Wet Weather Preparation

Well, winter is in full swing, so cold is the norm, and wet is the flavor.

As I ride more and more, my plan is to hit the trails as often as possible. With Syllamo just 2 months away, there is no way around it.

However, the reality is that spring is the time of rain. Something has to thaw the ground and convince the lillies to pop. Unfortunately, my conscience is too powerful to allow me to tear up my favorite trails after every ride. I just can't do that and sleep well at night.

Because of that, my mind turns to the road. I still want to spend time spinning over the legs. But when the trails are wet, generally the road is too. I can handle the typical sketchy corner with aplomb, but no one likes a wet backside, or a brown stripe up their back. We look stupid enough out in the cold in skin tight clothing, (Ok, I look stupid in skin tight clothing in any weather).

We only need to look to the Brits to understand how to handle this situation appropriately. In a country where rain is as central to life as tea, they know how to deal with wetness. After a little research, I turned up absolutely no US vendors for the fenders I wanted, so I surfed across the pond and picked them up from a shop in the UK.

Mounted them up this evening, and I'm pretty impressed with them. Innovative design, lightweight, and very quick and easy to mount on the bike.

Maybe this weekend, I'll find out how well they work.......

Modernization Of The Fleet

I began riding in 1991. At that time, top mount shifters were de rigeur, and I ran Suntour on my bike. My frame was lugged steel, and suspension forks were still something the downhill racers rode.

My roadbike was lugged steel, with indestructible box section rims in the wheels. I had downtube shifters to ease the effort on hills, and a 7sp cassette provided all the ratios I thought I could ever need!

For clothing, I regularly rode in cut off bluejeans, and t-shirts stolen from my father' closet covered my back the best. My helmet looked mostly like a glorified beer cooler, and my gloves were mesh backed workout gloves that I used in the weight room in the highschool football stadium.

Those were the days.

Fast forward almost 20 years later.

I'm now riding a plastic fantastic 15lbs road bike. With full Dura-Ace, light wheels and an incredibly light weight, this thing is truly fantastic!

I've even updated my cross bike (still lugged steel) to have a carbon fork, ultra lightweight wheels and Dura Ace brifters. It sure makes it easier to shoulder over the barriers.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, my mountainbike was just not cutting the mustard. The bumpy parts of courses left me behind. Over and over again, I'd pull up to my riding buddy's back wheel only to be shucked off again like so much refuse.

Enter the Sugar 1 from my earlier posts. I finally pushed myself to purchase a modern (Ok, semi modern) full suspension bike. Now I get on their wheel and stay there. Actually, I'm finding myself nearly crashing into their rear triangle on every turn.

One of the few things left to update was my fork. The Manitou FS I was running is not at all a bad fork, however it is old tech and performs somewhat poorly. It was also heavy. While feathery by 1990's tech, it is rather tank-like these days.

I decided to get myself a Rockshox Sid. The first one I got was the generous hand-me-down of a riding friend. Unfortunately, it was just plain worn out. Stantions were worn through, damping blown and seals all bad to the point it would not hold air. None of that changes the generosity of my buddy Chris.

A week later, I managed to get my hands on a 2007 Race model. All I can say is wow!!!!! Everything works extremely well, and it performs admirably. Now the wheel tracks the ground like a cat tracking a mouse. Its truly light as well, having taken over half a pound off my bike!

So goes the modernization of my fleet. It now runs in a fashion that allows me to keep up with my friends. Parts are only a phone call away, and I could actually get it serviced at my local shop in the event that I could not handle it myself. (Not likely to happen).

Memphis Weather SUCKS!!!!

There is no way around it.... Memphis weather just plain sucks!

As was noted on the MSTA forum, this is absolutely the worst winter for riding in a very long time. The trails are completely saturated, to the point that riding them is near impossible. Its also a bad idea from a trail maintenance staindpoint.

To make matters worse, its too cold to ride the road as well. I have warm clothes, but they don't nearly do the job when the temp is below 35f. I guess the windchill is just too much to deal with....

Without an opportunity to ride, I've managed to wax all my bikes, tune every one of them up, and make some good upgrades to them. Hopefully I'll actually get to enjoy them at some point.

Snow/Ice Days!!! Cyclocross Worlds

Well, I'm frozen in here...... I would normally say that sucks, but really its been pretty fun. I'd normally be out on the trails or the road, but this weekend, I spent the day watching cyclocross videos and checking the results from the worlds in the Czech Republic.

Looks like Stybar put in a killer ride and kicked some but. The Belgians have been dethroned and the results are in. Stybar in Gold. Looks like the Belgians were dethroned in the other classes as well, like the U23 race where the Poles kicked some butt.

Dissappointing however were the results from the red white and blue. Johnson, page, et al just did not have what it took to pull it off. Huge dissappointment also from the Compton camp. Leg cramps are tough, but I think I'd be at the Dr's office finding out exactly what the heck was wrong with me if it took me out of contention as it did here.

Back to the frozen in part, I'm aching to get out on the road or the trail again. While stuck here, I managed to get all my bikes waxed and cleaned and tuned...... Nothing else to do, so I might as well make sure everything is perfectly tuned and clean. Yee-haw.

Well, with a little luck, we'll have some drying this week and I can get out and ride next weekend!

Better picture of the new bike!!!!!

This past weekend, I got a chance to get out and turn the gears on the new ride. Boy is she SWEET!!!!!!

I'm happy as can be with this thing right now. One ride and she was/is already much faster than my previous. The handling is much different, and the traction is phenomonal!

Finished as she sits right now, she's just at 25lbs. A new seatpost next week will make her down to sub 25.

I really cannot wait to race her now.

New Bike.... First Full Suspension, and A New Goal......

Well, lets start with the goal.....

Every year, all my friends head to Arkansas' Syllamo Trails for Syllamo's Revenge. It is a 50 mile cross country mountain bike race. It turns into a real all day effort for everyone.

Last year, I had planned to race the late season (fall) races, but work got in the way and I was unable to participate. So this year, I decided to try some earlier races.... Syllamo is one of the first I could hit, so I thought why not. Then at the last minute, sanity took hold and I backed out.

The following morning, I decided to see if registration was still open. Registration for this race is very limited, and it sells out quickly. I checked the registration the morning after it started and sure enough, I got in........ Ohhhhh boy......

Then reality set in. Yes, I used to be a pretty fast racer. Yes, I used to do well. Unfortunately, that was many years and many pounds ago. I'm a lot bigger, a lot older and a lot slower. However, the entry fee is now paid, and I have a cabin already with a bunch of fellow racers, so there is no backing out now.

That evening, I went for a night ride with my team, and we were really flying. I was handling the trail really well and was pretty proud of myself. However, I noticed that when we got the bumpy stuff, I was not able to keep up. I was getting banged around and they were floating through the stuff (stuff that I used to handle extremely well).

I looked at the difference between all of us and quickly noticed that everyone else was either on a 29'er, or a full suspension bike. My mind immediately started jumping and thinking of all of the videos I'd seen of the Syllamo trail and of my past experiences racing in Arkansas, and I quickly realized that Syllamo was gonna beat me senseless on my old hardtail bike.

Digging in my mental memory banks I started thinking of the good full-sussers that were around when I was a bike shop geek and building and tuning bikes for folks. The Gary Fisher Sugar 1 came to mind really quickly.

Amazingly enough, within a week or so, an OK lookin Sugar 1 popped up on ebay for sale. I figured I'd never get it, but why not try. The bidding ended, and I was the owner of the frame (which included fork, seatpost, headset and stem)

As I waited for the bike to arrive, I was getting worried. I have the worse cases of buyer's remorse of anyone I know. I began looking at the size and wondering if it would fit me. I wondered if it would be worn out.

All my worries were for naught. The bike arrived today and after a couple hours with a polishing rag, it looked pretty doggone sweet! The wife was not home, so I decided to start building it and decided to just take it as far as I could during the evening. Amazingly enough, I was done in about 1 1/2 hours!!!!

In all, she went together very smoothly and it looks great. Everything works well, and it feels good riding in the street. I still need to learn to tune the suspension, but I'll figure that out quickly. The rear derailleur hanger is bent, but a replacement is not too expensive.

All in all, I'm pretty happy. : ) (Please excuse the crappy picture....)

Riding light update.

Last fall, I resurrected an old lightset given to me by a fellow rider. Details on the set are in the post below.

After my first rides, I was a little worried that I'd under-specc'ed the battery for the setup. When I would get to the end of a ride, the handlebar light (10w, 3000mah) would go out before we hit the parking lot..... The helmet light never wavered.

Good news however is that on the most recent rides, I finished with pretty good numbers going back into the batteries, and both lights still bright at the end. The helmet light only burnt 64% of its capacity, and the handlebar light 86%. That is pretty usable capacity for the rides we normally do (around 2 hours). Unfortunately, that setup would not get me through a 12 hour race, but then again, that's not what I was expecting or planning for.

I'm glad I built the lights, as they've been really fun and definitely expanded my riding opportunities during the cold winter months with less sunlight!