Peer pressure

After an e-mail from team manager Big Gay Al and some coercion from Jason, I’ve agreed to start posting on the Bikeman site now as well. Not exactly sure how that’ll work and whether it’ll be the same posts as over here but we’ll soon find out. I’d hate to thin my already meager creativity into yet another blog (since I’m already stretched thin with this one and DAMNelsons) so my guess is that I’ll send occasional posts the bikeman way and keep up my typical lackluster posts here. Wouldn’t want to disappoint my legions of fans here now would I? Who am I kidding? I’m sure that I’ll have a bigger audience over at Bikeman.com anyway.

Yesterday, I had a chance to get out on the Dos Niner for the second time and I think that I’m starting to get it dialed in. During the ride I was feeling weird and out of sorts. I couldn’t tell quite what it was but it was something bike related so when I got home last night, I took her down into the shop to check a few things out and sure enough somehow I had screwed up my saddle position. Turns out my saddle was 3”! too far back. That would explain why it felt like I was driving a tractor because the bike felt totally unresponsive. I think that I screwed it up while riding it last week, I made a saddle adjustment but I don’t think that I tightened it down completely thus allowing it to slide on the rails. Leave it to me and my wrenching skills to make the stupidest mistakes. Hopefully with that fix, I’ll be back on track. Gonna take her out for a ride tonight to see if that did it. I also have a longer stem on the way from Bikeman that I’m supposed to test for a month and give a review on. It’s the Salsa SUL stem. Should be killer. Its lighter than what I have now and with the longer length, it should dial in the fit just a bit more. Fingers crossed.











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Ullrich unveils his new aero position!























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office

I was taking a gander at my workspace and realized what a shithole it was turning into. Its starting to look like a college dorm. It can be tough keeping it tidy when I need to reference several 24"x36" drawings at once and need to have reference materials handy. After I took this picture, I did actually clean up a bit but it still looks like crap. I'm just a cluttery (not dirty) person by nature I guess.

Burrito

Not to be outdone by Jason and his pizza rolls, Marcy has supplied me with her recipe for her kick ass burritos.

Ingredients: I generally cook to taste so the amounts of each ingredient can vary...

olive oil
garlic minced (~2 cloves)
onion (1 small/medium)
red and green pepper if you like (I've also used canned hot green chilis)
chili powder, cumin and cayenne pepper to taste
Ground turkey (a large can of chunk chicken worked really well in a pinch) - (~1 pound)
Black beans (1 can)
corn (a cup or two)
salsa (a cup or two - too much and the mixture can get watery)
mexican cheese (or other preference)
tortilla shells

Directions: saute garlic, onion and peppers in olive oil, add seasonings and ground turkey and cook until browned, drain if necessary. Add black beans, corn, chilis(if using them) and salsa. If you are using canned chunk chicken instead of ground meat add with the beans, corns etc. as it is already cooked. Simmer until heated through. I usually let it simmer for 20 minutes or so - stirring frequently.

Add the mixture to tortilla shells, add cheese to each, fold, top with more cheese and cook at 350 until shells are crunchy.

The picture isn’t great but it’ll have to do for now.

Eureka!

Yesterday, on my ride home, I finally realized how I could link up most of the trails between home and work and turn it into a mighty fun mountain bike session.  Recently, as I have mentioned before, I’ve been hitting up the Schmid Preserve on almost every one of my commutes by bike.  It has several miles (actually if I did them all it would probably be around 6 or 7 miles total) of trails that I can take on my way in.  Once back onto the road I pass by another preserve (Zak) that has about 4 miles of sweet, tight single track that I had avoided on my commute because it is an out and back.  While riding home yesterday I remembered that the Zak preserve trail dumps out on the River Road (my office is right at the end of the River Road).  This is the only road that Marcy has forbade me to ride my road bike on because it is narrow, twisty, in bad shape and the drivers on it treat it like an F1 race course.  I wasn’t sure exactly where on RR that it came out so this morning I decided to drive the dreaded road on my way in to scope it out.  Turns out the trail ends only about a mile from my office (sweet!) so if I were to be riding my mountain bike it would be easy for me to stay on the crappy gravel shoulder and stay out of harms way.  I am now in heaven.  I am going to be able to turn a 12 mile ok road ride into a roughly 20 mile road/mountain bike ride with the option of adding another 5 or so miles of trails right near my house on days that I have the time.

This is very important because I’ve been looking at my riding time so far this year and on average, I am at least 25% lower and in many cases 50% lower on a weekly basis in comparison to last year and its gotten me worried.  Having B-Girl at home means that I can’t simply start riding more on nights and weekends because my time with her is scarce as it is, so I need to find ways to get more riding time in at the two ends of the day.  First thing in the morning and right before dark look to be my prime hours.  It’ll probably stink initially to be getting up at 4-4:30 in the morning to get a long ride in but I’d rather have that than no ride at all and come that first race, I’ll be glad that I made the sacrifice.  I typically already get up at 5-5:30 so how bad could another hour be???  Pretty bad is my guess but I’ve got to give it a shot.

Single track goodness

van d nestled in some single track goodness. I hope to get the dos out on this trail soon...

one more shot of the dos. I've been too damn busy with work and a sick daughter to ride it again but maybe, just maybe this weekend I'll get another ride in and get the suspension dialed. 

OK, quit screwing around

Since I love to see pictures of myself on the internet, here are a few to marvel at. Notice the aerodynamic shape of my nose? Thats where I get my speed from. Wind tunnel tested, lady approved. 

Me likes

See how giddy I am to be riding my Dos? Good thing this is a head shot only, a full body shot may not have been appropriate for some viewers considering my, um, excitement. 

Brews

Here is a sampling of some of the brews that I sampled whilst in Vermont this skiing this past weekend. I can honestly say that I like them all.

First Dos

First pic of the cobbled together dos. As noted earlier, I've built it up as a sort of mongrel single speed for now to get some riding time in. Overall, the ride was pretty sweet. I still have to dial in the suspension because I wasn't getting enough travel out of the rear and the front was bobbing too much. The disc brakes are sweet and not nearly as grabby as a set I tried a few years ago. I've got a bit of squeal in the front break that I'll hopefully be able to get rid of with some use but overall still very nice.

I have many more pictures but blogger is being a bitch right now and won't let me upload more so cool your jets for now. 

Parts swap

Not much going on today, just getting ready for the weekend in Vermont.  Good news on the Dos Niner front, I should be able to start riding it in ss mode next week.  My baby is at Bikeman getting an old crank installed so that I can set it up as a ss until the rest of the parts show up.  It’ll be a bit of a mongrel at first but at least it’ll allow me to get used to the way it rides, get used to disc brakes, get the stem and seat dialed in etc.  I am so freakin psyched to hop on that baby the first time.  Now, lets hope for some dry or at least freezing weather.

I now have my fuel 98 stripped down to a bare frame and shock to be put up for sale.  Not sure what to sell it for yet, I guess I should start trolling ebay to see if any other fuel frames are up for grabs and what the prices are.

I was over reading Nick Martin’s blog the other day and noticed that he’s giving out mix cd’s of his riding music.  Cool idea but it got me wondering if he’s going to get himself in trouble.  Seems like he’s asking for trouble if he’s making cd’s with pirated music (maybe he owns the originals but I can’t imagine that he’s allowed to sell copies) and putting his sponsors on the cover.  Maybe he has actually covered his bases and is a legal reseller of music and is paying royalties to the record companies and if he is, kudos to him but if he isn’t, I’d be really worried about the legal repercussions.  Its one thing to make some mix cd’s to give to friends but totally another to advertise them on a popular blog.  

nada

Not much to note today.  I did a quick spin on the trainer last night while watching “The Devil’s Rejects” by Rob Zombie.  Interesting movie but not nearly as f’ed up as his first movie “House of 1000 Corpses”.  Now that was one screwed up movie.

Marcy and I are getting ready for a long weekend in Vermont for (hopefully if the friggin rain lets up) skiing and hiking.   We’re staying for four days at Sugarbush.  Our first choice was Jay Peak but their daycare can’t take 6 month olds.  Oh well, any skiing will be nice since we have done zilch this year.  Its been hard to get into the mood to ski when we’ve literally only had a few weeks of snow cover ALL WINTER!  They’ve still got a good bit of cover over there and I typically love spring skiing so I really don’t care if they get any more snow between now and then, I just hope that it doesn’t rain while we’re there.  That’ll suck monkey nuts.

Actual quote from the Sugarbush website:

CONDITIONS: The current conditions are... well, they're a bit wet. We did get some translucent snow yesterday, but are expecting some of the white kind later tonight and tomorrow. The groomers were kept off of the hill last night because of yesterday's r#@%. 

Marcy and I cooked up Jason’s recipe for pizza rolls last night.  Aside from some swearing emanating from the kitchen during the prep process, they came out quite well.  

Shelter trails

Found some more tasty single track on my ride home on Friday. I don't know how I ever found trails before getting the Van Dessel. With it, I can duck into trails in the middle of a road ride which allows me to discover lots of new stuff. Not all of it good, but hey, you need to filter out the crap to get to the good stuff anyway. This little get is about 5 miles from my house. For now it seems a bit too short to make it worth bringing the mtb out to but great fun for during the middle of an ss road ride. 

Today's commute was fun and slushy. I decided that based on the conditions I would take it easy and just spin in but ended up doing the whole ride within one minute of my typical time. Hmmmmmmm 

Perfect chain tension

I was having trouble with my new surly chain tensioner that was not keeping enough tension on the chain to keep it from jumping off the chainring in rough areas. I initially thought that maybe I had a bit too much slack in the chain so I took out one link and viola! what do I discover? It turns out that 32x18 is the magic ratio for my bike to not need any tensioner at all. Now if I just got rid of the dorky big ring ground down to work as a bashguard I'd be all set.

I have come up with a theory on how to get some ride time in on the dos now that my parts are delayed from SRAM. I think that I have everything that I need to turn it into a single speed (especially now that I have a chain tensioner that isn't being used) except for disc brakes. If I could set it up ss for the time being, I'd at least get to know the geometry and adjust position so that when my parts do show up, I'll be ready to roll. I'd hate to only have a few weeks on the bike before the first race. Just doesn't seem like a good idea considering how different it will ride compared to my other bikes. Just need to find some disc brakes to use for the time being...

SRAM order

Just found out from our team manager Al that our Sram order has been delayed until April 17!  Frig, talk about cutting it close to the race season.  My first scheduled race is May 21 so that won’t give me much time to get used to the whole 29’er thing.  It probably also means that I won’t have time to do the build myself and may need to have the shop do it for me.  Double bummer.  The good news is that as a result, SRAM has decided to give us an additional 10% off our already insanely low cost so that’s nice I guess but to be honest I’d gladly pay an extra 10% to have the stuff right now!

Dos!

The dos is in the house. I'm still missing all of the sram and avid bits but at least it looks kind of like an actual bike now. The paint and pin stripping are sweet and I sort of feel bad about getting it dirty but whatcha' gonna do?










Check out how lucky here. The skewers actually match the adjuster knob on the reba perfectly. Super bling!












Me likes...










So, it appears that Jason is getting a Dos as well in addition to his El Santo. His build will be pretty similar to mine but since he's getting his sram bits the good ole fashion way, he'll be getting most of his parts before me! Unfair!!!!! Of course, Al mentioned that his reba and delgado rims are on backorder for a bit so I still have a chance at beating him on the build. I'm secretly (or not so since I'm mentioning it here) hoping that his stuff lags on backorder for a while. There is no way that he's going to have two new pimpin rides before I have my one... The race is on J.

tugnut

got the tugnut installed on the van d. look ma, proper chain tension!

tugnut

Not much happening on the riding front right now.  Hope to get in a couple of hours on the trainer tonight but we’ll see how that goes.  I picked up a surly tugnut for the VanDessel to keep the rear wheel from slipping in the horizontal drops so I can keep proper chain tension especially when I start ripping up the single track on it.  Hopefully I can work it so that I ride home on Friday and I can check out s.t. in the Schmidt Preserve.  Fingers crossed.

..

Got word form Al at bikeman that the frames have come in on Friday.  I was somewhat overjoyed because I’ve been waiting for quite some time for it to arrive but the problem is that all of the SRAM/Truvativ/Avid stuff has yet to arrive so the frame will stay packed away in the bowels of bikeman until said parts arrive.  They’d better come soon.  Not only am I excited to have the complete bike but this will also be the first bike that I’ll put together from scratch myself (minus the headset since I don’t have a press) so it’ll probably take me a while to get it set up.  Its also the first time since my very first mountain bike over 10 years ago that I’ve had SRAM shifters so I’m not sure how difficult/tedious they are to set up.  I’m a pro at setting up shimano drivetrains now but not so much SRAM.  We’ll see how it goes.

The weekend went pretty well.  B-girl slept all of Friday and Saturday nights so Marcy and I got a full nights sleep both nights.  I’ve forgotten what its like to be rested.  Feels pretty good actually.  Saturday I didn’t get a ride in but I was able to do some ab work as well as a full circuit of Cyclo-core.  It had been a couple of weeks since I’ve rocked the cyclo-core so this time it rocked me.  I couldn’t get through any of the exercises without a quick 1-2 sec break but it’ll come back soon enough.  The hindu squats totally kicked my ass and I was feeling them on my Sunday ride with Mad Dog Mike.  Mike seems to go fast no matter what time of year it is and yesterday was no exception.  He put the hurt on me in sections but it was good to really work the legs.  Overall, it was a good exploration type ride with a few dead ends as well as one quick dip in the river for Mike.  Thank god for wool socks is all that I can say.  Without them, Mike would probably be hobbling around with fewer toes today.  I rode the moto rapido which is in full on ss mode now as opposed to its mongrel ss set-up that it has had for a while.  All of the shifters and derailleurs are gone (and on Marcy’s trusty steed) now having been replaced with a surly singlelator and a deda fang.  It’s nice not to have all of that extra crap on there and the bike looks much cleaner to boot.   We ended up with 2.5 hrs of supah-dupah fun.

On my Wednesday ride home, I tried out the route through the Schmidt Preserve that I spoke of last week. Turned out to be very rideable for the most part although a bit rough in areas with the skinny cyclo-cross tires but still mostly doable. It'll be a nice occasional change from my typical road slog. As a bonus, there is a couple miles of single track trails in the preserve to ride as well but I had promised Marcy that I wouldn't do them on my first time through for safetys sake. I was a good boy and avoided them but the next time through, I'll be ripping it up.



This is what the main trail through the middle of the preserve (and the one that I'll use for my commute) looks like. This is one of the smoother sections but you get the idea.















This is the entry to one of the single track sections. The presere gets a fairly small amount of visitors so most of the trails are nice and smooth of course they can be soft as well since they don't have tons of people beating them down.










For good measure I took a spin through the hospital property just down the road from my house. They have some stone dust walking paths that are good for working on your sand skills on a cx bike.

no FWS

No FWS (Frozen Weiner Syndrome) on my way in this morning.  It was a bit warmer than yesterday (13 deg) but I think that the main difference came from the fact that I stuffed a Hannaford plastic grocery bag between my pants and shorts this time to work as a wind block.  Is seemed to do the trick with the added bonus of making me look a bit more well-endowed.  Sweet!  Shaggy dog tried to get me again today but I managed to outrun him although he is much, much faster than he looks.  That one road has more loose dogs on it than any road that I can remember ever riding on.  Its only about 5 miles long but on any given day there are 5 or 6 dogs that may give chase.  Thankfully, they all seem to be good dogs just looking for some excitement and not any angry Dobermans…

Saving Rick's Privates

Holy shit in a shoe locker it was cold this morning!  Yesterday, I rode my bike home and left my car at work intending on catching a ride in this a.m. with Marcy. Unfortunately, last night Brynna had a really tough night ending up keeping us awake for most of the night and as a result, Marcy’s cough and sore throat developed into a full blown cold which meant no workie for Marcy which also meant no ridey for Ricky to work.  Of course since I’m always looking for an excuse to ride, I decided that I would simply ride in today and bring my car home tonight.  Turns out it was a wee bit cold out this morning.  When I left, it was 9 freakin’ degrees.  I’ve ridden on the trails many times at that temp and colder actually but never on the road.  It started out great actually because my legs felt good (surprisingly since I got so little sleep last night) and I was fairly warm except for my face.  It was cold but not unmanageable.  About 3/4 of the way in though things started to get a bit rough.  I have seen ads for wind proof briefs in cycling catalogs before but never really knew when you would need such a thing.  Well, I’m here to tell you that its mornings like this little sucker that you need wind proof briefs.  At about that ¾ mark, I noticed my hoo-hoo dilly (“Well, who put their hoo-hoo dilly in your cha-cha?” thanks Cartman) was getting a wee bit chilly.  No wait, let me rephrase that, my junk was downright frozen!  The rest of the commute became a ride for survival.  On every downhill, I’d cover my junk with my right hand to keep the wind off and I’d crank as fast as I could on the uphills to try to get the blood flowing again.  The strategy seemed to work because when I got in to the office everything was still attached and save for a few minutes of the “its gonna hurt like hell before it warms up” phase everything down THERE seems to be feeling better.

Another interesting note from this morning’s ride is that the dogs on my route seem to be working in tandem now using the whole distraction ruse.  Early on in today’s ride I spotted a large German Sheppard taking a piss just off of the road, and not just a normal piss but a “I’ve been holding it all freaking night and its starting to dribble down my leg” piss that just seemed to keep going and going and going.  While I was marveling at this dog’s pissing prowess, dog number two was sneaking up on me from the other side of the road.  If it hadn’t been for the leaves in the ditch, that shaggy dog bastard probably would have been on my heels without me even knowing.  If they keep upping the ante like this, soon I wouldn’t be surprised if they start ordering products like rocket propelled roller skates from ACME and Wile E. Coyote my ass.

big 'uns

Upon Marcy seeing my newly built 29’er rims with Maxxis meat installed she said, “Those things are huge!”

Why yes, yes they are.

Hippy

I have some serious tightness in my right hip today.  What the hell is up with that???  I’m not sure what I did to it yesterday but jezus, when I get up from my chair I hobble around like an arthritic old fart.  I’ve tried stretching it some but can’t seem to hit the spot.  Does anybody have any ideas on how to stretch it?

the long ride home

Had a fantastic ride home yesterday. The temps were hovering around 40-45 all afternoon so Marcy shot me an e-mail to see if I could come home early so that we could go for a walk and test out our new Kelty pack for Brynna. Of course, with that thought in my head, there was no way that I was going to be able to stay until the end of the day. I ended up sneaking out at 3:30 to ride home and what a beautiful ride it was. My legs were feeling much better than they had during the morning commute, the sun was out, the air was crisp, it was great. As a result of the nice weather and my enthusiasm, I was able to trim off 5 minutes from my best time knocking it down from 47 mins to 42. That’s a pretty big chunk for such a short ride. This summer with my gearie and skinny tires I bet that I can get it down to around 35. We’ll see.

Woo hoo

Woo hoo!  I got my first morning commute of the year this morning.  It was 35 deg. when I rolled out of the driveway at 5:30 this morning.  35 is a tough temp for me because I can never decide what I should wear.  Its sort of too warm for the full cycling tights but not quite warm enough for my leg warmers.  I opted for the tights this morning just to be safe but turned out it was the wrong call.  I think that the leg warmers would have been better.  I did bring the leg warmers so those will get the call this afternoon for the ride home.  The upper body was tough too but I decided to go with a craft base layer followed by my bikeman long sleeve jersey with a thin (and I do mean thin) shell.  The upper body started to heat up a bit too but I was able to get the appropriate venting necessary to remain comfortable.  Sad to say, but this will be my biggest mileage day for quite some time.  Including the ride home I’ll get in 25-26 miles.  I’m behind where I was this time last year but given the circumstances I’m still pretty happy with how things are going.

The Marwi Titan light worked great mounted on my head and I think that is where it will stay from now on.  Its just too finicky to mount on the bars and I do prefer the light on my head to see where I’m looking anyway.

Bungee count this morning: 0!  It was dark the whole ride so if it wasn’t directly in my path, I wasn’t going to see it.

Marcy in her slick new lid and Brynna at Ranco-de-Nelson this Sunday before our frigid ride. 

Freakin busy so here

Freakin busy so here is a quick rundown of the weekend:

Cold but fun road/cx ride on Saturday (15 deg and sunny, yeah!)

Cold but cold mountain bike ride before the Sunday BLIZZARD! with Marcy, Daddio, Chancy-pants and Pete.  About 12 deg. when we left but it was the wind that killed us.  Friggin cold.

More to come…

f-ed up

Yesterday’s mountain bike ride was a bust.  Ever have one of those rides that nothing seems to go right?  Well, yesterday was that day for me.  To start it off, I hadn’t mounted the Titan on the bike before and that turned out to be more of a pain in the ass than I expected.  From now on, it’ll go on my head (which is where I prefer to have my light anyway).  Then I enter the trails and there are limbs and trees down all over the f-in place.  It looked like a war zone.  At first I thought somebody had put them there to keep people off of the trails because there were literally piles of branches in areas but after going about a half mile I realized the carnage was too great and it must have been last weeks windstorm that did the damage.  I just sort of walked over most of it figuring I’d come back and clean it some other time.  I continued on with the ride but started to get that bad feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right.  To top it off, I was riding like crap.  When I got to the first stream crossing and noticed that the ice wasn’t safe to cross I decided to throw in the towel.  There is a little natural damn that I usually cross but with the way I was feeling, I figured that I would just end up falling in the water and freezing my ass.  Better to be safe than sorry, especially when you’re riding alone.  So I turned back and cleaned up the first part of the trail instead so the ride wasn’t a total loss.  At least when I make it out next time the trail will be clear.

Yesterday's commute

Had a great ride home from work yesterday. It’s been a couple of weeks since I was last able to do so and it felt great. I got to test out my new light, the Marwi Titan, which gets two thumbs up and will do well to replace my burned out Marwi Pro-Elite. The last time that I used the pro-elite, one of the switches melted on me when I got home and was attempting to drain the battery. Thankfully, I had purchased the light from LL Bean so I was able to return it for a refund which in turn bought this new light. I had toyed with the idea of getting an HID light but just couldn’t rationalize the extra hundred clams especially since my schedule won’t allow any 24 hour races this year. The Titan should be prefect for me. The one thing that always bothered me about the Pro-Elite was that I never got to use both lights at once since the light output didn’t seem to change enough to make it work the decreased run time. The Titan will work better because it is a single light with three power setting (10w, 15w & 20w). I’ll most likely use the 15w most of the time, juice it up to 20w for tight single track and drop down to 10w for slow climbs. Overall, a pretty good package. Combine that with my Marwi Elite head lamp at 12w and I should be stylin.

Anyway, back on topic, during the ride home, I was chased by three dogs this time which made for some great interval work. There’s nothing like the fear of death to help you dig just that little bit deeper. For good measure at the end of the ride, I threw in a few sections of washed out dirt road and single track to spice things up. The Van Dessel with cyclocross tires did reasonably well but the ss road gearing was a touch high but mostly doable. I’ve been scoping out a way to add in a bunch of old abandoned road in the Schmid Preserve into my commute. Hopefully I’ll be able to link it all together in the next month or so. If I can, it’ll reduce my on-road miles by 4 or 5 and as a special bonus, the Schmid Preserve has some nice buff single track near the top of Mt. Hunger so if I’m feeling spry I’ll be able to dive into some of that as well. If all goes well, this could turn out to be one hell of a fun commute.



















From now on, during each commute I’m going to count the number of bungee cords that I see and report it here. I don’t know where they come from but they seem to be everywhere. Sort of like earthworms after a rain storm. When I commuted to Camden (30 miles) I would see anywhere from 5-10 on each ride and they usually were different each day. Yesterday’s count was only 1 but hey, the year is young.

Only a few more months and Brynna's helmet will fit...hopefully by then her neck will be strong enough to hold it up well. 

Here is a little Kerkove style photo shoot.

Done!

The Dos wheel build is done. I had a bit of trouble initially with the front wheel but the rear wheel went together in record time (for me at least) which is strange because rear wheels are supposed to be more difficult to build. Leave it to me to make the easy job hard and the hard job easy. Now, I just need to get the rest of the build kit and the ... ahem... frame so I can finish this up. 

Back in the saddle.

Marcy and I went on our first ride together in almost a year on Saturday. The last time was when she was 6 months pregnant and we didn't feel safe riding after that. Saturday graced us with near 50 deg temps so we scooted out for a quick spin around the bay. It was good to have her back. 

wheel build

 

I also did this over the weekend. Sixteen of us got together to get in some go-cart racing action. These mother f-ers were fast. It was a small indoor track but there were still able to reach 40-45mph on the front stretch. I've got some video to upload as well which I will do once I get a chance. Good times. 

Rancho-de-Nelson

Pretty good weekend this time around. On Saturday, I went up to Rancho-de-Nelson with Brynna and the pooch in tow so that B-girl could see the grand parents and Chance and I could see some trail time. It was about 35deg when we left so I wasn’t too sure what the trails would be like. There was about 3-4” of snow cover so there was the potential that it would be an neverending slog through wet snow and muck. Thankfully, for the most part, the ground underneath was firm enough to allow forward progress. Some of the hills were a bit formidable but just about everything was rideable. Not fast, mind you, but rideable. After about 1:45 of trail time and one extremely jammed chain that I needed to use a big stick to remove we rolled back into base camp. Chance and my parents dog Pete were sorry campers by this point and spent the remainder of the day playing dead.



















Sunday was spent at the inlaws but upon returning I popped a disc of “24” season three that we had received from netflix into the dvd player and rode the trainer through two action packed episodes. Its great to be able to get in you couch potato and trainer time all at once and shows like 24 have enough action to keep you motivated and you tend to find yourself picking up the pace without knowing it during exciting scenes.

I didn't get a chance to pick up my dos niner parts this weekend but hope to get over there sometime this week to pick up what has come in. I need to start building the wheels soon since it usually takes me about 2 weeks per given my time constraints and lack of skill. I usually end up with a good wheel but it takes a bit-o-time.

Can you say mucus?

Still sick damnit!  I did manage to get out for a walk yesterday afternoon and this morning to clear my head but that is about it.  Head colds suck but at least I’m not doing my impression of a double ended party favor like I did a month or so ago.  That was pure agony, but at least it was over with quickly.  I actually got a full nights sleep last night since wifey took the bullet with Brynna last night for me.

Yesterday was uneventful. I got a nice 30 min hike in with the pooch in the a.m., came home from work and did a cyclo-core workout while listening for the baby (who we're trying our damndest to get to sleep in her crib) and then got in another 40 mins of trainer/stretching afterwards while B-girl slept. Not exactly building a huge base right now but at least I know that when things start to work out and I'm able to get longer rides in, my body should be ready for it. I should at least have strong legs and core muscles considering these cyclo-core workouts are kicking my ass.

Seem to be coming down with a head cold right now, cough, stuffy, congested, sore throat. You name it up there and I've got it. Not being able to get a full nights sleep doesn't help matters either when it comes to kicking this sucker. Oh well, such is life.

Gonna be picking up a bunch of the parts for the Dos Niner this weekend. Can't wait.

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No time today so here is a link from my friend and yours JMA Joe.
euphemisms . I especially like the comedic porn names at the bottom of the page.

He was too much of a “Fertile Delta” to post it himself.

ss sunday

I missed out on some really nice riding days recently but yesterday was able to squeeze in almost 2 hrs on the ss road rig with mad mike.  With me having big fat cyclo-cross tires on pumped to 60 psi and he having nice skinny road tires pumped to 100 psi, I had a bit of trouble keeping up but it turned out to be a nice hard ride with lots of high intensity bursts and plenty of medium intensity grinding.  I’m really digging the Van Dessel right now but it was in desperate need of some tlc so after the ride, I trued both wheels, lubed the chain, adjusted the brakes and attached the rear fender more securely.  Eventually I’d like to replace the canti brakes, they are rip-offs from my brother’s first mountain bike I believe and this bike deserves better.  I may end up putting a set of v’s on that I’m not using anymore.  They’re probably overkill for a bike like this but I’d rather have overkill and underkill as I do now.

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While doing research for my DAMNelsons post today about nursery rhymes, I came across this beauty.

I love little pussy,Her coat is so warm,And if I don't hurt her,She'll do me no harm.So I'll not pull her tail,Nor drive her away,But pussy and I,Very gently will play.

Apparently this rhyme turns up in most major nursery rhyme books.  With stuff like this out there, it makes me wonder if what is on tv these days is so bad afterall.

On a cycling note, time was tight last night so I ended up doing the cyclo-core workout for 40 mins. while watching Brynna followed up by a 20 min spin on the trainer to finish things off.  This morning I was able to squeeze in most of the cyclo-core ab workout after my am jog with the pooch.  Hopefully this weekend will turn out nice so I can get a few road miles in as well.

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Awesome ride yesterday.  Over the weekend we got a bunch of rain and then on Saturday night, the rain turned to sleet for several hours.  The after effect was about an inch of dense cover over the nice solid, frozen tundra.  The sleet on the ground had the look and sound of a sheet of Styrofoam and the only way that I can think to describe the sensation of riding on it is that it felt sort of like skiing on freshly groomed corduroy.  Everything felt effortless and turning grip rocked!  On some of the trails that consist mostly of pine needles, it was much easier and quicker to take the turns last night than it was all summer.  Interesting effect.  The single track sections totally rocked and I actually looped around a couple to do twice, they were so much fun.  Some of the double track sections left a bit to be desired because with so little snow cover the hoarfrost was out in force causing some pretty tough riding in sections.  Some sections were made even more interesting because of the amount of rain that we’ve received lately that is now ice.  It can be sketchy going downhill on a stream but its fun as hell to try to ride up one.  Of course, I roll most of the winter on a set of Nokian studded tires from our friends at Bikeman.  The one bummer on the ride was that at about 1:20 into the ride, my light started to go dim.  The light used to go for 2+ hours no problem but I guess I have been using it for 3-4 years now so the battery is probably just tired.  Thankfully I have almost $250 in gift certificates to LLBean where I bought the light originally so maybe I’ll get a replacement there.

Nothing good

Nothing to write about so here is today’s work menu:

1 plum
3 granny smith apples
10 prunes
Large handful of baby carrots
Quiche (homemade by marcy last night with spinach, turkey bacon and mushrooms)
Small handful of mixed nuts
1 non-fat yogurt
1 chocolate biscotti

Overall it’s a pretty healthy menu except of course for the biscotti and the bacon but you’ve gotta cut yourself some slack right?  If I don’t have a little something every day, I’ll end up pigging out and really screwing the pooch.

Speaking of the pooch, I plan on taking him down to dodge point tonight.  I don’t usually go there because of all of the hikers but this time of year, they’ve cleared out by 5 since its pitch black out by then.  Should be fun.

Thinking of doing this race this summer. Wanted to do the Wilderness 101 instead but it doesn't work with my race schedule. Maybe Jason knows of it since its sort of in his neck of the woods. Its put on by the same folks as the W101 which I've heard is great so it could be fun, plus, I've never ridden in PA before. Hmmm, methinks there might be a road trip in order for this summer.

Weekend recap

Another good ride home from work on Friday.  It was about 40 by the time that I hit the road so it was pretty nice.  Of course, with the sun down, the temp started to drop quickly and as a result my choice in hand wear became suspect but otherwise all was good.  The amazing fast dog didn’t chase me this time either but I was ready for him.  He’ll probably wait until some night that I’m not paying attention before he strikes again.  I also set a new p.r. for the ride.  Of course, I’ve only done the ride three times now and I’m still in pretty bad shape so the p.r.’s will probably keep on a-coming.  Didn’t get a chance for any real riding over the weekend but I did get in some trainer time and did the cyclo-core circuit again.  On Sunday, my legs were sore, abs not so much now so I guess I’ll have to kick it up a notch next time.

Laters

Cyclo-core

Wifey, oops I mean Santa, got me the Cyclo-Core DVD/CD's for Christmas. Initially I thought that it would be a video to watch while on the trainer but it turns out that its actually all off the bike exercises designed to build and strengthen your core muscles, legs and upper body and promote flexibility. Its actually turned out to be great. Having the new baby around the house hasn't allowed me to get to the gym in the winter as I usually so but cyclo-core has filled that gap. In anywhere between 15mins and 45 mins you can get one killer workout. The other night I did the ab workout and that dude had me begging for mercy. Seriously, if you can get through that whole workout without taking a rest, you're my hero. I was crying like a little girl. The body weight exercises rock too because all you need is a physioball and floor space. Good deal. It also has a set of workouts using dumbells but to be honest, with how worked I feel after the non-weighted workouts it'll be a while before I try it with weights. Hey, this is starting to sound like an info-mercial isn't it? They actually also have some 12 week offseason training plans that I would love to get my hands on but all my jing right now is going to the dos build. Maybe next year.

Dos Niner Build Kit

Here is the basic build as I see it now.  Some things may change slightly but overall I think that this is it.  Since the team is sponsored by Salsa and SRAM you’ll notice that they are heavily represented in this build.  I haven’t used some of this stuff before but I’m excited to try out the SRAM bits and the disc brakes!

COMPONENT     MAKE
Frame               Salsa Dos Niner  
Hubs               Hope p2
Rims               Salsa Delgado X
Spokes     
Fork               Rock Shox Reba Race
Seatpost   30.6mm     Thompson  
or Salsa shaft
Seat               Flite TT?
Stem               Salsa S.U.L.
Bar               Salsa Moto Ace flat bar
Grips               Salsa Juegos de Fuegos (blk)
Tires               WTB nanoraptor??? 2.1
Schwalbe lil albert??? 2.1
Headset          Chris King
Pedals               Time Atacs
Cables     
Cranks               TruVativ Stylo Team
Chain               SRAM PC-971
Front Der.          SRAM X-Gen
Rear Der.          SRAM XO
Shifters          SRAM XO Twist
Cassette          SRAM PG-990 11-34
Brakes               Avid BB7
Brake levers          Avid Speed Dial SL

Yesterday's commute

Things are looking up. I've actually been able to ride several times in the the last week! Yippee!!! Yesterday, I caught a ride in with wifey on her way to work (my new job is on her way in so we carpool almost every day now. bonus) with the VanDessel so that I could ride home. The weather was just about perfect, roughly 33deg and clear. That's sort of cold but for Maine at this time of year it feels downright balmy. I left the office at 4:45 so I got about 15 minutes of single speed fun before needing to turn the lights on. To be honest I was a bit nervous night road riding this time of year because nobody expects to see a bike out at that time but everybody was great and gave me lots of room. My one scary experience on the ride was at about the midway point (the ride takes 45-50 minutes). I caught a glimpse of motion out of the corner of my eye. It was dark so it was hard to tell for certain what it was. My gut told me that it was a dog running my way to rip my leg off. Turns out I was right. A couple of seconds later a white lab came streaking out of the driveway to my left at full speed about 10 feet from my back wheel. He actually wasn't showing any signs of aggression but I tend not to trust unfamiliar dogs while on the bike plus I needed some interval training so I immediately started to sprint. I sprinted for a good 10 seconds before taking the time to look back. I half expected him to be gone by the time I looked but he was still right there about 10 ft. back. Starting to panic, I put my head down for another 10 seconds. This time when I looked back I was sure that he would be gone but no! That bastard was still there. He had even managed to gain a few feet on me and was probably only 6-8 feet back. Crap, I thought, I can't keep this up much longer. Maybe I should just pull over, expose a leg, let him get a snack and let me be on my way. In a last ditch effort, I put my head down one last time and dug in for another 5 or so seconds. This time when I looked back, the pooch had given up chase and was barely visible. Phew. I honestly don't think that I could have gone again. The rest of the ride was uneventful but it was great to get out.

roughage

With the holidays past and the seemingly endless supply of fudge, cookies and pastries done its time to start dialing in the diet for the upcoming season. I'm working on upping my fiber content (which was fairly high to begin with but who couldn't use a bit more right?) since it helps me to curb my appetite and it scours the innards like a champ. The attached photo is a three bean soup that I make. The original recipe came from the can of one of the beans but I've refined it a bit. The recipe calls for a few pieces of bacon and a bunch of chicken broth that I prefer not to use so I omit the bacon altogether and cut the chicken broth in half and just substitute with more water and some more spices so that it isn't lacking in flavor. Basically its just kidney beans (light and dark) and cannelli beans, sun dried tomatoes, onions and a pant load of spinach. Good stuff and it really fills you up.

Had a great weekend of riding (at least for the winter). I managed to get in an hour on the trainer while watching the pats game. Who would've known that a football game would be such great motivation for the trainer. The hour went by super fast and I was able to work on cadence drills as well as some one footed pedaling to help smooth out that spin.

On Sunday I got to go for a 2+hr mountain bike ride. The trials were all snow covered but not so much that you couldn't ride. The whore frost (is that its real name?) was a bit of an issue in a few areas and caused some magnificent endos but overall the trails were great and we had a blast. The legs should be hurting today.

I also ordered a bunch of parts for the new dos niner on Friday. As it stands, I should be able to outfit the whole bike without a bit of shimano componetry. It'll be my first time useing a bunch of this stuff so I've got my fingers crossed.

cycling related posts at my damnelsons blog.

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