Saxon Hill

First time out in the woods on the new MTB!

Not only the first woods ride on the new bike, but my first time ever riding at Saxon Hill. Man, it's nice there and so close to home. Joe and I rode from home to the trails, did a full lap of them and rode home.

Progress report:

The fully rigid 29er is a very nice platform. It has so many qualities brought over from a 'cross bike or any 700c touring bike. It is responsive and lively and rolls over alot of stuff that I remember choking up a 26" wheel. The 1x8 IGH will find its way to being quite worthy for me. The type of riding that I do and/or prefer to do will find that it is just enough range to keep me satisfied. I do think that I will go to a 32t ring on the front. I have a 35t now and it is a bit tall for some climbing that I did this past weekend. Therefore I know that I will not be happy with it at the VT50. I rather loose my top end to gain some more low end. Research showed that the gear inches on my 29er with 35/20 IGH in first gear is the same as a 26" mtb in the middle/second on a 3x9. I'm missing alot of low end with this setup.

This brings me to my next dilemma! Do I suffer the loss and stay with the simplicity and non maintenance of the IGH or do I lose that and get the full range? There are too more possibilities. I can pair the Hammerschmidt 2speed front with the IGH for more range or I can take the more (much more)expensive route and go with the 14spd Rohloff hub. And of course if I ever want to run the belt drive I can't use the Hammerschmidt but I wouldn't need that if I use the Rohloff. Oh, decisions. Time will tell. For now it is get my fitness back, train, and ride the bike. I have a race to do in about seven weeks. I hope to be my time from last year by 30 minutes. A tall order considering that I lost 8 weeks of training to an injury.

Out in the Wild!

Well, sorta! Just a nature shot in the city. I do look forward to getting it out on some trails soon.

here at last!

My new MTB. Full rigid with an 8spd IGH. Should be interesting. Pretty simple concept though.

Originally going to be white on white but fate changed that a little. No worries, it's built to ride. Looking pretty is just a bonus.

180mm rotor to slow my big ass down. 100% carbon rigid fork to smooth things out.

180mm in the rear too just to be sure. Check out those calipers!

The internal gear hub felt right at home in there. I was even able to route the shift cable nicely.

WTB Vulpine 2.1 Race. These tires are for hardpack but I think that they will do good around here overall. Maybe not so much when it's wet. We'll see.

Now to ride the thing. Long wait on getting it rolling but worth it. I like this bike.

"I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike"

some bling

My friend said it right. "some sort of hipster mountain bike". I originally was going for a steel frame that was painted white but they were out of them and for who knows how long. I couldn't wait so I settled for the aluminum frame that is painted black. Doesn't look that bad at all, although I think the white would have been sweet.

Syncros DS28 rims laced with DT Swiss 350 front hub and Alfine 8 spd read hub

I'm going to see if I can fall in love with these tires. Low rolling resistance with good knobs for cornering

Here it is in the planning stage. Should be rolling soon!

I'm going to see if I can't get this thing out on the road. I will try to ride it to the shop tomorrow and see what it's like. Stay tuned, the reports start coming from here on:

Trasitional period

Well, it has been interesting getting back on the bike after I broke my collarbone. It has been tough yet fun. I still compare it to a 10 year old getting a new bike for Christmas. Yeah, it feels like that! It has been difficult getting my breathing right but I'm getting there.

My wife and I managed to get a ~45mile road ride in on Saturday. It was real nice and incredible to be with her. We have not ridden together like that in over two years. I look forward to a lot more of that with her.

Sunday morning I cut my Alfine 8spd IGH out of my commuter wheel so that I can have it put into the new wheelset for the MTB. Harris @ the Old Spokes Home is lacing them for me. I now have practically everything I need (maybe not a shift cable) to get this new bike rolling this week. Tires will be here today and all the rest is just waiting for assembly.

The bummer part of robbing the hub is that I don't have my road bike any more. Technically I can swap the wheelset between bikes by just changing the tires. The rims are 28mm wide which is on the wide side but I could probably find a tire to go on there. Surely my 700c X 35 studs will work for this winter. Or maybe I will just get some 29er studs and some crud fenders and ride the MTB this winter. I do have to fall in love intimately with this bike at some point. After all, it is the TD training rig!

rumor has it, I'M BACK!

I took my first (real) ride last night since my accident. Followed by my second this morning. Holy @#!% it felt great. I have waited for this for six weeks and I thought most or all of my season was over but there is hope I can get it back. My legs seem fine but my cardio is way off. Sucking wind like this:

except I wasn't getting the benefits from it. This morning was a bit better but I covered the same distance in less time proven that gravity was helping. I did have some challenging section and it feels so good to go after them.

My immediate goal on the bike is to be ready to the 24hrs of Great Glen. I signed up on a four man team before I broke my collarbone and was all but sure I would have to scratch. This may not be the case and I hope that is how it plays out. The only damage from this is a stupid (ridiculous) medical bill, some missed races at Catamount, and sadly a Duathlon that I was going to do with my wife. I was pretty bummed about that because I feel like it had a small part to do with why my wife stopped running lately.

I have brakes and tires to get for my MTB, still need to lace the wheels and then get the rest together for some test rides. One month to get me and the bike dialed in and then this race will help prepare me for the VT50. The Grande Fritata of my season!

the start of assembly!

the makings of the TD training bike

I am down but I am not out. While being broken and slightly feeling sorry for myself, I setup shop in the living room with the A/C blasting and the TdF on the TV. It was like my own little bike shop. I dropped the post and saddle on to get the bike in the stand and do a few things that I could to the frame. I installed the BB and cranks. They are Camber cranks from MRP. Nice and blingy in white. Then I installed the Syncros headset and got my steer tube marked for cutting. This fork rules! It is 100% carbon. 1.25lbs of joy. I can't wait to push this thing through the trails. I cut my first carbon steerer and it went well. No worries at all. It doesn't show in this picture but it is done and the stem and bars are installed as well. Next I will take the 700c wheels off of my commuter and put them on this bike to set up the cockpit and figure out my cable routing for the IGH. More to come...

I went to the doctors' for new x rays and although things are looking good and feeling even better, it is a slow healing. I am allowed to start riding again soon. He said two weeks, I think maybe one. I did sneak out with the family to the park to see the fireworks last night. First time on the bike since the accident. It felt really good. Almost like that feeling as a kid when you get your first bike. Freedom!

on the mend!

Well, most of my time in the past couple of weeks have been spent with just enough energy to work and then crash. My body has taken advantage of rest to restore itself to a functional state. I tell you, the more days that went by, the more I found things that were destroyed with me. It finally came to the point where the days go by and I feel a little better with each one. It finally does not feel like a knife is being shoved into my chest when I sneeze. I have been able to get some good motion out of the arm. I go back to the doctor on Friday for another xray to see how things are looking. I am hopeful that I'm coming along quite well and hope to be back on the bike SOON!

It is driving me nuts. I am all but sure that I have lost the base that I had and will need to work on restoring it. I have a bunch of parts collected now for my new bike I'm building. Some of the parts I already talked about and some have just shown up in the last few days. I have my sweet @ss fork coming and should be here any day. I will post about that next. Thanks!