Hookey Pt. 2 Elk

It seems that whenever someone leaves town for a long period of time, the sendoff ride is 2 Elk in Vail. Rusty will be stuck in Houston with nary a mountain in sight for the next couple of years, so we rode a 5 hour loop that finished with the epic and awesome 2 Elk descent to Minturn.

So yes, I did basically no work yesterday. Bros before bikes, yo!

Waltworks Medical Devices, LLC

My good friend Jake + BMX handlebar + Surgery + Phillies game on Monday = time to make a crutch!

Yes, Jake crashed (in the PUMPTRACK!) and attempted to disembowel himself with his handlebar on Thursday. We all freaked out, but Jake is basically fine after some surgery. Recovery is going to take a while, though, and he's not really supposed to walk long distances. And there is a Phillies game against the Rockies tomorrow night...



Solution? Sarah and Jake designed and I built Jake a custom cane using part of an old crutch, some 1"x.035 tubing, and half a roll of orphan bar tape. Boom! Game on!

We also did some surgery of our own - on the Colorado trail near Kenosha pass, and diverted a stream that was running down the trail. All in all, a very productive (and fun, if you're a huge dork) weekend.

Quick pic for Steve, and have a great weekend, y'all

Steve's gigantic (>25" toptube, 21" seat tube, that's big...Steve is one of the only people I know who actually runs a saddle significantly higher than me - and that includes lots of my 6'6" tall friends!) 4" travel 29er, shown here complete, but without the shock or fiddly bits bolted on. Notably, I did NOT use my kinked seat tube design on this frame, because Steve needed *longer* chainstays than stock, rather than my usual super-short ones, so there was no need to do any funny manipulation.

Should be a fun bike for New Mexico, assuming the forests ever open back up.

Have a great weekend, y'all! Oh, and for everyone with a frame at the powdercoater, I'll be picking them up (and hopefully shipping them out) on Monday. We have been fighting some flux removal problems with the new stripping/blasting guy up there, so I am implementing a more aggo flux-removal process here to try to stop all these bikes from having to be re-shot. Hopefully it will help!

Little help - anyone got a front Maverick wheel I can borrow?

I need one to check alignment on a fork, but inexplicably, none of my Boulder friends has such a thing. So if you've got a front Maverick wheel (24mm axle) that you don't need for a day or two, drop me a line. I will come get it (assuming you're in Boulder) and bring it back, and I won't hurt it. And I'll compensate you somehow (beer? cheap bike parts?)

The wheel can be beat up/out of true, not a big deal. I'll take anything. Don't care if there's a tire mounted or not, likewise don't care if there's a disc on it.

Got one? Drop me a line.

Surprise random recipe post! Olive and Parsley Pesto

It's been too long.

No, seriously. Too long since the last recipe.

And the one I made tonight was quite good, quite good.

For the pesto, blend/process the following:
-6 oz of green olives
-1 c of grated romano (or parm) cheese
-1/3c olive oil
-1 tbsp vinegar
-1/2c sliced almonds
-1/2c parsley
-2 tbsp water
-As much garlic (I used 4 big cloves) as you can handle
-Some ground black pepper to taste

Super duper easy. If it's too thick, add some more olive oil. Too thin? Add some more almonds. Serve over pasta (if you're a normal person), quinoa (if you're Hassan and/or a communist), or whatever else you'd normally eat pesto on.

Modeling on Evans

Marcus sends in this photo of himself modeling his WW jersey, captioned "Mt. Evans, when I still felt human."

Which begs the question, just what did he feel like later?

At last... a post about bikes!

Thanks to Joel for the pictures. I miscalculated something when building Joel's frame and didn't do enough seat tube offset (the chainstays here are a very short effective 41cm/16.1" and I goofed, basically). Solution? Do a cutout in the seat tube. I think it came out ok for a first attempt, and I'd even do it again, albeit ideally before building the rest of the frame (doing the cutout with the entire front triangle+chainstays already welded up was nerve-wracking!)



So yes, you can have 16" chainstays on a 29er and room for a 2.3" tire, though Joel won't be running a front derailleur (and can't, no matter how much he wants to). Also check out the nice disc rotor brace that Joel specially requested (and sent the sacrificial rotor for) - I am only doing those by request anymore, since some folks think they look terrible, and others love them. So the default is tubing unless you ask for something else.

Bike riding Honda mechanic needed!

Yes, our beloved rusty 1991 Accord has blown up something in the transmission. I am hopeful that it's just a leak that can easily be fixed (I know the immediate problem is lack of transmission fluid, most of which is now decorating the floor of the Table Mesa park/ride).

In any case, if you're a Honda Mechanic, or have a friend who is, and like bikes - drop me a line and let's do some trading! I'll build you a bike or at the least hook you up with some parts (depending on how dire the situation is with the tranny... um, I mean car). And yes, if you figure out that it's $3k to repair my $1k car - I will of course still compensate you for your time, even if the car ends up on the scrap heap.

Edit: obviously, I should have entitled this "Dire situation with a tranny" or something. But I am not that creative.

Back!

After a 20 hour travel day that included driving, sitting around, driving, sitting around, flying, sitting, flying, sitting, a broken down bus, a full bus, a bus that we actually got on, and finally a car that blew it's transmission pulling out of the parking garage, we are home.

I am dealing with the car disaster (or attempting to) right now, so getting back to work is going slowly. Apologies to all who are patiently waiting!

And no, as usual, I did not take any pictures on our trip, but here's a quick wrapup:
-10-12 hours of sweet singletrack riding at Hawley, Earl's, Kingdom Trails, and Millstone Hill (in Barre - that place is rad now!). My short-stay 6" 29er dualie actually was pretty perfect for the trails we were on - as long as I had the Talas cranked down to 95mm travel in front (and corresponding 70.5-71 HTA rather than the usual 69).
-15 or so hours of great dirt road riding around Caspian Lake in VT.
-An awful lot of kayaking. My arms are like noodles.
-A few nice dirt road runs.
-At least 3 beers a night, each, if not 4. Even with all that exercise, I bet I gained a pound or two!

So, a great trip slightly marred by our less than stellar trip back to Boulder. I am working through emails and such when I have time in between working on the car.

No doubt: I am out

Headed off to MA and VT to ride some slippery roots (and by "ride" I mean "crash on, get laughed at, and soothe my hurt pride by consuming large amounts of local beer")

Back on the 19th (well, the 18th, but that day will be shot due to travel).

I may or may not check email while I'm gone, and I won't (obviously) be doing any work, so don't expect any quick responses to email/voicemail.

Let Eszter tell you how to survive the CTR!

...if you are crazy enough to want to do it, that is.

Check it out: Eszter's Mountainflyer blog/article.

Bikes and impotence...again

Many of you have probably seen this idiotic NYtimes article.

I have several problems with the article. In no particular order:

-No context is provided. For example, the #1 cause (by a mile) of impotence (I am tired of the "ED" term, call it what it is) is... drumroll... obesity (or, to be more accurate, cardiovascular disease and diabetes...which are caused in most cases by obesity). Yes, being fat is the #1 way to make yourself impotent. Will riding a bike make you less fat (or keep you from getting fat)? Um, obviously yes. I don't have the numbers, but I'm betting that percentage-wise, there's more impotence in the general population than among serious cyclists.

Giving the reader this kind of context is one of the most important jobs of any journalist, and this is the New York freaking Times. Personally, I'd fire the writer and the editor if they ran drivel like this.

-The writer seems hell-bent on interviewing idiots. The scientist involved explains away his lack of results (one individual had more boners at night, all the rest were no different than before) - "Dr. Schrader sees it as evidence that some effects of a conventional saddle may be slow, or impossible, to reverse." No, it's evidence of nothing at all.

Of course, fewer of the officers reported numbness while riding, so that's good. But it's not evidence that they were less impotent than before. A good study would have given some officers a new no-nose saddle, and some of them a special McGuffin saddle cover (ie, placebo) of some kind to see what happened when the officers only *thought* something had been changed. Bad science, guys.

The bike magazine fellow isn't any better. "I don't think a noseless saddle is safe in a race." Um, ok. That's idiotic, since A) the article really isn't about racers (and very few people race), and B) there are lots of races (BMX, for example) where the saddle is essentially never used, for steering or otherwise.

Having actually ridden a couple of these saddles, I'm confused about why Mr. Flax didn't point out the number one problem - you _can't freaking pedal very hard while sitting_. This is a non-starter for most serious cyclists, and it's why we're still using saddles today that look pretty similar to what people were riding 120 years ago.


This story seems to come back up every 5 years or so, with some new crackpot saddle that A) keeps pressure off your junk, and B) makes cycling no longer fun. Obviously, if you're having, er, problems, it might be time to look at a new saddle. Otherwise, this is just another iteration of the same dumb story.

My hometown burns...again

So, for those who don't know, I grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Yes, that's where the Manhattan Project was based, and yes, everyone in my family, including me, worked at LANL at one point or another (hey, I had an email address when I was 13, in 1989!)

So one of the nice things about Los Alamos is the awesome trail system - big portions of which burned and then had to be restored (with some success) after the Cerro Grande fire in 2000. My good friend McCalla's house burned down, along with 400 others, and he lost basically everything he owned.

Now it looks like Los Alamos is burning again. The town has been evacuated, the restored trails will probably be destroyed again, and we can only hope that nobody dies this time around (amazingly, nobody died in the Cerro Grande fire).

Anyway, sad news. Best of luck to all my old friends in LA. McCalla, sorry about the race you were going to put on this fall...looks like Pipeline is on fire.

Anyway, back to the shop for me, I guess. I find it hard to motivate when I get bad news, and this makes me very sad.

PSA: Bikelugs tubing now in stock... and super, duper cheap!

It looks like Kirk Pacenti has pulled off another one of his framebuilding coups (he's the fellow who invented off-road 650b) - he's got a new run of True Temper-made tubing in stock that is pretty much the same stuff that TT makes and sells direct - but he's selling individual tubes for 20-25% less than the box-quantity price from TT.

Amazing deals. If you're a builder, check it out: www.bikelugs.com.

Some pictures for Joel - slow progress

Sarah had some (minor, don't freak out, she's fine) eye surgery today which ended up requiring me to serve as sort of a nurse/personal secretary. And I had to ride out to Costco to pick up a few things, so the long and short of it is that I did not get that much work done.

Oh, and for those who are curious, which I'm guessing is about zero, I was once again the definition of packfill in yesterday's short track - 14th of 27 racers. Given that I raced with no warmup, no knowledge of the course, and a bum knee, I'm ok with that. Of course, with none of those excuses, it was exactly the same result as 2 weeks ago... sigh.



But anyway, Joel. I mitered up all the front triangle tubes and the chainstays (seatstays are always the last step for me). Some of these tubes/miters are cleaned up and ready to weld (mainly the toptube) but most are as yet not clean or even deburred. No matter how good your mitering setup is, you always end up doing at least a little hand filing to make things perfect and to deburr.

The marks on the tubes are the butts - always good to check those before doing any mitering, let alone any welding. I learned that the hard way (the standard way I seem to learn lessons) early on - sometimes the specs the manufacturer gives you are wrong - so you gotta measure everything and not take anything for granted.

Patience, grasshopper...

So, if any of you needs advice about what to do when you want to go to the dirt jumps, but UPS hasn't shown up with your snazzy new kneepads yet, I can only say this: do not wear really baggy shorts that will get caught on your saddle on your first run down the "small" line, causing you to auger in on your knee and bleed all over the place.

And try to not smash your head into the wall too many times when you see the BTI box on your porch when you finally limp home.

I assume Will (Mr. UPS) dropped the pads off right about the exact time I was trying to put my knee through the final step-up.

To continue my run of idiocy, I then rushed out to race the short track (maybe my knee won't stiffen up if I go race!) - but that's another story.

Some random stuff FS, also, who left their shoes?

First, if you are the person who left their (large, Shimano) shoes and clipless pedals in a bag on my porch, please let me know why... and what I should be doing with them! If I don't figure it out soon, they're going to community cycles!

Second, I have two items for sale that are somewhat odd. Hal has swapped to riding rigid, so he no longer needs these items and was kind enough to trade them to me for some tuneup/assembly work:

-White Brothers BW.8 through-axle disc fork. Yes, an 80mm fork with a 20mm through axle. It's in great shape with good seals/sliders/air and damping cartridges/etc. $100 or FREE with a frame order.

-XT/A719 wheelset. 36 spokes laced up 3x, super beefy. XT rear hub, TXQuando (generic) 20mm front. 6 bolt on both ends, in great shape and ready to ride. Good training wheels or alternately a great setup for a freeride wheelset on a budget. $100, or, once again, free if you order a frame to go with.

-You can buy the wheels and fork together if you'd like for $175.

-Brand new Elixir CR 160mm brakeset (front and rear). Got the wrong color for Todd - they are red, and he does not like red! Never mounted or used, ready to rock. $300 for the set, or $200 if you order a frame to match.

Drop me a line if any of those items sound interesting.

Finally...pictures for Matt

Well, only 2 pictures. Inexplicably, my camera decided to focus on the rocks in the background on all the other shots. I'm betting that's user error, but c'est la vie. I build bikes a lot better than I take pictures of them.

I know someone will ask, so:
-23.8" toptube
-71/74 head/seat
-42.5cm effective chainstays (43cm actual)
-Ready for discs and gears and a 100mm travel fork
-Low mounts, s-bends, the works
-Yes, it will have seatstays (in point of fact, it does, but the picture was taken before that step)

Boulder's Car/Bike Wars - my take

Some of you may have heard that a cyclist was killed here in Boulder on Friday when a large truck failed to yield turning left and struck him.

I do not road ride much (precisely for this reason) and I normally try to avoid confrontation with cars. But this case outrages me (to be fair, all the evidence is not yet in, and I will happily apologize/eat my words if the cyclist turns out to be at fault here) because the driver involved previously was charged (and plead guilty) to reckless endangerment for a previous road-rage incident involving a cyclist in which he attempted to force the bike into oncoming traffic (how this is only a misdemeanor baffles me).

I am normally not a vindictive person, but I hope this death haunts Mr. Loven for the rest of his life. And I know that if I were looking to install a wastewater system, I would NOT hire Mr. Loven's company, Power Earth Septic Systems.

'Nuff said. Rest in peace, Eugene.

Did someone step on a duck?

Well, no, but when Jake interrupted our drunken viewing of Hot Tub Time Machine (highly recommended, at least if you've been drinking) last night to tell us that a duck was wandering around the driveway, Sarah sprang into action.

The duck was nonplussed by the car ride, and also seemed quite unimpressed by the release site (the creek next to the bike path near Waltworks world HQ). But I daresay it was better than hanging around in our driveway quacking sadly.

Matt is going to kill me...

...but I *still* have not gotten around to taking pictures of his front triangle.

Instead, here is the weird project of the week. A fork for a Cannondale headshock assembly. It'll be finish machined by some NASA geeks (no joke!) and then cryofit onto the steerer.

Man, that thing looks weird to me. And I'm not used to welding .120" tubing - I had to crank the welder up to an astounding (for me) 80 amps!

Seuss in the wild

For those who remember me making fun of Peter for his "Dr. Seuss" fork, here you go. I'll leave it up to you to make any jokes you'd like at Peter's (or my!) expense, but long story short, he's having a great time riding the fork, silliness be damned!

Good stuff to have around...

...if you're a bike builder, or just someone with an amazingly crap car. Some people brag that their bikes are worth more than their car. Mine is probably worth an order of magnitude more.
-Rubber bands.

-Garbage and an old innertube (never, never clean your car, folks!)


Yes, Matt, this is why I have yet to get anything much done on your frame today. On the plus side, the radiator hose blew up (spectacularly!) within a few hundred feet of a pretty sweet trail, so we went for a ride while we waited for it to cool down. And the "fix" easily got us the 40 miles home. Nice.

Initial thoughts: Paragon Rockers

No pictures of the new (sort of) Paragon Rocker dropouts on the frame for y'all, but I thought I'd do a short writeup about these. Keep in mind:
- I've only built one frame with 'em.
- It's not even back from powdercoat.
- I will never get to ride it, as A) it's not mine, and B) Bernard is 6" taller than me.

So I know very little, right now, about how the dropouts will actually work out.

In no particular order, my thoughts:

-They are just as heavy as any other slider/swinger/etc. Figure an extra 200-250 grams of weight on your frame as compared to a conventional vertical dropout. C'est la vie.

-The caliper positioning (between the stays) is EXCELLENT for use with a rack or fender, as the caliper is tucked well out of the way of the eyelets (much like the low mounts).

-Like the low mounts, I've settled on downtube/chainstay routing of the rear brake hose/housing. On some brakes with adjustable banjos, you could do a conventional toptube/seatstay setup, but in most cases, the downtube is going to be the way to go.

-There are two bolts and one pin holding everything in place, but no tension screw of any kind. I think these will probably not slip no matter what you do (the slots are not oriented in the same direction, even, so it would be insanely difficult to make that happen), but I could be wrong.

-As with the sliders, S-bend chainstays are highly recommended. The dropout is long and the chainstay tabs sit way outboard - so heel clearance will be an issue for some riders. S-bends will help with that to an extent.

-Cost is the same (extra $120) as for sliders.

Bottom line? These are great dropouts and they have some advantages over the slider configuration, especially if you want to run racks or fenders (or both). They are heavy and expensive, just like many singlespeed/disc dropouts, and they are not great for heel clearance. Time will tell whether there are any reliability/function/longevity issues. Basically, good stuff. Let me know if you want them on your bike, I'm happy to do it.

Quote of the weekend...

"It is counterintuitive but true: Enhancing publicly-funded recreational amenities increases complaints about publicly-funded recreational amenities. This has led some libertarian critics to propose that public recreation makes people unhappy, and given enough of it, the public will completely consist of angry socialists. However, it is possible that the complaining and whining generated by the availability of a new recreational amenity does not represent new and unique complaints, but a reallocation of complaints from a hypothetical total number of complainer-hours available to the bitching public."

-? Anyone know who said this?

(apropos of people complaining online about the opening of the new Valmont Bike Park)

Quick photo for Bernard, short race report

First up, a quick shot for Bernard. This bike has got it all - Paragon Rocker dropouts (more on those on Monday), s-bends, giant head tube for use with a tapered steerer fork if needed, rack and fender mounting points, etc. And it's huge - almost a 26" toptube and a 22" seat tube, because Bernard has an astounding 38" inseam. So it's a bit of a tank - 5.5 pounds. C'est la vie - this sucker will haul kids, groceries, and whatever else and still be fun to ride offroad, which was the goal.

Second, a brief race report. Sarah and I talked ourselves into doing the short track at the CU research park on Wednesday night. It was quite a butt-kicking, as neither of us is in shape (nor generally inclined) to short, flat power races. Sarah fought hard but ended up 12th of 13 (weirdly enough, the 13th place woman is not shown in the results). She had fun, though, and I'm sure she'll be faster next week. She was holding her own quite well on all the bike-handling sections of the course, but losing time like mad in the straight sections.

My own race... well, it was pretty humorous. I got my usual lousy start and commenced battling with the same old crew of 30-something dudes that I always do (Matt "Paco" Pachocha, Brandon Dwight, and Ward Baker). We all seem to get older every year, but not any faster. In any case, I was having an ok race and was looking to possibly crack the top ten, when the first crash happened - on one of the only uphill sections of the entire course, when I leaned a little too far over making a turn (and still pedaling) at the crest of a tiny climb (thanks to Ken for the photo, not sure if this is when it happened, but you get the idea...) Yep, pedal in the dirt, Walt on the ground. A spectator commented that "I haven't seen anyone do THAT yet!" Thanks. Sigh.

Not a problem, I only lost one place, and the gap I had put into Ward was, well, totally gone. Final lap rolled around and I was looking to make up a few places, so I took some chances - and blew another corner. This time I fell over right next to a dirt jump that someone had been working on. Well, ok, actually I fell into the hole that they had dug out next to it. And there I stayed, clipped in, on my back, feeling sort of like an inverted turtle waving it's legs in the air.

Finally, accompanied by much laughter from all who witnessed it, a spectator helped me get up (I'm not sure how long it would have taken, otherwise!) and I finished the race having lost another place or two (I ended up 14th of 29).

So when people ask me how the race went, my standard response is now "I put on a hell of a show!" Then I hope that they don't ask for any more information...

Friday Memories - My First Ride

This story in the Daily Camera reminded me of this semi-fond childhood memory.

I was 5 or 6, had just finally learned to ride a 2-wheeled bike, and spent an entire Saturday (no joke, I am not sure I stopped for anything but lunch) riding up and down our street in front of the house. It was awesome. I remember (this is one of my earliest memories) thinking "this is like flying!"

It was so much fun that I wondered what it would be like to ride *with my eyes closed* for just a minute, just to feel the gliding sensation even better.

The next thing I knew, I was in the bed (luckily the tailgate was down) of our neighbor's ghetto-ass lowrider truck (this is New Mexico in the 80s, what can I say...) I wasn't hurt, but I was terrified, and I started sobbing uncontrollably and ran inside - where my father asked me what had happened.

I knew that there was no way this horrible tragedy could be my fault, so I said the first thing that came to mind, and a quote that Sarah still mocks me with today: "It's not fair!"

Yes, indeed. It was not fair. But that was how my life of cycling began, with an ambush by a stealth lowrider.

Eszter wins!

Ok, the race was, kinda, sorta, not actually sanctioned/approved/legal (no, I wasn't there). So this race report is about the post-race/post-party derby:

Hi Walt,
Figured I'd write up a race report, maybe I'd be cool enough to make
it on your blog. Maybe not. Either way, I won the SSUSA foot-down
bike derby, so I got a sweet weight belt, which apparently I now will
be needing to take to Vermont next year to defend. The complete video
of all the action can be seen here, complements of Chris' phone.

I've attached a picture of the derby-winning pony.

-E

F&*%&^!!!

Just a quick announcement - due to some projects gone awry (if you've been watching the waitlist, you know which one, probably... cough, KVA, cough) I am about a week behind schedule from where I'd like to be.

I am working as fast as I think is prudent (ie, not so fast that I screw up even more stuff) but it's likely that I won't get caught up until I get back from VT in mid-July. Just FYI. Sorry, everyone!

Now THAT is a bribe...

Thanks Joel! For the rest of you, this is the perfect way to put a smile on the face of a hopeless drun...er, I mean professional framebuilder. Happy Friday!

Of course, I am assuming it is actually tasty... have had some gnarly homebrew before. I'll give a full report after the weekend.

Sarah and I are off to Vail to watch some of our climbing acquaintances compete in the Bouldering World Cup at the Teva Mountain Games (go Carlo! Go Alex! Go Garrett! Sorry Columbia wouldn't spring for the entry fee, Nic!) and perhaps do the citizen's comp as well. No, I am not planning to race the MTB race - the course is really lame this year (not the fault of the organizers, there is too much snow to really go up on the mountain at all) and I'm not motivated. We may ride downvalley where things are drier, though.

Waltworks on the Coconino...

No, I'm not talking about some kind of disturbing bike porn involving me and Garro. You wish!

I'm talking about Kimberly and Aaron riding the Coconino bike-packing style on their WW bikes. Here's a shot of them all loaded up, courtesy of Kimberly, who happens to run the very cool Simple Hostel in Salida. Once the snow melts, head down for a day on the Monarch Crest trail and stay the night!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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)