Category: cycling

Dragon GAP Winter Race

Published February 7, 2010

Yesterday was the third annual Lake Orion High School Guided Activities Program winter race. The sunny, cold weather was perfect for riding in the woods with all of the riding going well, except for the first extremely steep hill.

The first time I went down said hill I went a bit too fast, overshot the trail, and ended up running perpendicular into a ditch. This bottomed out my fork, dropped the chain to the outside of the cranks, twisted the bar a bit to the right, and rotated my left Ergon grip down a good ways. Somehow I didn’t get hurt, so I was able to continue riding after getting some tools out and straightening the bar. My shoulder is very minorly sore this morning, but that could also be from sleeping oddly.

Being a few minutes behind everyone else I now had a quiet, uneventful, ride alone through the woods, save for occasionally passing some of the kids slower folks. I don’t think I came in last, though, as two thirds of the way through the second of my two laps I passed someone who I believe was in my same category. That likely puts me at second to last.

The video of the race above is made by a local guy named Matt (mattmtb1 on YouTube) who is known for filming local races and events then doing an outstanding job putting together short, entertaining videos of them. I actually made it in at 2:00, where I’m shown turning up a steep corner with my studded rear wheel scraping audibly at the ice.

There’s also this photo of the four of us from Trail’s Edge Racing who participated: Bob Costello, (Me) Steve Vigneau, Bill Edgerton, Joe Siedl. Marty took this photo and posted it to Facebook, but due to the sillyness involved in linking directly to Facebook content I rehosted it.

Danielle came to watch and brought Roxie along with her. Both kids and adults loved having her there, and she loved being the center of attention. A number of people, including the Cannondale Midwest Racing folks, were taking photos and/or video of her, so hopefully those will surface online soon.

UPDATE: Here is another video of the race from YouTube.

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Great Weather, New Bar

Published February 4, 2010

After an overly long delay my new handle bar was finally delivered. It’s really nice looking, and hopefully I’ll get it fitted tomorrow. I would have done it tonight, but my friend Bob came by and we took a quick ride up to River Bends.

With the icy trails we’d both fitted studded tires, and these worked out very well. The weather was about perfect for winter night-time riding, with the air sitting at freezing, and the ground in the trails maintaining a nice layer of soft snow and ice. With the tires clinging to the trail it was possible to ride fast on some of the flat/straight sections, and the 20 MPH+ bursts were a very nice treat. Hopefully winter will continue to smile on biking, and the spring mud / thaw season won’t last long.

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Trail’s Edge Racing Logos

Published February 1, 2010

For this year I’ve joined the folks at Trail’s Edge Racing, the bike team for Trail’s Edge Outdoors. I’m a member of the B team, and will probably end up racing in either the Beginner or Sport categories, depending on the race.

As part of being on the team I have to put a shop logo on my bike. This makes sense, as shop-sponsored bike teams exist to promote and advertise for shops. While I like the Trail’s Edge logo, with the very shiny new Titus I didn’t want to put the standard black and white logo sticker on them; it demanded something appropriately colored. Thankfully Dave Cox, art director for DL Graphics and whom I know from the MMBA Metro South chapter, came to the rescue and made some 4″ wide silver vinyl-cut logos. These fit perfectly on the bike, and as can be seen in this view of the whole front triangle match very nicely with the other silver logos on the bike. I’m very happy with them.

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Rotor Truing Test

Published January 25, 2010

After acquiring a hub (from a trashed wheel that I was given) and borrowing a dial indicator I decided to test out a prototype of the disc brake rotor truing stand that I’ve been wanting to make. Initially I’d planned on making a wood base to hold a hub and either a feeler gauge or dial indicator, but after trying this all out in my bench vise, I’m quite happy with this setup.

I’ve ordered this dial indicator from Grizzly Industrial, Inc., which is the same one seen in the picture above. Next I’ll probably make a plastic or wooden block to fit in the jaws of the vise and hold the bottom of the quick release, and then future truing activities will use a setup just like this.

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Titus Racer X 29er

Published January 23, 2010

Here’s my new bike, the one which I’ve been hinting at for a while now, a Titus Racer X 29er. This is a discontinued model that I was able to get at a fairly reasonable price because it’s replacement is considerably higher end (and also titanium alloy or carbon fiber only). I’ve had the bike for roughly a month and have been taking my time getting it set up as I want, with an appropriate saddle, pedals, brakes, and other such bits.

Now that it’s essentially complete I wanted to take it out for a test ride. With the recent lack of snow, reasonably warm weather without much risk of mud (due to cold ground), and heavy precipitation forecasted for the next few days, today was the day. The result was a basic 21.1 mile ride over the course of 1:37:28, for an average of 12.9 MPH. Everything on the bike performed wonderfully and as expected, although I did realize that I need to move the saddle forward a bit and adjust the suspension a bit. The seatpost may also have slipped down a few millimeters, but that’s probably because I didn’t have the seatpost clamp particularly tight.

Thus far I’m really happy with the bike. I’m still waiting on the arrival of Carnegie’s Bar from Ragley, but that should be here any day now. It was ordered from Chain Reaction Cycles in the UK (Ragley does not yet have US distribution for their stuff), and postage from the UK always seems to take a while. I look forward to trying this bar because it looks like it’ll be comfortable, but if not I’ll probably be able to sell it for close to its cost.

If you’d like to see the full geeky list of parts currently on the bike, take the link below and look inside.

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Kenda Small Block Eight

Published January 18, 2010

A rep from Kenda was set up at Ray’s MTB on Saturday displaying all manner of tires, tubes, and such. Conveniently all tires were also available for sale, at US$20/each, which is quite a bit below retail. I’ve been wanting to try out the Small Block Eight (SB8), a small knob smooth-rolling tire good for hard pack surfaces, so I picked up a pair of them in 29″ x 2.1″, the only 29er size made.

The Nevegals (which came stock on the bike, front and rear) don’t roll particularly smoothly but supposedly offer great control. Following some online recommendations I fitted the SB8 on the rear of the bike, leaving the nice, big knobs up front for better control. We’ll see how this shakes out once I actually start riding the bike, but at least I’ve now got a few options to play with. If nothing else I’m sure I can sell the Nevegals and SB8s for a reasonable price to fund some other tires.

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CrankBrothers Shoe Shields

Published January 18, 2010

After hearing about CrankBrothers Shoe Shields from my friend Erik I decided to give them a try. There is a fair bit of wear on my shoes (photo) from the Eggbeater pedals that I use and these thin metal plates should head this off and keep the shoes functional for even longer. Priced at $10.99/pair (at the local ACF) it wasn’t worth trying to make my own, as I don’t have a ready source of stainless steel nor an easy way to make similar cuts.

When the replacement pedals (Eggbeater SLs – photo) for my failed Eggbeater MXRs arrived today I decided that while fitting them to the bike I’d also replace the cleats and fit the Shoe Shields. While new pedals and cleats will normally feel a bit nicer, the addition of the Shoe Shields and their smoothing out the bottom of the shoe to better-than-new condition made clipping and unclipping during a test ride feel wonderful. While I imagine they’ll stand up to wear, it’ll be interesting to see just how long they last.

If you’d like to see more photos of them, including the packaging, install directions, thickness, and detail of the materials used, check out my CrankBrothers Shoe Shields album.

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Ride Until Failure

Published January 17, 2010

Today I met up with Rob and some friends of his at the intersection of 22 Mile and Shelby, heading out for ride intended to go to Metro Beach and back. As the weather was forecasted to be a partly cloudy 38°F surprise in the middle of January we figured it’d be a good day for a long ride. We proceeded to ride at a decent clip up to Nick and Marty’s place in Mt. Clemens, stopped to fit chemical toe warmers, picked up Nick, Marty, Jon, and Bob, then continued on to Metro Beach. One guy who was with us since Shelby Township dropped off here, as he lived in Mt. Clemens and had brought his single speed set up at 32:18 and the sustained ~16 MPH ride out almost wore out his legs.

By the time we got to gazebo at Metro Beach (the end of the path) I realized that I hadn’t eaten enough this morning and I’d run out of glycogen. Despite having food (gels and good granola) available. this coupled with a bit of wearyness from yesterday’s trip to Ray’s had me questioning if I’d be able to make it all the way back home, including the last four miles before my house which are very rough, frozen sidewalks. Since Bob had parked at Nick and Marty’s he offered to drive me back to my place, which was a really wonderful favor, as making it all the way back home would have otherwise proved quite complicated. I guess the partial avocado (it was kinda rotted), bowl of oatmeal, cup of coffee, and pretzel bread / cheddar sandwich that I had for breakfast wasn’t quite enough calories for this ride.

All said, the total distance for today’s ride was 42.18 miles, averaging 13.3 MPH (peak 24 MPH) over 3:09:28 of moving time. With yesterday’s 15.7 miles, that puts this weekend up along a somewhat exceptional summer weekend. My legs are only slightly sore and I didn’t collapse, so I guess I’m doing all right.

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Ray’s MTB

Published January 17, 2010

I just got home from a trip down to Ray’s MTB in Cleveland, a really nice bike facility built into some old factories. We spent most of our time riding the the XC course, with stops in both the beginner and intermediate rooms, staying away from (but watching) the expert things, including some of the stuff that appears to be straight out of video games.

The trip worked out well, as I drove down Friday after work and split a room with Erik and Kristi. Lots of good food was had, and the weather was just about as nice as one could hope for in late January. Being above freezing put Ray’s building itself somewhere perfectly comfortable in shorts and light gloves/shirts.

At one point I let my front wheel slide while coming down a ramp and fell, but it only scuffed up my knee. The only other real problems were caused by other people, most notably kids on BMX/street bikes who can’t ride up hills but insist on riding the XC course. If they planned right it wouldn’t be a problem, but instead they’d stop part-way up hills, walk to the top, and stop. With the course being almost completely plywood it made stopping very difficult and restarting almost impossible. Then there were the collections of people who’d stop on any available mid-course platform, backing things up terribly…

That all said, this is definitely a place I’d like to visit again. Despite the few irritations riding there was a whole bunch of fun and quite a nice way to do some technical riding in the middle of winter. If you’d like to know more about it, head over to the Ray’s MTB website and check out the videos, maps, and things like that. There’s also a bunch of videos from there on YouTube. This video in particular shows a lot of the XC trail, even though it’s last year’s layout, which I’m told did not have nearly the number of lines (different route options) available now.

A few photos were taken today, but of those most ended up being crap. Here’s the few passable ones, including the one up top of the beginner room looking down from the place where one rides up a steep ramp into the ceiling/rafters:

· Erik’s bike, Kristi’s bike, and my bike in the hotel room when we went to Ray’s MTB in Cleveland.
· 24oz can of Colt 45 in my bike, in the hotel room. Works every time.
· Looking down from the ceiling in the beginner room of Ray’s MTB.

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Broken Specialized Water Bottle Cage

Published January 14, 2010

Last night while looking over my hard tail bike I noticed that the Specialized water bottle cage on the bike, purchased roughly two years ago, has broken. While the weld was cracked it didn’t completely let go until I gave it a gentle squeeze, splitting it open, as can be seen here and here.

It’s a good thing that the King Cage bottle cages arrived Tuesday, as I was able to drop one of those on the bike. While silver, which doesn’t match the bike very well, it should work well and not break. Finding the crack at home is also much better than having it come apart while riding, as this tends to cause water bottles to fall and be lost.

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