Here we go!

Well, another work week just about wrapped up. Race number two is on Sunday and I’m determined to do well at this one this year. The last two seasons this race has chewed me up and spit me out. I’m not exactly sure why I don’t do well there but I think its because I can never get into a good flow and if you aint got flow its hard to go fast. To try to combat my anti-flow I pre-rode the course last weekend or should I say I tried to pre-ride the course. My buddy Kev and I went down to ride but since it hadn’t been marked out yet we spent an hour noodling around trying in vain to find the right route but simply couldn’t put all of the meandering trails together. Despite that though, I felt like I was starting to understand the course a bit more and actually enjoyed riding it. It looks like I might be able to get a couple of pre-ride laps in again tomorrow so hopefully I’ll be as dialed in as I can. I may even take both the dos and the el with me to see which one is right for the course. I know the El Mariachi was perfect for the last race but I'm guessing the extra cush of the Dos Niner will be right this weekend but you never know until you try.

I guess I can’t do much worse than the last couple of years anyway so I’ve got little to lose and hopefully late Sunday morning I won’t be on the ground suckling on the course’s sweaty, hairy nipple. Plus, this is the first of five races for me in the next two months and it would be really nice to get off to a good start.

In not so good starts, last night I pulled last year’s Hope P2 rear hub apart because of some weird clicking I had been hearing while free-wheeling recently. I had expected the problem to be a sticky pawl that wasn’t engaging properly but I was wrong. After taking the hub apart (which is amazingly, almost scarily easy to do) I noticed some teeny, tiny half spheres falling out which upon further inspection we ball bearings sheared in half. Nice, the entire bearing was ripped to shreds and there were pieces of plastic and metal all through the hub.

All those little black dots are actually sheared ball bearings!

Hopefully once I get it all cleaned up it will be an easy repair. Since I was apparently born without opposable thumbs I have a hard time doing most bike repairs but hopefully this is one I can actually tackle. I’ll know more after I give Big Gay Al over at Bikeman a jingle.