Contemplating

Project 29er: A Ride for the Bride

2011-09-24T13:30:00.027-04:00

Don't shun the frumious Bandersnatch!

Back in the halcyon days of our early courtship, the Bride and I would, like many young couples, try to impress each other with various feats of wit, strength, charm, valor, and cooking. To demonstrate her strength the Bride took up mountain biking. To the FOMBA trails, the Fells, the White Mountains, and most remarkably of all, to Loon for lift-served riding we went. She liked being outside, liked the speed (to a point), but could never generate much enthusiasm for climbing.

Since the Bride doesn't generate a lot of power we are getting by with a 2x9 (24/32x11-26)

It couldn't last of course. After the first heady year of our relationship I kept riding, she did not. Hiking! That's it, we'd take up hiking together! Or running! Or cross country skiing! Or alpine skiing! Or tennis!

None of these really stuck either. Fast forward 15 years and I ride and race more than ever. It's a huge part of my life. I had long ago given up on any chance that the Bride would want to take up biking again.

Meow!

And then something happened. She wanted to go riding. We went a few times, very casually, with her riding my old Turner Burner. This bike isn't a good fit for her in many ways. It was very heavy, too tall, too long, and her 119 lbs. could barley budge the coil-sprung fork. Worst of all (to my mind) it is saddled with those tiny little toy 26" wheels.

One thing led to an another and suddenly the idea of a new bike for her came up. It was my idea of course, but it wasn't a very serious suggestion. But to my surprise she was enthusiastic. She went to a bike store and bought *TWO* new pairs of shorts and some socks, ON HER OWN! Sorry for the all-caps, but the Bride going to a bike store solo to buy something for herself is like the President personally putting air in the tires of his armored limo, "Agent Smith, the back left looks a little low. No, don't get up, I got it. Damn it, where is the extension cord for this compressor!"

Lot's of stand-over.

So which bike? A 29er without question. I had the Turner's nice kit to donate to the cause, so I only needed a frame, fork, and wheelset. But which frame? Full squishy? Nah, that would get a bit too pricey. So a hardtail, but what material? Aluminum? To harsh. Carbon? Too ridiculous for a newbie. Ti? Now we are talking, but still a bit too pricey. Steel? Let's see:

Affordable: Check
Comfortable: Check
Big Selection: Check
Old-school: Check
Superlight: Not so much

It's all about the custom touches at Temple Mountain Bikes (my fictions bike shop)

That's still a strong B average, so steel it was. But which frame? While I would have loved to buy a US-made boutique frame like a Siren Song 29, the frame-only prices for such rides blow my complete-bike budget out of the water like the Krakken attacking a rubber duck. That left the foreign made bikes; Surly Karate Monkey, Salsa El Mariachi, Voodoo Soukri, and the like.

The Highlights
Fork: 80mm Manitou Tower Expert
Wheels: Stan's Crests 29er
Drivetrain (other than cranks): XTR 9 speed
Cranks: Race Face ISIS Turbine
Tires: 2.25" Maxxis Ardents
Brakes: Avid Juicy 7
Grips: Ergon GP1-S
Saddle: Serfas ARC Ti

Yup, I reckon them's some big ole wheels.

I quickly settled on the Vassago Bandersnatch because their "Wet-Cat" geometry sounded perfect: slack head angle, longish stays, lot's of standover. In other words, stable like a supertanker.

A week and a half later there is a new member of the stable. Weather permitting the maiden voyage is tomorrow.

Not exactly a featherweight, but sane.
Not much to trim either, the bar, pedals, and
saddle are the only boat anchors.

Will the Bride being showing up soon at GTA rides soon, demanding a spot at the front? Will this bike be on eBay in two weeks? Somewhere in the middle? I hate to end on a cliche, but only time will tell.

2011 24 Hours of Great Glen

2011-08-19T17:31:00.028-04:00

For the sixth time in the past seven years I returned to Pinkham Notch on the second weekend of August for yet another run at the 24 Hours of Great Glen. As was the case last year, my regular 2-man teammate Todd was spending another summer working on his new house and lacked the free time needed to train. Also like last year I didn't quite feel up to trying my hand as a solo competitor, so I joined a 4 man sport squad. Unlike last year where I raced with 3 randoms, this year I joined forces with my regular riding crony Curtis Lavoie, along with his friend from PA Francis Cuddy, and Temple NH's own force of nature/XC skier/road rider/trail runner Bob Treadwell.

Curt and Francis had coined the name 'Team Awesome!' as a spoof of the many 'extreme' and 'epic' type team names they had seen toiling at the back of the pack with matching jerseys at other races. We didn't have matching race jerseys, but courtesy of The Bride we did have matching t-shirts.

Sunday morning and still no rain.

A couple of weeks before the race Bob found out he had an unavoidable business trip the weekend of the race. Fortunately his son Bobby was ready and willing to fill in for him. This punted me clearly into the role of "old guy" on the team. And while Bob didn't have a lot of experience on a mountain bike, he was a veritable grizzled veteran compared to Bobby, who had all of 20-30 rides ever under his belt on race day. Potentially more worrisome was Bobby's choice of bike: A fully rigid 29er singlespeed with rim brakes. Having ridden a few times with Bobby I wasn't too concerned though, while still figuring out the finer points of technical riding, he could climb like an elevator and never seemed to get tired or discouraged.

Francis exits the plunge.
He's too big to ride this fast, but he does.

As always the weather was a concern; a lot of rain preceding the race and/or during the race makes for an "interesting" time. This year fate was kind, the course was dry and it only rained at the very end. The Bride and I headed up Friday night and setup our campsite then headed over to Gorham for the night. Being old I wanted to sleep in a real bed and take a hot shower before the race began.

In the weeks leading up to the race Curt and I had joked that we planned to win the sport class and take out as many expert teams as possible. He was feeling a bit ill the week before Great Glen and skipped the Top Notch Triathlon the week before to save himself, "for the race that matters" (This is an exact quote, exactly as I remember it at any rate).

Yup, he has a cotton shirt, a fully rigid singlespeed, and rim brakes.
Didn't matter.

Suffice it to say we were talking a lot of smack. When I saw that the number 2 and 3 sport teams from last year were registered I began to have my doubts. When the number of sport teams grew to 32 my doubts increased; that's a lot of teams to beat. When we showed up Saturday morning my doubts grew further yet. So many bad-ass looking racers, so many shaved legs, so many matching jerseys. How the hell could we beat these guys? We certainly didn't look like a contender, me with my Elvis Costello glasses and long travel trail bike, Bobby with cotton T-shirts, Walmart-special-looking ride and practically no riding experience, and Francis, well Francis had a great bike and appropriate kit, but he's 6'6" and 240lbs. No way a guy that big was going to survive multiple 8.3 miles laps with 1000' of climbing per lap. No way. Simply not possible. Admittedly Curt did look like he sort of belonged. He's got a giant tattoo, a Ti hardtail, and lots of fancy jerseys, but come on, those thick glasses...he's going to fog up an crash at 3:00 am.

I kept my doubts to myself, because everyone else seemed confident. I dispensed what little wisdom I'd picked up from doing this race previously. Mainly that advice was: Don't blow yourself up on the first lap and the race is won at night with consistent laps. Not sure if anyone was listening, not sure if it was even good advice, but I felt better saying something :-P

With my bum ankle we decided someone else should take the first lap. Since Bobby was on a singlespeed it didn't make much sense for him to go first and get caught up in the cattle call that is lap one. So first out duty fell to Francis, Curt was #2, Bobby was in the three spot, and I was last.

Curt on one of his early laps.

Noon. The cannon fires and 182 teams (including 12 hour teams and solos) started their running lap around the pond for the LeMans style start. Francis came through in the first quarter of racers and headed out on his Yeti Big Top. And then we waited.

The first racer in was from the sole pro team, coming in at a blistering 39:27. More riders came in each passing minute. Francis rolled in with a 47:10, putting us in 32nd position overall. I wasn't too worried though because we hadn't sent out our fastest guy first and sure enough when Curt turned a 41:32 lap we jumped to 19th position overall. Bobby's lap was 43:53 and brought us to 16th overall. Finally I got to head out and feeling good laid down a 42:27 which brought us to 11th overall and 2nd in the sport class.

The course was the usual mix of fast carriage road, rocky double track, and single track, with 100' of tarmac thrown in for good measure. It's fast, but you aren't going to win it on a cross bike, there's enough technical stuff to keep that from happening. There were a few reroutes, including the addition of a long switchback climb to the top of the plunge, which previously was a straight shot up the fall line. All-in-all if felt very familiar and it was easy to fall into a rythym (as well it should be given how many times I've raced here).

Yours Truly on the way to the top of the plunge.
The RIP 9 may not be the lightest bike, but it climbs like a champ and descends better.

Our gains on the overall came a bit slower after that but by the start of lap 10 we had moved into a narrow lead in the sport class and 6th overall. It didn't last long though as John Creedon from team 'Sucker Punch' threw down a 45:59 for lap 11, putting us almost 3 minutes back. Fortunately it's a team event, and as darkness fell, Sucker Punch's next rider managed only a 49:40 to my 44:23 (thanks in no small part to my ridiculous Niterider Pro 700 and Light & Motion Stella 600 which make keeping the pace in the dark a whole lot easier). We now had a 3 minute lead on Sucker Punch and 7 minute lead on Pure Adrenaline in third. We were still worried about Creedon's team, as has was clearly faster than any of us, but they were sending him out for double laps from the start of the race, which eventually had to take it's toll. We were committed to putting a fresh rider on course every lap and turning consistent lap times.

Through the night this strategy paid off, our fastest nighttime lap was 43:30 and our slowest was 48:32. By sunrise we had a 1 hour lead on Sucker Punch and 27 minute lead on the new 2nd place sport team, Team Adrenaline. Dumb luck played a part too of course; we had no serious mechanical issues and no crashes.

I knew what I was capable of and having ridden a lot with Curt he was delivering what I expected, but as the night wore on I was continually amazed at Francis and Bobby. How a guy as big as Francis continues to hit those climbs as fast as he did I'll never know. Bobby meanwhile decided he'd had enough of his rigid singlespeed with rim brakes, so upgraded to Curt's back up a bike, *another* singlespeed, this one had disc brakes though. If this kid decides to take up mountain bike racing watch out (I think Bobby doubled his lifetime mtb mileage during the race).

When the sun came up we knew it was our race to lose. When Francis headed out for lap 25 at 6:52 we were in 4th overall, with the sole Pro team, one expert team, and a 5 person team ahead of us. We went into crazy consistency mode, with our next 7 laps ranging from 46:37 to 47:53. When Bobby finished lap 31 at 11:34 am we knew we had won sport.

FEMA tent.

But let's back up a little. With the new rules this year we didn't need to have a racer on course at noon. We could call it a day at 11:34 and we knew that it would be impossible for any other sport team to get another rider out in time to attempt a 32nd lap. We clarified this with the race administrators, but I felt a bit guilty. The rest of my team had each done 8 laps, who was I to do only 7? While we thought about what to do it started to rain. Really hard. I didn't come to race to race the 23 Hours and 34 minutes of Great Glen. So when we spotted Bobby across the field I knew I was going out one more time.

It's all over, so we can smile now.

It was a formality and I didn't take any chances. I walked twice for the first time in the race, at the top of the first climb across the bridge and down the plunge at the end. I wasn't entirely sure if I crashed out here and DNFed if we would still be ruled the winners, so I played the slow-by-easy card. It was a bit disappointing to break the 50 minute mark for our team, but discretion, valor and all that.

Fastest laps? No. Consistent laps? Yes

As usual the awards took too long, with useless raffles and too many classes (e.g. Sport ;-). How the solo competitors didn't run from the tent screaming "I'M REALLY @!#$% TIRED AND WANT GO TO SLEEP!!!" I'll never know.

Not sure if this group will be back next year. If the other guys want to defend I'm game, or maybe I'll finally try my luck as a solo.

The Pinnacle

2011-06-20T20:30:00.008-04:00

I don't race much, but when I do it's typically longer stuff, 24 Hours of Great Glen, Hampshire 100, 12 Hours of Bradbury Mountain, etc. This past Sunday I tried something a bit shorter, one of the Eastern Fat Tire Association's New England Championship Series races: The Pinnacle XII (#4 on this year's calendar).

The race was held in scenic Newport NH, a town I'm familiar with mostly from my motorcycling days as it lies in the western part of the state which is short on traffic and police and long on twisty roads.

The sport class raced three laps for a total of 13.6 miles (per my Garmin Forerunner). The course was listed at 16 miles for sport, but apparently some adjustments were made from last year. Weather was off-the-charts perfect. Dry, sunny, breezy, and warm but not hot; a perfect day in the mountains.

The Sport Class Course

Among my regular crew of riders there were two others competing: My 24 Hours of Great Glen teammate Curt and first-time MTB racer Jeff. Jeff deserves credit for showing up since he's still saddled with a toy bike with those adorable little 26" wheels. (To his credit he has a Ti 29er on order). "Big" Chris showed up to provide support with his lawn chair and umbrella, and sadly also with his plaster cast encasing his repaired foot. Pretty sure he would have given those young guys in the Clydesdale class some competition had he been riding.

I had no idea what the course was like, particularly how much climbing there was. Curt had gathered a little info and was under the impression that there was a good deal of up right away. Since that was all I had to go on I figured I'd take it easy out of the gate.

That Sport and Novice riders started in waves at 9:30 on a grassy field at the Newport High School. The climbing started at about 9:31.

It's either up or down on this course: 1905' of climbing

The climb while not crippling steep, was almost all single track and fairly technical in few spots. Nothing you'd worry about during a fun ride, but when packed with over-eager racers and your blood is pumping it made for a few interesting moments as the rider at the head of the line spun out or tumbled and everyone behind came to a screeching halt. I made a few passes on the way up, but lost almost all I gained when the rider in front of me crashed and laid his bike out across the trail causing me to dismount. I figured discretion was the better part of valor at this point and just focused on getting to the top without any more incidents, though my caution meant just about everyone in the Vet II class passed me.

I was feeling I might have brought a bit too much bike with my Niner RIP 9, but those thoughts evaporated when the course turned down. The descent was almost all single track and featured numerous monstrous berms (monstrous for a XC race anyhow). I've never seen so many crashes in a race before. One rider flew off the top of a berm and into the trees (and I assume onto the rocks supporting the berm). Several overcooked the numerous tight turns and laid it down. A few pivoted violently around their front axles and drilled themselves into the dirt.

The descent ended with a plunge down a gravel slope onto a grass field. Sadly I can't find a decent picture of it, but the terror of it is clear in my mind's eye. Well maybe "terror" is an exaggeration, but you really wanted to be sure you were lined up straight when you hit it, because mid-course corrections on the way down were likely to result in a DNF.

The second and third laps were extended versions of the first (5 miles vs. 3.6 miles). At the start of the second lap the racers were thinned out so I started chasing down everybody I'd let by before. My legs felt good so I upped the pace a little bit and was soon passing quite a few folks (well maybe my pace stayed the same and they were wilting...same thing really). Most passing had to be done on the climbs, the downhills were just too fast and tight to squeeze by all but the slowest racers. Didn't matter much as I was more concerned with staying upright on the descents.

The remainder of the race was pretty uneventful until the very end. On the final descent I was in the 3 spot of a tightly packed group of 4 riders. I recognized one of them from the start of my class, so I had it in mind to pass him at the finish. The guy behind me wanted to pass, but we were flying along and that simply wasn't in the cards. I cursed myself for not climbing harder since I was constantly braking more than I wanted as the two in front of me slowed for corners. I'm no downhill guru, but a RIP 9 with 2.2" Nevegals can carry a lot of speed compared to the typical hardtail XC race bike. Didn't matter though because there was no way I was going to squeeze by. Then it really didn't matter as we crossed the last bridge and my back wheel clipped a root hard, kicking my back wheel into the air. I road a brief nose wheelie across the bridge before riding right off it. The guy behind me got his wish and passed, though he did ask if I was alright. The bike and I were unscathed from the crash, we landed upright and my pride was the most serious injury. I confess to being a bit irate and hauled myself out of the ditch and threw caution to the wind in an effort to catch back up. My bike was all over the place but I managed to catch them right was we came out onto the final stretch of double track and the clearing at the top of the final plunge. I was in an ok spot to make a move, but futzed the line on the plunge: Thinking I could go right and pass them on down slope, instead I found soft sand and lost speed and all three finished ahead of me.

Oh well, I can't care too much, caring too much about your mid-pack finishing order means you are either racing elite class or you need to relax.

The Overall Sport Class Men's Results (6 DNFs)

While I was mildly disappointed with my finish, Curt did very well, finishing first in his class and 5th overall. Jeff did well too, finishing with a comfortable lead in the Novice Vet II class.

* This first place puzzles me. This racer finished the 2nd, 3rd, and 3rd in the first three NECS races...in the Novice class. Suddenly he's putting 15 minutes on the next closest sport racer, over a 13.6 mile course?! Bad data? Sandbagger? Most improved rider ever? Anybody know the deal?

Calling Tech Support

2011-06-08T14:23:00.005-04:00

People often ask how I like working at home or skip the question and go right on to expressing their envy. All-in-all it's quite nice and certainly any pro/con analysis is heavily weighted to the pro side of the ledger. One of the few drawbacks is that you are your own tech support. Most of the time this isn't a big deal: install some software, setup a simple home network, update your OS.

Today though was one of those days where it all went to $#!t...

Keeping my Cisco Linksys E3000 from cooking itself

XTerra Upgrade

2011-03-13T23:37:00.005-04:00

I've kept my 2008 Nissan XTerra Off Road pretty much stock. It's as capable off-road as I'll ever need so I've never been tempted by the long list of dirt toys like those from ShrockWorks (though I'd be lying if I said a winch bumper hasn't tempted me; there's been many a time I would have liked to have one).

I also got my truck with pretty much every factory installed option. The Rockford Fosgate head unit, amp, speakers, and sub, while not perfect, is good enough that I was never tempted to upgrade anything. iPod integration is so cumbersome as to be pointless without a passenger to do it, but at least it's there (and addressing that would require a new head unit).

The one thing that has bugged me though is the lack of a factory installed nav unit. I'm quite happy with my little Garmin Nuvi 260w, but I'm not found of the ugly window mount and the power cord with constantly gets tangled and obscures the head unit. I am also paranoid about leaving it in the cradle while I leave the truck; it's a tempting smash-and-grab item.

Now you see me.

Now you don't.

While researching new nav head units I discovered that Nissan offers a dealer installed GPS housing. It's nothing very fancy, just a flip-up clam shell holder for a Garmin 7xx series. The nice part is that it's (obviously) a lot cheaper than something like this. And given my disinclination to mess with the rest of the system, it was a no-brainer. Finding the old style model (for the 2005-2008 dash) proved quite difficult though. I finally found one at mynismo.com.

Installation took about 1 hour, though it would take significantly less if you already know your way under the dash. The wiring harness included a tap for the head unit's power wire, which was nice, but the tap itself is very fragile and dropping it into the bowels of the dash is a real possibility.

My old Nuvi doesn't work with the cradle so I needed to pick up a new Nuvi 765T. Haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet, but I applaud Garmin for not changing the UI too much simply to give the appearance of improvement.

The only real problem in the install was that when I disconnected the battery, the VDC system "resets" (i.e. is disabled). The reset procedure is to simply drive straight for a while over 10 m.p.h., but so far that hasn't worked. I have to give Nissan an F on that one, a vehicle like this desperately needs stability control, and making the reset procedure require driving seems an odd choice.

Basketball Jones[1]

2011-01-07T18:37:00.009-05:00

Uh-oh

About five or six years ago I hung up my sneakers for good.

Or so I thought.

I had "retired" once before, after a crushing elbow to the face in the late 90's. It was the wise choice I thought. My left ankle was, and continues to be, a non-flexible mass of bone chips, scar tissue, duct tape, and gravel. My fingers had been jammed and hyper-extended more times than I could remember. It was time to be an adult, time to pursue adult sports like tennis and golf.

During that first hiatus I already considered myself primarily a mountain biker, runner, and skier. Individual, outdoor sports. They were better suited to my stengths. Hoops? I had long arms. That was the complete list of my roundball assets. I lacked explosive speed, my hands are on the left side of the dwarf->Rondo continuum, and the days of getting up to the rim were gone by the time I was 25.

My jumper sucked; I was a 6' 175 lb. guy who played in the post and never met a drive he didn't like. But after getting hammered for too long in the paint I decided it was time to quit.

Retirement #1 didn't stick of course. Once I moved to NH and was in grad school I started up again. It was basically free entertainment, an important consideration for a grad student. I hadn't quit mountain biking, but was only a casual participant, my first real racing was a couple of years off. The trail running bug hadn't bit. It was good exercise.

But the teens and 20-somethings at the playground were getting so much faster and stronger (though I realize now, of course, that I was getting slower and weaker). The injuries took even longer to heal.

Why go on with a young man's game?

So I hung em up once again. Stopped checking the weather to see if it was raining at the playground, stopped working on that spin and lefty scoop shot move, stopped nursing a laundry list of nagging injuries. It was hard to let go, but I didn't t want to be that creepy old guy at the gym with googles and white socks.

So when the Bride recently brought me news of an old-guy's game in a nearby town, I should have said, "Interesting, but those days are behind me." Instead the UPS man brought me a new ankle brace and some shiny new kicks today. It might be a bad idea, but time to see if anything is left in the tank.

[1] For you youngsters, but be warned it's from 1974 and isn't very PC.

365 Songs: №. 22

2010-12-20T20:17:00.007-05:00

365 Songs lives!

Barely.

It's more undead than actually alive. I'm changing the tagline from "Day X" to "№ X" because obviously I've failed miserably at providing a daily entry.

Anyhow, I do have enough time for song 22. After a less-then-stellar day at work I was wallowing in a bit of self-pity. I came upstairs in a foul mood. Then I remembered what time of year it is and broke out Capitol Record's 2004 compilation "Christmas Classics". I went right for track 2, Dean Martin's perfect 1959 version of Frank Loesser's "Baby It's Cold Outside":

Now that improved my mood considerably! Time to listen to the rest of it.

Thanks

2010-11-14T12:23:00.003-05:00

The KRA auction was a great success last night. There are a lot of people to thank, but this note is to our friends who are not part of the organization:

First a very special thanks to two who went above and beyond: Bruce Cobb, our auctioneer and Paul Vaillancourt, our DJ and MC for the raffle. Without these pros at the microphone this event doesn't get pulled off, plain and simple.

Josée Dupont, who not only donated to the auction but bid up a storm. She showed how it's done at a charity auction -- it's not about finding a deal, it's about supporting a cause, and it's about making bids, not sitting on your hands.

Who are you going to call when you want a reliable and enthusiastic attendee to your event? Kelly Giard, that's who. She's the kind of person a bystander on the street sees going into an event and thinks, "Hey, where is she going? It looks like it might be fun".

What do you call a person who secured passage from Spain this week, without a passport or any money, after getting robbed, while on vacation, just so she could attend this event? You call that person a friend of the highest quality or Francesca LaSala Cobb.

Kevin and Stephanie Hirnak, where to start with these two? Whether paying the optional $50 donor ticket price or throwing around some of the biggest bids of the night, they just plain got it done.

Pat Terry for securing a Crotched Mountain season pass for the live auction. That's the kind of item that generates bids.

Matt Waitkins and Tracey Bowman, whose schedule didn't permit them to attend, but made sure the check really was in the mail.

To paraphrase Harry Bailey, we feel like the richest folks in town.

Moving Pictures

2010-10-24T21:43:00.010-04:00

While I've owned a high definition camcorder for a long time I've never used it much. Too fragile for first person use while skiing or mountain biking. I recently acquired a GoPro HD Hero helmet camera. Now this is more like it. Tiny and robust. Cheap enough that in the unlikely event I completely destroy it, I'll only cry for 20 minutes.

Still getting my feet wet with the camera's features and taking the tiniest of baby steps with editing, but I'm having fun.

FOMBA Hemlock Loop Trail from pburba on Vimeo.

This was my first video, it's too long and consists of only one scene. Only singletrack junkies are likely to find it enjoyable. Critical lessons learned:

The seatpost is the place to mount the camera for smooth video, especially if you stay seated.

The strap-on helmet mount produced nothing by jiggly footage that will have you reaching for the Dramamine.

Bear Brook from pburba on Vimeo.

This is my second video. Actually have several different scenes and it is slightly less boring. Switched from Adobe Premier Elements to TrakAxPC Pro, which is half the cost and twice as good.

Project 29er: Latest Tweaks

2010-06-05T09:15:00.009-04:00

Latest refinements before taking a Friday afternoon ride at FOMBA.

As with any new bike, it's not long before the upgrades start. Now I know what you are thinking, "Uh, but wasn't your latest bike a no expense spared money pit?" Well, yes and no. It was a money pit, but "no expense spared?" To borrow a phrase from Han Solo, I can imagine quite a bit*, but I didn't spend that much.

First on the agenda were new pedals. I cursed myself a few months back when I said my old Shimano 959s would last forever. On my second ride the left one started spinning like it was full of rocks (a rebuild not helping) and the other wouldn't release in anything approaching a predictable manner. I decided to take a chance on a set of XPedo's Ti-spindled M-Force pedals. They work with standard Shimano cleats, are feathery light at 230g, and even at my heaviest I easily clear the 185 lb. rider weight limit.

I'm still getting familiar with the slightly different entry, though this probably has as much to do with a recent cleat position change. As far as release goes they are great. I am using them with Shimano's SM-SH56 mutli-release cleat and when I want out I'm out. Can't ask for much more.

The second tweak was a a straight seatpost. The old Thomson layback model I had shimmed in and the old RaceFace XY that replaced it both had too much setback. I went with a Thomson Masterpiece, which rivals carbon posts for weight and is unmatched for beauty. I've slowly been moving the seat forward 1mm every couple of rides, trying to find the optimal position; I'm still coming to grips with the fact that this bike actually fits me and I don't need to have the seat slammed back to have enough room.

The last changes were wrought by a branch at Massabesic last Monday which snapped by rear XTR derailleur in half. The stout Niner replaceable hanger didn't budge...Not sure if this is a good thing or not.

I've also had some problems with the chain getting bounced off the middle ring, getting hooked by the big ring and then getting pulled between the gap between the big ring and the chain stay. This is a one-way trip, there is no pulling the chain back by hand, you need to break the chain. Possibly during suspension compression the gap opens enough to let the chain slip by?

At any rate this is my biggest complaint about the RIP9. At first I thought I was engaging in ill-advised shifts, but then it happened while I was JRA in the rough.

The solution for now is a 2x9 setup. I replaced the 44 tooth big ring with a Truvativ Noir carbon rock ring, which fit/looked perfect with the RaceFace cranks. With less chain wrap I went with a medium cage XTR Shadow derailleur. These shadow variants have a much lower profile to trail debris than Shimano's traditional derailleurs. The shorter cage obviously helps too. The obvious problem with all this is the loss of the high gears. Right now I have a 22/32 x 12-24. This is fine for riding Massabesic and anything else technical, but for fireroads, rail trails, and the inevitable tarmac, it is woefully undergeared. Still, single speeders get by without it, so maybe I can too.

If not, then I'm hoping somebody will eventually make a 11-36 9-speed cassette that is friendly to aluminum drive shells (so no thanks SLX HG61). Then I can switch to a 24/36 in front and probably be ok.

Inside Joke

2010-05-25T17:49:00.001-04:00

GENERAL MADINE: "We have stolen a small Imperial shuttle. Disguised as a cargo ship, and using a secret Imperial code, a strike team will land on the moon and reimplement merge tracking from scratch."

The assembly begins to mumble among themselves.

THREEPIO: "Sounds dangerous."

LEIA (to Han): "I wonder who they found to pull that off."

GENERAL MADINE: "General Solo, is your merge team assembled?"

Leia, startled, looks up at Han, surprise changing to admiration.

HAN: "Uh, my team's ready. I don't have a command crew for the shuttle."

Chewbacca raises his hairy paw and volunteers. Han looks up at him.

HAN: "Well, it's gonna be rough, pal. I didn't want to speak for you."

Chewie waves that off with a huge GROWL.

365 Songs: Day 21

2010-05-13T00:04:00.004-04:00

Disclaimer: I'm lame and not posting every day, so this is going to take more than a year. You get what you pay for.

The Lovely Hope Sandoval.
I don't think she had much trouble getting dates.

I've never been sure what to call Mazzy Star. Wikipedia lists no fewer than 9 genres for them. My favorite is "shoegaze". Why don't we just call them "good"?

Artist: Mazzy Star
Song: Five String Serenade
Album: So Tonight That I Might See (1993)

I could have picked almost any song off this album, I love the whole thing and always listen to it in its entirety. I did resist picking the much better known Fade Into You, which is what passes for a hit for this band, but really you can't go wrong with any of it. It's all just so damn trippy, dreamy, peaceful, etc..

365 Songs: Day 20

2010-05-10T22:49:00.003-04:00

Artist: The J. Geils Band
Song: Musta Got Lost
Album: Blow Your Face Out [Live] (1975)

This song is among my earliest memories of my "own" music, rather than whatever my parents had playing in the house or on the car radio.

The studio version was found on 1974's Nightmares...and Other Tales from the Jungle, but for me this recording, from a November 15, 1975 concert in the old Boston Garden, is the definitive version of this song.

365 Songs: Day 17-19

2010-05-08T12:32:00.013-04:00

I've been a bit lax with the blog the last few days, so I owe three songs. Fortunately inspiration hit after attending last night's horrific Celtic's game. To say the C's didn't get it done would be an insult to epic underachievers the world over.

After the Green stunk the joint up, I got thinking back to those Boston teams from the 80's who, more often than not, did get it done, or at least gave nothing away easily. This line of thought (logically?) led to thinking about 80's Boston bands who got it done. And any short list of the Hub's best 80's bands would have to include the Cars.

Like many non-hip boys of the era, I both marveled and bemoaned the fact that lead singer Ric Ocasek (35) somehow managed to land supermodel Paulina Porzikova (19) in 1984 and actually marry her in 1989. Marveled, because it gave hope for us all, I mean look at this guy, if he could do it then we all had a chance. Bemoaned because, by the perverse logic of a 16 year old, we felt that, "Hey, here is a supermodel that likes odd looking guys, she's probably the only one on the planet, and this bozo has taken her off the market! It's unfair! He's rich and famous, he could find another one!" It's as if we somehow thought that we were part of Paulina's backup plan if things didn't work out with Ric. And apparently things did work out, since according to Wikipedia they are still married.

Well to get back at "lead singer" Ric, two of the songs I've chosen are actually sung by the band's late bassist Benjamin Orr.

Artist: The Cars
Song: Drive
Album: Heartbeaty City Album (1984)
Performance: Official Video

Artist: The Cars
Song: Just What I Needed
Album: The Cars (1978)
Performance: Live Aid (1985)

Artist: The Cars
Song: Since You're Gone
Album: Shake It Up (1981)
Performance: Appearance on Friday's (1981)

365 Songs: Day 17

2010-05-05T20:58:00.004-04:00

Artist: A Flock of Seagulls
Song: I Ran (So Far Away)
Album: A Flock of Seagulls (1982)
Performance: Official Video

The hair.

The bad videos.

The synthesizers.

It must be time for an 80's New Wave classic.

365 Songs: Day 16

2010-05-04T22:01:00.004-04:00

Artist: Jackson Browne
Song: The Load Out / Stay
Album: Running on Empty (1977)
Performance: BBC In Concert, Live At Shepherd's Bush Theatre, London 1978

Simply put, the greatest song(s) ever about performing and being on the road. Disagree? You are of course entitled to your opinion, but this blog is moderated, so good luck sharing it here ;-)

365 Songs: Day 15

2010-05-03T18:29:00.003-04:00

Artist: Cold War Kids
Song: Hang Me Up To Dry
Album: Robbers & Cowards (2006)
Performance: Official Video

Love or hate the video, at least they tried. Kinda like the song.

I need to go back and listen to this album, outside of this song I never really connected with any of it. I might not have given it a fair chance though, as I was listening to Silversun Pickups' Carnavas at the same time, and the latter was handily winning the fight for my attention.

365 Songs: Day 14

2010-05-02T22:31:00.002-04:00

Artist: White Stripes
Song: Girl, you have no faith in medicine
Album: Elephant
Performance: Random Fan Video

Garage Rock. Lo-Fi. Punk Blues. I don't care what you call it, it's rock.

Meg's drumming to simple for you? I don't care, it works.

Not much more to say other than I listened to this song back-to-back four times today in my truck. I guess that means I like it. A lot.

365 Songs: Day 13

2010-05-02T22:15:00.003-04:00

Artist: Feist
Song: 1234
Album: The Reminder
Performance: Official Video

Yes, it's the Apple iPod Nano song. It's still very good. Fun video too, one that actually adds something to the song and is entertaining in its own right. As someone who thinks fast cuts are a tool of weak directors, I also like that it was done in one take (or appears to be at any rate, it's hard to be sure these days).

365 Songs: Day 12

2010-04-30T20:10:00.002-04:00

Artist: New Order
Song: Crystal
Album: Get Ready (2001)
Performance: Official Video

Another band I'll hit up again before this list is over. I passed on anything from Substance 1987, because I already used up this month's allotment of epic songs :-D

A curious bit about this video, notice the name of the fake band? Indeed it was this video that inspired the name of that little group from Vegas.

365 Songs: Day 11

2010-04-29T21:34:00.002-04:00

Artist: Fiona Apple
Song: Shadowboxer
Album: Tidal (1996)
Performance: Official Video

Ok, for those of you that are still following along and waiting to hear a good song, today is your last chance. Every song so far I obviously think is pretty good, that's why I've bothered to post them (duh).

This song though, this song is sublime. If I was pressed to put together a list of my 10 favorite songs of all time, this would, without a doubt, make the cut.

I wanted to find a live version that did it justice, but alas, the performances were either not-so-hot, or the recordings were suspect. So the official video it is, in all its poorly lip-synced beauty.

365 Songs: Day 10

2010-04-28T18:22:00.007-04:00

Artist: PJ Harvey
Song: C'mon Billy
Album: To Bring You My Love (1995)
Performance: French TV, 1995

Polly Jean Harvey's masterpiece album 'To Bring You My Love' entered my musical life in the late 90's like a bomb, blowing apart my ideas of what I liked in a female vocalist. And like a bomb it probably did my hearing no favors as I listened to it loudly and frequently at the Bride's apartment; we had just started dating and so these songs are forever bonded to that time for me.

Even with the feel-good association, I'd rate this album in my top 50 all-time even if I discovered it during bad times. It just doesn't quit. In a recent interview she said, "I certainly don't want to make music that can be put on in the background and be spoken over". Mission accomplished with this album.

I chose this low-key performance because it is mercifully lacking in the dark stage persona she is often projects, she is just playing it straight here.

365 Songs: Day 9

2010-04-27T19:15:00.003-04:00

Today sucks, so I'll keep this brief.

The Band: Editors

The Song: An End Has A Start

The Album: An End Has a Start (2007)

The Sound: The British Interpol

The Video: Worst use of models in a video, to see proper usage refer to Palmer, Robert, Addicted to Love.

That is all.

365 Songs: Day 8

2010-04-26T19:59:00.002-04:00

I can't claim this band is some kind of hidden gem, it's only album, "Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too" did go platinum in the U.S. But other than the hit 'You Get What You Give', the album itself kinda flew under the radar. If came out today it would probably sell a million downloads of the single and 100k albums...

...which would be a shame, because the album is a very solid piece of work start to finish. The "band" was really Gregg Alexander, who wrote, sang, produced, and played many of the instruments, and then filled in the blanks with session musicians. He called it quits after this one album (though he had two previous solo efforts) to produce and write for other artists. Too bad.

The song is 'Someday We'll Know'.

365 Songs: Day 6 & 7

2010-04-25T21:22:00.005-04:00

This is the first appearance of what is sure to be several by one of my favorite bands. Many people love them, though it seems lately that more hate them. Partly I think this is due to Bono's activism and somewhat holy-than-thou personality. They have also been around a long time and have produced a fairly large and varied body of work, engaging in a lot of "reinvention" along the way. So if you want to find something they have done that you don't like, well then, you can probably find it.

Whatever.

War. The Unforgettable Fire. The Joshua Tree.

If they did nothing but those three they would still be among my favorites.

I liked that they tried different things; they didn't find the recipe for success and then repeat it. Bands should grow and evolve. It may not always work, you may not always like it, but it sure beats the same old thing every time.

I owe two songs since I didn't post yesterday, so we get a shortened version of October (from the album of the same name) and the iconic New Year's Day from War. The performance was recorded at the Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado. I love the Edge's minimalist piano playing in both songs.

365 Songs: Day 5

2010-04-23T20:09:00.002-04:00

Who knew?

They were Dutch!

They have 24 studio albums!

They have had the same lineup for 47 years!

They are still touring!

Honestly, I didn't know the first thing about them before a trip to wikipedia, but I've always loved 'Twilight Zone' and 'Radar Love'. Found this great acoustic version of the former which features some very nice guitar playing (at least to my uneducated ear). Enjoy.

365 Songs: Day 4

2010-04-22T22:16:00.002-04:00

When I first heard Lazy Eye by the Silversun Pickups in late 2006, like many others, I wondered if it was a man or woman singing. The 25 second explosion at the 2:45 mark answered that; Brian Aubert was indeed male.

I looked for a good live recording of this song, but it seems that bit at 2:45 is hard to replicate, so I'm sticking with the studio version.

While I enjoyed the rest of Carnavas, which was their debut album, nothing else on it, or their sophomore effort Swoon, ever reached the perfection of this song. For me, it will go down as one of the finest efforts of the 00's.

365 Songs: Day 3

2010-04-21T17:20:00.003-04:00

I've met people who viewed this band as some kind of "Lesser Nirvana*" that felt that somehow, they weren't really part of the "true" Seattle grunge era. They are of course entitled to their opinions, but I'll never trust their views on anything music-related.

Anyway, here they are in their salad days, performing a cover of Neil Young's Rockin in the Free World at the 1992 Pinkpop Festival in Landgraaf, Holland (or the Netherlands if you prefer...that always confused me).

* Count my lovely Bride among that first group. I've since shown her the error of her ways.

365 Songs: Day 2

2010-04-20T18:42:00.003-04:00

Today we dip into the alt-country files and pull out an National treasure (no, not the Nicolas Cage cinematic abomination).

John Hiatt is one of the finest songwriters I know of; he knows how to tell a story. And he isn't a half bad guitar player :-)

Now this recording doesn't feature his finest vocal performance (and the sync is a bit off), but it's still more than adequate. I chose it because I love this song and you get a bonus! Not one, but two National treasures, because his band for this performance is the Goners, and that means slide guitarist Sonny Landreth, who pretty much steals the show here.

Now I must warn you to look past the weird "drunk dad at wedding" thing Hiatt does in the first few seconds. Actually, when I think about it, his whole vibe is a bit like that, but get over it!

So here it is, John Hiatt and the Goners at the 2003 AVO Session Basil festival in Switzerland, performing Tennessee Plates, from 1998's Slow Turning (an album I recommend without hesitation to those with functioning ears):

365 Songs: Day 1

2010-04-19T21:00:00.008-04:00

I don't blog enough.

Oh, I realize barely anybody reads this blog, and fewer people actually care about what they read here, what with the endless blather about bikes, running, etc.. But maybe what the people want are my opinions on music!

No? Really? The Interwebs don't care about my opinions?

Oh well, I do this for myself then...

“All art constantly aspires to the condition of music.”
- Walter Pater, The Renaissance: studies in art and poetry

Does it? I don't know and am ill equipped to debate this question. I do know that music moves me easily and frequently in a way that other forms of art rarely do. Books do effect me the same way on occasion, but it requires are lot more time and effort on my part. With music, it just happens (It probably happens too much; the Bride is, no doubt, oh so tired of hearing my insightful commentary like, "Wait! Listen to this next part, it's so freaktastically awesome!").

Please note that I can't sing worth a damn or play an instrument, I can't even read music. I can barely play Guitar Hero. That said, I still love listening to music. I can enjoy music from a reasonable variety of genres: bluegrass, disco, funk, "classic" rock, R&B, rap, soul, art music, electronic, folk, alt-country, American roots music, blues, and more. But what really does if for me is anything that falls under the alternative rock umbrella.

So without further ado, here is today's song:

Starting in the dark ages of the late 90's, i.e. the rap rock era, I began turning away from popular music. Nothing was working for me. Then, in the early part of the new millennium, like a light at the end of a dark tunnel infested with Kid Rock zombies (and me down to my last three 12-gauge shells), I heard this band. It wasn't quite time for me to enter the, "they don't make music like they used to" phase.

They have become on of my all time favorites. I don't care if they sound like Joy Division (I love Joy Division!).

"Blast from the Past" (or "I've been at this a while")

2010-04-17T17:27:00.012-04:00

My First MTB: A Steel framed Kona Lava Dome, circa 1993-1994
That rear wheel is one of the few I built myself.
Still true after all these years.

When recently asked, my non-biking friends seemed agreeable to some gravel rail trail riding. Problem is, the Bride and one of our friends don't have bikes. No problem, I just needed to get some of my old bikes in order.

The Bride was easy, she got my old Turner. The only changes I made were to put the old Specialized house brand disk wheels back on (the King hubs on the new RIP 9), get a shorter stem, switch the seatpost for a non-layback to shorten up the cockpit, and put on a woman's saddle.

A loaner bike was a bit trickier. I thought about resurrecting my Specialized FSR Pro, that was a great bike. But it would have required new disk wheels or going back to rim brakes, which I just couldn't muster much enthusiasm for. Plus, I wasn't even sure I could find the old canti posts for the rear wheel.

In the end I decided to fix up my old Kona, which was my first mountain bike. It was actually almost rideable when I dragged it out. Only problem was the fork, a RS SID that had barfed up oil all over itself. I always hated that fork so I swapped it out for an old Manitou SXR, which is worlds more reliable and lower maintenance. Compared to modern (i.e. made in the last 10 years) forks, the SXR is pretty low rent, but compared to the the SID it actually seems to do something besides leak air and oil. Looking back, the SID was just a heavy, expensive rigid fork.

Now all the bikes are ready, we just need it to stop raining so we can all get out.

Retro: Rainbow Ti spokes, Ringle hub.
Matching rear wheel broke a long time ago.
Not a big loss as it had an XT hub, I couldn't afford the Ringer rear hub.

Remember these? It's called a Travel Agent IIRC.
It allows you to use linear pull brakes with non-linear pull levers.

A few new parts:
The Thomson stem is from the Turner (yeah it's too long, I know). The bar is a new Sunline (super-cheap and it weighs a ton). The OURY grips I found in the bottom of a box of bike crap, completely unused. No idea when or where I bought them, but score!

I went through a phase of color coordinating everything I could on this bike. Sadly these anodized chainring bolts lost their color when degreaser got on them.

An old FSA Conix Star-Fangled Nut replacement. I was surprised to learn they still make these. If weight isn't a concern, then these are a lot easier to deal with than a SFN.

"T.H. Industries" is these guys.
Not sure if they still make the Conix.

"See, this screws in there!"
Working on bikes is easy!

Old-School 29er

2010-03-24T17:42:00.006-04:00

My shop has had a guest the past several days: Kelly's old Trek Multi-Track 720 has been in for some sorely needed TLC.

New tires (Bontrager 700x38 H2s) were definitely in order after the sidewalls of what appeared to be the original tires (Trek 700x35 Multi-Tracks made by Cheng-Shin Tire) started to flake apart when I went to change the tubes. I also cleaned the drivetrain, probably for the first time ever.

This bike really brought back some memories: 7 speed cassettes, Alivio derailleurs, overpadded saddles, cantilever brakes. I must say, a 7 speed chain is one burly component. Aside from a little rust, after cleaning it up it looks good for another 10 years. Of course this might have something to do with Kelly not getting out of the saddle and giving it the spurs much over the years :-P

Amazingly the brake pads, while a bit noisy, still worked great. I was able to lock up the front wheel while taking a test blast down the driveway. Did I mention they were noisy? I'll have to remedy that at some point...

I'm now curious as to how old this bike is. Vintage-trek only lists one black 720 multitrack, made in 1991, but the decal color isn't right. It looks like this particular model was made between 1990 and 1999. The colors got progressively fancier over the years, with pearlescent paint jobs and fades. So this bike, in basic black is almost certainly on the earlier end of the scale, and may be a 91. Bikepedia only has data as far back as 1993 for this model, so no luck there either.

The Kalloy seatpost has '93.10' stamped on it, and seatposts often have the date stamped, but the 93 bike was a black to purple fade...

...Hopefully Kelly can shed some light on this mystery (assuming she bought it new).

Anyway, enough history. What actually prompted me to write this is that given my recent plunge into 29ers, it became obvious that sometime back in the day, somebody threw some CX tires on this thing or something similar and presto, the first mass produced 29er was born without any fanfare or Gary Fisher being involved in any way!

Project 29er: Built

2010-03-19T20:09:00.018-04:00

Outdoor glamor shot before I made the final steerer cut and changed the seatpost. I like to think the black-white-red color scheme came together nicely. Weight as pictured was 28.68 lbs.

Finished building up the RIP 9 tonight. It went pretty smoothly, only problems were pretty minor: Some slight drag on the rear rotor, some trouble getting the front derailleur aligned right, and dealing with the wonky cable routing.

This caliper will never be the clean again. Ever.

The things that have really caused my headaches when building previous bikes where not issues with this frame: The bottom bracket threaded in all the way by hand (Bravo Niner!) And the internal headset just drops in, easy as pie, no need to bust out my homemade headset press.

One of my few gripes about this frame so far: The cable routing. The front derailleur cable in particular is a bit gruesome. Though now that it is set up, I'll probably never think about it again.

Converting the Schwalbe Racing Ralphs to tubeless was quite easy too. The rims came from George with the rim tape and valve already installed, so I didn't have to deal with that. I just followed the directions on the bottle of Stan's sealant and everything went smoothly. I've never done this before, so I can't be sure how much using Stan's tubeless-ready Arch rims helped. I'm thinking of converting an old pair of Specialized branded rims for my Turner and tend to doubt it will be as easy.

Cages and seat bag added. I'm going to try and go sans-Camelbak on shorter rides this year. Obviously need some bottles with a flip-top dome to keep the crud out on that bottom mount.

I also used Stan's sealant injector, which is probably overkill, but avoids some mess. I used 90ml of sealant for each 29"x2.4" tire. Both tires lost a bit of air the first few days, but after last night seemed to have sealed up tight. My only concern now is whether the fairly lightweight Ralphs will hold up.

I could stand to trim the brake lines...but who am I kidding.

I set the rebound front and back at the middle of the range. That can be dialed in easy on the trail. Set the pressure in the fork at 85psi per the manual's recommendation. Shock is at 150 psi which gives the recommended 25% sag. I'll mess around with the ProPedal setting when I get on the trail.

I've only tooled around the driveway, but I think I'm going to like these Ergon grips. If nothing else I can annoy my riding partners while I pontificate about how, "grip technology has really come a long way the last few years".

Niner's trademark "Top Tube Coach".

185mm rotor front, 160mm rear.

Niner supports beefier options for the rear axle, but I'm sticking with a standard QR for now. It's probably quite sufficient for my riding style (sit and spin), weight (average), and power output (uh, modest?).

To say I am looking forward to getting this bike on the trail would put me in early contention for the "Understatement of the Year Award -- 2010". But the woods are still in full-on bog mode right now. Going to do the next best thing: Spend tomorrow doing trail maintenance work at the FOMBA trails.

Project 29er: Out of the Box

2010-03-16T19:46:00.016-04:00

The RIP 9, wheels, and OEM fork arrived today. I haven't done much beyond take it out of the box and weigh it. Nothing was even remotely close to it's claimed weight, the frame was a whopping 7.62 lbs (3456g), the wheels 4.33 lbs (1963g), and the fork 4.05 lbs. (1837g). This pushes my earlier estimate of the total weight to 28.51 lbs. Still lighter than my present bike, but a bit porkier than I had hoped. I can live it with though.

Holy Hydroforming Batman!
Contrast with the strictly straight tubed Burner.
On the right, hiding its shame in the shadows
is LeKG's hybrid, visiting the shop for some TLC.

Bottom bracket junctions aren't what they once were.

The Turner's old Chris King hubs get a new lease on life.
I would have loved some new red CK's, but even I couldn't justify the expense.

Front wheel built up by George at Bike29.
Hub was originally a 9mm axle, but fortunately for my wallet
a 15mm through-axle conversion was available.

The OEM Fox F29 RL.
Claimed weight 3.5 lbs.
Actual weight 4.05 lbs.
...and my bike gets fatter...

More tech changes since my last new bike:
A monster 1.125" to 1.5" tapered head tube.

Project 29er: What Will It Weigh?

2010-03-08T19:41:00.004-05:00

I was bored this weekend. So I weighed every component of my RIP 9. I'm not a weight weenie, as can be seen by my choice of frame, but I like charts. Charts with colors are even better!

It will surprise no one to hear that many manufacturer's claimed weights are less than the actual weights. What is surprising is that some brands actually overstated their products weights. Ritchey's SuperLogic bar for example, was 3 grams less than published. That's probably with the normal +/- for a part like this, but it's nice to see some honesty.

Regardless, my goal of a "lightweight" RIP 9 seems promising. If the remaining items are anywhere near their published weights the whole thing may come in under 27 lbs (though I'll believe that when I weigh the finished product). Even if the weight goes as high as 27.5 lbs, for an aluminum framed, 4.5" travel full-suspension 29er this strikes me as quite reasonable, especially considering many of the parts are not exactly "lightest in class" (i.e. brakes, pedals, seatpost, tires).

We'll see...

Project 29er: Nearing the end of Fed Ex fun

2010-03-04T21:15:00.008-05:00

The end of the frequent visits from Brown Santa and the FedEx man are coming to an end. A few final items arrived today. Now we are waiting on the big stuff, the wheels and the frame. Wheels should ship out today and the frame sometime this month.

Originally I had planned on using my old black Salsa seatpost clamp and rear skewer, but color accessorizing madness got the better of me.

I am reusing these 959s, I love these pedals, and they last forever. In the 15 or so years I've been using clipless pedals I've really only used two sets, these and some 747s, which are now on my road bike. Not sure what it takes to kill them, but it would probably kill me too.

Same as my old bike. If it ain't broke...

I see a pattern here...I was going to reuse my Avid Juicy 7s, but a good deal on Avid Elixir CRs (185mm front/160mm rear) at Speedgoat caught my eye and the bonus white-black-red color scheme sealed the deal. Plus I want to have enough parts left over from my old bike for next winter's diversion: Project Singlespeed

Project 29er: Finally, a frame.

2010-03-01T17:56:00.011-05:00

The Winner: Large Black Anodized RIP 9

After a lot of research I had narrowed my bike choices down to two: The Santa Cruz Tallboy and the Niner RIP 9. My local LBS is a Santa Cruz dealer, which is a big plus, but in the end the Tallboy's $644 premium over the RIP 9 and the inability to actually see one in person doomed it. Admittedly the Santa Cruz is a good deal lighter than the RIP 9, but that extra $644 goes some ways to making the Niner a bit lighter via component choice than it might otherwise be.

I ordered my RIP this weekend from Five Hills bike shop in Waterbury VT. The owner George Wisell talked me out of my original plan to build up my old Chris King hubs with some Stan's ZTR 355s, instead we opted for the slightly heavier, but more robust, ZTR Arch rims laced up with some 14/15g spokes. I'll wait till I have a picture of the wheels to reveal the colors, but it's going to be a change from basic black of my last several wheelsets.

In other news, a few more parts trickled in:

Jumping on the Ergon bandwagon and see if it is all that.

Some ho-hum stuff.

The weekly bling: Ritchey carbon fiber alloy matrix WCS 4-Axis stem. Claims to be be strong enough for mountain biking...I certainly hope so.

Project 29er: New Arrivals

2010-02-25T16:45:00.021-05:00

Today we'll be shooting in black and white because that is how I feel. Why? 15" of snow followed immediately by torrential rain (which is still going on as I write this).

The one bright spot was the arrival of some new parts today (plus some "recycled" parts from old bikes).

A holdover from my old Specialized FSR, Salsa's timeless QR seatpost clamp.

I like wide tires: Schwalbe 2.4" Racing Ralphs. At a claimed 640g they seem worth taking a chance on.

Most blingtacular item in today's shipment: Race Face NEXT Carbon Cranks.

I passed on the moderately lighter and more pricey NEXT SL cranks as they are astoundingly fugly. The NEXTs look like a part from a Terminator, the SLs look like something C-3PO would use to wash his back, what with the yellow swoosh graphics and the gold granny ring. I'm down on the whole colored ring thing. If I am ever spotted riding a bike with color-coordinated TruVativ Noir cranks, please, shoot me, because clearly I will have been taken over by aliens.

Another holdover, but this time from the Turner: A Thomson setback seatpost. It's a 27.2 and most of the frames I am looking at are 30.9s...Problem Solver shims to the resuce.

Also from the Turner, a WTB Rocket V SLT, this one is barely used.

XTR 12,14,16,18,20,23,26,30,34

The only shifters for me. SRAM's may be better for all I know, but the way these are hardwired in my brain, I just don't think about it.

Project 29er: Snow Delay

2010-02-24T21:08:00.002-05:00

Sigh. Today's crazy storm delayed a scheduled shipment of bike bling. FedEx calls it a "delivery exception" caused by a "local weather delay". I call it being a Sally.

Project 29er: And so it begins

2010-02-19T17:38:00.005-05:00

Bling-a-ding-a-ding-dong.

There are many simple pleasures in life. Time with family and friends. A good meal. A day in the mountains. Helping the less fortunate.

For me there is also this: Getting new bike bling in the mail. This is even better if said bling is not simply an upgrade for an existing bike, but is rather the precious building block of an entirely new bike.

I am currently in the joyful state that is the latter. I've decided to take the plunge into wagon wheels and get a 29" wheeled mountain bike (a.k.a. a 29er).

I've yet to decided on that particular bike I want, but I've narrowed it down to either a Santa Cruz Tallboy or a Niner RIP 9. "Narrowed it down" might be an exaggeration, since on any given day I also hear the siren call of the Niner Jet 9, the Titus Rockstar 29, the Gary Fisher Superfly 100, the Specialized Epic Marathon 29, etc., but I think it will probably be the Tallboy or the RIP 9.

Anyway, there are a few things I know I want for the new bike, regardless of what the frame ends up being. One of those is a wide flat bar with a lot of sweep. I currently run an old (non-rise) Titec Hellbent on my Turner Burner and I love it (barring the occasional tight squeeze between trees).

Titec currently sells the similar bar, the Flat Tracker, but at 375g it's a bit of a boat anchor and not nearly bling-tastic enough.

Scouring the interwebs I found the solution, Ritchey's SuperLogic Mountain Flat bar. With a 10 degree backsweep and at 620 mm wide it is quite similar to my old HellBent. It also sweeps forward and then back, a fairly unusual design that helps keep stem length under control (a concern for me because with my super-freak long arms I always seem to be running an absurd stem length).

Best of all is the weight, a feathery 130g (claimed).

It's not a complete bike yet, but it's a start :-)

Sweep the bar.
Do you have a problem with that?
No, Sensei.

Failure

2009-10-19T20:30:00.004-04:00

Well, it's over. The 100 Days of stupid came to an end on the 60th day, last Friday.

I was feeling a bit under the weather Friday and didn't run during lunch. Worse, I had to help a friend move from Concord to Bennington that night. "No problem" I thought, "I'll get on the trainer when I got home". But by the time the move was complete I was feeling really awful -- a mini Key Lime pie provided as payment for the move, while tasty, was causing me world class stomach distress. When I got home I knew this lark had come to an end. I felt so miserable I wasn't even upset about it, I was just happy to go to bed.

So now I wonder if I should try to finish out the next 37 days (most likely), *restart* the 100 days (very unlikely), or move onto to something new, like PX90 or getting back into Ashtanga (less likely). With the snow flying early this year and my Crotched Mountain season passes maybe I can can come up with a ski-related challenge...

100 Days of Stupid: Day 47-55

2009-10-11T23:25:00.003-04:00

Came very close to taking a day off the last 9 days.

On Wednesday I hadn't done anything by 7:00 pm, was tired, and just not in the mood to run. On the way home from some errands in Peterborough I decided to stop at Temple Mountain and hike up. If I had gone home without doing that it definitely would have been over.

Friday I got creative, moving three tons of wood pellets into the wood shed. It took 45 non-stop minutes to lug 150 40 lb. bags, so it was something. Real exercise? I'm not sure, certainly it isn't as hard as running up Pack. I asked the Bride to make a ruling and she said it counted, though I suspect this was simply because she didn't want to help (in which case I'm certain she would adjudicated my effort insufficient to achieve the required stupidity).

Today I came even closer to failing than Wednesday. After a miserable night of sleep Friday and Saturday night I was in full-on zombie mode. I took a nap in the afternoon, got up at 3:30 and headed to Kimberly and Dave's Octoberfest party in Exeter. We didn't get home until 9:30. The Bride forbid my from doing a night hike, certain that something bad was going to happen (coyote attack?). So what to do? Yoga seemed my only option, until I remembered my track stand. Doug was hassling me about not doing any road riding, so this would sort of shut him up :-) I rummaged around in the storage area under the dining room and miraculously was able to find all the parts. I fired up Netflix, started the Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and all was good for day 55.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 43-46

2009-10-02T22:59:00.003-04:00

Not even halfway and already I resorted to back-to-back days of hiking. Pathetic. Though since I'm the only "contestant", I'm guaranteed to come in first :-)

Had a fun night hike up Pack Thursday night with S1, S2, Pat, Matt, Tracey, and Bruce (and mutts Billie, Danny, Bella, and Coby). Sadly Le KG was a no-show again due to work, as was Francesca, for the same reason. Hopefully we can get both of them and Senja in on next week's hike.

Tonight Chris B. and I did a night ride at Massabesic. Perfect cool weather. We hit Fire Line and Long Trail at decent (nighttime) pace to start, but then slowed it down and chat/rode Woodpecker (x2), Lady Slipper, and Deer Run. Wrapped up a little over two hours, just as Chris' light was dying, so the timing was perfect. Lesson 1: Assuming you don't kill or maim yourself, you never, ever, ever regret going for a MTB ride. Lesson 2: You can never spend too much on a light rig.

Guest Poster: Pie for lunch (or everybody is a critic)

2009-09-29T19:04:00.003-04:00

I've been following your 100 days of stupid. I must admit that you are much more stupider than me for even attempting this feat, yet for some reason I admire it. I doubt that I could have that kind of perseverance to do anything I enjoy for 100 days straight. I am so far out of shape that it would probably take me a whole weekend to walk the mountain run that you do in 16:58.

Yet, amazingly, I can sit here in my office and pick apart your progress.
Please refer to the pie chart.

I am disappointed that you've spent over half your 100 days running the mountain, and only 10% biking. Mountain and road combined.. Heck, I don't even know why you listed road biking... You've done more Yoga than road bike. I've heard about your great 24 hour mountain bike races and all the preparation that goes into them. Cruising the mountain in the dark. Shuffling for position. I dream of me on my Huffy trying to just keep up with you. How am I suppose to live vicariously through you as a mountain biker if you spend all this time running?

Lets see some more progress on the biking front!

-Doug

100 Days of Stupid: Day 40-42

2009-09-28T00:03:00.002-04:00

Running makes you better at running. Biking makes you better at biking. Neither makes you better at setting up staging and staining your house; I hurt more from the crouching and kneeling of that than from anything I've done the last 42 days.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 34-39

2009-09-24T16:04:00.005-04:00

Fidel, Scorpion2, and Potato joined me for Day 38. Matt and Tracey got there early (they would say "on time") and did an abbreviated hike. Le KG was off waxing somebody.

A little of everything this last six days. The highlight was last night when the several cronies joined me for a night hike of Mt. Monadnock. The ladies stopped at about the 3/4 mark, which was nice as it allowed the gents to finish with a run/fast hike to the summit sans packs. Unfortunately there was no view from the summit as the last few hundred feet were wreathed in fog.

Headed out to the pub for some brew, a post hike chicken parm, and what will probably be the last Key Lime Pie of the season. I'd say it was a great day except for the fact that work has been sucking the life out of me all week.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 31-33

2009-09-19T00:34:00.003-04:00

Nothing special about day 30, just a regular run up the mountain.

Day 31 in was done only to keep this streak alive. An all day conference call precluded a lunch time run, so I hiked up the mountain in the dark. It was peaceful except for the two Peterborough All-Stars coming down who took exception to my headlamp. Uh, it's nighttime, just shy of a new moon, and I have a bum ankle, so walking around in the dark is not on my short list of things to do. I wonder about people like this who, in the dark, in the woods, bump into somebody they don't know and proceed to have an attitude problem. Are they actually bad ass killing machines who can be as rude as they please with no fear of repurcussion or are they simply stupid? It's a way of moving through life that completely perplexes me. Anyhow, it was a lovely night, the air was dry, the stars were bright and the view from the tower was dyn-O-mite :-P

Day 33, today, was the most enjoyable day of stupid yet. Todd, Ray, Dale, and I met up for a night ride on the FOMBA trails at Massabesic. It rained a bit just before we got there, but once we started the sky cleared and it was cool (55F) and dry, perfect night riding weather. We started without the lights and headed out to Fox Tail. The rain made the roots quite slippery, so it took all of two minutes for all of us to put our lights on, I mean what were we saving our batteries for exactly?

It always takes a mile or so for me to recalibrate to night riding. You go slower, but it seems faster. In some ways you ride looser, since you don't always see the tricky stuff coming, so you don't stress about it, so sometimes you roll right over stuff that you might pause to think about in the daylight...and sometimes it rolls right over you and you crash for no apparent reason :-) While I have quite a few dabs, I didn't have any real crashes, something I'm always grateful for as I get older and heal slower.

After Fox Tail we hit Lady Slipper, Deer Run, Red Pine (the log roll is fairly frightening while damp and in the dark), Sampler, Moose Track, and Hemlock Loop. We ended the night with a quick run through Woodpecker, far and away the fastest trail at Massabesic. While following 50 yards behind Todd I heard the "whoomp" of a body hitting the dirt. I was a bit worried as I came around the corner, but he was up and unhurt. He completely lost the front in some soft sand coming around a fast corner, but didn't land on any pointy rocks ;-)

After we finished it was off to Shorty's for a cold brew and some Mexican food. A good ending to a good day.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 30

2009-09-15T18:38:00.009-04:00

This really, really hurt.

Day 30: Probably not many trips above 180 bpm left in my middle aged heart, but today I had at least one remaining. I was trying for a 2009 ascent PR, but was 4 seconds shy (16:58). Though the temperature was cool, the humidity was still high enough to be a factor. Why do this? Why not?

100 Days of Stupid: Day 29

2009-09-14T17:19:00.003-04:00

Ran the mountain today. While it was only four days away, it felt like longer. And I mean that in a good way; knees, Achilles, ankles, all felt great for having taken a break from running.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 27-28

2009-09-13T20:50:00.004-04:00

I <3 singletrack.

After two slack days of yoga and hiking I got back out for some real work on the mountain bike. Banged my knee on my stem really hard and cursed like a longshoreman. Knee is swelling, but I regret nothing.

Do you have a mountain bike sitting in the garage or basement gathering dust? What are you waiting for? This is the best time of year, get on out.

Red Ring of Death

2009-09-12T09:34:00.006-04:00

Eagerly awaiting the return of my rainy day entertainment machine. Those zombies aren't going to shoot themselves and I can't have Kevin and Chris hogging all the glory.

Of course I could have tried to fix it myself...

100 Days of Stupid: Day 25-26

2009-09-11T18:01:00.003-04:00

A late night, a rainy and cold day; only one thing to do: Ashtanga. I am so very out of practice, but it feels good to do it.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 24

2009-09-10T00:06:00.001-04:00

Felt really awful today, but I think it's more likely a couple bad nights of sleep, rather than no rest day in 3+ weeks.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 19-23

2009-09-08T21:14:00.003-04:00

Getting through vacation proved fairly easy as the hot water and then *all* the water in our beach house died, prompting us to come home early. I was able to get one run in on the beach on Sunday.

Spent most of the day doing chores (what a fantastic use of vacation!) but I was able to hit Massabesic today for some MTBing. Conditions were dry and fast, well as fast as the twisty root-infested FOMBA trails allow me to go. Would like to get a group together for a night ride there before the year is out. It's a nice setup for a night ride in that you are never that far from the trailhead.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 19

2009-09-04T15:48:00.005-04:00

Ran up Marion Davis again today at an easy (20:07 ascent) pace. Hip feels a bit better, but both Achilles are a little sore. Need to return to the days of regular ice bucket therapy for both feet after workouts. Some NSAIDs would probably help too, but I'm trying to limit those to when I need to thwart more serious inflammatory responses (e.g. sprained ankles). The latest research indicates that sparing use is probably best.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 18

2009-09-03T20:46:00.003-04:00

Went out for a 5k road run near the ConVal high school with Matt tonight. Easy 8:29 pace. Finished with a hard 2 mile on the track at 6:33 and 6:16 (yay for negative splits).

Right hip is feeling a bit sore, a reminder, as if I needed one, why road miles are bad for me. Wrapped up with 10 minutes of Ashtanga on the field under the fading sun. I still marvel at the fact that in the bad old days we stretched out *before* running. I can't imagine doing that now, I'd rupture something for sure.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 17

2009-09-02T22:30:00.004-04:00

Tools of the Trade

After being worn 13 of the last 17 days, slopping through a lot of mud, and being left to fester in our sunless entryway, my trail running shoes desperately needed some "destinkification".

100 Days of Stupid: Day 16

2009-09-01T15:47:00.004-04:00

The weekday rut of mountain running continues...

When people ask me what I do (outside of work) I say I'm a mountain biker. Even during ski season I say that. But the chart doesn't lie. I'm clearly a trail runner (or mountain runner if you care about the difference). Worse, in a given year I know I road ride more hours than I ride off-road. But I'm still a mountain biker; given the choice and the time, it's what I'd prefer to do. And unlike running and road cycling of any type, mountain biking never feels like work (outside a race anyway). It's simply fun.

So why don't I have more fun?

100 Days of Stupid: Day 15

2009-08-31T14:25:00.005-04:00

Cool (67F), dry (48%), and breezy today. Made for a fast (18:19) ascent of Marion Davis (year's best: 16:54). Unfortunately I can't say anything analogous about work today, which was a real kick in the teeth (the old 'turns out it ain't so simple as you thought problem).

100 Days of Stupid: Day 13-14

2009-08-30T19:56:00.002-04:00

Hit the two week mark. Nothing special, just two runs up Pack Monadnock this weekend. Turned my ankle for the second time in two weeks on Saturday's run (stepped on an acorn!). Iced it down, took some NSAIDs, and it felt fine today.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 12

2009-08-29T11:27:00.007-04:00

Not much of a video, but it gives you the idea.

Headed up to the Northeast Kingdom of VT yesterday for a long planned weekend of riding at the Kingdom Trails. Unfortunately the whole trip was cut short due to rain, but we did get a night ride in. It's a long way to drive for just over two hours of riding, but when the weather is cool and dry, and the trails are this good, it's still worth it.

Thanks to Shawn and Loralee for letting Chris, Dale, Ray, and I stay in their barn. Sure beat packing up a wet tent this morning.

The Turner gets ready to roll out.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 11

2009-08-27T13:33:00.003-04:00

A simple caveman runner:

See mountain. Weather good. Run up mountain. Life good. That is all.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 10

2009-08-26T19:49:00.003-04:00

Felt lazy today. It's starting to be a recurring theme. Maybe that's the lesson I'm supposed to learn? At least I scored some oral antibiotics to battle my ear infection. Hoping they don't make me sick this weekend. Anyhow, back to the laziness, I did the easiest thing I could do today: A 3.5 road run around town.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 9

2009-08-25T19:12:00.004-04:00

Today was the first day I would have definitely taken off if not for this ill-advised, self-imposed challenge. I have a painful ear infection and barely slept last night. But the weather was decent and a couple of Advil kept the pounding of the ear at bay. So I headed over to Pack for some mountain running. Took the Wapack trail to the summit for a much needed change of scenery. I don't usually run this route as it is more technical than the Marion Davis trail and all the rocks and roots make twisting an ankle a much greater possibility. Felt fine once I started though...More proof, if any was needed, that starting is 90% of the battle.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 1-8

2009-08-24T23:14:00.005-04:00

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business"

-T.S. Eliot

"Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."

-Yoda

~~Blatantly ripping off an idea from~~ Inspired by an old PCHS classmate's goal of practicing her musical art for 100 straight days, last week I decided to attempt the goal of 100 straight days of workouts.

In part I do this because I don't plan on doing any other major races this year; the Wildman will likely have been it for me this year. Now I don't race to win, there are plenty of people faster, younger, and/or more motivated than myself, plus I am fundamentally too lazy to train enough to win anything. I race because it forces me to prepare to race and preparing to race injects some healthy struggle into life -- If you think struggle is all bad then I weep for you. I'm doing it for other reasons too, some pragmatic some quasi-spiritual, but to talk about those would be either boring or would exceed my daily allotment of philosophical mumbo-jumbo.

So I'm trying to engage in a moderately hard physical activity each day for 100 days in a row. What's a "moderately hard*" activity? For me it would be:

A road run over 5k

Any track workout totaling 5 miles or more

A trail run or hike equal to or better than my regular 2.56 mile 1000' vertical climb up Pack Monadnock

Any mountain bike ride over 15 miles

Any road ride over 20 miles

30 minutes or more of the Ashtanga primary series

* Please, spare me tales of "some guy you know" who has only one leg and ran the Obscurity 200 Nightime Ultra Marathon in January while juggling flaming chainsaws. Unless you are Dean Karnazes, Lance Armstrong, or Chris Sharma, then stuff it, because there is always somebody doing something harder than you :-) If you on the other hand are doing something, then let's hear it!

I'm fairly confident I won't pull this off without some luck and an unhealthy doses or self-deception since I face at least four daunting obstacles:

Injury (both my Achilles are creaky these days)
Vacation (a week at the beach in two weeks...in the middle of which is the Bride's opening)
Work (busy as always)
Going to the Kingdom Trails this weekend for a long Saturday day ride *and* a night ride. Sunday looks grim.

~~~~~

I had to get several days into this before I wrote about it (in case I fell in a hole on day 2). I've been at it eight days and so far, so good:

Day 1 - 6:

Starting last Monday August 17th I ran my regular run up the Marion Davis trail on Pack Monadnock and then down the access road. The heat and humidity here have been off the charts, with 90F/90% not being uncommon. Still it was pretty easy as I've been doing this regularly for a couple years now. I even managed my third fastest ascent this year on Thursday when the heat wasn't that bad. I'm already feeling cocky, this is going to be too easy!

Day 7:

I was pressed for time so went right out the front door for a 3.5 mile road run. Again the humidity was crushing, but it was easy motivation-wise because I don't want to deal with the self-loathing that ending the streak so early would entail. How long till that well runs dry and I simply don't give a shit?

Day 8: Nicest day so far, so why did I have the hardest time getting out? Somebody said this was going to be easy right? Couldn't face another trip up Pack so I went to the track and warmed up for 2 miles, then ran a hard 3 mile @ 6:32 pace. Sadly it really felt faster, but clearly I am getting old. The brain perceives pain consistent with 6:10 pace, but the legs can't deliver that.

Wildman

2009-08-09T22:15:00.023-04:00

Friday night the Bride and I headed up to Gorham, NH as we have on this weekend for the past 5 years. But this time we weren't headed up for the 24 Hours of Great Glen, but rather the Wildman Biathlon. I was looking for something "easier" to than the two-man team Todd and I have fielded these past 5 years as well as a race that would better leverage the mountain running I've been doing regularly the past two years. I also wanted to spend less time training, and I figured something that lasted about as long as a marathon had to require less time training than the 24HoGG. That only proved partially true...

Coming into the finish of the first leg in Shelburne, NH
Looking Good & Going Slow :-P

In its 21st year, the Wildman is a 10k road run, 22.3 mile road ride with a stiff uphill finish up the "easy" side of Pinkham Notch, and finally a 3 mile uphill-only mountain run to the summit of Wildcat Mountain. A few competitors run the race as a relay, but the bulk, like myself, were doing it solo.

The weather was close to perfect when we arrived for the 8:00 race start; the humidity was low and it was about as cool as it could be without needing to wear warmup jersey.

I didn't want to cook myself on the first leg, a fairly flat out and back with a couple short hills. I figure I'm good right now for 6:30 pace in a standalone race, so my goal was a sedate 7:30 pace. Things didn't go quite to plan as my first mile was way too quick, but I calmed down and finished in 45:20 at 7:18 pace. If felt odd to be leaving so much in reserve, but I still managed to be in 36th place, out of the 96 solo entrants.

Leaving T1 for a quick "lap" before heading to Wildcat.

Having dogged it a bit on the first leg I had a lot left in the tank for the bike. I got through the first transition quickly enough, at least by my own very low standards. Before heading to Wildcat we were required to make one 7 mile lap around some local Shelburne roads and return to the first transition area before heading out to Gorham. The lap was typical rolling New England hills, no big climbs. For those first seven miles I just tried to get into a consistent rhythm, knowing there was plenty of climbing at the end. I passed a fair number of people and was passed in turn by the better cyclists.

Here's how you know you are dealing with a mountain biker out of his element:

1) Full fingered gloves*

2) Earth tone socks

3) MTB shoes

4) Giro Xen helmet

5) Cheap no-name road bike
6) Crazy Mountain Man Beard
7) Loose and flappy shirt

* Probably the only person who bothered with gloves of any kind! I am Safety Paul after all.

After the local lap we headed for Gorham and then turned onto Rt 16. The course stayed the same with no climbs of note until the 12.5 mile mark. At that point the course climbs from approximately 800' to 2000' feet in less than 10 miles, with the last two miles climbing 500'. Hardly Tour de France numbers, but enough that you're going to feel it.

With the start of the real climbing at 12.5 I my legs felt good, surprising since I'd only ridden about 200 miles in preparation for this race, so I started to reel people in. My slack pace thus far paid off I was able to pass several riders before I reached Wildcat in 1:19:29, the 28th best bike time of the day.

Coming into T2 is a quick turn onto loose dirt with jelly legs. Fun.

T2 was a bit pokey as my legs were quite wobbly when I got off the bike and I grabbed some Sport Legs pills from the Bride. When I started the 3 mile 2000' trail run to the summit of Wildcat, my legs felt awful, forcing me into a painfully slow trot, but they would soon feel worse.

The Final Insult

After about a quarter of a mile my legs detonated and started cramping uncontrollably. If I straightened my leg my quad would seize, if I bent it too much my hamstrings locked up.

Master of the "Power Limp" (tm).

I gave serious consideration to quitting the race since I had barely started the last leg and could barely walk. Clearly I'd overdone the bike leg. But then I came around a corner and glanced at the other "runners" strung out up the trail. Almost all of them was doing some variant of the limp I was doing. Then I realized, "Ah ha! This is how it is supposed to be!", and I plodded on.

The merciful end!

Occasionally I was able to start trotting again (I hesitate to call anything I did on that last leg "running"). The one mile mark passed and I didn't feel any worse. I kept waiting for the 2 mile mark, thinking I'd try to run the last mile.

The finish area.

My thinking wasn't very clear and even as I approached the summit and saw the Bride snapping my picture I thought, "Gee, she (having taken the gondola to the summit) hiked down an awfully long way".

The course elevation profile...you get the idea.

"How much further?", I asked her dejectedly, that stupid 2 mile mark couldn't arrive soon enough. She looked at me with a puzzled look, and said "Only a hundred yards or so." I wasn't sure if I should believe her, since her distance estimation abilities are quite dubious, it might be 1600 yards. But I started running as best I could and sure enough, around the next bend was the merciful end.

Added another 4000-footer to my list today...the hard way.

I finished the last leg in 51:05**, the 37th best ascent of the day. Overall I finished in 32nd place and even beat 11 of the relay teams.

** For some reason my splits for the first two legs were missing in the race results. The splits listed above for the first two legs are from my Garmin 405 so the totals don't foot exactly. The total time per the 405 was 2:55:48, per the race results 2:55:49.

The Bride likes working support for races that last only a few hours and take place while the sun is shining.

If I was to do this race again, beyond the obvious of more miles training on the bike, I would definitely go harder on the 10k, something under 7:00 pace. I don't think it would effect my cycling too much and I don't think I could do the last leg any slower without going backwards. The main thing I'd do though is to train more for the second transition. My body was simply not prepared for getting off the bike and running. I'd done two shortened dry runs of the race in the past month but clearly this was not remotely enough. After every other bike ride I think a run, no matter how short, would be what is needed to prepare for this race.

I've only taken in this view previously with skis on.

And as to this race being easier than Great Glen, I'd tend to say it is, since it's certainly shorter, and mountain bike racing at night when you are exhausted is unrelentingly trying. But I've never done any race where my legs felt as awful as they did on the last climb; mentally I came pretty close to folding then. I suppose the real lesson is that while the race is shorter, you till have to train just as much!

Stop!

2009-07-11T10:54:00.005-04:00

Not so powerful right now. Most misinterpreted vanity plate ever. Those who do get it however, love it, I've caught people taking pictures.

Yesterday, on my way home from my daily lunch run at Pack Monadnock I was driving through the idyllic center of my home town enjoying the fact that the rains have finally stopped. The idyll is shattered as a woman drives directly into my path from a side street. I slam on the brakes, thinking, "Surely, she is not running that stop sign. Surely she will see me and stop. Surely if she doesn't I will be able to stop in time." Alas I see her facing straight ahead, never apparently bothering, as we were all taught as children, to "look both ways". Her head never turns as she crosses into my lane. Fortunately I was able to scrub off most of my speed, with another 10' it probably would have only been a close call. Unfortunately I don't have that extra 10' and, as her head never turns, I hit her car in the right front quarter.

It would be worse if I was driving an FJ. Think mushroom cloud.

The impact is fairly minor, though I see the other car's airbag deploy. After a quick second to assess that I am intact (I only notice much later that I slammed my shin into the dash leaving a decent bruise) I jump out. By the standards of our town a "large" crowd was already milling about waiting for the children's Circus Camp performance to start. The other driver was already out of her car and being attended to. She was was none the worse for wear, excepting some minor abrasions on her arm from the airbag.

Subframe is toast, but hopefully the damage is all cosmetic.

Local mechanic and volunteer fire fighter Luke is soon on the scene and handles everything quite professionally. The police arrive later, take statements, and as far as I can tell, fail to cite the other driver for failing to stop. While that is that's their call, I can't help but think about all the little kids who ride their bikes around the center of town or the motorcyclists that come through. What would have happened to them in my place? Alternatively, if I was a semi, or one of the many driver who flaunt or local 30 mph speed limit, the other driver might not have walked away from this. I suppose I am just having a tough time getting my head around the fact that one would pull out from a side street onto the main drag through town and never bother to look. Eventually you are going to kill someone else, yourself, or both.

I was able to lash the bumper back together and as no fluids were leaking, I was able to drive the half mile to home. Then ensued a lot of time on hold with Geico. 90 minutes later a town truck came to pick up the XTerra, though not after making several calls to me in an attempt to find my house. Eventually I just went out on the street and flagged him down. Three letters for you guys: GPS. And welcome to 2009.

Now I wait till Monday to see if the damage is repairable or if the frame is bent and the truck is a total. I can't believe that it can't be fixed, but we've all heard the stories of folks in a minor fender bender whose seemingly pristine cars are declared wrecks due to some subtle damage not visible to the eye. I certainly hope that it can be fixed, I am quite found of the Exterra (or as S2 calls it, the "Etc.").

Sunny

2009-06-30T22:28:00.011-04:00

Sadly his command of merge tracking issues is limited.

Occasionally at KRA we* take in orphaned kittens. Recently, a lone three week old male, dubbed "Sunny" by the Bride, was dropped in front of the shelter.

I love other cats...If by "love" you mean, "want to rip their faces off".

After having to drive the Bride to the shelter at 10:00 pm to bottle feed Sunny, I allegedly, in a sleep deprived haze, said something to the effect of, "Wouldn't this be easier if he was just at our house?"

Your shoe is untied. Well it's about to be anyway.

Cue to a few days later and not only is he in our house, he's in my office. Now we already have three cats, so we are fostering him only until he is adopted (and the Bride tells me we already have a hot lead). In the meantime I've learned more than I ever wanted to know about how kittens learn to poop.

I bite your face.

Now I'll say somebody hacked my account and wrote this sappy post if anyone repeats this, but I'll miss him when he's gone. Except the stink. That, I won't miss.

* I used to refer to any household affiliation with this organization only as it related to the Bride, but for better or worse I'm officially part of of "we".

This will go down on your permanent record

2008-12-29T09:37:00.008-05:00

The paranoid among us believe that every keystroke and mouse click we ever make is recorded somewhere, by someone, for some nefarious purpose. It might not be that bad, but it's probably close.

Storage is cheap. Computers are fast. So why not archive everything? Seriously, 100 years from now somebody might really want to know what my first commit to Subversion was (other than the i5/OS port as that hardly counts now). Or what 'Paul a Cross Country Rider from Cambridge' thought about some overpriced bike bling.

Gimme Shelter

2008-05-25T21:20:00.025-04:00

Tiny.

For the past several months the bride has been volunteering at local cat shelter.

A new arrival finally sits still for her pic.

Mostly her job involves, well, shoveling cat crap.

Zach

But as she is a graphic designer it wasn't long before their web-site was redesigned: http://kittyrescueandadoption.org/.

It's green. No it's some kind of blue. You can just be sure it ain't plain white paint. You never see plain white paint when you are married to an artist.

And with a former career in marketing it wasn't long before she was missing in action for a few days to clean up the front office so potential adoptees aren't scared off by the mess.

Bethany wastes no time taking over the bed of lesser cats.

As she is married to me and I have some vague idea how to use our camera ("point at subject, press button, repeat until photo good") it wasn't long before a web site photographer was found.

Unknown panther in the "Crazies" rooms. So named not for the cats, but for the nut jobs whose house they were rescued from. Note, people shouldn't have 60+ cats.

And as we both are suckers for the oddballs it wasn't long before we had a third cat join the household, the remarkable cross-eyed, never silent Bethany (a.k.a. The Gray Mouser, Boofanny, Springs, Pain in the Ass who never shuts up and jumps on me at 6:00 am like clockwork).

Cassandra.

It's pretty hard to work at this place and not fall for a few of them...

Solomon

...as the bride's mother soon learned after visiting the shelter several times...

If you have any old but serviceable cat furniture let us know.

...and coming home with two cats (who now run that side of the house).

Bitchin Throw blanket, circa 1973

Valentino

And lest I be accused of singing the bride's praises too loudly, there are a legion of other volunteers who make this place go with everything from cleaning muscle to the always needed supplies and cash.

This is what all the non-feral cats in the place do: Wait to be picked up.

If you think cats are aloof you've never been here.

The housing market here is still strong

LJ: One of the only blue-eyed adults in the place

Qita on yet another successful mission to smudge the lens.

Flowers (The Gray Mouser's Sister)

Zoe. Loves you with enthusiasm. Probably getting ready to leap onto someone's shoulder.

King Barry. He may not look it but he is the best cat in the place (and really, who looks good when photographed on a beige linoleum floor?) If it wasn't for the fact that our male cat doesn't like other males he would be sleeping on my desk right now.

Gloria. The Grande Dame of the Bride's Room. Frisky young males who mess with her get neutered the hard way.

The Gray Mouser settles in for another tough day at work in my office. Who the "master" is in this relationship is not entirely clear to me.

So, if you live in the southern NH area and need a good pet you know where to go.

ptb

Letting Go Is Hard To Do

2008-04-06T12:01:00.003-04:00

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contemplating@earthlink.net: I want to cancel my dial-up account, I now have cable

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contemplating@earthlink.net: Let me repeat, I just want to close my account, I dont need it anymore, I dont want it anymore.

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contemplating@earthlink.net: Bye

K1AWP/SK

2008-02-18T14:25:00.012-05:00

Joseph T. Amaral Sr. Bridgewater Joseph T. Amaral Sr., of Bridgewater, Feb. 4, 2008. Mr. Amaral died at Good Samatitan Medical Center after a period of failing health, he was 88. Born in Bridgewater, he was a son of the late Manuel and Delphina (DaSilva) Amaral. Mr. Amaral was a good year stitcher for Lucy Shoe Co. for 40 years, retiring in 1984. He was devoted to his late wife Theresa (Brown) and his children, Theresa Craig Sloan of Florida, Thomas T. Jr. of Hanson, Nancy E. Reed of Halifax and Richard M. Amaral of Bridgewater; brother of Manuel of Bridgewater and the late Edward and David. Also survived by 10 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

1937

Mr. Amaral was a lifelong resident of Bridgewater, member and past grand Knight of the Bridgewater Knights of Columbus, Holy Name Society, St. Vincent DePaul and former alter server. He was active in the Civil Defense, V.F.W. and the Massasoit Amateur radio club. He also served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

__________________________________________

Two months ago my last living grandparent died. His name was Joe but to me he was simply Grampa.

Grampa at his radio. K1AWP has signed off for good now.

Some of my earliest memories are of his and Nana's house, particularly on Christmas Eve. For almost half my life the evening of December 24th meant descending on 30 Aldrich Road in the company of my immediate family, various aunts, uncles, and cousins. On those December nights it seemed impossibly crowded at that house, even to a child who could squeeze through the press of revelers.

The highlight of the evening was crowding into the front parlor to pass out gifts. The nativity scene and Grampa's always spindly, Charlie Brown Christmas tree forever in danger of being knocked over by some wayward grandchild. Visiting the house after Grampa's funeral, that room seemed impossibly small. Likely it possessed of TARDIS-like properties to which only Grampa knew the secret.

Other memories float back from over the years. Eating Fruit Loops in the basement kitchen. The monstrous ham radio tower. The huge vegetable garden which to this day my best efforts are but a shadow of. The venerable ride-on lawn mower. Shooting a rifle for the first time in the back yard. Hanging out in the old camping trailer even though we were parked in the yard. The list goes on, but it is only a sliver of his life, as seen through my eyes.

Knowing one's grandparents can be a challenge. By the time we come along they have lived so much, seen and done so much that it's hard to grasp it all. We take them for granted sometimes, these elder statesmen (and women) of our families. They are just there, solid, reliable, forever old in the eyes of us much younger.

Until of course, they are gone. Then you recognize what they were. The center of orbiting families, their gravity holding otherwise distant relatives together. Some of those satellites may have moved far off since those days of crowded Christmas Eves and barely feel the pull anymore of that center. But when it's gone, you notice.

One of Grampa's ham radio plates in its new home.

ptb

Christmas

2008-01-06T21:24:00.001-05:00

2007's Tree. Used the big, non-blinking "Grampa" style lights this year.

For the first time since I started my "new" job at CollabNet 10 months ago I had some real time off. The company closed for the last week of December and reopened January 2nd. This was fortunate timing as my whole family descends on our little corner of NH for Christmas and some serious cleaning needed to be done to get ready for them.

The Dinner table at my in-laws side of the compound.

I only recently moved into my new office and my old office off the bedroom had turned from a once neat, if small workspace, into a Superfund site. It alone took a day to clean. Seriously, a 7'x4' nook took 10 hours to clean. I should have just rented a flamethrower. The Brides office/dumping ground was in an even worse state.

Mary, Lenny, Suzy, and Mom apparently about to get down to some serious drinking.

But eventually everything got cleaned to the Bride's satisfaction. I was particularly excited this year because my brother and I were planning to take my nephews skiing the day after Christmas. Unfortunately T was sick as a dog when he arrived the afternoon of the 25th and it was clear that he wasn't likely to rebound sufficiently to ski the next day.

How could this child get so dirty indoors while the evening is still young? I've seen cleaner sanitation engineers getting off a double shift. It doesn't matter. Look at that face. You just ain't going to get mad at him.

T did have enough energy to open gifts of course and we performed our usual gift exchange. I got the boys Star Wars Fatheads, Darth Vader and Yoda, which they loved...oh wait, they didn't. Because Fathead ships via DHL, which must stand for Delays in Handling Likely. I paid extra to have the Fatheads arrive the day before Christmas, but they shipped one to the wrong distribution center and the other was listed as "with courier for delivery" for the entire week. I'll stop before I enter rant mode, but DHL is a joke. How they stay in business is a mystery on par with the origin of life, how to beat the Patriots, and a proof for the Riemann Hypothesis.

These demonic elves have sat on this poor deer's head for Holiday the past 30 years (as if being shot and eaten was indignity enough). The Bride used to have bad dreams about them.

Over at our side of the house for the gift exhange.

This years meal was downright traditional compared with the Bride's normally adventurous menu. Her Dad had bagged two deer this year, so despite the Bride's normal prohibitions against terrestrial meat, a venison roast was served. Bruny, who essentially eats only meat from what I can tell, approved so much he dispensed with any utensils before ripping in. When told to use a fork, he said, "T-Rex doesn't use a fork!"

The Bride gives her new pan some love.

T musters the strength to hold his sickness at bay long enough to bellow, "Behold my magnificent Mars Mission Lego set. Bow down to its superior piece count and inappropriate age rating. Who among you is worthy enough to build it for me?"

The Bear falls asleep on his Dad after a very long day.

With skiing cancelled we did some sledding the the 26th and also broke out the Bride's almost 30 year old Yamaha Bravo snowmobile. This thing is a classic, a single cylinder 250cc air-cooled two-stroke it comes from the time before global warming. I never tire of blasting around the yard with it.

Boony works it to stay in the track.

T is just too heavy for me to pull up the hill any more. So he must climb on his own...

...and then call it a day after all that work.

Hey, that thing isn't a bench!

That's more like it.

The Bear does not turn down snowmobile rides. Ever.

Minime and me. It may not look it since I'm a bearded freak in this pic, but my nephew looks just like me. Handsome kid. He'll do well with the ladies ;-)

Dana shows off the latest in sledding haute couture.

Of course no Christmas would be complete without a driveway duel between Yoda and Darth Maul. If you are at least 30% geek (or 20% nerd) and don't yet own one of these, then shame on you.

Well that's all for now. Hopefully going to get back to posting more regularly. Part II of the Expansion is loooong overdue, Jabba wants Halloween pics, and I know the public is just clamoring for my shim method how-to for quieting Avid Juicy Seven squeal!

ptb

Costume Countdown

2007-09-12T21:11:00.001-04:00

The following is for Jabba:

He is laboring under the delusion that Halloween is a few days away. Like most 7 year olds his sense of time is either wildly optimistic (as in this case) or dreadfully pessimistic (a ten minute time-out seems like 10 years).

P.S. The lightsabers are on the way.

P.P.S. Though it never happened in the movies, come Halloween we *will* determine who would win a fight between Darth Vader and Darth Maul.

ptb

Saquish

2007-08-23T22:02:00.000-04:00

The Bride and I only got down to my brother's beach house in for two days this year. Rained one day. Beautiful the next. I would have preferred to stay a week...

Classic Saquish Beach Shack
Not where we stayed, for some reason I never took a picture of that.

Back Beach looking at Clark's Island

The beach house is in Plymouth, MA, the town I grew up in. I don't have any family living there full-time anymore so I don't get down much. And I was never much of a beach guy. Having grown up doing a lot of shell fishing, the water always meant long days and hard work. But that was a long time ago, and it's hard not to enjoy the beach on a day like this.

Bruno and his Dad Heading for the point of Back Beach.

Visitor on the back deck of the old officer's quarters.

I looked through that telescope.
You can't see anything.
But they still looked intently.

Scorpion #1 Strikes her best Movie Star pose.
$5 Sunglasses complete the look.

Clark's Island and the "Gatsby" House.

The Bear runs from some terrible sea nymph who threatened to turn him into a pile of rockweed.

Sunset over the Myles Standish Monument in Duxbury.

Monkey T and his Auntie.

Moonrise over Front Beach.

ptb

Hampshire 100: Results

2007-08-21T22:31:00.000-04:00

Spun this round approximately 44,871 times last Sunday.
Rotor squealed for about 42,744 of those.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

Something *always* goes wrong, otherwise it would be called road racing. The weather was cool and dry and my legs never cramped, so far so good. But my new front brake, after much fiddling and tweaking the night before, started up its brain-numbing, will-sapping, death squeal about a mile into the race. And it continued to torture me for most of the race, stopping after some hard braking, only to return 30 seconds later or until I thought "Hey! It's stopped, maybe it fixed itself!".

Other riders would become annoyed and seemingly try to sprint away from me or drop back. One fellow appeared to drive right off the trail and crash into a thorny shrub in what appeared to be an effort to avoid the "Squealing Brake of the Apocalypse" (coming to theaters this fall, don't miss it). To those tortured racers I say, "Sorry folks, I know it's tough to be near my bike, but imagine having to ride the Squealmaster for 100k". I'll have to try some sintered pads and if that doesn't work I'm moving on to Voodoo.

"How bad could it be?"

I am comfortable in saying "quite bad". The race description led me to believe this was going to be a relatively mild course...well as mild as 62 miles off-roading in New England can be. The reality was 6000' of climbing (according to another racer's wrist altimeter), lots of overgrown double track, and some Mensa candidates on ATVs taking down the course arrows. There was one particularly charming stretch along a newly graded section of power line. Steep. Soft. Ugly. That was one of many low points. While there was some sweet singletrack, my rough estimate is that this only made up 20% of the course. Creating a 100k loop in this part of the world is always going to entail a few paved and dirt roads to hook everything together, so I didn't mind those. It's just that there were too many parts of the course that were simply crap riding. The kind of things you find when exploring for new riding spots and later report to your friends, "not worth it, it can be ridden, but why would you want to?".

Particularly "fun" were the fast double track downhills with random tree limbs poking out at eye and crotch level and covered with luxurious undergrowth which obscured the numerous rocks, logs, and unconscious racers ready to catch your front wheel and catapult you into next week. Now don't get me wrong, I like a challenge, but walking on your hands across a floor covered in broken glass and lemon juice while blindfolder is challenging too, I just don't want to do it.

Impressive performances and other factoids:

As usual the nut job single speeders continue to awe me. On this decidedly SS-unfriendly course, just finishing was impressive.

Elite class racer Michael Broderick won the overall, beating the next closest rider by a staggering 41 minutes! I do think I could beat that though, I just need a new bike.

Unimpressive Performances and Other Factoids:

After 7:31:18 I rolled across the finish line. I came in 75th, which is pretty lame, but is better than 90th (which is what I though I came in when eyeballing the unsorted PDF results. Thanks the cky for the correction).

Out of 175 registered entrants, there were 15 DNFs, 22 DNSs, and 1 disqualification.

Gobbling down Sport Legs pills like a kid with a Pez dispenser did seem to stave off any severe legs cramps, but by mile 48 my legs had imploded and my pace slowed way down. I guess a lack of training can actually slow you down, who knew.

The Bride and Scorpion #2 came to watch at the various food stations and give me helpful advice like, "I really think you should stop stuffing your face with Power Bars and get a move on". Seriously they were great, and without them there I probably would have dropped out in the last 12 miles. Amazing how a little encouragement can spur you on.

Apparently I wasn't the only one getting encouragement. After the race I found the Scorpion sisters at a table of EMS sponsored racers and it came out that at each food station they would wait for the volunteers to yell out, "water, Gatorade, bananas, PB&J" then they would yell out "wine!" and motion to their box of wine. No one took them up on the wine, but a few guys almost crashed at the offer.

ptb

Hampshire 100

2007-08-17T23:33:00.001-04:00

I must be mad. After a weak showing in the 24 Hours of Great Glen, mostly due to lack of training, I decided there was only one logical thing to do: Immediately enter another endurance race. I'm concerned that this is the lack of prudence that leads to substance abuse and singlespeeds.

Regardless of my misgivings, a quick bit o' Googlin revealed that this Sunday, right in my neck of the woods, is the inaugural Hampshire 100 in Greenfield, NH. Fortunately the '100' is kilometers, not miles. Even better, the race description states:

"The single loop, 100 kilometer course will give participants a good mountain bike workout, while not being so extremely challenging the entire way that one never wants to return for a second year."

Sounds like a nice ramble through the woods. How bad could it be? What could possibly go wrong? A quick check of the forecast (70, partly cloudy, 10% chance of precip) sealed the deal and off my money went.

The Bride and Scorpion #2 have generously offered to come along and cheer me on or carry my spasming body home as needed.

Check back soon for a report, hopefully one that covers the entire course, not just the first 18 miles, a stout tree, and a gruesome spoke injury.

ptb

24HoGG

2007-08-16T19:44:00.000-04:00

Camp setup on Friday afternoon. Miraculously my $25 tarp shade would survive the night this year.

Well, it's over. The 2007 24 Hours of Great Glen are in the books. After last years 4th place Todd and I had dared think of a podium spot this year. Regrettably it was not to be and I must take the blame. A new job and home expansion cut into training this year, but not so much that we couldn't have done better than our 7th place in the men's pairs this year. The thing that killed us was a rookie mistake on my part, electrolyte imbalance.

The Bride and I's glamorous hotel room. New job pays enough to not sleep in tent Friday night. Still slept like poop and woke up at 5:00 am.

Last year we just alternated laps the whole race, except when we each went out for two night laps to allow the other racer to sleep for an hour. Noticing that all the teams ahead of us were doing multiple laps we thought we should do the same too. It worked well for the first 9 laps. We were in the 6th spot and feeling good, knowing that night would bring a host of problems for many teams (hopefully some in front of us). But on the end of lap 9 my left hamstring just went bezerk, cramping horribly. I went out for a tenth lap, but finished that in a glacial 1:25:18.

Ready to roll under a dry blue sky.

Campmates, team 'Still No Faster'. They lived up to their name :-D In fairness Chris did the fastest individual lap of our two teams, a tidy 48:12. Of course there were *FOUR* of them!

That was it for me for a while. My left hamstring would cramp if I even so much as bent my leg. I thought about dropping out, figuring there was no way it was going to come back to life without a full meal and good night's sleep. My "epic" lap had dropped us to 10th position.

"What'd you get?"
"Decoder ring, you?"
"Fake tattoos."

"Think the mandatory meeting will start late this year?"
"Yup."
"Think they will just tells us what we already know?"
"Yup."
"Think people will leave before it's over?"
"Yup."
"You ever say anything but 'Yup'?"
"Nope."

Todd of course just said he'd go out and see what he could do. He did two more laps which got us to 1:12 am, but he was hurting too. This was the low point of the race for me. My leg was still all screwy and riding was out of the question. I considered just pushing the bike around for a lap and maybe rolling down the flats. But that seemed rather pathetic, and feeling rather pathetic and wallowing in self-pity I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Arty-farty juxtaposition of synthetic and natural mountains.

Todd tries his luck at the ancient Chinese bike puzzle...

...hmmm, trickier than it looks...

"Out of my way fool!"

"See, it's easy!"

"I am Todd-Lor. I come to wage war on your puny and insignificant planet. Even now my battle cruisers have trained their plasma cannons on your major cities! Your only hope is to bring me your finest popcorn. Now hurry you sniveling dogs, don't force me to demonstrate my fleet's firepower on Manchvegas! Because I WILL SO DO IT"

So we decided to catch a few Z's and see how we felt in a few hours. Before sleeping I downed a few electrolyte pills and ate a box of Annie's Shells and Cheddar. Todd got back out sometime in the dark as I slept away with my guilt ridden dream, and proceeded to do three straight laps, nothing fast, but somehow during the night we managed to crawl up to the 7th spot.

For the benefit of people like my mom, this is the battery charging station. It's where, well, we charge our light's batteries between laps. I have nothing funny to say about it. Sorry, batteries just don't lend themselves to humor.

The cattle queue up for the start.

Todd follows my sage advice for this year's Le Mans start: "Run faster"

Todd-Lor contemplates calling in an orbital strike to thin out the pack.

Riders hoof it up the first climb on lap 1.

TM rails the plunge.

Max roars out of the start/finish area. Alas my alter ego would soon falter, and pitiful Paul would soon return clutching his left hamstring.

By this time I had gotten my sorry butt out of bed and was stuffing myself with food and more electrolyte pills. The leg started to feel a lot better. I went out for another lap and was able to do a 58:50, the leg was getting a little suspect so Todd went out for another after me.

Max Power is so fast he can barely be caught on film. Or possibly Scorpion #1 doesn't know how to operate the camera. Honestly, at first I thought this was some cool pan and blur shooting technique. Until I saw that all the other pictures she took were blurry too. Unless they were of Todd, those were all fine, in crystal clear sharp focus. I heard her muttering something about, "you look better blurry". Not sure what that means.

Still feeling fine and cruising to a 51:12 first lap.

Looking over the selection of sport beverages, it dawns on me, "blue" is not a flavor.

Do I like to wear my helmet at a jaunty angle? Or is my head just not symmetrical? The latter sadly.

Todd got back at 11:08 am. I headed out for the last lap. The power of your last lap is great, knowing you don't need to go back out lets you lay it out and not worry about saving anything. Of course when you haven't trained enough, laying it out only results in a 56:49 lap, but hey, I'll take it.

Haircuts like these just don't happen people, it takes preparation, poor grooming, and hours of helmet wearing. Giant Elvis Costello glasses complete the look.

We can all smile now that it's over.

So we held onto the 7th spot in the end. A tantalizingly small gap of 1:26 separated us from the 6th spot. Sorta wished I'd known we were that close before the final lap. Of course then I would be killing myself for *6th* place and that does seem rather pathetic!

The Bride says: "Ride faster next year you maggots, 7th place is unacceptable!"

So while it could of been worse, I must say I finished the race pretty disappointed. I had fun, the bike didn't give me any serious problems (aside from the front brake squealing like the proverbial pig for the whole race), but can't help but feel I didn't do my best. Not sure exactly what went wrong with the leg, it could just be a case of O-L-D. The lack of training miles compared to last year wasn't helping certainly. Or maybe just doing 2-2 alternating laps got me out of my eating and drinking rhythm. Whatever the case we'll be back next year if the fates allow.

This brings me to my parting random thoughts on this year's race:

1) Soloists are crazy right? So what does that make the single-speed soloists? I'm not sure, but kudos to both groups, it's a tough race when you are alone *are* the team, gears or not.

2) The weather - Three straight years I've done this race and three straight years the weather has been great. Why do I feel like we're due a monsoon come 08?

3) Peter Ostroski - Damn this kid is amazing. Two years ago his Red Jersey two man team just crushed everyone. This year he won the overall solo title with 24 laps. And he is still in the 0-18 age group. Yikes.

4) Even more impressive is Melanie Brown, winning her second women's overall solo title. Amazingly she beat all the men but Peter. Nice job.

Until next year...

ptb

Pimp My Ride

2007-08-10T00:23:00.001-04:00

If you know what the following picture is, well not just what it is, but why this type of "what it is" is special, then please continue reading. If not, avert your eyes and spare yourself the boredom. This is for bike nerds only...

Goodbye Practical LX, hello XTR and SRAM hollow-pin chain.

In the spring of 2005 I bought my dream bike. Well, I bought my dream frame, a Turner Burner in metallic flake red. Sadly a lack of funds meant that a lot of components got carried over from my old Specialized.

Flamboyant gents like myself like gold. Hold the medallions though and give me some Chris King ISO Disk Hubs laced to Mavic 717s. Classic Salsa flip-offs are the cherry on top.

After a long night of cleaning and wrenching.
This bike will never be this clean again, ever.

Fast-forward to this summer. I'm getting ready for the 24 Hours of Great Glen, which as I mentioned previously, I'm not exactly in the greatest shape for due to [INSERT LAME EXCUSE HERE]. So I did the only reasonable thing possible in such a situation, no, I didn't train harder and sleep less, I did what makes this country great, I threw money at the problem.

First person to notice component installed upside down gets a prize.

In all seriousness, a lot of the parts needed upgrading, and why bolt on some LX ho-hum when you can have some XTR bling?

When you absolutely, positively need to stop right now:
Avid Juicy 7s with a 185mm front rotor.

So now I have the biking equivalent of a D200. Only thing holding it back is the motor.

Me and my girlfriend.

Well gotta hit the hay and get up tomorrow and pack for Great Glen. Bye for now.

ptb

Pottermania

2007-07-30T17:32:00.000-04:00

A note on criticism: This is the first time I've ever offered an opinion of a book, album, movie, etc. on my blog. Typically I think written criticism of any art form is largely a waste of time, a pastime for those who (like myself) could never produce even a lousy piece of art, so instead critique those who try. Seriously, if I like "X" I don't really give a rat's behind if someone has painstakingly written a well-reasoned, thoughtful and compelling argument on why "X" is a piece of garbage, ill-suited for consumption by anything brighter than a house plant. Art is not science, or ethics, or morality, or politics, or religion. Like those realms, art is important, but unlike them, one's personal opinion of art is about as worthless as a one legged man at a butt kicking contest. Professional critics are bad enough, but the Internet has spawned legions of malcontents and fan-boys eager to prove that what they hate/like is awful/great. So don't expect an actual review or anything approaching thoughtful analysis here, it's all my ill-informed personal opinion. Of course I reserve the right to savage anything that actually *is* bad IMHO :-)

Potter Spoiler Alert: I give nothing away! My wife reads this and would kill me if I did!

Between a new and busy job, training (not enough) for the 24 Hours of Great Glen, and expanding our apartment into a real home I haven't had much time to read the last four months. I'd started Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1) several months ago and was enjoying it quite a bit. But, as it was the first of three quite lengthy tomes and my reading time was reduced to infrequent 15 to 20 minute streches before bed, I reluctantly put it aside.

While on a short vacation I picked up Jay Lake's short debut novel Mainspring. That proved mildly entertaining, it's steam punk premise, that the world is literally a giant clockwork fashioned by God and it needs a rewinding, goes a goodly ways. Unfortunately some very odd plot turns in the last third of the book diminished my enjoyment. If you are a voracious fiction reader it's probably worth checking out, but if your time is limited or you are typically sci-fi/fantasy averse, then look elsewhere, this book isn't likely to please you.

That brings me to the real point of this post. You may be aware that Arthur A. Levine Books recently published a little book by Joanne Rowling, the last in a series of seven. I think that some of the earlier books may have been made into feature films as well, ahem...Anyhow, regardless of what I say here, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is going to sell a whole lot of books. And to that I say, "go forth an conquer Harry!". Rowling apparently is the first person to ever become a billionaire as a writer and this book shows why. I couldn't put it down and sacrificed a lot of sleep to finish it off. It was an absolute joy to read, it wraps-up all the loose ends I could think of (and some I forgot about) and in no way leaves the door open for any obvious sequels (e.g. Harry Potter and the Quest for More Money is not right around the corner). I guarantee that anyone who reads it will love it (since 99.999% of potential readers will already read the preceeding six books I feel pretty safe here, since it is certainly as good as these that have come before it). My only caution is for really young readers, this book is decidedly harsher than the others, but hey, life is pain.

ptb

Countdown

2007-06-25T15:12:00.000-04:00

Less than 50 days until the 2007 24 hours of Great Glen (24HoGG). 47 to be exact. What the heck is 24HoGG you ask? Check out this video and you'll get the idea. At the 2:30 mark my ass makes its featured appearance (I'm the third rider down the chute). A Quicktime version is here.

My Weapon of Choice: A Turner Burner. Race day will see the bash guard off, the platforms replaced with Shimano 757s, and possibly the Conti 2.3" tires swapped for something a bit quicker.

My teammate Todd* and I will be racing in the two-person class for the 3rd straight year. We finished a disappointing 10th out of 15 two man teams in 2005. This was mostly due to a spectacular crash by yours truly that almost caused me to drop out with uncontrollable back spasms and general deceleration sickness.

Last year we flirted with a podium spot, taking 4th. This year we hope to hoist a prize, though work and my home expansion have conspired to keep training miles low. Still, seven weeks remain to ramp up and I still have some hope we can improve on last year's performance. The recipe is easy: Get on bike, ride 3 hours. Repeat daily for six weeks. Sprinkle liberally with a few 100+ mile days seasoned with big climbs. Don't forget to throw in some rest days! Let cool the seventh week and then race for 24 hours. So simple!

ptb

* Todd, please recall that that you, and I quote, "threw down the gauntlet", last year. You *should* be faster than me! I'm *much* older and substantially heavier than you :-)

Hail Yes!

2007-06-05T16:14:00.001-04:00

If you are a runner/biker/swimmer you typically refer to the fastest you can go over a particular distance/time as "race pace". And that's it, it's as fast as you can go (unless you are being lazy).

Step 5.

But, in an exciting development, I have discovered something faster than race pace! Yes, despite what you may have heard you can actually give 110%! Here's what you do.

1) Wait for a severe thunderstorm alert.

2) Put your running shoes on, get your bike, head to the lake, whatever.

3) Start running/biking/swimming.

4) As the skies darken pick it up to race pace.

5) When the hail starts pelting you and lightning is striking close enough that there is no perceptible delay between the flash and the boom, then, and only then, open the throttle. You will find that you have unexpected reserves of speed and endurance.

6) Head for home.

ptb

Spring

2007-05-30T21:34:00.000-04:00

Spring comes to the Monadnock region not slowly and gently, but more like a bowling ball dropped on a foot. Suddenly it is just irrevocably upon us.

Hmmmm, if I hadn't lost my wildflower book I could tell you what these are...probably some non-native, invasive species. They are pretty though.

My new job, while fabulous in most ways, has been wearing me out a bit lately. Add to that a business trip to CA a few weeks back, the Bride's upcoming opening and its attendant stresses, and the expansion of the house, and, well, Spring *really* snuck up on me this time.

I should really know what this flower is. I don't however.

So one day, after noticing that the tree all had leaves, that I was covered with black fly bites, and that for some reason it was 97 degrees in my office, I decided to stop and smell the flowers. The ones without bees in them anyway.

Bumbling

Ferns coming up by the cabin

The sledding hill. Sans snow.

I think most people consider this a weed and buy stuff to kill it. Our lawn is full of them. I just mow them along with the grass when they get too tall. A chemical solution seems excessive.

Cute rodent. Less cute when he lives in your attic.

Crab Apple blossoms.

The Bride ambles down our busy road. Sadly, the few drivers that do come blasting down it clearly should stay home and wait for DiRT to be released.

No clue what these are either.

The Really Old School. This is 'downtown' in my town. Seriously.

Not much else to say this post. 1 pic == 1k words and all.

Hope your spring is as nice as ours. Unless you live in the Southern hemisphere. Then you are SOL. And if you are in one of those places that has no seasons (San Francisco) then I pity you :-P

ptb

Numbers

2007-05-16T18:54:00.000-04:00

38: My advanced age as of last month.

6: Number of gag gifts I got for my birthday from Scorpion #2.

12: Number of Lucky Monkey Cigarettes that came with the best gag gift: Smoking Baby.

Everyone knows real babies shouldn't smoke.

999.9: Dollars to buy a lust-worthy set of 2007 Mavic Crossmax SLR I.S. Disc mount wheels.

Sweet, succulent bike bling.

1520: Weight of aforementioned in grams.

7: Carol's goal deficit when facing off against the nephews in dirt lot soccer.

The bride winds up for a shot on goal, but Monkey-T comes in low for another steal. Nice vest!

50: Percent depreciation of the bride's new baby blue sandals after dirt lot soccer match.

The Bear on defense.

1: Goals scored by Bruno against his own team.

ptb

Expansion: Part 1

2007-04-29T16:56:00.000-04:00

Since 2001 Carol and I have been living in an approximately 700 square foot apartment attached to her parent's house. Our kitchen is the size of a closet and my office, well readers of this blog already know about my "office".

Starting point, this old house.

Not to complain, our place is, dare I say, cozy, and it certainly keeps the snow off us. But the time has come to expand, adding a real office, an actual kitchen, and enough room to have more than four people for dinner.

Prying out the old walkway bricks? That's low skill labor that even a mouse clicking desk jockey like me can handle!

It all starts with some minor grunt work. Taking up the old walkway so we can reuse the bricks in the new entrance. An old Yankee never wastes a brick. Nor crushed stone, as I'm tasked with raking up the crushed stone outside our door.

Cannon emplacement for fighting off bear attacks.

Al hires a fellow to cut two holes in the foundation, one in the existing basement and one on the side of the house facing the new basement. In between is the slab that our apartment sits on. In a special appearance, Jabba Joe is present when we finally finish digging out the sand between the two holes. So far everything has gone smoothly.

Oooooo...conduit, how arty. Be really nice if it was in focus genius.

Digging up the gravel entryway and sifting out the dirt with and old seedling basket? That's low skill too. Call the programmer. Yes it's night. Beats watching TV after a day of hacking. The black flies aren't out yet either, so it was quite pleasant.

We are extremely fortunate that Carol's dad Albert is a licensed electrician and more importantly for this job, a former finish carpenter and house builder. No better choice for the de facto general contractor than a man building a house for "his little girl". Even if she's 36.

Leslie starts the real skilled work. Honestly, he can turn the pages of a book with that backhoe. I'm not allowed anywhere near any machinery.

There's not much else we can do without the pros and their heavy equipment. Al starts calling in his various cronies. Leslie Fox is first up with his backhoe.

Keep digging, what could go wrong???

Apparently plenty...the old crack in the foundation decides to expand its horizons.

Now the slab on which our apartment sits has always had a crack in it. We knew there was some risk in digging out the hill next to the house that there could be "problems". But we were more concerned with torrential rains hitting before the new foundation could be poured.

Fortunately the rain held off. Unfortunately the crack didn't. Strange noises started echoing throughout the house. A new and alarming crack started to grow near the baseboards of my living room and soon I had a nice view of the outdoors through my floor. The slab wall starts spewing sand and bulging ominously as our living room is slowly pulled apart. The sound of nails slowly being pulled out of wood is not pleasant.

After some discussion Al and George Willard, who is overseeing the foundation work, decide to tear down the wall and develop plan B.

With the wall sagging dangerously, there's nothing in it but to tear it down.

Going...

Going...

Gone!

George and Al consult while forms man Dana looks on and thinks, "I'm not too keen on working under *that*!"

Well this is certainly off to an exciting start. I choose to say "exciting" rather than "disastrous" because I'm an optimistic guy. Anyway, that's enough for this installment. Tune in (uh 'blog in' ?) next time for the continuing saga of this old house. In our next episode we answer such pressing questions as:

* Will Moby attempt to squeeze out of the crack in the floor in search of sweet succulent freedom?

* Will Scorpion2 fall into the 8' deep hole when she comes to visit and attempts to knock at our door?

* Can you code while there is a non-zero chance your house might collapse?

* And most importantly, just *what* is Plan B?

ptb

D200

2007-04-29T12:50:00.000-04:00

The king is Dead. Long live the King!

The old (lower-case 'k') king in this case was my wife's Nikon CoolPix 950. The new (capital 'K') King is her Nikon D200 digital SLR. The Coolpix was actually a decent digital camera -- for shooting anything that was well-lit, didn't move, and if the camera was mounted on a tripod. It's startup time was slow. The shutter release delay was slow. The only thing fast about it was the rate at which it chewed through batteries. It was even too big to really be useful as a convenience camera, you could stuff it in a back pocket, but, well, your ass would be huge as a result. And likely the batteries would be dead when you went to use it.

A crappy picture of a great camera. Taken with the now deposed Coolpix 950.

The Coolpix's reign has always been in jeopardy, but it's demise became certain two weeks ago when Scorpion1 stormed up from the studio after trying to shoot some shots of her recent paintings and declared, "That's it, I want a good digital camera! I DON'T CARE WHAT IT COSTS!!! And I want a new tripod too!"

Good Lord woman, don't ever tell a technology loving nerd that new hardware is needed and price isn't a consideration. It's a recipe for Pentagon levels of spending.

A decent picture of a great cat (Moby) taken with the D200. If you ask me he's named after Melville's whale, but my wife insists his namesake is Mr. Hall. Given the Hall-Melville connection I think we're both right :-)

In the end I exhibited some restraint, I resisted the siren call of Nikon's D2Xs, but finding a good deal on a D200 kit with a Nikkor 18-70mm 3.5-4.5 lens we did max out the prosumer level.

Nikon Coolpix 950

While comparing the D200 to the 950 is unfair and makes about as much sense as contrasting an Aprilia Tuono 1000 R Factory with a Honda Metropolitan, they are both digital cameras, just like the Aprilia and the Honda are two-wheeled conveyances...

Nikon D200

...I won't pretend to give a in-depth review of the D200's technical merits, I'll leave that to the far more qualified, or wait until I at least have some more time with it. But I can say simply that it makes taking pictures easy and the D200 is everything the 950 wasn't. If you can't take a good picture with it it's you, not the camera. In fact that's the only real drawback (other than price): I can't blame the gear anymore :-P

ptb

Flood

2007-04-29T11:38:00.000-04:00

As my last post mentioned we got some late season snow here in Southwestern NH. I thought that was the last of it, but we got hit again shortly after that. And then on April 16th it started to rain. Hard. For almost two days.

We live relatively high on a mountain slope. Being so close to the source of the various nameless(?) streams in our area, we never see really high water. Well, almost never.

Hill Road washes away...

The ground was already saturated from melting snow and some warm days had melted and packed the snow hard on the ground. When the rain came, the ground couldn't absorb anything and impromptu brooks formed in new places, existing brooks upgraded to creeks, and existing creeks temporarily swelled to raging rivers.

In many places drainage pipes under the roads became overwhelmed and streams started flowing right over the top of the road. The road we live on is dirt and just washed away.

The cabin eventually had water in it, but it didn't float away and no real harm was done.

Fortunately our house sits high on a hill and was unaffected by the floods, but the dam in the back yard the creates our pond almost didn't make it. A spillway diverts high water around the dam so the water doesn't flow over it and wash away the earthen portions of the dam. But the spillway reached it's limit and the damn was only spared by a slackening in the rain. Being so close to the source, once the rain stops the water drops almost immediately (unlike those down river).

The spillway does its thing and the dam holds.

In the end the damage locally was limited mostly to roads. I don't know anyone personally who suffered severe property damage, though certainly there must be some, and many a basement was badly flooded. Rt 101 in Wilton, a major East West route in these parts remains closed as I write this. Rt 45 was also out for a week, a new bridge put in place last summer was destroyed there. Our own road was bulldozed back into passable shape, and while it still awaits a final grading, is useable again.

ptb

Spring?

2007-04-08T11:32:00.000-04:00

Not the Easter Bunny.

Hey! It's April, time for flowers and the start of serious road riding and maybe some early mountain biking once the mud dries out. Hold that thought. Last Wednesday night saw only our second (hmmm, maybe third) significant snow storm of the year. It's half melted away now, but cool New England temps for the next several days mean a lot of it will hang around a while yet. Where was it when I wanted to ski? Bah! Well, we all know what Mark Twain said about the weather so I'll shut up.

Thursday Morning April 5, 2007 - I was icing my knees in there post-runs at this time last year...

We'd planned a trip to Jenness Beach State Park beach Saturday with J&J and the dogs. Despite a mildly sprained ankle from a trail run that morning, temps in the low 40's, and a general bad attitude on my part (yes I was whining) we went anyway and fun was had by all. Though I confess the beach was a real disappointment, littered with beer cans and trash. It did make my realize how much I like Saquish though...

Real Beaches: Duxbury beach, Saquish, Clark's Island, and Plymouth Beach.

Easter Bunny Scholar Jabba (a.k.a. Speed Racer, a.k.a. Lobster Clamp, a.k.a. Captain Question), Scorpion #1 (a.k.a. The Bride), and Scorpion #2 (a.k.a. Insane Québécoise) at Jenness. Danny and Billi show what they think of the photographer.

The unforgettable part of this trip (other than the filth level of a certain Mitsubishi) was the discussion Jabba Joe and I had regarding the Easter Bunny's powers. After a 90 minute round table we determined answers to the following questions:

Q: How far can the Easter Bunny jump?
A: At least 10,000 miles

Q: Do you want to be anywhere near him when he lands?
A: No.

Q: Does the Easter Bunny carry a flashlight to see in the dark?
A: What with his high carrot diet I say no, but Jabba insists that yes, he does. Further he claimed to see him several times near the end of our trip, carrying said flashlight, so I guess it's true.

Q: Is the 73' Dresden Theory (The Easter Bunny can phase through solid matter) true?
A: Probably not.

Q: Does the Easter Bunny posses super-hearing?
A: Yes, most definitely. With it, he can hear your heart and breathing and knows if you are only *pretending* to be asleep.

Q: What does the Eater Bunny wear?
A: A natty* monogrammed ("EB") vest and bow-tie. When not working he also wears a top-hat and carries a cane. The former tends to blow off during the super jumps and the latter is strictly for show so these are not part of his work attire.

Q: What about a monocle?
A: No, that would be Mr. Peanut

Q: Does the Easter Bunny Subcontract?
A: Yes, Santa and the Tooth Fairy, possessing similar breaking and entering skills, have both been known to assist.

Q: If Scorpion #1 had a child that asks as many questions as Jabba would she go insane?
A: Yes, in about 92.5 minutes. It was a close thing.

ptb

* Uh, Bride, I told you it was a real word.

Studio

2007-03-17T11:43:00.000-04:00

Tools of the Trade

Excepting the installation of one last door, Carol's studio is finally finished. What was previously a cold, dark, gray, mouse-infested (seriously) unfinished basement, frequently dubbed 'The Pit of Despair'* is now a bright, white refuge.

'Reactor'

My role in this was exceeding limited due to my new job. All the credit goes to Carol's parents. Her dad Al did almost all the work himself, his skills as a finish carpenter, house builder, electrician, and all-around self-sufficient New Englander meant that he was a one man crew. Faced with tasks where I would be scouring the yellow pages, checkbook in hand, he just builds it. Carol's mom Mary did most of the painting and applied her peerless filth eradication skills on the hapless piles of refuse that dared get in her way. Dirt stands about as much of a chance against her as a drunken Al-Qaeda cell does against a Navy Seal strike team.

Clean...but for how long?

Of course now the hard part begins, the actual painting. With a solo show coming up at judi rotenberg in June there is still much work to be done. I used to imagine painting was a relaxing pastime. And it may be if you are simply doing it for your own satisfaction, but for those doing it professionally it looks to me an awful lot like a grueling job with low pay, no benefits, and dirty clothes. For any aspiring artists out there I only have one bit of advice: Go into accounting :-)

Normally the X-Acto knife would be on the floor surrounded by a perimeter of upturned tacks.

ptb

* Yes I know now who Harry Harlow is, and the origins of the term, and I would not have used it so cavalierly in the past had I known, but it is what we called it.