motherfuck

Well turns out my only working bike is my 20" bmx bike.

If anyone wants a chain, only one broken link, there's one about 20ft off the trail at the beginning of Hillside.

central trails tonight?

i was thinkin start around 6/6:30. if you're interested let me know.

Little bit of Jingle Cross practice tonight.

Went on an Mtb ride tonight with pops. did part of denmans and hill side. First time testing out the 'stache bars, and home brew ss set up. Both worked great. The 'stache bars weren't too wide for the trees and no chain drop. There were a couple of two wheel powerslides so it's probably good practice for Jingle Cross. Going to Iowa City saturday to watch, racing ss on sunday. After doing nothing but gravel for a couple of weeks and riding a day before I leave for the race, it seems like riding 10 miles the day before RAGBRAI and calling it training, but anyway,  hope to see you there.

Rides from the week

Tuesday, there was an intense(to me) indoor training sessions. I did it on rollers... before that, I rode rollers for about half an hour, an that's ever. Don't follow my lead on that. Riding the rollers while doing intervals was so sketchy it was almost embarrassing. I'm just glad, there was no one next to me.

Throughout the week, there was random bmx rides. They don't amount to much, pretty much just me jumping very small gaps and pussying out on a bunch of easy stuff.

Friday night at 10, there was a gravel ride. When we set off, it was super foggy even with mega-watt lights, you still couldn't see more than a quarter mile ahead of you. The ride was a lesson in mycguyver multi-tool road side bike work. The list of mechanical malfunctions is as follows:

  

Flat front tire (twice-ish)

rear straddle carrier came undone

front straddle cable came loose from brakes

chain dropped (twice)

chain broke (took that opportunity to shorten chain and fix drop)

After all that, I still managed to keep my cool and stop myself from getting it airborne. The irony of the whole situation is that I was the only one singlespeeding of the whole group...

Lastly, Cranksgiving. Of course I did it on the bmx bike, but alas, no 20" disc wheel. I managed to get descent leg extension, but not near enough to be comfortable. With that going on, I was standing up on up hills, and for the most part, on the flats too. This is not good when there's rain on the road. Overall, it was good. feel like I should've done the trackstand contest, there's always next year; and done the leg wrestling contest, there's always next year; and I wish I would've had some beer, next year for that too. A note for next year, 20" bmx category.

Also this. A race organizer in Minnesota apparantly had a bad time with someone.

Ididn'tabike

This is pretty much just gonna be about the Iditabike. I called it 'Ididntabike' because it's something I won't be participating in. Despite not having interest in ever doing it, it is incredibly bad ass and something that makes Trans Iowa seem like a walk in the park.

The iditabike race is a bicycle race through alaska that follows part of the Iditarod trail. It started in 1987. The race is now 1,100 miles long, but there are shorter distances for those who are slightly less crazy as those doing the full distance.

Enough with the knowledge dropping, on to the cool stuff

That's the Moots Rigormootis. The front fork is spaced the same as the rear at 165mm to have an extra set of gears waiting in the wings should something happen to the set being used on the back. The frame and fork are filled with white gas for camping, which explains the funny looking thing in the last picture.

Here is that bike in action:

That is Mike Curiak riding it. He's one the race twice. The picture is 2007 where he did the race completely self-sufficient. He started out with his trailor weighing 90lbs carrying everything he would need for 20 days in the snow.

If you have 24 minutes to spare, there's 'Bicycles on Snow,' a documetary made about the '88 iditabike. Back when mountain bikes had cantilever brakes.

Thanks to MTBR forums and GearJunkies.com

More to come on this subject for sure.

Recycling at it's best

I had the awesome idea of riding my 20" BMX in Cranksgiving this year. After I decided that was a good idea, I though it'd be good to get some disc wheel action going on, but alas, no $$ and it's a safe bet that a 20" disc wheel doesn't even exist, feel free to prove me wrong. Since it's an alley can, why not spoke cards. Unfortunately my spoke card collection is lacking. So if anyone has unused spoke cards, bring them to Cranksgiving on the 22nd at Mars Cafe for some fun and to see a ghetto-mod 20" disc wheel. I'll be on a tan Brew bmx bike, mostly black parts and camo rims. and hit me up with any that you have.

Heckler's Corner

Saturday of the Iowa State Cross Race was going to be a really good day. The original plan was to ride out to the race from Norwalk, watch/cheer/heckle riders and drink a couple of beers. For the ride there, I had the directions and everything necessary for the weather and riding.The start of the ride was good. I knew where i was going, wore just enough stuff to keep warm and the Masi was running as it should. I came to a red light in the east village and when it turned green and I got going again, my fucking chain snapped. After I coasted across  the street, the inevitable happened, the bike went airborne. When the bike landed, the first thing i noticed was the scraped up bar tape and flat front tire. Turns out it was much worse than that. There was a hole in the sidewall of the front tire (2 and a half sets of cross tires at home, so no big deal) and this:




Looks like it's new bar time.

After all that happened, I called and got someone to bring me a chain and ended up getting a ride the rest of the way to Lions park in Altoona. Once I got there, the ss/junior race was just getting over. I got there in time to see this in action:

Coaster brake action with sweet wide bars. It was also cool to see another Brew frame, I have a Brew bmx bike. The SSCXWC Raleigh ss cross bike was awesome too. It had the only acceptable use of a colored chain that I've seen so far, and I've seen plenty of bikes with colored chains. Watched the women's and 1/2  race from the finish line and ate some of the free food and drank a beer. It was very good.

For the 3 race, i headed to heckler's corner. Started with a couple of people climbing up top of the shelter , then it became beer can alley with a couple of beer cans containing dollar bills. The quantity of beer cans increased through out the race, as did the rider participation and volume. Overall, it was a  very fun race, even though I didn't even race and I'm gonna need new bars. At least I have one ride able bike...a 20" bmx bike.

need to trade!

The 'stache bars are bent and i don't trust bent aluminum because I do some pretty gnarly curb hops so I'm not messing around. The bars pictured in one of the previous post are up for trade. I either want to trade for some mustache bars, dirt drops, mary bars, bullhorns or some other odd ball bar. clamp size doesn't matter.

Let me know what you got, either through comments (anyone can post one) 

From the Land of Tarck

10 points to the first person to guess what the Land of Tarck is.

This isn't from the Land of Tarck, but it's fuckin awesome

Volume Bikes: Tate Roskelley from VOLUME/DEMOLITION on Vimeo.

Today was more interesting than i though it was gonna be.

The day wasn't quite interesting enough to broadcast it to the internet so here goes.

Started out good, my earliest class on tuesdays and thursdays got over so I slept in. On the way to my new first class, the car hiccuped a little bit leaving norwalk, but I didn't think anything of it. Turns out it was a sign that I pushed how far I could drive on a tank of gas too far. Finally ran out when I on the interstate and a cop eventually came to the rescue. Only time in my life when I was happy to see flashing red and blue light roll up on me. He gave me a ride to a gas station and got the whole situation figured out. Made it to the first class about 45 minutes late...my stubbornness to not fuel up finally bit me in the ass.

Fast forward to 6:00, it was my first DMOS training session. Good god you sweat a lot when you pedal in place, intervals no less.

TIme for some science

I'm readying my road bike for some intense trainer riding this winter, masi is for gravel/snow/mtb/general winter duty, and it came time to get the bars ready. I have a few questions on where to place the sti levers on my bars. here's a couple of pics. I know no one is following, but feel free to comment if you have anything to offer.

While I'm at it, here's the progress on the Torelli. Hopefully it'll be ready for tuesday DMOS training.

An updated pic of the Masi too. It just looks right. Not sure how the 'stache bars are going to be on single track, but the 35mm cross tires weren't designed for single track either.

I hate people.

Let's do some math:
Custom Lynskey ti frame + Mavic carbon(r) wheels + 6700 Ultegra cranks + Wound up fork = this?



also this. I'm trying to imagine him riding that in jeans trying to skid stop in the aerobars. I hate people.

Single Speed in

Since Cross racing is over, the Tiagra gruppo now has to do it's thing on my torelli road bike for crit racing. I wanted gears where I could do a gravel or road ride, as well as an mtb singletrack ride on the masi, so I did the following. Using the freehub, I set it up with a 19t and a 14t cog on the back and spaced it so it'd be a decent chain line for both. The tensioning is done by a derailer. To switch cogs, I just adjust adjust the limiters and swap the chain over to the other gear and I'm ready to go. Now that I've put you to sleep with all that, I wish I had a picture to share, but of course I don't and white garage doors are clash with the colors of the bike, the picture will have to wait another day(or week)