Bean-Pole On A Bike

Vegas, the journey to here.

2011-09-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

So it was a pretty eventful day yesterday. I made it to Vegas with really no problems.

View from my room.

To get here was a fun time. I left Memphis a little before lunch and put the hammer down on the interstate. It was clear, dry, sunny, and awesome. I did run into a ton of police officers so I couldn't drive 90 or anything but still made good time. On the way to my friend's house to park for free, I was slightly misguided and drove a little more than I needed to. Oh well. At the airport the lady at the xray machine chewed me out for not sending my computer through solo but I smiled, apologized, and proceeded on about my ways. I get to the gate and the only spot with open seats has some crazy Mennonite family who is crunching pretzels into the floor and running around barefoot. (They might have not been Mennonite, but they were extremely religious and crazy.) The kids were jumping on the seats and causing a huge ruckus. One little boy had three fingers stuck in his mouth drooling and having a huge coughing fit. I generally don't mind kids but this was more of a total family creep-out.The mom was giving me funny looks, the dad kept talking about how one time a gander of geese was caught in an airplane engine. I wanted to stick a writing pen through my gauged ear and tell the kids that tattoos are rad.

I flew into Denver chasing a 2 inch strip of sunset and amazed at the cool sight of the moon rising over the cloud cover. It was a cool site. I chatted with a nice guy on my flight from Denver to Vegas and arrived unscathed. I chatted it up with a lady who works for Saris on my walk/train ride from my terminal to the baggage claim. My friends picked me up at the baggage claim and we headed to the strip. I was completely overwhelmed and was asked "is there anything you have wanted to do?" and my answer was "You just plucked me out of Tipton County and dropped me on the Vegas strip".

Besides being completely dazzled, seeing two weddings after midnight, and realizing that this trip was pretty awesome already. I crawled into bed at 1am Vegas time, which is 3am Memphis time, which is officially 5 hours past my bed time.

prelude to interbike

2011-09-11T18:48:00.000-07:00

On my side of things lately I have been mingling the line between hectic and lazy. There are a ton of new cool things going on in my little corner of the world. I will begin at the beginning: I moved into a house where I am really close to our Cordova location of work. My dog has a yard to play in, other dogs to play with, and a pair of cats that terrorize him and try to burn up his seemingly unlimited supply of energy.

The weather has been great and the weather has been much more agreeable over the last two weeks, you can actually go for a ride without dripping sweat from every square of your body in the first 2 miles. I have converted my mountain bike back to a regular handlebar, single speed mountain bike. The Cannondale CAAD10 has been proving to be a great bike for the road, but only when I ride it.

This year a friend offered me the great opportunity to join him and his lovely lady at Interbike to help with their booth. This is what I will be hustling and bustling all week long, shaking hands, hustling shirts, serving booze, giving people an idea of how amazing the one off skinsuit from FUCancer looks, and generally just enjoying myself.

We will be hanging out at Booth #1048 and having a good time. Want to stop by? Please do. Remember a ton of this merchandise goes to helping more people. Soft shirts, good causes, and great style. That's right, I'll see you there.


Do you dare?

My Month of July

2011-09-07T20:20:00.000-07:00

I am going to try to summarize my months of June & July into just a few words. Long, full, and tiring. I had been living in Midtown in the same apartment for the last two years. I had graduated from the UofM and was moving on to things like working in a bike shop. The area wasn't great for riding my bike from, the rent was a little steep to swing by myself, and with student loan repayment beginning I decided to seek shelter in the upstairs of a friends home. I spent most of June trying to ride a little bit and pack up my apartment. This was the first time of moving as an adult and I had accumulated a ton of crap.

When I began my push to move I decided to make a few piles of stuff that would help me move more efficiently. The piles included Trash, Donate, Sell, Treasure.

I threw away a lot of stuff mercilessly. There were things I just didn't need. Things I didn't want. Things I had no use for. I donated some stuff to the goodwill that was useable but not worth keeping around because I didn't see myself using it again. I had some stuff good enbough to sell but wouldn't be used again, and a few items I absolutely treasured.

Once I knew I was moving I began moving stuff pretty regularly between my days off and evenings. I began situating things before I moved in and tried to stay tidy. Rather than completely piling it all in at once I would take boxes over, unpack them, and then take those boxes back to the apartment to start over. That worked great until the last big dig and I had to pile it up anyways. Here we are 5 weeks later and some boxes are still just sitting idly.

I did sell some things that I wanted to get ride of in order to make space and money. It was refreshing and labor intensive.

I had house sat here a good bit over the last year or so and Marley was well accustomed to the other animals and the yard situation. I can say overall I think Marley is excited about having a yard to play in. He has also made good friends with one of the cats and they will fight and play. Marley has even nearly taught the big dog Turbo how to play tug o war with a rope.

The moral of the story is things have been going well, just busy. I have been working a good bit in order to help keep things at working rolling smoothly and evenly. I have been trying hard to ride more (which is still hit n miss). I am pretty fired up about cyclocross season and looking forward to seeing Cross Vegas while out at Interbike. More on Interbike to come tomorrow after the store meeting.

Long time no blob.

2011-08-29T07:07:00.000-07:00

Yes blob. Because a real blog would be updated regularly and have good content. I have neither of those things so I have a blob. A splotch of unidentifiable garbage on the internet, much akin to an electronic booger.

Just the tip.

SALE SALE SALE!!!!

2011-07-12T06:53:00.000-07:00

54cm Alum/Carbon Frame, Carbon fork - $300

54cm Ti, made in 'Merica! Full Dura-Ace 10spd. 1'' steerer tube fork - $1200

Aliante Saddle - straight rails and only one tiny wear spot on nose

$25 or trade for a racier saddle, Arione or SLR type.

Renn Multisport 650c rear wheel, clincher, skewer included.

Shimano freehub, one lil ding at the end of my finger. $250

Dude, give me a break.

2011-07-11T21:27:00.000-07:00

Over the last few months I have been learning a lot about living. Think strippers, blow, and a wild car ride with a guy duct taped in the trunk. . . wait. Scratch that. My life isn't a Three-6 song. I have been making bicycles work, riding my bike more than ever, racing it a little bit, and trying to make it.

Speaking of making it. At the end of July I will be moving out of my apartment that I have lived in for a little over two years. It is odd to try and imagine packing my life into boxes and squeeze into the upstairs of an ever so generous couple, Ryan and Andrea. I often wonder what the place will be called. I have referred to it as a compound a few times and think the name could stick. I often daydream about an every man(and woman) for him(or her)self attempt to get out the door to ride, battling one another with embrocation to the eyes and fighting over the air pump, finding cleat covers tubular cemented into place. . . all for the town line sprint championships.

Over the last 12 months I have had loads of envy. I previously thought that everyone else got all the cool opportunities. People were getting off easy. Or some people are just lucky. But then I decided to make myself the lucky one. I have realized that life is what you make it, for the most part.

Today I was riding my rollers, clicking along, and I got the first double drip. When sweat drips off your nose and is quickly followed by another drip. It is almost an out-of-rhythm drip. This is pretty uncommon for me. I don't know if I am just not a heavy sweater, possibly I am not fully hydrated, or something. Anyways, I started really sweating, pretty early into my "easy" ride. I immediately thought of a guy on MB/BPC team Joe. Joe has been a pretty big motivating factor for me wanting to get fast. He is fast. He can make people hurt. He is able to ride with Bryant Funston and have fun. I was standing around after Joe raced a crit one day and Aaron Parker says "I wish I was fast still, I just don't have the time to train". Joe's jaw dropped. He was still standing over his bike and his son was saying "hey daddy" and trying to use the downtube as a step to climb up to Joe. Joe looked at Aaron, said "Dude give me a break" and that was that.

What is the moral of this whole post, what is it all about? My roller workout today was boss. Over the last few months riding more consistently (even still shoddy consistency, but more steady on the bike) I have had a ton of more fun riding my bike. Being faster is addictive. 3 months ago I was saying I wanted to be as fast as people X,Y,Z. I have realized it isn't about being faster than someone else really. I need to ride until I am as fast as I can be.

Not What You Were Expecting

2011-07-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

Rewind a year and I had a girlfriend who lived with me. ~~Everything was peachy and great and~~ sometimes we cooked breakfast together and shared cinnamon rolls. Today I was cooking some cinnamon rolls. I realized that there was no one to share them with. NO ONE TO SHARE THEM WITH!!!!111!

So I decided to eat the whole pan like a boss.

Happy Friday everybody.

Decaf by Default.

2011-06-30T06:52:00.000-07:00

I wrote this last night but my blog simply refused to be pushed to the world wise interwebz:

Today is an off day from the bike and is weird feeling. I have been pretty tired all day, even though I slept like a kitten last night. I woke up feeling pretty good, made breakfast and ate while reading Velonews, and decided to go roll around in the bed because I didn't have to leave for work anytime soon.

Throughout the course of the day I didn't drink enough water. Not nearly enough. I feel all dried out, hot, and lethargic. Possibly I did drink enough water, because I have been making "Bear Soda" all day long. Part of it may be because I shaved my hair off yesterday to rid myself of the bleached spots in my hair. It was cool for the 5 or whatever days it lasted but I am just not cool enough to take a ton of funny looks every day. Anyways, my head always feels funny for a while with all of the sensations on my scalp. Maybe it's a combination of that and the fact I am a total softie. Who knows?

As I write this I am sitting at my soon-to-be-for-sale kitchen table and eating cereal. I feel like I could eat an entire box of cereal. I have been trying to eat a healthier diet that includes more fruits and vegetables in order to help counterbalance my increase in training. My idea is that if I eat terribly and ride a tiny bit and barely get dropped I'm stupid. If I begin eating much healthier foods (good) and begin to ride my bike really hard (bad for my body in some ways) then I should feel overall the same. In reality it isn't working that way. I am eating better some of the time but the toll of riding my bike consistently is pretty big. A friend once told me "If being fast was easy everyone would do it."

Boom. If it was easy everyone would do it. Now you know.

Fast Forward to this morning and I get up, clean up a little bit, and start my water to make coffee in the french press. I go sit in the shower until the hot water runs out. Water in the kettle is boiling so I get my coffee grinder out, reach for my coffee. . . . reach for my coffee?!!?!? There wasn't any. All the coffee was already consumed. There is coffee at the store. There is coffee at the coffee shop. But not in my kitchen.

Nothing that is easy is good and nothing that is good is easy.

Black and White? Nah Brah Totally Gray.

2011-06-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

I should one day publish an entire blog post about things my dad says. He is full of great and witty comments for just about any situation. I have used some examples in the past, will in this moment, and will long into the future.

*person in fancy car is in the way when you are driving, holds you up by not using a turn signal*
"I'm glad I can't afford a ___________, those damn things don't even have blinkers. Hell even the S-10 had blinkers." The S-10 was a 1982 Chevy S-10 single cab pickup truck that had about a billion miles on it and was a stick shift. I learned to drive a stick in that truck.

Over the years I have yet to figure out if I am the way that I am because I work hard. I would give credit to my wonderful parents, grandparents, and older sister for dealing with me during my wee years. I could say that they were/are great in teaching me how to work hard and produce good work. On the other hand I could say they allowed me to become an arrogant, hard headed, self righteous bastard who believes everything should be perfect. When things aren't perfect I go all bat dung crazy and freak out on people who aren't doing what they should be doing to make thing perfect. I ignorantly believe that everyone can perform on a certain level of brain level that allows them to not totally suck at everything.

The reality is nothing is black or white and I most certainly fall into a weird mixture of arrogant, self righteous, hard working bastard who is personally bat dung crazy.

In other not so new news, I will be moving out of my apartment in the near future. I'm going to be living "all the way out there" if you ask a Midtown person. I plan to use a bunk bed/multiple sleeping options approach that will allow me to sleep in either a hammock or a bed, with the hammock being set up bunk bed style over the bed. I wonder if me or marley would enjoy sleeping in a hammock? Even the ability to go to bed and chill in the hammock and read for a while and then when ready to sleep crawl into a cool bed and go to sleep. I am looking forward to that very much. Also Marley will have a yard to play in, there is better road riding out there, and my commute to work will be far enough to justify wearing a chamois. Total win across all fronts.

Sorry for my total lack of pictures. I suck at that. Maybe some will come tomorrow as I attempt to take over the world. My day off includes riding, shopping for the shop, shopping at the shop, and rebuilding an Industry Nine wheel with a more reliable and rider weight appropriate Arch rim.

You should turn on your Pandora Radio and create a station using The Eagles as the jumping block.

Good, Bad, and the Putty

2011-06-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

So I have had some good, some bad, and in the extremely near future will have some putty as well.

The good: I raced the Smif & Nieces Omnium. It was a grand time. I didn't die in the circuit race even though the pace was pretty hard, one guy snapped off a fork, and it was 700 degrees. I placed 7th in under 40 cat 5. That night was the time trial so I outfitted my cross bike with a Zipp 404 front and 808 rear tubular wheel. I dropped my chain before I started, rolled out with one foot clipped in and proceeded to channel my rage into a 2nd place finish. The next day in the crit I was a protected person due to my Omnium standings but pretty much ran out of gas on the last 1/2 of the last lap. My life story. Ended up 3rd under 40 Cat 5 in TN for the State Crit medal, and 3rd overall under 40 for the Omnium.

The bad: student loan repayment begins very soon. I am going to move out of my apartment and start living in a multi family home. The monthly savings is very near the monthly payment of loan.

(Anyone need a kitchen table and chairs that will be available for pickup at the end of July, free if you get it.)

The putty will come as I patch the holes in the walls and prepare to HTFU and get my 16 mile, one way, commute on to go to Union.

No pics from the weekend really, Cat 5's go last and all the photographers are drunk by the time we race.

Surely it's Surly.

2011-06-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

In my quest to be a loud mouth jerk I always said skinny bars on mountain bikes sucked. It goes back to my days of bmx, when I rode big bars. I rode big bars when big bars were just coming out. I liked my bars big because they felt better. Anyways.

I was riding a Niner 710mm flat bar. I made the comment that skinny bars suck. Joel, my boss, said they don't. He offereed to let me ride a Crank Brothers bar that is a mere 600mm wide. Ok I'm game. No big deal. I'll try it. The first time I rode it, I was using a Powertap wheel and was more being a jerk, applying some pedal power, and giving it a whirl. I rode the CB bar to Arkansas this last weekend and it sucked. I didn't like the width, or straightness. I had been fascinated with the idea of a bendy bar. I know some people love them. The bastard child of a drop bar, a mustache bar, and an otter.

My reasoning went something like this:
The Niner bar has some good bend, I like the Niner bar.
The Bontrager big sweep I just put on the Schwinn I ride to work feels great too.
The super bendy Surly One Bar is even more bend-tabulous than either of those.
If the bar has too much bend-tabulous action for single track fun I could always run it on the Schwinn on the Surly CrossDresser.

I ordered it. (before I knew ORAMM was full and I should have been spending my money on other stuff)

Boom. The bend is great looking, the drop is deep, and I want to ride it badly. I need to recable the rear brake and the shifter, but really the current length will work to make sure this bar is actually living on this bike before I go buying up all the housing and stuff and setting it up.

Inferior bar is inferior

Lonely stem and a snoopy puppy

Looking fun.

Self Served Life Lesson, A La Mode Of Course

2011-06-15T19:56:00.000-07:00

Some times you have to learn as you live. People say you can learn from others, from reading books, all that stuff. They are mostly wrong. You have to learn most life lessons by screwing up yourself. There are some areas where this doesn't apply:
Experimenting with meth
Driving your car wasted to see if you can do it
Touching a burning blow torch to test your "asbestos fingers"
Trying to punch a train off the tracks

We all know the outcome of those things is really bad. Really bad. However, some people my age don't know jack when it comes to putting their crap in order and making things happen. For instance I was going to use ORAMM as my "A" race for the 2011 season. I have been more consistent with my fitness and working towards being faster. I was hoping for an even more impressive result than last year where I showed up and sorta did great given my fitness and stuff. Reality check. Boom. Registration is full. All of the sudden dudes are offering entry fee, transfer fee, plus 100 bucks. Wow. Thats like 1/2 of one of my paychecks. Before driving 10 hours, making hotel/camping reservations, and eating. Hmm. Time to face the cold hard facts. I don't have the money for entry fee, let alone all the other jazz. That means all that would go on my credit card. For what would hopefully be less than 6 hours 30 minutes on race course.

Totally not going to happen. I am going to skip ORAMM and not put myself in debt. It sucks. I should have registered while entry fee was cheap back in February. I should have asked for entry for my birthday in February. However what would suck more? Paying 14% interest on entry fees, travel, lodging and food for a silly race. That is stupid. The bike I want retails for$2150. I should save money towards buying a new bike. A road bike. So I don't have to race road on a cross bike with a set of road tires and a neg 30 degree stem. (it sure is fun to drop guys on carbon bikes/wheels though).

The moral of this blog post? If I had drank less beer in the last 5.5 months, I could be registered for ORAMM. But I didn't. So instead I will skip the hassle of hussling for an entry and realize that I need to do better in the future. This is a life lesson moment.

Open Letter to Bob Roll:

2011-06-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

I recently read Bob Roll's book titled "Bobke II". This book is in my opinion one of the most encouraging things I have read so far. I say this because Bob Roll was never that fast. I am not discrediting him as a rider in any way. But when at pro caliber races he didn't just show up and just destroy everyone. The thing is at every bike race there are between 2 and 2,000 people lined up to race. What Bob's book highlighted was when he was happy with the small victories of not getting dropped too bad, or too quickly, or hanging in there til it was all flat tires then still having a good time. The book showed me that even though I am coming around and trying to not be too serious while still being serious, I still have a long ways to loosen up before the fun really begins.

So to Bob Roll, if you ever happen upon this, which is unlikely. Thanks. For chronicling how you lived life and had a great time. I will being doing my best to hit some of those things on the bucket list he has left his readers to ponder. I'm marking my calendar with some serious plans for the future.

Also, in super cool news, I have an opportunity so cool that I shouldn't talk about it because if it doesn't happen everyone will be sad. But let's just say there is a chance that in the next few months I could do some really cool things that leave me a good ole 'merican shit-ton of stuff to write about.

This weekend I am racing the Smith and Nephew Omnium. A little disappointed in the 9.2 mile Cat 5 Circuit race but I'm not putting on the race. And no one is making me race. So I should just STFU and get ready to go have fun. The following week I plan to head to Nashville to race the Hamilton Creek 50 mile mountain bike race. I have some fun parts coming for the Felt Nine Race to hopefully complete the geared bike awesomeness that it is.

And for the record guys and gals. . . . I love chocolate milk. I don't think there is much time I would turn it down as long as I wasn't riding. So maybe in the future instead of beer, a mid-afternoon donut and milk drop would be pretty awesome.

Mountain Biking and Road Racing, maybe not in that order.

2011-06-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

Over the last few weeks I have been getting back on the bike and getting into the swing of things again. I raced Syllamo's Revenge with more "training" than ever before, but I need to put the spurs to myself (kinda kinky huh) and really get in better habits of riding my bike more than 4 hours a week. I did pretty well over the last 8 days by doing some duration and some intensity and need to start throwing in consistency. I still have to trick myself into riding in different ways than most. It usually involves a ton of profanities and a cue sheet written on a sheet of high quality paper.

I have realized that my last week's exploration ride was truly an epic adventure. I just took off with a few bottles full of water, pockets full of gu, and my iPhone in case things got too squirrely before the light got too low. With that said I have a few different long rides that I plan to attempt over the coming weeks. I want to ride to places I have never been and maybe even end up somewhere I didn't know existed. I'm itching to do a century on the Bob Roll Plan: Wake up, eat breakfast, ride a century, do a shot and chase it with a Guinness. Nap til' 8. Eat a burger. Go to bed.

The road roll-out on the knobby tires this morning was brutal. I raced hard on the road yesterday. I guess that should come first, but it's not. My legs were feeling like they had been filled with lead and then encased in plaster. For the second time my Fizik Aliante saddle felt terrible. Like three rounds of tingly numbness trying to set into my pieces' parts (thanks Pirate for that line. I love it). It was hard to find my rythym, I didn't think I was as hungry as I was. I guess racing yesterday took it out of me. I was physically hurting so I was mentally weak. Things got slimy and I let a little muddy hike-a-bike ruin my fun for a little while. Then I choked down a bar, zipped my mouth shut, and tried to climb out of the "being a whiney ass" and into the "this is a bike ride, its fun" mindset. It sorta worked. For pictures from today's ride go here.

Saturday was the Circue Da Vaccuum race. It was out on the Long Road race loop which is a fast paced, windy, slightly rolling with one hill course. The Cat 4's and Cat 5's got split so the BPC presence in my race was killed. Richard Murphy, Randy, and Richard Patterson joined me in the 5's. The first 3 laps were prime laps, so the race started hot. 3 guys from two teams went off the front and things got ugly. The teams sat up and blocked so they started gapping and I thought "shit, we aren't moving" and went to the front. I baited the guys to start chasing their team mates for a while, till one Vaccuum yelled to another "Stop pulling when your own team is off the front." Le Duh. I just kept going to the front and making people go faster. I didn't want to roll along at a 17mph pace for 40 miles. At the end of lap 1 the gap was 20 seconds. Richard M and I went to the front and made it hurt. We went faster. Vaccuums tried blocking and parking. Some harsh words were exchanged at one point. End of lap 2 the time gap was 2 minutes and 20 seconds. WTF? Seriously. We put together a better effort but some people wouldn't pull, some teams wouldn't pull, and the race was falling apart in front of me. I got stressed out.

I overlapped wheels with a guy and almost went down but luckily didn't. Adrenaline junky. I kept wanting to go fast. I started bonking. One hour, 12 minutes with no food. SHEEEEEEEIT!!! I ate a gu. In retrospect I should have just eaten 2 at once and gotten it over with. I came back, but knew I wasn't going to to into the last lap fresh to sprint for 4th. There were guys missing from the race who I wanted to disappear. The field seemed to be slimming down. When certain guys were at the front it was a single file suffer fest. I was sitting off the back for a minute. I talked some mad crap to myself and closed the 3 bike length gap so I could draft to the hill. A few laps later, taking pulls each lap, I knew my matches were getting numbered. So I decided to burn 'em while I had 'em. When the 3 laps sign came out I knew I needed to keep all the team guys drafting. People didn't want to rotate through and let Murphy rest so I went from back and let him sit on my wheel for a while. One of the Circue Da Vaccuums popped out of the break away group and we swallowed him up. I put in a super hard launch at the beginning of the last lap to make the pace go up and then promptly popped. I lost the group as they went by and eventually pedaled in the last lap solo. This was similar to my hero effort I made at the Jackson race but this time it landed Richard Murphy on the podium. Was my work what did it? Not 100% but I feel like I did my part.

Ride to the Middle of Nowhere.

2011-06-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

Andrea told me to ride to the middle of nowhere as my ride plan for today. It was summed up like this "Ride to the middle of nowhere. Act like riding is your job tomorrow. Eat a big breakfast and plan to eat lunch on your ride." *Gulp* I was scared. She told me "Go to Arkansas" and I figured, ah what the heck, I have never ridden across state lines. Might as well get that knocked out tomorrow. I did some homework on google maps and realized I could easily ride backroads to West Memphis and hopefully find a good place to eat. I made a cue sheet, preloaded my jersey, and figured out how to carry three tubes in an Awesome Strap Race, and went to bed.

I woke up and felt like crap. I didn't really want to ride. I was whining. A whole lot. I decided to not ride. LOL jk jk. I realized it was hot, I need to get used to the heat. It was my day off. My jersey was loaded. All I had to do was get dressed and roll out the door. Seriously. I did.

My route took me through parts of Memphis I hadn't seen before and over the I-55 bridge on the sidewalk. Once over the river I became very confused by no trespassing signs, standing water, and an urge to generally be an idiot (which turned out pretty cool). I went the opposite way I was supposed to go, almost got stuck in some mud with my road tires and shoes. I felt silly. Riding a cross bike, in a road set up, when I very much needed cross stuff. Grrrrr. I rode around and realized things weren't adding up. It seemed this exit of I-55 was just to go to a chemical plant of some sort. The people at the Security Hut of Big Chemical Nasty Smelling Place had no information on how to help me find my way. I rode around a bit more, explored a gravel road, and then realized what may be going on. I used my iFun to pull up the map, and sure enough. The road I needed to take was underwater. But it was just in one spot. I leave my shade of the overpass and sprint back down to where I started. This water looks bad. But the road looks good afterwards. So I look around, find a spot that doesn't seem too deep and ratchet pedal across to keep my shoes dry.

The road was gravel. Deep gravel. I followed it until it was annoyingly deep, hard to ride, and generally more grrr. I really wanted cross tires. Or mountain tires. Or a baja truck. But not 700x23s with 100psi in them. The other problem was putting a carbon soled shoe on gravel is much like wearing white sneakers in winter. You are just asking for trouble. Rather than continuing to beat up my sorer-by-the-minute wrist and potentially fall, I rode out to the river, ate a bar, took a picture, and rode back to Memphis. The labor of keeping things upright on the gravel plus the fact I rode a good deal of stuff off the beaten path to not walk in my road shoes and slip and die equaled I was more tired than I realized.

I crossed into Memphis with 25 miles in me and decided to go to Shelby Forest. I could ride straight to the General Store, get a coldcut sandwich, and head out to the boat ramp before heading home. I was pooped by the time I got to the store. I ate a bologna and cheddar on wheat, drank a Coke and a Mountain Dew, and refilled all my bottles. I crept away from the store and worked on warming up slow to not leave lunch surprise in the side ditch. I eventaully ramped it up to a good steady effort, made the turn around at the river, and started back. I decided to ease up a bit before Jackson Hill in order to hit it fresh. I stayed in the saddle, recovered in the middle, and went over the top. I decided to put the spurs to it and see how long I could maintain a decent effort out the top and beyond. I kept rolling along, shifting, and bumping my heart rate up 2-3 beats. This went on for another 20 minutes. I finally popped, hung my head in shame, and faced the wind on the way back to Memphis.

I started hating life, running low on water, and generally sucking it up. I was having a hard time keeping the pedals turning and my head screwed on straight. I got some super skanky window waitress on Beale to fill up one of my bottles so I could make it home.

I rounded out the day with 2 states, 1 minor map mishap, 1 iPhone Maps save the day, some fun gravel, 1 hard effort that made me zapped, and 84 miles. Not shabby for a Tuesday.

I came home, made a recovery drink, started the bath, and hopped in. I drank my recovery drink and a bottle of water in the bath. I was hoping taking a cool shower would help stop any sunburn that was trying to finish set in, help me stop sweating (allowing my shower to be effective as well as rehydration to be more effective too), and relax. I shaved from neck to toes (just kidding. . . . I shave my toes). Then I took a quick, warm shower to knock the chill out.

My friend picked me up and we went to eat El Porton and catch up, but my stomach wasn't right so I barely ate. (For the record I am eating my leftovers now). When I came home I grabbed Marley and the long board and headed out for what could hopefully turn into our nightly shred session. He really enjoys running long with me while I scoot down the street.

Impassible Backwater? Merely a Puddle!

Wrong side of the river, still happy.

And the water said "Road be gone"

I put Marley away and needed to run to Walgreens for toothpaste and thread. I almost grabbed the bike. Blegh, no mas bicicleta. I thought about the Fucus. Really, drive less than 2 miles? No way. I took the long board. It took me 8 minutes to get there and probably 10-12 to get back. I didn't time my way back. I was only gone a total of 28 minutes though. The way back was a little more uphill and I just carried it part of the way. Still a blast, definitely way better tha driving the car. While I am terrible at efficiently going places or not looking dumb on it, I don't care. It's fun.

Time to Reflect

2011-06-06T19:17:00.000-07:00

I started working on bicycles a very long time ago. It all started like this: I was a kid whose dad was a carpenter. My dad literally could fix anything on your home. From the foundation to shingles and everything in between, he could fix it. My dad and my Papa actually owned a construction business, McCulley Construction.When they built the homes they would also build the cabinets that went in them. I stayed at home with my Granny before I was old enough to go to school. I learned to cook, how to be the #1 taste tester, and being a skinny ass kid I learned that trips to the grocery store in July means taking a jacket. After I started school my dad made my lunch every morning (my mom left a little earlier than my dad) and sucking all the air out of my ziploc with my sandwich. I would throw a fit saying "No Daddy, don't suck it, don't suck my sandwich". I never will remember why I thought it was bad he kept my sandwiches fresh.

As a 12 year old kid I remember helping dig the footing of a house in scorching heat making mad money for a kid my age. My dad would make me keep my shirt on so I wouldn't sunburn and wouldn't let me work too long. I would push mow and weed eat our 1 acre yard every week to keep the grass cut. If I needed to buy bike parts my parents NEVER bought them for me. My dad might have a brush pile that needed hauled off with the tractor, a truck to wash, a patio that needed swept out, or a big bucket of change that needed to be rolled in exchange for 1/2 the nickels. Always something. It was good. It was easy to appreciate my stuff because I got it. I never cried because my bike wasn't the newest and nicest and daddy didn't buy me nicer stuff. I knew a kid like that. I hated that kid. He was a punk. He still is. Racing bmx I always used affordable and durable stuff. I still have a pair of shoes I bought in July of 2003. I bought them a little big and they still fit today. I wear them on trips to Kroger and small stuff like that.

In high school I had a seasonal job working at a fireworks stand. My attention to detail, ability to sweat, and general attitude of "working when at work" made me a given hire every season. I had hours on the first day of cracking open the 18 wheeler trailer that served as our off season storage and always was around when the doors were locked for the last time of the season. I even did a summer season of pulling night shift security where I stayed there at night and gaurded the tent. It was an extremely profitable summer.

During high school I tried working in a kitchen but it didn't work out. The place was filthy, stinky, and just flat out gross. They always knew what part of the kitchen needed to be cleaned the most to pass health inspection. I remember I was the first person to clean the pizza oven in the 12 months they had been serving pizzas. I eventually quit. I started doing chores for pocket money til I graduated.

My first year of college I was a useless slouch. I didn't really work.

After my first year I went to see Hal on Highland about a used bike. I was interested in getting into road biking. I remember my first few rides being amazed that I could cover a great distance on the road with so little effort. I did a five mile road ride. I was super excited. I remember being giddy. My mom needed to run some errands in Memphis and I came out with her to get some new tires for my road bike. Mine were crap. I walked into Bikes Plus and they had a help needed sign. I told them my background, my understanding of bikes, and then I brought a resume back the next day. They hired me. It was all fun and great after that.

Steve, Glenn and Karen were really great at being nurturing and caring people. They worked around my school schedule, encouraged me to do well and helped me learn. Glenn taught me a ton about work, life, and showed me how easy it was to be happy being happy working on bikes.

I eventually moved over to RB's Cyclery to work with an awesome crew of guys. David Lyle taught me how to use a hammer to finish breaking broken crap so I could get on with fixing the bike. I remember the day he looked at me and said "I'm not showing you how to wrap bars again, you should know". Ten minutes later I had it figured out without using a crutch. David Evans showed me how to be a perfectionist. He wanted everything perfect every time. It was good. He taught me the way to glue tubulars, and appreciate gluing tubulars. To this day I have had a 100% success rate.We were rolling and kicking ass and taking AmEx. It was good. David Lyle helped place a displaced puppy who needed a good home. You all know him as Marley. I will always owe him a beer for hooking me up with who is now my best bud.

Things at RB's changed over time. For a short time Rod and I were in the shop, grinding it out everyday alone, making things happen. Sometimes we worked together, sometimes against one another. We were both passionate guys. We might gripe and bitch at each other for 10 minutes, then 20 minutes later be all cool and gravy again. Regardless of what anyone has ever said, will say, or thinks I loved working with Rod. We understood each other. Over time the Franklin shop got rolling and Rod moved away. Things didn't click like they did before and ultimately things worked out in what seemed like a crappy way. It was what it was, and things are working out now.

I had graduated and was sitting at the corner of "do I want to go to grad school" and "will working at a shop work out for me". I had only been single for 3 months, had no job, and no real ties to Memphis. It was a crazy time. I thought about packing my car with as much stuff as it would hold and running away to Colorado. I believed that I had a duty to Memphis. People always said that Memphis was a shitty place to live, shitty place to ride, shitty place to ___________. Well haters gonna hate and I thought I should stick around and try to become a banging mechanic here in town.

I started at Outdoors, Inc on January 3rd. I remember my first day of working being apprehensive about going to the new shop and trying to fit in. Its 5 months later and everyday I still feel the same. Sometimes I lose track of the fact that I am doing something that is really awesome. I work on bikes everyday. A friend put it into perspective that I am a pro mechanic. I am a mechanic. It is my profession. I am not doing this to pass the time til the next thing comes along. It is what I want to do. With that said I realized I needed to get my head wrapped around things correctly and try to make this fun like it should be.

I can remember one day being super pissed off because there was a ton of service on the schedule and the Union Ave store had flooded. Water seeped under the foundation on the bike shop side and it stunk. It stunk like we were a bike shop by day and a pasture for a huge herd of cats by night. I was showing our always on call handyman where the water was coming through and how there had been an excessive amount of leaves and trash between the parking lot and building in the drainage area where it seemed some homeless people had been hoarding stuff. I was walking up this ditch in pouring down rain and a baby bird landed on my foot, hopped around a bit, then fluttered off. That bird didn't give a shit if my shop was flooded, he didn't care if it was raining, if it was so windy that the trees were whipping around and creaking. He was being a bird. My foot was just there. He didn't have a breakdown over something as trivial as a pair of giants trampling through his home. Nope, because that's not how birds roll.

The next eye opening experience was Syllamo's Revenge weekend. I had 3 days in a row off to go race my bike with some really supportive and caring friends. The race weekend just worked out for me. I went really fast and had a great time. I had been getting faster at the encouragement and support of my friends. My parents didn't seem to freak out when I told them I wasn't going to pursue teaching at the current time, but just keep working in a bike shop. The day after the race I had a terrible time in the car on the way home. Sometimes after super hard training weekends I just feel like death in the car. It's not from the hangover, its different. My whole body revolts and hates me. Well we drove home and I took a recovery ride on my Schwinn fixed gear that has a slightly bent frame and no brakes. I was rolling down the greenline wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, cruising along just spinning and realized my rolling speed was amazing. I was cruising my fixed gear bike the same speed I would have been working to ride my geared cross bike with slicks 2 years prior. I had finally started working on being a better biker and it was paying off. I could do well in races.

I raced the Syllamo race on a demo bike from Outdoors, Inc. I have a pair of trail running shoes I got for a great deal with some hookup from the rep. A coworker traded a wheelset for a 12 pack of beer when I built my Schwinn. I have a network of great and supportive people to help me have fun in life.

Today I took home the demo longboard and taught Marley how to run beside me while I skateboard. It was super easy. He stepped under the wheel once and let his foot get ran over and then didn't get too close again.

This isn't intended to come across as a post that says I am freaking awesome. It's more of a way of saying where I have been, how I need to keep my act together, and make sure I keep enjoying myself and having fun doing something I happen to be halfway decent at.

Where am I headed? My short term plan is to keep doing what I'm doing. Riding my bike and trying to get faster, working with Outdoors, Inc bike shop to help it evolve, and having fun. Hopefully I'll keep having fun with what I am doing and will become a better, more proficient bike mechanic who can help the Memphis bike community ride bikes and have fun.

I have had a blast working in bike shops for the last 4 years, I hope to enjoy many more.

Not Wolverine, Not Spiderman. Just Matt.

2011-05-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

All the bar tape are belong to beavers.

We have enough tape, in enough styles and colors to meet the needs of anyone. Unless you want leather. In that case you would probably bitch about the near triple digit retail price and grumble about how 8 speed shifters are the best.

Almost doom for SuperFlossy 5k

I can't remember if I posted this one or not, but if this large tree had fallen another 25 yards south, the race couldn't have happened. It was really neat to see that the power ~~God~~ gravity at work that let's things like this happen.

The first shipment of Niner Bikes

I was standing in the D.C. talking with Joel about the ways to go with the launch party when suddenly there pretty red boxes in the bay, waiting to get tagged and sent to our various locations . . . like Union, Cordova, and my trunk. . . lol jk jk.

In really new news, I peeled and recovered a Fizik Arione Saddle on Thursday night. It had been an intense day, a full blown ball busting day of fixing bikes and making people happy. It ended with a 12 pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale being dropped off by an ever-so-lovely BPC lady. The extra treat was getting to work on her super boss bike and make her mind at ease.

I came home, ate a snack, drank a beer and decided to peel that foam and nonsense off. A trip to Michaels, some suede and glue, and 3 more beers later I had made a saddle recovered "Like a boss" but a friend told me it looked like a questionable pork chop in pictures. Is that a cop out? No. It's suede. Pics don't do it justice. You will see it in person if you come to watch cyclo crunk. Tomorrow morning I will ride it for the first time, just plastic and leather. Grundel Buster? Please. I hung my balls up over 2 years ago and haven't seen them since.

Pretty old picture of Marley

It's not a blog without some Gnar Mar action.

Avoiding Tornadoes.

2011-05-25T20:52:00.000-07:00

So the tornadoes tried to attack Memphis for the "too-many-eth" time tonight. I came home from work and chilled in my apartment, which is on the second floor, until the bad storm got close to my part of town. Marley and I then went and hung out in PetCo to be in a nice, solid, ground level building if doom and gloom did descend on the intersection of Orange Mound and The UofM. Disaster was avoided, I bought him a new rope toy that was on super closeout and a few dog treats from the dog treat buffet.

Atleast tomorrow has potential.

PS, while talking with an old friend on Facebook chat she said "you know i know this is off subject but i'm glad i'm not one of those people who don't have necks" So if you fall into that category, you are stuck ugly. Sorry for you.

And of course a little Marley in the blog because he is awesome. And cute.

Marley in bed.

Matt McCulley VS Syllamo Part 3

2011-05-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

Part 1 - Syllamo wins, I was totally broken for a few weeks after the race. I had never done anything like it and it took me forever to recover. Total time 7:47
Part 2 - Syllamo fought harder than me and still won. I ended up broken during the race and for about a week afterwards. Took 6:57 that year.
Part 3 - epicness ensued. I almost didn't get in to the race. I forgot about registration and Ryan and Andrea came to the rescue like usual. They have a sneaky way of finding stuff that I want that forces me into servitude of house sitting, cleaning gutters, washing bikes, all the normal stuff that guys my age are always ready to do for grilled chicken and PBR.
I knew from the beginning that I was going to do the 50 mile race. I had unfinished business with that race. I had a score to settle. I felt that I needed to go back and show that path over some hills who is boss. I stayed on the bike more than usual this winter but in my mind not nearly enough.

Real race rundown:
Friday I woke up at 4:00am in order to get my stuff packed, my apartment clean, and get to Ryan's house in order to get going to Arkansas. We make it through the flood zones of endless mosquito heaven without getting any diseases or having any trouble. Once there we poked around, messed with bikes, walked some dogs, and loaded up to go do a shake out ride. I had done some stupid tire choice in the week leading up to the race but it was all going to work out. My front tire choice #1 was misplaced somewhere in my 1000 square foot apartment? My rear tire idea of using something minimal in order to prevent mud clog kinda backfired.... (Nevegals and huge Conti MTN Kings are dumb. They are just super heavy slicks because they load with mud) The WTB Vulpine with side knobs and a center tread of file knobs was sorta dumb to bring. . . but I didn't want to buy any tires because I really didn't want anything in particular. Whatever. It was going to be a long day anyways. We went and cleaned up, got our race packets, and went to dinner. We tried to deliver some tires to Amanda Carey but it didn't work out. Went back to the cabin with my head feeling crazy and my stomach garbage. It was about the time I would normally be getting off work so I got Marley and went out for a long walk with him to try and clear my head. I told myself I had everything I needed to hit my target time, just needed to keep it cool and make it happen. Before bed everything was prepped, I stayed sober, and sleep came easy because I had been up since 4am.

Race morning was actually calm. I just woke up, coffee was already made, made breakfast. Ryan and I made it to the race in time to see Andrea start, which was pretty cool. I changed and got on my bike to start warming up. I think some guy thought I was retarded as I turned up the fire road climb on my SS, seated, with a Red Bull in one hand. I climbed about 50 yards up the road in order to remind myself of what it was going to be like and then turned back down towards the start. The pre race meeting was long, I never got fully warmed up and it cooled me down. I rolled to the start and some old guy with white hair looked at me on my SS, with Zebra print glasses, and started muttering. The firey 23 year old lashed out: "YEAH BUD, I am a huge idiot. Riding all these hills and slick rocks sucks on SS. In my 100 or so miles of preride it sucked but I figured I'd waste my time and race it anyways." The old guy gave a very uncomfortable chuckle and kept his dentures closed for the rest of the time we sat at the start. Once the race started it was awesome. I knew I wasn't warmed up so I hopped on a wheel on the pavement and just held on. A lot of the people who big ringed the pavement were going to be little ringing the climb. They would be going backwards as the climb hit the 2nd half. My plan worked. I sat on some guys wheel and just stared at his hub. His pink Chris King Hub. If I hadn't been dying I would have known it was a Memphis guy, Paul Hart. I pulled up beside him at some point and said "you are going a great pace, thanks for the wheel" and we realize we know each other. I watched a guy get off his bike, pick up his rear tire and pedal the bike so it would go to granny gear then get back on. I decided it was time to copy the Grizzlies and "Grit Grind SS." By the top of the climb I had gotten warmed up and was sitting on the back of the front group. I mean that as in the lump of people who had their act together and weren't racing to finish. Some guy flatted and split me off the group a bit. I caught back up with Paul and realized I was flatting too. Damn. Really? Shit. I passed one guy who was changing a flat and pulled over up the trail far enough to be out of talking distance and hit my tubeless with CO2. I heard it leaking. I let gravity and Stan's do what it could. I heard it seal the hole. Awesome. More CO2. I limp/hammer to the aid station 1

At aid station 1 I get my tire aired up with a floor pump to 30 psi. I pounded some PBJ and went out to destroy the green trail. Things were fun and awesome. When I came back by the aid to hit the orange people were cheering and it was good. I got pumped. Then things got dark. Really dark. The trail is relentless and my hand/wrist that I had sprained 8 days prior started to hurt. I was holding the bar crooked so I was twisting my back crooked. Back pain came at mile "Way too early". Then the dark thoughts came. The modified Grizz saying popped back in my head. Grit Grind SS. Blah no thats dumb. It takes hear to ride a SS, so I could Grit Grind Heart. But no. This race is an unforgiving and uncaring, heartless skank bag. I could quit, finish in 15 hours, whatever. It wouldn't care. It would still be sitting there. A stupid little hill with a path on it with a few pieces of gravel in there. I started giving myself post race crap talking I would hear if I didn't do well. Things like "I thought you rode more to get ready this year" or "I guess SS wasn't any faster huh bud?" or "Why bother trying to do a serious race when you won't bother to seriously train"

Huh, during this time my pace picked up, the sand fell out of my man-gina, and it was time to do work. I hit Aid #2 and began destroying myself. Andrea had told me to attack at Aid #2 and kill myself. I popped in and out with a number call out and PBJ stealing. I saw some people on geared bikes heading up the two track that leads to the real climbing. I put my head down, chewed my sandwich, and caught them. I passed them on the climb by not getting off the second time they wanted to hike a bike. I told myself it was my time to shine, drop those guys, and ride my own race. I did. It worked. A 19 year old and I rode together for a while but he was fitter than I and too chatty. I let him drop me so I could go back to doing my own thing.

Aid #3 had a customer standing in the parking lot, so I never unstraddled my bike. I just called out my number, 3 times, gradded a sandwich, told the volunteers they were awesome, and went out to kill the red trail and myself at the same time. I rode with the womens winner for a little while. No one was really passing me or anything on the red trail this year. Not huge packs of people passing me while I death marched. A guy caught me from behind and told me he was on pace to hit 5:45. I decided I would die trying to drop him in order to beat his pace. It worked. I crossed the line with a finish time of 5:37.

I feel like I am becoming a real biker finally, having enough fitness to put my body into the pain cave. Over the next few months I plan to really focus on getting ready for ORAMM 2011. Hopefully I will do well again this year, as the course seemed to suit me well.

Wooden Nickels, Athletic Tape, and Death Stares

2011-05-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

So fast forwarding through my week of stupidity that leads up to Syllamo as of Wednesday night. . .go!
Sprain my wrist being a 23 year old asshole. Get all super down, get talked shit to, realize I have no choice but to race and not be a total ninny. I am still planning to race the SIR9 and run it single speed but I added my suspension fork. I built a new wheelset and decided to race some tires I have never test ridden in the mountains also. I broke the top headset cup when I did a pre-race shakedown on the bike the other night. I jumped the from the street onto the grass over the curb and landed softly enough to not hurt my recently sprained wrist, but hard enough to shear the headset cup off the sleeve that inserts into the frame. WTF mate?

Tomorrow morning I am going to add the correct not-so-ninny-tastic gear for Syllamo's Revenge 50 miler, ride it a minute, and use my awesome new toaster oven to make breakfast for myself and the hooker that just showed up at my place. More realistically I will fix the bike, ride the bike, and share my breakfast not with a nonexistent lady of the evening, but with gnarly marley who is so cute.

I got an unwarranted death stare this week from a customer. I am being vague for job security. Let's say don't start no shit won't be no shit.

I plan to race hard enough this weekend that I don't even want to get drunk. Also, looking to set a course PR and not have an ounce of energy left in my body in order to raise a beer to my lips.

Next week I plan to come home, build my Felt as a 1x9 for more fun riding to/from the trails in town than spinning like stupid on the SS on the road, and selling a couple of nice road bikes that are small enough to fit the average sized guy (54cm stuff).

Sorry that I am slacking on my picture game. I have been doing other things than uploading pictures. Like not uploading pictures. I don't have the equipment to take awesome pictures but I haven't even taken any cool ones lately.

Need anything else? Didn't think so.

Health & Fitness Weekend Warrior

2011-05-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

Name: Matt McCulley

Age: 23

Occupation: Outdoors Inc. Bike Mechanic

Sport: Cycling with a focus on endurance mountain biking and cyclocross

Family: A 3 year old Jack Russell Terrier – Marley.

Recent Events: Super Flossy 5000 – which was a 50 mile road race with about 12 miles of gravel.

Fav Accomplishment: Racing Off Road Assault at Mount Mitchell (ORAMM) in 2010. It is 62 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing. I hit my target time and felt good at the end.

Why Biking: I was never into ball sports when I was a kid. I raced BMX from age 11-17. At 19 I missed being on a bike and got into bikes that are intended to go further and faster.

Likes: Going fast, riding with the Marx and Bensdorf/BPC team, going out on a solo ride to Shelby Forest on my weekday off and getting some brownies from the Shelby Forest General Store as a mid-ride snack. Simple stuff.

Dislikes: Cold weather – I am way too skinny to deal with that, flat tires, when people act like people in spandex have a contagious disease.

Motivation: Hands down my number one motivator is Andrea Wilson. She will call me out when I am being lazy and talks down to me like I am stupid. Then I have to buck up and prove her wrong. Her encouragement led to my joining of Build, Peak, Compete –which is the subsidiary team of the elite road team Marx and Bensdorf. Any time I ride with the team I have to work extra hard just to keep up.

Obstacles: My biggest obstacle is a general lack of structure that is caused by my laziness. I struggle to keep focus in order to train consistently.

Upcoming: I will race Syllamo’s Revenge and later this summer race ORAMM along with a few other mountain and road events.

Tips: Always have fun. I ride to have fun and keep myself sane.

Where do you train: I really just train by road riding in Memphis. Occasionally I head to Arkansas to ride some big hills and rocks.

Nutrition: A bagel sandwich made with eggs, cheese, cream cheese, and hot sauce for breakfast. On the bike I eat Honey Stinger Waffles, Clif Bars, and Gu.

Fav Restaurant: R.P. Tracks, hands down. I can walk over from my apartment and eat anything on the menu with sweet potato fries on the side and a couple of beers – perfect. It’s all delicious, everytime.

Fav Retail Store: Outdoors Inc? Okay, somewhere I don’t work : Lowe’s. They sell all the tools and stuff that aren’t bike specific that mechanics love.

Gear: Niner S.I.R. 9 bike – I have the luxury of riding one of those this season for my mountain bike racing. I like Camelbak products for hydration. Fi’zi:k Saddles have worked well for me for the last 18 months or so. Giro Helmets fit my head really well and the Ionos is really well ventilated and comfortable for the 7-8 hour days on the bike. Swiftwick Socks are my go-to socks for everyday use on and off the bike. Shimano shoes work great also. I can’t wait until I have my own Stan’s No Tubes wheelset to ride – I have been borrowing a friends extra set for big weekends.

Drive: A 2002 Ford Focus Hatchback with a Thule roof rack to haul my bikes, but lately I have been riding a Schwinn Traveller nearly as old as me to work 4 days a week.

Music: I definitely listen to music on solo rides. I am a huge fan of Memphis rap, so I keep Three 6 Mafia, Project Pat and Lil Wyte on my iPhone.

One Thing You May Not Know About Me: I have one pair of toes that are webbed….but sadly no I don’t swim any faster.

Vices: After a ride there is nothing as refreshing as baking a two Totinos Party Pizzas and drinking a few Miller Lites.

Quotes: A friend of mine told me “Teach people until there isn’t an I don’t know how and you will be left with I don’t want to.” I use that philosophy every day.

That was the whole interview. You can catch what was published in Memphis Health and Fitness along with a sweet photo that was taken by Chris Fitzgerald of cultnoir.com

Tiger Lane Crit

2011-05-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

Good Racing, Bad Glasses.

I worked a half day Tuesday and Wednesday. This meant I had lots of time to get ready to go to the crit and race hard. It worked out pretty well for all but a little bit.

Monday I had done some 10 minute intervals on the trainer and my warmup had felt sorta off and hard. I did sweat more than any boy should sweat before 7am but in the long run it was all good. Tuesday afternoon I went out on the bike to try and get another short hard ride in. I left the house and wandered to Mud Island in order to do some 3 minute intervals. My plan was to do my intervals into the headwind and my recoveries back down the other direction. It worked out pretty well. . . . except that I had to pass two cars. Everyone was driving slow and stupid and looking at the Mighty Mississipi. Those with faint hearts, skip this next part.

I was doing my on interval and going about 25mph up the island. The Toyota Corolla in front of me at 18mph was obviously a problem. So I passed him and hammered up the road because it was all clear in front of him. Well dipshit feels he needs to pass me back out of spite only to get about 2 more car lengths up the road. I didn't flip him off, I didn't chase him after my interval was over. But that guy is a dick. And Karma exists.

Tangent over.

Tiger Lane Crit. I rode over to start my warm up, signed in, and got going. I did the trade pinning numbers on with Frank, petted his dog a bit, and then finished warming up. The Cat 5 race had tons of Circles and Red Ants with 2 BPC guys including myself. Richard and I were hanging around waiting for the second half of the race to start getting down. I noticed when we were at 12 minutes in an started moving up hard. I had been staying near the front half but at this point I decided to get on the front. I never hit the front, but kept trying to find wheels to ride. I ended up being 2nd wheel with 2 laps to go. 4-5 wheel with one lap to go. Last time we went into the headwind and hammered it was just a tiny bit more than I could do and instantly got popped.

Moral of the story? Riding once a week ain't gonna cut it.

Beer was drank, ugly sunglasses were worn. Went to The Deli and continued drinking.

Less Charlie Sheen, More Photos

2011-04-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

I love gluing tubular tires.

Marley is cute like always.

Even Marley knows cancer sucks.

You don't find rocks in Memphis.

Or waterfalls.

Thanks to Cara Notestine for the shirt.

I finally have home internet so I feel like I will be able to set up a better system and get some blog regularity back. Until then settle for the much classier Rich Dillen with his custom bikes and home-made sleeveless jerseys or check out Andrea's blog where you can find stories about how she is super tough bad ass shit and totally rad.

Story To Tell

2011-03-29T11:20:00.000-07:00

First and Firstly, I was going to add a bunch of pictures, but my camera is momentarily MIA. Fiddlesticks.

I haven’t been updating my blog because I have been super busy. I grew some facial hair that didn’t get the seal of approval, I made some poor choices, made some good choices, glued more tubulars (again, one of my favorite things to do in the bike shop), fixed bikes, destroyed some bike wheels (link to andreas blog) made some people pretty mad, did some foolish things that turned out to make me super happy, started commuting by bike, pretty much quit training and decided to ride for fun, set my goals high for an upcoming race (I know it doesn’t make sense but I felt a mid-season implosion coming on), worked some inventory days at Union and Cordova, rode my bike, and wrote some ridiculously long run on sentences.

Also I do not have the internet at home, so my slightly updated plan is to write my blog in the comfort of my living room while playing fetch with my awesome Marley. There is a Starbucks on my way to work at Union and I can stop in with my sweet fixie on the patio, pull out my netbook, text on my iPhone, and drink my own coffee from my Stanley Thermos. And I ride past Urban Outfitters on my way in. I’M SOOO HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP!!!!!!!!

So my neck beard did not get the seal of approval from a certain someone who I made mad. People learn from one another and sometimes grow apart. I’m sorry for whatever and everything.

Fast forward to March, Mustache March to be exact, and I decided I would bring back my necky as an attempt to fit in at work. I was feeling insecure with my lack of facial follicle sprouts. Fast forward to a couple of weeks later and I decided to not shave my neck beard until after Syllamos Revenge. I am still racing the 50 miler. The person who was willing to switch with me received notice he was accepted to Leadville. While I could probably still switch with someone and get into the 125K, I am attacking from the line and not letting up until I see some lower numbers on the time board at the finish. Nutrition and fitness are the best that they have ever been. With a possible recon ride on the schedule for next month, along with a road race in Jackson, TN and some serious miles planned to be logged I feel like I can achieve my goal. I am also in the neighborhood of 90 miles there so far for the year, with hopefully over 60 this coming trip, I am going to have a better knowledge of the trail system.

I know I am going to race single speed. I know I am going to race it on the SIR9. I need a bike that is dependably SS and has no parts to rip off. I have not decided whether or not to race rigid. I have a Reba I could slap on the bike and make it all soff and fast downhill. I just don’t know at this point. I plan to take the SIR9 rigid and see how all that suspension corrected and sexy painted to match steel rides on the ripping fast decents. Also the bike matches the Outdoors kit. I plan to race in my BPC kit, it has done me well so far. But we now have socks from Swiftwick with the beaver logo on the back of the ankle. Those are coming with me for sure. I just wish the beaver was holding a baseball bat. For the fear factor.

I have been working on my general life skills of being an adult and paying my bills, not being a drunkard, not missing work, and being an overall responsible young lad. The cool part is in the long run it seems like being 23 and responsible is way more fun that ending up 30 and being an irresponsible and generally annoying human being. Yes I am stepping on toes. My dad has a great phrase for everything. When someone steps on his foot and apologizes he will laugh and tell them “It’s ok, I’ll walk on the bottoms and you walk on the tops.” What I’m saying is my dad absolutely kicks ass and also, he is so tough bear grills* wouldn’t fuck with him. My dad is coming up again.

In the same vein of being an acceptable human being, I have decided to no longer be a giant douche and make other people all pissy just because my life is momentarily all pissy.

Certain other aspects of my life have been extra difficult lately. I have been fighting with the fact that sometimes other human beings just generally suck. And by sometimes I mean most of the time. So I have decided that I will have to accept this fact and just suck it up. So I have been. It has spilled over and I have been doing less well in other areas, hence the lack of dedication to the bike and other areas of life, such as general tidiness of my apartment. Imagine a bachelor pad. Make it less gross, but just untidy. Boom, Winning, you blinked and in a nanosecond you were inside my apartment. And you saw me typing this blog. Naked. Yeah. You just pictured me naked.

I got to trouble shoot a pretty cool problem at work the other day and it made me happy once I realized the correct way to fix it. I was all excited that I figured out a problem of incompatibility between two expensive and separately designed items. *

Quite the contrary I had a new-clear meltdown over a seemingly trivial thing that same day. Sad panda.

I have been riding mainly single speed, and I have only ridden a geared mountain bike once all year and not even on the trail. I like single speeding it. It is fun, hard, and way gnar. I used it to commute to Cordova the other day with the intention of leaving early and raging some Wolf River Trails on the way home with and exceptionally heavy TimBuk2 bag on my shoulder. Alas I was not able to leave early as the day was as hectic as it was long. On a lighter note I was able to stack big faced washingtons and have enough fun with a set of cruiser fenders to make your brain bleed. On the way home I had my very first commuter battle. I was heading south, a dude on a road bike was heading north. He turned west on the side street. I new I was turning west, but he had a 100 yard lead + 5-10 seconds. I was stuck just up from the street at a light. Light turned green and it was on….I hammered the SS mountain until I thought I was going to die and when I finally caught him (which was way harder than I thought) I rang my bell at him, threw my hand signal, and imploded as I turned south again. It was all on my usual ride home. He didn’t know I didn’t have gears. I knew. My heart rate knew. Spinning the mountain tires with 30psi at WFO* is no easy task. I need more practice like that. So I have been doing that type of thing. 1 minute SS sprints. Ow.

I am not Dickey, I haven’t gotten any new custom bikes to show you. I haven’t sold my car. I haven’t bitched about my bike being heavy while I pound carbo loaded beer and eat Peanut M&M’s. So what I don’t get is why Dickey would drive to a race out of town and waste all of this whole weekend, but somehow claim he didn’t have time to dial in his setup and change tires etc etc etc. Seriously? You have time to race but not time to get ready to race? Unprofessional professional cyclist for sure.

Charlie Sheen might be nearly done going bat shit crazy, but the jokes stemming from him are far from over. I was doing a check with the other store on the phone. I was on hold and my fellow employee comes back on and says “Sorry we didn’t have that” and I told them “boom, losing” in a very quiet and monotone voice. It was pretty awesome. So right now, this whole paragraph is losing. Yeah, losing. If I had known how much it would have sucked before I started writing it I wouldn’t have bothered, but now it’s like a train wreck I can’t look away from.

So I have rambled on about some things that will be going on in the near future, happened in the recent past, and what not. I said my dad would make another appearance, Now enter Johnny – my dad has another saying that always sticks in my head and I am forced to think of from time to time “That shit don’t flush” I mean think that over. What is worse that a nasty sit down session? Plunging it. No one wants to plunge. My dad also used to be a fur trapper. He would trap mink, otter, beaver, skunk, anything in order to sell the hide to a man with a tannery and earn extra income. He said once he skinned a beaver that had been in a kill trap, underwater. This beaver had been underwater for at the least 2-3 hours, at the most 12ish hours (he ran his traps morning and night). When he skinned it he found fleas living on the beaver. The hair/fur of a beaver is so oily it is water tight at the surface of the skin. The beaver’s skin is never actually in contact with the water which is a great way to stay warm. But think of the fleas. Life doesn’t seem too bad now does it?
If you clicked the beaver link, you just found the new, more annoying rick roll. Get on it.

*’s #1 – Who would take deodorant advice from a dude who drinks his own piss. Is degree’s motto “such a cover-up, you can’t tell this dude drinks his own piss!

#2 Yes, yes indeed I was tooting my own horn.

#3 Wide Fucking Open. Best when used with modes of transport with wheels and mechanical advantage such as cars, atvs, bikes, or gas powered scooters. If on foot a more applicable phrase would be “Running so fast you could only see asses and elbows”

Just wrote a blog, it got lost in the interwebz.

2011-03-13T07:48:00.000-07:00

Damn.
I'm sad.

Omelette destroyed.
Dogs pottied.
Marley attacked by kitten.
Coffee pounded.

Word.

The sun is shining, get off the web and in the great outdoors.

Busy Beavers

2011-02-22T16:37:00.000-08:00

The beavers have been busy. Very Busy.
We are building some new stuff to make our lodge cozier, i have been glueing tubulars like things are going out of style. I love to glue tubulars. I think it is just wonderful.

We had an intern at work for a few days and it was a fun time.

I made lots of stuff happen. Like bikes got fixed, floors got swept, jokes were made. Everyone laughed.
All in all things are going good.
I am working on getting more technologically attached and making this whole update thing happen more often.

Also I stumbled upon a new-to-me but not new at all bicycle that I have started parting together today.

Looking forward to this weekend I am going to race my first road race-Super Flossy, I raced a training crit once and didn't last long. Hoping this weekend goes better for me.

Monday my cross bike will be for sale.
If you are a big tall boy and interested, let me know.
Will include bike, bike fit, road tires, cross tires, and a garmin edge 205 bike computer. $1000.

No I am not selling my bike because I think that this weekend will destroy. I want to sell my bike but I do not wish to sell my cross bike and not have it in order to road race this weekend.

You may ask why I am selling my cross bike? I will give some question/answer scenarios.
-Is there something wrong with it? No the bike is great. It is good, straight, and fast. It has podiumed races. It has been on a solo 105 mile road ride. It will paceline at 35 mph on pavement.
-Do you not like it? - I love it, as a cross bike.
-What do you mean though. . .as a cross bike? Well cross season is about 6 months away. Why sit on this cross bike and try to road race it all year when I can sell it now, buy a road bike to road race now. Save money and buy a cross bike to race cross on later in the year.
-What happens if you dont save up to buy a cross bike, I thought you liked cross? The Surly is a constant in my quiver o' bikes. I'll be racing on single speed steel if I don't keep my finances in line.

What happened to me?

2011-02-08T16:16:00.000-08:00

I have been riding, working, having loads of fun working at Outdoors, and having way too much fun. I can only recap back a week because things have been rough/busy/and pretty blurry around the edges.

Monday - went to work, a cute chick with loads of peircings tips me for working on her bike so fast. She had said she needed it to ride to school that night. I knew if I didn't fix her brake she was going to keep riding without a brakes. I couldn't deal with that. After work me and Charles go to Celtic and use a "4 free pints" coupon the owner gave us for working on his bike and the tip from brakeless chick to have some fun. We proceed home to get down some more and then cut Charles's hair. It was awesome.
Tuesday - must not have been too exciting because I don't remember.
Wednesday - worked then went to Charles's apartment and hung out and watched some shred gnar bmx movies.
Thursday - holy shit. Birthday. Went to work. Went home. Went to RP Tracks. There were Ryan, Andrea, Micheal, Ryan Phillips, Jay Phillips, Charles, Katherine, Matt Robins, Graham, Kyle, Steve, and Alex there. It was sort of a rotating crowd as some people showed and left before others showed up. To RP Tracks, Micheal, and Steve - birthday shots are evil and delicious. I felt as if the tabs were getting big enough and said lets giddy up and go to my apartment. No one died, threw up, or punched holes in my walls. I'd say it was a successful birthday.
Friday - Day off to go to Nashville for team training camp. Ryan and I decided to go the next morning and save the money. I went to work and washed canoes. Went to No Regrets and got my ears bigger-tized.
Saturday - Woke up, went to Ryans, drove to Nashville, saw RB's up there, went to the hotel, checked in, changed, rode 60 miles in the coldy windy crap. Showered, went to dinner, had team meeting, went to bed. Slept 5 hours.
Sunday - woke up, ate breakfast, contemplated dying, rode 60 miles, showered, ate lunch, drove home.
Monday - worked and went home. Got some laundry detergent.
Tuesday - day off. Woke up, breakfast, laundry, sewed a patch to my Timbuk2 bag, dishes, washed my sheets, rode the rollers and was in the process of melting my eyes out when I realized my "pieces parts" were unresponsive to stimuli (my junk had fallen asleep from hammering in the saddle for 45 minutes in the drops). Cut the workout short, cooled off and decided to take a short run. Came home from that and walked the dog. Did some more chores, folded some clothes. Made the bed. Washed some bikes at the car wash, put new brake pads on my cross bike, and hung up some posters in the bike room. Now I am writing a blog and its not even 6:30 pm yet. All in all been a good day.
Tomorrow I have to go to a bike shop meeting at 8:30 am and get my meeting on.

I suck at updating.

2011-01-25T19:49:00.000-08:00

Snow Day, Walnut Grove Ice Sheet

Sad Panda, Why no parts on frame?

Holy Seven Bikeman!

Happy Mechanic

Arkansas Trip Started Right

Driving with just me to come home early.

Booze, Bikes, and Mountains. Recipe for a good weekend.

Focus full o' Seven for good gas mileage. 26mpg on the trip out

Big, Stiff, Rideable and Writeable. Air Nine Carbon

Livingstong Creek hike at the end of the weekend.

Feet are cold.

So things are going.
Keep it classy.

Snow Ride, 2011.

2011-01-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

Excited for snow in Memphis

First person to hit the bridge after the snow started.

Back by campus, feeling frosty.

Icy eyebrows, how does that work?

It was fun, I wore a lot of clothes and had a great time. The Surly with 700x40c tires worked great and the gearing was just enough to keep the intensity up so I didn't freeze. I love steel. On to my next post then.

2010 ended with a ruh roh.

2011-01-09T13:19:00.000-08:00

So it's simple. What the beginning of the year looked like, what the end looked like.

Had a girlfriend living with me, single.
Had a job that I was kicking ass at, unemployed.
Was weak and looking to race, still weaking and looking to race.
Was a college student, graduated.

So about the unemployed part.
I ended up having a few days of paid leave from my employer. At that time I did everything I could to not go absolutely crazy. I tried to make myself busy. I even spent a few days in Syllamo, as I had already planned to ring in the new year all anaerobic and stuff. Fun times.

I am now employed at Outdoors Inc, if anyone is missing me, looking for me, wishing to deliver alcoholic beverages for my consumption you can find me there. I am currently working at both the Union and G'town Road locations. Not at the same time. I'm not that awesome.

I get to wear a shirt to work everyday with a beaver printed on it.
Snicker.
I said beaver.

More to come later. I am going to get some stuff done. I have been busy, still am busy, and still have no interwebz in mi casa.

Month long update.

2010-12-24T09:30:00.000-08:00

I have been busy. Real busy. I quit blogging for this month so I could focus on getting this done. I wrote more papers, read more crap, walked more puppy, built more bikes, and did all sorts of stuff in the last month of school than I really felt good about. I was really worried I had botched up the last semester of school but it turned out that it was all good. Four A's. I don't even mind that two had the little pesky - after them.

I didn't actually go to graduation. Stock photo it is.

So after I did that I decided I would do something like this. Woo big fun huh? Yeah, actually it was. It was really delicious. Then I went home SAC decided she wanted to bring me this:

6 days and 5 movies later, it was gone.

There was a balloon also, but it didn't make it to the photo gallery.

I went to Starry Nights. Yes, you can dig into my past where when I first started blogging I said I thought it was stupid, wasteful, and ruined the daytime look of the park. While I still hold those beliefs, I grinned like a sugar filled 5 year old when the shark chased the fish, all in led lights. It was fun, like usual I was cold.

Another amazing thing was my ride to SAC's house on the way to Starry Nights. I was riding my mountain bike and was cruising along. "gah, ~~road bikes~~ cross bikes with road tires are way faster than mountain bikes" fast forward a bit " I thought I locked my fork out, what a squishy mess" then the ~~shit hit the fan~~ rim hit the road. It wasn't that bad, it was more like "man this thing is going flat, I'm almost to her house, maybe I can limp there and change it using a pump and be indoors too." I rolled up to her house on the rim. I had been real careful to not turn on it or be stupid. I grabbed her pump, aired it up to 40 to see if I could find the hole (tubeless set up). No luck. I haven't put Stan's in this wheel since before ORAMM. I haven't really ridden it since then either. It held air. I rode 25 miles and it was peachy. I squeezed it this morning and it was still holding air. WTF? who knew. Maybe tubeless isn't so bad. . .

I want to build my next wheelset with Stan's rims so I can get a good set up going and make the stuff work right. My rear tire didn't want to be tubeless and it was a fiasco before ORAMM. I just haven't bothered to put the time into it to make it bareback... Even after my incident where I nailed it with a LARM on the unfinished greenline and triple flatted. Yeah I said triple flatted. Flat, hole in spare, broken valve stem on patched spare.

Since school is over I have done a good bit of lounging and relaxing. My best bud Marley has been helping with that.

I have been working a good bit and trying to get the shop whipped into shape for some serious service and sales. New guy Todd has been working out real well and he is a good guy. I have been teaching him the way of the RB and he is picking it up. Before you know it he will be a tri-bike cabling, wheel truing, beast. Like now.

RB's Nashville is open. 615-567-6633
Hit them up. They can hook you up.

Highway to the friend zone.

pictures.

2010-12-03T09:25:00.000-08:00

self portrait, while riding the rollers

McEwen podium

McEwen Booty

Fuck You, Cancer

My quiver of cross. Snicker. I said quiver.

Toes, and bb30 adapter.

ASSphaltech.

Black Friday, Greenline cruising.

Not too many people, guess everyone's shopping

Soggy day of errands comes to an end.

preparing for hair removal therapy.

proof of my "sickliness"

71 page document needs bound? Zip tie that shit.

how I feel about the last 10 days of school.

How sweets ruined the world.

2010-11-28T17:20:00.000-08:00

Wednesday
I got to ride Thanksgiving Eve in shorts and a jersey. It was so nice. Ryan came by my apartment after work and we proceeded to ride from my apartment on the mountain bikes. It was fun. We rode through campus, which unfortunately did not have any eye candy to view. . . bummer. I set up a bell for our greenway adventures and placed the striker in front of my big ring shift lever. I told Ryan it was a warning. If the bell chimes and no one is around its hammer time. We rode to G-town road and headed back, all reversing it. Afterwards Andrea joined us for beer and food at RP Tracks. It was good. I had chicken and bacon and sweet potatoe fries. Sweet Sweet Jesus. I came home and played with the Marley and decided to watch Fight Club, one of my favorite movies. I am Jack.

Thursday
I woke up Thanksgiving morning with no real structure and no real plan for the day. I baked muffins. We went to the dog park and played. I cleaned my car out/took the CarMax sticker off/sewed a button the seatbelt so the buckle doesn't go into the deep dark crevice between the seat and door. I also scrubbed all the hard interiors panels that had been becoming greasy from 13 months of leaving the bike shop and driving home without properly scrubbing from the elbow down. I even took a bucket of water and cleaned up my rims so my ride looks fly (in my opinion, brake dust covered rims is equal to helmet straps over sunglasses - completley un-fucking-acceptable). I rode the trainer as it poured down rain. I watched some of the 06 Paris-Roubaix. Afterwards I did some sweaty push-ups and sit-ups and Marley helped dry me off. . . with his tongue. . . Thanks bud. I shaved my head and face, showered, and went to eat Ryan and Andrea's Thanksgiving awesomeness. After that Ryan hooked me up with a Hoover vacuum so old it has a "shag" setting (just like your mom, but she's stuck in shag-mode, just ask the whole neighborhood) and a box of glasses and kitchen mugs. Having friends rocks. We do things for each other. Like they give me crap they would Goodwill but I need in my apartment. I went home, kicked the dog and cleaned up my trainer mess.

Friday
I went to Outdoors on G-town road and Jack-ed (similar to ice, but with a Jack Daniels Down Home Punch) Andrea. Then I gave them some muffins and went home. I lazed around the rest of the day and then later went grocery shopping. Nothing too exciting, nothing too crazy.

Saturday
Went to work and tried to straight hussle all day and make some mad money. Or something like that. I went to my sisters after work and stayed there in preparation for our Sunday of Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Helped her unpack her Christmas stuff, sorta.

Sunday
very short bike ride, too much food, and getting tired of typing this post.
Pictures tomorrow maybe.

ps, my blog title is a lie. I love cake like this guy loves cheezeburgerz

Short and Sweet.

2010-11-24T09:24:00.000-08:00

Something this blog will be and I'm not. (oh snap).

So I have class starting in 20 minutes and after that I am on Thanksgiving Break. I am not working again until Saturday. What does that mean for yall? Nothing, I won't blog anymore than usual. For me it means that I am riding this afternoon with roadcx.net on the mountain bikes. After that we plan to drink beer and be slightly rowdy? Maybe.
My mom came down with a virus so we moved backThanksgiving til Sunday so the grandparents don't get sick. Wooooohooo. What does that mean for me? I get to spend all day riding the bike and playing with the pup and all that happy stuff. I have planned to eat dinner with my adoptive parents from brickhgouseracing.com and roadcx.net. Marley will get to meet Thor, the cutest kitten ever. Hopefully the result of so much cuteness won't result in an explosion.
Friday is supposed to be cold in the morning and there is a ride leaving from rbscyclery.com at 8am. Hopefully I will make that and it will be fun. I plan to work a bit on Friday even though the shop will be closed because I need to make some peoples bikes awesome, and I'd like to make some big faced hundreds.
Saturday will be work with a bit of BS-ing mixed in. If you wanted to drop by the shop with leftovers I would be stoked. Remember, at this point when you are getting tired of leftovers I'll still be 24 hours from Thanksgiving dinner.
Sunday I planned my family's dinner around my ability to ride Outdoors that morning. Bitching huh?
Monday school starts back up and things keep rolling.

Bring your big boy britches. . .

2010-11-23T17:59:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to let yall know this is what I'm doing tonight. Reading a book. <------ don't click right there if your ears catch on fire when certain letters are arranged in certain ways. Those words rhyme with things you will be eating soon. Like ham, possibly duck, and the strange cod-ham. There may be others. I am not sure.
Happy Tuesday everyone.

My Fever Finally Broke

2010-11-18T08:31:00.000-08:00

The cross hoss fever finally broke. And yes, it is very similar to this, but not similar to this at all. I don't know if you can call it a season of cross, but it was a total of 7 races.

I raced the Crunk series like I did last year and had a great time. The first race was good on the geared bike. The next two I did SS and a guy was sorta sad when he realized post race it took him a few laps to pass me, not lap me. I started to get some confidence in my riding ability at this point. I decided to race both days of Spooky Cross and found myself podiuming both days. OK at this point I feel good. I have been riding and it is sorta paying off. Go to McEwen and win. Note to self: ride all winter you spineless terd, keep getting better.

I race the Outdoors race and was happy/pissed at myself. I didn't warm up enough. I should have been sweating at the starting line. John King, MB team rider, who I had been able to shake off my wheel at every race, made me look like I was riding with a brick dragging behind me. He gapped me and I could never get him back. I finally got warmed up or comfortable being uncomfortable and put my head to work. Ben Knoerschild from MB was on a borrowed bike and he found me. We rode together for a while and his fitness is superior, my abilities are superior. Eventually I ended up riding alone to an overall 4th in the B race with 3rd in CX4.

Now I will turn my attention first and foremost to graduating. (see how little attention this gets. This little.)

Next year is going to be a year to kick ass and make people bleed from their eyes.

SouthernX
Rouge-Roubaix
Spa-City 6 Hour
Ouchita Challenge
Syllamos Revenge
Cohutta 100 (yes I'm gonna pony up.)
Memphis Omnium

I also want to try and spend a week in CO chilling out, riding hard, maybe hiking up to a point where my lungs feel as if they will collapse.

What else should I do, all 5 people who read this?

credit: Super Awesome Courtney

Mas Cowbell

2010-11-12T09:15:00.000-08:00

Mas Cowbell. No Mass Comida Mexicana.

I haven’t been posting. Sorry. View RoadCX.net, BrickhouseRacing.com, or Teamdicky.blogspot.com if you need more continual updates. I have been busy racing ‘cross without cross dressing, reading ‘til my eyes melt, cutting my own hair to keep up the Holocaust victim/convict simple haircut, building new Felt F15X frames from the warranty department of Felt Bikes, eating salad, typing papers, installing FSA shallow drop road bars on SAC’s bike, brushing dog teeth, working at the bike store not gluing tubulars (I love gluing tubs on) and searching for new lamps. Add into the mix daylight savings time change and I have been zonking out at record early times all week.

McEwen Cyclocross went down at Pace’s Cog Farm this last weekend. RoadCX.net blogger Ryan Bosio told me to STFU, HTFU, and get to the choppa because I was going whether or not my college budget said it fit or not. This proved to be an awesome decision on his part. The MB-BPC team party was the night before so I showed up after work, drank a little, talked some serious bullshine, and tried to explain to one of my former profs and now teammates that I had trumped Zeno’s Paradox of motion. She squashed that pretty quick. But it was all in good philosophical babble fueled by booze. I went home and packed, and headed to The Bosio Compound. I dove into the upstairs bed, tried to sleep, and wanted to strangle the pup for wanting to make friends with the kitty all night. On the way to the race I wasn’t feeling it. Pity Party Supreme. Ryan was feeling a little boozed from the night before but oh well, we were going make it. We arrived and I started warming up and realized this awesome log at the bottom of the hill was something that I HAD to hop. It was too far up the hill to mount at the top and I didn’t feel like getting on in the middle of the hill because the possibility of a stall/redismount seemed likely. I tried hopping it, it worked. I wasn’t convinced it was faster but thought it would be easier/more consistent at least.

Bang the gun goes off. I am sitting in 4th at the first turn and 2nd hits the deck, 3rd gets caught in traffic. Awesome I’m 2nd. Powery grass section, I’m in 4th again. Get to awesome log and 1st causes traffic, 2nd gets caught in traffic, 3rd slows to a crawl to dismount. I hopped it, hammered the hill, came out of the woods anaerobic and bleeding from my eyes with a 8-10 second gap on 2nd. I decide to live in my glory while it lasts – read as continue bleeding from the eyes. The chase group was big but not a unit, it was 5 laps of them slowly trying to reel me in through the grass sections with me gapping them at every dismount and tech feature. The log really helped my lead on every lap and I rode in to my first win on real bikes. I won a 2300g wheelset, a drawstring backpack, and Travis Werts of Sugoi clothing gave me a really cool beanie. Stoked.

I get home to an apartment that now belongs to me and my pooch, Marley. I spend the week trying to get things arranged and settled in with my newly acquired closet and bathroom space. Like I mentioned earlier I was also reading ‘til my eyes melted and typing papers etc. this week.

The Felt Warranty Cross frame with all of its BB30, anodized, better brake routing badassness showed and get built with the use of a Wheels Manufacturing BB30 to Shimango (imagine a mango that is equipped with built in electronic peeler, so those peels come off so much faster) adapter. That thing works trick. I rode it on the road on Tuesday morning. Mechanical problem, no multi tool. WTF. I fixed it after class and went and rode it. Those wheels are slow. They are great trainers though. They make the hills harder. At first I thought I was suffering from Dead Legs and pedaling squares but then I realized my wheels are nearly 1.5 lbs heavier. That is like putting a big burrito on each wheel, but far less tasty.

I rode the trainer this morning and the only thing that saved me from stabbing my eye out (my poor eyes this week, bleeding, melting, and potentially facing being stabbed from boredom) was the fact that Maury was on the Idiot Box so I could laugh at the people who go on that show.

I had Mexican twice this week. Two nights in a row. The first time was at the request of my mother for her birthday. The second night was at request of SAC and it tasted good. After trainer riding this morning it wasn’t so good. No more Mexican food this week for me, por favor.

I also got to build up a bike with Super Record 11 this week, inventory tools in the shop to send some unneeded duplicates to Nashville, and ride a fixie – brah!

Yesterday I woke up at six in the morning and went on a cleaning rampage. Washed the dog and brushed his teeth. Did the dishes and mopped the kitchen, washed bike tire marks off the apartment walls, you know. . . the regular stuff that needs done but no one ever wants to do it until you have that day. I woke up before any alarm went off, looked at the wall, and thought “holy shit I’m really awake right now. Let’s do something”. After work I went and continued my search for lamps. I ended up with hangers and a bag of bagels. I think I may actually purchase lamps tonight.

Outdoors Inc Cyclocross race this weekend. I am racing. Hoping to hit three straight weekends of cross with three appearances on the podium, hopefully the logs are stacked in my favor.

Also received my FUCancer jersey in the mail this week. Stoked.

What did you do this week?

Spooky Cross and Tri-Guy to Die For.

2010-11-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

The weekend didn't start like this, but it whirlwinded and ended this way. Friday morning I set my Felt back up for cross racing after having it loaned out. Then I went home, went to school, ate lunch and went back to work. At work the new warranty frame had arrived. It is all BB30 compatible and has a different brake routing as well.
I didn't bother to try and build it because I am getting a cool adapter that will allow me to run my Shimano crank inside the BB30 bearings. The cool part is when I get ready to put a BB30 I can just slide it right through.
Friday night I went home, hung out, and got all my junk ready for the race day fun that would start the next afternoon. I prepped my Surly as a back up bike but it never even came off the car all weeekend. It was good to know it was there if I needed it though. I raised my bar height just a tad over my previous set up and it Felt good. (see what I did there?)
Saturday morning was fun, I ate breakfast, got super nervous, went to work. I glued some tubular tires and sold a mountain bike. I then unboxed my warranty frame and hung it on a frame display just for shits n giggles. Then I left for the race.
At the race I did some preriding, warming up, and general stressing. Super Awesome Courtney A(customer with a runnning problem) showed up to be my photographer, cheerleader, key holder, and generally just be awesome. I had a really good race, Andrea heckled the hell out of me and made me feel worthless all race. John King from the big boy M&B squad roadie rode my wheel and put the pressure on me all day. It wasn't until about 2 laps to go that I finally gapped him off my wheel and rode away to 2nd. I had a lot of fun with the race, even hopped this one small barrier every lap. It was good to show off a tad, it boosted my confidence and hopefully was unsettling to Mr. King sitting on my wheel.
Sunday was more of the same with a different twist. I knew I could push myself just a little harder for the whole race than I had the day before and lined up at the front, under a hoodie to stay good and warm at the start. Some guy pushed his way to the front and half wheeled me only to sit in the way when Schmidt (race official) said go so he could fiddle with and start his "Garmin wrist mounted clusterfuckness" of in my way. I got out and got hammering, passed everyone by the second cone in the open field string-em-out start and lead for the first half of the first lap. Three guys passed me on an open section. Two were uber-fast Los Locos tri guys on mountain bikes with just sick levels of fitness, the other being Boomer on SS. Hit the pavement and it was me, Mr. King, and Garmin all together. 2nd lap the King and I gapped Garmin off our wheel on the pavement and sorta did what we did the day before, I hammered and he held on. I tried something a little different and it actually worked out. He could hold my wheel in the singletrack, so I couldn't shed him there. I knew that from the day before. I just slowed down a tad in the singletrack so he would still be working, but I would have a little more to snap with in the open fields and stuff. He attacked me on the last hill of the last lap and ended up gassing himself trying to shake me. I ran like a mad man through the barrier and took him back, then rode away from him. He saved what he had left for the Masters race.

I ended up almost naked, beer poured on me, and generally intoxicated with my cash n prizes neatly tucked into a speed bottom (see above, if your eyes still work)

Standover height is premium, but you probably didn't notice a bike in the picture.

Gutting it like a real boy.

Old English Cyclocrunk?

2010-10-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

That kinda week.

Tonight I'll race some SS cyclocrunk.
Then I will go to the bar and have fun.
And not worry about my broken car, broken dryer, or anything else.

Campy Electric, Cross Racing, & No One Cares.

2010-10-25T07:18:00.000-07:00

So I just took a look at the first article I have seen about Campy Tech Lab Electronic Shifting. I can say that I am not at all impressed. Rough quote that ~~won~~ killed the article "ours is different from Di2. Theirs has 10 gears, ours has 11".

If you want to impress me do what FairWheels Bikes did. Make Di2 work with 13 gears on the freehub or something like that on a road bike. Or rework the shifting sequence, remove overlapping ratios, and use one shifter for a Di2 mountain setup. Now you got me hot and bothered.

But don't act like your shit don't stink because you have 11 gears and you made it shift with a button. We still can't reach the thumb button from the bottoms of the drops. I have big, hairy, manly hands and I can't shift Campy comfy from my drops. Anyone else thinking that Campy hoods feel like Shimano 9spd Tiagra hoods?

Sounds like Campy wanted to find a way to separate rich bastards from more of their money. Round of high fives, break out the cham-pain. Rant about that over.

Cross season is in full swing and I want the tunnel style runup/ramp/underpass that they had in Louisville. Google it, it was rad. I have thought about how cool it would be have steps in a cross race every time I ride from my apartment and shoulder my bike when I get home to come inside.

Other Cross related news. Last crunk is Tuesday. I want to finish the race and boogey over to the bar and get loose. If I drink enough I will probably pronounce myself SS CRUNK CHAMP then steal Russ's Crown.

Sorry, no one probably cares. I'm going to eat waffles, play with my dog, and do homework. That is the order of importance/priority as well.

See you out there

2010-10-23T05:44:00.000-07:00

First things first.
I got a "The Stick" and used it for the first time yesterday. I rolled around in the floor making my O face for like 10 minutes. If you haven't ever used one, just go by one.... I wish I had a time machine so I could go back in time and have one for the last 3 years of biking. Buy one from Fleet Feet and hope the girl helping you doesn't have icing covered fingers (from making, baking, and delivering/mailing cupcakes).

Second things second.
CycloCrunk.
Get it.
It has been fun. Next week there is beer at the Young Ave Deli after the race. Which is strategically (coincidentally) located directly between the race and my house.

I have a good plan - Ride to race. Gut myself on SS. Don't get lapped by Russ & Boomer like I did last week. They got me on the last lap. Start drinking. Ride to the bar. Finish drinking. Ride home. What can go wrong in this scenario? Everything. I'll keep you posted.

Third things, well, third.

More Flexin'

Happy Saturday.

File This Under Brain Bleach or Spank _ _ _ _ ?

2010-10-17T19:41:00.000-07:00

If the thought of me half naked turns you off, don't follow this link to andrea's bathroom of haircuts. If it does, then clickity-clack shazam your night away.

A night of dogs, burgers, beer, and oddly enough tag-teaming one another with a pair clippers.

In bike related news I rode myself into the ground this morning in a brave attempt to catch the outdoors ride after leaving 15 minutes late due to un-cross-a-fying my cross bike for a road ride and then getting caught by a train. I did some long sustained efforts, talked to myself like I was a stupid slave child, and cut off two sections and actually did catch them. Luckily for me the rest of the ride we rode a "gentleman's pace" which still made my eyeballs want to melt after my one hour solo work I did to find the group. I tried not to pull any today, it worked out.

I did get my brownies at the store, too.

Things have been busy.

2010-10-15T18:23:00.000-07:00

This last while has been hectic. I have been reading, writing and riding a bunch. Mid-termpapers/exams were just due this week and I had a hell of a time getting all that done and turned in on time. I also raced the ~~cyclecross~~ I mean Cyclocrunk. It was a ton of fun. BRB I'm gonna try and steal a pic. Success, thanks Tulio - sorry your knee kept you off the bike. After the Crunkness more fun stuff happened this week and everything is pretty hectic in a non-scholastic way too. All things work out in the end.

it was "too hot" for zipped up.

So it was my first race-ish debut in my BPC kit and the shit talking is already piling in. All in good fun. . . . I said all in good fun, right boys? Alright well with that rant over, my race went better than I thought it should, especially since my barrier training for this year was uhhhh, this race. I think my ungodly long legs coupled with my young stupidity allow me to abuse myself in that fashion and only limp for a few days afterwards. I didn't get lapped this year, which was a pretty good accomplishment since some legit people come to have fun. Dr. Big N Hairy showed up on the SS steel mountain bike. His words were something to the effect of "a lot more spandex and a lot less crunk than I expected". It was still tons of fun for everyone, I hope.

Next week I won't rock the Defeet UnD-Lite unless it is cooler outside. I got a little bit on the extra warm side, which made my very happy I had brought a clean jersey with me. I rode over from the house so I had a bag with some post-race grub, arm-warmers, a dry jersey, and a big rear taillight so I wouldn't get squished cruising back to the crib. All in all it was a great way to blow $7 dollars.

I will take my camera to document post-race finale Young Avenue shenanigans.

Oh, and yesterday a big box of cupcakes showed up at the shop. I got milk on the way to work today and had mine with a nice chocolate milk. MMMMM. We must be providing some Grade A ~~asskissing~~ service if we get that.

This morning I hit the drive through to the bank on my gravy train -aka Surly CrossCheck, then rode the new Greenline to go to Lowes and pick up electrical tape for the shop. I hit a pretty gnarly decent when re-entering the Greenline, for a fixed gear cross bike. I'll take photos while I'm on fall break and make a good blog that is worth reading, for once.

Keep it classy Cap'n Cyclist.

Biscuits, a Goatee and a Snake.

2010-10-09T19:33:00.000-07:00

Not my original pic, but similar to what I ate.

So lately I have been really busy. Since the last time I was here I have probably read 500+ pages and skimmed a few more, typed 5-6 pages of stuff, ridden my bike a few times, went to the gym twice, and started my own facial hair collection.
15 cool things about facial hair:
1) You don't have to shave as much of your face.
2) You can play with it in class instead of listening to your teacher.
3) It is warm on chilly rides.
4)Shit, I haven't had a goatee that long so I guess I don't know that many cool things about it. I was a little overambitious from the start of that one. I might shave it off because it is itchy sometimes though. And makes me look slightly like a child molester.

So last time I said I had my bike for next year all figured out. But I am pretty much a liar. I have changed my mind more than anyone in the world should about what to race next year. I want steel, I want a rigid fork, I want SS compatible, I want it encrusted in diamonds, why is this hard for me to find? It not like I'm looking for a tap dancing t-rex. I have been served up some wisdom and troof so I am going to sit on my decision for at least 12 more minutes.

rawr rawr, rawr rawr rawr.

In other news that is completely unrelated to dinosaurs, I had been getting some wicked pain in my jaw from TMJ type symptoms. I thought I was going to have to spend lots of hard earned money and go into debt so I could open my mouth to bite a sandwich without wantint to cry, but I actually got it fixed thanks to the help my coworker's dad, who is a dentist. By simply changing my sleeping habits the pain has gone from wicked to dull.

I went to the Greenline official opening this morning and passed out a bunch of coupons to people on bikes. It was a good fun time. I accidentally ran over a snake on the gravel road between gardener road and the walnut grove bridge. Whoops. I didn't realize it was there until the last second and kinda bunny hopped it. I guess I didn't hit it because it wasn't moving in a pissed off ran over by a bike fashion. I went back and threw a rock at it to make sure it was alive. It was. I took pictures but don't have my camera cord to upload photos. Hence all the stolen pictures for today.

I just emailed a friend with two serious questions and joking question of "Why is the Earth round?''. He replied and answered the first two, but his answer for the last was priceless. "Gravity, bitches."

Crunk starts this week. I hope to see them bare, errm I mean, see you there.

St. Jude, My Last Week, and How I Picked My Dream Bike.

2010-10-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

So out of my last 7 days since we chatted last nothing has really happened in my life that was spectacular that I felt it needed to be blogged about. I worked a charity event for St. Jude - RB's Cyclery sent as a support person for the Give Thanks. Ride. Yeah I didn't think the name was alllllll that clever, however I didn't make the event. I just worked it. Sorta. As soon as we left I was wishing I had my camera becuase there were people who walked the Auction Street bridge. It was silly. I was sitting on the back of the pack trying to drive that slow and my car was just not happy. It was the "slower than first gear wants to go up this hill" speed that made me feel really bored. I helped out one guy by telling him his bike was FUBAR and giving him a ride back into downtown. Then the fun began. I decided that myself and the guys from Peddler should just leap frog until the 40/70 mile split and I'd clean up the 40 and they would have the 70 mile luxury. The route was pretty much the same as the Saturday morning ride from Outdoors so I was feeling brave in the Focus and quickly realized that if I drove that fast I was going to need a SAG myself. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful and I ended up eating a sandwich and going back to work.

I went to school all week and did lots of homework. Imagine stacks and stacks and stacks of books. Yeah I didn't read nearly that much. I worked some like usual. I rode some like usual.

In other not so interesting news, I made up my mind on which road bike and which mountain bike I will be riding next year. I have decided that I will be riding a bunch and that having 10 gears in the back in really important (OMG I MUST HAVE). I am going to really do this bike right. I am buying something a little less exotic for the mountain bike so I can build some wheels to go on it and have a lighter wheels. I plan to ride the stock wheels 90% of the time and really just race the others. Same goes for the road. I want a cool bike with some even cooler wheels. Why am I being so vague? Because I believe in pics or it didn't happen so I am holding off on bragging about my new bike til I have it.

My Felt Nine Race hardtail 29er is currently for sale ($1000) and available for not so immediate pickup. I plan to reinstall the fork and front chainrings tonight so that it is all ready freddy because I know someone wants my bike. They want to have MY bike that is bad enough for ORAMM, Syllamo's Revenge, and some Lake Sylvia fire roads. They want to caress my saddle. Maybe not that much but for whatever the reason it is very for sale. It will be stock plus Fizik saddle and FSA SL-K carbon post, and the big chainring. The big chainring isn't XT. I broke that one. I didn't spend the 432803 dollars to buy the XT one to fix it. I got the SLX style. It will work the same.

Sorry I'm boring lately.

New products, my opinion.

2010-09-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

So I recently have gotten some new products. I have been promising the entire interwebz my view of some things and now I will give them forth.

Defeet UnD-lite base layer.

First up is the Defeet Un D lite base layer that is probably the best product for a guy my size. I have worn it on a few rides where I make it out before 7am during our cold spell and its perfect. For those days you don't need arm warmers but you wish you could zip your jersey up even more for the first 15 minutes of a ride. The suggested temperature range is pretty hot, like 70-82 or something in the neighborhood. It is paper thin and awesome. I would compare the material to feel pretty similar to the mesh material in a set of high-end bib shorts. As soon as I get warmed up and sweating, unzipping the jersey gives about the same airflow, again it isn't something I hate for being "too hot".

Also 100% Marley dog approved.

Also new product and a new experience for me was receiving a package without knowing/paying for the contents. The e-mail I got from the guy said something like "I'll drop some in the mail for you, oh yeah, this means your sponsored by Handlebar Mustache bitch!"

A strange package appears. . .

Self Explanatory.

I don't remember his wheels square, stupid CO mechanics.


Too lazy to rotate.

So the shirts are pretty cool, they are super soft and extra cuddly. I think I may get one of their jerseys as well for some mountain bike racing in the upcoming season. If no one is going to pay me mad stacks of cash til I got plenty money. Until then I'll be eating the occasional Top-Ramen and what not.

Also I got some Descente bib shorts in the last few weeks and they have made me a definite happy. They fit nice and make my legs look all Quadzilla and what not. They help those long days in the saddle that make me become super zombie. The only things that make me happy and rested are my Zoot Compression Socks then I'm ready for snooze action. Like this.

12 day Goat-T, farmers tan, Marley. Fuck Yes's.

Just the tip.

2010-09-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

I got some cool products in the last few weeks I plan to review, always tomorrow though.Well tonight may be the night so look forward to something cool coming soon. Until then, this is my dog, he is awesome. Way cooler than your dog.

The voice with 100 watts.

2010-09-19T16:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have been all weaksauce on updating lately. I have been pretty busy in general between getting Iced, riding my bike like this guy is chasing me, working on bikes, and doing school work. Sorry Charlie, life comes before the interwebz.

Speaking of riding my bike alot, I rode the Trinity ride yesterday morning and didn't quite make it to the end, but sometimes that isn't too terrible. I chased the group for 2.5 miles willing myself to regain contact but I couldn't. I finally lost sight of the pack and just settled in to spin back to Ryan's house. I showered up, hit a mexican place, and went to work. I had to eat again during work and it was orgasmic. I had a milkshake large enough that my dog could have climbed inside the cup when I was done. Last night I got home and stretched out in the floor and ZONK 30 minutes disappeared. It was awesome.

Kris (my super awesome girlfriend, duh) came home from work and we watched Bubble Boy and ate some dinner. I loved that movie. It was just stupid funny the whole time. Back to getting dropped.

This morning I awoke after sleeping the sleep of the wicked and felt like a million bucks, or atleast one good Outdoors Super Spirited Sunday Spin-around. That's right, I just renamed the ride. Well I didn't have my shit together so I left the house a little late and ended up having to run WFO all the way from the front door to the ride to make it on time. I did catch Frank Reanuaoiuiolt (sp?) of Renn Multisport on Union and cruise in with him. I showed up and realized today was going to be a legit ride. I was a lil sore/ready to rumble all at once from Trinity, but some of the people there were fast, or on their tt bikes, or I was just in general setting myself up some excuses.

Things were good rolling out and I got some bickering about how pulling leading out down to the Mud Island was going to get me dropzillaed in 20 miles. I informed the gentleman I had done this ride more than once but he needed to hop front and pull if he was worried about me. Things were a tad faster than usual rolling out. The guy who bickered at me apologized rolling into the Forest, telling me he wasn't trying to put me down (read as I rode legit so far). Once in the Forest we were pitching up the 5th lil bump or so and David C. Jones is on my wheel. As I lost contact with the guy in front of me and a gap opened to 1.5 bike lengths he came around me and barked "come on". I swear his voice shot 100 watts into my legs because I found some juice to jump on his wheel and stay attached to the pack. Leaving the General Store I made a stupid attack on Watson and my legs flipped me of. I was dropped and it was still a good ways back. I chased from the sprint point on Watson all the way through the neighborhoods. I kept my head down and tried to pace the flats and attack each bump then sit and recover and pace to attack the next bump. I attacked every corner until finally I could see the group getting closer so I put my head down and didn't look up til I saw bikes again. I hung on through the rest of the fast stuff and felt good.

Pretty much the whole post is a narcissistic recap of my two weekend road rides where I didn't get my ass handed to me in a fruit jar.

Oh and people, quit freaking out because I can ride my cross bike on the road. Yes it is heavy, just like your love handles.

Big, Long, & Uncut.

2010-09-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

So after I had my flat-imus maximus encounter the other day I began to have seller's remorse on getting rid of my single speed 29er. I began to think I hadn't given it full consideration and was pretty much just being a Jimmy addict and thought I should give it a go.

A friend of mine once told me he could take his bike from geared 1x9 to SS in 30 minutes. I'm not calling bullshine on him, I was just always curious how long it would take me to do a similar project. I headed to the bike room to start my project and had to make an abrupt u-turn to get my beer. I began by removing my big ring and setting up my middle ring with SS appropriate bolts. I then fiddled with the front derailleur to see what kind of shifting performance I would have running a 2x9 set up on my bike.

Then I began really tearing stuff off and placing it neatly in a gallon bag. I was really cussing my decision of not doing this at work as my bike room in the apartment is less than awesome for bike repairs. The tools and work bench end up separated by the bike you are working on. I got my stuff all figured out and then I fiddled and bickered with myself on tire choice. I have been running a Karma 1.9 on the rear and it does really well, I have been wanting to try a WTB Vulpine 2.1 so it won the bet and on the bike it goes. I then get everything but chain tension dialed because I don't have an 18mm cone wrench at home for tensioning the Singulator. This all took me about 45 minutes, and I fiddled with the front derailleur and changed a flat. He is spot on and I think I could do it that quick, the second time.

The next day I went to Brickhouse's humble abode and put some tension on the chain and she let me borrow some Ergon Corks to try out. I had ridden a pair of Ergon's in the past and gave them a big thumbs down, but wanted to try them out again because my style of riding has changed. (I ride more than 45 minutes at a spell these days.) The grips slid onto my favorite handlebar like they were a match made in heaven.

So far everything has been good. I raced the Niner bar at ORAMM and have been a huge fan since the first second I put it on my bike. I like how it is big and long, I ride it an uncut 710mm wide. The flatness is cool because I love me some drop. I have been riding the bike rigid for atleast the last month and I like that too. The grips are feeling pretty good and the wings do have a cushioning effect that is pretty cool. Also, I did one good ride on it so far as SS and the whole setup seemed pretty spot on. SS isn't as bad as I thought, I just don't think I need a dedicated bike for it. Now a bike with some options, I could handle that.

Pardon the scratches, I found this bar at work.

rigid fork too.

Ergon grips. Corky fresh.

full excuse bike, reflector not included.

Doh! Goat Gear is still attached!

how to flat 3 times in 10 minutes.

2010-09-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

The first thing you have to do is ride solo, take all the stuff you would need to fix a flat. Pump, CO2 cartridges, inflator head, patch kit. The next step is to go ride, in my case I rode the Rails to Trails Greenline from UofM area to Shelby Farms and then rode some WRT and headed home. Then you must run over one very Large, Angry, Rusty, Metal thing hiding in the gravel on the rail trail.

Marley and LARM, Mar totally unimpressed with it. If he only knew its danger.

They had been doing some grating and packing and apparently this LARM was waiting for his prey. Like a fish who sits with his mouth open until a smaller fish floats in, that was the tactic of this LARM.
I was cruising and jamming and had been passing people like they were sitting still. (Technically, this family was sitting still when I passed them.) Anyways, I was enjoying myself and this nice day and waving to all the people I saw when things got ugly. I got within striking distance of the LARM (i.e. I ran over it) and my whole ride hops in a handbasket labeled "Express delivery to Hell". I hear this awful clink-clank noise and lock my rear brake. Immediately things don't feel right and I know something is bad wrong. I hop off the bike and look to see this thing hanging out of my tire. "whew, no biggie I got my flat stuff". I had feared rear derailleur snap-tastic or something much worse. I get to work and I put my spare tube (more on tube later) in the tire. Quick decision that since the weather is nice and I can hear someone's radio from backyard party I will save my CO2 and just pump it up with my Crank Brothers mini pump with two stage air setting. It is super nifty. This tube has been with me a good while. Since Syllamo's Revenge . . . 2009. Man this is taking forever. Shit, I'm sweating into my eyeballs and my arm had swollen to nearly the size of a mop handle from all the pumping. Genuine Innovations to the rescue! I hit it with a quick shot of gas from this awesome cartridge and then realize my new tube, my trusty tube, my spare from Syllamo's Revenge 2009 & 2010, and ORAMM 2010 is leaking. So I pull it out, patch it up, reinstall it and start pumping away again. I only had one cartridge with me. I get my tire about half aired up when the family I passed earlier comes past and the dad is mouthing off "This isn't ready for street bikes bud" I reply, while holding up the LARM "Nothing is ready for this" and then continuing pumping. I pulled my pump off and PHHHHHHEEEEEEEWWWWP out comes the air through the now broken off valve stem. I picked my phone up, called my buddy, and called it a day.

As I have said before and still continue to believe, any day on the bike is better than a day at the office. It was better than no ride, better than working, and better than being dumb and lazy and screaming into my videogame headset to some guy I don't know about some game that doesn't matter.

Lengthy Recap From the Week

2010-09-05T05:58:00.000-07:00

The last 8 days have been a pretty wild and constant adventure. I'm going to break it down into manageable sections and just fill in the pictures at the bottom.

-Brickhouse and I decided that we needed to take matters into our own hands and build a pump track. She used her wits to gain access to some private land where we can dig our very own pump track. Things have been started over there and seem to be going in the right direction. We need some rain to make the soil less resistant to our shovel blades and more agreeable to packing in and holding its shape.

-Work has yet to slow down, it seems that things are running stronger than "the bus" these days. I have been working some funky hours around my school schedule (more on that in 5, back to you, work craziness) and generally just not stopping long enough to sit down. All of these things are good because I always am a firm believer of the idea of busy = job security. Hopefully Rod won't fire my ugly ass anytime soon. Rod wouldn't fire, but Jay would. Jay is evil. I'm kidding Jay is very nice and agreeable.

-My cluster fuck of a school schedule has me on campus from 11:00ish to 2:30ish most of the week. This has been a real fun time. I'll roughly quote my father here "Boy, you'd rather wipe a lion's ass with a handful of metal shavings in a telephone booth than" have a class schedule like that. He would give us that line with slight changes whenever we raised an idea he was opposed to because he had no serious reason to object but wanted to raise a little hell anyways. It usually worked. I mean think about it. This would be some serious shit. That may be part of the reason that I have such a vivid and graphic imagination.

-On a brighter note I was able to squeeze in some pre class riding on Monday and Wednesday. Monday's ride was pretty much a fail however as I grazed a tiny bit of skin off my finger on the Wolf River bridge of the CSX Greenway. I was snaking between a truck and the guard rail on my way towards Shelby Farms and hit my pinky on the guard rail. It bled, no biggie. By the time I was heading home it had tried to scab up, effectively blood gluing my finger to my grip. I was doing a pretty maxed out effort and when I hopped out of the saddle to really make my legs feel the pain train that was rolling down the rail bed my finger pops open again. This time my heart rate is around 179 and I can feel the blood dripping off my finger tip in the wind. White and Red make Pinky!!!1!! Image below.

Wednesday's ride was much better. I rode with the local Orbea rep who "hadn't been on a mountain bike in a few years" - direct quote and was wanting to try out his new bike. It was an easy hour of me playing tour guide at the WRT and trying to be polite. Since Travis is a Cat 2 who podiumed at the Memphis race I told him I would play nice in the dirt if he wouldn't break me on the road. He agreed, yet I'm not 100% sure he won't have me cutting deals with the devil as I watch his custom Sugoi kit disappear up the road.

-Pinky of Doom returned on Thursday to make itself known. All week I thought I had been doing a swell job of keeping it clean and wrapped up. I was at work changing a flat tire and all-in-the-sudden I bumped my pinky on a spoke when using the tire lever to pull the tire away from the rim. I thought I may shit myself it hurt so much. I was truly flabbergasted that such a small appendage could house so much pain. I get home and unwrap only to find something similar to this finger. Ok it wasn't that bad but some of the colors matched and I was afraid it would look like that so I made a deal with my girlfriend to get it looked at in the morning at the campus clinic.

-Campus Clinic from the Heavens. No appointment boom bam thank you ma'am. I wasn't in that quaint building on campus 30 minutes and received a tetanus booster shot, finger evaluation, finger cleaning, bandaging, general scolding for not keeping my shots up to date, and a prescription for an antibiotic to help ensure I keep an even number of digits. All I had to pay was 5 dollars for my antibiotic. It was seriously some fast service.

-Friday after work I went to No Regrets Tattoo Emporium to watch my girlfriend endure hours 3 and 4 of her 4 hour tattoo adventure. I was bored out of my mind some of the time, some times appalled at the amount of metal people hang in their pieces parts downstairs (I was looking through their book of work) and just having a grand time chatting with the shop employees. Kris's friend Alana was their hanging out and we were shooting the shit and generally being a nuisance. I decided that I wanted some big bling in my life and had Mark stretch my ears up to a 4g (nearly 5mm wrench compatible ear lobe) and put in some nice shiny plastic diamonds. I played bitch. It hurt, real bad. I am going to follow Mark's (the bringer of the pain/metal insertio guru) advice and wait until after Thanksgiving before I step it up to 2s, but it is coming eventually. Kris's tattoo was finally finished and it looks really cool (and sexy) so needless to say I can't wait til that is all healed and ready to be shown off. After that we went to our favorite spot R.P. Tracks and had a bite to eat.

-Rabble Frabble I'm sure some other stuff happened that I forgot about but it happens.

-I was going to do the 7am Outdoors ride but the temperature to body fat ratio was all out of wack, so I decided to wait until the 9am group. How cold does it have to get before armwarmers are acceptable. Hmm, to be comfy or to be Fred, that is the question. I ended up falling alseep and not waking up in time to make the 9am start so I did some stuff around the house, played lazy, and rode a pretty steady effort on my mountain bike on the unfinished Rails to Fails. More on that ride tomorrow.

Hold your ponies

2010-09-02T21:31:00.000-07:00

For the 3 people who come here, don't think I have "shit the bed" on my whole blog thing. I just started back to school for the semester on Monday and have had my throttle set to "pinned" all week. I have an awesome (sarcastic and not sarcastic) school schedule, a not so awesome work schedule, and a real nagging pain in my ass called homework. Yes it is the first week of school, yes I have homework. Welcome to senior year with all upper division courses. Have fun racing this weekend everyone, where ever it may be, I will be reading, catching up on homework, and generally laying low for the next few weeks as I try to settle my scrawny ass into a routine and get rolling on this whole school thing.

ps, cross season is near and the pony express is coming to a race near you.

Nothing new, nothing different.

2010-08-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

Checking in to let everyone know, much to their dismay, The Pony Express is still alive and kicking. I have been off the off road and on the on road so much lately that I have few tales to tell. Unless you want me to blog about roadkill or jackasses in diesel duallies. Didn't think so. Furthermore, nothing else is really going on. People are starting to pick up on how stupid awesome bike parts are getting.

Until next time, check out some other blogs, talk about how gnarly your last lap times were, and stay cool . . .

1/2'' Pitch for a Simple Switch

2010-08-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

So I have a Surly CrossCheck that is pretty cool. I don't ride it a ton but with the cooler months rolling in I honestly see myself crusing some friendly winter rides on the plush feel of steel. I also plan to use it as my commuter to and from school on a daily basis because I like the mechanical advantage of a bicycle. I have ermm uh HAD a problem of trying to ride it as a SS monster-cross or big, ugly cross bike for mountain bike trails AND as a cushy tired road fixed gear. The solution is to run a different size track cog and freewheel. The difference in the gear didn't give me as much change as I wanted. I want to roll with either a tame mountain bike ride OR a tame road bike group ride.The track cog is a 17t and the freewheel is a 21t. The chain needs to be two different lengths because I don't have enough dropout to accomodate a 4t difference. The fix is so simple and only includes one chain. I was wracking my brain as I drove down I-40 on my way to work one morning and it hit me. Everyone with a computer should be familiar with the DingleCog and how cool of an idea it is. Well what about the DingleRingle? (trademark is NOT pending) While I understand that Surly promotes this already I had never thought of applying the idea to the two sides of my flip flop wheel and have a super easy 39x21 for monster-cross-coast-ability and a 44x17 fixed gear for street-shred-brah-ability. I already had a pretty bland 44t chainwheel that was compatible with my Dura-Ace 9speed stuff. I had the double chainring bolts. It was time to get tricky. Fast-forward 24 hours until I had worked, slept, gathered my bits from my apartment, and returned to the shop. I slapped it all together and it works. So what does 1/2'' pitch have to do with anything? Well each chain pin is exactly 1/2'' apart, as is a tooth on a cog. So when you take 4t out of a ring, you should be able to add those 4t up front and make your chain in the NEIGHBORHOOD of the same position. Mine has a slight difference because I change the rear by 4t but the front by 5t. Now I have that super easy gear that allows me to climb all the hills at Shelby Forest and I have that hammr fixie set up for hitting 28mph when the group ride points downhill and all the guys dive bomb for free speed.

Top View of the Dingle-Ringle

Side view of my bland (ugly) 44t ring

BB Shot, complete with Turbo in the background.

17t BRAH

21t freewheel, compliments of Brickhouse

Brickhouse vs Beanpole.

2010-08-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

The next race will be epic.
Like fire vs ice.
Like hot oil vs water.
Like honey badger vs snake
Like pony vs grass.
Like Andrea vs Matt.
Wait, bad metaphor, that is what it will be. Damnit. Maybe I need to start drinking again.

Simple Rant . . .

2010-08-14T06:38:00.000-07:00

You are out using a public park.
You are enjoying a beautiful morning.
Your weekend is starting off in the right direction.
The weather is awesome.

Why are you in such a pissy mood and act like I am spray AIDS out of my chamois as I ride by waving?

Enjoy your weekend and start waving back you hags. I can ride gravel one handed and wave while riding 700x23 tires with 105psi. I hope you are coordinated enough to wave as you run by with a water bottle in one hand and nothing but HATE in the other hand.

On Jersey Shore they "GTL" for gym, tan, laundry.

In Memphis I "BSO" for bike, shower, omelette.

I'm out. Enjoy your weekend.

My Reason to Buy Local

2010-08-11T05:15:00.000-07:00

The idea of scouring the net for the greatest deal makes some giddy.
Buy it on e-bay and save a few dollars, get a "great deal" on something "gently ridden" that's fine with me. I have seen plenty of horror stories of what could happen when you do that, and I also understand it is a great place to blow out some personal inventory and to get a great deal on some actually cool and legitimate find.

When you buy local you do things for me and you.
I will start with you.
You pay taxes, which in Tennessee is a pesky 9.25% of all sales.
Taxes pay for the roads you drive on to go to the park that houses the trail you ride. They pay for your child's tuition. Pretty cool huh? I think so, seeing as how I would like to be a teacher.

What is cool for me?
I get to see your pretty smiling face when you come in the shop.
I get to show you some cool parts, maybe even show you a lighter, more adjustable part that is better than that integrated road bar/stem set-up you were considering until I said that an FSA bar with a mid-level FSA stem is about the same weight. . . (the integrated set up is stiffer, but definitely not the best set-up for a 50 year old club rider who will only become less flexible in the coming years).
I have small parts, loads of them, and I can hook you up with a that lil bolt that goes in the back of this thing to hold my little wheel the chain goes through on the back back here. Which is fun, because you can't order the bolt for the thing-a-ma-jiggy, because you want to ride today. . .
That's what I am there for.
Your purchases are literally what I rely upon for survival. The local cyclists pay my bills. You allow me to go to college, go race, have fun.

How is good for both of us?
Your investment in the shop invests into the future of your community as you help a young man becomes "the leader of tomorrow" by allowing him to go to college. You pay local taxes which allow all of us to have a good road to ride and parks to play in.

When was the last time you saw a guy from Price-Point picking up trash out of the parking lot at the trailhead? Do the guys at Colorado Cyclist lead group road rides?
I still <3 you all. I really do. I hope to see you in the shop soon, solving all minor catastrophes and making peoples day.

Ride, rest, and then be restless.

2010-08-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

This morning the nosey and awake dogs went to town on bothering me until I got out of bed and allowed them use of the yard and filled their food bowls. I then poke around doing nothing until the last minute when I eat breakfast and rush out the door to ride to the Outdoors Union store to do a group ride. When I get there it was totally awesome (not) that there were only a few people going on that ride. I missed the e-mail that some guys got about a ride leaving from our shop around the same time going to the same place that helped split the riders. That and a MnB team ride and some guys rode early. I tried to do my part and ride hard enough to make it worth my time to go out on the bike today. Effectively the hammer & the nail. I wasn't wearing any Swiftwick socks at the time, these kittens are real cute. Hopefully Dr. Big n Hairy still has some of those cute kitties for you to pick up for free and save from the pound.

I am having second thoughts about everything, as usual. I am going faster on my cross bike but not sure that I need a road bike because I don't want to spend the money or open another credit card or something drastic in my haste to get on a new bike. I have been in drag for the sake of raising money before, but it was a school fundraiser and no one got super freshy-squeezey sleezy for money. Just the softball team and 1/2 the school giggling at my ability to strut in heels. Pardon my digress. I want to keep my single speed so I can ride it and race it but I would love to dump that money into another project. And if I ever really have to race SS I can do it with my geared bike and all the spare parts that are piled inside my apartment. I have a few low budget projects I want to try to see if I can lighten my bike without spending a ton of money. I figured I would take all my parts on a diet the ho-jangle way and see if my bike will still survive high speed descents. Either that or continue to use minimal tires and gear for the conditions and just HTFU and try to go fast. I have a way of justifying myself riding a heavy bike. It goes as follows:

Rider weight + bike weight + all gear = total weight.
145+26+10(for the sake of simplicity - I don't know the weight of all my junk I carry.) = 181 total pounds.

So why do 200+ pound guys get all huffy puffy about having a 19 pound bike? Well I understand so their power to weight doesn't make people giggle, but I think I have made my point. Racing my heavy bike I still carry less weight up the hills.

Who knew napping with this little pup would cause me to awake from my slumber thinking a stick of burning firewood stuck to my torso? I didn't. Indy did though. How can something be so cute yet so sneaky?

Enough rambling. I'm going to do something else.

Bike lust, bike envy.

2010-08-08T04:16:00.000-07:00

So I picked up a customer's bike Friday and was completely pissed at it's weight. Regardless of the fact that this bike would nearly fit in my front pocket of my tight skater-boy jeans aka it was a hardtail 26'' in size "itty bitty". It prompted me to get some lightness incorporated into my bike for the 2011 season, as I don't really have anything else planned for the 2010 season but I am still trying to buy a road bike before next spring also. My weight saving plan is a new X.9 shifting group from SRAM with shifters and mechs and crank. I will probably set it up with Avid BB7 brakes because I love simple mechanical disc brakes. Before the hating starts, I just want to remind you that braking is wusses and you should always "pin it to win it" at all times because if you pedaled uphill for the fun of coming down, why let a little friction between some pads and a rotor spoil that fun. Or in as we saw in the case of Cap'n Endo-lots momentum is usually your friend. Back to my parts pick I have decided to join the masses and get some Stan's rims, if they are ever in stock with our distributor. I will probably lace those to the new x9 hubs as they are lighter than XT hubs. SRAM is also cheaper than Shimano. Cheaper, lighter - DUHer. As of late nothing is new I have just been trying to get out and ride a little to stay in shape. Without a race on the calendar in the near future it is weird feeling to be riding hard. Obviously there are races that I could put on my calendar but I am not really in the mood to run all around riding my bike in the last few weeks before school starts back up for my final semester.

For any tri geeks or regular ole' weekend warriors keep an eye on your email inbox this month because I know we are going to be sending some cool stuff. If you have never been in the shop, quick making excuses and pop in on your way to Harvester Park or come get a Saturday morning road ride.

2010 ORAMM

2010-07-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

So the weekend was pretty awesome.

Anytime I get to drive through a tunnel I get giddy because you are either underwater or the hill was to big to drive over (read as an awesome place to hang out). Andrea Wilson and I arrive in base camp with some 29er tubes for my acting up wheel that is being less than cooperative at seating up without a rubber in it. Karma 1.9 was giving me some karma for not doing this tire changing crap earlier.

Note in this picture the tire sealing attempt in vain in the bottom left.

I had opted to go with a tube in it if it didn't seem to be holding air by race morning. I didn't want this to happen - yeah i've used it before, but it's good. During the race I unknowingly heckled the hell out of Team Dickey and was still beaten by an old guy on a rigid bike. WTF? Anrea and I had gotten some top notch intell from a previous finisher. A little better than doubting my training amounts - small they may be they are all quality rides because I'm just soooo good looking. Anyways back to the point we had been told to hammer to the top of Kitsuma to not become part of a fail train (funny around 1:30 to the end) and unlike my travelling companion who had been hiking to the top of 14k feet mountains and racing the Breck100 on her SS in the last two weeks, I had been hammering on the road and tapering so I was feeling super froggy and ready to snap some legs off once we crested Kitsuma.. I kept up a slightly uncomfortable pace coupled with lots of fluid, electrolytes, nom noms of all sorts, and good ole' aid station Coca Cola.

I am real pleased with the fact that I didn't use a Camelbak. The Memphis heat was equal in temp and humidity with what was rabble-frabble post race grumbled as "the worst weather ever at ORAMM" which meant my 3pm rides had been paying off as I was used to downing bottles and sweating salt mines into jersey. I finished in 7:06 which was good enough for 56th overall. 24th in open men. I am super stoked and planning to go back for some more. Post race dirtiness -

I also channeled some power from Bull City Boys and use some socks that were provided by Dr. Big N Hairy, AKA the Pirate.

grapes and war.

2010-07-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

I am sitting at my friends - Ryan and Andrea's house chillaxing with their dogs, eating a big bowl of honey nut cheerios and another bowl full of fresh red grapes. Sweet baby jeebus to have a cupcake right now would be awesome.

Why would you give a shit about what I'm eating? Well maybe you don't. The solution is the red x in the corner of the tab labeled "Bean-Pole On A Bike". Actually I am going to write up my personal experience while taking a supplement known as Oxyelite Pro.

I have been participating in studies with the University of Memphis in order to gain easy money. The first thing I did for them was run a 10k once a week under the influence of a different stimulant each time. The second thing I did was a resting study of the product Oxyelite Pro. The third that I just finished was a chronic study of OEP. The goal was to see if the effects of the stimulant would be suppressed after 14 days of straight use.

My experience with OEP was nothing short of death. I hated the supplement. Imagine taking a pill in the morning that is caffiene. Appetite out the window. Super focused 1000 mile death stare. Always tired (I am crediting that to the fact I was consuming around 2/3 my normal food intake of 3500-4000 calories a day). I had figured out how to trick my body into eating during the day and beating THE MAN (OEP) by eating a large breakfast that was juice, a protein shake, toast, and an omelette. I would get my body in the mood to eat and just make a conscious effort throughout the day to stay on task of snacking and not going all bonk-zilla. Today I had to go to the lab with a 10 hour fast under my belt (pun intended) and then consume the two purple pills of doom.

I zoned out and did the 1000 mile stare before I left the lab this morning. I never really recovered as my day kind of whirled along at break neck speed from lab to parking ticket to apartment to house sitting to shower to a million things at work to house sitting to bike ride to bonk zilla. I did the math and realized I had eaten about 1000 calories all day and maybe sat down for 45 minutes all day at work. It all caught up to me and kicked me square in the ass as I hammered down Wolf River Sand Bar.

'Ole Sandy and me hadn't kicked it since Hurricane Elvis v 2.0 hit Memphis earlier this year. It was brutal. So I turned and burned for the house, trying to be nice as I passed guys in Shelby Farms who were riding sweet bikes.

On a brighter note I received two tips today that made my day.

The first was a pair of NC's baddest boys socks courtesy of BigWheeler. From now I will refer to him as Dr. Big N Hairy. His tires is 29 inches talling and his legs. . . well a picture says a thousand words. For the record Dr. Big N Hairy's legs were not available for a photo shoot as the deadline pushed closer, so I used some stock photos. Pigeons not included on the Dr.

The second thing one of my customers was cool enough to stop by with was an invitation to a family oriented party tomorrow night with a 15,000 dollar firework show and also a gift card to a little greasy spoon in Arlington, TN called "Vinegar Jims".

Bikes for Sale!

2010-06-30T05:22:00.000-07:00

Felt Nine Solo, 2009 XL. I bought the bike on closeout at the end of last season. Riding SS with thighs the size of tooth picks has proven to be less than pleasurable. Since I purchased my new mtb, I never ride it.
Top tube scratch from a simple over the bar ejection. Brake lever touched the top tube.

No other marks are on the bike. The bike is completely stock plus I will include 16, 18, 19, 20? (I think without digging through my junk box) cogs, a longer chain for the 19 & 20, a white Cateye Strada wireless computer and Shimano SPD pedals. - 800 or best offer. I don't want to put this on ebay. A bike this size will be murderous on shipping charges.

Cannondale CAAD7 size 58cm.

Close up of the bar end shifters and Cane Creek brake hoods.

9spd gears with a 105 mech.

Shimano SPD pedals and the close up to show the finish is falling off the Bontrager crank.
Crank is triple compatible. Will install granny gear and adjust shifting at your request.
This bike will sell as is for $350. If you don't want to ride it pink I will paint it for an additional $50. Pay the $50 as a deposit and then pay the rest when the bike is picked up. It would probably take me 2-3 days max to get it finished. Single color spray can only.

*nosy puppy is not included with either bike.*

iDon't get excited about iJunk.

2010-06-27T04:46:00.000-07:00

So my main problem with all this iPhone junk is the way that people are absorbed into their phones as if they are the Holy Grail of everything that is sheer awesomeness. The guys at Apple have definitely done something to the American ego that it really needed. It gave it an expensive, fragile, and disgusting thing to make us love ourselves that much more. Going on a trip and need to know how to get there, some tunes for the drive, and maybe check movies times? Use the iPhone. It does all that shit. While in the car. And it still fits in your pocket. As long you aren't a male packed into a size 5 girls super skinny jean. The problem is if you are going to the movies around the corner from your house you can make it in 2 songs and a commercial for grillz on HOT! 107.1 - The station where hip hop lives in Memphis. I don't need directions. And the movie times are in the newspaper (holy sweet baby jeebus printed material) or on the internet or even better posted on the side of the buidling. While I am impressed by the ability of some people to multitask I just don't have that ability. Furthermore the iPhone takes the adventure out of alot of stuff - the oppostite of what it is desgined to do. Out for a bike ride? Oh snap let me crank on some pandora, put in my head phones, then scream what at you everytime you try to talk to me. Or better yet, I'll answer my phone and ride while talking on the phone. When I get back to my car I'll kill myself. Me and my leg-crushing riding partner/hoss Mama have had this discussion and decided they are selling you a feeling of excitement - because your life sucks. Not to dwell on the swagger wagon, my Focus hatcback is pretty much just a British Racing Green swagger shell on wheels. Or a decent mpg car to haul my broke butt around in. Anyways back to why the iPhone sucks. It is fragile. If you don't believe me ask above mentioned Andrea to throw her phone. Ask her 3 beers later and you better have a hockey mask on. She has a tough phone. My dad has a tough phone. The kind that can ring underwater and shit like that. But I love to have a big fragile screen so when I go down on a road ride not only can I break my Di2 shifter, but my iPhone in my pocket that has EVERY contact, song, todo list, photo, sexting highlights, and my pathetic link to the outside world. I have a phone that is a full touch screen and I absolutely hate it. It gets disgusting. Working on a dirty bike and your phone rings - damn dirty screen. Want to return some missed calls when I get back to the Focus - AKA British Racing Green Swagger Hatch of Pure Win - I have a 2.5 x 4 inch screen of sweat/road grime/sunscreen that I can't read through to make my next call. And I know any screen gets dirty, but there is just so much of it.

Now that I have ranted and rambled I am going to do a few chores around the house I am dog sitting, eat a bowl of oatmeal big enough to cripple a pony - I eat like a horse - and rightfully so. I will drive to my parents house because my dad got a new grill for father's day and wants to load it with once innocent animals for my enjoyment.

When I get there I will do a short road ride that includes a stretch of gravel that once vibrated both my bottle cages lose with cross tires on. Today I will tackle said ride with 700x23s.

I am interested in selling my beater road bike and possibly my SS mountain bike also. If I am in your size range and you are interested then get at me. I need to start saving for my next venture.

Rubs and Tubs.

2010-06-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

So I have a few quirks and a few oddities.
For starters I am OCD like you wouldn't believe. I mean I am not like the boy wonder or anything but I definitely am picky about stuff. I have a weird thing about hating my t-shirts, I have a long torso so either the shirt is too short or it hangs on my 145 pound frame like sheets on the clothesline. Picture it. Now just be glad when I wear the small shirts I'm not rocking it like this. PS this doesn't exist. You are just out of luck. I digress back to my OCD ways.

Another thing I hate is when someone says a sentence with a question mark at the end. If it is a statement then just say it. Don't be coy and "ask" about it just so someone will answer you "yeah that's right". I have taken up the phrase "No that wasn't a question, it was a statement".

Moving on with things that make me want to cause bodily harm is when someone pulls out in front of you then turns shortly afterwards. Last night on my bike some guy in a Toyota truck passed me like I was spraying AIDS out of the back of my chamois then turned on the next side street. I counted my seconds til I turned on the same street. 5 seconds. Think of how you might get your Facebook friends list loaded in that time. Sweet baby Jeebus I guess that does make sense. I am going to start doing that because all those 5 seconds add up to real time to do stuff like read this blog.

I like to make big plates of scrambled eggs loaded with cheese and ham for breakfast. 4 eggs, white cheeses, spices, diced up ham. Damn it tastes good and with a metabolism like mine it might last 2-3 hours if I am lucky.

I also love tp wrap handlebars. It is one of those things that just makes the bike look awesome when you have the wrap stacked on the bar all nice and neat like a row of cork gel soldiers just waiting to be the first defense between your palms and the harsh roads below you. I haven't ventured out and done any two tape wraps yet, but I am sure I will learn this winter. I want to get it dialed so I can wrap my next bike like that.

I get an almost unhealthy level of excitement to glue tubulars. Insert jokes about getting high on the rubber cement here. But I'm not this chick. I couldn't resist. Back to my joy of tubs. You get to get mean on a new tire and stretch it onto a clincher wheel and let it stretch. Then you have to wait overnight. So the next morning you can come in and before lunch, while still running on eggs and ham, I can strip off your old tire (more anger and mean) and then clean up your rim with some high tech stuff - acetone and a rag. Then I put some coats of glue on the tire and the rim. Stretch, center, inflate, more centering. BOOM you did an awesome job that the customer will never appreciate. Sort of like the guy that actually makes the bad ass stuff for NASA so the shuttle can make it to space without imploding and everyone is stoked on the astronauts.

Which is harder, driving the car or fixing one?

That's enough. Maybe later tonight I will post up some stuff with pictures from my real life. Maybe not. I haven't decided.

I kept the last tub I removed and I am going to unsew the tire and pull the tube out and then put it back in and see if I can air it up and it still be rideable. . . . minus the spot where tread is missing because some triathlete slid into transition. . . .

2010-06-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

I went to the top of the mountain in vans classic slip-ons. The foot cramps on the descending side were well worth it. What a way to end a nice ride. I'll post some pics from the fireroads when I get them . . . hint hint.

I will do a triathlon before I die

2010-05-25T18:57:00.000-07:00

Good looking triathlete.

Not so good.

Good looking equipment.

Bad looking equipment.

Oh snap!

Broken Nipples

2010-05-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

So I went to the Flying Saucer for Andrea's birthday celebration a few days late but before we got there things went disaster. I stopped by her house to pound a beer and have a look at one of her Stan's wheels. Then shit gets ugly in a hurry. I broke her nipple. That is right boys and girls, ladies and lads, gents and pretties. I broke my friends nipple. . . on her wheel. Today I attempted to fix it but the way it ended up was I had what was left of the nipple crumbling to useless aluminum bits as it broke off about 1mm taller than the rim. Damn I guess I will use some pliers and cut the spoke and have to replace it. All because the nipple broke.

Atleast is wasn't as bad as this guy's day.

Happy Tuesday everybody.

Addicted to bikes

2010-05-12T20:19:00.000-07:00

The bike bug hit me again, probably the last time for this calendar year. I built myself what I hope to be a long lasting and useful bike. The idea all started when I saw Andrea Wilson's personal Surly Cross-Check that was built up more monster cross that mine turned out. So I knew I wanted to build one so I started scouring around to see what I could find at work to make this come together. I went to the parts bin and came up with a huge pile of good stuff that included: unused Dura-Ace 9 speed cranks, used bottom bracket, Salsa cross bar with big sweep bottoms, Bontrager seat post, Felt stem, and a good chainring. I went to my work area at my house, err I mean bicycle infested other bedroom in my apartment. . . and went through my stuff to see what I could turn up. The list here wasn't shabby. Fizik Arione saddle, fixed gear lockring, anadized cage and spacer, pedals, and some single speed chainring bolts. I dicked off the last night in my Womens Lit class, logged into the distributors website and loading up the last pieces I needed to make this happen. I centered the build around a Surly Cross-Check 60cm frame in Beef-Gravy Brown. I got some Surly hubs that came laced to Mavic CXP33 rims and just went for the cheapest tire I could find. I ended up with some Michelin Transworlds with steel bead and some reflective sidewalls. When I got them in my hands and had wrapped up my hoops in them I was really impressed at how they looked aired up. The dusty tire, frame, and carpet all blurred together but there is some good clearance down there at the chainstay, on the tire and chainring side.

It has a super square profile and it seemed to eat the gravel on the unfinished CSX Greenway last night. But don't tell anyone that I was riding in that miles long construction zone that is filled with only nice white guys or Mexicans who point and laugh at me while I use THEIR ladder to climb down from the Wolf River bridge and get on the trail. Swear to sweet baby jeebus that once I used the bridge to cross the river and just said "Hey I don't want to ride down summer to cross the river, can I use that ladder?" Construction guy was totally cool with it and just let me use the ladder. When I came back from riding to Germantown road and hitting the Circle-K to get my V8 smoothie fix I hit the ladder to climb back up and just wheelied off into the sunset. But back to the story of my new bike. . . I slammed the rear tire to the front of the rear dropouts and made my chain as short as possible because I knew that the gear ratio I am running is going to be the biggest/easiest gear I will run on the bike in the life of this chain. Also I wanted the rear end to be short, it is already hard to wheelie a cross bike, this one isn't too bad. So with my total investment relatively low and the ability to ride it fixed, freewheel, add gears, fenders, racks, or any combo of the above that tickles my fancy I feel like I got a decent rig. The total weight is 24lbs. Remember its a 60cm steel frame with 46cm bars and 40cm wide tires I think it's not too shabby. This photo belows is to show how I still have clearance for that bottom fender mount, which I am digging.

Finally I guess the real reason to admit that I might not be able to buy another bike this summer is this: I am out of room in my mancave/bike room also known as the spare bedroom in my apartment.

Well I guess I am going to load this up and call it a night.

This is Matt McCulley signing off, keep it classy Memphis metropolitan area.

Short update

2010-05-08T18:41:00.000-07:00

I came I saw I conquered. I have been promising more awesome blogs since the first one but truly I am just a lying sack-a crap. The new news is I borrowed a rigid fork from a friend and I like it on my single speed. I raced Syllamo's Revenge and went faster than last year but I still feel slow. I ran some 10k's for a school study that payed some cash. Other than that I took some exams, made more good grades to improve my GPA and finally finished my foreign language requirement for my English/Philosophy double major. Serious WTF moment there I know.

A few little tid-bits to make your bike brain hurt Tomicog but don't let him drain 30 bucks out of your wallet just yet. Big-Daddy-Bean-Pole can lay hands on a drill press. Daddy like. I plan to make one of those tomorrow after my mothers day lunch. If all goes as planned I could possibly fabricate those for you art a severely reduced price from the 35 it would cost with shipping from Dr. Tomi.

Furthermore this clip is just insane because this guy would eat my skinny butt for breakfast.

Party hard, but don't burp beer breath on your mom tomorrow.

Mystery Kool-Aid and Guys with Hard-Hats

2010-04-05T06:34:00.000-07:00

So the rail trail is being work on. I saw some guys with hard hats. One amigo thought my spandex was something to die laughing at.

I drank some mystery kool-aid then ran the other day for a research study on campus.

I miss this bike.

New bike breakfast.

2010-02-16T08:12:00.000-08:00

I got a new bike in the mail last week. I have ridden it twice and man am I glad to have gears once again. It's not the lightest thing I have ever seen, but it is a big ass bike aluminum bike, sitting stock at 27lbs or so. I plan to get some more American Classic wheels because they are super light for the money, a carbon bar, and I plan to buy a carbon post so I can get some flex and comfort. But for now I am just going to pedal the miles. And just like my breakfast below, it makes me smile.

Philadelphia.

2010-02-09T09:57:00.001-08:00

So I went to Philadelphia for a Park Tool School Seminar and I saw some stuff you haven't seen. Because as you see on the left it is prototype. It is pretty cool to get to tear apart other people's parts in order to learn how they work and how they go back together. Fortunately I was at the first seminar given so the stuff hadn't been taken apart 15 times yet. The guy at Campy did give me a wheel with a broken freehub spring so I disassembled and reassembled it a few times to no avail when he said "Oh shit man, I think that is the one that got broken in the last class yesterday" he fetched a tiny spring from a drawer of goodies and HOORAY! the freehub was buttery smooth. I was also able to sit down and drink a beer with the guy from the Tech Dept of Cannondale and shoot the shit and get to know the guy I'll talk to on the phone when something isn't 100% right. The booze was good, the room was plush, and the airplane rides were somewhat sketch. In Charlotte on the way home we had to go outside to board the plane with the stairs, then once on the plane I barely fit down the aisle with my hair scraping the ceiling. The guy next to me was a coworker of one of my customers so we shot the breeze and then I went to sleep. I came home and it was still as cold in Memphis as it had been in Philadelphia, but luckily for me I was only outside maybe 1 hour total while in the city of bromance. I really do plan to catch up throughout the week for the last 2 months of my life, and make this a more constant thing. I promise later this week pictures of a new bike, a tentative race plan, and nudie pictures of your girlfriend.

The End of the Semester

2009-12-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

So the semester is drawing to a close and I am typing this instead of my final paper for my philosophy class, because well it is is not due until tomorrow at noon. The 24-hour crunch will kick in soon so I guess I will knock it out soon, TURNITIN.COM, then go drop off a hard copy of an a final in the Patterson Building, go buy some Holiday Presents on my bike ride home, eat some lunch, kick my dog, and go to work for a little while.

I am excited to say we have some cool stuff in the works over at the bike shop. People are buying fancy bikes and my bills are still getting paid. I mean this truly, I will write a post soon and explain what happens when you buy your cocaine, errh I mean bike parts, from a local shop. I make the joke about cocaine because let's face it. . . everyone has a vice. Some people get drunk three times a week, some people spend student loans on bicycles, some people shoot guns, others like my mom make scrapbooks. It's all relative because what you spend your money on to make you smile is a good waste, because when you die you can't take stacks of cash with you.

Another thing I am excited about is the ability to ride some cool new bikes in the year 2010. I am going to get something fancy, and only two people know what it is. But one of them grades my papers and another entrusted his super-secret and totally awesome fantasy build to me so I think he won't leak the news. When you see it on the road or trail you will know what it is.

Shucks I couldn't resist. It's a tandem that my dog can pedal the stoker seat. Not.

24-hour crunch starts soon.
More posts this week, with pics, and maybe a tentative race schedule for 2010.

Boycott Starry Nights

2009-11-25T08:26:00.000-08:00

So I am sitting at work on the day before Thanksgiving and I have decided to follow through with blogging. . . 6 weeks later.

The idea of Starry Nights makes me want to scream. Dig up a park to run electricity, pack a beautiful park full of these electric skeletons that are a daytime eyesore from hell sounds good so far right? At night we can light these "green" LED bulbs. What is green about running a light that has no purpose? The problem continues when the family loads up the biggest gas guzzler they own and idle through Shelby Farms polluting the park with exhaust for the poor buffalos.

I don't normally get all tree hugging fanatical but this is something that really bothers me.

Enjoy your turkey.

The First Blog

2009-10-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

So I used to blog when MySpace was cool but a time came when I gave MySpace the boot.
The next big things on the web was FaceBook but I am getting tired of Applications saying "Help _____ dump a body in Mafia Wars." So after enough rofl-ing and lol-ing at all the cats and "goggies" on the interwebs, I decided this would be my spot to praise or rant products, ramble, or just generally inform the 3 people who may read this about what I see in the world.