A great ride on a beautiful day!

So, I finally got around to installing a new bashring on the Yo Eddy after the bolts decited to work their way throgh the plastic on my old one... in the middle of a ride...

The task was made easy with help from my buddy Phil.

Then I went for a ride. Dayna and I went hiking this morning and the trails were perfect. I couldn't resist! Went up Hulls and then hit Sidewinder, then dropped over over to the Mil Reserve and climbed around for a bit, and played in some mud!

Overall, a great way to spend the day. It was the first nice sunny day weve had in a while, despite the temps only being around 50.

White legggs...

Another great fall ride.

I rode a new trail today: The Watchman. It was quite a bit longer than I thought it would be. The builders must have put a ton of effort into its creation. It is basically carved into the side of a very steep hill. It looks like they moved a lot of dirt and rocks. Excellently constructed switchbacks too. I love it when bikers build trails!

I accessed it from the 5 Mile Gulch trail. I haven't ever ridden up it before so it was nice to enjoy the scenery for once instead of railing the downhill. It was a bit of a grunt to get up to the Watchman trail, but once I was on it the grade was quite mellow, especially for riding it in the uphill direction.

My take on the Single Speed thing.

So, after reading some of the comments on Jill's recent post I felt compelled to reply to the naysayers naysaying regarding single speed riding. There was a lot of negativity from a few anons which really bothered me. Isn't it all just about riding a bike and having a good time? Why do people have to judge based on riding style, discipline, or bike choice? So I posted a comment. Ill repost it here, as a reference to my position on single speeding.

And I quote (myself):
Wow, so much drama stirred up about one little comment about singlespeeds. Heres the straight dope.

Please don't judge, hate, playa hate, stereotype, or criticize others for their preferred means of enjoying life on a bike. In the end, its all about the passion. Its all about riding a bike and having fun doing so. Right?

Until you have ridden a real singlespeed (not just ridden for an hour without shifting), you don't know what the experience is like. Your whole mindset changes and brings a fresh new perspective to cycling.

I also said I would never ever ride a singlespeed, now 3 years later I have SS mtbs and fixed gear road bikes in addition to my geared bikes. I love all of them, and ride each as needed. They all let me enjoy the awesomeness of nature, the sity, and cycling in general in different ways. It keeps it fresh, keeps me from getting burnt out. (It also gets me to work...)

SS is great for building strength when you don't have time to hit the gym, or would rather be riding in the beautiful outdoors than stuck in a sweaty gym with all the jockstrap man-boys.

We ss'ers all have our different reasons. But we all have one thing in common too: a love and passion for biking, on or off road.

Ill say it again. Please don't judge, hate, playa hate, stereotype, or criticize others for their preferred means of enjoying life on a bike. In the end, its all about the passion.

Word out.

New Bike Day!!!

OK, so I've been wanting and needing a new bike. The Peugeot is having issues, and just isnt very fun to ride. Too slow, too heavy. Too... French. So, I bought a sweetness vintage Atala italian steel frame on the eBay. Size 59cm, Columbus SL steel tubing, Dura-Ace headset and bottom bracket. Perfect.



The frame finally arrived today. I won the auction 2 weeks ago and have been waiting very impatiently ever since. I experienced a range of emotions during the wait, from anger at the seller and at Brown, to boredom and hoplessness, to nail-biting room-pacing nervious anticipation of its imminent arrival. It arrived about 5 oclock today, and I immediately started building it up with the Ultegra crankset and a cheapo seatpost that I also won offa da eBay. Hey, I had to do something to make a few weeks pass quicker, and what better way than to buy more goodies.



I used the track wheelset off of my Peugeot and put on my shiny new track handlebars. It went together smoothly. All I need now are some new chainring bolts, which I will be buying first thing in the morning. Oh, and probably a brake too.





Its looking pretty sweet. The frame weighs about as much as my Serotta, probably because it uses a very similar steel tubing. Its no lightweight, but it is way lighter than the Peugeot, which weighed about a million pounds. I'd really like to treat it to some period-correct Campagnolo parts, but I have discovered that they are really expensive. I figured that I could continue to spec it with high-end Shimano parts for about half the cost. All I need now is a shiny Dura Ace or Ultegra seatpost and front brake.




The only thing holding it back from being duper-light is the wheelset, but I am willing to make that sacrifice. I would feel very nervous about riding the streets with a lightweight wheelset.

Cant freaking wait to ride it! Edit: I just took it around the block while I was waiting for the pictures to upload. Whooo Hoooo! This thing is gonna be FUN!!

A perfect fall day for an imperfect fall ride.

It was beautiful on Friday. I had the day off. I rode my bike.

Temps were inching into the 50's and the sun was out so I just couldn't resist grabbing my mountain bike and hitting the trails. I was in the mood for a longer ride on some of the upper foothills trails that I don't ride too often. I decided to ride up Orchard Gulch, down 5 Mile Gulch, and down 3 Bears.

About 15 minutes into the ride my chainring bolts decided that they wanted to work their way completely through my plastic bashring. I don't know why Shimano made a plastic bashring. I don't know why I have it. Anyways, I spent about 15 minutes on the trailside trying to get them to work again, but to no avail. I finally decided to pull the bashring off entirely. This rendered my middle 32t chainring totally inoperable, and I had to drop my chain down onto my "emergency" little 22t chainring. I knew that the downhills and flats would totally suck but it was worth it because I wanted to keep riding.

2 minutes later I had the brilliant idea of cross-chaining to gain some extra gears and I snapped my chain. Another 5 minutes on the trailside.

The next hour went well. I spun easily up Rocky Canyon road to the Orchard Gulch trailhead, ate a poptart, and continued on.




It was gorgeous out, and the scenery was amazing. I love being that far up in the foothills. It starts to feel like you are riding in the mountains, rather than the plain-jane foothills. After fifteen minutes of climbing up the gulch, my bike became difficult to pedal and then just stopped cold. After a few minutes of "what the crap!?!?!" I found the problem My cassette lockring had come unscrewed and my cassette had done some weird "I'll jump off the freehub and stop moving" thing. I spent 10 minutes wrestling with my rear wheel to get this fixed.




I climbed up the rest of Orchard Gulch and descended 5 Mile Gultch. No pictures of it though because that downhill is one of the funnest EVER! So much flow. You can go all out in most places. Oh, and the fall scenery was twice as pretty.


On the way up to 3 Bears, the cassette thingy happened again. I got the fix down to 3 minutes.

3 Bears pounded me to death, but it was still a hoot. Pedaling home from the military reserve sucked and was agonizingly slow in my small chainring.

18.8 miles. 2 Hours riding time. 3.5 hours total... I haven't touched that bike since. Oh well. A ride is still a ride, and a ride in this beautiful fall weather on sweetness trails is a great ride.

First rain ride of the fall!

It rained all day today. And all week. And most of this month. Fortunatly, I have been able to avoid it on my commute to work. Well, that luck ended today. Nothing too serious, mind you. A constant drizzle with temps around 43 degrees. Quite pleasant to ride in. However, I was duper-prepared. Brought plenty of warm goodies like a neck gaiter, toe covers, and my rain pants. The pants are ridiculously huge on me. They worked great. I sure do love riding in the rain... ... But it can stop anytime it wants because I want to ride some dry trails. Please?