Tour de Cape Ann

Great day in the saddle. The weather guys couldn't have gotten this day more wrong..Prediction was for rain starting early and lasting all day. Nope, just a warm super-humid, super-sweaty day. Jeff and I enjoyed an enormous shake-down ride incorporating every type of terrain the North Shore has to offer. Pretty rough on the steel hardtails through Mill st with super technical rocky rooty lines. Put the first few scratches in the powder coat of the new bike. Gotta get it over with on the first ride! After punishing our selves for an hour we hit the road for a coastal cruise to the flowing trails of Dogtown. Psyced to pedal to D.T. because I had never made the push all the way to Rockport on the mtb.

The steel bikes shined on these trails. Rocky, technical, flowing, small climbs, scary descents..dogtown was the best trails of the day. We then stretched out da legs a bit on 127 through Gloucester and Manchester over to Ancient Line and pulpit Rock...was awesome to open the legs up with so much road in between the hairy ass sections. By the time we hit up Ancient line we were just flying over the shit. Jeff had some bad luck with his fork locking up early in the day so he aired down his 2.20 Cortez' to get a bit more suspension under him. Good job rocking that ride with 20 mm of fork travel...and not one flat! Huge accomplishment on that ride.
The look of total satisfaction (and cold beer)

Quick review

Took her over to Bradley palmer for 75 minutes of smooth single track. Having a hard time wiping the smile off my face.








Have to make small adjustments; secure rear cable, tweak chain device, adj front derailuer. Made some on the trail adjustments. Cockpit feels spot-on ! Frame is flexible but in a good way, climbs like a billy-goat. Not fully impressed with the el-camino brakes, gave me trouble at Cohutta and today. In Tennessee I had trouble with both master cylinders not retracting after pulling the brakes for 90 miles...and today, while installing the rear wheel with the bike flipped over, one of the rear brake pads fell-out! No big deal on a casual ride but don't want that shit happening in a race. Two strikes Hayes, one to go then these brakes go.




Long, scary screech, (like fingernails down the chalk board screeching) noises from the middle finger of the Bontrager chain device. Noth'in a 3 mm can't handle but initial scraping was a bit alarming, thought the disc was slicing a hole in the frame.

Smack down

I have been slacking in the blog dept lately. It's been a busy week with work and bike related activities - of coarse :).

Wednesday night I rode with the fast group out'a Topsfield - man what a spirited ride! I thought I was in a race, well I guess I was! I prepped my legs Monday and Tuesday by riding conservative recovery rides on the road (30 min each) and went into Wednesday nervous, but knowing the golden legs were beneath me.
The ride started out quick in a paceline of 14 of us. By mile 10 it was on! Full-out, hang on or be dropped! Not knowing these guys or their road routes it was tough to judge where and when to lay it on the line so I played it conservative..or tried to. My strategy was short 20 sec pulls. I did go for a sprint I should have let fizzle - by the time I caught him my heart rate was in the 190's and I was seeing spots.
I liked the smack down! 36 miles of high intesity road riding with some good guys - no hold barred! On this night I held on, I am sure there will be night I am less fortunate.

The Igle-bike is back!!!! yeah yeah yeah!!! Mark at Western Cycle did the final tweeking on my ride yesterday.

and the before shot...

metallic cream soda blue, better than poop rust brown!

reminds me of the paint on my old super 8

The IgleBike is all set for a long epic with Jeff tomorrow. Going to try a new route for the Kahuna, this will be the Super Kahuna! Got just the tires for the Super-K...Kenda Cortez 2.20 super sticky.

Dual Bagger!

Spun s'more miles on my new-to-me road bike this weekend and got a better feel to how she handles and all that. Love the way it rides...just waiting for Brett to call and tell me he has changed his mind and wants his bike back..Not!
Met up with the CCB ride early Saturday morning. Was a smaller group than the past couple of weeks, but still about thirty of us started out of Topsfield. I'm getting familiar with CCB and the way things are done. Some of these guys have ridden with the group for decades so they all know each other well. Then there's me..The out sider.
The first 18 miles were pretty much a warm up and when we hit the river we split into two groups, a long and short. Long today was 65 miles. Thinking of what Jeff was attempting I wanted to go longer than long but 65 had to do for now. I took a quick look as to who was around for the long ride and was pleased to see some familiar faces and knew there would be opportunity for some good efforts up front as I recognized four or five strong riders.
An hour later we were moving along pretty well (I thought) when I heard a bunch of bitching and complaining out of the rear of the group. I was mid-pack and could hear someone three or four guys back making comments like, "is this a group ride or a race"..and , "what's the rush, we got all day." Led me to believe this person was working pretty hard. I still don't have a computer on my bike so I had no idea how hard we were going...but wasn't all that hard. So, out of the fourteen of us this guy was looking for support from his friends to slow the group down. The group did slow but five of us in the group wanted to ride our legs into the ground. Any time the pace increased to where we (the five of us) were happy, moans and complaints flowed up from behind. -That kinda sucked. I thought the five of us should just break away and ride, infact I asked a couple of the guys if they were interested in just that, but the Saturday ride was supposed to be a group ride and no one wanted to break tradition. I don't blame them.
At the end of the ride Neil (large human who has been ripping w CCB for lots of years) told me about the Wednesday night rides and how that should quench my thirst for fast road rides. I've probably just opened a can of whoop ass on myself but we'll see Wednesday night.

On a crappy note, The Topsfield Highland games have been cancelled for unknown reasons. Got the news today from Justin. Sorry Jeff, I know you've been practicing your hammer throw. Maybe we can get everyone together for a kilt cook out and throw hammers there?

But on a better note...this is stupid to mension but worked out perfectly. Lesli and I were driving the Willys around town today. We noticed lots of mowers on the curb...seemed like everyone and their mother was throwing out lawn mowers. (Can u "throw out" a mower?) Anyway, I've been stalling to buy two rear tires for my Ariens ride-on mower and there on the curb with a "free" sign was my exact model - 1980's (safety orange) Ariens mower! Sweet!
The motor was junk but grabbed it for the rear rubber and the best part...it had the dual bagger attachment and electric start! yeah! yeah! I've been push mowing for the past few weeks...not any more baby!

Good out weighs the bad

Take the good with the bad. That's my motto this week. First and foremost our basement is back to it's dry self...so nice to walk around down there in socks and not get soaked. Would not be surprised to see some'more puddles forming on the floor this a.m. b/c is pouring out once again.

I have accepted rain at this point and say, "bring it on!" Just please don't rain on May 28, the date of the best sporting event the North Shore of Boston has to offer! Stay tuned for men in kilts throwing rocks and sticks!

So I said "take the good with the bad" - first the Bad- My new hardtail is at the bottom of the powder coater's pile. It's been three weeks today and the frame continues to be coated with rust and not powder coat! Don't know what's up with this paint shop. I could just freak out and pick it up and give her a rattle-can paint job in my garage. No, I'll try to be more patient but I think there's something going on here that I am not getting.

Now the good news and the reason I say take the good with the bad. I was the lucky bastard to be at the right place at the right time last week. A friend of a friend heard I was riding around on a borrowed road bike that was a couple inches (or few cm) too big. This rich friend (Brett) decided it was time to clean out his garage and kick some gear to a worthy charity...me. Brett you rock!

58 cm '96 Merlin Extralight with Campy Record!
Who needs factory sponsorship with friends like this?

Been out every day this week getting dialed in to my new old school ride. The Campy shifters are my favorite part of this bike. Opposite from shimano so I keep dumping down when I want to push harder but I'll get accustomed to it soon - got no choice - with all the rain the trails are destroyed and oh, yeah - the powder coater is holding my mountain bike for ransom. I cannot complain about much. Just hope I remember how to ride in the woods when and if my Igleheart comes back to me.

got the squirts

We've been working around the clock to rid our basement of flood water but every time I turn around we spring another leak!

Mother's Day, aka, Mother Nature's day

It's astonishing that water continues to fall after 3 days of pouring rain. Just a deluge! Weather guys are talking 12 + plus inches since Friday!

My front yard has been transformed from a grassy field to a four foot deep canal and my basement has a river running through it!

Gus seems to like it.

Thankfully we have a walk-out basement the the water is seeking lower ground out the garage door. Many of our neighbors are totally screwed with a foot or more in their basements with no where for it to escape.

Jeff arrived bright and early for the CWE with trailbike ready to rip but first we made a trip to HD to grab a pump. Like fools we accually thought there would be a supply of sumps waiting to be purchased...nope! People were scrambling around the plumbing dept like ants in a colony buying up every last means to a drier cellar. "lets get outta here and go ride."

Lots of detours on the way home. The mighty Ipswich river had over-flowed its banks in Topsfield and rt 97 was closed...accually just about any road near any river was flooded. We returned to my little piece of hell to discover the river was taking care of it self, draining out the garage. Thankfully Lesli and I thought ahead last week and removed the rugs and all our possessions to higher ground.

Now on to the CWE!

dude! pull up your pants!

We suited up like never before. Four layers starting with my 1mm neoprene scuba dive vest w hood. Never did I think I'd be wearing the chicken suit riding but just made sense considering it was 45 degrees and pouring.

Jeff was clad in four or five layers of pada-gucci and ready to take on mother nature on mother's day.

Would have been great to bring the digi cam, but way too wet for any electronics today. We decided to start close and peddled to Bradley Palmer. Water crossings were ridiculously deep. I knew immediately that the VT would need a total rebuild after today. We were like little kids playing in the water.

BP and Willowdale are a maze of fast fireroads., all about big speed and careening into three and four foot deep rivers. Wish I had a movie camera for one particular crossing...no idea how deep this pond in the middle of the trail was going to be, just held on and crashed it to the water. I was soon up to my handlebars and still peddling...A wave developed in front of my bike and I was still pushing the pedals, the water swelled in front of me and created a wall of water pushing for me. Up to the bars in water still moving toward the other side of the pond! Made it to the other side to stop and watch Jeff splash in and through.

I will not soon forget our CWE...even though turned out to be just over two hours of spinning before I tore off my derailuer hanger. Oh well, didn't make it too far from home but it sure did feel like an epic.

CWE

Cold Wet Epic! - you know your addiction to mountain biking is serious when your psyched to ride 5 hours in the pouring rain. Sunday comes 'round but once a week and you got to roll with what mother nature throws at you.
Got an epic loop in mind to ride some trails that can take the heavy rains with little impact. Should be a ride to remember. (similar to D's birthday ride at Shawnee Peak a few years back) First step in the plan is to ride 10 miles of road out to Manchester to be sure Jeff and I have the correct level of "swamp ass". Mantra of the ride will surely be 'keep it rollin'.

Playing a waiting game with the powder coater. It's been two full weeks since dropping off the Iglebike for some color...Anxiously awaiting the finished product. Hoping I picked a good color.

High Tide

water front property

Too bad I sold my kyak.

no worries about the huge-ass Gas-guzzl'in Dodge 2500, it's my nieghbor's

The forecast does not bode well, rain showers predicted for 8 out of the next ten days. Getting plenty of exercise running all our belongings up stairs while preparing for soggy conditions in our basement.

10-Day Forecast

High /

Low (°F) Precip. %

Today
May 10 Showers 52°/48° 40 %
Thu
May 11 Cloudy 56°/47° 10 %
Fri
May 12 Few Showers 54°/48° 30 %
Sat
May 13 Few Showers 54°/46° 30 %
Sun
May 14 Cloudy 53°/45° 10 %
Mon
May 15 Showers 58°/48° 30 %
Tue
May 16 Showers 63°/49° 30 %
Wed
May 17 Showers 65°/49° 60 %
Thu
May 18 Showers 63°/49° 60 %
Fri
May 19 Showers 62°/49° 60 %
Last Updated May 10 09:11 a.m. ET

Lesson learned

Saturday, 7:30 start
plan was to go hard for two and a half hours on the road then get some yard work done.
MP3 player rock'in for the first time in over a month - lovin the tunes.
2 bottles of HEED on frame, no camel back (trying just bottles as an experiment)
few hammer shots in pocket, along with tools and tubes

8:47 a.m. rolling trough Topsfield, know there's a Large CCB group ride going off at 9:00
Quickly call wife to see what I'd be blowing off if I were to go with them
Smiled as she told me to have fun with the group
Start at way back of pack of fifty riders, talking with everyone
big fun, sun shining, deep blue sky.

17 miles into ride, I'm working hard with guys up front.
not alot of talking, but some.
some Ego's bigger than others,
sprint develops, I go for the sprint and catch it
legs feel strong.

Merrimac River bridge @ mile 18, group breaks up into 3 rides of varied distances
I stick with the veteran CCB guys who have been hammering
There are 12 of us now out for 65 miles of their hilliest route
having a great time, chatting it up and meeting new riders.

plan now changed, new goal today was to put in HUGE effort and see how legs felt at end
pulled the group every chance I got
made some rookie mistakes but nothing dangerous
enjoying the experience of riding with veteran roadies and had respect for them.

20 miles to go, everyone was working
people were being dropped
I had HEED all over my face, hands, and brake levers
this was now a race.

8 riders remaining in paceline
continued to work hard on hills and push pace every chance I got
barely hanging on at some points

roll back into Topsfield and thanked the group for a damn nice ride.
took a quick left on to route 97 and pedal six miles home.
within 2 miles realize I am completely screwed.
legs burning, no liquid remaining - ran out long ago.

limped into my neighborhood
struggled to get in house
made 2 recovery drinks and headed for patio
sat down to stretch legs and drink fluids

slowly moved from stretching position to fetal position
lied on my right side with knees tucked for twenty minutes
head was f'n POUNDING
willing my self to puke, but didn't

why am I this messed up
dummy, you ran out of fluid well over an hour ago
my bottle-only experiment had put a hurt'n on me.
would have worked for a 50 mile spin, didn't expect to do 90 miles.
next time stick to camel back with heed in bottle.

Hump day is history!

Over the Hump! Man I cannot wait for this dreary week to be done. It's gotta get better from here on out! Finished up with a major thorn in my side today at work, but wouldn't be surprised if I am reinvolved in the situation tomorrow. Let's just say everyone should back-up their important docs, data, pics, music, addresses...you know, shit you don't want lost..it's worth the $100 usb or fire-wire external drive!

On a positive note - This could be the year packed with 100 mile races. Gotta go with what feels right and 100 miles of dirt feels soo right! Signed up for the Mohican and will roll out June 2nd (four weeks, woo hoo!) to Ohio with Jeff and a few others for some good times on what sounds like an epic loop.

Kinda lost with out a Hardtail...Igleheart frame went to the powder coater Friday and won't be back for 2-3 weeks :( (just in time for Mohican) :) Waking up and ripping an hour loop through local trails is nothing but pure therapy and is a great way to start any day. Just not the same on a 31 pound fully with 6 inches of travel...not that the weather has cooperated this week...yet.
I can't say enough kind words about Christopher Igleheart. He created this custom ride in just a few weeks. I had a few minor issues with the frame..you can see that I used electrical tape to secure the brake hose from tapping on the top tube for 8 hours durring the cohutta..Christopher silver soldered on another hose mount. I also had some chain suck because of rain and mud, he soldered on mounts for a stainless anti-suck device (nice old-school detail). When I returned after the couple new additions to the frame, I noticed had polished all the stainless details, head badge, seat binder, head tube rings. This guy has got big pride in what he loves to do and does it better than anybody I have seen. You probably can't tell this frame is a work of art because it was such a damn mess in this picture.



The rain up here in Boston has put a damper on riding since Monday but is nothing compared to the torrential down-pours that tore up Iowa and subsequently turned roads and trails to quick sand for the poor bastards competing in Trans Iowa. JB had a good write up with links. I Feel for the people that trained for months only to get shit weather for their efforts.

Congrats Mom and Dad on your new purchase..traded in their camp trailer for a bigger and better version. Glad to see you guys enjoy roughing it on the weekends (yeah right!) with the bare essentials. Lesli and I will be up soon to help break it in!

what does "it " mean?

When I think about great rides, one comes to mind before all others.

Eleven plus hours of ride / hike a bike.

This movie was shot atop Middle Moat and depicts our ride route, looking first to White Horse

Ledge, over the Conway valley toward Kearsage and Cranmore, Black cap and a few others.

As my shakey hand pans right and the movie stops what do you see...?

do you see it??

is that a hard tail? On an EBDB?

who would have ridden that?

That's right... Wraith.

That was EBDB

Can we stop the pissing and RIDE?

Eleven hour weekend

Timing was right this weekend to spend huge hours on the saddle. Saturday morning was all about getting schooled by the over-fifty crowd of CCB. Got a bunch of road pointers and coaching of mostly what not to do on a large group ride. I've said it before but I'll say it again..road is much different than mountain. With road you want to stay close and work as a team...with mountain you want to stay far because you never know when the other guy is going to veer into your path to hit some air. I learned allot in the four hours we were out and look forward to learning more this wednesday on the hammerhead ride.

On to Sunday, and the epic that was almost over before it began. Jeff showed as planned, early and with trail bike. Would have been better if said trail bike was in working order.Fixed up the main pivot on Jeff's NRS but could not overcome the fact that he had no headset race on his newly installed fork...good thing that we started early and had all day to screw around.

Fastforward an hour - Jeff's back from his dash to Medf'a and on his I.F. and I on my dually. We roll out the four miles of pavement on our way to hours of rocky technical single track (what I consider to be Epic Black Diamond Biking)

Once on the trail, tension and stress levels now non-existent. We jump the guard rail at Gordon and flow on the thin dirt ribbon of trail...Snap!

At least we now know that Jeff's carbon rail saddle was not trail-rated...keep 'em on your road bike boys.

Now what? Tension now back..Aggravation growing. Trying to keep cool...do we ride back to my house and repair?

Nope, Barry to the rescue. Brought down a seat on his way to play ball with son Matthew. You da man!

We roll on for hours, problem free from there on out. Jeff got a chance to further acquaint himself with the new steel deluxe, riding some technical trail for the first time.

Sun was shining and temps warming up. Tore up ancient line, G Spot, Res Dog, Red Rock and met up with Barry on the backside of B+T's. Once again Barry proved that he was the man! by bringing lunch for Jeff and I.

Barry just could not help himself to the drops..Broken ribs and all.

Bridge with lots of thorn bushes to fall into if you veer off coarse..Would've been nice to have a helmet cam with sound so you could hear my frightened noises.

Doesn't get better than today, even with the amount of broken parts.

Weekend

I skipped beers at the shop this Friday opting to get home before the sun dipped to replace my car's rear brakes. I was certain that Jeff and I would be doing an emergency brake job on the side of the highway driving back from cohutta last Sunday. Lets just say we had to think ahead (way ahead) while exiting the highway because the brakes were non-existent. Well, problem solved.
My neighbor Harvey (an obsessed road biker ((the best kind)) for the past couple decades) has invited me on a group ride with a local road club early tomorrow morning. Harvey is a great guy, asked to see my road bike because he knows from last ride that I have it set-up all wrong, my defense.."I'm a mountain biker! What do I know about road bikes?" The bars are rolled down too far and the brake hoods are in the wrong position and the saddle is all wrong. Harvey disappeared across the street for a few minutes and reappeared with a shopping bag full of road goodies for my borrowed Buenos Aires. Thanks Justin, but we made some more changes.
The road ride tomorrow will be excellent but I am JACKED for the epic mountain bike ride Jeff and I have planned for Sunday. I drove the Igleheart frame to the powder-coater today so I'm left with the VT for the double Kahuna we've got planned. I have ridden a hardtail (cannondale and Igleheart) so often for the past few months, it's a change of pace to go back to a 6 inch travel dual squishy. Time to jump off shit!

Long race, long race report...

Good times in Duckville Tennessee this weekend. Cohutta was a rip!
This was the kick off to a good year and the reason for training all winter...that and I like to ride in 20 degree weather! The bad part...we had to drive 1100 miles to get our ride on. Jeff and I left Thursday at high noon, hit four or five gas stations and a Shoney's along the way.

Reached Ocoee Whitewater center Friday around 5:00pm to check-in for the race and prepare our drop-bags for the next day. Drop bags were a great idea - riders got three of them and could leave them at any of the six pit-stops along the course. Pit-stops (or sag's) were every 15 miles, loaded with water and heed and the usual gummy bears and m+m's but the drop-bag idea gave competitors the chance to not only place a fuel of choice in the one gallon bag - but also place that bag at the sag of their choice...Brilliant! I chose to fill each of my bags with Perpetuem, bagel, banana, hammer gels and Ibuprophan and placed them at sag 45, 60 and 75.

With the important task of checking-in completed, we hit up some of the trails near Ocoee to shake out our well rested legs. Trails were in great shape - perfect single tracks winding around 4000 ft. peaks, great flow, banked turns, no grunting climbs...this was going to be a FAST race!
Shake-down ride complete, it was time to settle in for the night and eat our weight in Chicken parm. Thanks again to Harvey for the lavish accommodations. I'm accustom to a camp tent and sleeping bag on the night before a race...maybe that was the secret to success at cohutta.

Race began at 7am. A short 2 mile climb up the paved road from Ocoee and we turned in to the woods for 90 minutes of roller-coaster single track. On the trail for just a few minutes I realized my handlebar was loose..Jeff was kind enough to hand off his multi tool out of his jersey pocket. I stopped to tighten the pinch bolt and scrambled to catch up...perfect timing because the main group (including Jeff) turned the wrong way on a road due to confusing cones on the trail..when I was catching up to the group they were coming right at me. I just stood there and handed off the multi tool back to Jeff..I was relieved that I hadn't affected his ride because of my stupidity.

We came out of the single track on a stretch of rolling gravel that we would spend the next six hours. The weather turned ugly and it started to pour. Riding along with three other dudes at this point. We all seemed to be pushing at the same intensity so we teamed up and formed a paceline and attempted to catch the lead group that was just out of sight. The four of us stayed tight for half an hour to widen a big gap from the racers behind us but never saw the lead group. Two of the guys decided to peel off from our group and were dropped. It was just me and a guy named Alex from Michigan. We cranked side by side up and down the gravel road, but nature soon called (in a big way) and I had to stop for a pee break...if only I could master peeing on the bike! That is the true sign of a seasoned racer! Alright, enough about peeing, I was now alone pushing to find Alex or wait till HE had to pee, but he never did. Maybe he's a seasoned racer?

Came upon pit 3 at mile 45, the rain has stopped but now riding in thick fog. Chatted with Namrita who was volunteering at sag 3 while I stuffed my face full of banana. She told me the lead group (including Jeff and Hendershot) were 10 minutes ahead. I really didn't think it was possible, or a good idea to catch them and try to hang at their pace because I would surely blow-up. Headed out of sag 3 feeling good.

Looking through the fog a while later saw another human on the trail..shit, it was Jeff having technical problems with his ride. Broken chain. He had been riding such a fine race that I felt for that brother. Stopped and busted out the park chain tool and paid Jeff back for helping me with my loose bars earlier. We headed out after the repair, nice to be riding with my compadre' Jeff but odd because it had never happened in a race before. Not that we were now racing each other...just riding together fast! Jeff was clearly pissed about having the chain trouble and losing time...we rode together for what seemed like twenty minutes and Jeff made an effort to bridge to the lead group. Before he made his sprint I wished him good luck.

Alone again, sun now coming out, unzipped my jersey and let my pasty white chest show to the passing trucks on the Cherokee wilderness road. Truck and camper traffic on these roads made the fast gravel descents interesting. Played leap frog with a family in an old F150 pulling a pop-up trailer. They'd pass me on a climb and then I would pass on the decent, then be stuck breathing their fumes on the next climb. Went on for a few miles, I don't know if they knew there was a race in progress - think they just thought I was some kind of freak racing them on my bike.

The guys at pit four may have saved my race. The guy had a can of aerosol lube and without me saying anything grabbed my bike and lubed my drivetrain. Sweet! The other two (who were each about 12 and 14 years old) filled my bottle and handed over my drop-bag. I ate the advil and banana but nothing else. The perpeteum I'd been sucking on the last 60 miles was working it's magic.



Full sunshine now, hammering the climbs and descents. Looking down at my bare - steel frame covered in surface rust from the a.m. showers. I just laughed and tried to pick a color in my mind to powder coat her when I got back...I'm thinking lollipop blue.

Then I caught a glimpse of Jeff up ahead. It had been a while since He'd made his attempt at the lead group. Things didn't go as planned and Jeff was in the pain cave. Never good to see a close friend in the cave but Jeffrey is a tough dude and found a way to work through his bonk.

The end of the race I paid a visit to the cave. The last 12 miles was on the rolling single track that we'd begun the race 8 hours earlier. I knew this was it and didn't want to be passed in the final few miles by someone sneaking up from way back. Gulped down some calories and mashed the pedals till it was all over. Ended up in 7th place overall at around 8h 24m. Jeff recovered nicely in 8th place 6 minutes behind me.

The top ten skinny white men

freak'in

T minus six hours till lift off. The last 36 hours have been a mad scramble..build the bike, ride bike, make changes, tweek, change, ride, tweek. Think I've finally got the new steel rig set. She's a beauty! Loads of detail. Can't really tell... till she gets paint! Hope it doesn't rain too hard down in Georgia!
The new bike rocks! Just not familiar with it's riding characteristics yet..nothin a ten hour race can't cure! Loads of detail on the the new Igleheart frame; Silver-soldered polished stainless seat binder (say that 10 times fast), Love the stainless eye on the head badge! Nice burley gussets at the head tube and BB.
Soo much to do and soo little time..gotta pack, go shopping for food, get an oil change, go to the shop for last minute things...meet Jeff at noon...I'm screwed!

vacation = lots of hours

Vacation is over. :( Weather was gorgeous all week. Got an enormous amount of quality saddle time..Biggest week all year. Shot out on the road early yesterday to meet up with Barry. We spun around Ipswich neck and along the coast for twenty miles. Barry had some family commitments for the afternoon so I was solo up to Newburyport.
Somewhere around thirty miles into the ride I met up with another biker heading to Andover..we chatted it up for twenty minutes while rolling down some back road in West Newbury. I didn't ask the rider's name, told me he's a bike commuter that lived in Andover and commuted to Boston regularly. nice long commute! 35 miles each way!
First time I'd engaged a stranger in conversation on the road. Very cool to be rolling down a country road, glide up to a complete stranger and talk bikes. I know, could go all wrong with the freak factor..but if things did go wrong just sprint out'a there, right?
In all a great road bike Saturday, covered ground all over the north shore...think I rode through every town infact. 4 hours on the ride for ?? miles. Been in the habit this week of leaving all electronic gadgets at home, no gps, mp3, hrm, nothin but a watch.

The new steel rig is not quite done yet. Stopped by Iglehearts shop Saturday to check progress, He received the seat stays and was going to cut and weld them on the frame Sunday, bike will be done Monday! Paint however...will not. Who needs paint anyway?

Rebuilt the Fox F100x last evening.. Extremely easy rebuild. Required alot of different tools and a few specialty fox lubes (fully synthetic 80w oil? who owns this...thanks Mark from the shop! you saved my ride) but Enduro puts out a .PDF illustrated instruction manual that's easy to follow. I guess high performance = high maintenance.

Rode the hardtail early this morning on the freshly rebuilt fork...Was the ballz! No oil leaks..not even a drop!

Here's the buzz

Vacation week has been extremely relaxing. I have left the computer alone for the most part. Hell, I even shut off my phone - Now if that isn't relaxing I don't know what is!
Gotten a bunch done on the house. Had to finish scraping and sanding the final side of our ranch and paint her up. I have found that it's a great time of year to paint the house, not too hot and the wasps and bees aren't buzzing around quite yet. Although there are a few bees buzzing around. I have determined that I am afraid of stinging insect's, particularly when trapped high on a ladder. Got my "adrenaline fix" yesterday...When hammering on the skirt boards of my roof yesterday I paused because of strange noises. Sounded like an airplane taking off, no, more like hundreds of carpenter bees trapped in my attic franticly boring their way to the sound of my hammer! Every tap enraged the bees trapped behind the wall. Hurriedly I repaired the skirt board before the bees could find daylight. Too late..One big fat sucker squeezed his fat butt through the trim and clap boards.."ugly mother!" I shouted and I flew down the ladder. Got to find a way to kill those carpenter bees before they eat a hole in our house.
Today would have been the day to brush on the final coat but looks like rain this morning. Can't complain about that- weather has been outstanding.

Had a good mix of trail, xc and road riding this week. Hit the road for a few hours yesterday and ripped a loop through Manchester, Around Cape Ann and back through Ipswich. Beauty of an afternoon! I was looking to go out at the hottest point of the day to acclimate my self to warm weather..Didn't quite work though - the sea breeze off the ocean kept temps in the mid 50"s.

Going to visit Christopher today and see what progress he has made on my new steel rig. It's a 50/50 that I'll be riding her down south next week. Christopher had some problems with bending the seat stays so he ordered pre-bent stays...if he can't get'er done (love saying that) by Monday and off to the powder coater I may be building her on Wednesday night. Talk about cutting it close!

Anyone know about plant species? 6 feet tall with leather thick leaves.

too muddy for the trails

Woke early to rain and gray skies. Trails are a mess from the past few days of rain so the road bike made the most sense today. Lesli had a few appointments set-up for late morning and early afternoon so that gave me about 4 hours to link up some roads through Boxford and points north west. Made the mistake of heading through Haverhill again..when will I learn? Roads are shit and that city is just too busy for continuous spinning. When I left home at 10:30 a.m. my plan was to ride to Haverhill, cross the Merrimac river and head up to Plastow NH and then over to Aimsbury. That would have put the ride in the neighborhood of around 80 miles. Don't know why I didn't cross the Mighty Merrimac? Just wasn't having a good time in Haverhill and kinda freaked out..was thinking too much about the weather, if it was going to rain or not...just pussed out.
I did how ever have a good ride. Turned out to be 2.5 hours, 49.8 miles....Should have gone to Plastow. Next time I guess. I blame it on the weather.
Dropped my GPS in the middle of the street 17 miles into the ride. I quickly turned around and darted for it, lady in a mini van almost squwashed it. I had been keeping the GPS in my jersey pocket, taking it out at intersections for reference, basically a pain in the butt. I had just enough duct tape to rip into two long 1/8th inch wide strips and lash to my stem. Worked out much better to look at the screen while riding, making decisions before I hit the intersections...what a concept...planning BEFORE I need to react! JB and his blog gave me the idea of mounting it on my bars but didn't actually do it till I needed to. I just never learn, - won't change till I am forced too. I'll look into that Garmin bar mount instead of relying on the duct tape...Although it did work great in a pinch but would be pretty cheesy if I were to do it every time.
I am on Vacation for a week after tomorrow. Need to work around the house and paint the final side of our house. The neighbors have been hinting about our multi-colored crib since last October. But as for Tomorrow, grabbed an overtime shift at work but wished I hadn't. Saw my neighbor (Harvey) who is a die-hard roadie. He invited me on a ccb ride out of Topsfield tomorrow morning. Bummer - would have been great to ride with a large group and learn their routes. Oh well, gatto pay for my new ride some how!
Man, I am talkative tonight..just got lots to say I guess. One last thing. I need to talk to Brad about a road ride I'm planning for Wed and Thurs of my vacation week. I am spinning your way for a two day, 200 mile road loop. Save me a bed Wednesday night, I'll bring the beer.

ahhh...Friday!

It's good to see Daren is using his new computer and battling it out with Blogger.com. I know you can solve this p/w problem, question is do I want you commenting on everything I do and say? Yes, It'll be fun. The computer seems to be winning at this point but I know you'll prevail brother! Blogging is right up your alley - you have a lot of good ideas and strong opinions.

Had some caffeine with Christopher at his shop bright and early this morning. He got a bunch more done on my ride yesterday. The BB junction looks phenomenal!

This bike rocks! I didn't think I'd ever get so excited about a hardtail. I had given up on hardtails back 6 years ago when I sold my beloved I.F. for a Santa Cruz bullet. (Ahh, the quality of a 1 mega pixel camera from the year 1999).

rear stays were shortened from 16.75 inches down to around 16.625 inches. Man I wish every one used the metric system then I could just say they were shortened to 42.2 cm..I guess equally confusing. Anyway, the front end will be easy to pick up and wheelie off rocks.

Love these drop-outs now that Christopher has welded and blended them with the chainstays. Next up...Seat stays!


Christopher still has some work ahead on this build, but almost in the home stretch! When I left he was bending the seatstays and fitting them to the backend of the frame.

I know what my wife lesli is thinking...it's just a bike?


Anyway, My friends Mark and Julie are equally excited (if not more, duh?) about the birth of their first child coming early next week. Just shot an email out to Dirks down in Tennessee to see how Jules is doing and the due date is Monday. Good luck and we'll be thinking of you.

Also thinking about Mr Whittingham as he'll undoubtedly kick ass at the sea otter classic on the west coast. That dude has spent almost as much time on a plane this week as on the saddle. Good luck to you Jeff and bring home gold! Or golden legs for the cohutta in two weeks.

Almost beer time.