Good Week

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

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

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

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.