Yesterday at work was dead. I made four deliveries, and had to return one of them because the recipients had taken the day off. Total bust. I made about $9.
But we did have some rousing conversations about the crossword puzzle at a table in everyone's favorite office building.
It was a nice day outside, but that just made me wish I was mountain biking. I took some pictures since there was no hurry to get any of those packages out.
I didn't take the last one while I was riding yesterday, but I was trying to make the transition as jarring as possible. Since I stopped shaving my legs after the last race of the year, I've noticed an interesting re-growth pattern. I seem to have back of calf baldness. That means that either my calves are too ripped to fit in my pants, or my pants are too tight. I'm going with the former.
Last night I spent almost an hour and a half grooving to an Elvis song on some weird Wii dance game while my lazy ass friends watched. If you've seen me dance, you can probably imagine how awesome I looked. If you haven't seen me dance, well lets just say I make that pork product look like a cold hot dog.
I did a couple shorter rides over the weekend. On Friday I sprinted around a little county park by my house that has a few miles of tight singletrack. Nothing special, but it was still fun.
On Saturday I rode in Ohiopyle for almost two hours before the whole Christmas dinner business. The place was empty, but a damn rabbit beat me to first tracks.
I was really surprised that the snow was so ridable. But the day still didn't photograph well.
Winter in Western PA. Greyest thing ever. I was supposed to meet the posse at Boyce Park on Sunday morning, but when I woke up at 8:00 a 70 mile drive seemed like it was way too far.
Then Colleen and I ended up driving to Monrovile anyway. She could buy some new riding shoes and I dragged her smiling face around Harbor Freight Tools for a while. When we got home I ended up riding circles around the miniature park (not the one with singletrack) next to my house in the dark. Shoulda just gone to Boyce in the morning.
When winter finally goes away, I'll be on the mountain for some overnight trips with my bike. I'm still thinking about attempting the Colorado Trail Race. In any case, it seams (pun intended. I'm such a riot.) like time to start getting some bikepacking stuff together.
On Saturday night, I stitched up a prototype saddle bag for my sleeping bag. I used some scrap material from an easy-up to get a feel for how it would hang on my bike.
The first version was pretty close, but there's still lots of room for improvement. I sat down and started sketching out ways to make it better.
Then I realized I'd basically drawn a Carousel Design Works bag. Nuts. But I think I can change and simplify it a little. I'm ordering some good fabric today.
And I'm on board with Ergon for next season. I'm stoked. I've been using GX2s for the past two years, and they rock. Glad to keep using them. I'm pretty excited to try out their the new gloves as well. They should be great if they work as well as the grips.
You haven't lived until you've slid down an icy hill in a contractor bag. It's like putting your organs in a soil sifter. It's hard to see in the video, but the ice chunks pounded and shook and mixed up my insides, snow filled my eyes, and at the end of the hill I couldn't breath. So I ran up the hill and did it a few more times. My chest is still bruised.
After that extreme day of sledding, we headed for the Laurel Highlands Trail. I started the hike by falling into an icy puddle and submerging my feet, but after a few miles of walking they either started to dry out or went numb. Whatever the case, I still have all my toes.
He's either still living here, or was abducted by migrant trans-gender electricians before he had a chance to pack his underpants.
The chop bus is a nice place to live in the summer by Pyle standards, but in the winter when it's around 5 degrees at night, it couldn't be very pleasant.
Then I captured the Viking Cat and put him in a sweater. He loved it.
On to the important stuff. I've given it an entire Big Bear Classic mug's worth of thought (normal sized mug included for scale. a big bear classic mug's worth is a lot.)
Anyway, I've given it a lot of thought this morning, and now I believe I'm ready to release the 2011 Extremely Tentative and Imminently Changing Official Knobby Meats Racing Conglomerate Schedule. That acronim would be ETICOKMRCS. (Pronounced etty-cock-merse. I know you were stumbling through it.)
Most of these dates are pulled from Mahokey's very excellent calender on XXC:
I'll fill in the rest of the weekends with some WVMBA, OMBC, and ABRA races (if the rumors of ski resort mountain bike events are true.)
Since I have free lodging lined up with my helper monkey Sam (the little angry faced one on the back:)
I'm planning on staying in Colorado and racing out there for a month. But I still have to pay for all those ETICOKMRCS entry fees.
I threatened to do it a while back, and now I've done it. Just in time for Giftmas, Knobby Meats shirts are on sale. Hooray! I know you're thrilled.
Everybody looks more dashing in a viking cat shirt (and the more shirts I sell, the more silly things I can write about races.) I embedded a large lime green shirt button at the top of the blog. And now we're off to the weekend. Later folks.
My Surly hubs are a constant pain in the ass. I've spent more time screwing around with my fixed gear wheelset than my Hope Pro IIs or Industry 9s. Anybody who says fixed gears are maintenance free is delusional. Or they ride a really creaky bike.
Anyway, before the Gnar Check was a Gnar Check, it was just a plain old lime green Cross Check.
I raced cross on it for a few months, and while I was doing the Dirty Dozen fixed, the rear hub died. Tim Carson pulled it apart, and found the bearings entirely smashed. He put some ceramic bearings in. We hoped that would solve the problem forever.
It didn't. The hubs are super finicky because they're adjustable cartridge bearings. Too tight and the wheel won't turn, too loose and rim wobbles side to side. The other day my back wheel stopped turning again. So I pulled it apart.
I didn't take any pictures of disassembly, but it's pretty simple. Unscrew all the stuff on one side of the axle and slide it out. I don't have any cone wrenches, so I used needle nose pliers.
The naked axle:
The end caps fall out when the axle is gone, and the bearings are exposed. I carefully pried the seal off the front of the bearing with a razor blade. It was very crunchy inside.
Wiped out all the crap, then packed it with a shit ton of grease. It's gonna be a long winter. The road salt'll wash out all the extra.
I worked the grease into the bearings by spinning it with my finger, then popped the seal back on and pressed it down with my finger nail. Boom. No more crunchy bearings.
Set the end cap back on the hub.
Greased the axle and slid it back in.
Then screwed everything back onto the axle.
I screwed everything together with my fingers. A wrench will make the bearings too tight when they're clamped down in the frame.
While I had the wheel off, I cleaned up my dropouts.
Same brush I use to get knots out of my hair.
Then I achieved proper chain tension by wedging a big Made in USA (Chinese round things won't work) round thing between the frame and the tire.
And then I made sure the axle nuts were tight. But my wheel always manages to slip forward at the worst times, so I went crazy and made doubly sure that everything was tight.
I stepped on that shit. With my foot. (I'm not sure how else you would step on something, but I still felt the need to specify.)
And now it's tight.
(note- You'll probably crush bearings if you step on wrenches. The torque settings on my foot are just calibrated better than most peoples.)
I'm playing with the layout of this thing since I don't have to be freezing my ass off delivering packages this morning. A template designer just popped up when I opened the design section of blogger, so apparently I can use what ever I want for a background.
I've been meaning to put my Cross Check on Craigslist. But I never have the motivation to type up an ad, so it's hung sadly in the work stand while I ripped around on the Crosby.
A few days ago, I picked up my Punk Bike prize that Larry at Thick Bikes had snagged for me.
GNARRRR BARRRS. yahar.
This was a game changer. Previously, I hated riding the cross check because it wasn't gnarly enough. But with gnar bars...
I started getting the bike ready. The bottom bracket was shot and wobbly, so I had to replace it. As soon as I threaded the crank puller in the non-drive side crank arm and tightened it down, it stripped. I tried all kinds of locktites and clamps to get the crank puller to hold, but it just wouldn't go.
Then I tried a gear puller:
Looked menacing, but it was also a failure.
Finally I resorted to cutting the crank arm with an angle grinder, then smacking it really hard with a hammer. If all else fails, destroy. It worked. I got the bb off, screwed in a new one, and put my old set of Race Face Turbines on.
Then I pulled the Cross Check fork off, installed my Salsa Cromoto Grande, bolted on a 50mm stem, put an WTB Exiwolf on my fixed wheelset, and mounted the Gnar Bars.
And the most gnar shredding Cross Check in the galaxy was born. Those bars are 700mm wide, and droopy on the ends:
It's so good and slack. I'm guessing it has about a 67 degree head tube angle.
Punk bike was cold. Punk bike was muddy. Oompa loompas broke their bikes:
It was a lovely day, and I was grinning away the whole time.
It was so muddy that on one of the little stages my back wheel packed full of junk and refused to turn. I had to walk the rest of the thing, then chip the frozen mud away with a stick.
I won a few stages, but I had to leave after stage 8 of 12 for some banana family business. Sadly I was unable to defend my title. But I did leave right before the up-down and was able to avoid a repeat of last year:
Yesterday morning was raining, snowing, and about 35 degrees. It was a really shitty morning. I was sure that I was going to quit being a bike courier. I was fully prepared to turn in an application to Starbucks.
I started listing the positives and negatives in my head:
Negatives:
-Buses. They're painted pretty colors, but the bus drivers have a sick entitlement to the road. They pass close, stop without warning, and drive fast. Obviously, I'd be on the losing end of a collision. I imagine a bus driver's penalty for hitting a cyclist is early retirement and an increased pension.
-People yelling loudly into their phones. Their voices carry for at least a full block. "I TOLD at bitch! I told her! NO LITEN TO ME, I SAID I TOLD AT BITCH!" Head ache inducing.
-Cold, wet weather.
-Slippy drain gates and other metal shit. See "busses" for why these can be bad.
-Strangulation by messenger bag. 50 pound boxes hurt. And the no matter how I load it, the corner of the box always stabs me in the small of the back. Not fun when trying to avoid busses, metal shit, and loudly yelling people who jump into the middle of the street because they're too engrossed in their conversations to see the cold, wet, and strangled bike messenger who is about to run them over.
-Pedestrians. Never look before they step into the street. Never. When they finally see me, they take evasive maneuvers. If I turn right, they jump backwards and place themselves squarely in my path. Turn left, they'll skip forward and gasp.
-Pay. This was the big one. I made about $4.50 an hour my first month. Minimum wage is $7.15.
Positives:
-Free mints and other small candies from nice receptionists.
But at the end of the day I got my paycheck. I shattered the minimum wage line. So I'll keep at it. Riding a bike around (standing in elevators, walking, and sitting on my ass waiting for something to do) isn't too bad.
20 inch wheels, a two foot seat post, a massive quill stem and color matched bar ends. I'd like to see the person who rides this:
The best part is its "suspension X2" design (which is legible even if the bike is being ridden upside down). I assume that means it has twice as much suspension as a hardtail, and four times as much suspension as a rigid bike. But my math might be wrong.
Unfortunately the owner locked up his machine with an extremely secure wallet chain, so I was unable to steal it. And I really wanted to go huck some stairs with it.
It started to snow while I was driving to Pittsburgh for the Dirty Dozen. I got a little worried:
And a certain girl was scheduled to come spectate the event, but she got a bad case of the sniffles. So I replaced her with an inflatable pink flamingo:
A few weeks ago, previous almost DD winner Sam Morrison told me that he wasn't motivated to train for this year's event. Since I find it hard to care about races without singletrack, I suggested that we do the race on a tandumb. So it was settled. We would try the DD on a tandumb.
A week later, Sam changed his mind. He was going to start training to beat Steevo. A few days after that decision, he changed his mind again. Now we would for sure do it on a tandem. Five minutes after that, Sam talked to Danny Chew on the phone. He was motivated to train again. Alright. I was sure he'd waffle a few more times.
He changed it at least two more times, but three days before the race we made the last call. We would do it on a tandem. We emailed the wizened and creaky Gunnar Shogren and asked to borrow his road tandem. He was happy to lend it to us.
Since Sam can't ride down a paved bike trail without going over the bars, we decided that I'd drive. Neither of us had ever ridden a tandem, I'd only ridden drop bars twice, (the second time I destroyed an entire drive train with my awesome shifting abilities,) I hadn't ridden a geared bike in over a year, and Gunnar sets his brakes up moto style. But I was pretty certain we could score some points on a hill.
"You're going to fail miserably." said Don Powers. What an encouraging guy.
When we got on the bike, we were wobbly as hell. I could hardly control the thing. But I didn't get really nervous until we hit the first hill.
The first hill is one of the easier ones, and we only got about half way up before we started to swerve. We fell off. At that point, I was really scared about the rest of our day. It was super hard to balance the bike and pedal up a hill.
We went back down to the bottom, and agreed to stay in the saddle instead of trying to stand up. That worked much better, and we cleared the hill.
Eventually I got a little better at controlling the tandem. On Logan we decided to go for points. We were crushing it up the hill, but still moving slow for the amount of effort we were putting in. We held on to 6th most of the way up, but dropped back a little and finished the hill in 8th or 9th. Just outside of the points.
After that effort, we were pretty shelled. We took it easy on the next few hills. Tried for points again on Mt. Washington, but we were too dead.
Canton Ave. was next. Since it's the steepest street in the US, it's one of the most feared hills.
We took a line through the rough cobbles in the middle and cruised right up it. With a long wheel base and almost 300 pounds on the wheels, we had no problems with traction.
We were a little more than half way through the ride. By that point at least two dozen people had asked Sam if he enjoyed staring at my ass. I laughed every time. Never got old.
The next few hills were like the rest. Hard, but we made them. Some people weren't so lucky: Ben Stephens photo
On the flat section to the last hill, we tried to use our combined power to break away from the pack. We went from the back of the herd all the way to the front, but cracked when we hit the hill. We slowly spun up and finished the day.
Next year I might get a real road bike and try to actually race it.
Or I might have to do it on a single speed again. Gunnar did it on a fixed gear this year, in a 45x22, and scored one point. I can't let an old person one up me like that.
Throwing donuts at a 'cross race is like playing dodge ball in gym class. But at a 'cross race, all the nerdy kids are riding bicycles and are too tired to throw anything back.
But before I threw donuts, I had to be the nerdy kid for a few laps. The Pflug decided to race Masters and 1/2/3 yesterday. He robbed me of my final chance to lose to him in a SS race this season.
The course was all in the grass with some climbing and a lot of turns. The Shrubcutta took the hole shot. I went easy to avoid getting taken into the tape on the first corner.
I worked my way up to first by the middle of the 1st lap, and rolled from there. Hedgetrimma and Don Powers made a few attacks, but I held onto the gap. Then the Stuntedtreechoppa dropped his chain, and Don Powers was all alone.
(the only mud on the course)
When I saw that it was only Don Powers chasing me, I relaxed a little. By the start of the last lap he was about a hundred feet behind me and shouting "Brah! I'm Dahn Pahers! Raa!"
I went a little faster and beat him by about ten seconds.
Then it was donut time.
The course went through a barn, so Don and I used the upper windows to attack. I threw donuts, and he whipped the cream:
My throwing arm was warmed up by the start of the 3/4 race. I wasn't necessarily aiming for Ben Stephens face, but I wasn't avoiding it either.
Regardless of if I was trying to or not, I pegged him in the temple from about five feet away. It sounded like it hurt. I went for people's asses after that.
Look closely. There's some powdered sugar on that helmet strap:
As I was screaming at Brad and making my wookie noise, he gave me a look that said "I hate you." Then I threw a whipped cream covered donut at his back. After the race he assured me that he hated me.
But overall, people blamed Don Powers for the donut attacks. Which is excellent. I'm fine with letting people direct their anger at the loud one.
Then Stephanie Swan wanted to swim across the lake.
I think her proposal went something like "Hey, just saying, if anybody wanted to swim across the lake, I would totally swim across to. But only if somebody else wanted to first." That wouldn't be enough to get me into freezing water, but apparently it was all the prompting Marc Glass needed:
At the end of the day, JR did awards. I finished 2nd in the series. The Pflug was undefeated and won the scarf:
Someday I'll catch the Plug and his little dog to:
