Randomness

Since I haven't been on the mountain bike in a while, I went out to Crabtree today for a quick ride after work. It ended up being a lot quicker than I anticipated after I blew out my front tire about .25 miles in. I have been able to get away with just carrying a patch kit and no spare tube for the last couple of years but my flat today was no where near repairable. The tube ended up with a ~10" gash in it although the tire seems to be fine. When I stopped the tire had come off of the rim and I am not sure if it rolled off when I was riding, causing the flat, or if it was blown off by the exploding tube.

It appears that someone from Felt has been spying on my blog and stealing my ideas. Only months after building up a green rigid singlespeed with orange accessories, Felt debuts this. Now I do like the Slipstream inspired argyle but this is a blatant infringement on my rights to have a bright eurotrash colored bike that is one of a kind.

I have been looking for some new riding clothes lately since two jerseys just isn't enough. I came across a company called Twin Six that has some really sweet designs. If you are in the market for some new threads, you should check them out. I ordered one of their jerseys and a T shirt a couple of days ago and they arrived today. The T is super comfortable and fits really well but the jersey was slightly disappointing. After a run through the wash I noticed that the seam on the shoulder was coming undone and left a whole. I dropped an email to the guys and expect it to be replaced under warranty, but I seem to have the worst luck sometimes.

Speaking of clothing, I have heard a lot about how nice wool is for cycling jerseys. I am considering getting a nice wool long sleeve jersey for the cold weather this winter but they seem to be really expensive. The cheapest ones I can find are here and can be customized for only a couple of extra bucks. I can't think of anything good to put on there (suggestions?) so I may just get a plain one to cut down on the wait time if I ever decide to get one.

The Madone, which I guess will be called Madeline (or Maddie for short), is working out really well. I love the bike and have no complaints yet as far as performance goes. The only downside seems to be that the aesthetics are kind of boring. Besides being an ever so popular Trek, it looks like just another black and grey bike. I have been thinking that I should spice things up a little with some different colored bar tape or something. Maybe a nice white saddle would look good. I have a couple of ideas but I am not sure what I am going to do yet.

Naming Names

So the Madone needs a good name. The only good one I can think of is Madeline, which plays off of Madone nicely. Any suggestions?

"I've Made A Huge Mistake"

After closer inspection of the Madone I decided that the chip on the frame is purely cosmetic and not worth worrying about for the moment. I probably should have waited a little while before posting instead of writing about it in panic mode. I guess that I just expect the worse now since I seem to break all things bike that I touch, although there are people out there who break way more than I do. For those of you who didn't realize that the title for the previous post was a quote from Arrested Development, I apologize for misleading you. I was not trying to insinuate that the bike was definitely going to be returned. The only way I am going to go through Trek's warranty process again this soon is if they offered me a 2008 Madone 6.9 with Lance's autograph etched into the top tube using one of the syringes from his historic 7th Tour de France victory. If you also didn't realize that the title for this post was a quote from Arrested Development, then shame on you. You should watch more good TV.

The weather here has been really good lately. Yesterday morning I took out the 1x1 (this is a SS blog, right) and went to Garner for a ride. It was actually fairly cool when I left with temperatures in the mid sixties. That may not seem like a big deal to some of my west coast readers, but it is a welcome break from the heat around here. That cool fall weather is great for mountain biking and I look forward to the upcoming autumn months for more of these rides.

Ethan came to town on Saturday and showed me around some of his old road routes around North Raleigh. I was happy that I was able to keep up with him since he has been riding road for so much longer than me. I think that I surprised him a little bit with my climbing abilities, which I attribute to riding single on the trails. I think if I really try he may be my first SS convert..

Speaking of singlespeed induced climbing ability, Alta bikes has a series of pictures on their website showing the effects of riding their urban singlespeed bikes. Since I've got this fancy Mac, I decided to do some photo editing and show everyone that hasn't seen me in a while a glimpse of my current build.

Taking this recent photo of myself...

...and this Alta ad...

...gives you me after riding SS for a month and a half.
Also, I apparently got a tattoo and moved into an apartment with no funiture.

I was under the impression that singlespeeding is not that uncommon anymore but I may be a little off on that one. As I was leaving the parking lot for a ride a few weeks ago the guy parked next to me struck up a conversation about me riding single and rigid. Besides the usual chit chat, he asked if I knew Team Dicky, who is apparently a bit of a SS celebrity hailing from Charlotte. I have seen the name a couple of places around the internet but I have never met the guy and don't know of any reason that I should. The question just seemed a little weird to me;

That Guy: Hey, you're riding single and rigid.
Me: Yep
That Guy: I know another guy in this state that does that. Do you know him?
Me: Umm, what?

Maybe it is uncommon enough that we should all know each other or it could be that I am just missing out on the awesomeness of this guy and he was just trying to clue me in. Maybe he mistook me for someone who was actually a good rider and would have met all the other singlespeeders at various rides and races. I don't know but I definitely left the conversation a little confused.

"Take a Good Look, Because Its the Last Time You'll Be Seeing These"

I got to take the Madone out for a quick spin today after work. I only road for about 15 miles because I don't really know any good road routes and I am planning to do a lot of riding the next couple of days. I really like the bike. It handles well and is a comfortable ride. It is also really stiff and can accelerate about like Ethan's Tarmac, which I like. I am not going to go on too much about the bike because I am kind of disappointed at the moment. Upon arriving home, I went to put the away and noticed a chip in the back of the seat tube. The finish is chipped completely off but I can not tell if there is any damage to the carbon that would compromise the integrity of the frame. I am planning to take it in tomorrow and have a mechanic look at it. I don't know much about carbon frames so it may be fine but it certainly doesn't inspire confidence. Needless to say, I am kind of bummed. Hopefully the only damage is cosmetic. I am not sure what would have caused the chip. It isn't really in a good spot to have a rock kicked up from the tire (unless I was going backwards, which I don't remember doing) and I wasn't riding any really rough roads. For those curious, I did two loops around the bike route that goes by Kent Road which shouldn't have caused any problems. I guess I will see what the deal is tomorrow. Anyway here are some pictures of the bike.

The bike.

Also made in God's Country.

How exotic.

The good stuff, I guess.

An attempt to photograph the damage.

I feel worse than this guy. At least he got a cookie.

It's Here

More to come later. Woot!

Going to the Darkside

So after a couple of years of riding nothing but mountain bikes I am finally going to pull the trigger on a new road bike (It is debatable whether or not Ann is actually a bike and you don't really ride her, just get on and survive). I am looking to get the Trek Madone 5.0 that I spotted in CSH last week. I went and test rode it this past weekend and it is a pretty sweet ride and a killer deal. I think that the original MSRP is about $2700 and it is currently selling for an even 2k. I know that the rest of the family rides Specialized but I want something a little more unusual and unique, so I am going to go with the Trek. Another big plus is that they have a 62cm in stock so I can be riding by this weekend. I ordered a pair of road shoes yesterday from Specialized and I am going to wait until those come in before I go get the bike. I want to have them when I get the bike so I can get the cleats set up correctly when they fit me to the bike. My current Specialized mtb shoes fit nicely so I am going to stick with the big S for my road shoes because I hate trying to find shoes that fit my wide feet. Fortunately, they only make one model of road shoes in my size (49) so it was an easy decision. They should be here in the next day or two and then I will be off to get the bike.

Once I get this bike I should have a pretty sweet set up and will be able to sit back and actually save some of my money. I had three big purchases in mind when I graduated that I was going to use to purge the student life from my system. After all, why waste away my youth in a cubicle if I can't at least buy the happiness that I deserve? This should be the final addition of those three things, which were a SS mountain bike, new computer, and a road bike. I have actually been able to stay right on my predicted budget for these purchases so I feel pretty good about that. There was some slight worry from others that I may have inherited the QVC gene and continue this spending spree but I don't foresee that being a problem.

The addition of a new bike also means that my other bikes will not get to be ridden as often. The 1x1 is way too much fun to just sit around all of the time and I will definately still ride that one a lot. It looks like the odd man out right now is the Fisher. I don't really have a desire to go back to gears on the trails and the 1x1 is going to be my go to mountain bike for a long time. I have been thinking that instead of leaving it sitting around that I should turn it into my commuter. The ride to work is a fairly easy 11 miles with no real climbs and a good bit of it being on nice quiet roads. I hope to try it out sometime in the next week or so and start making it a habit if it isn't too unbearable. I am not worried about the ride being tough but it will add at least 30 minutes to my commute each way and I already struggle to get in at 7:30. If I can manage to get up and going that early in the morning then it should be a pretty pleasant change from dealing with the traffic on the beltline.

A new road bike also means that I am almost guaranteed to ride this years Discover Anson ride back in the old stomping grounds. It is on November 3rd so save the date. Now I just need to decide whether to do the 30, 50, or 70 mile ride. I am game for whatever but I will see what everyone else wants to do. It is only twenty bucks if you register before mid October so let me know if you want to ride.

As I have been buying things the last couple of months, I have been getting things that end up leaving me with eggs on my face. After years of laughing at my Apple-fanboy friends and their Steve Jobs mancrushes I go out and buy a Mac. Then I decide to get a Trek after not really looking at them because everybody and their brother has one. Not only am I getting a Trek but I am getting it from the shop that I practically swore off just last week, although most of that was just frustration fueled ranting. I have been really pleased with the computer and most of the people at CSH are pretty cool so I am not disappointed with these decisions, it just leaves me looking like a bit of an idiot. Just in case the trend continues I have decided to put a few more things on record and hopefully the result will be the same. Here goes:

1) Pro cyclists are all spoiled cheaters and I would never accept large sums of money to travel the world and ride my ridiculously nice bike around.
2) The only occupation worse than pro cyclist would be designing the bikes for them. I would never move to California to accept a job with Specialized, especially if they gave me a significant pay increase.
3) Hills are boring and I will never make regular trips to the mountains just to go ride even if I get offered a free place to crash.
4) I love the cold. I sure do hope that this winter is long, cold, and rainy.

Wish me luck.

The Return to Gears

The bike shop called tonight and said that my Fisher was finally fixed and ready so I went down after dinner and picked it up. The new frame is a Ziggurat instead of a Tassajara. I have never heard of this model and it doesn't show up on the '08 Fisher website. The only sign of it that I see on the website is from the 2006 lineup of bikes. I am not sure if this bike just isn't posted online yet or if it is only going to be sold outside of the US or something. The listing from '06 listed the bike as a race hardtail,which means that it is at the top of their hardtail lineup and a significant step up from the Tass. It looks like the bike retailed at $3300 a couple of years ago compared to $720 for Gennie last year, but most of that price difference is due to the nicer components on the Zig. The frame is made from ZR9000 which is a material that Trek has developed for their bikes. It is aluminum with a little bit of zirconium mixed in to allegedly add strength and reduce weight. Although it may be a little lighter than Gennie it still feels heavy compared to Mikey. Another cool feature of this bike is that it was made in the USA unlike the rest of my bikes. After getting the bike home I started to put on the last few parts that I took off to build up the Surly. The pedals were quick to put on but I tried to use the old disc brakes off of the Raleigh until I can get some new ones. The brakes are made by Tektro which is pretty much the crappy generic brake manufacturer. I never realized how nice the Avid brakes were to setup until I tried to put these on. The rotors were warped to the point that the wheel would hardly spin and the pads cannot be adjusted without tools. These things suck and I wasted most of my night trying to get them to work. They are ok for the time being but they have got to go before too long. After getting the brakes on and close to working I decided to take the bike for a spin around the parking lot to test it out. It has the exact same geometry that Gennie did so no surprises there but I can definately notice the difference in quality from this bike and the SS. Besides the sorry excuse for brakes that the bike currently has, the bike just didn't feel as solid as Mikey. The grips slide around, the cranks flex, the bottom bracket isn't very smooth, and it has a really squishy feel to it now compared to the rigid fork. None of these things mean that it is a bad bike and I have had these same problems in the past they just weren't that noticeable until I started riding a nicer bike. The bottom bracket will need some time to break in since it is brand new so that problem is only temporary. Hopefully I can find some time to put down the Surly one day and take this thing out to the trails so I can give it a real review.

Although it has taken an absurdly long time for this new frame I am really excited about the upgrade. Unfortunately, Cycling Spoken Here left me with a bad taste in my mouth again. I was hoping they would cut me a deal since it took them the entire summer to swap out the frame. I was also thinking that since the bottom bracket was working fine when I took it in that they would replace the broken one at no charge. This obviously wasn't my fault so I shouldn't be held responsible right? Not really. I was still charged for the labor to switch the parts to the new frame which is no big deal because the wait wasn't completely their fault. They also charged me for a new bottom bracket and labor to install it. I really wished they would have let me know that I was going to be buying this part before they ordered it because I probably would have used this as an opportunity to upgrade to one that will last a year before breaking. I am not sure what happened to the bottom bracket but somehow about half of the threads on one side were completely stripped off. I have no idea how this happened but somebody has to pay to fix it, and apparently that somebody is me. In the end I had to pay $110 for them to fix the defective bike that they sold me. And to top things off, the mechanic told me that they still had my old frame except for a little piece that they had to send back to Trek. I thought that I may be able to get it back and use as a decoration but before I could ask I was told that one of their employees had taken it out back earlier that evening and beaten it into the ground with a rock. What a quality shop.

On the brightside, I did get to see a newly assembled BMC Pro Machine that was probably one of the nicest bikes I have ever seen. I would guess that it was easily $10000. They also had some other BMC frames on the floor that were really sexy. If I could find one of these frames slightly used for a good price it would be my next bike, but thats not going to happen. They also had a nice looking Trek Madone 5.0 on the floor in my size. It had a full Ultegra drivetrain and has been marked down to $2000, which is a really good deal. If I had gotten a little better service from the shop I would have taken it for a test ride tonight. As it is, I don't think I will ever let a CSH mechanic touch one of my bikes again and I am really hesitant to buy anything from them ever again. If it wasn't for the discounted Madone and them being the only BMC dealer in the area I would go ahead and say that I will never shop their again, but I want to reserve the right to buy one of these. Anyway, here are some pictures of the new ride.

The new bike.

Ziggurat?

The fist and last name in mountain biking.

Made In God's Country.

Good old Genesis Geometry.

From the front.

The headbadge.

No need to address that huge design flaw. It will probably work itself out.

The broken bottom bracket. The picture isn't that great but the silver strip to the right shouldn't be there.