud and the occasional critter that may happen to pass through... poor chippies. With less mud clearance comes more heel clearance though. Not once on my ride did I have my shoes rub the stays, two thumbs up on this one.

The new Bontrager XXX lite grips are my new favorite part on this bike other than the frame. They weigh 15g and are nicely shaped (similar to skinny the ESI grips) but will require gluing to keep for moving once I find the perfect position for them.

New Whip

2008-12-02T14:17:00.000-08:00

Superfly landed on Monday. With the current SS setup it weights 18.31lbs.

The weight difference between the Paragon and Superfly frames is huge. 424.1 grams, almost a pound!

Gary Fisher Paragon 08', 17.5" weighs 1648.4g

Gary Fisher Superfly 09', 17.5" weighs 1224.3g

Good Week

2008-11-29T02:07:00.000-08:00

Cuba Polica.. One hell of a speeding ticket.

Thanksgiving Snow

Biogas digester finished

New whip awaits me at the college post office

What a great Start

2008-11-23T10:05:00.000-08:00

to a Thanksgiving break. Miles and I headed down to Sarah Sturm`s house in Albuquerque on Friday night for a cross race that was to be held on Saturday morn. We got there around 11:30 at night and every one was in bed except Sarah so we went straight to bed. Upon waking we met Sarah`s mom and two sisters and were fed pumkin bread and cereal, Yummy!

Our Host Sarah

Sarahs race was at 9:15 and ours (Miles, Noah, I) was at 11:15 so we had plenty of tome to ride the course. Speaking of the course, it was a sandy base every where with a few good deep sand pits, one of which was uphill. Very fun course indeed. As far as results go Noah had a great start and led out the first lap but flatted and had to bust ass to catch up finishing 7th. Miles was consistant and sat around 8th place throughout the race. I wound up in 5th after leading the race for 5 laps and bonking, guess I`m out of shape.

Right after the race we had to take Noah to the airport so we rushed home skipping the awards. After Sarah dropped Noah off we went on a drive to see some of Albuquerque. We ate good food and visited on of the sweetest shops, Fixed and Free. Its a fixed gear/singlespeed shop strictly with a large invintory and really cool staff. I hope to be heading back there later this week for some more Thanksgiving fun.

Sram XX

2008-11-19T08:43:00.000-08:00

A few days ago Sram released the official press release for their new X.X mountain bike group. It is going to be a 20spd setup, 10 in back, 2 in front. The rear cassette will be a power dome design like the current red but with deeper reliefs in the body for better compatibility in muddy conditions. The weight for the group is said to fall very close to the Dura-ace 7900 group set.The expected release date is summer 2009. The official press release can be found here.

The shifters will be a double tap design and weight should fall between X.0 and X.9 shifters.

Avids new disc brake is most likely going to be a 9.5mm master cylinder diameter with a tapered bore and the the caliper may be a 22mm piston. This will land it in the same power class as the Elixir with less weight then the Ultimate.
The rear derailleur looks very similar to the Red derailleur form the road line up... You can also easily see that the cassette is a powerdome design and that the chain is a Hollow pin, outter and inner link design similat to the KMC X9 Sl.
In the above picture you cant see any of the crank or rings but with Srams owership of Zipp I`m willing to bet that the crank will be a carbon design, BB30 with external bearings, two rings, a Q-Factor less than 160mm, a chain line of 48mm and a weight close to 650g.The front derailleur still remains annomuous but It will probably be a top pull version of the Red but with a stiffer cage and wider pivots. The weight will hopefully be below 115g. As long as it is not another x.9 design, I dont really care.

Frustration

2008-11-16T11:53:00.000-08:00

Durango is a bike town that through my eyes has been a safe place. But recently bikes have been getting stolen out of garages and back yards. Just a month ago a friend of mine had his bike stolen out of the yard when we were home and its still missing and a few other nice bikes have been jacked. You never think those bad things could happen to you until they do. On Friday night my bike got stolen, and its the worst I have ever felt in a long time. I had no current pictures with the new frame so I painted the old picture. I really hope it turns up. Remember to lock up no matter how safe you think the place is.

Rally of the Dead

2008-10-26T10:06:00.000-07:00

Should be Doing Programing Homework

2008-10-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

but I`m not. Instead I`m riding my bike. Going to Tour De Fat and buying expensive bike parts for cheap. I have been as Dave would say "A little under the weather", I hope I`m not getting something more than a fall cold. last weekend I sucked major ass. I dropped out of the XC after I crashed, lost my rhythm and couldn't restart my engine. I crashed again in the ST after passing a huge number of riders by riding in the shrubbery, and after I merged in a rider to my left merged in on me and caused a 10 bike crash. I got out of the crash dead last and had a really bum hand. I worked my way up to 15th out of 31 riders by the end of the race. I really was looking forward to a good finish there, the trail was similar to a long BMX track and was super fun! Oh well, hopfully a better finish this week at the home race.

I have been trying to recover from a cold this week but today I got out for a good two hours and had fun. Our new coach put the ride together to help riders get up to speed on the courses. Oh yeah, her name is Ruthie Matthes and she is cool. On another note I pick up some nice pieces at the pros garage sale on Tuesday. For $175 I bought, Sram Force Road levers gutted of shiter bits for a SS, Eggbeater 4 Ti pedals and a Brand new Truvative 32t alloy ring. Very nice I think. Grady here picked up a new bike does it look familiar. Exactly the same spec.

College Life

2008-09-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

Long trip, still settling in, new shoes, bike for a friend. Conditions were chilly but dry. The track was medium length and fast. One half consisted of double track and the other single track. The single track was mostly a slight up hill with a fun descent and creek crossing. The double track was flat and in to the wind and had this super fun floater jump which was whipped most every lap.

The ST started around 11 am and was a 30 min + 2 race. I had a horrible start but moved in to top 5 before entering a single track section. By the fourth lap I was top 3 with Chris and Greg and just chilling. We kept talking about how weird it was that we we leading the race, being that we are not in the best condition. I stayed on the front leading and then dropping back again letting Chris or Greg lead some. With 2 to go we have a huge FLC train and Chris. Dave starts yelling attack, attack, on the double track and Mitch surges but does not shake the train. My plan was to sit in 2nd and on the last lap jump in front of Mitch on the single track and not have to sprint for a win.. What really happened was I forgot to pass Mitch on the single track and got passed by Greg, who made a sweet pass by the way, and finished third by less than a second.

In the XC race I DNFed due to a broken front derailleur and spirit that probably rotated and was snapped of by my own crank arm. I was feeling pretty shity at the start but still had a good start and a few time in the race I found my self in a race good position. More on that, Brian Alders made a show and dropped the field by a good bit and all but two FLC A catigory racers DNFed.

Let the Truth be told here.

Leaving

2008-08-27T18:11:00.000-07:00

Cars full, long drive, Durango on Friday. Fuck yeah!!

Olympic Sized Gut Buster

2008-08-21T18:55:00.000-07:00

The Hammer gel was put down last Saturday in a time of 7 min and 43 sec and the other Gu packs were last year. The two Gu packs together equal 1000 cal. and were put down in 1 min and 41 sec.
The Hammer gel went down OK but kicked my ass pretty good in the end and made for a bad ride home and even worse night... yeah you get the point.

Grease Monkey

2008-08-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

My new front derailleur setup is done. I fabed up a small piece to test at Mohican and it did not break. The new setup is a Sram Force 35mm band clamp (forgotten, then found in my parts bin) not a braze on, this eliminates an extra bolt, some weight and makes for a stiffer derailleur. Even tough the band clamp models are lighter than braze on models with adapters my new setup is heavier at 130g but shifts much better. My old setup was a 7700 braze on Duraace that I modified to work as a top pull. It was a light setup at 96g but had a poor leverage ratio and made for a difficult shift.

Now that I know the Sram setup will work I will invest in a better derailleur (Red) and a better grade of aluminum for the arm. This will bring the weight down to a more pleasing 75g.
\

Core Commuter

2008-08-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

I thought I might post a few pics of my commuter bike. I have been commuting to and from work at Orrville Cycling for the last few years on this bike and I did not want to be outdone by fellow Fisher rider Travis and his city bike so here it is.

The bike has a long history. It started out as my moms 14spd and then my dads main road bike. The bike fell into my hands four years ago. I rode it as a club ride bike and a school commuter. Two years ago I removed all the gears and ran it as a single speed with a 52t font ring and a 17t cog. I rode it to school and on club rides for a summer and finally decided to put it on the fixed gear diet. I used a set of Bontrager Superstock wheels form my old X-Cal and ran two cogs. The inner most cog a 34t and the drive cog a 16t. I tied the 34t to the wheel with brake cable through the spokes and rode it like that for a few months. At the end of the summer I built up a set of tank fixed/free wheels to make the setup legit. That was the last major upgrade I made to the bike until lately.

The frame is an old Schwinn Voyager form who knows when and the fork is a cheapo out of the the back store room (crashed the original).

The bar is a cheap Aluminum 38cm in a classic bend. The computer is a broken digital watch that I have taped to the stem with packing tape. The light is a Cateye Single shot that I acquired through the shop. I have been testing it for the last few weeks and so far I have been very impressed. More to come on that later.

Velocity 32h Deep V rims laced to Surly hubs with DT Swiss black Champion spokes and Black Alloy nipples.
The drive train is made up of a mix of parts. Sugino 170mm Supermaxy cranks and 44t ring with Surly 3/32 16t cog being turned by a Sram 870 chain. I chose the 870 over the 850 because my chain is the most stressed part on my bike and skimping on the chain seemed foolish.

When commuting long distance I normally use Crank Brothers Quattros but for town and stunt riding toe clips are the pedal of choice. They allow for a varied range of locking force from loose to super tight. They will never let your foot out when set super tight. This makes them great for power slides and riding downhill at high speeds, think 150rpm.
The milk crate is great for getting the weight off my back and looks sweet... kinda. One day a customer asked if I was Amish, I love it. The crate is fixed to the bike with a OLD Middleburn rack with zipties for ease of removal. The rear light is a Cateye LD-100 which is the best small blinky light I have come across. It bungees to the frame rack ...milk crate, whatever and never bounces off like other lights.

...

2008-08-08T05:51:00.000-07:00

Long time no post. I Guess I've been busy working riding and prepping for school. This has been my first chance to sit down and get some blogging time in so I'll make the most of it. Consider your self warned.

One of our customers Co-Motion Speedster arrived yesterday and will be picked either tomorrow or Monday. Just hours after it arrived I unpacked the boxes to check to see that the parts matched the order spec. Every thing seemed to match properly. I removed the headset and bottom brackets in preparation for the application of a rust inhibitor. The bike was a floor model at Co-Motion and had to be broke down and shipped, where normally the frame arrives in one box with all the parts in another.
20 hours after letting the rust inhibitor tack up I started the real frame prep. Every thing needed faced and BB threads needed chased. The King headset was reinstalled and the bottom brackets and eccentrics were installed and torqued.
The Rolf Prima wheels are very nice and are bad on the scales with a 1880.7g weight. That's probably lighter than your average single bike wheelset. Despite their high quality they still needed a good bit of truing before they got my seal of approval. With wheel on the bike, the hanger could be aligned for the best possible shifting.

Now let the fun begin.

But first I'll let you know that I am just the messenger and was not responsible for the decisions that were made. I did not want to swap handle bars or cranks due to the amount of time involved and foreseeing the compatibility problems with interchanging front cranks of different years (chain line issues).

-The customer wanted a 42cm captain bar 44cm stoker bar and a 175/172.5mm crank set.
-The bike was sent with a 44cm bar front and rear
-The bike was sent with a 175/172.5mm crank set......
-Though we were told that a 172.5/172.5mm crank set was on the bike.

We have a Speedster on the floor with every thing different except the cranks. With that in mind, the boss wanted the front crank set from the Co-Motion speedster on the floor, which was a 175/170mm crank set (older model) and the bar which is a 42cm swapped over to the new bike.

By swapping the front cranks and bars we would have a setup that would satisfy the customers wants, but this would take allot of time and new bar wrap for both bikes.

To further complicate the situation we have a customer who wants the Speedster on the floor but with 172.5/170mm cranks and 42cm bars. If we perform the crank swap then both customers will get what they want. But if we perform the bar swap the second customer will have a 44cm bar... so we will need to order a new bar anyways. So why not keep the 42cm bar on the floor speedster and just order a bar for the bike that is being assembled.. because someone is a little resistant to think.. yeah at this point I'm loosing my cool. I like to do things efficiently and properly with no thought to price.

Despite my advice not to swaps part, I am told to do so. So I do it. Halfway through the crank swap I find that the cranks on the new bike wont be compatible with the ones on the floor bike. Ha, I called that one! I never took note of the arm lengths assuming that the boss measured up. After determining that the crank swap would not work I found that the arms were the correct lengths on the new bike. What this means is the new bike is set up properly other than the bars not matching.

Half the day was waisted removing cranks and bars that really did not need removed and after cleaning up the mess that I had made in the process I rode home.

New tool box!!!

The model is a CH Ellis 8803. This is the portable case of my dreams. It features full piano hinges, thick molded plastic, locking latches, has a life time warranty, molded feet and yeah..its black. It has a inside measurement of 17.75" L x 14" W x 10" D.

But its the stuff on the inside which counts. The CH Ellis 3710 pallets hold the tools in place with folding/locking side panels, holds 86 tools and also has a life time warranty.

Plenty of room for more tools
Still room for more!

Trimmin

2008-07-31T18:12:00.000-07:00

The Jones ACX R, revised.

I bought a extra ACX and gave it a hair cut with a nice pair of side cuts. It rolls way faster and weights a little less.
Sam and JHK both ran the ACX R tires at NORBA nationals. Credit goes to their mech Matt Opperman preformed the mod first.

OMBC Alum Creek

2008-07-29T06:11:00.000-07:00

Alum creek has never been my favorite race but I'll talk anyways. The way the race runs is the Novice/Sport riders start at 11:00 and the experts start at 1:00 and because my dad is a sport rider had to come a little early. This allotted me some free time so I took some pictures and pre rode some of the course to get a feel for how dry it was going to be. I wound up swapping tires from a Karma 2.0/Dry X 1.8 to a Dry X 2.1/Dry X 1.8 after seeing how dry it was. Making this swap added 160g of rotational weight but I figured that fast rolling and large volume would be the better choice for the course.

I got a nice starting position and a horrible start. You can see in the picture below my right foot is unclipped. But after getting clipped back in I powered up to the front group and stayed there as we crossed the dam. After a super hairy ride across the dam( It seems mountain bikers cant pack ride very well) a few early attacks were launched leading up to the single track. I dropped back from 4th to 7th position as we entered the single track. I filled in behind Saeler`s wheel and fell back a little after a few unclipping incidents. Apparently my pedals/cleats are worn ou again. I was about 50' off Saelers wheel for the first two laps and at the start of the third lap he let me by saying that he was slowing me down... He was super hot on my wheel for half a lap and when I had a really hard pedal strike he went down with me. At that point I let him by but he waited a little so we could work together on the dam. After coming unclipped another million times I finally finished in 5th place expert and Sealer finished in 2nd in Vet Open.

More Results

Me followed closely by Saeler in the last mile.A picture of Tim Mould taken by dad.

Cutters

2008-07-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

Had some free time after work last week and started a new project. Still not finished yet.. though I did receive my new chain ring from E.13. Its a 40 tooth DH ring that is very light (59.9g, cut 10g)and very stiff and it still gives me a top end gear that is higher than a 26" bike with a 44 tooth ring.

Stick Boy

2008-07-22T19:44:00.000-07:00

I got a chance to rally my new (Skinny) tires on Sunday for the first time at the Knob and the performance was less than desirable. The ride was harsh and the cornering sucked but the flats and climbs were gravy. I could not find the tires sweet spot and after dropping pressure down to a 20psi front and 22psi rear they seemed to bite better but were squirmy in the hard corners. Super frustrating to say the least. It looks like these tires will be a dry weather/smooth course tire after all. On a more positive note they were Zuper sweet on the flats and even better on the climbs. I will most likely have to do a few more rides on them to get em figured out.
Today I did a good bit of house "work" and not much riding, I feel like a bum. But in my defense I have an inflamed right eye and a minor bacterial infection that I acquired from a run in with a bug Friday on my morning commute. I can’t were my contacts for a week and my old glasses are a little out of focus. I can’t read 1/2" text form 5 feet away. I can’t seem to get a break from all this bad luck...

I did manage to get my contacts in for a quick ride at the Knob on the SS rigid (lots of fork pressure(230psi) and locked out) bike and put down a 36min lap even after dropping a chain and stopping and waiting for new riders who were having a blast. I finished/installed a berm at the finish and rode it in a little to check for flow and strength. I have been trying to get more air off of the finish jump without adding more height, which tends to scare off entry level riders. The best way to get more air now is to hit the jump faster and the new berm really helps.

Ha! Your signs and fancy yellow digging machines can’t stop me. Detours are for cars.

Ha! Your signs and fancy yellow digging machines can’t stop me. Detours are for cars.This bucket must have been two feet tall three feet wide and two feet deep. I can just here myself now, "but daddy I want one nowww!!!"

Ha, Ha Ha Ha, Ha

2008-07-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough to capture a rare Ohio Tree Hugger on film this week, such a lucky find.

Busy Weekend

2008-07-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

Monday night riding home from the shop I got a picture of some cows doing whatever cows do.On Sunday We made a trip down to Zanesville for a OMBC race. The race was at Chris Skinners home course(on his own property) which is one of my favorite courses. It was a four lap race with laps being 4 to five miles long. The race was muddy but not as muddy as it could of been. On one section of the course we rode along side a corn field where the ground was Very soft and smelled like shit. Farmer John must of spread Manure some time in the week prior to the race.

The race started LeMans style and I was second to my bike and second into the single track. The trail was pretty muddy and I was unfamiliar with a new section and stuffed my wheel into a hole. This allowed Ben and Steve to get a jump on me. by the end of the first lap I had gone from 2nd to 3rd. I had no pop on the climbs and lost a lot of time. On the other end of the spectrum Brad who at the time was in first was having the opposite feeling... He was flying. At the end of the final lap I suffered a double leg cramp and lost a tone of time, I finished overall in 5th and 4th in the Expert category. Brad finished 1st, Justin got 2nd and Steve finished 3rd in the expert category and Travis finished 1st in the Vet open.

The day before there was a Groovy series race at Vultures Knob that I decided to not take part in as not to totally piss off my saddle sore which is now gone. Though I did decide to make an appearance to see what the turnout was like. There were not many racers at all! Brad Wilhelm was the only expert and there were only a few vet open riders. None the less Brad still received a $50 pay. I should of raced but I didn't want to pester my sore or tire my legs before my race on Sunday or trash my bike.

Bob dropped by the shop yesterday for our monthly updates and along with those updates he brought me a pair of Bontrager Dry X tires and a pair of Bontrager ACX tires.

Today I spent some time working on the bikes. The single speed got new tires, Bontrager Dry X`s and the race bike got it cables, and chain lubed. The Dry X tires came in at there claimed weight of 710g but were way wider than the 2.1 on the label. They looked around 2.3 or 2.35 and are very round.. I was very excited to try these tires out. Later on in the day me and Grant went out and rode the knob, I took the single speed to get a feel for the new tires. My first impression was they were not a good loose over hard pack tire but the more I rode them the more I started to get a feel for them. They roll super fast, faster than my Crows. They offer a very nice ride quality with the huge volume and climbed great. When descending the rear was stable but the front lost traction on a loose twisty section and almost caused a crash. I still need to find a good pressure range for these tires to get the most out of them. For a first ride I give them a 8/10 . They roll super fast, all around grip is good and have huge volume. On the down side they weigh 710g and have a learning curve and were a little unpredictable.

Just enough room

The new wheels hit the scales at 1496.4g for the set. Not to shabby for a 29er wheel.

Soldering and Tying spokes is a old way to stiffen up a flimsy wheel or a new way to stiffen up a wheel built with a light rim and spoke selection. It was used on bikes back in the day when materials and manufacturing techniques were not what they are today. I had heard of the technique before I got serious about bikes and thought it was a good idea and when I did some research on the topic I found that tests have been carried out. With modern materials and measuring equipment guys in lab coats found that the soldering and tying of spokes had NO INCREASE in stiffness. Though I did find some folks who actually ride bikes and they all seemed to notice a Increase in stiffens.

I decided to try some tying on a old junker wheel with some old electrical wire I had around the house, just for wrapping practice and then I tied the drive spokes on my slightly heavier and more durable 29er wheelset with some .7mm steel wire to see if it would actually work and it did. There was a noticeable increase in stiffness when climbing out of the saddle. I decided to buy the real stuff, DT Swiss Proline tying wire. This stuff was pricey, $40 for a 100 meter role. It is pretty much high quality Copper wire coated in Nickel which turns color so you know when you are over heating your wire. I wrapped my new wheels after riding the wheels around to fully seat in the spokes. The total gained weight of wrapping 24 crosses was 3.1g. I have a good feeling I will be doing this to my other wheels.

Something that I also thought was note worthy was in the event of a broken spoke the tying will hold the spoke in place and keep it from causing more damage.

Some tire profiles. On the left a Bontrager XR 1.8 with the sausage shaped casing and a Bontrager Dry X 1.75 on the right with a Round shaped casing. I have always been more fond of a sausage shaped casing on the front and a round shaped casing on the rear.

Soldered and Tied

2008-07-11T20:33:00.000-07:00

2008-07-08T19:53:00.000-07:00

First off, new rotors arrived today. Got them for a great price from the boys at Hope Tech. They cut a slightly over 90g of weight off my current setup and have better heat dissipation and still offer the durability of a standard steel rotor. I opted to go with the Hopes over the Stan`s because they are more durable and allow me to run any pad combination I want (Stan`s use only Organic or semi metallic pads). I prefer to use Sintered or full metallic pads due to there consistent performance under different conditions, high friction coefficient and long life span .

Hope Pro Floating Rotor 140mm, Claimed 64g

Hope Pro Floating Rotor 160mm, Claimed 82g

Today I rode my Bike

2008-07-06T19:42:00.001-07:00

In a weeks time I should have my box of black nipples and I will be able to finish my mountain wheels and mount my new set of meatys on them. Tomorrow my new brake rotors should show up, cant wait to weigh them... its always nice to see who lies and who tells the truth.

Knobulate

2008-07-05T19:56:00.000-07:00

Still thinks he`s a stud.. Nice tail Pippen.

Things to come

This corner is poo poo. You lose a good amount of speed prior to the finish jump.

Started a berm, finish it later. It need some more rain and height but its a start. The finishing jump also has a new lip on it.
More Air, is More Betta

Muddy bike

Bombs Away

2008-07-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

Trek Demo Days are fast approaching!

-Saturday & Sunday – July 12^th and July 13^th - Seven Springs Ski Resort – Downhill runs!

-Saturday, July 19^th – Mohican State Park Trail Head (10am till 4pm)

-Sunday, July 20^th – North Park (Pittsburgh, PA) – demo truck will be park near the pool (10am till 4pm).

Things to Come

2008-07-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

Within a weeks time I will be cutting 90 some grams of rotational weight from my bike.

Leave it up to Campy to make my life as a mechanic a living hell..11 speed is now here.

Crossed Up

2008-06-29T14:36:00.000-07:00

If I can`t ride my bike then I`ll tinker with it. Today I wanted to go down to Cinci to race at East Fork State park but my body did not. I have been fighting a saddle sore since Tuesday and since then it has gone from the size of a elongated dime to the size of a grain of corn. Despite its small size it has kept me off the bike for 3 days straight and I AM DYING to ride. Hopefully the combination of lots of Neosporin and time out of the saddle will kill this super zit.

Last night I spent some alone time with my truing stand and finished off another two wheels. I installed Stans yellow tape and a tire and tube inflated to high pressure to help pack the tape down. This morning I remove the tube and installed a valve stem and sealant. With my new wheels tubeless I cut around 150 grams and gained a more durable wheel (32h, 3 cross) and better flat protection. The bike as shown weighs 14.6 lbs, no pedals and 15.2 with pedals.

With more riding the rim braking surface will turn silver as the anodizing is worn off. The chain will also stretch out with more riding and will need to be replaced so it wont fall off.

I Love Mary

Good ol Moose Call, just blow over the tube.

Turning Nipples

2008-06-27T20:14:00.000-07:00

The Pieces PartsThe End Product

One wheel requires no less than 2 hours of work. Twenty minutes of lacing and the rest of the time is spent tensioning, stressing, truing and repeating until the wheel is perfect. Then the wheel is ridden until it looses tension and then is brought back up to the specified tension. After the initial bedding in period the wheel never should go out of true or lose tension. I have three of the four wheels laced up and one fully built and with my current amount of free time I might finish by next Wednesday.

Lawyer Tabs

2008-06-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

------Fox F29 -----------Variable Speed Dremel ---------Fast Wheel Removal

"This is a Tough Race"

2008-06-21T19:49:00.001-07:00

This is a tough race. I think Tim Carson said this a few times.

**Tired and sore
The race was the third Vultures knob Groovy series race, the weather was looking like rain and my tire was looking bald. I paid my entry fee and went out for warm up loops. The wind really started to pick up and the rain came down. The race was intended to begin at 6:00 but was delayed due to lightning and then delayed again for lightning, forty minutes later the race started.

The course had been cut down to a shorter and less dangerous loop with the removal of the over-under and the trail conditions had gone from gravy to poo in one hour. The field was stacked well, Carson, Walker, Twining, Clark and Wilhelm. I was looking at an up hill struggle. The race started and I entered the single track 6th. I soon moved up to 5th within the first mile and had almost captured forth by the end of the first lap. My legs were great, plenty of pop. My tires (Karma front, Crow rear) however were less able. I was taking corners sub muddy racing speed and was spinning the tire on the flats and downhills, my rear end was all over the place. A mile form the end of the first lap I crashed hard enough (my only crash) to take me out of the race. I was right on Clarks wheel and was pushing hard. My rear end got way off to the right in a downhill and when I hit the bridge at the bottom I fell and hit my knee on the bridge. Now I don`t want to be a skirt but it really hurt and I struggled to return to the start/finish area. My knee was looked at by Rody Walter, and was given an icebag to reduce swelling. (Thanks Rody) While waiting around I was told Brad DNF`d also, but due to bike problems. As the race went on more riders finished and DNF`d. There were a good number of DNF`s but I`ve seen much worse.

The Expert race finished something like this, Twining, Carson, Walker(who broke his shoe and switched with a spectator), Clark.

I would also like to make a special note that I am now riding for Gary Fisher Bikes, thanks to my friend and Trek inside sales Rep. Bob Myers.

New Kit, Pretty

Dr. Knob and Bubbles

Mr. Bonifant

...not really sure but he was on a 29er

Tim Carson.. Mr Blur

Dave Walker and his prototype shoe combination.

That big naked guy.

Tullis got a bo- boo, Rody assists in cleaning the wound, it could of used two stitches for sure.. Gnar.

Ryan Wayne Skinned his Knee pretty good by the looks of it.

My Machete

2008-06-17T15:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday is trailday. I headed over to the Vultures knob race course (a 12min ride from my house) to do some trimming before the race on Saturday.

I decided to take my cross bike instead of a 29er. It was looking lonely in the corner of the garage.

The Cherrybomb.

These berries are sweet but not ready to eat. I had to cut this branch down, it was hanging low in the trail.

2008-06-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

Today my dad and I made a trip down to the state park for a hot lap. He had just picked up his new bike at the shop Saturday and without even bedding in the brakes hit the trail. Just a side note, it looks very similar to mine.

I finished my lap in 2:10:34 making it my second fastest lap ever. For the first 16 miles my legs felt good then went ad after mile 22. I mashed the final climbs till my shoulders burned. I was amazed that I finished as quickly as I did given the condition of my legs. I got back to the car and sat for some time before dad returned. I noticed a cool chain mark on my calf, to bad it does not say Sram on it. When dad got back he started telling me about his first trail ride on a 29er. He was amazed by the amount of traction the bike had. He said he could stand up and mash without worry of slipping out where normally he would sit down and gear down. It was great to see he enjoyed his ride on the new bike. It was also a relief to see that the 29er effect was real and that I`m not totally off my rocker.

Parts Tuning

2008-06-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

Today, Tuesday is my day off from work and instead of riding the trails I busted out my Dremel and file set.

-Shifters-

I recently got a my grubby little paws on a set of Sachs Quarz shifters.. these are a weight weenies wet dream. The set weighs in at 122.4g, 32g lighter than my tuned X.0 twisters but are only compatible with a 2:1 ratio...Shimano. I decided that I would use the front shifter only and after a bit of material removal I dropped 17g from my setup.

-Derailleur-

Some might know that I used a rather unique front derailleur setup that requires me to use a braze-on adapter. If you are unsure of what I am referring to then check this link out >Linky<
I decided to remove a little excess material from the adapter hoping to get my front derailleur set up down to 90g. The clamp started out at 30.3g and after some grinding, filing, sanding and bolt tuning I got it down to 21.7g unfinished. Currently it will remain unfinished until I get some more free time to smooth the edges out and polish it.

-Pedals-

I have a set of Crank Brothers Short Sl spindles heading my way that will be in on Thursday. I`m oping to drop a few grams along with a few mm`s on my Q-Factor. Hope fully I will not need to be looking at a different frame to accommodate this narrow Q-Factor.

A Salute to the SS

2008-06-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

A Rest Day

2008-06-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday I raced the Mohican 100k Mountain bike race in Lodonville Ohio. I went into the race hoping just hoping to finish and half way through the race found myself hoping I was in first place. I had done no prior training for the race other than my usual ride to work on my fixie.. slow pokin goin, hard as hell back. When I heard Tim Carson and brad Wilhelm had been training for the event I got it in my head I wouldnt have a shot and even thought about bringing my camera along for some sweet pics.

The race started in downtown Loudonville and shot us up the biggest hill out of the valley. I started mid pack and towards the top of the hill I found my self in the top 30 and before we entered the single track I was sitting in the top 20. At that point I was super stoked and had made up my mind on weather I wanted to go for a win. I saw Tim Carson on the side on the trail fixing a flat and later saw Brad Wilhelm on the trail side looking at something in his drivetrain which turned out to be a chain problem.

About 21 miles in I`m guessing. The Pack was gone (8min in front) and I was simply taking my time and having fun as Bob noted in his photo gallery.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

At the 3rd aid station around mile 43. At this point I was feeling it (small leg twinges in places I have never had leg twinges in). Bob offered me some chain lube and I impulsively declined it and then accepted it three seconds later, I don`t think I was firing on all cylinders at the time.

Feeling vintage yet? My dad just after crossing the finish line. He did the 100k as well.

Lake Shot

Panoramic
(people were moving around alot)

My Sunday rest project.

Nice rims..

In the end I wound up in second by 9 minutes and my fellow club member John Lorson took 1st in the SS 100k race.

Mohicantucky!

2008-05-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend..Mohican. This weekend.....Mohican 100.

A Groovy Good Time

2008-05-27T17:26:00.000-07:00

My brakes are finally bedded in and are super strong. The first true test for them was last Saturday at the Groovy series race at Vultures Knob, which went like so.

First lap

I had a really bad start because I felt I could push a bigger gear than I normally would and as a result I entered the singletrack around tenth place. I sat in like I always do while squawking at riders in front of me to "hurry up pookie" and to "spank that monkey" and asking "who`s my little blueberry now?". What fun it is. After the first mile the guy in front of me decides to get off and run in front of me and John Tullis because he messed up on a climb. This made Tullis mad and he almost stalled out which made me do a track stand midway up the climb which John Lorson (on a SS) did not exactly appreciate. I soon passed Tullis and two other Vet open riders who were in front of me and at that point I was probably in 6th place but I felt further back. The next guy I passed Tim Mould who let me by. Such a nice boy. I didn't see another rider until the

Second Lap

I was being harassed by two spectators in the over under area when I saw Tim Carson bombing down the ravine. I upped my pace in a n effort to catch him and while chasing him I was told by a trusted spectator I was in 4th. I eventually caught Tim and sat on his wheel and we chatted it up until the start of the

Third Lap

I passed him quickly at the very start of the third lap and slowly dropped him and slowly gaining on Brad and Steve, but to be fair, Tim had rode the Mohican State park loop the day prior and was not race ready. I never caught Steve or Brad and finished third, which was good enough for me. John Lorson finished 1st in the Vet open on a SS rigid 29er and Wes Jones finished a strong 4th place. Well done fellas.

Any way the brakes worked awesome. The power was smooth and powerful... very powerful.

The post race events were so, so. Dr.Knob lit his super fuckin huge bonfire and negated all of the benefits of my zero emissions bicycle that I have been riding to work. The awards ceremony was thrilling as always. (if you don`t know what I`m talking about, theres only one way to find out) As the sun set the DJ (yeah, there was a DJ) started some music and the keg was tapped. I left around 11:00pm and there were plenty of people still there.

The One

2008-05-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

Yea... the title pretty much says it all. These are by far the most impressive brakes that I have ever used... and they are only half bedded in. The front came in at 361.7g and the rear at 377.7g after all the lines were cut and bolts were removed (3 rotor bolts). Thats 21.1 heavier in the front and than a Juicy Ultimate and 12.2g lighter in the rear. So The Ones come in 8.9g heavier than the Juicy Ultimates for the EXACT same set up..... oh yeah and there a Downhill brake..

I have a race Saturday and I`ll post a piece on the brakes (once fully bedded in) and the race( sponsored by Sierra Nevada Brewing Co). It should be sweet.

Photo Series

As shot from the bar

A little tid bit on that new BB of mine. The Installation went quite roughly, no pun here. I pulled out my old Truvative Giga pipe Sl which was by the book TOASTED. I cleaned the threads off and re-greased them, the new BB went in smoothly but was binding up at one point in its rotation. I suspected that the BB threads were not aligned properly or the shell needed faced, either way I was not about to ride a $180 BB with a tight spot in it in fear of killing the bearings. The next day I made a trip to the shop to chase the threads and face the shell. The problem turned out to be the shell was not faced causing the BB to angle when fully tightened. With the new BB in my derailleur had to be adjusted and chain line checked. As I figured it was 2.5mm narrower, Duuuh it better be. This leaves me with a setup with little chainring and crank arm clearance but a sweet chainline and a Q-Factor (5mm narrower than before) so I guess its worth it.

Things

2008-05-21T08:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I received my new hand pump and bottom bracket from the boys at Crank Brothers. When looking for a new bottom bracket I was looking for three important things, Light, 108mm spindle length and a good quality bearing that will last more than the normal 5 months.

I found my bottom bracket with Crank Brothers. They make four different models, two "mountain" bottom brackets called the Cobalt that fit a 73 or 68 shell with either a chromo or titanium 113mm spindle and two "road" bottom brackets called Cyan that will also fit a 73 or 68 shell with either a chromo or titanium 108mm spindle. The only difference between the Bottom brackets is a bit of weight, spindle length and the seals the bottom bracket has. All bottom brackets come with a FIVE year warranty. The Ti bottom brackets retail for $180 while the Chromo ones go for $80.

Cyan Ti Bottom bracket

As far as the pump goes I saw a few in action at a race and I really like the design. They offer 4 different pump designs all with a lifetime warranty. I opted for the simplest/strongest design called the Power Pump Ultra or PPU which was a aluminum barrel with out a pressure gauge. It comes in a 175mm length and has a weight of 127.8g, 9.8 grams above the claimed of 118g. They have a switch that allows you to choose to pump for volume or pressure. So when you first stick the new tube in turn the dial to volume to get the east work done fast and when the pumping gets tough turn the dial to pressure for easier pumping. Pretty crafty eh? I let you know how both really work in the real world a few months from now.

Power Pump Ultra Pump

Mounring Commute

2008-05-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

Ohio weather is really pretty lame. Since I got back three weeks ago it has rained almost every day. I have gotten very little riding in other than commuting to work. So here are some more fixed commuting pics.

Nice brakes

Road Kill... I removed seven dead critters from the road on the way to work Saturday. People have no regard for life. I was fortunate enough to see this guy do the panic dance under a Chevy S-10 and get hit by the underside of the truck. The fucker didn't even slow down, people make me sick. He was dead when I got to him and his teeth made this wonderful scraping noise on the chip and seal as I dragged him off the road.

This guy was spraying some kind of weed killer on this to be field and the wind was carrying the poison all the way to the road. What kind of dip shit thinks its ok to spray any chemical on a windy day. I tried to hold my breath for the 200 feet of field that was being sprayed..

Got me a big pick-um-up-truck, it gets 10 miles to the gallon. I love high gas prices.

New Whip

2008-05-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

A week ago I sent in my employee purchase to Trek Bicycles for a new Gary Fisher Paragon. I had been planning to go with a Superfly but since their release somewhere around January they have been on backorder (super popular??) and now they are labeled as sold out until mid August(will probably see another long backorder). So because of the long wait I pulled the trigger on a Paragon which I am very happy with. It was delivered to the shop on Tuesday and was immediately stripped of all its parts and built up with all my parts off my old X-Cal. The frame, fork and headset are essentially the only parts I`m keeping which by the way all came in at their claimed weight leaving me with a bike that is 132 grams more than my old one leaving it at 21.51 lbs...Which I`m ok with at the moment.

My main reason for rushing the buy was the new G2 geometry, which Fisher claims helps the bike steer better while keeping the high speed stability.What is G2 exactly?

Terms and Names:
Offset-(Blue Line) measured form the center of the steerer tube to the center of the drop out.
Head angle- the angle of the head tube in relation to a vertical line.
Trail-(Green Line) the distance defined by the vertical line from axle to ground and the intersection of centerline of the head tube and ground. What they did is increase the fork offset to 51mm from a normal 34mm and slackened the head tube angle from a normal 71.5 deg to 69.7 deg. When Fisher first made his 29ers he was using a normal head tube angle and a normal offset fork, 26" geometry if you will. When this geometry is paired with a taller wheel the trail increases. A bike with too large of a trail figure will ride nice at high speed but will feel sluggish and unwilling to change direction at slow speeds. The opposite will happen on a bike with no or very little trail, the bike will be very maneuverable at slow speeds and have a potentially very violent speed shimmy at high speeds. So as the industry went along with the whole "29er scene" they all adopted the same 26" geometry. Fisher then developed the G2 geometry which increases offset and reduces trail making the new 29ers have a more 26" feel but still retain the benefits of the 29" wheel. Currently Gary Fisher is the only company using this geometry on their bikes and in my opinion this makes them the best choice when buying a 29er.

On the Bike
I rode her to work the following day. The first thing I noticed was the bottom bracket is way stiffer and the speed shimmy that I did get on my older frame was gone indicating that the top and down tube have stiffened up. Another noticeable difference was the lower bar height which was 9mm lower than my old set up. This came as a surprise to me as the head tube is 12.5mm taller than the old frame. My only gripe about the on pavement performance was that it is a little harder to steer my wheelies.

I got her on the dirt on Saturday (lots of rain lately) and the bike preformed very well. Corners were noticeably easier to make and the bike responded better to small body inputs. The front end though heavier on paper felt nice and light and very flickable on the dirt. Descending was noticeably more stable and the rear end felt less wishy washy. When climbing in the saddle the bike tracked better and the front end stayed planted. When climbing out of the saddle the front end felt very weird, almost twitchy, but not bad, just unfamiliar. The trail was pretty slick in spots (Maze Ville) and the bike handled the slippery mud better than the old one. After one lap I made a few more adjustments to the fork and went out for another lap which was slightly faster than the first. Over all I really like the new bike, the G2 geometry surpassed my expectations and I can’t wait to get dialed in on the bike.

Drive train

New Lower Cockpit

Tons of Clearance

The Fox fork is nice but limited in its range of adjustments and it will eventually be swapped out for the new Reba team 29er.

The New Knob

2008-05-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

The Knob is most definitely back and better than before. I have ridden and raced on it before and after its revamp and it is longer by a good seven minutes and around 1.3 miles. The new trail has a few new features but most of the trail added is plain and utilizes the lay of the land better.

Sections that have seen change are;

The Rock Tunnel: the exit of the tunnel was moved out of the ravine and on to the old DH trail.

The Shale Pit: The Famous Tunnel and Ramp over the Tunnel are now gone. The trail goes around the tunnel and connects to The Billy Goat Trail and instead of going down the ramp the trail doubles back along the corn field and dumps you out on Dicks Express Way.

Fern Gully: The trail makes the switch back after OH SH_T and heads straight down to the cradle (no uphill any more) and offers a line to the north of the cradle that is easier or a line back up to the cradle that is not really that fun....

Friar Brian`s Forrest: Half way through the section the trail heads west and then south eventually linking up to the Zig Zag trail with is now ridden in reverse. The trail joins back on the original section before the straight away before the Gold Fish Hole.

The Bowl: The section before the bowl has been rerouted and a rock garden has been added. The trail then crosses the road and jumps in to the bowl.

Maze Ville: Right after the Vulture Gate Bridge the trail heads north and loops around in some super tricky single track, think lumpy ground, tight corners and lots of rhythm required. The trail is spliced in to the old Maze Ville and joins the old trail right before Candys Ridge.

The Tee Pee: The Tee Pee is still there but the old straight downhill is gone, I hope you like turning.

Everything else after the last "mud hole by the big tree" is different. There is LOTS of new trail that is challenging mixed in with the old trail and would be way to confusing to explain. The trail finishes like it always does.. over Allan Falls, 180 switch back, long straight away, right turn, uphill straight, over the mulch pile and up and over the finishing jump.

Me, My favorite tool and my favorite Flower

Ohio roads

2008-05-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

Damn this week has been hectic. I jumped back into work at the shop on Monday after my rough race on Sunday and the shop is crazy right now. We are backed up with repairs for two weeks and I got a good amount of extra time in. I had Tuesday off, so I got a bit of riding in but with all the crappy weather we have been getting I have only been able to ride to work three days out the the five I worked this week. I usually ride my fixed Schwinn roadie but today I got rained out in the morning so I got a ride to work and rode home on my MTB. I grabbed my camera to take a few pictures of my commuting route.

Shadow

Sun Light

Straight Road

Nice Shorts

Tomorrow it looks like I am going down to Mohicantucky with the Orrville group to do a lap or two in preperation for the Mohican 100.

2008-05-03T04:36:00.000-07:00

Last weekend at the 2nd OMBC race I got my ass handed to me and Dave and Timmy were in Maryland. I was in third after the first lap but fell apart completely after that. My legs just did not want to work. My arms were cramping, legs sore and twinging and my kidneys were sore. The knob layout is not quite broken in yet and was very bumpy. The never ending bumps at the knob and the lack of never ending small bumps in the Durango area beat me to a pulp. I really hope that my legs will quickly adapt to east coast bumpy riding.

Cutties

2008-04-21T18:06:00.001-07:00

Cutties, my new favorite cornering technique for Durango riding. Yesterday Dylan and I went for a good old ride in the gulch. The route was a new one for me and it was a sweet one. Up horse gulch road, meadow trail, telegraph, crites connect, south rim, up the cowboy trail/road, up sidewinder, up suicide climb, down anasazi, meadow loop, back to campus. Woohee. The trails on the back side of the telegraph ridge were super fun and loose. The turns are swoopy and unridden and allowed for a not so often turning technique to be used...cutties. The trails were way tight and needed cut back. Were were constantly being smacked with branches, don`t ride with your mouth open....

The ride was super fun and around 2 hours at a moderate pace.

Dylan at the top of Telegraph, we only stopped for a photo op.

Somewhere on crites connect taking a piss break.

Panoramic View

Trail Conditions

2008-04-20T13:04:00.000-07:00

A quick overview of the horse gulch trail conditions for those Durangatangs.

Meadow Loop—Bone Dry, slightly dusty

Stacy’s Loop—Bone Dry, A little loose over hard pack

Mikes—One or two mud holes, not packed, climb is loose

Cuchillo—Dry, Loose over hard pack

Telegraph—Dry, loose over hard pack.

Anasazi Descent—Dry, Loose, small rut forming

Secret trail—moist

Sidewinder—Dry, one mud hole, tree down

Suicide Climb—moist in the middle, not packed, rideable

Raiders Ridge—Dry, and fun

Lower raiders ridge—Dry and fun also

Crites Connect--Bone Dry, very loose

South Rim--Dry, loose over hard pack

F`kin Pooped

2008-04-12T17:12:00.001-07:00

Today I made a quick ride in the Gulch to get a look at the trail conditions on Mikes and Cuchillo. Mikes was almost totally un-ridden and very muddy in spots(hike a bike to avoid trail damage),the upper section of Cuchillo was horrible where the lower section was great. The climb on Mikes was not muddy at all but the previous section was and my tires went from light weight fast rollers to uber heavy doughnuts covered in Durango dirt sprinkles..not so tasty. Not to mention the climb kicked my ass good. I am rarely so tired after a climb, its looking like I need to get my pedal mashing skill back.

A good shot of the trail. This was what most of Mikes looked like, hopefully it will dry out in the next few days. Cuchillo was similar with the exception that the mud was very watery, probably wont dry out for a while.

Hey Handsome

Another panoramic view

Ride in the Gulch

2008-04-01T14:41:00.001-07:00

The today was great so I went for a ride in the Gulch. Most of the trails there are dry now with the exception of a few mud holes and trails on the north face.

Panoramic View

The trails were fast and fun. It felt so good to be back on dirt riding a bike.

I rode for around an hour and a half and stopped because I didn't want to miss lunch. I pushed the ride pretty hard and I suffered pretty bad on the climbs and rode not as fast as I would of liked on the down hills but hopefully my fitness will really start to come back within the next few weeks.

Not Nobby Enough

2008-03-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

Today I had my second "crash" (first was in Moab, think not enough speed and 40" drop) in the 2008 season. The trails here in Durango are starting to dry and today I figured I see what the gulch looked like. The trails were really dry with the occasional mud hole and my confidence was high form the early season riding. Towards the end of the ride I went in to the tricky corner at at the end of the meadow loop and tried a little tighter line and what do ya know, my front tire washes out and I got a dirty. It looks like running a Crow on the front may not be the best idea after all.

Last minute fix

2008-03-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

A group of my friends decided to miss a few days of school and head out to California for a NORBA race(Fontana). One of those friends has a SWEET hook up and had acquired a set of new rims for his old wheels. A few days before leaving he decided he wanted to replace the rear rim with one of his replacement rims and I gladly volunteered myself to build them. The rider is Dylan Stucki, A pro rider from Gunny Colorado who happens to be 180ls and 6' 4" and rough on rims.

This is a picture of the old rear rim.

The DT Swiss XR 4.2d rim was laced to a DT Swiss 340 Hub with DT Swiss comp spokes (24 black, 8 sliver) and Gold Alloy Nipples.

The Completed wheel.

The actual building process went great. The lacing was easy as usual and the truing and tensioning went extremely smoothly. In the end the wheel came out of the stand with less than 1 mm of vertical deflection and no horizontal deflection (rare) with even tension all the way around the wheel. This was only my 2nd time lacing to a DT rim and I was very impressed with the build quality. I will be recommending/using DT rims more often in the future.

2nd Attempt

2008-03-19T12:11:00.001-07:00

This time around I used a high strength epoxy that I picked up at the local hardware store. The tread pattern is also different than last time(tread blocks are not connected to each other and a strip of tread was placed in the middle of the shoe to help avoid damage to the carbon fiber.

After gluing the tread blocks I coated the bottom and toe of the shoe with a layer of epoxy to protect the carbon from damage. The final result was a shoe that was lighter than the first prototype weaighing in at 642g for the pai w/o cleats. I will be testing the shoes over the next month here in Durango and I will post an update later.
Hopefully this prototype will work other wise I will be leaving the shoes as road shoes.

Shoe Testing

2008-03-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

After a week of testing on spring break(in Moab) this is what the shoes look like.

3 of the original 8 tread pieces came off, most on the first day riding slick rock. I had to walk up most all of the climbs there due to a worn front chain ring. On the later days of testing they did great, it was only when I was walking on steep slick rock when tread failed.

I have removed the remaining tread and glue and cleaned the surface for re-gluing, this time with an high strength epoxy. I will post again when the shoes are done (may be awhile, school work before bikes).

New Kicks Agian

2008-02-27T18:28:00.000-08:00

The shoes are a 2006 Nike Altea II mens 42. They hit the scales at 583.5g stock, not bad at all. The fit was good, but they did not have that Sidi quality feel. The shoes do not have a tongue but have a stretchy piece of fabric that works better than a traditional tongue.

The shoes are VERY VERY stiff, they may be to stiff for a mountain shoe but I will find that out later.

Tread to be attached. Cut from a old Bontrager Jones AC tire.

The attachment process.

1. Scuff the desired area with either fine sandpaper or steel wool to roughen the clear coat and increase surface area for the glue.

2. Clean the tread and shoe with rubbing alcohol, let dry and apply glue. I used Shoe Goo but if that does not hold strong enough I will switch to an epoxy resin.

3.With the tread in place and glue applied tape the tread in place to apply pressure and hold the tread in position.

4. After 24 hours the glue should be cured and ready to walk on.

The finished Product weighs 652.6g, 5. Thats 127g lighter than the Carbon Dragons and a hell-of-alot stiffer.

A belly up picture of the shoe.

I am leaving for Moab on Saturday and will be testing the shoes for a weeks time on the trails there. I will be bringing my old shoes as a just in case option but hopefully I wont need them.

New Kicks

2008-02-23T09:07:00.000-08:00

I ordered these sweet thangs back in December 07` to replace my old Nike shoes which served me very well for the $60 I paid for them (thanks Roger) 2 years ago. Last summer I tried to place an order on a pair of me Sidi shoes and according to Sidi the model that I wanted was not in production yet. So I waited. Over winter break I placed the same order again and the shoes were delivered. I had my dad pick up the shoes at the shop and send them to me here at school.

These are the shoes.

They were alot stiffer and lighter than the Dominators that I tried on and they looked good! Their was only two small problems, they were 780g for the pair and they didn't fit. I had tried on a size 42 and 43 Dominator at the shop and from that measurement I ordered a size 43 Dragon. Even with a thick winter cycling sock they were to big. Apparently Sidi made a mold change a few years back and the shoes I fitted were from that era. The shoes are the equivalent of a 43.5 in the old sizing.

Carbon on the soles of her shoes, now thats one way to lose those riding blues.

I sold the shoes on ebay about a week ago for $235 and with that money I bought my next pair of shoes. A pair of Nike Altea 2 road shoes. They have a full carbon sole, (not just a insert) use three velcro straps, are light, and are SDP compatible. My plan is to Attach tread to them and use them as a mountain shoe. I will be testing them over spring brake in Moab, Utah.

An Alternative

2008-02-14T10:22:00.001-08:00

We still have to much snow here in Durango to do any real mountain biking so a few weeks ago I decide to try out a pair of free rental show shoes. I made a 2 hour outing in fresh snow. It turned out to be a good bit of fun for walking around in snow. Yesterday I decide to go out a bit longer and on more aggressive terrain. I headed out on the bike/ski trails and then cut off the trail and headed up a slope that would take me to the top of the ridge. I followed the ridge as far north as I felt comfortable and then headed straight east until I hit Horse Gulch road. I headed down the road until I intersected the power line trail and then headed back home from there. The hike lasted 3hours and felt like 5 hours on the trainer stand.

The Slope to the top of the ridge. The grade was close to 100%. I averaged maybe five steps a minute and every step my foot sunk down around 2 fest, slow work at best.

A quick picture after 2 hours of hiking. Behind me is the town of Durango and some to the college campus.

A picture from my dorm, this is where I took some of the pictures.

A panoramic view of Durango from Raiders Ridge.

Another view from Horse Gulch road.

Lots of Snow/ Snow day Agian

2008-02-03T08:58:00.000-08:00

This is a picture I took this morning around 8:00, probably another 10 inches on top of the 6 inches that came down yesterday and it is going to snow all day! No outside riding for a good while now. Snow shoes are my new best friend now, I can pack trails and get cardio training.

Snow Day

2008-01-29T19:24:00.001-08:00

Monday Morning Snow Day

For the first time in a long while Fort Lewis has a snow day. All classes were canceled due to dangerous weather conditions. I`m guessing 10 to 16 inches of fresh snow fell in the time period of 30 hours. The snow was even to deep for for my trusty 29er and I was forced to walk to the cafeteria for once (I will never walk somewhere if I can ride my bike even if it takes longer to ride the bike). The day before there was about 20 to 26 inches on the ground and now it looks to be about 36 inches. Thats a little bit more snow than we normally get in Ohio around this time of year.

2008-01-28T09:27:00.000-08:00

Had a super sweet ride today in the gulch. The temp was around 30-34 deg and the snow was very light and 3-14 inches deep. The trails were pretty hard riding because they are usually torn up by other bikers and runners but the Horse Gulch road was gravy! The hard packed snow path about 2 feet wide, and gave good hook up even with Crows. I did see some Pug tracks though and those were good riding as long as you stayed in the track. I now start to regret selling mine.

Horse Gulch Road

Multi Tasking

Fisher in the Gulch

Ugly kid

Down Horse Gulch Road

Panaramic

My Whip

2008-01-26T17:07:00.002-08:00

Specs: 21.43 lbs, Gary Fisher X-Cal 29er Medium
Rockshox Reba Race Tuned

Ritchey WCS with Tuned WCS rings
Eggbeater SL Pedals
Sram PG-970 Cassette with PC-951 Chain
Sram X-9 Rear Derailleur Tuned
Shimano Dura-Ace Front Dreailleur Tuned
Truvativ Giga Pipe SL Bottom Bracket

Formula Oro Puros with Goodridge Lines 160mm Rotors.
Control tech Bolt-On Skewers

Easton EC70 Bar
Bontrager Foam Grips
Ritchey WCS 100mm Stem
Sram X0 Twisters Tuned
Nokon Housing with Stainless Cables
KCNC Seatpost
Selle Italia SLR Saddle Tuned
Omni Racer Post Clamp

Stans 355 29er Rims
Stans Crow Tires, Front and Rear
Stans Yellow Tape and Sealant
DT Swiss Supercomp Spokes
DT Swiss Alloy Nipples
Hope Pro II hubs

Top Pull Road Derailluer Conversion

2008-01-23T14:41:00.000-08:00

A few peeps out there have been modifying their old Shimano 9spd road derialluers so they will work on their Mountain bikes. I wrote a step by step guide on how to perform the modification.

I performed the actual modification to a Brand new 7700 Dura-Ace 9spd derailleur that I bought at the shop for around $65.

1. Un-bolt the pivot arm bolt from derailleur using a 3mm hex key.
2. Remove the E-clip that secures the second pin that secures the pivot arm.
3. Remove the pivot arm form the rest of the derailleur
4. Some material will need to be removed form the pivot arm now so the arm will align with the rest of the derailleur properly when flipped.
5. The necessary modification to the derailleur to make it fit is now done. If you want to you can remove even more material where you want to to make the piece lighter.6. The derailleur can now be reassembled starting with the pivot with the 3mm hex key bolt followed by the pin with the E-clip.
You are now done!

Damn It`s cold in Durango

2008-01-22T12:52:00.001-08:00

Trainer Torture Not so Bad any More.
This morning at 8:00 it was a low temperature of -6 Deg F, trainer stand weather. After setting up the trainer I set up my laptop so I could try and squeeze a little enjoyment out of my morning base ride. I selected a movie of watch form QuickSilverScreen.com ... Blood Diamond, a sweet watch by the way and long to, 2 hours and 14 min by my timer. Started the movie and started spinning at the normal 70% heart rate. Watching a movie always seems to help time go by a little bit faster and the better the movie the faster time goes by. After a 2 hour 20min ride it had warmed up to around 13 Deg F, so still no riding outside.

KCNC Ti Pro Lite

2008-01-22T10:26:00.000-08:00

KCNC Ti Pro Lite
I just received my new KCNC Pro Ti lite post to replace my old Thomson Elite. I made the buy on Ebay for $90 shipped out of Great Britain. Out of the box the first thing that I noticed was the lack of weight, compared to my Thomson. The KCNC features a two bolt clamp design and elliptical center like the Thomson, the similarities end here. The KCNC has shaved the clamping pieces and decreased the wall thickness of the seat mast, the seat mast is graduated for easy post positioning and the clamp has the bolt torque spec clearly posted on both sides. The post was much lighter than my Thomson, 156.7g vs. 292.4g, thats 135.7g saved. The seat mast and clamping bits are made from scandium and the bolts are 4mm hex head made from Ti The post had a nice snug fit in the frame.. maybe to sung, mounting the saddle was by far the biggest downer of this product. The upper rail clamps are not connected to each other so this made installing the saddle rather frustrating. I tightened the bolts to 30in-lbs instead of the recommended 44in-lbs to avoid over clamping the rails. Just a quick note, if you have carbon rails you may need an even lower clamping force to avoid cracking the rails. Just riding my bike between classes at school I can notice a fair amount of flex in the post giving a noticeably softer ride.

The Good:
-Low weight, 156.7g for the 27.2x400mm
-Looks great
-Softer ride

The Bad:
-Difficult setup
-Price $107
-Skinny rail clamps may harm carbon rails.

Overall:
Great product! I am very satisfied with this buy, I was planing on buying an Easton EC90 or an Extralite Ultuapost and this is lighter than both and seems to be nice quality. Highly recommended Seat post!