Elisabeth and her new Isla bike.

Rockin' it.

Stuff and spares...

King Cages are made in Durango. They absolutely rule in stainless steel, ti or as the iris cage here (for the under downtube position on the pinkster).



My stash of spare king cogs, in 18, 19 and 20 teeth, and a couple of velo solo fixed cogs. Both of which rule for their applications.

Then we have the best chainring tool i have found yet. I *hate* when you cannot solidly hold the rear as you tighten chainring bolts. Most tools i have (including park, shimano, and cyclus) have either too thick, thin short or protruding middle portions. This one? perfect...Actually shaggy's VAR tool is the best, but it is perhaps overkill!

New wheel.

Put the new wheel on the tIF. It is B I G.



I s'pose a 50mm wide rim will do that. I also sorted out the gearing on the town bike (cleaned it, refitted the non drive bb cup with 3.5mm of spacers rather than 5mm of spacers with the hope that this stops the crank creaking...i think its not far enough on the spline with my higglety pigglety set up).



The 39:16 is in an effort to learn to spin faster, rather than my glacial pedal stroke rate. Again, this is so when i go to shenandoah with a 34:20 instead of a 34:18 ill not loose as much on the flats.

Last ride.

Went out with a crew to the local trails. Slid, fell about, crashed and grunted around in the mud. All good fun. Dave went so fast down one section his calves were on fire....

There is a queue...

There is a queue outside my door that seems to stretch so far into the future, i cannot see the end.

It is not a happy queue. No one meets your eyes, unless it is with taunting, defiance. There is unease, guilt, fear and prejudice.

How do you insulate yourself from that which people bring into your room, as you hold the door open? Where questions are asked, forgiveness begged, hatred spilled and insecurity handed over like an unwanted gift?

Who is sick?

Is it me? them? or is it the world...





[photo pinched from lowrevolution]

24 hours old pueblo.

Looks like Dejay for the singlespeed solo win, Rebecca in 2nd women singlespeed solo and Ian in 2nd male open solo. Wow. That's deserving of a beer.

Tension

The inimitable David Shrigley. Also, a lesson from tonights wheel building. DT 240 hub (front). 50mm uma rim. DT comp spokes (black) and (red) alloy nipples.

Hoo. Ha. Hmmmm. This could be interesting. It is all part of a sort of grand experiment in the benefits of increasing tyre width. The uma is about as wide as you can go in 29er land. Its a single wall snow rim, in this case 'not' drilled for lightness. I guess if you are being sensible, you minimise all other possibilities for flex. Brass nips, straight gauge, perhaps even 'alpine' DT spokes?

Well, i havent. So we'll see how things go. Tensioned up pretty quick to 80kgf for the none disc side, and 130kgf for the disc side. The wheel has a *lot* of flex in it. I thought it would be more = left and right.


Now - this will either be good. Or, it will be bad.

The only way to know is to try it.

Salt and Peppa.

ESI grips...we'll see. Saddle and grips matching for the new season avec VC-Moulin (hey! i'm not getting left behind in the fashion parade...)

Black Metal Laundry.

Via surly. How to keep the shirts black.

(image stolen from fujicha, well worth a look...)

Starting something new.

Did a preliminary session with andy c at the dept of sports and exercise science at glasgow university. He is looking into preparation of the bodies system to take on prolonged high-power output exercise. Think bradley wiggins, and you will get where this is aimed.

The initial test is seemingly innocuous. 2 sets of 4 minute warm up followed by big ring high resistance sprinting for 60 seconds, with a small step down in resistance about half way through. Ouch.

There will be some interventions in the last 3 of 5 days, so we'll see. Today i was putting out 1000 watts for short bursts, then reducing to pedaling like a pile driver. Ugly. Still.



Here we have my latest work in micro fabrication. Its a (da da daaahhhhhhh!) second seatpost clamp. Why? well riding fixed means sitting down a lot and pummelling the seat post. At my weight, this leads to the post eventually slipping. So, i decided to cut down a metal seat post shim, and fit a second seatpost clamp above the one that is normally there. My calculations were a tiny bit out and i had to file off the rim of the new clamp as it was slightly deeper than the shim thickness. 5 minutes work with a file and some neatening up, and deburring, and its on. Hopefully it will add just enough so that the 'post doesnt sink. We'll see.


And remember kids, in a world gone mad with greed and selfishness, we are all just a small step away from evil.