Lazy days...

Really lazy I might add, I sat and listened to the rain for awhile last night thinking about the Trans-Iowa racers out there, HARD CORE Did get my new fork installed though, REBA team, air-u-turn, 32mm stantions, motion control, pop-lock adjust, floodgate, blah blah BLAH...No less than SIX adjustments you can make to this thing and I'll try to sort em out here, Air spring; keeps this fork at 3.4 lbs. no different than my old Psylo except 4mm bigger stantions, also you can adjust between 115mm to 85mm in travel externally ( I bet I'll NEVER change from 100mm) Motion control; Rock Shox version of a "stable platform", hit the handlebar mounted "poplock adjust" to lock, then the floodgate controls how much fork movement in the lock mode. Noticed that my "sorta" LBS had installed the poplock upside down and backwards and left about 8 inches of extra cable hangin in front of my bars, oh well, every once in awhile I actually WORK on my own bike so after I tweaked and tuned, everything looks AND functions pretty well, the "lock" should come in handy during climbing and during the opening sprint to the single track, now I'll wait for my frame shock to come back with "pro-pedal" and make an old bike new again in terms of suspension. In hind sight a guy could just get rid of Forks and shocks and gears for that matter and have THE most efficient bike out there, but I'm getting too brittle to take that kind of beating anymore...Oh yeah, one more thing, its not DISCO GOLD either (sniff*)

Shocking...

My Fox frame shock finally gave up the ghost this weekend, I noticed it had been leaking air for a couple months now, nothing serious but by the end of a good ride it would drop from the 110lbs to about 50lbs, makes "sprinting" feel more like "mushing". I like the new propedal stuff from Fox but I didn't want to spend almost 400 bones on a new shock, enter PUSH they can rebuild my old Fox float RL, tune it to my weight and riding style, AND add the PROPEDAL feature as well. I never used the lockout on this shock anyway cause it climbs better in the active mode. For 160.00 bucks it sounds pretty good. Once I get it back I'll give a review on it. Nothin much else going on but training, didn't even race last weekend. Saving my gas money for Waverly...IMBCS #3

OOOOHH Fixie

Noticed on the Burlington group ride Dennis Grelk on his "fixie". Never having had the opportunity to actually ride one of these things it looks mighty peculiar. During our ride Dennis was explaining that he "spins out" around 35 to 36 miles miles per hour, he said this cause at some point along the way our group of fanatics was approaching these kinds of speeds. So as we head down main street hill at 38+ mph I 'm following Denny, still clipped in, legs a blur, thinking any moment I'm going to be dodging shrapnel or biological material, I've never been as nervous and I wasn't even riding the thing, forget the fact that there are no brakes either as he's heading towards stoplights, train tracks, ammo dumps etc. All i would do is have a three mile long skid mark. (you can use your imagination here) Cajones (ovaries) of steel to all ye fixie riders out there!!!

Woohoo...

Warning, Geode has been hit hard by our recent storms, both the BIG downhills on the backside are washed out and left HUGE X LARGE rocks in the gully that has formed. I don't know who was more scared, me doing the downhill stylin or the surprized mushroom hunters on their way up, sure that i was comitting suicide by bike.

Comfortably Numb...

I almost forgot to include a product test result from the first race of the season, Up to now I could be counted on to put the bike down at least once during any given race, and I wear the scars from most of these "soil samples" to this day. I always thought that if I didn't wreck out at least once, i wasn't riding hard enough. At some point during a race my hands would go numb enough that I couldn't tell if I had triggered a shift or even if my fingers were on the brakes, so its NO WONDER that being tired, and having hands of "stone", resulted in SO many trips off the trail or "bark Burners" over the years. Enter ERGON grips,(sometimes I think products get great reviews cause somebody is trying to justify spending big bucks on them) These things were worth every penny of the 24.00 bucks plus shipping, NO NUMBING at all, BIG contact patch even helps during climbing. I didn't even notice how good these felt until afterwords. Verdict: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if you suffer from a similar symptom. In other news I upgraded my USAC license to Expert AND cat 4, someday I hope to be good enough to actually get ACCUSED of sandbaggin...

Post race

Tony Thaller & Me

VIVA LA FRANCE

NAKED PHIL Chases the "peloton" at Sylvan Island

Take it to the limit...

IMBCS #1, I74 #1 its in the books, Sylvan Island '06. I'm not even sure what place I finished in, 12th? What I am sure of is that I FINISHED my first expert race, me and a number of other ex-sport riders, Pete, Andy, Butch, et al; these guys know what I'm talkin about! I'm sure this is the longest mountain bike race I've done, and quite possibly the fastest average speed (not counting peterson pits last year) 27 miles at 12.9 mph, what a great turnout of racers in all the classes!!! Many thanks to ALL who worked to put this race on. I wonder if Apollo Ohno wishes his legs were as HUGE as Brian Eppens'??? I wonder if Cam Kirkpatrick really does drive an Ice cream truck covered in human skulls??? I got to thank DICE team captain BRUCE GRELL for keepin me rollin on those last couple of laps,( or would that be dragging me) By the time i went through the root/rock/hill section on the down stream side of that course for the 9th time i thought my kidneys were hooked into the seat stays, my only regret was forgetting to bring my DAMN CAMEL BACK with me to the race, (forgot it at home) my nasty recovery/during drink mixture and gel combos felt like washing down peanut butter with maple syrup, JUST a little THICK!! Oh, and for those that missed it, Bruce and I DID get chased by a scary naked guy on the bell lap,(none other than $5 Dollar Phil) alla Tour De France style, however, it did speed us up a tad thru the u-turn section!! WHERE oh WHERE was the MILKMAN??? A race without Howie, is like a hotdog sans the weenie!!! (just kidding Mike, I know some people actually train for 24 hours of this stuff) we'll see you in Peoria for sure. Big congrats to Burlington riders tres amigos Nick, Tracy and Amanda, hard to beat the ATLAS hat trick!! I'll play Mr. Obvious and say that today was a rest day for me. Shoutouts to Dougie#1, J. Higgs, PaulyDek, JENZO and the Marlboro Man, Tony, Steve, Timmy, and MIDZ (who never even had to unholster his sidearm once)and the rest of the crew. PAMBA ROCKS!!!

Little Things

Think 1979, yup thats way back in the day. Its back when OAKLEY was exclusively SO CAL, and us ioweejuns were the trickle down eastern customers, OAKLEY actually made stuff besides groovy glasses so unless you had an OAKLEY number plate on your BMX bike, you were coming up short on style points. They also made THE coolest set of handlebar grips, shaped like your hand, didn't slip, and provided just a little cush for the bone jarring captain insano tricks we'd try to pull off. When I first got into mountain biking I went lookin to replace what in my opinion was THE biggest shortcoming when it came to the "new" mountain bike; GRIPS. I never liked the thin slippery, slide up and down the bar ,twistin, gooey, too small for your hand to grip, GRIPS. The last few years I've used ODI lock on YETI's and been pretty happy, the lock rings kept em exactly where you wanted them and the YETI version is about twice the circumference of a regular grip so you don't have to wrap your hand around it like a Boa eatin a rat. All was good until I spied these on Jeff Kerkoves bike, just like the new Ford Mustang, here was a reincarnated version of OAKLEYS best contribution to biking, makes me want to hit the half pipe and throw down a big Flair to fakey can-can truckdriver (rrrright) or just make hitting the trail for hours on end a bit more comfy...and that they are.

Riders in the storm (almost)

Nice to actually wear "regular" riding shorts for a change on Sunday. High in the low 70's, some sun shinning, decided I was going 40 easy miles on gravel when I left home. Stiff south wind was making it a REAL easy ride even on the gravel, and my speed was pretty high, just outside of Oakville (About 20 miles due north)i could see the clouds boiling back to the south and west (oh crap...)Turned tail and rode directly into the ever increasing wind, I was pushing it pretty hard just to stay in doulble digits for speed, my base miles spin turned quickly into a lactate threshold ride cause I could now hear the thunder, I've heard somewhere that if you SEE the lightning, it already missed you, but I'd rather not find out! got home in time to join the family on the front porch and guesstimate hail velocity and diameter...Sylvan Island on Sunday!!

Ramble on...

Got an e-mail from Bob Chase, a guide from the "Colorado Mountain School", he was a guide we had during a climbing trip in Boulder up the Flatirons, you could tell he loves what he does. Spends the summers in the northern hemispere in Estes Park, and the summers in the southern hemisphere in New Zealand...ENDLESS summer??? Going to have to find a way to do that too. Still riding a little on weeknights, during an interval session on Snake alley, I was attacked by these guys and did a fast trip around Boringtown, I think this is Dominics super secret training route for building power and speed, this is a FAST group, I took my usual place as the "lantern rouge" and held on. This weekend includes a couple hours of trail work in Dehns, all I need is .3 miles for an even five down there...

Back in the saddle again...

Busy weekend, Dr. Feelgood found not one but TWO nasties behind my ear, but due to the SIZE of the things he only sliced and diced one, left it OPEN, yuk, packed it with god knows what so it could drain... sweet. Going back in monday for some more cutting. On a lighter note I was jealous of everybody going to race in the Ouachita challenge I decided to have my own, did 50 miles of gravel on saturday almost a 4 hour ride, found a new route that follows the river bluff for awhile above Oakville, nothing but hills, then rode the wind home on the river bottoms, speaking of rivers spent Sunday morning "chilling" (pun intended) out on the Mississippi with the Mrs. and the Mutts, Sunny but a little cold, we sat on the sand and watched; PELICANS yup, big honking white pelicans by the hundreds, so many flying around that Mrs. Brakeville was worried they might poop on us (not the first time this sort of thing has happened). Did a couple laps down in Dehns afterwords, no mud, but REALLY spongy, made me work for every mile. Am I ready for Sylvan Island? NO...

Ouch

Getting a bit of surgery tomorrow, I might be growing a third ear, but the Dr. insists its a cyst. All I know is that its painful and has turned into an ugly(er) part of my head in the last week. I need to get a little digital camera. Photo's make the blog IMO. I'm hoping Geode is ridable this weekend, cause its either there or massive gravel miles. Wow what a medical month eh?

And now, for something completely different

Just didn't feel like riding, first day of spring, 4" of slush, too tired, i don't know. Thought, maybe do something different. How about running up and down the stairs at home while carrying my wifes "Denise Austin" padded dumbbells for an hour? Improvised some polymetrics by reducing the number of steps needed to get up the two flights of stairs from 20 to 5? Drive my two dogs absolutely friggin bonkers at the same time? Sounds great!! I was happy to outlast the mutts as they decided to lay down and watch after 20 minutes. I can still feel the effort today...I was thinking what a great downhill FREERIDE i could do from the attic to the basement but I'd catch some hell for that.

What am I DOING???

Stop the presses, Machine gun Midz has called me out and I've made my decision (gasp) I am going to (gulp) race in the EXPERT class this year. Let me tell you about the first MTB race I did. Year 2001, event Sugarbottom scramble, class SPORT. At the time I knew diddly about XC racing, it just sounded fun and never having done it before I thought, hell, I've been riding for three whole months now, I'm not really a beginner so I better sign up for the sport class (dumbass). 100 racers, 20 miles, exactly 1 lap on this course before I raced it. I finished 98th place, if I had drank any water during the race I would have puked, I had never experienced anything as difficult before (however 2004 farmdale frenzy race was a close second, buts thats another story) but the hook was in. There is ALWAYS a lot of hushed talk about who's sandbaggin or who should move up and whats fair, yada, yada, yada, thats always open to debate. But after reading some other postings around the web and being "on the fence" all winter in regards to sport/expert this year, I feel I've got to do whats right for me. And if that means I'm suckin wind behind the grand poobahs in the midwest so be it, like thats never happened before!! I've watched and compared lap times with guy's like PAMBA's Tony T. or Iowa's Cam K. and I'm giving up 4 minutes a lap in some cases, but I guess if you don't push yourself you won't improve, and when you get right down to it, when racing a MTB your "on your own", and your biggest competition is YOU. Thanks Midz, I needed something to light the fire this year.

Racing...again

Did the first DICE race of the season in the Quads sunday, its the Cody series. Mass start, which I kinda like anyway, at least I get to see the race until the first break! My burlington friends did very well, I noticed while checking my "stats" on the computer that I had finished pretty close to what I did this same race in last year, after going thru my training log, it was EXACTLY the same, same time, same ave. speed, everything.. don't know if that is good or bad. I guess I'm happy I didn't do worse this year, and once again ended up racing with my teamate and buddy $5 dollar Phil Curran. I don't know the proper roadie edicate but we worked together for a lap but on the last mile or so I kicked it up a notch on the last series of hills and pulled away...love ya Phil!! BACK to THE TRAINING SLACKER.

They're BAAAACK

Well what can I say, if at first you don't succeed...All that glitters is not...naw, at the very least i got to spend a couple of days at elevation, almost 14,000 ft. to be exact! How awesome are the Rockies? I didn't need a heart rate monitor as i figured it would pop out of my chest while hiking up Longs peak in RMP, i'm guessing I was at LT and max HR for about four hours Sunday, how 'bout that training lingo HUH. I won't use this forum to knock a state but DAMN, Nebraska is about 300 miles too wide, I think I may have the bird flu, cause the turds flew, and i'm still not feeling 100%, and that is the excuse I'll use this weekend at the races!!!!

I hate snot

STILL feeling poorly after a week, can't seem to shake this off. I don't know why we take antibiotics that don't work on viral infections, hell I'd settle for a placebo if i thought it would help MENTALLY, oh well, The MRS. and I have BIG doings this weekend, 1800 miles worth, we are both getting to that age when its time to decide if your going to work for the "man" till death or take a risk and strike out on your own, after reading Mike Howards blog, brought me back to just how much time over the course of my life I've spent in Dehn's woods doing the same type of kid stuff up to now doing the same type of "older kid" stuff. I'm not going to get into too much detail about our trip but i'll offer this "teaser", if you LOVE what your doing and your making money doing it, is it really work? I'd say its a once in a lifetime chance...nuff said. Wish us luck!!