Wayne and Garth said it best...

I'm not worthy!

The waiting game is over and thankfully the building of this race bike is too. I am blown away with the outcome and feel empowered with my new trail weapon. I don't know if I am worthy of such artwork for a bicycle but will certainly put my best in racing this red and black missile.

Big thanks go out to the creator of this shiny new rig, Christopher Igleheart. I've seen plenty of bikes brought to life in his studio and this is by far my favorite and I'm happy to say that it's mine and I'm going to ride the hell out of it.

Possibly with a 29er up front if I have the go-nads to race her with a rigid front end which I don't plan on, well maybe just once.

Big thanks go out to Bill and Ant at Western cycle for helping put the finishing touches on this ride. Two things I hate to do...bleed brakes and tweak front derailleurs. Thanks guys.

Now it's off to the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in San Jose California before I get a chance to ride it on the trails. Probably a good thing considering the salt, mud and muck on the trails right now. Maybe it'll even win a prise..who knows.

Ice Ride !

I can't remember the last time conditions in the woods were like this. A thick hard crust atop a few inches of snow. Unbelievable traction (with studs) but scary as hell!

February to me

It's cold and icy,
and the riding is dicey.
We long for tropical vacations-
but they're so damn pricey!

when temperatures rose the snow went fizzle -
instead of fluffy white powder we got all drizzle.
I had to clear the ice with a cold chisel.

The night before it froze solid as steel,
I was using my snow blower when it let out a squeal!
The sound not good, the situation less than ideal...

I quickly reached for the throttle,
but it was though I'd uncorked a Champagne bottle,
oil spewed from the machine,
like Kenny D when he ruptured his spleen.

now I got no blower, snow removal will be much slower.
alas, I didn't break my windshield glass!

Jay Winter Race

kickstart my wimpness

Winter is finally here in the north east. We have not seen temps above 27 degrees in over a week, thus I've lost my ambition to ride early mornings. A few of us (Sean, Igleheart and me)had a long run of tues and fri 7a.m. rides but it didn't happen this week due to the cold. Hoping this saddle hiatus will strengthen my will to get out side this weekend. Still on the fence weather or not to do the Jay winter thing. No excuses really not to do it..I got the gear to keep warm, got a place to stay, conditions seem piss'a, George has graciously kicked me down a very suitable bike for the epic, just waiting to hear if I can change around work schedules with my colleague for weekend duties at the airport. The real challenge would be waking early Sunday morning to drive from northern Vermont to go to work. bla bla bla.

OK, I'm in.

Exile !

I feel the need to pay homage to Brad and his Jamis Exile. He conveniently left it at my house for future use for when he is around my neck of the woods...turns out that was a good plan Bev. It has provided me many a good morning ride in the near-by patch of woods since my race bike has been off getting a make-over.
I've been in major purge mode the past couple few weeks selling anything and everything on ebay. Out with the old and in with the new! Shocked at some of the prices that used bike parts can fetch on the open market. Ebay is king. I'm trying my hardest to minimize my spare parts and maybe help out someone along the way. It's tough to part with some of my most coveted components but this stuff doesn't last forever...might as well sell it while it's still worth something and ride the current technology..and new bling doesn't hurt either.
Thanks to the guys at Western Cycle for your help ordering all my race schwag and pahts. Could not have built a race bike with out Jamie's support...that or I'd be in the poor house eating rice and beans every night...oh wait, I DO eat rice and beans every night.
So as you might be able to guess the frame isn't back from the painter yet...I'm hoping next week. What exactly will "painter's choice" look like? I have no idea.

switch to coil springs?

Seems that I've got a mystery on my hands that requires a scientific explanation and so far I am a little clueless. Realizing that cold weather affects air density making it less dense, particularly under high pressure like in a fork or shock. But some shocks seem more susceptible to loosing air in frigid temps than others...and once the air is lost you can't just pump it back up? actually under some circumstances a pump will still read high pressure when the shock or fork is totally collapsed? Very strange indeed...that's where the mystery lies and why I need help from the science savvy skills of the Myth Busters or at least Beekman's world to explain what happens to render them bunk.
Take for instance last weekend. Large group leaving the lot for what will undoubtedly be the best three hours in the entire weekend and blam! Lou's shock looses all of it's cush. Hell, it was worse than that, it collapsed like the positive air chamber leaked into the neg chamber and sucked the shock in on it self. It sucked to be Lou. We tried putting excessive air into the pos chamber (200psi) and the shaft didn't budge. Just stayed bottomed..and come to think of it, I think there was only one chamber you could adjust air volume!
wow, maybe I just talked my self through this nonsense. Is a large volume of high pressure air in the pos chamber slowly leaking into the very small volume neg chamber and sucking the whole thing closed? Lou said that this same thing had happened to him last week and the shock company (to remain nameless) sent him a replacement.
My thoughts on this...well it sucks...Literally! I don't think it's a good idea to ride my dual air bike tomorrow cause it's going to be 9 degrees at seven a.m. Although with this theory in mind you can reverse the over-inflated (small volume) neg chamber if the shock or fork has an adjustable neg air chamber...unless the seal just blows under the pressure...but then it'l just go back into the pos chamber leaving all the spv'ness (pedal bob characteristic) gone and it'l be like your riding back in the day on your '96 Pro-flex all over again! Oh yeah, hope there's people out there that remember that bike! She's a beauty.What prompted me to think about this was Christopher just called asking why his fork is dead and the pump is reading 150 psi...Put on one of your rigid forks for tomorrow Igleheart, it's going to be a bumpy ride! I think I'll take Brad's hardtail out for tomorrow's loop.

One inch surprise

Almost forgot what it's like to slip around on the trails. Don't know if the whopping one inch of white stuff was predicted but Barry and I enjoyed the change of scenery and the added challenge the dusting provided.

epic exhaustion

Exuding satisfaction is a fine way to describe this past weekend's ride. Displaying a mile -wide smile as i exited the technical and rocky terrain of B+T's yesterday and proceeded to collapse out'a sheer exhaustion. The good'ol legs haven't pumped for 5 hours in quite some time. I was a dope to bring only 40 ounces of H20 and ZERO calories in the way of bars or goo. Bonked?.. no not really... Just exhausted. I literally fell off my bike on the final climb of the day. Too tired to step off the pedals after climbing 2/3 of the way up the frozen hill and knowing I was clad in plastic with all the protection of the many pads along with a full faced helmet. I simply rolled to my right and let gravity pull me to the ground when I ran out of go-go juice on the steep climb.
It was a special day of riding from many aspects. It was the first, of what will undoubtedly be numerous epic rides on the remedy. The new trail bike rode flawlessly. Nothing to complain about, many praises for the dually. The fork and rear shock provided a plush ride and took some abuse with some big drops and a couple hucks...I hate hucks btw, but when riding with Roger and Barry hucks are mandatory.
After Barry went home for some family time Roger and I met up with Tom, Mary, Jim, Skip, Lou, and Matt for another loop around the new trails at B+T's. Pretty stellar group if 8 people can ride those trails with out a trail side technical or flat. Although when examining my bike for damage this morning I did have a rear flat...at 23 degree yesterday what temp does stan's sealant freeze?

Chain stay challenged

Haven't had a chance to get it out on the trails but it's built. Tonight will be it's maiden voyage. Pretty stoked to have the opportunity to buy a new trail rig this season...pushing around this welter-weight might even be good training for enduro's.
I have noticed a couple oddities with the frame as I assembled it the other night. Thought it was me, or the way I was looking at things. Maybe a bit slanted... It was late, I was beat so I put down the wrench and went to bed...woke up this morning to have another look at a possible clearance issue with the chainstay.
The remedy came with 2.35 tires but the bike was designed to fit a bigger tire.
This is where the problem lies...on the drive side the tire has only an eighth of an inch of clearance but on the non-drive side the clearance is three quarters of an inch? I removed the tire and put the wheel in my true stand to hopefully find that the wheel was just out of dish but it's balls on...? Weird. Maybe I am simply chain-stay challenged?...my Igleheart had some clearance issues last year...but that has been corrected with some new wider stays (that bike will be off to paint today and should be back in two or three weeks) I'm pretty confident that Trek will come up with a fix for the problem. Till then I'll run a 2.1 tire out back and wait for a new stay...hell if my local custom frame builder can correct a similar dilemma than Trek should have no problem...right?

Update:
New wheel and tire mounted (George you should recognize both. It's YOUR mavic XL and specialized eduro 2.4) and the tire is almost hitting on the non drive side. Wheel is perfectly dished. I'll just run a 2.1 and hopefully trek will address the issue at some point. I don't plan on hounding them as a 2.1 or 2.25 is fat enough for trail riding but when Highland opens back up I want to have s'more meat on the bottom...I need all the help I can get to keep up with Greely :) It may take them sometime to revise the chain stay but doubt they'll ignore the limitation.

Vietnam

Raw and rainy is better than cold and snowy in January...if you ask any mountainbiker, skiers would not agree. Got out with Barry and George down in Milford Mass. They call it Vietnam but don't know why. Barry said it's because back in the 70's and 80's the area of woods presently known as Vietnam (Nemba) was littered with burned-out jeeps and scattered debris. The junk is gone and some sweet single track has been created in it's place, stunts to play on too.

She is here

Welcome Sophia! Congrats to Jeanie and my brother Matthew on the birth of a beautiful baby girl on 1/13/07. Everyone is doing fine. They were scheduled to come home today so my brother is probably changing diapers as I type on the keyboard! Way to go.

parts are in!

This time of year rocks. Especially this year cause the weather has allowed us crazy bike minded people to do what we do in relative comfort...so far. Anyway, This post isn't about weather...it's about preparations for the 2007 ultra mtb series and building a race bike.
All the parts are in my treasure chest here to build up a pretty stout racer. Just waiting on Christopher to put the finishing touches on my ride. The frame went in for repair a few weeks back and Christopher has gone above and beyond fixing her up. I was in the shop the other night having a cpl adult beverages with the craftsman and he thought it might be a good idea to weld some more stainless steel uniqueness into my frame. I'm stoked to see the final product. Should be done this week then off to the painter for a couple more weeks. This might be good because the snow will certainly fall by that time I take delivery and won't be able to beat her up too bad before the first race!

Remedy

Remedy ('re-m&-dE) [noun] meaning;
1 something that corrects, counteracts or removes an evil of any kind.
2 My new trail bike

The freakish warm weather we've received has sped up preparations for spring riding. My local bike shop becoming a Trek dealer didn't hurt either. To be perfectly honest I had not considered a trek before the behemoth brand came to Western Cycle but glad Jamie now sells them. I'd always had a sense that Trek churned out thousands of soul-less bikes to the masses... this may not be entirely true. I Demo'd this red beauty pictured above for a couple days last week, then ordered my own 2007 remedy 66.

A quick review of what I thought of the bike;

It rode exceptionally well. Very active rear suspension = not a great climber but hell, this is a fun machine not a racer. Point this "all mountain" bike down hill and hold on. Fun through the rock gardens and aggressive lines. I was most impressed with how little lateral movement the rear swayed taking into account it's pretty massive rocker link.

Happy to see that Trek outfitted the Remedy 66 with a spot on build. Sram x9 and x0 drivetrain, xt cranks, and a Fox 36 Talas front end. I don't know much about the Bontrager Rhythm elite wheel set, but the beauty of buying a high end bike from a giant company is knowing they'll pick up the repair tab if their parts fail prematurely.

Here's a movie of me playing on a horse jump, checking out the BB clearance and testing the plushness of the nixon and swinger 3 way.

I see that Dave Alden Demo'd the Remedy for Dirt Rag. Read up if you'd like. He did a more complete job of reviewing and explaining the technology that Trek put into this ride.

One down, three sixty-four to go.

For 2007 I am going to adopt a daily rating system for each day I choose to blog some nonsense. Ratings will be on a scale of 1 to 5...today was a five.
This was something to Cherish... A rainy Monday holiday. Lesli and I off work, chose to start it out right with huge stacks of blueberry pancakes and a subsequent nap on the couch.
There was a brief window in time for an outside spin but I did not take advantage. At 2:30 the rain subsided and the sky appeared to brighten. I had gotten my fix on the trainer for an hour while watching various nonsense on the likes of Spike TV and Discovery channel when I noticed the improvement in the weather. Sitting on the trainer for a solid hour is my personal best for "off season" thus far. You're either either sick in the head to enjoy that stupid piece of equipment or desperate for saddle time. I was desperate.
Didn't have an excuse for my desperation really. I did get out with Barry and Bill and a few others for a trail ride on G-spot early Sunday. The fun part was cut short when my rear hydraulic cable pooped out of the master cyl. I pretty much knew it was time for me to bail from the woods but luckily I was surrounded by optimistic bike mechanic friends.
Good advice from Bill, Anthony and Barry to shorten the cable after some of it's much needed hydro juice slung out leaving a couple inches of air in the tube. Admittedly only a band-aid to the failed crush olive sleeve thing-y but with a few inches of Jim's black electrical tape holding the dripping mess together I was back in business. Not ideal rear braking power but some stopping power. I just avoided allot of the steeper stuff and finished the ride.
Was hoping for a solid three hours of road today with CCB but snow and rain thwarted that plan. Planning on a night ride with Jeff and others Wednesday evening. oh crappola...I don't have a bike to ride.
I think it's safe to say that a couple weeks off the bike has rejuvenated my interest in saddle time. Let huge base begin! (and hope that the weather cooperates).

Waiting for Sophie

Waiting for lots of things lately. Waiting for my steel hard tail to return from the weld table. Waiting for snow to dump from the heavens. Waiting for the sun to set at a reasonable time in the afternoon so's I can grab an after work pedal in the woods. But most of all waiting on Sophie to come into this world. I know my sister in law Jeanie can't wait too much longer. Hold in there Jeanie, not too much longer! For my brother's sake I hope it's a girl cause he's got an extremely pink bedroom.

Biking weather for Christmas

Got out yesterday with CCB on a nice 2.5 hour road cruiser. One of the longer rides in recent memory as the ride season is winding down. Answered a burning question in my mind...yes, my legs still work. The best thing about riding with those guys is their knowledge of the area and the way they link up the scenic country roads that roll for miles and miles. Hell, I've lived here all my life and still don't know exactly where we rode yesterday. I'd guess you'd say that they know the roads like we know the trails. With temps in the 50's for late December the cyclists in the northeast have gotten an early Christmas gift. I know this weather can't last all winter but wish it would. Got the hakka 300's ready and waiting to go just in case the inevitable happens.
Lesli and I have little excuse for not sending out Christmas cards this year. Since returning from Honduras we've been playing catch up with a few things and haven't gotten a handle on the details yet. We appreciate the cards we have received from family and friends and have them displayed on the mantle serving as the only decorations in the house (along with a string of lights to brighten the mood). I'd like to send out some Christmas cheer to some folks I haven't seen in a while and others I see everyday. Have a great holiday.

click clack clunk

That's the sound of two bikes rolling down the trail with drivetrains that have far exceeded their useful lives. Can they be coaxed back into smooth working order?...yeah, if you throw a couple Benjamin's at the problem I guess. Money can fix allot of bike related issues... But do you really want to bolt on a shiny new sram chain, cassette and rings for the winter? knowing full well that your only buying time till spring then you'll have to do it again? Well, yeah..if it means that's the only way to fix mis-shifting and broken chains.
Having said that Jeff and I are in the same boat, or our bikes are at least. And the boat they are in is a junk freighter floating swiftly out to sea.

Flowers bay

Lesli and I are settling back into our regular boring lives after a brief getta way. Traveling is an amazing thing. It changes us, maybe only temporarily. But when it wears off and life is a drag again you know it's time to fly somewhere else. Then there's that small issue of funding the trip.

Night time...

Es Fiesta tiempo!
Goofy fun? Si!
Embarrassing? quizá.
Do it again? Uno Momento!