The Rim

I just noticed that, for some reason, yesterday my rim photo and link got dropped (accidentally deleted by yours truly) so here it is again.  Carver's new carbon 29'er rim.  450 grams (about 20 grams lighter than a stans arch) and rock solid.  You can read more about them here.

I don't think they are available to the public just yet but they should be by summer.  Pair this stiff rim to the already stiff front end of the King Kahuna, some DT Swiss 240s thru-bolt hubs and some super secret black spokes and I should be tracking like a missile this summer.

Kahuna!!!!!

Monday after work I got extra special permission to go for a quick ride.  On the drive over I was a mess of emotions. 

First, I was happy.

 Then, I was sad. 

Then I was giddy!

What was causing this emotional roller coaster?  Well, it’s possible it was this svelte little vixen.

That’s right boy and girl (I’ve lowered my expectations for blog readership drastically) the long awaited delivery of my 2012 race steed, the Kona King Kahuna, had arrived.   

When I first ordered the bike, I had plans to swap a bunch of parts like the house brand bar, stem, seat post, the x7 bits and the wheels but after much introspection and some discussions with team manager extraordinaire, Big Gay (probably not because he’s married although it could be a marriage of convenience) Al, I decided that it wasn’t worth the hundreds of dollars it would take to get marginal (if any) performance improvements and the tiny weight improvement.  Instead, I’m keeping her pretty much as is and saving my pennies for the swank wheel build I’ve been planning.  Years ago I swore off carbon in mountain bikes so it now makes perfect sense that I’d have a full carbon bike with carbon wheels on the way.  Yeah, perfect sense.  I should run for office.

(carver rim photo)

My first ride was to be a short one, basically just enough to start dialing in the fit.  I’ll get into all of that later but first, my initial ride impressions.  1. The bike feels pretty light.  I don’t know the actual weight because I’m not a weight weenie but it felt light enough for me.  2. The front end with the tapered head tube and thru-axle was STIFF and I loved it.  I’ve been told in the past that a thru-axle is the way to go but I poo-pood it because it seemed like too much of a pain in the ass for race day but it looks like I’ll be eating my poo and happily running TA.  3.  I have a hard time lofting the rear wheel over logs.  I’m sure this is just a timing thing that I need to work out with the bike but it was an odd feeling.  4.  I was too much of a weenie to really push things on my first ride on my new beloved lest I fall and scratch her.

Breaking Trail

This week, for my morning "workout" I've forgone running and started some spring trail work instead.  Spring's wet trails have inspired me to rework a couple of sections to avoid the nastiest areas and I'm also reworking a few areas to improve flow and one new section to complete the loop without hitting any trails twice.  This week's weather has made trail work primo and will save me a bunch of time come April when I need to be "training" for realz.

The unnaturally warm temps also gave me the opportunity to do something that I hadn't intended for another month.  That's commute from Edgecomb to the Portland office.  The new shower at the office was just installed so I needed to take advantage.  Originally, I had planned on doing the whole 47 mile commute by bike but when I really thought it through, I realized that the 47 mile ride home from work (I'd drive down in the morning) would be fine, the ride in less than 9 hours later would be too much for me this early in the season.  Peak summer form?  I could probably swing it.  Mid-March flabbiness?  Not so much.  So, instead, I drove 15 miles to Freeport, parked in the municipal lot (changed in the car within 50' of an LLBean security officer) and rode home totaling 33 miles each way.  I think next time I'll park in the same spot but lengthen my ride home by getting off of route 1 more but at least that gives me a more reasonable commute in the morning. 

Boring post?  You betcha but what did you expect really???

Spring Has Sprung 

Before the weekend, I hadn't been outside on my road bike all year.  I'm not sure why, but I just didn't have the urge to hit the roads.  It couldn't have been the temperatures since this winter was so moderate but something was happening in my head that kept me to the trails instead.  Maybe it's that damn snowbike that I love so much.  It figures that my least expensive bike would be one of my favorites.

Anyway, over the weekend, I dusted off the road steed and did not one but two road rides.  Saturday with my buds down in Falmouth and Sunday with a guy who I just met who's working in the Habbah, Greg.  Saturday's ride was short and nice.  A good way to start the road season.  Sunday's ride was longer and much harder.  The pace was quicker but not THAT taxing but I was an idiot and had no fuel with me for the ride so with about 10 miles to go I HIT THE FREAKING WALL.  Sad really since I was only at about 35 miles but at least it gives me plenty of room for improvement.

spring has also had an effect on B.  As yesterday's post showed, she also spent some time on two wheels this weekend.  She just started riding in without training wheels in January and has about 3 rides under her belt so I was very happy to hear that she attempted her first curb "hop" on Sunday while out with Marcy.  On attempt one, she got her front wheel up but stalled on the rear wheel.  Attempt two didn't fare so well:

She's already asked me to take her mountain biking so, who knows, she may hit some dirt this summer.

Shaping Up

 B washing her feet and picking toe jam mid ride. 

 (my personal training secret!)

Both 2012 and my svelte(r) body are starting to shape up.  As most of you know, at the end of last season I upgraded to Elite in the EFTA series and then got my arse spanked in the season finale.  I expect things to be much the same for most of the 2012 campaign.  Hopefully I'll have a few standout races that I'll finish well in (mostly because nobody else bothers to show up...) but those are likely to be few and far between but that's ok, it's my first season with the big boys so it's expected.

In addition to the EFTA schedule,  I've got a few other doozies in mind.  Of course there will be the Bradbury 12 so that Alby and I can try to swat the Freye's again and, if I can convince Marcy that I'm not an overly competitive prick (note to self, don't let Marcy see last post), maybe we'll team up for the Millstone 12. 

2012 also sees me returning to the Hampshire 100 now that it's part of the NUE series.  I didn't do it the last two years since it's the same weekend as the Off Road Tri but I'm hoping that with a bit more preparation, I can race both days and not completely die as surely there will be some big boys in town to throw down. 

And then there's the race I'm most looking forward to/dreading.  SSUSA.  I didn't really intend to do the race this year but when I checked registration a while back and saw that it was sold out, I just had to put my name on the waiting list.  Just because.  Well, last week I got an e-mail from Ms. Wissel that a spot had opened and before you knew it, I was signed up for will likely be my death sentence.  I guess I need to start riding SS some again this year.

I Call This Blog Racin Rick For a Reason

There is a non insignificant part of my personality that makes me a highly competitive person. Not that I'm good at everything, just that I want to be the king of everything. Put me on a bike and I want to be the first person to get to wherever we're going. Strap on hiking boots and I'll try to beat you to the top of the mountain. Want to have sex? Guess who's finishing first??? Well, this whole part of me started when I was a wee lad and my father raced stock cars. Not just raced but won. A lot. That and growing up in a house full of guys (four including my dad who is just a big kid)led to an inordinate amount of competitions. That was a long way of saying that I'll race anything and go-carts are occasionally one of the things. Thankfully, I'm the best of my friends but, sadly, the slowest of my family.

Last weekend for example.  Fast carts.  Indoor track.  Go-pro camera.  Fun stuff. For the record, that is my youngest brother who I'm trading paint with.  He generally beats me because he's more willing to ram me to get by.  Also, he's a dick.

 

Proof!

Came outside the other day to find trash strewn all over the place.  What could have caused this?  We were BAFFLED until B busted out the fingerprint dusting kit (aka frost) and discovered the hand print above.  F-ing raccoons.   

Ever hear the term, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?  Well, it's not exactly the same thing but in the Nelson household, the turd doesn't fall far from the horses ass. As we all know, I'm a bit of an attention whore and will do just about anything for blog fodder (until one of my clients sees this crap and then I'm D-O-N-E).  I've also single handedly made pointing a camera at yourself an art form.  B has never read my blog or gone riding with me but, somehow, I've handed the horses ass gene down anyway.  Observe:

You've got to admit, that is undoubtedly the best song you've ever heard about three quarters.  

Beating the Storm 

With the snowpocolypse descending upon Maine, I decided to beat it to the punch this morning and get a quick ride in before the snow accumulations got deep enough to make riding difficult (although, I may try to ride in the new 6-8" tonight as well). Two laps around the home trails had me satisfied (enough at least) that the day wasn't lost. There is nothing like getting out when the snow has just started falling. Everything is quiet except for the crunch of the tires and the hiss of snow (they were almost like small pellets) hitting the leaves on the trees. Good way to start the day.

Time Flies 

When you have no time.

Things have been progressing somewhat nicely in RR Land but you wouldn't know it by my blog posts.  Sadly, with everything else going on, there has been precious little time for blogging.  That's really sad because I've got a metric shit ton of video to edit and upload but haven't the time to do it.

As the snow is leaving the great state of Maine, my riding hours are slowly picking up.  Generally, this time of year, I'd be on the road or snowmobile trails.  The snowmobile trails are shite right now and for some reason, I can't bring myself to ride on the road right now.  I'm not 100% sure of the reason but me thinks it might be partially about this little vixen:

sure, she's a little wide in the hips but once you get her going, 

she's fun to throw around and do dirty things with  

I'm officially loving riding the Salsa Mukluk.  There is just something fun about the lumbering beast (unless you're on pavement in which case riding a white hot fork business end up would be more enjoyable) and it makes me sad that the snow is leaving.  That's ok though because she also does a nice job of dealing with mud floating over much of it (not that there is much in Edgecomb).  Next year, she'll be sporting studded tires so nothing will hold her back.

Speaking of her back.  Ever seen a tramp stamp on a truck?  Well, now I have.

Or creepy cards with two faces prancing around on ice?  Sadly, I've seen that too but at least it was while spending some quality time with my favorite flesh eating zombie (photo at top of page).

Or me building kitchen cabinets?  Well, I'm officially seeing that again as well.  As I think I mentioned earlier, I can't ride my new bike until our upper cabinets are installed.  Spring is coming rather quickly so I'd better get crackin on these bad boys. 

I'm a Jerk 

In the video below, I'm going to pretend that I didn't know with near 100% certainty that my brother was going to eat shit on the ice just so that I could capture it on camera. Not only did I not warn him about the ice until he was already on it but I also broke the "make sure they aren't hurt before you laugh and mock" rule by laughing my ass off before he had even stopped skidding. You can tell that there is concern in my voice.

We're brothers, he'll get over it...

go pro

Tuesday Two-fer

Yesterday's plan was simple.  Get up uber early, get some work done and then hit up Bradbury with the snow bike on my way to the Portland office.  Conditions at BB were varied.  The initial trails were well packed (some by snowmobiles) but as you got away from the parking lot it got dicey in some areas where the trails had seen little traffic (where are all of the Portland areas snow bikers???).  All was good though as I was able to lay down 7 miles of riding in 1:10.  I had planned on riding longer but once 8 am rolled around the twinge to get to work started to spark up (despite having plenty of hours in already).  No worries though since, before I headed out, I had seen another ride in the evening posted for Cape Elizabeth.  It's going to be a two-fer!

Early evening I met up with six others ready to rip the Cape E trails.  They were all running studs.  Me?  I was still on my snow bike.  This was going to be interesting.  Before we left, we met two guys who had just come off the trail.  They said that other than a glare ice corner right at the beginning, the rest of the trail should be fine for me. When we rolled, we quickly started to pick up speed and things were looking to be fun.  Fun for about 30 seconds that is, at which time I hit that glare ice corner.  I tried to ride it out by staying in a straight line and aiming for the snow on the opposite side but my speed was too great and the ice too lumpy so I was unceremoniously thrown to the ground and hurled into the woods ejecting both my bar light and gopro (too bad I hadn't turned it on yet!).  All seemed to be ok though so I got up and caught up to the group.

At this point I wasn't sure the ride was all that advisable but I was there so I'd give it another shot.  Glad I did.  There were plenty of sketchy, butt puckering sections but there was also lots of fun stuff and the added bonus of constantly scanning the trails for ice free areas kept things interesting and taught me a lot about line choices.  And then to top things off, I managed to catch Danze doing a pretty spectacular endo crossing a wet area.  Observe:

Finally, some GoPro success!

From go pro

Spare No Expense

Over here in RacinRick land, money flows like wine, sponsors throw themselves at me and the women - hoo boy, the women! A recession has never touched the land of RR. Oh so fortunate.

Here is a good example.  My winter shoes started to bit the dust a few years ago but instead of buying new shoes, I got a pair of shoe covers.  Those shit the bed in a year or two, but instead of buying new shoes or at least another set of shoe covers I taped them up with duct tape instead.  MacGuyver would be proud.  Sadly, two years of duct tape had them looking a bit ragged with everything but the top completely shredded. 

Any normal person may have just ponied up the $30 to buy a new pair of covers.  Me?  I just added another quarter roll of duct tape. 

Success!

go pro

Blogger Screwed Me

Blogger f'd me last time I posted a long(er) video so I'm going to keep this short in case it's feeling frisky again. Below is a vid I made last weekend on a snow/ice/trail ride. I was playing a bit with camera locations and think that I'm going to like the fork location. Everything looks faster from that perspective. Until I crash and jamb the camera into the spokes.

First Test 

Marcy didn't initially tell me but she fully expects to use my GoPro while diving. To test things out, I video'd be swimming this afternoon. The underwater picture quality is pretty impressive!

Lets Try This Again 

Yesterday, blogger gave me the high hard one and lost my post. I was uploading a video at the time so I'm guessing it timed out or just plain shit the bed and the autosave no workey. Oh well.

The legs finally feel like they're starting to come around.  I still feel like I'm WAY behind the 8-ball fitness wise compared to most seasons but at least I'm feeling an improvement.  I have no way to gauge said improvement but I believe it's there so that's all that matters.

More importantly, I'm now looking forward to riding again.  For a while I began to wonder if I even enjoyed riding anymore since I was constantly bagging rides and not really enjoying the rides that I did do.  Thankfully, I'm now out of that funk (I think) and am feeling good enough to push again.  The hours on the bike aren't great but their improving as well with 6 hours of ride time last week and another 3+ of running and core work. 

One weird thing about this winter is that I have zero interest in the road bike.  I'm sure that will change at some point but I've just been enjoying the snow bike too much.  The trails are pretty much ideal right now.  They've been packed, had some rain and a few freeze thaw cycles so they're hard enough to really rip on.  You just need to be aware if ice.  Take this morning for example, yesterday we got about an inch of fluffy powder.  Beautiful stuff that didn't pose too much of an issue for most of this morning's commute except for where it was hiding ice.  The current trail consistency is what I call frozen styrofoam.  It's hard-ish but still has some give under the tires so you're hearing a constant soft crunching noise as you ride.  It's when the crunching stops that you have to worry because you've likely just ridden onto ice.  I like to handle ice by screaming "don't panic!, DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC!" inside my head while I try to not panic.  Thankfully, today, I didn't.

Blogger Stinks

As you can imagine, I had a brilliant post ready to post today and was just waiting for the video to upload but stupid blogger lost everything.  Bastards.  Now you get nothing.

I Swore I'd Never Do It

There was a time way back when (I looked for an old post to link to but gave up my search.  I'm lazy) that I put in a fair amount of time on the indoor trainer in the winter.  That was before I discovered the joys of winter mountain biking.  Once I realized how freaking sweet snowmobile trails can be for riding, I swore that I'd never ride an indoor trainer aka "a bike lobotomy".  Why waste your time sweating away in your basement watching shitty videos and counting the minutes until your done when there is sooooo much white corduroy outside?

the mukluk after a slushy ride the other night.

bad conditions but at least I was outside.

Well, times change, schedules get tougher, bellies get bigger and you finally make the realization that the trainer is the ONLY WAY TO GET A "RIDE" IN SOME DAYS.  As a result, Marcy and I decided to pony up for a newer, less horrific trainer.  One that doesn't sound like a toaster making sweet love to a bench grinder.

enter the kurt kinetic

When we built the new house, Marcy told me that I'd never have a bike upstairs again.If you look closely in the pic above, you'll notice that we not one bike upstairs but two.  I plan to move my work bench up this weekend...

I wish such drastic measure weren't necessary but I've been struggling to get 2 rides a week in and have been off the back on all group rides I've been to so something had to happen.  Now it can and I'll hate every second of it.

A Bit Belated

This is kinda sorta oldish news at this point since Eric outed me on Facebook (although, I hardly every post to the book and nobody really pays attention anyway) (and I was supposed to unveil over two weeks ago) but I'm officially unveiling 2012's race steed, the Kona King Kahuna.  Go ahead, I'll give you a minute to click on the pic and link to marvel at it's purtyness.  It is quite fetching don't you think?  I especially like that the color scheme is almost identical to my beloved Salsa Selma.

Originally, I planned on swapping out a bunch or parts (or buying a raw frame to build up) but the economics of that just didn't make sense right now.  Heck, with the way things are these days, I consider myself damn lucky to even be buying a new bike.  So, I'll settle for the mid-range SRAM parts and replace/upgrade as things wear out.  The only big change I see making is instead of spending a ton of money to swap out the crank and brakes to shave a few grams and MAYBE see a performance increase, I'll instead spend the money on buying a chi-chi set of wheels for the season.  The jury is still out on what those wheels will be but rest assured, I've been burning up the internet looking at options and I'm guessing that if our team manager isn't sick of me e-mailing him yet, he soon will be.

 More about the wheels later (tomorrow if I actually remember).

Anybody who has ridden with me for the a while might note that I swore off carbon bikes years ago when I had my fully carbon Trek Fuel.  It was a sweet bike and I never actually had any issues with carbon breakage even though I had a massive ding on the downtube when I unceremoniously smashed it into a rather large boulder but I was constantly worrying about smashing it into things.  But time passes, technologies get better and I'm not a politician and am allowed to change my mind and soon will be rolling around on 1240 grams of crabon.

Winter Ride

20 degrees, dark, windy and a snow storm on it's way.  Sound like ideal group mountain bike ride conditions?  Not necessarily, but it didn't stop 8 guys from showing up to ride in what we hoped would be primo snow/ice conditions.  I wish I had my camera with me because I sure would have loved to document everyone waiting around for me to get ready.  Seven guys standing around watching as I fumbled to get my stoooooopid bar mitts on the bike.  I was saved though when just after I finished up CDog noticed that his tire had gone flat so we ended up waiting for him.  Just like we always do.

And then, THEN, we rode our bikes for like 2 hours.  Got lost-ish, got less lost-ish, stared at Iphone compasses, figured out where we were and then got back to the cars unscathed and ready for beer. 

Great blog post huh?