Any Time Now

That is, TI can get here anytime. In some ways, my last two posts are just a confirmation of plans I really made some time ago. I am ready to gather our Coalition of the Willful and go. Now.

First race of the year Sunday, which means my levels of anxiousness will begin rising shortly. It will be fun to see what happens. I think.

Maybe I'll just assume lotus position and sing Elk's Fight Song to myself. That should get me "centered."

Two Humped Camel

I have traded in my Abacus for a Ruler this evening.

The latest thoughts on TransIowa is currently how to handle Algona. As opposed to last year when we could actually have a support crew, this year you get a drop bag from our friends at Wingnut Gear. The bag is 10"x 20". I will be putting a ready to rock and roll Camelbak Hawg. Roll in, switch Camelbaks and roll out. At the start, I will be going light with an old school Rogue. Thin on the back. Makes your jersey pockets accessible. Light. Fast. Efficient.

MW and I may end up running nearly an identical gear and the same tires. JINX!!

I am completely bored with the look of the blog at the moment. Be patient if changes start occuring. We won't be under construction. We'll be under demolition.

Have Abacus, Will Travel

And so it begins...

My season of racing not to finish last takes off Sunday. Marathon in KS. 3Hrs of racing. Not much longer than a XC race really, but I am really looking forward to it regardless. Lantern Rouge, here I come.

The louder you say, "On your left," the faster I will get over.

G-Ted has Paddy on the record. Canadian Class.

Speaking of internet content and mal-content. Two new links are added. TwoWheeledLocust and Gwadzilla.

The TransIowa discussion on MTBR has turned to gear choice by the SS crew (as well and winds and gas stations.) This made me break out my less than stellar math skills and refer to the SurlyBlog for a little mental assistance in SPEW.

Having just bumped up my wheels to Niner sizing, I thought I would work out what in the hell the measurable difference was in the work my tiny legs are doing. I just stuck with Gear Inches because I wasn't about to jump into the deep end of the pool and calculate Gain Ratio.

My floaties and I are just fine in the shallow end.

What I found was that I am content to be running something slightly smaller than the folks that listed their selections on the thread. Basically, Joe and I seem to be on the same page. I am with Dallas though, in that I will bring what I need to make a last minute switch if needed. Flexible plans have always worked best for me.

Now I remember why I took Logic to get out of any math in college.

How Do I Really Feel?

Place Your Bets

Which picture best represents what conditions will be like during the TransIowa?

Muddy Mess


Christmas Remembered


The Snob will be going into seclusion over the weekend. Ride Hard. Check you Monday.

Single Speed Hell Train

How's this for a Single Speed team for 24-9?

CreepyFriendly. Eric Roman. Marko Darko. Travis Brown.

That's a lot of laps for me listening to the words, "on your left."

Tweaker Rides and Slush

The Niner is now fully functional. I spent the vast majority of Saturday morning and early afternoon in and out of the both my basement and the shop, finishing the build. Saturday afternoon and early evening was then spent riding, stopping, tweaking, riding, stopping, tweaking, etc.

Props and thanks to all the folks who helped this clueless wrench get things in working order. I think at some point nearly everyone at the shop gave me a helping hand. Zach, who really saved my ass on Saturday afternoon, also finished his Niner, which is a nice looking TwoWheeledWeapon as well.

While I was dinking around with the One, MW, CVO and Big Skinny rocked a six hour in KS Lincoln style. RF and Captain Cowbell showed strongly for Omaha as well. (I still don't know who the Captain actually is though.)

CVO, embrace the pink helmet. The best pink helmet still goes to Sam for rocking the pink flamed helmet. Whatever happened to that thing?

Wind and slushy snow yesterday and riding was less than joyful. I bailed after a short one.

What a baby.

myinherentawesomeness.blogspot.com

Recently more dust got kicked into the air in the "debate" over 29ers vs. 26ers. Cyclingnews went to print, G-Ted posted, Dave Harris commented, then our own KW killed it with this well-written wonder. It deserves more eyes I threw it up here.

"I did my own tests. You might have read about them on my blog, myinherentawesomeness.blogspot.com. In these highly personal studies I used two separate tests to see which of my bikes I could ride faster. After each lap of the course, I’d excitedly high five myself. Based on the color of my palm, I concluded that my bike with the Time pedals generated a much more enthusiastic hand slap than my bike with Shimano pedals, and thus a much more red (redder?) palm. Not scientific enough, you say? Well you should also consider that I used a color wheel that I bought on sale from the art supply store, and my observations were based on its near-perfect range of magenta.

On another day, on the same course, I strategically placed logs and medium-sized boulders so as to aggravate other trail users. I’d then hide in the trees and when one of them rode by, I’d jump out and yell, “Enough about me … what do YOU think about me?” and watch as they collided with my well-laid obstacles. As they chased me down—many times bleeding and nursing bent wrists and/or collar bones—I’d start my stopwatch and measure how long it took them to catch me on my bike that had the chain lubed with WD-40 as opposed to the one that had the chain obsessively coated with a perfectly nerdy layer of beeswax. I’m sure these findings will bring a ton of naysayer commentary down on my head, and that’s exactly the point. The point is me. In both tests, I was faster. No doubt about it. Forget wheel size, forget blogs, forget your knee centered over your pedal spindle, and the optimum power output of eggs in China.

If we all just focused a bit more on me, this world would be a much better place to live.

You’re welcome,

—kw"

Notes from Dejay

"when i look in to a depth
what beauty it brings
to set myself free
so i can study the pieces
inside a hole i can not see
when i wave good bye
it sets me
to say hello
to the crack inside
that lets me know who is me




















when i look in to a depth
what beauty it brings
to set myself free
so i can study the pieces
inside a hole i can not see
when i wave good bye
it sets me
to say hello
to the crack inside
that lets me know who is me"

"Notes from Dejay" are musings from NewBelgiumAles/Niner Bikes rider Dejay Birtch.

24 Hours of 9 Mile

You Bastards.

So, I read the Comments under my last post and go look at the 9 Mile site.

Solo for GrannyGear at Landahl is $330.

9 Mile is $78? Am I reading this correctly? WTF?

At that price, I doubt I would care if I was still recovering from Cedar Valley. The entertainment and hangout factors would be worth $78.

Damn you, people.

($78)

06 Schedule and a lot of Rancid

"With the music execution and the talk of revolution..."

March 25. Tranquility XC.

"Don't worry 'bout me gonna make it all right."

April 29. TransIowa.

"The worst of times, they don't phase me..."

May 13th. Platte Marathon

"If I fall back down, you're gonna help me back up again..."

May 20. Dirty Kanza.

"She's a punk rocker. She don't trust no one..."

May 28th. Branched Oak 12HR.

"Under the Red Hot Moon take a bus downtown to the graveyard shift tonight."

June 10th. Poncha Marathon.

"Not my time to go, not my time to die."

July 8th. 12HRS of Blue Mound.

"Black coat, black shoes, black hat, Cadillac..."

July 22nd. 12HRS of Cedar Valley.

"Yeah, the boy's a time bomb."

August 19th. State Championship at Swanson.

"I want your salvation..."

Sept. 23rd. Rave in the Cave Marathon.

"It takes disaster to learn a lesson. Your gonna make it through the darkest times..."

Keeping the schedule open for the 24HRS of Afton as well. Those cats need to set a date for 06.

You guessed it. A lot of the songs were on 'repeat.'

"... And Out Come the Wolves."

Blister in the Sun

Spent just under three hours riding Platte today with a nice bunch of cats. Lots of highlights including a nice over the bars, rodeo clown manuever on my first lap.

MW's black w/ pink highlights Soulcraft is an absolutely gorgeous bike. (I would love to have a picture up, but it wouldn't do it justice anyway.)

Jesse had Icon with him, which was the first time I had ever ridden with a dog cruising along. I am pretty sure Icon was picking better lines than I was the entire time.

Corey and I had a pretty interesting discussion about how different people ride different parts of that course. It really pointed out that a big motor is only part of the story in mountain biking. Case in point, there are a couple of points at Platte where you dip down into the little gulley and need to take a hard right as you come up on the other side. Three ways you can go. Nimrods like me will grab a huge amount of brake and turn right. Corey taps the front brake, let's the back end whip around and is now darting off in the right direction. Then there are cats like Matt Slaven (who certainly wasn't there today but Corey described it well), he will apparently summon his bmx skills and take it airborn, letting the gyroscopic effect take him up, over and right down the trail. Rank of Master, he has.

As MW pointed out today, the Fascist Killer has seen its last Platte ride for quite a while. The Niner nears completion.

CycleBetter.com is now cross-posting this snobbish material. I believe the Jackal is also suppling a feed.

Paddy killed his blog. There are only a couple of blogs I personally check more than once a day. His was one. At least I known he'll still kick my ass in Iowa.

Last but not least, in the category of "Holy Hell." The prizes for the Marathon races in the Psychopath Series are:

1st: $300
2nd: $200
3rd: $100

Damn, that was a long post.

Slanted and Enchanted

As I mentioned previously, the 29 vs 26 debate is alive and well all over the web. G-Ted had another quick installment today which prompted my usual headache from thinking.

Dave Harris tried to effectively measure the difference for him in a physical sense, but how about the psychology of the rider? In short, I am willing to bet that if you firmly believe you are faster on wheel X for whatever reason, you probably are if the true physical differences are close.

Then again, what do I know.

Shortly, I will be riding the shop on my 26 Fascist Killing SS to continue to build up my 29 SS Yet to Be Named Niner.

"Zurich is Stained and it's not my fault." Pavement

Oh, and if a single speeder is a Viking and geared is a Ninja, I don't know what you call someone rocking it fixed. But, I do know that it's sweet as hell.

On Course

There will be a few parts of the Epic where we will mark the course. Enter the Jolly Rodger.

Installed the cranks on the Niner tonight. Fork also arrived today as well.

Tools of my own destruction are now nearly complete.

"I Love This Plan...

...and I am excited to be a part of it."

The first Twenty into the Dirty Kanza contain a few familar names.

The Locals: Jeff Avey, Rock D, and myself.

The TransIowa Connection: G-Ted, Paddy, Joe Partridge and Rob Pennell.

That's a lot of Vikings jumping into both races.

Scenes from Sunday

When I left to ride this morning the Rock Island was wet so I assumed that Platte would be unrideable. I hear I couldn't have been more wrong.

This is Saltillo Road, but it was also the view for nearly the whole ride.



The "Mr. Obvious" of traffic signs. By the time you can see what's on the sign, the steeple is on top of you.



Almost home. I wonder how long that sign has been standing there.



Ending the day with some fun. Wilderness Single Track.

No Attention for Detail

Big Skinny and I were swapping out the rear cog on the Fascist Killer to discover that the 16 tooth ring I thought I was running was actually a 15. Brillant. Luckily, I was going to 14 anyway so I didn't wrench my way to redundancy.

Yet another reason why my place was on the sales floor.

Leaving the Casa at 10:30 tomorrow to hit Wilderness and then head to Platte. Need a long one. TI is not too far away.

I am a little bummed that the Fish Hunter had to pull out of TI. Now who am I going to trade pulls with?

Well Yeah, But...

If you're feeling argumentative, the internet is the place for you right now.

Single-Speeding vs. Geared. Team Dicky brings you what may turn out to be the best posts of the year. Make sure you read The Viking Theory.

26 vs. 29. Dave Harris experiment moves from MTBR to CyclingNews.

I have a theory too. The thoery is that I enjoy life more and feel better when I ride a lot. I will let you know if testing bares this out.

"Life is too important to be taken seriously." Oscar Wilde.

Getting Up to Get Down.

March is coming in screaming for me to pay attention to detail. TI looms ever larger in my already crowded mind. Not to mention the XC events kick into gear this month. The current plan is to ride to Tranquility and then race with the One Gears. That could mean flying the black flag at the back of the bunch, but I don't really care.

Is anyone interested in going for Six Hours in Kansas the weekend before? Big Skinny, I am looking at you.

For those of you who like riding in Colorado, you could further complicate your race schedule by considering the 24hrs of EROCK.

Mmmm espresso.

"Tune In, Freak Out, Get Beaten" - HST

It would seem that both Rock D and I will be in for the Dirty Kanza. There is a note on the Heartland Race site which says that there are slots still open.

Riding out to Wilderness for some more saddle time tonight with the Avey-ator.

Only two parts remaining outstanding before the new ride gets constructed (until I realize what else I have forgotten.) No Switchblade, No Pace, No carbon bling fork. Good old steel from the folks at Niner will be the option for the Snob.

Local racing begins this month. Time to stop typing and get back to riding.