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.

"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.

Branching Out

Mikey and I headed to Greensboro this weekend to celebrate our three week anniversary by visiting Ethan and scoping out some his local trails. It looks like Ethan has a pretty sweet set up with some quality trails just a few minutes away and a greenway system that goes to another park with more good trails. The first trails we hit were at Country Park and were a bunch of fun. They had a nice flow and weren't very technical. They definitely had a fair share of roots but nothing over the top. At one of the entrances to the trail there was a section for freeride and dirt jumping. We rolled through the jumps and decided that you would have to be a little insane to really ride that section, but it was cool to see. After riding Country Park we hopped on the greenway and road up to Brandt Lake where we rode a little bit of the trails at Bur Mill Park. The section that we rode was fun but not enough to give an accurate rating for the whole trail system. We also rode Owl's Roost trail which is also at Lake Brandt but not in Bur Mill Park. These trails were a ton of fun with more obstacles than Country Park. They had a bunch of log rolls and some really fun downhill sections. Towards the end of this trail there was a log roll that I thought I could ride over without much trouble. I was wrong. I went to ride over the log but instead my front wheel hit the first log and stopped. Unfortunately I didn't stop until shortly after hitting the logs that I thought I was going to roll over. I should have expected this since I haven't really wrecked in a while and was overdue for a good one. Luckily Mike came away unphased and I only have a couple of scratches. Overall, it was a really fun day of riding and a nice change of pace from the Raleigh area trails that I usually ride. I am looking forward to more visits to the Triad to try out more of their trails.

In other bike news, I have started thinking about another dream bike that I will never be able to afford. I don't really have a use for this bike but I just think that they are super cool. It is one of these bamboo bikes. I think that these bikes are really sexy and would be really cool to ride around town on. They are supposedly more plush and comfortable than carbon fiber, although a little heavier. Unfortunately, I don't have an extra 3k to spend on a wooden frame but maybe I will when I find that duffel bag filled with money that I am looking for. Although not very practical for me, Calfee is working with African farmers to teach them how to make their own bamboo bikes for transportation uses. Even though I can't afford one of those nice pretty frames right now I may look into building my own. I think I may be able to cut off the tubes and use the joints from Ann and bond them with some sort of epoxy. Here is a guy that built his own bamboo frame and how he did it. He is a much more experienced builder than I am but I may look into it the next time I get really bored and want a project to work on.

One Week Later

Saturday marks the one week anniversary of my first ride with Girl Michaelangelo so I decided to go out riding the past couple of days to celebrate. I rode Harris Lake after work yesterday and felt really good on the bike. I took the hills easier than last week and have shaken off some of the rust. I am starting to feel pretty comfortable on the bike but I am still not completely back to where I was before the Gennie tragedy. I still make a lot of little mistakes, the most common being that I try to keep pedaling on my way over obstacles and end up hitting them with my pedal. It is possible that these crankarms are longer than the ones on the Fisher but I suspect that it is just bad technique. I also didn't wreck yesterday which is an improvement over last weeks ride. There was one point where I tried to go over a log and hit my chainring on the log pretty badly but I don't consider this a wreck because I never hit the ground. I thought that I would be able to clear it as I approached but the log was on a slight downhill and the lower ground on the other side skewed my judgment a bit. As I went over the ring hit and stopped the bike completely as I went over the bars and running down the hill. I was impressed that the collision didn't seem to phase the ring or the chain. Excellent work Salsa and Sram respectively. At the end of the day I had done about 14.5 miles, a pretty good day considering the heat.

Today I went out to Crabtree to ride the trails out there. I did one loop around Crabtree and although I felt good on the bike, the trails were pretty boring. I was hoping that since I haven't ridden these trails regularly in six months or more that they would be more fun on the new bike but I am already bored with them on my second trip out there. I will still ride them occasionally and go out there with group rides but I probably will not go out there on a regular basis. One exciting moment on these trails came when I passed the 50 mile mark for this bike on my computer. I figured that this was a small mile stone so when the odometer rolled over to 50.0 I stopped to collect a small nearby stone to keep as the 50 mile milestone stone. Please note that this stone is purely ceremonial and that there have been several other miles on the bike not recorded on the computer. I decided that since I came out here and went through the trouble of getting ready to ride that I should go spin through Umstead for a while to get some miles in for fitness. I ended up riding all of the trails in Umstead that are open to bikes for a total of about 24.5 miles of fireroads and roughly 5.5 miles of trail, for a grand total 30 miles worth of riding today. I really enjoyed the ride through Umstead and it was a good way to show off the new bike. When people see someone as goofy looking as I am come riding down the trail on a bike that just rolled out of a Ninja Turtles movie with a giant Reeses Cup jersey, they know that I mean serious business. The bike handled the fireroads of Umstead pretty well. I was worried about some of the longer hills on a singlespeed but I was able to make them all. There were some sections that tested out my climbing abilites and I may use this as a training route before my next attempt at Old La Honda. The bike tops out at about 15 mph on flat ground with the current gearing but I was able to test out the top speed on a long straight downhill. I think the bike topped out at around 34 mph or so with me doing my best Linus-Gerdemann-descending-Col-de-la-Colombière impression on the way down.

The 50 mile milestone stone.

Todays ride also brought about the first casualty of the new bike. I noticed at one point during the ride that one of my water bottles was shaking a lot and upon further inspection I discovered that the cage has broken on one side. A lot of times I will use a broken part as an excuse to replace it with something better. This is not one of those cases. I tried to zip tie the cage back together but it looks like the other side is close to breaking as well. I am not sure if I will be able to salvage this one. This is a little disappointing because these were the only orange cages that I could find anywhere but I can always get some in another color and paint them myself.

The broken cage

I am starting to think that I may be the only one who really likes the green and orange color scheme. I took the bike to work with me Friday and while chatting with a coworker who saw my helmet sitting at my cube, I mentioned that I brought my bike with me and was planning on riding after work. His only response was "Its not the green one is it?". I guess its ok as long as I like it.

More Riding

I have been out on a few more rides at various trails and I am starting to really like this bike. Here are some random thoughts on the riding.


The singlespeed thing is pretty challenging on the hills but I expect after a while I will be able to power over most of them. If you listen to the people on the singlespeed board at MTBR, riding with just one gear will greatly increase your power in a matter of weeks. I am not totally convinced of this and I'm sure that just like any miracle diet pill, results may vary. Right now my average speeds have been comparable to when I was riding a hardtail so it doesn't look like riding single will slow me down much, if any at all.

The rigid fork is still fairly comfortable most of the time and the ride isn't any worse than Gennie over the small stuff. The only time I really feel it is over the bigger obstacles, taking the bike of off drops, and on fast descents. Even at these times the ride isn't terrible and I will definitely keep it rigid for the time being.

Yesterday I went out to Crabtree and had a really good ride. Most of the hills out there can be powered over without much trouble and the bike flies through the flat flowing sections of the trail. The bike really handles nicely and takes turns really well. I think this is at least partly because of the tire upgrade over the stock Bontragers on Gennie.

At one point during yesterdays ride I came up behind another rider as he was trying to go up a short but fairly steep section of trail. As I approached he tried to downshift and ended up dropping the chain, forcing him to get off of the bike and hurry out of my way as I stood up to ride past him and inflate my ego. I usually don't like to watch people fail but it feels good to see someone on a full suspension bike with all of the bells and whistles move over for a bike with one gear and no suspension.

The only bad thing about the riding lately is that the heat has been brutal. For the out of towners, it has been up in the low hundreds the last few days around here with a heat index of around 110 most days (All temperatures are in degrees Fahrenheit). I have been carrying just the two bottles for water and putting all of my gear in my jersey pockets. This is a little less convenient than the camelbak but it is nice to not have that extra weight hanging on my shoulders and to be able to let my back breathe a little. Most of the trails that I ride around here are fairly short and keep you within a few minutes of riding from a water fountain when refills are needed.

The Maiden Voyage

Well I finally got out for a ride today on the new bike. Overall, it went pretty well. I went to Harris Lake to ride and did all of the trails once plus an extra trip through the beginner and intermediate trails for a photo op. In the end I did 11.33 miles with an average speed of 8.7 mph. The photo op ride was a pretty casual pace and I also had to do szome backtracking at one point to recover a water bottle that I dropped, which dropped my speed some. All things considered, it was just as fast as I would have been on a geared bike. Here are some observations from the ride.

The Good
The Feel of the Bike - I was worried that the rigid fork might be a little harsh on the trail but it turns out that it really wasn't any worse than Gennie. The steel frame and carbon bars did a good job of dampening out trail buzz and making for a pretty smooth ride. There were a couple of bigger roots that were a jolt but the cheap fork on the Fisher wasn't that much smoother than this rigid setup. I didn't take the bike off of any drops or sweet jumps, which is probable where I will really feel the lack of suspension.

The Ride - There wasn't anything really special about the feel of the bike or the geometry except that it rides like a bike. It isn't anything revolutionary, but the bike went where I wanted when I wanted it to. The handling isn't sluggish or twitchy, just fun.

The Gears - I was worried that 34-18 might be a little steep to start out with but I cleared almost every hill out there. The only time I had to get off and walk was the big hill in the double black diamond section, which I would rarely clean on a geared bike. The big whoop-de-doo just after this hill almost stopped me but I was able to power through it, just not very gracefully. The rest of the time I made it up the climbs without much trouble. I didn't miss the gears at all.

The Weight - The front end of the bike is really light and easy to lift over logs and obstacles. Overall the bike is about 5 or 6 pounds lighter than Gennie was, which makes it a lot easier to take up the hills. The rigid fork helps out there too due to the lighter weight and efficiency compared to suspension.

It Worked - I must not of screwed anything up too badly during the build because I was able to get through the whole ride without breaking anything.

I Didn't Get Hurt - My last trip to Harris Lake ended up with me getting stitches. No such trouble today.

The Saddle - I was a little worried that the saddle wouldn't be very comfortable on the trails seeing as it came off of a road bike but I didn't have any problems. The WTB saddle on the Fisher was really comfortable in regular clothes but was a little too cushy once I started wearing cycling shorts. This saddle doesn't have as much padding as that one but is still plenty comfortable with the chamois in the shorts, at least on this length of ride. It is also very easy to get behind on the downhills, which inspired some confidence.

The Bad
Creaking Bottom Bracket - There is some sort of creaking noise coming from the bottom bracket area. I checked the chainring bolts and they are good and tight so I don't know what is causing it. I think it might just be a crappy BB but those are cheap if I want to replace it sometime.

Snake on a Trail - There was a snake on the trail that I almost ran over. It was just a black snake but I am like a little girl when it comes to snakes. I didn't see it in time to stop so I just rode right past him. He never moved that I saw but I still hammered up that hill as hard as I could.

Chipped Paint - Towards the end of the ride I decided to go ahead and meet the minimum requirement of one wreck per ride. The back wheel washed out from under me while I was going through a turn and when I fell the handlebars swung around and the brake lever hit the top tube leaving a nice scratch in the paint. Oh well, I guess it can't be pretty forever.

Where Was Everyone At - Surprisingly, I only saw a few other people on the trail. Usually I try to avoid the crowds but there should have been more people there to gawk at the beauty of this bike.

I Am Out of Shape - No surprise there.


I am hoping to get back out tomorrow and ride some more, but for now here are some photos of todays ride.

Mikey relaxing by the lake.

From the front.

Close up of the front.


Disc brakes work good.


Pretty good chainline.

The saddle.


The view from the rear.

It's done... for now.

I got the bike built up tonight but it was dark by the time I got finished so the only riding I got was a quick spin around the parking lot. The bike looks really good, even with the red tires that I don't like too much. Not much to tell from the ride today except that I am more upright than my old bike and that the nicer housing makes a huge difference in the stopping power of the brakes. Hopefully I can get a good ride in tomorrow but I may end up seeing the new Bourne movie instead. Either way it should be awesome. Here are some pics of the bike being built and the finished product. I'll give a ride report sometime in the next couple of days.

Just home from the shop.



The King headset looks great.



The complete bike.


From the front. (Pardon the messy room)


The cockpit.

It's Here

The UPS man stopped by this afternoon and delivered my frame and handlebars, but for some reason the rest of my parts aren't going to come until tomorrow. It looks like this may put me a day or two behind on the building process but I should still be riding by the weekend so it isn't a big deal. The frame looks great. The color is darker than it looked on the internet pictures but it looks really good. Although the frame isn't super light, it is light enough for a steel mountain bike. I expect the bike to be around 24 or 25 pounds when finished. I can't wait to get out on a ride with this thing. I'm going to be busy tomorrow night but hopefully I can find time to spray it down with Framesaver before going to bed. If I do, I should be finished building it by Thursday night and go on a nice long ride Friday afternoon. Here are some pictures for those of you not here, but I must warn you that good lighting and photography skills were absent from this photo shoot.

Pulled the Trigger

Another sweet addition to the bike came last night when I won a set of carbon handlebars. They are the Monkeylite SL model which are at the very top of Easton's lineup. They are unbelievably light at only 135g (4.75 oz). This was the last big thing that I was really looking for on Ebay so I decided that it was time to move on from the hunter gatherer phase of this bike build and ordered everything else that I needed for now. It looks like this entire project is going to end up only costing me a little over $1200, not bad considering that this includes a workstand and some tools in addition to a top notch bike. All I need left to buy is a new set of pedals, seatpost, and a couple of water bottles. Hopefully I can snag some pedals and a seatpost off of Ebay soon or I can just use the ones from the Fisher. I am going to need to have a little bit of the labor done at a shop so I can pick up some bottles then. Nothing to do now but sit and wait for the mailman.

One of the reasons I am so anxious to get this bike built is that I still haven't heard anything from the shop about my new GF frame. I saw a thread here about a guy that broke his GF Rig in the same spot as mine (great design their Gary) and was told that they are out of those frames for 07. I am afraid that the same thing might be happening with the Tassajara and I do not want to wait any longer to ride than I have to. It has already been a month since my last good ride which is way too long.

It begins

So I have been thinking lately of building up a killer singlespeed to replace the geared bikes that seem to stay broken. It seems that when you get to my size that most bikes just don't seem to hold up. After breaking both of the wheels on my Fisher on consecutive rides I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to a more durable set. Unfortunately, I only got a handful of rides on these wheels until I cracked the frame. With the bike in the shop getting fixed under warranty for the past three weeks, I got so desperate that I set up Ethan's old road bike, Emaline, and went out for a road ride with him. That bike lasted me about 1.5 rides and 25 miles before I snapped the chain and was left stranded in Cary. So I am hoping that if I get a beefy steel frame and ditch all of the unnecessary components, like the shifters and derailleurs, that I can ride a bike for a full year without it completely blowing up. Anyway here are the planned specs for my new ride:

Frame/Fork: Surly 1x1 22" Lemon Lime Green
Headset: Chris King in mango
Stem: Easton EA70
Handlebars: Easton Monkeylite Carbon Risers
Grips: Oury in orange
Levers: Avid Speed Dial Ti
Cables/Housing: Jagwire Ripcord in Maxxis Orange
Brakes: Avid BB7
Crank: Truvativ Stylo SS
Front Wheel: Shimano XT disc hub mated to a Mavic XC717 rim
Rear Wheel: Surly New Disc Hub mated to a Salsa Delgado rim
Freewheel: 18t ACS Claws
Tires: Panaracer Fire XC Pro
Seatpost: Whatever I can get cheap
Saddle: Fizik Aliante
Pedals: Time Atac
Cages: Alloy cages in orange


This bike is going to sweet looking with the green frame and orange accessories. I have been searching Ebay for the last couple of weeks for some good parts for cheap and so far I have the rear wheel, stem, cages and saddle. The brakes and front wheel are definitely coming off of the current bike. I am planning on buying the frame/fork, headset, tires, and cranks new and I may get some of the smaller stuff new while I am at it (How much will I really save by getting grips off of Ebay?). If I steal some temporary parts from the Fisher the only thing I really need to get is a good set of carbon bars and maybe a seatpost. Hopefully I can get some pics up later of the things I already have but until then enjoy the riding.