Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Tuesday rant!

No, I'm not just hungover and grumpy. Ok, maybe a little.

I read two things recently that reminded me of one of my pet peeves (and a warning here: after following the MTBR link, the rest of this rant is only very tangentially related to bicycles) - see if you can guess what I'm so upset about:

http://www.slate.com/id/2295603/

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=712995


Figure it out?

Well, here it is: people don't use math. They don't use it to solve simple problems, or give them guidance to make decisions, or for anything else if they can help it. This drives me bonkers. In one case, it's framebuilders who don't figure out what their costs are (hence reducing profits for those of us who do, and putting themselves out of business at the same time). In another, it's people who go for a job that pays a few extra bucks in exchange for a longer commute.

Now, let me be clear. I am not asking anyone to solve any differential equations, or find the slope of a curve at some point, or even figure out the area of a circle. I am just asking them to add, subtract, divide, and multiply. With a computer, a calculator, or a piece of paper and a pencil. Anything.

For example, people have reacted incredulously when I tell them that their 2 hour daily commute is worse for them than smoking a pack a day (the statement is deliberate hyperbole, but I'll show you why it's actually sort of true in a second). I ask them how long they think they'd spend over a 40 year career, if they had to commute 2 hours a day, and most people guess a couple of months.

Let's do the math.
-2 hours a day.
-10 hours a week.
If we assume 2 weeks of vacation a year (crappy job, but it makes the math easier):
-500 hours a year
Assuming you work for 40 years at the same job (again, to keep things simple):
-20,000 hours of commuting. That's 833 days, or 2.3 years.

Ok, so you've wasted over 2 years of your life sitting in a car, just to go to work. But it gets worse - the car isn't free, and in most cases your job won't compensate you for your commute, so:
-If you're averaging 40mph, you're driving 80 miles a day.
-400 miles a week.
-20,000 miles a year.
-800,000 miles in a 40 year career.

Now, gas and maintenance cost money. Of course, this varies a lot depending on your car, how you drive it, how well you maintain it, etc. But we can make a good guess, based on the rate at which cars age, costs of fuel, etc. Luckily, Edmunds (and others) have already done the hard work - so you can just click over to their TOC (true cost of ownership) calculator and see for yourself.

If I say I'll drive a 2011 Honda Accord sedan (a relatively efficient choice) the cost per mile is about 50 cents (and yes, I also chose that car to make the math easy). We'll do our math in constant 2011 dollars and assume fuel prices stay relatively stable (they'll probably go up, but that makes it much more complicated to tell the story):

-800,000 miles in a career at 50 cents a mile.
-$400,000 total cost.

Yes, I'm aware that most people *have a car anyway* and hence the additional cost of driving it to work isn't really 50 cents a mile. Let's say it's half that amount, so 25 cents a mile. We're down to $200,000.

But that $200,000 could be earning you money as an investment in something else - stocks, bonds, mutual funds, part ownership of a topless bar... so let's assume you invest your $5000 a year at 3% interest. Say, in municipal bonds or something.

-After 40 years of contributing $5000 a year, and earning a modest 3% on the principal, you've got $377,000. The difference between $377,000 and $200,000 is $177,000 - which is the opportunity cost of spending the money on commuting instead of investing it.

So commuting has cost you $377,000 over your career, a mix of additional fuel/maintenance costs (above and beyond the costs of owning the car in the first place) and lost income from investments never made.

Now, let's assume you don't really *enjoy* your job that much and are doing it primarily to put a roof over your head, food on the table, and save some money for retirement. $377,000 is a decent chunk of change:

-Most of my blog readers are smart cookies (well, maybe not if you're still reading...), so let's say you make $40/hour writing code, doing science, or managing a topless bar.
-That's $320/day.
-$1600 a week
-$80,000 a year. Nice!

But, uh-oh, you have $377,000 in commuting expenses to deal with - so you'll need to work 9425 hours to pay for it. That's 393 days, or 1.07 years of sitting at a desk.

But of course, you can't work 24 hours a day. Assuming you're still working your normal schedule, it'll take 4.7 years to pay that off (and of course you still have to commute to work!)

So we're at 2.3 years of sitting in the car, plus 4.7 years of extra work. That's 7 years of your life, essentially wasted. Years that you could have spent hanging out with your family, going on vacation, or watching Stargate SG-1.

So, how bad is smoking for you? According to numerous sources, about 11 minutes per cigarette. For the average smoker, that's 6.5 years over a lifetime.

Hence, to me, commuting 2 hours a day is worse than smoking. Obviously, this is a stretch - the 4.7 years you spent working to pay for your commute are better than being dead! Heck, sitting in your car for 2.3 years is also better than being dead. So yes, it's obviously hyperbole, but if you add things up, commuting by car (alone) does shorten your enjoyable life an amazing amount.

Now, to be fair, most people have limited choices when it comes to commuting, but they should demand MUCH higher pay for long commutes - at least, they should if they feel their lives are worth something. And all you middle managers? If you're not letting your employees telecommute as much as possible, you're wasting their lives, time, and money. You can look at the very simple math here and see why. Sitting in a box on a freeway is a waste of time for EVERYONE, so it would make sense to avoid it.

But nobody ever does the math, or at least that's the way it seems to me. They build frames for $400 and go out of business in a year, they spend their lives miserably trying to pay for their cars, and they never once think to sit down and use some simple math to guide their decisions.

So use math. It's not that hard. It works.

Edits:

-Yes, I know that the real-world calculations are more complex than this. The point is that you can use basic math as a tool to help give you useful information in making decisions. Commuting might be the right choice for you - but unless you've sat down and run the numbers, you'll never really know. Most people go with their gut - but their guts are often wrong.

-Yes, I am aware that making blog posts takes time. I type pretty fast, and I read pretty fast, but this one probably still took half an hour. I've posted 929 times or something like that, so if the average post took me 15 minutes, that's 232 hours, or almost 10 days of sitting at the computer! In my defense, I enjoy semi-creative writing (I consider the blog a hobby) and it also serves to promote my business. I doubt most people consider driving in traffic enjoyable or profitable.

-Here's another fun article (follow the link and read the research from the Philly Fed): http://www.slate.com/id/2295851/

Quick for-sale...

Hear ye, hear ye, internet weightweenies still riding 9 speed... I have a 9 speed XTR cassette (11-34) that I ordered by mistake. Someone buy it from me - $200 including shipping to anywhere in the USA.

First come, first serve. I'll do SS-mods on it for free if you roll that way, too.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Holiday Weekend Recipe: Hippy Burgers!

Ok, so first off, you'll need some seitan (see my post of a few years ago) to make this. So if you don't have that, don't waste your time. You might be able to substitute tofu, or maybe not. Try it if you want...

That said, these are super tasty.

In the food processor, blend up:
-1# of seitan
-1/3c of chopped onion
-5 cloves of garlic

Now that you've got a nice chunky seitan mixture, mix in:
-1/4c peanut butter
-2 tbsp olive oil
-2 tbsp soy sauce
-1 tsp oregano
-1 tsp dried basil
-1 tsp thyme
-3 tbsp nutritional yeast
-1/3 c flour
-1/2 tsp guar gum

Mix it up, make into patties, and grill/fry/bake as you wish. You can make "wheatballs" out of this too. Good stuff if you're a huge hippy, like me. If not, have a regular hamburger, or if you're Eszter, kill a deer and eat it raw!

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Quick pic for Hassan


An east-coast, mud-friendly road bike. She'll take long-reach caliper brakes, up to about 30c tires comfortably, and fenders when needed. Perfect for those long New England dirt road rides, the office park crit this weekend, or anything in between.

The perlescent white is pretty cool looking, though it's hard to see it very well in this photo. And yes, that's a lugged crown road fork. Yes, I will make you one too if you want one (or a segmented crown, your call). Or, if you order soon, you can get one of the Edge forks I scored earlier this year instead... I've got 2 left.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

McCalla at worlds!!

A huge congrats to my good friend and sometimes teammate Mike McCalla - who has been selected to represent the US at marathon WORLDS this year! Nice work, dude!

Summer schedule, Sarah Still Sick, Boring Blog Post

Sarah is still feeling awful, so she is home sick again and I am doing work where I can, but not getting much done, probably.

FYI, everyone, here's the tentative summer schedule:
-July 5th-20th we will be in New England. No work will get done, minimal phone/email contact, probably no blogging.
-Late August/early September we'll be in Bend for a week or two. Same story.

Otherwise, I should generally be around.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The Dr. is in...


I managed to pass on my nasty head cold to Sarah, so I am Dr. Walt (nurse Walt?) today and maybe another day or two. Just FYI. Expect limited work and slow email responses.

Apropos of nothing, here is a picture that Ian sent me from his tour on his WW touring bike.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Race report (well, sort of) from Collin

So there are only three pictures, but when you only race 20 minutes of a 28 mile race, you don't get many pictures!

To truly test the waters of a relationship, one must bring his girlfriend to a bike race, give her a water bottle or two, and say, "stand here, I'll be back in an hour, give me the bottle when I ride by." It never occurred to me though, what if I were raptured during the race? Would she still wait around, or would she finally give up and head home? She doesn't know how to drive my manual transmission car so I guess she'd find another single, spandex-wearing racer to taker her home. It certainly wouldn't be hard to find an available male at a bike race. At any rate, I gave Janie the International Race Team cooler, pointed her to the feed zone and told her to check out the downhill on the first lap since I wouldn't need a feed anyway. She also brought her gold cape and realized that the cheering at the race was pretty lame so she wanted to run around and chase the racers. Fair enough, mountain biking could definitely use some gold capes.

The beginning is pretty much boiler plate: the start hurt, a few minutes elapsed, I took one gel, and focused on the skinny dude in spandex in front of me. But, then, all of a sudden I was flying through the air. Hmmm, that's funny, I sure didn't see the rock that my pedal apparently just slammed in a successful attempt to stop my bike's forward motion but not that of my body. Sure the rapture was supposed to happen at 6 pm last night, but there is a 6 month window. Maybe this is it, maybe this will be glorious....bam. Nope, ow, that hurt. It wasn't my time yet. Blood was spilled, skin was torn, a bike seat mangled, and a race ended.

Janie was still waiting on the course, and while she wasn't surprised the sport women had already gone by but not her boyfriend, she figured maybe she missed me. She had begun moving in on a handsome photographer to hedge her bets in case she did need a ride home, but when I arrived she was kind enough to carry my broken seat and walk back to the finish line. Using her google machine she tracked down a hospital, she made me an ice pak, and would have given me a lolly pop had one been available. We spent the rest of the evening getting a couple stitches in my knee and eating really good food at a local brew-pub in Frederick, Maryland.


Still I'm really excited to be racing again, and I'll test the waters in two weeks at the Hoo-Ha in Harrisonburg, VA. To steal Walt's words, "I hope all my idiot friends" in Colorado and elsewhere are all doing well. Hang in there for the next 6 months...

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Boulder Bike Swap - Tomorrow

I will be there showing off my neato short-chainstay 29er, as well as Nick's track bike and a few frames, and selling off some various goodies (Edge forks! XT cranks! Whatever else I can find in the bin of orphan parts!) for cheap.

More info here: Boulder Bicycle Swap.

If the weather is nice and I'm feeling better (yes, I'm still sick, damnit) I may ditch out around noon and go ride. The odds of both of those necessary conditions existing are low, however. So I'll probably be there from around 10 until around 3. Come by and say hi if you're in the area.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

KVA- part 2 delayed!

The first snafu - chainstays are ovalized at the wrong place to play well with Kris' choice of dropouts and a CX tire - so I need to get some different dropouts in. Until then, the project is on hold...

So you get a story instead. And no pictures, because this was so long ago that (gasp!) digital cameras were actually expensive and not part of your telephone.

The year is 2001. Or 2002. I don't remember for sure. It was mid-summer, and I was (natch!) up late surfing the internet. Somehow I stumbled upon the website for the (now defunct) 12 hours of Keystone. Hey, right up the hill from us! But I don't want to do it by myself... what sucker could I possibly talk into racing with me?

The answer, of course, is the most gullible man on earth, Brian Fuentes. I quickly did my snake-oil routine ("this will be fun", "nobody fast will be there", "we can make some easy money", etc, etc) and plans were made - I will bring bike tools and parts to keep us running, Fuentes will bring food (this division of labor turned out to be ... suboptimal).

5am, we're up and on the road in my beater Mexican (literally) truck. We arrived at Keystone, signed up, and assessed the state of our bodies and equipment.
Bikes: Drivetrains, brakes, and other key systems are of dubious reliability. Fuentes has not adjusted or lubed anything since what appears to be 1996. He also has no grips, which I have not thought to bring a spare set of.
Food: Fuentes has procured a veritable feast for our 12 hour sufferfest. If by "feast" you mean "bag of unsalted soy nuts and 5 bananas". Crud.
12 hour racing gear: We've got a blanket on the ground that I found in the back of the truck. No tent, no shade, no chairs, nothing. At least I brought sunscreen...

As usual, the race begins with a Lemans start. This time, I lost the argument about who rides first (damn you Fuentes!) Motivation was low, and it's freezing cold at 7am/10,000 feet, even in July. So I put on all the clothes I had, including a Dean Bikes (my old sponsor) hoodie, which I pulled over my helmet (making me look like some kind of retarded spandex alien).

The gun went off and everyone ran. Well, everyone but me. As I said, motivation was low. I also knew that the course features a 2000 foot climb on fire roads up to the top of the resort, so there was (IMO) no point in shocking myself out of my pleasant torpor by running. So we started the race in last place (as an aside, one year in the Winter Park series, I was both first and last in EVERY race at one point or another).

Of course, I could go uphill like a bat out of hell, even off the couch, so I quickly passed everyone but the leader and just sat on his wheel (it turns out our duo competition were the current 24 hour duo national champs, a team from Vail whose names I can no longer remember). We crested the climb together, and then came the downhill...

Ah, the downhill. As of 2001, Keystone had yet to start most of their DH trail construction projects, and there were really only a couple of trails, none of which were super technical. Additionally, I'd been riding my downhill bike at Keystone with the Vietnamese DH mafia (shout out to Duc and Phu!) all summer. So I knew the trail like the back of my hand, and I was used to riding it pretty fast.

Long story short, I dropped the heck out of the dude and rolled into the finish in first place - an event not greeted with great enthusiasm by Fuentes, who I had promised an easy race. He headed out on his lap, reluctantly, and I took stock of our provisions, then decided it was time to start begging the other racers for food.

One of the people who obliged was a young lady who I thought rather comely - and funny, who was at the race to go riding and support some of her friends who were participating. Her name was Sarah, and she was kind enough to give me a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (a big step up from unsalted soy nuts). It quickly became clear that she had her eye on Mr. Fuentes (who is admittedly quite dashing) and so to disabuse her of the notion that she should pursue him, I told her "You don't want to date a bike racer. They're all skinny and weird." Coming from a skinny, starving bike racer wearing a lot of mismatched spandex who was begging for food, that must have been pretty funny, but that's how Sarah and I first met.

The race dragged on. Duo is hard, because you almost never see each other, so the amount of help/support/encouragement you can provide to your teammate is minimal. Nevertheless, we managed to hold the lead throughout the day. Around noon, the local Summit county radio station showed up and interviewed several people who were racing, including me. The interview was fairly humorous.
"So, what did you guys do to prepare for this?"
"Um, we've never done a 12 hour race before. We decided to do it last night. Fuentes doesn't have any grips. Do you have any food I could eat?"

Each lap took about an hour, and no rider could leave the start after 6pm or something, so Fuentes was very hopeful that he would not have to do a final 6th lap. Unfortunately, I came in on my final lap about 10 minutes ahead of the cutoff - and we knew the gap to 2nd was probably under 10 minutes. So Fuentes suffered through a final lap, didn't flat or crash, and we won.

Luckily there was free dinner at the awards. We each ate about 3 people's worth of food, then got to stand on the podium and got our big fat $500 check. Sounds pretty good... until we did the math.
$500 prize
$150 entry fee - down to $350
$40 worth of gas - $310 left
$10 of soy nuts and bananas (yes, we did eat them) - $300
Divide by two - $150 each
Divide by 18 hours of being in the car, preparing, or racing - $8.33/hour. Hey, that's more than minimum wage (barely) for a day of horrible suffering!

(Edit: Sarah wishes to note that "that was the most profitable day of your (expletive) life, you skinny weirdo.")

And best of all, Fuentes, who had promised to stay awake and help ME stay awake on the drive home, fell asleep in the first 5 minutes of the drive. Nice work.

So that's how I met my wife, won a race, made a tiny amount of money, and nearly starved, all in one day.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

KVA stainless - in progress!

I started work on Kris' KVA stainless cyclocross frame today, and shot a few pictures.
For those who aren't familiar, feel free to check out the KVA site. Long story short - it's stainless, it's butted and oriented to building road bikes (so please don't bug me about stainless mountain bikes - the tubing just isn't there yet), and it's more expensive than normal steel, but cheaper than ti (OX platinum tubeset = about $200 with dropouts, KVA tubeset = about $500 with dropouts, Ti tubeset = about $1000 with dropouts).

Initial thoughts on the build process:
-It's pretty hard and resists mitering/filing/cutting. A step beyond the air-hardening steels like 853 and OX platinum - I would NOT try to miter these tubes with anything but my milling machine/Anvil fixtures, or something equivalently solid. I ran 80 rpm and super-slow feed, and things were still complaining (read: making horrible noises while cutting) more than I'd like. The combination of noise and long cut times (due to the slow feed) meant an unpleasant 45 minutes or so of mitering time (of course, I'm using some of that time to write this!)
-The seat tube seems to be butted a bit thinner than .6mm at the top, hopefully it will distort a bit and snug down so that the post doesn't slip.

-Butts at the short ends are really short - 50mm. Great for road bikes, not so good if you need more flexibility with butting. But as I said, right now these are basically road tubes.
-Butting is similar to OX platinum or equivalent high-end road bike tubing (ie 7/4/7) so the frame won't end up much lighter than a standard steel frame. It won't need any paint, though.
-Speaking of paint, I have no idea how I'll do the finish work. It might look cool raw, it might need to be sandblasted or something, or it might end up looking best painted. We'll see.
-Welding with 309L rod is a gigantic pain. For some reason the puddle doesn't want to go where I want it to - so the welds are ok, but not as nice as I'd like them to be. More practice may help, of course, or it might be that this stuff is better joined with lugs.
-Head tube distorted like crazy (even with my usual heat sinks and backpurging with argon). Not enough to cause a problem with the headset, I think, but still disconcerting.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Whew...

I just got done with a 14 hour day that included an HOA meeting that I'd forgotten about... and I'm pretty sure I'm getting sick. So work might be slow for a day or two. But I'm hoping to get going on Kris' KVA stainless 'cross bike, and there will be posting galore on that topic, so stay tuned!

And yes, eventually I will again post a picture of a bike. I promise. And a recipe. And a funny story. Not necessarily in that order.

Clothes are here!

The good news: clothes are here and I'm working to have them all shipped out by the end of the week.

The bad news: if you ordered shorts (bibs folks are good to go) you'll be waiting a little longer - the manufacturer screwed up and sent all women's shorts (instead of all men's). I'll keep y'all updated on that, but it only affects a couple of people as far as I know.

Keep your eyes out for an email from USPS with your tracking info.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Waltworks.com isn't working...

...and I'm not sure why. If you've got a question, please feel free to just give me a call (303 359 9392) or email. I will throw a fit at the ISP tomorrow.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

In the news - plus thoughts on some parts and geometry

We made the paper - though admittedly it is only the Durango Telegraph.

Few thoughts on stuff I ran/rocked at the 12 hour race last weekend:

-E.13 cranks. These kept coming loose. They're a cool idea (BB30 spindle in a standard English shell) but man, I don't understand why they won't stay tight.

-Maxxis Ikon EXO tires. These are the bee's knees for racing. Great traction, fast rolling, and as far as I can tell, impossible to flat. I hit a lot of chunky square stuff at speed and felt the rim bottoming - but no problems for the tires.

-Short chainstays (415mm) and slack headtube (69 degrees) - wow, I love this bike. It was perfect for carving the tight turns, and it was also perfect for getting up and down all the little 1-2' ledges that littered the back side of the course. I literally thought it was the perfect hardtail for this race (though to be fair, I think an FS bike would have been faster overall).

-1x9. More gears than I needed on this course. Whenever SRAM decides to make a 10 speed gripshifter, I'll be on 1x10 - front derailleurs will be dead for high-level racing sometime soon, I think. And good riddance.

-100mm of travel/through axle for XC. 80mm is dead. So are quick releases. I will never go back.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

12 Hours of Mesa Verde - the full story

Warning: long.
Warning: probably boring.
Warning: no action shots, unless you count one of Fuentes trying to put on his shoes.

Fuentes, Megan, and I drove to Cortez this past weekend to race the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde (no, not actually at Mesa Verde - they frown on bike races in national monuments - the actual riding was at an area just east of Cortez called Phil's World). Fuentes (pro architect) needed to meet with a client in San Luis, so we stopped there for lunch on Friday, and made some new friends.

Here's a shot of the super sweet mural across the street from the R&R grocery - which is the oldest continuously operated business in Colorado - it's been open, without interruption, since 1857! I purchased bottled water and some gatorade for the race.

Next we decided to hike up the stations of the cross trail located in town. For the excursion, we were joined by a big red dog that we named "Rufus" - he had no tags (or collar), but was just about the friendliest and most mellow dog I've ever met. Rufus would lean on you to get pets, wait for you at the shady spots on the trail, and was a great hiking companion. When we asked in town, everyone told us that he was "the town dog" and that he didn't have a home, or an owner, or even a consistent name (we heard several, my favorite was "Cheeto"). Pretty neat stuff - Rufus was known and obviously loved by every single person who walked by. I'd like to live somewhere with a town dog someday...

Eventually we drove on to Cortez, which is basically as far away from Boulder as anything in Colorado could possibly be - so we were stiff and sore from sitting in the car. After grabbing our race packets, we made a beeline for the county fairgrounds (free camping in the dirt!), suited up, and prerode about half the course (8 or 9 miles worth) before darkness forced a return to camp.

I knew right away that this would be a hard race, for several reasons. First, the course (a little under 17 miles) is nearly 100% singletrack, with no climbs longer than about 30 seconds, and no straightaways longer than about 40 feet. Yes, that's right, it's twisty singletrack the ENTIRE time, which means there's nowhere to relax and recover - mentally OR physically. A power course. Perfect for the tall skinny guy with no power, but c'est la vie. I hoped that my decent bike handling skills and super sweet short-wheelbase 29er would minimize the damage and keep me from embarrassing myself.

We spent the night listening to barking dogs and generators (that's what Ambien is for!) and woke up to argue about who had to do the first lap (with the Lemans start). Each of us had some pretty good excuses:
-McCalla: sprinting not good for his heart
-Fuentes: wearing road shoes
-Walt: really slow at starts

In the end, we talked Fuentes into running in his tennis shoes, then swapping to his bike shoes when he got to the bikes. This proved to be a mistake, but it was hilarious to watch him win the run, then stumble wildly through the bikes to find his, fumble with his shoes forever, then end up something like 40th.

We settled in to wait for the riders to come in - and waited, and waited. Fuentes went out way too hard, blew up, and recovered, and ended up somewhere around 15th. But our ace in the hole, McCalla, ripped the field apart on his lap and got us up to 3rd.

I spent the hour waiting for McCalla fighting the first-race-of-the-year jitters. I guess I didn't fight hard enough, though, because in the first 1 minute of my lap, I almost collided with a rider (inexplicably riding the wrong way at the very start of the lap), a dog (wandering, as they are wont to do), and a fence. Not an auspicious beginning. I spent the next hour and 14 minutes begging lapped riders to let me by - I don't think I've ever been so happy to have a bell.

Then it became a race of attrition. There were 5 VERY fast teams - the "Legends" team of Ned Overend, Dave Wiens, Travis Brown, and Daryl Price, the always awesome Honey Stinger squad led by Len Zanni and Kelly McGelky, the Kuhl/Enve Composites guys (those jerks had a ringer from Sweden who races world cups!) and the Directory/Trek team of our friends Miles Verzana and Nick Gould. And of course, we had only 3 riders, where all the other teams had 4 (this was deliberate, none of us wanted to do a duo, but we all wanted to ride more than 2 laps - honestly we were not expecting to be competing for the win!)

As Fuentes said during the race "dang it, we're just fast enough to get ourselves in trouble". There was no relaxing, no easy cruising because we were consistently within 5-10 minutes of all of those teams (I think every team was leading the race at one point or another). My second lap was awful - I was feeling pretty good until about halfway through, riding smooth - but the heat and lack of shade caught up with me and I spent the last 8 miles cramping ferociously.

McCalla force-fed me almost a gallon of various disgusting sports beverages, the cramps subsided, I finally needed to pee, and I dumped half a gallon of ice water on myself to prepare for my (and the team's) final lap.

At this point, we were leading the race, but all 4 of the other fast teams were within easy striking distance. I spent the entire wait for McCalla praying for a big gap to work with - because I knew that Kelly was coming out behind me, and I also knew he had been winning Mountain States Cup races - so I'd need all the time I could get.

Leaving the start/finish area, I saw Len entering the finish - which meant that I only had about 45 seconds, and needed to hold it for 17 miles of flat power riding.

Needless to say, this wasn't in the cards. Kelly caught me around mile 5 or 6, and I let him by, then did my best to chase. I could keep things close in the corners, but every time Kelly started pedaling, the gap stretched and stretched. In the interest of actually finishing the lap, I backed off out of the red and let him go.

But mountain bike racing is as much about luck as anything, and a mile later, I found Kelly on the side of the trail with a broken chain. He had tools and was working on it - so the chase was back on. I spent the rest of the lap trying not to freak out, riding as smoothly as I could, and doing my best to keep my head up - not easy after almost 50 miles of relentlessly physical riding. Unbelievably, nobody caught me, and I got to experience crossing the finish line for us as the overall winners of the race. I honestly think it was the coolest experience I've ever had in racing - what a feeling to roll into the finish to hundreds of people cheering and the race organizers/random people high-fiving you. I don't expect that to happen ever again, but it's an experience I'll certainly remember for a long time.

Here's a terrible podium photo (though not as terrible as the previous one). We won some neat trophies and some fun little prizes (no money, the proceeds of the race all go a mentoring program, and I'm glad they do), and I got to stand on the stage with some of my mountain biking heroes. Best day of racing ever? At least until next year...

McCalla cannot be trusted to act normal on podiums, and this was no exception. This was the best picture of him I have, no joke. He wore an awesome orange "Ricky Rudd" NASCAR hat... sheesh. Good thing he's so fast, or I'd have to kick him off the team.

And yes, Wiens and Ned's kids came up on stage with them. It was very cool. Those groms are going to be FAST.

Megan had a great race as well on her brand new 29er (maybe she'll do a guest post with her story?) and her team finished 2nd overall in the 4 woman category - against a legends team that included Julie Furtado and Susan De Mattei!

Monday, May 09, 2011

Team Zombie wins 12 hours of Mesa Verde


Godawful Iphone photo courtesy of Jesse Swift.

Full race report/trip report this week as I get my act back together.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

2012 Fox and 12 hours of Mesa Verde

Quick announcement - 2012 Fox stuff is now (in theory) available with your complete bike purchase. In practice, I'm guessing they'll be playing catch-up on demand for a few months, so as usual, if you're thinking of getting one of these bad boys, let me know in advance if you can. Prices are up about 15% from last year (bummer) but there are some features that should make people happy:
-Available OEM in black!
-Kashima on pretty much everything.

So you're getting *something* for that extra $100 or so.

In other news, I will be gone from Friday morning until Monday night for the 12 hours of Mesa Verde. McCalla, Fuentes, and I will contest the 4-man open division (yes, with only 3 people - we all get to ride more that way, though I'm not sure how we'll feel about that at about 4pm on Saturday). I will have my phone, but no access to email, so save your pressing questions for Tuesday if you can. I'll try to remember to take some pictures, but I generally suck at that, so no promises.

The race has been very competitive in the past (a team consisting of John Tomac, Travis Brown, Dave Wiens, and Daryl Price raced last year... and DID NOT WIN) so our ambitions are tempered by the knowledge that only McCalla (12th at Whiskey50 with a flat) is in any kind of shape.

If I'm in a good mood next week, maybe I will tell the hilarious story of Fuentes and I at the 2003 12 hours of Keystone, at which I met my future wife, literally had to beg for food, was interviewed by a radio station, and made less than minimum wage for 12 hours of horrible suffering.

Monday, May 02, 2011

Nick's new fork... and almost everything else


Nick had me make a HUGE number of modifications (the email is like 2 pages long listing them!) to his monstercross frame (not a Waltworks) and build a new fork that can accommodate a 2.1" tire without messing up the original geometry. Here she is - I think we were both worried about whether spending this kind of time/effort/money on a relatively cheap frame would be worth it, but I think it was.

For what it's worth, I get this question a lot, so:
-The shortest axle to crown fork I can build that will clear a 29x2.1" tire is about 405mm axle-crown (as you can see from the photo, there's not much room under there!)
-If that's longer than the fork the frame was designed for, we can compensate to *some extent* by increasing fork rake.
-If the original fork is more than 10-15mm shorter, I do not recommend doing this.

I get a lot of requests for monstercross stuff, and I like doing them, but it's worth keeping a couple of things in mind:
-Almost everyone will have toe overlap with drop bars and big 700c tires, because the toptube on a drop-bar bike is usually 4-5cm shorter than on a conventional mountain bike. This isn't the end of the world, but it's worth being aware of.
-If you want to run road cranks, the large rings and narrow chainline mean that the chainstays have to be very long for tire clearance. Mountain bike cranks are a common choice to get around this problem.
-There is no such thing as a bike that is the "best of both worlds". The bottom line is that while a monstercross bike is a fun mountain bike AND fun road bike, it is far less capable than either of them in their home terrain. Don't expect to keep up with the local club century ride without working pretty hard, and likewise expect to get dropped by your fast friends on a real mountain bike trail. Of course, if you're on a ride that combines both - you're in the catbird seat!

Photos from Devin



...of his new hardtail. Color, for those who are curious, is "bengal red". Thanks for the pics, D!

And for those who are curious about geometry:
-71/73 angles
-61cm/24" toptube
-Tapered steerer, for 100/120mm suspension fork (Devin is running a TALAS)
-44cm effective chainstays
-12.2" BB height (with 2.3" tires)