I can type a lot!

This weekend turned out to be a good one for getting some riding in.
We are taking full advantage of the busy summer months being behind us, and sneaking out of the shop for some extra riding whenever possible.

Sunday there was a cross race at the Bosque School, a private high school down in the Busque near Montano. So Saturday Danny and I played hookey for the first couple hours of work while we rode down to check out the terrain and get some miles in on the cross bikes. It was a great time, we managed to ride on dirt ditch paths pretty much the whole way from Menaul and Edith, all the way to the school. I wasn't aware of any of the paths we took, and they were a great way to get across town on a cyclocross bike.

We poked around the school grounds for a little while, generally just checking out the place. The course wasn't marked yet, so we couldn't practice or anything, but it let me get a little better idea about gearing choice, as my cross bike is set up single speed at the moment.
Then from the school, we crossed Montano at the river, and rode some great Bosque style singletrack north all the way to Paseo del Norte. Then we hopped back on to the bike path, and took the Northern Diversion Channel all the way back south to the shop.
It turned out to be a great little morning cross ride, with a very surprising amount of dirt miles achieved without getting out of the city at all. Nothing that would have been too thrilling on a proper mountain bike, but perfect for cross bike tomfoolery.

Then Sunday was the cross race down at the previously mentioned Bosque School. This was apparently #4 of the New Mexico Cyclocross Series. Race #5 of the series will be at the UNM North Golf Course. I'm excited.
We managed to get Charlie out to partake in his first cross race, as well as Marc, who, despite having a totally rad titanium Raleigh singlespeed cross bike, hadn't done a cross race in "something like ten years." That didn't stop him from thoroughly dropping me halfway through the 3's race though. Charlie told me the next day that he couldn't remember the last time he breathed that hard, and was optimistic that all his post race phlegm hacking might have somewhat increased his lung capacity. Seems logical to me. I think Charlie is hooked, as he was talking about racing next weekend almost as soon as this race was finished.
The race was a blast, a very fun course through some very scenic terrain. The kids going to that high school are lucky, it is absolutely beautiful down there.

(this is where, if I were smart, I'd insert a few awesome pics from the cross race that my lovely wife could have theoretically take while spectating the event, you know, if I had thought to bring the camera along)

Sunday evening had me laying around the house, realizing that cross racing is a little abusive on the ol' body. I was feeling the familiar hip soreness that I get after my bi-annual running excursions, as well as some knee pain (that I'm thinking is due to a too low saddle height), and some odd foot bruising and swelling, most likely from my less-than-graceful cross dismounts in my should-have-been-retired-long-ago Sidi's from 2002. But, despite my better judgment and a slightly swollen knee, I made plans with Charlie to go play on our new bikes in the foothills on Monday.

I knew my knee was going to bother me, but I had been staring at my new bike (see previous post) all week, and it hadn't seen dirt yet, and it was starting to make me a little anxious. So we met at the top of Montgomery for a good old fashioned north foothills loop.
I wondered as I drove north along Tramway, from I40 to Montgomery, how many hundreds of times I had made that drive to do this ride. It also occurred to me that going northbound on Tramway used to be much quicker. It seems as though the lights used to be timed, and you could pretty much just cruise at 50mph all the way. Now it seems that you catch the first 4 red lights absolutely no matter what. It's like they are intentionally timed to make sure you can't hit any greens. Is it just me, or did this not use to be the case?

Anyways, the ride was fantastic. I quickly figured out that gearing choice on a two-speed Hammerschmidt setup is tricky, With a 160% difference between the two gears up front, you either have a 24 or a 38 tooth chainring, effectively. This is a big difference. I built my bike with an 18t cog on back, and the result put me in no-mans land nearly the entire ride. I didn't have the "gusto" that day to turn over the big gear, but dropping down to the easier gear was almost always too easy. It's going to take some experimentation to get it just right. I'm thinking a 20t or even 21t in back will be the way to go.

I noticed a few other things during the ride. I have 30" wide handlebars on my bike, which is significantly wider than anything I've ever ridden before. The trend in the DH world is definitely to run wider bars, but most those guys are running 29" wide bars, with a few guys picking up the 30's. I liked the bars, and figured I'd just trim them down eventually. Much to my surprise, once I got through the trail-head gate, I completely forgot about how absurdly wide my bars were for the entire ride. I did however, feel very confident on all the technical section, and was motivated to get "all trials-y" a couple of times. I think this was in part due to the nature of my new bike, but now I'm curious to see what some of my other bikes would feel like with these huge bars.
The awesome chainring clearance provided by the Hammerschmidt was also noticed, especially on one technical step up, and another time when I was getting "all trials-y". There was that moment when you brace for the inevitable grinding of chainring on rock, and then... nothing, you were up and over without damage.
I had a blast pushing the limits of the bike through corners as well. There's just something satisfying about the way you can corner on a hardtail, really controlling the rear tire with the pedals. I've never ridden a long-travel hardtail before, and the combination of the control a hardtail provides with the slack front end geometry, and huge tires, is really cool. Oh, and a 150mm travel Rock Shox Revelation U-Turn Air, is a hell of a fork.
I'm excited.

Charlie likes his bike too:





So, lastly, if anybody is still reading, we're going to start back up with our weekly night rides from the shop. So next tuesday, come on out and join us. We'll try to get out of the shop as close to 6pm as possible, usually on the bikes in the foothills at around 7. We now have a handfull of demo/loaner lights for people as well, after gearing up for the Burner:



So those of you without lights can give it a shot, and then get hooked, and then buy some badass lights from us. Yeah, we're employing drug dealer tactics, so what?


Dang, that was a lot of words to type. I haven't written this much at once since college. And once again, my lap is melting from this lava-hot laptop. Time to go.

New Evils

Here's what I did at work today:





The black one is mine, the white one is Charlies. My bikes is an XL, with a Rock Shox Revalation, DT Swiss 240's on 819 rims, the new Sunline 762 (mm wide) flat bar, some shiny bits here and there, and of course the Hammerschmidt cranks.

The white one is Charlies. It's a large, with a fox 150 Talas, Industry Nine wheels, shiny bits here and there, and of course the Hammerschmidt cranks.

The jury is out on the gearing, front is 24t and 38t equivalent, I've got an 18 tooth cog on back, Charlie has a 20 tooth, so we'll see what works out better.

That's about it. Big silly adventures, here we come.

Also, it snowed today, a whole lot, for about 20 minutes:

Waisting time online:

Came across this tonight:

Lance Armstrong Doping History

It's an interesting read, kind of puts all the different little tales you hear about Armstrong in one place. Actually, come to think of it, there's some stuff left out in there that pops up in conversations about him rather frequently.
I'm not necessarily a L.A. hater, but I think it would be interesting to see a list of all the confirmed dopers that he beat the pants off of, while claiming to be completely clean the whole time.
The best part is that this very anti-Lance little article is flanked by advertisements featuring who? Lance Armstrong, of course. Good times.

And while I'm being kind of a sourpuss, how about this:

http://www.bustedcarbon.com/

I can't remember if I've linked this blog before or not, but I get some sick satisfaction from it. My buddy Richaround recently brought a post from last week to my attention:

http://www.bustedcarbon.com/2009/10/no-carbon-wednesday-titanium.html



hmm, what brand of bars are those?

That goes out to Dr. Dave, who until recently was riding a similar bar, and took our advice to switch to something a little more... reputable.

In personal bike collection news, I have project "stupid bike" in the stand right now, hopefully to be finished up tomorrow morning.
What is the "stupid bike" you ask? Well, clearly I needed a 5" travel hardtail in my fleet (or "hardcore hardtail" if you will. Perhaps I've been reading too many British bike mags lately, they can't get enough of the "hardcore hardtail" over there). I have also wanted to own a Hammerschmidt crankset since the first time I put my hands on one. And as soon as I heard about the Hammerschmidt, I thought that it would mate up well with a single cog, giving you a 2 speed bike.
So, project stupid bike is an Evil Soveirgn frame, with a Hammerschmidt crank, single cog in back, and inevitably, some ridiculously large tires, silly wide bars, and shiny bits here and there. It will be the go-to bike for those rides that I'm just a little too scared to bring the singlespeed on, and we'll see if those Brits know what they're talking about.
I'll put up a pick tomorrow when I finish it.

I just saw this link:

Evil Sect 140mm trail bike

Yeah, Tony, Vince and I were in that suite and got to fondle and squish on that bike. I'm excited. They wouldn't let us take any pictures though. They basically dubbed it a "trail bike for the downhiller", which we're excited about, as we have plenty of downhillers around that inevitably will come on a trail ride with me some day, and then get hooked. It's got relatively slack angles, and looks like it will appreciate aggressive riding styles.

Speaking of that suite, it was the coolest thing I've seen at Interbike. The Evil guys basically said they decided to take the 40k they would have blown on a booth and instead hire somebody for a year, and then invite dealers up to a suite to show off the product. The result was a much more personal and productive atmosphere, with big comfy couches which my hungover self much appreciated, and of course a bathtub full of adult beverages, which I also appreciated. It was rad, except that it did smell a little bit like a bunch of hungover dudes hanging in a hotel room, but what can you expect from a bike trade show? Lovely smelling women? Only if they've been paid to stand on a pedestal and hand out literature.

Well, the battery on this here computer is starting to get a little low, and it's getting uncomfortably warm on my lap. The computer says it's 145 deg F inside of itself, and something is spinning at 1995rpm. That all seems a little hot and dangerous to me. What if something melts and then the little spinning thing goes flying around and chops my legs off?

A windy 100 miles.

At the last minute, Danny and I decided we would go participate in the Day of the Tread charity fundraiser century. It's a really well put together event, with rides of several different lengths, getting up to a full 100 miler (or maybe 96 miles), and a few different running walking events as well.
Benefits were for the Cary Tingley Hospital, and Casa Esperanza, so you know, it's for the kids.
It was really well organized, what seemed to be a huge turnout, the feed stations along the ride were awesomely well stocked, and there was a buffet and beer tent at the finish, free for participants. All pretty impressive.
Danny, J.F., and I decided we would do the 100 miler, and quickly worked our way to a front group of racer types, carrying a very nice tempo. I had assumed most of these guys were headed out to do the century as well, but when we reached Bernalillo, and the route went right for the 80 miler, and straight for the 100, basically everybody but us turned right.
I was a little surprised, but in hind sight, it seems as though they knew something I didn't; the century route on 550 out to San Ysidro had a gnarly head wind the whole way.
We weren't quite out of Bernalillo, when J.F. supposedly saw a few people way out in front of us. I didn't see anything, and I personally think he actually smelled them, or just sensed them with some crazy extra sensory racer skill he has. Anyhow, he decided those people must be caught, and his head went down, and I was promptly dropped (Danny managed to hang on). They waited for me at the top of a hill, I caught on, and was promptly dropped again.
So I was out alone for the long haul out to San Ysidro, hating the wind.
I eventually got swallowed up by a decent sized group, and then three of us headed off from the turn-around and finished the remainder of the ride together.
It was good times. That was pretty much an off the couch century for me, as the last ride I had done on the road bike was "Danny's Last Ride" last month. It hurt. I was totally cooked for the rest of the day. Ended up finishing the ride in just over 5 hours. Danny and J.F. eventually made contact with the mysterious riders out in the distance, who turned out to be some friends, one tandem and another guy. They grouped up and finished the ride in about 4 and a half hours.

Again, no pictures, not that I would have anything interesting had I brought a camera along. Lots of pictures of empty road.
Instead, here's a few pics that our boy Long took at tall Scott's pre-haloween kegger the other day:

Customer Love!

Our keg ran out of a couple of days ago. I think our customers could feel something was wrong among the global beer consciousness, as in the first couple of hours today we were hooked up:


Two full cases of Marble, a six pack of Full Sail, and an extra special bomber of some sort for Danny.

Yayyy Beer!