Long time - No post

No update in a long time, things have been super crazy lately and I just haven’t had the time to mess with the blog. Riding has been pretty light the last few weeks, I just cant tolerate the heat. I often wonder if global warming will force me to move north in the future. I absolutely love Wisconsin in the summer time if the winter would get a bit milder….Anyway, I am officially sick of summer and cant wait for some cool autumn wind to blow our way.

I recently trashed the rear wheel on the commuter bike. The wheels on that bike where ~14 year old road wheels built with super light spokes and I knew they wouldn’t last much longer. I built up a new set of wheels to replace them with, they turned out the swankest $112 wheelset I have ever seen. I had the front hub and most the spokes, and all the nipples laying around the shop, I scored an incredible deal on the rear hub, and I got some solid yet cheep rims to finish the package. I got some good help from the get-go on the build.
This was my fourth set of wheels to build this year and my best yet they went together true, round, with perfectly even tension without any cussing at all.


Front: Machine Tech front hub 3x 32 W/14,15’s and brass nips to a Delgado Cross.
Rear: 105 rear hub 3x36 W/sg14’s and brass nips to a Delgado Cross.

Tara and I went to visit her brother, John, his wife, Amanda, and their children Aubrey, Cecilia, Adelle, and Francis. They recently moved from urban DC life to super rural Ohio. From their house its soybeans and corn as far as the eye can see. It was a good trip I unfortunately forgot to take the camera with us.

This past week Noah got a stomach bug, his first illness ever. Within 12 hours Tara and I both had it too. All three of us were sick as could be for the better part of a week. It was tough sorting out who was taking care of whom in the whole ordeal. It was the sickest I have been in years and I have never seen Tara that Ill before. Hopefully family wide plagues wont visit us again any time soon.

Ok now with the tons of Noah pics for all the family and friends that need a fix.
Sprinkler fun:


Noah cant wait to go Shredding:


Crinkling leaves is his favorite game:


Gotta love that smile:


Next weekend is a mountain bike “race” I signed up for a few weeks ago at the Ocoee. I plan to take it super chill and fight for the “Had the most fun" prize. Lots of Knoxville riders that never go to events at all, have signed up so it should be interesting. I have ridden those trails so much I know every rock, root, and soft corner of the entire 40 miles of singletrack hopfully my skill and familiarity will help make up for my current fitness. I started the year off planning to do the Shenandoah 100 again this year, Tara said there was no way I would have time to prepare and I didn’t believe at the time, I should have listened to her. Noah takes up so much of my time now but I love every minite of it.

Ride log;
August 1st: Haw Ridge 2:00
2nd: Commute to work 1:30
4th: Tannasi with Jeff 3:30 followed by a full river trip, both upper and lower sections of the Ocoee 7:00 t
5th: Haw Ridge 2:30
7th: Road Ride 2:00
8th: Haw Ridge 2:00 Road the Captain and had an interesting ride. I ripped the rear derailleur of the bike somehow. I had a spare hanger with me so I switched it out. The lower cage of the detailer was pretty tweaked but I took it apart and striated it fairly well. Put it all back together and it shifted as good as it ever has. It was kind of neat to repair such a mangled mess back to perfect working order in the woods.
13th: Road Ride W/ Jeff 3:00
14th Greenway/urban, ride I bailed just after the start :30
19th: Infamous West Knox, MTN Biker Road Ride 2:30
20th: Haw Ridge 1:30 hot but fun
***lots of running errands on the commuter bike never make the log but some of my favorite times on the bike these days involve rides around town with shopping bags hanging off my brake hoods half the time.

Update coming

I’ve been super busy lately and hadn’t had time to write anything and then the power went out tonight and so updates are once again delayed. Trust me though I’ve been out playing


And Noah is as cute as ever.

Recovery/Regrouping Week

After last weekend’s miserable performance and my general displeasure for riding lately I took most of the week off the bike. I did spend some time researching some new routes not far from home both on and off road. I have several cyclocross adventure routes picked out and plan to start doing some major fire road exploring in the Cherokee National Forest.
I have heard about some MTB trails not far from Knoxville that nobody seems to ride. I picked up a map of that area and have done some research, I’m interested to see why nobody rides there, its got tons of elevation change and that may indicate its just tougher riding than many people are interested in. I plan a recon mission in the next week or two and will report the findings.
Lastly I have been mapping out new road routes from my home. Theirs some pretty desolate riding not far from my home but you have to put in some mileage to get into it. I went out today to try out some new roads, traveling out to Kingston Tennessee and back. I went out hugging the edge of the Tennessee river and had intended to stay near the banks of the Clinch on my way back. The mileage started getting a little out of hand so the return route was a little further south than I had intended. Still I hit some really nice roads in the ride and only hade a couple of wrong turns. Turned out to be an 80+ mile ride.

Ride Log

Friday – commute to work 1:30 trashed my rear wheel on the way home hopping dirt mounds along the greenway. Those wheels had never once been trued in ~13 years of use. The nipples are frozen to the spokes and they are now untrueable.
Sunday – Road ride from home 80.5 miles @ 16.25 mph all solo (no drafting) with stops along the way (I checked the map a million times) it was about a 6:00 ride.

Who is the Hippest Hipster?

Tarik posted some new links on Moscaline. One of witch may be my new favorite blog. If you’re a long-time cyclist and can see things for what they are you will absolutely love Bike Snob NYC. If you just got a new set of lime green deep V’s and spent the weekend doing skids about town on your top tube protected, NJS track bike sporting capris or star tattoos, you may want to skip it because it may offend everything you are trying to stand for.

I can’t explain this except it sure made me laugh.

Have a Good Weekend

Bicycle Samba

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ORAMM

Quite possibly my worst day on a bike since,…..well since ORAMM last year. At least last year I had an injury to use as an excuse. Everything started out great, I worked my way through the field with Shawn picking of riders left and right on the opening pavement and the beginning of the first gravel road climb. Then all of a sudden my rear shifter would not budge and I started freaking out. I stood on the side of the road about 5 minutes screwing with my non-cooperating shifter until mechanic extraordinaire John Magnusson rolled up on me. One touch of his magic fingers and all of a sudden the shifter worked perfectly and continued to work all day. I hung with John on the silly push up the side of a mountain that got added to the course this year all the way to the top of Kitsuma. He was a little more aggressive at passing than I was going down Kitsuma so I didn’t see him again until the start up to Star Gap. I was still feeling good but had lost some time to my mechanical.

Somewhere along the grassy road of death I think I realized I wasn’t drinking anything and I wasn’t feeling very strong on the steeper climbs. By ¾ of the way up Curtis Creek my calves were feeling twitchy so I pulled over to sit down a while. John and Jeff caught me there and we all sat and had a snack. John was ill and out of water so I gave him half of what I had left in my pack. We mounted back up and I was feeling allot better. We made it to the top and I went to fill up my bottles and pack but to my disbelief the rest stop was out of water! I couldn’t believe it, the most important rest stop in the whole event and they had nothing to drink but Red Bull and Coke. No problem the volunteers said theirs water 7 miles up the road on the Blue Ridge Parkway. So seven miles with no water already dehydrated with a steady stream of Harleys passing me, I finally got some water.

I made my way up onto heartbreak and I thought I’d be able to drink and recover some on the way down. I started getting into the descent passing tons of other riders until I came up on someone pushing their bike over some off-camber roots and I had to lock it up hard to avoid running them over. As I got on the brakes and off the back of the saddle tensing for impact, I went into a full body cramp. I was so balled up I couldn’t even rotate my leg to unclip from the peddle, all I could do was just crash the bike into the rhododendron and lay there in a ball of tensed muscle and aluminum bike on the ground. That’s pretty much where my day officially ended. I sat on the side of the trail until I could straighten out my legs. When I finally got back on the bike I was cramping every other peddle stroke. My nerves were shot and It was hard to focus on getting the big bike around the downhill switchbacks. I went OTB at one switchback knocking the wind out of myself. I pretty much decided then I had had plenty and there was no way I was going to climb that gravel road again for the pleasure of pushing my bike up Kitsuma one last time. So I rolled back to town and laid on the ground until it was time to go home.

A few pictures Tara snapped at the start Harpers Crew first shot


Harpers Crew Second shot


Justin from Team Yazoo in Nashville rocking the Surly Cross Check singlespeed with bar mounted stero system and bad ass jersey


I doubt I will ride ORAMM again, it’s a fairly expensive day once you figure hotel and entry fee, and its nearly all road with just a little single-track thrown in here and there and most of the single track is either too crowded or I’m too wiped to enjoy it even on a good day. The post ride meal sucks and the rest stops don’t even have water, plus they didn’t give me a t-shirt.

Thanks to Tara and Noah for putting up with me all weekend.

Noah recently got a few “big” toys. First he got a chair that helps him sit up on his own


He also got a backpack to ride in


We tried to Get Noah his own sprinkler after he liked this one so much but they where already sold out for the summer


Noah fond his toes this week


He can hardly keep them out of his mouth


Candy and John stopped by to see us this week amid their move to Florida, they where towing their huge spider boat with them.


Ride Log:
Monday, Jeff and I road from bar to bar in West Knox, Im not sure if we road more miles than beer we drank but im calling it a neer even ratio 1:00
Friday, Levi and I spun around the Ridge, 1:00
Sunday, ORAMM 8:00+

TDF Question

Why are their no Canadians in the Tour De France?



At least the fans from Kazakhstan show:



I just hope the Chicken and Caddel Evens fight it out in the end, two mountain bikers at the top of the roadie heap.

Jeff and I hit up Tannassi and the Ocoee River on Saturday we had a great time. We road the Brush Creek trails first then met up with Steve and Rachel Apking for a tour of the river left trails. We ran into Justin and Jamie from Team Yazoo for part of the ride too. That was six of us all on single speeds and only one 26” bike in the group. On our final descent down Thunder Rock I ran into a little spot that was giving out two-for-one pinch flats, everyone dropped me and I had the worlds worst pump with me, it was still a good ride though. I took Jeff down the Ocoee on the Shredder after the ride, Steve kayaked with us. It was an action packed day. Check Jeff’s report here.

FOHR meeting

Last night was the quarterly FOHR meeting, we don’t have any pressing issues right now but a few things to note. We plan are planning for two upcoming work days, one in the fall and one in the spring. We have a few things that need to be addressed including:
The continual eroding of the land bridge on Isthmus Trail separating the lake and pond. Not sure what to do reinforce the earth with some sort of seawall or bridge over the wholes and just let is all fall in under the bridge.
There is a corner on West Shore that’s about to fall into the lake that needs some work.
The trench on Scenic Shore that is continuously growing needs a solution. I personally have filled this thing in several times and it keeps getting cleared back out, I suspect an animal (beaver etc…) it at work.
Possible extension or reworking of the bridge system near the beginning of Scenic Shore to alleviate problems that area has during the wet months.
We will try and come up with a plan about what we will work on when and post something up at the Kiosk. I have a couple of trail improvement plans of my own that will most likely be covert operations if anyone wants to go in the woods all ninja style with me some time. There are a few eroded sports that need small reroutes and a few opportunities to interject “Features” in some spots with minimal work and I hope big rewards in fun.

Ride Log:

Tuesday: Pretty chill small group road ride (Monte, Allen, Steve White, and myself) slow and flat with lots of chit chatting along the way about 37 miles and just over two hours.

Wednesday: The normal Weenie Ride got rained out so I went to my old stomping grounds of Louisville/Friendsville/Greenback for a solo road ride. I forget sometimes just how good the road riding is out there, I was passed by less than 20 cars in a three hour ride. The roads are so small and curvy it’s like really fast mountain biking instead of what most folks know as road riding. I hit some pretty serious climbs along the way some where wet and my back tire was spinning out as I climbed. I saw cows, horses, alpacas, goats, lamas, camels, rabbits, squirrels, ferret like things, possums and of course plenty of dogs in the course of the ride. I love to yell at cows as I pass them in the country, I usually tip them off to their future by hollering “Hamburger, T-Bone, Prime Rib, Enchilada, etc…” 52.5 miles, 2:56 ride time, 17.84 av., 44.8 max.

Thursday I hit up the ridge for a short ride before the FOHR meeting. I was dead tired and could barely stay ahead of some joggers on the same lame flat route I was on. One hour ride.

Quicksilver

Noah update:
Noah is developing so fast its amazing, he’s really reaching out for things now and if he gets a hold of anything its headed for his mouth. He has gotten a lot more attentive of his surroundings lately, just checking everything out. He can almost sit up on his own and he and I play piano duets.

Noah Loves swimming:


Ride Log:
Tuesday: was a group road ride out of Anchor Park, We started out on a weird route and there was no cohesiveness in the group. I bailed and went to do my own thing. I happened to run into the group at an intersection latter in the evening and road back with them. The little bit of time I had alone cured my funk. 3:00 ride time.

Wednesday: I did a ride at the ridge and felt really bad. I was walking the slightest rises, only road an hour and a half and then went home and slept 3 hours on the couch.

Saturday: I road a local metric road century (Rocky Top 100K) that started and ended at Barley’s with beer pizza, and the TDF prologue on a huge screen at the finish. It was a big turnout for barley advertised first time event. I stayed near the front from the start. By twenty five miles in we where down to a solid group of 10 or so riders, three of them I had ridden with a good bit, the rest I had never met. The last fifteen miles had a series of climbs that thinned the group down to just three of us, Steve Apking, David Avery , and myself. Those two were significantly faster than me, particularly on the climbs, but I somehow hung in. 63.4 miles @ 21mph with a total time of 3:01 and a max of 40.1mph.

Sunday; I rebuilt the fork on the Ventana and then went to the Ridge for some climbing. I focused on slow and steady climbing on the toughest hills the park has to offer. I was feeling a little week from the day before but kept smooth and steady enjoying the heck out of descending on the FS bike. It was a little over a three hour ride, I crossed over the ridge top seven times in the ride.

I’ve been really dig’n on some road riding lately, I think it’s the heat, a 20mph breeze sure feels good when its 90+ degrees out. Or in the words of Kevin Bacon, “On the street I feel good man, I feel exhilarated, I go as fast as I like, faster than anyone. A street sign says one-way east, I go west, they cant touch me. “

Happy 4th of July ?