this is fun

Just a typical ride home at the end of the day. My ride is just at 10 miles each way and it gives me just enough good reason to enjoy a ride like this. It is alot more pleasant to ride in the winter when there is fresh snow on the ground and/or snow falling. I look forward to times like these. Still working on getting my layers right. Seems the easiest when it is 15* or colder.

bike mods coming up

I am finally getting some parts together to modify my single speed 'cross bike! It is an all purpose bike and I love that I can and have set it up in many configurations to suit the task at hand. In the summer I put 23c tires on it with the 42/18 and made it my road cruiser. I even put flat bars on it that I cut down for the short fixie-type stance. This past fall I put 35c 'cross tires on it with a 32/18 and raced it at Catamount in the CX series. I did the best I could. Now I put the 38/18 on it and have just switched to the studs and use it to commute and ride with the guys on Sundays.

Now I am taking the bike to the next level. GEARS! Shimano Alfine 8speed IGH. I ordered a pair of Velocity Deep V hoops in yellow. I think that they will look sweet and they will give a level of visibility to my bike and me while I am on the road. I am going to run Versa 8 shifters and brake levers so that I can keep the drop bars.

Now, I will still run the bike in the different setups but now I will have the luxury of gears. I will run a 42/18 setup in the summer and a 38/18 in the winter. This will give me a large range of gears designed to be best for the conditions. I love that 4th gear is direct drive. It allows you to pick the ratio that you want and then know what you have up and down from there.

I will post pictures of the build when I start. Probably my holiday project.

let me get current

I put the studded tires on the commuter on 12/4. I went for a ride with the guys on 12/5. After our ride we stopped off to warm up and have some coffee. When we were done, I took off to run some errands before heading home. In all I got 40 miles in.

The beginning of the week brought a small snow storm for my commute to the shop. I was able to test out the route I take. I didn't ride much last winter so I didn't really have much saddle time into the studs.

So far this year, I have ridden more on them than I did all last season. They are a sure sense of comfort when riding every day. I have ridden almost 600 miles since the first weekend in November. I have a huge base that I am trying to achieve. More on that later.

time for the studs!

My first near run-in with a skunk!

...of all places, Downtown Burlington! I was commuting to the shop this morning on my usual route and when I got downtown to the intersection of N. Winooski Ave. and Cherry St. I decided to turn right and add a little time to my ride. It got light out and I thought what the hey. I rode Cherry to the end and then hopped up on the sidewalk and rode it downhill south on Battery St. I passed the hotels and was coming up to Main St. when I saw this adolescent skunk waddling along on the sidewalk that I was on. He was sniffing up by some steps to some shops when I realized I was getting dangerously close to him and that there would be no way that I could just ride by without him noticing.

I started to brake hard and my front brakes started to chatter. That scared him (or at least got his attention), he hopped up on the first step and must have felt trapped so he threw up his tail. Mind you that this all happened in about 5 seconds.

I instantly thought that I am going to get sprayed. Thankfully it was early in the morning with no traffic on the road. (In hindsight that is where I should have been) I bailed right, dropping off the curb and far to the other side of the road and continued downhill to the end of Battery.

Man, what a close call. That would have made my day!

Slacky Mackey

It seems hard to juggle everything and keep up with a couple of blogs. Moving really through things off. I will get it straight here soon.

I am registered for the Race to the Top of Vermont which in on 8/29. I will let you know how that goes. My PB to beat is around 1:40. I hope that I can do quite a bit better than that.

8/22 is the Pedal for Paws and I have to have my display bike build by then. It will be a very busy 9 days coming.

I will update as soon as possible. Thanks!

Catamount trail run

My daughter, Justis, has started doing some trail running. I have decided to run with her for support and to increase my work out for my preparation for the VT50. She is no slump and I am not a runner by any stretch of the imagination. She ran a 2.5km run in 36:25. Im so proud of her. It takes a lot of dedication for an 8 year old to be involved in this sort of thing. I am nursing a sprained heel from about two weeks ago and it didn't bother too bad on the run. It is a good time running trails. It keeps your mind off of the absurdity of running. Let's see how next week goes. Tonight is the same course on a mountain bike.