Project 29er: New Arrivals

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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.