Grinding on through the end of summer.

Haven't had a whole lot to talk about lately.

Looks like August is nearly over, and as far as most people are concerned, summer is about done.

Looking back, I had plenty of good riding, far more racing than I anticipated this summer, but I feel like not nearly enough "epics". Not once did I get totally lost with Charlie, nor did I hike my bike for over an hour at any given time. Perhaps those are more spring and fall activities, but I'm feeling long overdue.

It's time to start putting miles in on the single speed. The SSWC are just around the corner, and I've barely ridden mine a couple of times in the past couple of months.

Oooh, I just had an idea of something to write about. Here is a Bikeworks micro-review.....

Item: WTB Vulpine Tires, 29er

Verdict: Scary

Booya, shortest, most useless review ever. I guess I could elaborate. They held air fantastically as a tubeless conversion on my Stans rims, so I'm excited to try other tires from WTB for that purpose. On the one day I rode them in the East Mtns. when there was actually some moisture on the ground, the were surprisingly grippy, and as expected, unbelievably fast rolling.

On dry days, in the south foothills, for example, these were simply scary. Clearly not a tire designed in New Mexico.

Of course one look at the tread pattern tells you so, and lets you know that I'm kind of stupid for hoping they'd be anything other than deadly in loose over hard pack.

I think I was mostly curious about how they compared to Stans Raven tire, which I have begun referring to as a "textured innertube". I think they are just a little more grippy in corners, not as good in a straight line (think rear wheel spinning out when mashing).

So this video is old, and most regular internet-time-wasters have seen it already, but for those who haven't......

It's done so well it scares me a little.

Speaking of serious road biking, Swinton raced the State Champ road race yesterday. No spectacular results to speak of (he raced the Pro 1,2 race). Some personal victories included winning the "bro race", i.e. beating all his buddies, and not getting "shelled" until the beginning of the last lap.

We got hooked up with a copy of Thats It Thats All this week, by our local Red Bull rep:

This movie is getting me all messed up, it's too early to be thinking about snowboarding. It's such a sweet movie. It came out last winter. The whole thing was filmed with some awesome cameras in HD, and watching it with an HDDVD on an HD TV is a little mind melting.

People keep talking about it being a good season this year for snow. Maybe with this new schedule of ours, I'll be getting some Mondays in this year.

Is two and a half years old too young to learn to snowboard?

Ummmm, have you checked out Bikefix lately?

Well, guess I'm done.

Commencal Demo Sunday

This Sunday, at Pajarito Ski Area, Commencal bikes will be on demo for your enjoyment.

If you've been considering upgrading your gravity bike to something a little more capable, here's the chance to check it out. Fun times guaranteed.

New Giant Trance X and Anthem X

Giant has unveiled 2010 lineup this week at an event in Keystone CO.

The most exciting of the new bikes are the carbon versions of the Trance X and the Anthem X.

The Anthem X frame has lost 200 grams over the alloy version, which was already a reasonably light 5 lb frame. The Trance X (their 5" trail bike platform) has shed an amazing 400 grams, nearly a whole pound, over the '09 alloy version.

The bikes look amazing, and are totally decked out component-wise. The 2010 Anthem X Advanced SL 0 comes equipped with Sram XX gruppo, and is out of the box at 21.8 lbs, reportedly.

Velo News has a good write up about the bikes, with an interesting lesson about Giant's carbon processes to go with.

Check it out:

http://velonews.com/article/96397

I am excited.

Miss Me?

I've been a delinquent updater once again.
Not a whole lot to talk about though.

Last weekend, Danny and I and our lil' families went up and race cross country in Taos. It was good times. It's a very fun, and extremely hard course. Up some of the steepest dirt roads that I have ever seen. And some very tight single track up around 12,000 feet.

The course was very complicated, doubling back and crossing over itself a number of times, with a slightly different route for each of the three laps done after the big fire road climb.
Fortunately, it was extremely well organized, with a ton of volunteers to steer you in the right direction at every intersection, and everything ran smoothly.

Danny, true to form, pinched a tube, and then proceeded to blow up his chain. This worked well for me, because it slowed him down to the point where I could catch him. So we rode the final 1/3 of the race together, coming across the finish line as team Bikeworks.

My age group (19-29) was actually faster than Danny's (30-39), which is unusual, and the same finishing time resulted in a 3rd place finish for Danny, and 4th place for me, in our respective age groups in expert (cat 1).

And then it was back to work with us. Our final week without Tony, Danny and I were certainly feeling a little worn down. The shop is just a little difficult to run with two guys.

I've procured a couple of new rides for the stable lately. First was a Swobo Crosby.

This bike is bad to the bone. The frame is nicer than I anticipated, with some details that you can't really see on the picture. The downtube is six sided, with a huge interface with the head tube, and then is rotates and has a hug connection with the BB. A carbon fork that gives a much smoother ride than I anticipated. Sliding dropouts, disc capable, gearing capable, solid parts spec out of the box, and the most rad color scheme I've seen in a while. Even the tires are perfect for our foothills.
It also comes with the Sram Torpedo hub, which looks vaguely like a coaster brake hub, and can be converted between singlespeed or fixed gear with 5 turns of a small flathead screw. The screw sits inside of the axle, and is accessed via the driveside axle nut, which is open on the end.

And the bike retails for $1,000. This thing is a lot of bike for the money.

I also just replaced my Soma Rush frame for another of the same, except this one is my size. Also, it's white, and awesome, because white bikes are awesome.

If anyone is interested in a 55cm black track frame and fork, this thing is a beaut, and it'll go for a good price.

And with that, I'm going to go pay bills on my day off, because it'll be nice and quiet at the shop, and I haven't paid bills in a number of weeks.

Blah blah racing blah blah

So Danny and I got out on Sunday and participated in the Bonanza Creek road race (better known as the Prison Loop). It was good times. Saturday afternoon saw us wavering a little on commitment to go race, me more so than Danny. It was hot, we'd been working all week, and the beer was calling my name. But Danny persisted, and in the end we were off and running towards Santa Fe at 7:30 am (early by our standards), spinning the bald tires on Danny's Saturn for everything they were worth.

The turnout at the race was impressive. Danny had about 60 guys with him in the Masters race, and there were maybe around 30 in the Cat 4,5, which I participated in.

The race was three laps totaling 55 miles. It was kind of hilly, but no real elevation change. The race started out rather casually, and despite my best efforts to stay calm, I was getting pretty anxious towards the end of the first lap. I spent more time at the front than I knew was wise, but it was just too fun to chase down the couple of small attacks that got away.

In the end it was a pretty large group finishing together. I positioned myself very well, but new I had already spent too much energy to be any good in the sprint. I was already fighting off some minor leg cramps, which is something I'm going to put some effort into figuring out, since that was my main problem last weekend as well. Perhaps a combo of nutrition and stretching?

Anyway, around the 1km mark I knew I was going to get blown out in the sprint (I'm no sprinter anyway), so I told our buddy Nick (who rides for Cafe Guiseppe, a small but very successful team that we sponsor) to follow me in, and I attacked off the front for about 500m until I was cramping and useless. It paid of though, as Nick told me afterwords that he took the sprint and won the race, I was pretty excited. I managed to hang onto the back of the pack across the finish.

It was my third road race in about as many years, and it was by far the most fun I've had so far. Definitely able to play a little more strategy than at the Crest road race, which really comes down to just suffering as much as you can until your at the top.

Danny also finished in the pack of his race. I think he was happy with this, as he had been pretty much off the bike for the past couple of weeks, mostly recovering still from his nasty spill at the State Crit race. He's still got an ugly bruise on his leg, which must be 4 weeks old by now.

It was a very fun race. There seemed to be plenty of support to keep things running on time and to keep the roads safe. It wasn't even as hot as I was expecting, considering we finished around noon. It's amazing how much cooler Santa Fe can be than Albuquerque during the summer. I will definitely be planning on attending again next year.

And that's about it. We've got a condo rented up in Taos for next weekend so that we can race up there in the Frazier Mtn. Madness. Looking forward to that race and a little vacation day in Taos afterwards.

I have to say, we are definitely enjoying our new schedule of being closed Mondays. Starting to understands why everybody else gets so excited about the weekends. It's sweet having two days off in a row! You spend too many years working retail and you forget that.