Neglect...

Sorry to my loyal me for not keeping myself entertained with the witty thoughts of the myself of things. I have been doing a load of the same riding over and over again lately. It does not seem boring to me but as for Blog entries it would become a little repetitive. Today however was a little different, my morning ride on the fixie just seemed fast. I was feeling as if I had the best tailwind ever without a tailwind at all. I overdressed and hardly sweated everything was zennish. My lunch hour rid while half of the city was dealing with thunderstorms I rode in the sun, not sure what that was about. Headwinds from hell but legs and lungs felt great. My recent rides on the new SS toy just seem to keep getting faster. Looking forward to Summer Solstice so that I can compare to previous years, oh and have fun with friends and ride my bike within a 24 hour race... Loves it... I could probably blither on for some time but it is aiming towards bedtime and i should prolly stop boring the me of things. Goodnight all... I'm out...

Early Prototype Light Mount

I routinely get to a 24 hour race and when it comes to dusk I realize that my light shines right into my plate. This is obviously not an ideal place for it to shine. Every other year I forget about this until i get to the race. This year I thought of it early. Here is my prototype fix for this issue. My inverted stem makes for a great elevated place to hang a light.

Today was a great cycling day for me. Morning and Lunch hour rides were both personal best times on their respective courses. Hoping to keep this up and use it in a race or three this season. Anyways I thought I would get a few early pix of my light mount up for everyone too see. if you see anything that you think I should change let me know.

Thanks, I'm out...

Epic 8 hour weekend

While the weekend obviously took up more than 8.5 hours the focus of the weekend was the race. Well done Chicoracing.com always a fun time at your events. Paul and I have been doing this event tag team for 5 years now and it is always a great time. Last year while posting our best times up to that point it was a little disheartening to drop from the 17th place the 2 prior years to 20th place last year.

This year made up for that plus some. We were very pleased with our 7th place finish in the Tag team under 70 category. We both posted times we had never seen before and kept up good numbers through the whole race. I was happy we were able to force an extra lap more than last year! Great job Paul. He may have been pleased to come enjoy a beer after my lap but put out a great effort to complete the lap with time to spare.

Apparently the bike and I shared a special time before the race altho I have no idea what I was thinking or doing just prior. This pic paints a funny picture. My wife says "You were thinking of me" why would I ever try to undo that thought ;)

My bike was feeling better than ever with a couple modifications to the cockpit and dropping the bashguard.

The actual 8 hour period was rather cool, some clouds kept us from the nice tan usually acquired during this event. At least twice I came out of the cycling zone and thought it could warm up a bit...

The race was amazing right from the start. First lap I tailed a solo who was riding amazingly. I cought up with him on my fifth lap and he was keeping close pace to us as a tag team WOW.

As the laps kept going by I
started to run into the owner of Joyride150 on the opening climb every lap. He was likly cursing the tag team who could not quite keep his pace. Amazing athlete.

Race ran out after plenty of great conversations on course and in the pits with us pulling 14 laps split equally. Still happy about 7th place finish. Raceday Rush took some great pix as did Paul's girlfriend.

I seem to still be recovering as I cant eat enough food 2 days afterwards. The price one must pay to have 8 hours of fun...



Oh and I almost forgot great art work at the race! I wish I could convince my wife to decorate the cottage with all therecycler.ca artistic furniture...

I'm out...

Fitted and brought home, now I ride??

Well took off a chunk of work on Friday and went back to the hometown to pickup my new bike. What will I talk about here now that I have made my 26/29 decision and actually have a new toy. Maybe back to ride reports and fun stuff like that?

Brad got me all sized up and was able to get the Rotor-Q-Ring on there before pickup. I also swapped out the stock Maxis Ignitor tires with Geax Saguaro's as I have been liking them on my 26er, and chose not to bother with the stock pedals and went with my PD M540's. Only thing I have not got on there yet for the basic setup is my already ordered Profile Design Stubby bar ends. I did install a Sigma 960 computer on there for training even tho it took away from the clean look a bit. eh well ;)

This is going to be a fun project bike for quite some time. I just can't wait to get it out on the trails. Not looking good for this weekend but will be doing some rolling Monday I'm sure. Well this post was really just a bunch of blither to get some pix up here so I can stop there... I'm out...

Bike is in!!!

Not much to say, personal best on my lunch hour training ride today. Everything just lined up. Got back to the office and there was an e-mail from Brad. My bike is in!!! I just need to schedule a time to get back to the hometown and pick it up. Sounds like the Q-Ring is in too. More later as well as more pix than you care to see I am sure.

I'm out...

Fixed again...

While I continue to wait for my new 29er to show up I will have fun on my fixie. Had a great ride in this am and a nice Lunch hour loop. Only issues is that it seems like Grandad's walk to school held true today. No matter which way I turned there was a headwind. On the lunch hour loop I did end up finding a bit of a tailwind which pushed me the remainder of the way back to the office.

People ask why I have this addiction to Bicycles now I think I just need to tell them to hop on one and see if it catches. Maybe it is an illness and not an addiction. maybe both.

I'm out...

Ontario Cup #1 Mansfield

First race of the season loomed. I was waiting for my new bike to show up. It was not looking good. The Nishiki was having issues in the bottom bracket. I took it into a LBS who was only able to extract one side of the bottom bracket. They replaced the races and bearings and greased them up well. All in all I rode out of there feeling pretty good about how it was feeling. Still not solid but better than it had been in a long time. I went for a ride with a buddy an the Hydro-Cut in Kitchener Tuesday night. Rode well but about 3/4 of the way through I could hear the races crushing. That is not a good sound. I called my friends shop where I await my new Kona Unit and no luck. A mis-shipment had put it in the wrong city with no chance of it arriving on time. After I explained my plight he offered up his Kona Explosif singlespeed for the race.

Super excited with this bike with more bike bling than I have ever ridden I took it out for Saturday's pre-ride in Mansfield. It was just amazing. It handled well and rolled fast. It was my first time riding Tubeless as well as my first time with a Rotor-Q-Ring. Not sure if it is my training, the q ring, or the grippy Geax Saguaro running tubeless but all climbs were attainable in the 38x20 gearing. I was feeling good about the race. I wanted to ride the loop all day but decided it was better for me to rest. Back to the in-laws to hang out with my kid's and deal with my weird pre-race day eating habits.

Sunday was race day. Woke up early and ate my Yogurt, Strawberries, and Granola and a couple of my Mother in law's homemade energy bars. Got my e-load all ready and prepared myself. Showed up at Mansfield about an hour before the race to clear the butterflies and warm up. I was feeling good, watching to see who else was racing Singlespeed this year. Some amazing new Misfit Psycles Dissent Fe as well as a nice Vassago Jabberwoky provided some nice eye candy. A couple guys had a Misfit weigh off and from what I could tell the Dissent Al came in a hair lighter than the Fe in their current configuration.

Race time, we all lined up and chatted a bit more. I met a couple people and then we got the closest thing to a race face on and waited for the horn. We were off. I decided not to kill the first hill like last year as in the end it killed me. A few people passed going up. A long stretch of double track had me watching all of these 29ers roll past me while I was spinning like crazy to try to keep up. Once in the singletrack things started to look good. I moved up the field to find my comfortable pace. I took a header in a small technical downhill and fell back 2 places while still in the first lap. After passing these guys and a couple of guys from one of the Sport Male categories I was back where I was before. I had 2 guys in my sights that I wanted to catch as they were just a little ways in front of me when I bailed. It took me until half way through the second lap to make my pass on an uphill. Shortly after passing the first I was able to pass the second rider. Getting closer to the end of the second lap we were starting to catch up to slower riders from other categories. Made quite a few passes when they were available and rode out the rest of the race without incident. All in all I ended up in 9th place which I was very happy with after bonking last year and finishing 25th.

It was a great time and I can't wait for my race. Next up for me is the Mansfield Spring Epic 8 Hour. As in the past 3 years I will be running this race tag team with Paul. Should be on my new bike by then.

New things on the shopping/wish list after riding Brad's bike: Rotor-Q-Ring, Bar Ends for powering up climbs. If you are ever in/near Orangeville Ontario and need a great LBS look up The Epic Ride. Amazing people amazing customer service!

Closing, I had an amazing time at this race and just want to ride some more!

That's it for now... I'm out...