I've spent the last few days at the North American Handmade Bike show. Singletrack magazine's website has put up a bunch of pictures i have taken. Needless to say, it is way better in the flesh. Pictures, especially when taken under the harsh lights of the Austin Convention Center, do not do the level of craftsmanship justice.
Things that impressed me? Needless to say the Vertigo cycles booth! Sean's internal hydro routing and precision welding garnered well deserved attention. The Cherubin pursuit concept bike was phenomenal. Outlandish but so beautiful. Kent Eriksen's personal tandem also looked like mischief. I could easily see myself and a co-rider blasting down the trails at 40mph on that beast!. Signal had beautiful town bikes and of all the paint jobs i liked Ira Ryans best. Curtis Inglis had yet more of his exquisite curvy bikes and of course heavy hitters like Vanilla and Cielo had some really cool work.
Components? Enve had tubeless ready mtb rims i believe waiting for UST accreditation. Rody from Groovy Cycles had his reworking of the original polygonal interface 'hot rods'/Grove Innovations crank. Paragon Machine Works had stem parts available as well as 44mm head tubes, that i think will really take off soon (at least in the hand built world) and King have brought out a 44mm external headset to allow tapered steerers in more normal looking and considerably lighter ti or steal frames.
Want to see more? i'll put my picturs up on flickr at some point, but go to STW for a looksee now. Meanwhile...it's time to go grab a cold beer and stay out of the mid day sun...
Getting the joints supple. Legs are levers. Upper body counters the efforts. Core keeps you over the fulcrum. Out on the road bike. Pitiful miles in the legs over the last 4 weeks. Time to trial the hill. The Crow Road.
The last time up was in the dead of winter. It takes me around 20 minutes. I pass the footpath sign to Milton at the bottom and the seconds start ticking away. The first swithchback is the steepest. The heart rate increases, the blood pumping. Keep it just within the red.
Move up a gear, then 2. Keep the cadence high. No mashing. Circles. Ignore the burning.
Round the corner and i sense the top. Steal a look at the watch. It looks like it might go sub 20 minutes. Suffer up the false summit, then gain the rounded top of the Campsies. Into the large ring but dont lose the cadence.
There it is, the top. A small fireroad access gate with the path to the top of the hill on the other side. Rise up. Rise out of the saddle and apply the leverage. Work the blood and bone and sinew.
17 minutes and 10 seconds. The fastest i have ever made it up. Empty vessel, but joy. Maybe not such a bad place to start from for the spring.
Is weakness leaving the body, right? or not...whichever way you look at it, pain is a constant in life. Physical, emotional and mental. At the moment i'm sitting on the sofa dribbling blood from some superficial wounds, feeling a little sorry for myself. The mental pain comes from knwoing it is all my own fault. I knew the cleats on the work shoes were worn, and weren't playing very well with the old, but-newer-than-the-last-ones, pair of time mtb pedals on the town bike. Full speed in traffic, wet roads. I got on the gas, sprinting for a green filter light. My foot suddenly pops out of the left pedal and i hit the road hard. My left knee took the brunt and my right thenar eminence is about the size of a satsuma, but no signs of broken bones.
The other day despite snow, sleet and very cold conditions i decided i *needed* to turn some pedals. More for my head than the ever diminishing (and frankly laughable) fitness benefit. So it was i took off on the skeletor and made a quick loop to the north and east of glasgow.
It took 30 minutes for the pain of the blood getting back into my toes to subside.
Daisy is teething. Cue pain. Cue crying and her struggling to feed. It's a wee shame, but it ain't going to be any other way from now on...pain is your constant companion in this life. Make friends.
So much stuff....Daisy, daisy how does your gahden grow? (gahden green of course!) Our baby is now twice the mass she used to be. In just 12 weeks she has doubled. If you think about it that is quite a feat. She does so much that she didnt do before its a full blown advertisement for the miracle that is the human brain. It is also a salutary lesson that i should use mine a bit more as well. Damn it, there must be some circuitry still working, right?
We travelled to the south of England by plane recently. She took it in her stride, and i am glad to say trina and me did too....which was encouraging, as there are plans for travel further afield shortly. More on that later. It was the most i'd laughed and smiled in a *looong* time and that is priceless.
Cooking lots of tex mex. Trying to sleep - but beset by a wicked case of insomnia. Dealing with work, which has been all encompassing. Pretending i'm still a bike rider and desperately clinging to the last remnants of form. So much more than any other year, i NEED spring. I NEED a good (ish, i'll settle for ish) summer.
Sleeping bag research for planned bivis (i spent most of the previous trips a little cold). Collecting ti bits for bikes. Listening to rock and roll.
And trying to sleep.
Sleeeeeeep....zzzzzzzzzz
Happy birthday E. Hope it was a double digit classic day.
Just cos i havent heard it in years.
And lastly for this contact: the owls are not what they seem....
*Why* was Obama's administration supporting Mubarak in his political, if not physical, death throes? Could it have something to do with the $1.3 billion that currently primarily goes to the Egyptian military, whose commander is long term Mubarak supporter and was in Washington when the uprising began?
Why support the appointment of Suleiman as 'Vice" President? He was Egypt's chief negotiator with Israel and a senior intelligence officer. Hmmm.
And is it true that the US' Mobile Forces Reserve are providing hardware to Mubarak's men to help quash the uprising of a persecuted people?
This morning, over the 7.30am feed Daisy and me conducted a little psychological experiment. We were listening to the theme track from The Wrestler...a touching and entertaining movie about Randy the Ram - a wrestler on the semi pro circuit, close to retirement, trying to chip out a living - played exceptionally by Mickey Rourke. The sountrack is great, a bit like the soundtrack to Dog Town and Z Boys - lots of old school rock - though this one is a little more poodle-permed.
Daisy seemed to be pretty stoked on it...hmmm! i wondered...where did the poodle-perm thing start? well...you can explore this endlessly, but if it wasnt for Diamond dave - yes, David Lee Roth, it wouldnt have been anywhere near as huge, that is for sure...
So Daisy and me sat and watched some vintage Van Halen....She didn't seem *that* interested. I'll be honest, a sigh of relief escaped as i thought of what could have been. Having a huffy teenager listening to Europe, Ratt and Bon Jovi could drive you mad...
Now all i need to do is work out why she is always grabbing for things with her left hand...
Despite a cold i had to get out and taste some mountain air on Monday. The local trails have been well trodden over recent months and i havent been out of the Postcode for some time so i decided to take a risk and run to the hills.
I also wanted to see if i could close a loop that on a map looked like an awesome trail. I had hit the first part sometime ago: the trail disappearing off into the distance was tantalising as i had to turn tail and head back due to fading light and a need to be elsewhere. The sun was peaking from behind the clouds: time to ride.
This time i approached from the south then gained a broad ridge and went north west. It took 2 and a half hours of grovelling with my weakened constitution to gain the needed altitude.
When it came, the drizzle was welcome as it helped wash the stench of goat from the air. As i climbed upwards, a huge mob of deer passed from the eastern, higher ground, across the trail and down. As ever, catching the fleet of foot with a pocket camera wasnt easy - just a few found their way onto the memory stick. Click to make big and you might see one or two...
Once there i could see the dark clouds gather over Ben Lomond. No doubt there was precipitation. The ground was so waterlogged that riding was hard, but i was happy to deal with this and wasnt super insulated for snow or hail. What little ice remained was avoidable even as i got higher, and i didnt want the trail obscured by a fresh fall.
Needless to say as i reached the highest point, the winds rose and the semi-frozen snow/hail stung as it lashed the exposed areas of my skin. I was pretty surprised at my luck to see a wee house pinned to the very highest rock outcrop up there.
From the volume of snow on the access trail i reckoned the odds of their being anyone home were very slim, but the edge of a solid structure beat lying down in peaty cuts in the land as shelter.
As the snow hit my frame, it instantly became ice, leading to some pretty interesting texture on the bike! After a while, cloud base lifted and visibility was regained, Circulation to the hands took a little longer to regain, but it came and i set off.
From here, the map was indistinct. There was definitely trail for some of the way, and it looked like it would come mightily close to the singletrack as it passed through the bealach from the north east. To find out was the aim for this ride.
Degraded wasnt the best word for the trail as it dropped. Broken, loose, akin to a fast moving river is more likely to give a picture, but i made it down unscratched and there, just at the bottom of the valley - the singletrack!.
From here the trail was initially water logged with several massively over-flowing stream crossings to deal with but it dropped further into a root infested technical playground - that even now, and imagining it dry (ish) i'm not convinced i will be able to clear.
The route is complete. Now i need a day and some weather and a few hardy souls looking for about 6 hours in the hills.
The sun set and a smile lodged on my face. A fine day!
So i believe the social-grouping -that-is-not-known-as-hipsters anymore call them whips. Maybe. As for hipsters, what are they now? marshmallows? soft and white? who knows....but who CARES when you could get a Smokey and the Bandit cycling jacket....
Regardless, i was getting fed up with trying to get mudguards to mount on a 29er fixed gear running road tyres. Far too much space betwixt frame/fork/tyres etc. A zip tie nightmare....and a bit cumbersome too. I also want to get the RoShamBo back up and running as a fixed *off* road bike. So, for the last few months id been looking aimlessly around for an alternate town bike.
Damn if Brooklyn Machine Works didnt re release the gangsta track as a made in taiwan and slightly geometrically reworked beast that hit the nail right on the head.
Tokyo Fixed Gear in London Town got it in the post overnight and BAM! here we are....
Prolly need to drill out the back of the cluster fork to fit a recessed allen nut in for the calliper brake and i need to do some swapsies, build up a shimano xt M756 hub (front) with a 170mm solid axle and spacers to make a dishless fixed rear wheel when laced with a mavic a317 rim and it should be hitting the tarmacadam asap. Hey! if Brooklyn Machine Works are good enough for Danny Mac, they're good enough for me...
A few posts up i was waffling on about a new bike. Those who know me well might be a bit surprised by the direction i've been heading this last year. At least in terms of bicycle drive chains that is!
First came a 27 geared road bike, rapidly replaced by a better fitting, 20 geared one. Then the Vertigo arrived with 6 speeds. As a result of this i did a bit of metal work and slotted 5 Dura ace gears onto the Jones - to tame the longer fire roads of the Kielder 100 mile race.
Since then, i have decided that a 9 speed race bike is a must.
Why the surprise? until last year, i hadnt ridden let alone owned a geared bike for around 10 years. That is a long time to be singlespeed or fixed only, but my riding style (lumpy pedal stroke and all) and the scottish riding environment (gritty, wet and abusive as it is) meant that it made perfect sense.
So why all the gears? for a similar amount of effort you can go faster or further in an allotted time. Thats all. I have been fortunate enough to avoid any injuries or problems that meant a singlespeed drive chain limited me, i just might be slower or i might need to get off and walk on the steepest pitches. Or, i might get fed up doing the ridiculous spin on the flats. Other than that, no major issues. It was the road bike that reignited the desire to have gears again. Then barrelling down hill on the Vertigo opened up a new way of viewing terrain and what i could do on that terrain.
So here we are.
I am pretty convinced that 10x1 drive chains will become prevalent over the next 2 or 3 years. The broadening of the rear gear spread has already meant riders are often dropping at least 1 chainring, if not 2. The big players - SRAM and Shimano _ are even offering 2 ring specific cranksets, often with narrower chainline. This is a good thing, not just for reducing the amount of redundancy in the drive chain, but also it makes for a better chainline with 135mm spaced rear ends, and thus more efficient shifting and less wear and drag. Shorter, tighter chains provide snappier shifting. What is not to like here?
If you move to having one chainring, and dont mind dropping the super low gears mountain bikes now have (back in the day, my lowest gear was a 28:28 !) you can run a 34, 35 or maybe a 36 tooth chainring, have an 11-34 or 36 spread at the rear, use a mid length derailleur and have an extremely useable range of gears which is both efficient and light.
But things are continuing to change. Specialized are far from my favourite bicycle company, but working with DT swiss and SRAM they initially produced a 6 speed wide-ish range 9 speed compatible 'powerdome' rear gear cluster. The hub probably utilises a stepped freehub body.
Now, they have worked on a 10 speed version, that has a 9-36 spread. With a single chainring up front, say a 32 tooth, that gives a fantastic gear range. Downsides? well, a 9 tooth cog isnt going to wear well, and the smaller diameter is going to force the chain into a tighter curve that will be less mechanically efficient. But with mud in the picture it is difficult to know whether this will be real-world noticeable. As Davechopsoptions points out, it seems there are more snapped chains with the 9 tooth/small chainrings on BMX bikes...a problem a pro-mechanic supported DH team are unlikely to face.
UK based Hope have also been working on a 9-34 spread freehub unit that fits directly onto the hub, with the pawls inside a machined cluster. No doubt, this will be prohibitively expensive to make, but it shows that designers and engineers are thinking along the same lines.
I suspect it is something we are going to see a lot more of.
Here we are. Days blurring into one, or days blurring into 'any' is probably a more appropriate way to put it. Back to the grindstone with January illnesses and flu 'epidemics'. Same old same old. Daisy continues to grow at the frightening rate that only a very young baby can - every day is different! First this, first that. It really is an amazing time. It is also an exhausting time. She seems to have her dad's ability to gulp down food WITH air and that can only mean one thing: screams.
On a related note, Telly Savalas Player and car and nose mechanic Russell persuaded his better half Caroline to produce a baby boy, Noa, on hogmanay. Way to go!....
And in also-related news, good friend and IMBA honcho Frank sent me the most important book i may read this year, and perhaps lifetime, The Three Martini Playdate. Frank is a gem, and i'm all the better for having kept his company.
(moostache and beardette are probably not the models own, nips, though obscured, most definitely are)
What else? the last time i went out for a ride i decided to go somewhere other than the local trails. I just needed some isolation, headspace and a change of scenery. Mistake: ice prevented me entering the forrest and as i slid disgracefully down the forrest road - with the trusty VW at a jaunty angle - on my third attempt, i knew it was probably the case the forrest roads were impassable by bike as well.
From there i headed deeper into the hills, but the road being closed was a bad sign. Retreating to the local trails brought a truth to light. The more you are forced to ride in a small area, the more you *do* with it. I guess thats why the 'local' hotspots of our childhood and youth ended up criss crossed with trails - we were there often enough, and were captivated enough - to put the time into to reroute, go different ways and rake the odd bit of trail out.
The end-point of this realisation was my finding a good way to close not one, but 2 singletrack loops that had kind of been bugging me recently. Options are always good and with a little work on one, and perhaps a little more work on the other, i should have a better way to connect up different trails.
I also entered my first race of 2011: the 12 and 24 hrs of Exposure at Newcastleton. I'm shooting for 12 hrs because i like riding for that amount of time - even if the courses are quite short loops. Give me big back country loops first and foremost, race or no, but 10 and 12 hr races are ok as well. 24 hours of small loops is insanely dull. There you go.
In closing, Neil Fallon is one of my favourite musicians. Clutch, The Bakerton Group, sometime Mastodon vocalist and The Company Band.
The end of the year is nigh. The winter solstice was marked by a lunar eclipse - with light refraction turning the moon red briefly....spooky, and it must have been great for all the Twilight fans....
So now we have the slow ascension of the sun into the northern hemisphere. Ha!...it always amazes me how long this takes....january truly is a razor blade season....dark, wet, cold and the light at the end of the tunnel seems very far away.
Still, it is a time to take stock, look back over the year and perhaps formulate some sort of a plan for the year ahead. My personal goals for this year were to do a couple of mid to long distance races and get results that i was happy with (a second at Bristol 12 was good. The DNF at Kirroughtree 10 not so much and the Kielder 100 was , well, interesting!).
I also wanted to do some new routes here and abroad - notably in Europe (where i have ridden surprisingly little compared to the USA) and explore the capabilities of a very special bike that, unusually for me, has both gears and suspension (my Vertigo Cycles B.A). I uncorked some amazing routes in Scotland, taking passes and paths through the Cairngorm that opened a new door far my riding and i also spent a good deal of time carrying my bike through some pretty gnarly peat-bog. I had my arse handed to me in Switzerland - riding in the Alps is a different beast altogether - but one that might need to be repeated soon.
Clearly, all this is small fry compared to the major life change that was embodied by the arrival of our daughter, Daisy. Last week she smiled in response to me smiling at her for the first time. Dont let anyone tell you otherwise - the first few weeks with a baby is HARD work (trina has worked particularly hard) but with just a small smile the world seems to melt around you....its pretty emotional...
So to next year.
Participating in Daisy's development is going to be the big thing. The last thing in the universe i want to do is have a calendar with expected developmental milestones ready to be ticked off. But i also recognise the type A (if there is such a thing), achievement orientated, aspects of my character. So we'll see how we go. Within minutes of holding her, it was perfectly clear that she is the very best part of me (and a bit of trina too - hopefully quite a lot!) and the part that i will work to nurture, grow, keep safe and happy and to make smile as much as i possibly can.
What else? I still feel that my best racing is ahead of me. Maybe that is just wishful thinking, but i feel that with the correct blend of experience, preparation and, yes, training, i can get results that i will be truly happy with. It dawned on me this year, as i was absolutely breaking myself riding the 12 hour race at Bristol on my jones (after finishing up at work, driving for 8 hours overnight to a race, then getting a few hours sleep before riding on a brutal, baked-hard course on a rigid forked singlespeed bike) that i wasnt exactly making life easy for myself. The same was true at Shenandoah in 2009.
I finished up a hard run at work, then did the driving/flying/driving boogie and within 48 hrs lined up for a technical, back country, 100 mile mtb race. i was woefully under prepared, physically, but I enjoyed it and there was never any question of not finishing, but my time was embarrassing and a huge blow to my self confidence.
Winning is mostly desire, but there is also an element of not ham-stringling yourself: physically, mentally or technically. You could argue that riding a singlespeed is a major part of this but i would disagree. Often times, geared riders end up working harder - simply because they can - there is no enforced rest on the downhills or flats.....
For this reason, i have asked Sean at Vertigo Cycles to make me a race bike. No compromises. The jones is best as a singlespeed (though it worked very well as a 5 speed at kielder 100) and is all about fun and enjoyment - not 10 or 12 hours in the pain cave. It is super responsive with fast handling and a tight wheelbase. It is also incredibly rigid at the front - wonderful for handling and steering precision - but after 10 hrs of racing (not riding, mind you, *racing* - as hard and as fast as you can go) you need the opposite. Slightly 'slower' handling (though slow and fast handling are really misnomers for the perception of variations in weight distribution and leverage ratios) with a more forgiving geometry that will not punish slowed reaction times.
It is also the case that gears and suspension can not only make you go faster, they can increase your enjoyment in certain situations. Yeah i know - Ding, ding! wake up jon! Please note, however, that i am NOT saying they make life easier!...with suspension and gears, i will be expecting to finish a LOT faster or go a lot further than without. B.A has taught me this...yes he is a big, strapping lad, and 120mm of soft travel with heavy duty components and a very relaxed attitude is also not ideal for racing ( and i really want to keep this bike ready for the rough stuff and big mountain routes), but as Kirroughtree 10 showed, on that kind of bike i could ride where others walked, and catch fellow racers on the descents and hold them on the flats and hills. This is very different to the yo-yo-ing i have previously experienced with a singlespeed.
Thus was born the concept for 'The Maul'.
A Vertigo Cycles ti framed 29er. It will utilise Sean's signature 44 headtube, allowing for a tapered steerer fork. Once you have used a tapered steerer on a 29er, you will not want to go back. In this case, it will primarily have a Niner carbon tapered steerer fork in place and i will swap on a yet-to-be-decided suspension fork for those occasions where i might need one. I've been enjoying the fox terralogic talas on B.A a lot, so a shorter travel version may be appropriate, but i may wait for the one piece tapered ti steerer/crown that fox showed and had stolen at interbike.
The frame will sport a slightly longer front centre than the jones and even B.A, in an effort to provide some respite at the tail end of a race. Nevertheless, it will have the same short stays to keep the ride and handling sweet. It will be lower and slightly steeper than B.A but retain the same crouched, ready for anything position over the bottom bracket for attacking technical terrain.
The rear end will be 150 wide, because i'm struggling to see any disadvantages, and have experienced a LOT of advantages with this format. The bb will be slightly narrower to use a lighter XC crank - in this case new XTR. At most i will run 9 (or perhaps in the future 10) speeds. The Saint mech on B.A can be clattered into rocks and still shifts with authority and coming off 10 years of singlespeed riding, 9 speeds with a 35 toother at the front will provide me with all the gear i have ever needed from Switzerland to Colorado via Australia, New Zealand and of course the UK. Eriksen will provide the seat post. Wheels are going to be light, stiff and strong (yes K.B's maxim will hold true) with DT swiss hubs, DT aerolite spokes, and Enve composite XC rims. The stem will also be Enve.
Pedals, shifters, cables, hose and brakes will be XTR. In the case of the brakes, i will be using the Trail xtr - My usual Selle San Marco Zoncolan and Jones Loop bars (in ti, despite the increased weight over the Aluminium versions) and i've been using aluminium and ti bolts as often a sensible recently with no disadvantage.
Tyres will be frequently changed, depending on the conditions and aim for the day. This year has seen me using 2.4 knobblies or 1.8 (marked as 2.0) semi slicks. Tubless doesnt help this pursuit, so i will be going back to light tubes with 20-30 mls of sealant with pvc shavings for clotting despite the fact that the new Enve rims will be tubeless ready.
I think that covers it. It would be fair to say i'm pretty excited about racing next season....
The slide into winter-proper, as the light fades and the days shorten, is always something i find a little tough. I think i was designed to hibernate...as it happens, i'm doing a bit of street wandering later in the evening, with the grommet tucked into a papoose. I've decided to explore some of the streets in the area i have never been along. Quite interesting: lots of converted buildings and mews houses that seem jammed between the more visible rows of houses and flats. It also helps the grom sleep, so its all good. Everything is crunchy and icy still: i cannot remember such a prolonged cold snap in the city.
I've also had the chance to get a couple of rides in, local, and relatively short, but it keeps the legs rolling and the ice has made for some pretty interesting terrain. Last night saw dave chops options and myself literally pin-balling sideways and slipping out with zero warning. Ace fun!
What with one thing and another, there has been some componentry changes that have been fun to evaluate. The Vertigo got some terralogic/talas forks (once i tracked down 15mm thru/qr end cap adaptors for the DT 440 hub). Very limited time on this, but i think i'm going to like the terra logic. The fork can be set up soft and pliant, with the terralogic meaning minimal wallowing when climbing etc...Much more time needs to be spent on it before i form any valid opinions. Looks are kind of good, too.
I've now ridden the XTR M988 brakes (trail version) on the jones and even with non-ICE rotors the performance is like nothing else i've experienced. Light action, excellent modulation with real-life working bite point and lever position adjustment and off the charts power. The only brakes they compare to in this regard (though ive not spent any time on Hayes) are the Saints. But the lever feel is so much sweeter. Downsides? the levers are short. So far i have not needed (and cant see myself ever needing) more than 1 finger so its not an issue for me.
I also picked up a set of the new XTR cranks for the upcoming Vertigo build. They are a real piece of work - its a crying shame to ditch the rings, but the bike will be 1x9 and so its getting a higher tooth count (hopefully ti) ring. Sweet cranks, though.
To top it off, i can recommend Kraken rum. It is very smooth, either en las rocas, or as a dark and stormy...
A fairly significant dampener has been applied with the Milo case in the states and the virtual hand slap for the killer of a cyclist in the UK. It is always hard to make sense of the legal issues involved, but these cases do seem to highlight a growing concern that hitting and killing cyclists is not taken seriously enough in some quarters. When a perpetrator can escape with such leniency, the legal process is not seen in a great light.
