RSS FeedNighttime shot…
Night racing 2
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Inside the support car at night…
Night Racing
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John (our mechanic) messing around with our bikes…
John riding my and Ray’s bike at the same time
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This is Bob (our most enthusiastic team member)
Bob!!!!!
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Victory speech in Atlantic City. We had no idea that we would be speaking on stage in front of a crowd… (sorry about the video quality, I think the camera was being passed from person to person)
With the time I took off from work, I’ve been able to get back into a riding routine somewhat. There is something very soothing about bundling up and going out for a few hours solo in the winter. It just seems to block out everything else and demand more attention than warm sunny riding, effectively blocking out all my other crappy thoughts for a while. I am planning on riding through the winter again in hopes of keeping in shape for the Longest Day this June. And on that note, I am hoping for a couple of people to join us this year. A group of 6 or eight is perfect for this ride, and I already have 3 plus me. So if anyone here would be up for a double century that takes on the entire state of NJ from north to south, followed by a day or two at the beach in WIldwood, let me know. (Dan? Patrick? Emily? ..Bueller? ….Bueller?….)
Oh, and the thumb mangling thing… After yesterdays ride I cleaned up my chain the usual way. I am always careful to keep my fingers away from the cog or the front ring especially on the fixie since there is no derailer to give up a little slack as your finger gets sucked around between the teeth. When I was fourteen, I watched a fried reach down on his BMX bike to put the chain back on while he was riding. His first and middle finger went halfway around the front ring and as he yelled out in pain his face hit the road (with his hand still stuck in the bike. It really wasn’t a pretty sight, he broke his middle finger, needed stitches in both of them, and messed up his face pretty bad. That was all that was needed for me to always remember to keep my fingers clear when working on or cleaning my chain. However, in a moment when I was admiring how smoothly fixed gears spin when you really crank them up to speed, I temporarily forgot the sight of my friends bloody mangled hand. As the wheel was whirring away I grabbed the rag and thought “I’ll just slow this down and wipe the chain off at the same time…” A moment later my thumb was very abruptly stopping the wheel’s momentum with only the leverage of a 14 tooth cog.
My thumb is still attached, and luckily just punctured twice and throbbing enough to keep me awake all night. I think this experience will keep me from doing that again for at least another 20 years…
Started rebuilding a bike for my Dad Just before Christmas. It’s Spalding (I didn’t think they made bikes….actually I’m sure they don’t and it’s just some cheap thing with their name on it). Found it at a garage sale for 5 bucks in new condition but missing a crank arm. I am going to tear it apart and build it right since it was clearly built by someone making minimum wage who hates his life and his job. That would explain why the crank arm is missing completely and the brakes and shifters dont work at all.
Anyway, my idea is just to make sure it is safe and solid, and add some huge racks to the back for hauling firewood and whatnot around the campground where their RV will be all summer. I’ll probably put some sort of lighting on it and a few other handy ideas but nothing too crazy.
He may not even be able to ride it for a while anyway since he can’t even see it after his eye surgery went so badly….
I really just need something to do right now that I have some time on my hands. Lenore and I are going through what has to be the hardest thing that can happen to us as brand new parents. I wont let this blog descend into the biggest downer on the site, but Lenore gave birth to our first son Casey on Sunday morning. And it ended up being the hardest day of our lives, since the funeral service for him is following so closely (thursday morning).
This is probably not the most appropriate place to post this, but I posted the beginning of her pregnancy here and he came along with us for RAAM and has been part of everything we’ve done for the last 9 months so I just wanted to put something here on my page about him.
Just finished the new rear wheel for my Pinarello this morning. I have been working on it for months now. Well, not exactly working, mostly waiting for parts, then building, then disassembling and ordering more parts…
The hub was back-ordered so I used the website to get the specs and order spokes. I guess I used outdated measurements since the first build (3X with DT Revolution) turned out to be a waste of time, since the spokes were too long and bottomed out in the last steps of the build when I was tensioning things up.
So I tried to build it 4X since I didn’t have anything else to do with it except order more spokes, might as well try… Turned out to be just right for 4x, except that I mixed up a couple of spokes during the dis and re-assembly. There is only 2mm difference, but it was enough that a couple started to bottom out (again in the final steps of the build…grrrr). Seemed easy enough to spot the long ones, but finding the short ones to switch them with was a little tougher. Not to mention that the 4X lacing caused the heads to be slightly covered by adjacent spokes, causing me to need to loosen up a bunch to take them out and switch them.
So then on to trying to finish it a third time, and again finding two more spokes too long on the drive side…arrrrgggg! At this point I started to wonder if I had put them back where they were instead of switching them. Or maybe they stretched a little…. hmmmm….
So off to the bike shop I went in frustration. Finally giving in and going for professional help from my friend John. He took the wheel and said he’d fix it up and call me. The next evening he called in frustration and said that he did the best he could but the wheel is not so good. He recommended I use a more traditional spoke, rather then the revolutions (they are swaged, but down two sizes in the mid-span instead of 1, making them like angel hair spagetti).
I’m pretty sure at some point during one of the builds I over-tightened them and stretched them past what they are designed for. This made some of the spokes unpredictable during final tensioning, and trueing a real pain. So I ordered a set of DT Champions and put it aside for a couple more weeks. I also decided to let John build it when they came in.
The spokes came in and I changed my mind and decided that I really wanted to clear up the mess and build it myself. During dis-assembly this time, I figured it would be cool to leave the 4X revlutions on the non-drive side. Thinking that they weren’t under as much tension, and would probably benefit from the 4X lacing. Plus they are way lighter than the champs.
This time all went smoothly, the wheel tightened up nicely, and is strong and true. 2X DT champions on the drive side, 4X Revolutions on the non-drive side, Phil Wood Hub, DT pro-lock aluminum nipples, Mavic open pro CD hoop, and a Vittoria “Open Tubular” 20mm tire.
Took it out for the first ride today and it seems to be flawless, solid and fast! I’m just glad it’s done and that I ended up actually finishing it myself. And now the bike (with both wheels now hand-built by me) is nearly complete too.
Sunday the 21st, we’ll meet here around noon:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=sunrise+mountain+rd,+nj&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=47.838189,87.802734&ie=UTF8&ll=41.179583,-74.787916&spn=0.005588,0.010718&z=17&om=1
There is a parking lot on the left right at the beginning of Sunrise Mountain Rd. If anyone needs to be picked up from somewhere reasonably close, I can definately help with that.
There will be a bunch of hills, but none of them are too crazy (although cumulatively it will be challenging). The ride goes mostly through the roads in High Point State Park, so there wont be many cars at all. The leaves are turning, and like every year at this time, there will only be a small window for the great fall rides. So get your road ride ready and meet us there!
So far, we’ve go about 7 people who are definately coming along, and there’s plenty of room for more. If you are planning on coming out, send me an e-mail at Doug@ridefetish.com. We are planning on something cool for when we get to the top of the ride (and the state) but I’ll need to know roughly how many are coming to prepare for it.
Hope to see you there.
Well, this ride ended up a little smaller than I planned. Only the hardcore riders showed up, all others seemed to be intimidated by a ride that was all about climbing to the highest point in the state (hmmm…). My brother also scared some of them away by playing up my tendency to underestimate the difficulty of most rides, causing a couple of our group to have second thoughts. We had the best weather of any ride I’ve been on this year. 70’s and sunny with plenty of great fall scenery.
Jarred borrowed my Black soul and spare pair of shoes for his first real bike ride ever. He rode bikes as a kid, but never seriously. Boy was this a jump into the deep end… He met me about 2 hours before the ride, and we looped around a parking lot until he got the feel of how to shift. Then he put on the shoes and clipped in for the first time…. Very cool of him to take on something this big on his first ride.
This left me to take either my fixed gear, or my TT bike. Since my latest wheel build (for the TT) went horribly and my fixie was perfectly rideable… Actually, I really just wanted to take this on for the challenge and the fun of it.
We ended up late picking up Patrick from the Train station, and got to the parking lot a little after noon. That wa OK though since the only other rider was Dean, and he was riding in from his camping trip in PA. He missed the turn for Dingman’s Bridge, and ended up going 8 miles north to cross the Delaware. That must’ve been a great ride in itself. It also gave us a few minutes to wait at the start to see if anyone unexpected would show (Wesley?).
The ride started right at the base of Sunrise Mountain, and started climbing almost right from the parking lot. I forgot my helmet and let everyone go while I went back, grabbed it and caught up. I thought I was in big trouble when I was out of breath in the first five minutes at the bottom of the climb. Turned out to be just a lack of warmup, and after a short time I got into a rythm and felt normal. This was probably not so good for Jarred, since the 49×17 gearing I was running dictated a quick pace up the mountain. I felt a little bad about jumping out ahead a few times, but really had no choice if I wanted to get through with my knees intact. I was dizzy from the effort when we reached the top, especially the last kick with the switchbacks. They run a race up Sunrise every year, I may have to try it fixed next year…..
Then on to a 40 MPH descent, I was sure everyone would go right by me, but I held my own, and I think everyone was worried they would pass the turn, so we all stuck together. That downhill section is particularly cool since it is a one-way inside the park with little car traffic and lots of twists and turns.
There were a few more nasty climbs and speedy descents before I finally decided to flip the rear wheel and downshift to the “Granny” (49×19, still fixed). I think it made more of a mental difference than physical though. The last climb up to the Monument was insane. Patrick was just ahead of me on the couple of switchbacks, ticking over the pedals smoothly, and Dean was just behind me coolly pacing along as he always does with his content poker face. I grinded away as hard as I could since zig-zagging was not an option. There were too many people coming up to see the view in cars and motorcycles. I was especially impressed to see Jarred come up to the top still on the pedals. This was the hardest hill he’d ever taken on on a bike, and he toughed it out!
Lenore met us up there with homemade Sweet-Potato muffins. She couldn’t ride with us this time since she is seven months pregnant, but she did climb all the stairs inside the monument to the top. The muffins were awesome, but the snack bar was out of water and gatorade-type drinks. So we got some not-so-good tap water and OJ, and started the descent.
Jarred had a leg cramp, and stopped just as his pedal came off the spindle. This was something we had no tools to fix properly. I was willing to chance riding it, but that would mean he would be on the fixie (really bad idea….). Luckily Lenore had stopped a little ahead to get a few pics. We ended up pulling the wheels off the fixie and putting it in the trunk. Lenore and Jarred headed to the end, and Patrick, Dean and I rode on. Kinda sucked that he did all that climbing, and then wasn’t able to rip through one of the fastest downhills around. But, he put in a serious effort for his first ride, and I hope he’s more proud of the accomplishment than worn out from the effort. Likely a little of both, I hope he will still consider coming on the next one…
Patrick and I passed Jarred and Lenore (in the car) on the way down. Dean doesn’t go for the Kamikaze downhills, and Lenore wont pass a bike on a fast section, so she followed Patrick at around 40 to 50 mph. Me and my weight advantage (combined with the fact that I could now coast) left them all behind for little while when it got really steep. That was definately one of the highlights of the day.
Dean parted with Patrick and I soon after the hill and headed for home. He probably rode close to 100 miles total for the day. Pretty impressive especially comsidering how tough the middle of his ride was. The headwind picked up pretty hard, and we started drafting a little to get back to the parking lot a little quicker.
Overall a great day and a great ride, folloed by dinner at the “Blue Ribbon”, where a glass of Guinness costs $5.25 (I wonder what Pabst costs there, their logo was very similar….).
