Demons and Wiggles

Road at the Ridge again tonight. Met Jeff in the parking lot and rolled into the woods strait up the ridge and over the saddle. I don’t know why but I had a bug up my chamois tonight to go hit the Screamer. Those unfamiliar, the Screamer is kind of like a 40’ tall skateboard ramp, near vertical at the roll-in with a big smooth transition at the bottom. I had a pretty bad wreck their last year which broke my bike into 3 pieces and broke my collarbone into two pieces. Tonight was the first time I’d dropped that hill since the accident and I did it twice just to prove a point to myself. Its always a good thing to face ones demons and that one has been haunting me too long.

It was an hour and a half ride followed by Sweetwater 420 and bullshiting in the parking lot afterwards.


I got home and started working on one of my main cycling goals for the year, learning to build wheels. With some help from Sheldon Brown and a few tips from John and Shawn from Harpers Bike Shop I laced up my first wheel ever this evening. The wheel is an Eno hub laced to a WTB Laserdisc Trail 29. I thought the dish less wheel would be an easy one to start on plus I’m excited to get the Eno thing going for the Wily.


It went real smooth, you can read the hub logo through the valve hole and everything.


If I’m not at the hospital I will start tensioning it up tomorrow down at the shop under Johns supervision. I love how the spokes look all wiggly with no tension in them.


Tara is still holding strong, she went to the doctor today and everything looks good. We feel like it could be any minute now. Our heirloom piano is being delivered Friday, hopefully she can hold Noah in until after that. We have been joking for a month that she would go into labor right before the piano arrived and they would leave it in the front yard.

Great Video

I know most of the people who visit here are cycling friends or family. In another chapter of my life I was heavily involved in whitewater kayaking. I still paddle some but can certainly appreciate the spirit the river lends. Check out the video below from the folks at The Range Life, it’s probably my favorite outdoor blog on the web, these cats are seriously committed to what they do.







BC Summer 2006 on Vimeo

BigO’ll Battery

I went for a night ride at the Ridge tonight. I left the trailhead at 5:40 and made it all the way around the outside, up rainbow, up Skinny D, down East Edge, out Markey P. up the road and all the way over the saddle back down to middle road before ever turning on my light! Give us another hour of daylight and I won’t need to night ride anymore this year. I love night riding but by this time of year every winter I’m over it. So about a two hour ride tonigt and got back to the car and I had left my lights on. If I wanted to I couldn’t figure out how to leave the lights on in that car, they always turn off as soon as you turn the car off. Luckily my eclectic car has like a 300lb. battery in it and checking the battery level I probably could leave the lights on all night and it would still have enough charge to drive down to the store for a Duck Rabbit.

Another Monday

Did a Greenway/Boulavard/Greenwy/Downtown/Campus/Greenway ride on the Fixy last night. It was warm and I rolled a casual pace. I checked out all the signs for new apartments in various buildings downtown tonight. I partially understand the draw of urban living in Knoxville but these apartments look horrible. At most of them you have to buy into a corner unit to get a window in your bedroom and those units are selling for an unreasonable cost. I don’t think I could handle that. The price would be understandable in a big city but little Knoxville? Less than a mile away you can buy a small house in poor condition for less than forty grand, you could level the little house and build a nice compact residence that would be larger and nicer than those apartments and save a couple hundred thousand. It’s not like the Knoxville urban dwellers are living car free, there isn’t a grocery store within 2 miles of downtown. There must be 6 different buildings under construction for these apartments right now some are nicer than others, the Dewherst “Holston” project actually looks quite nice. I have to wonder when this market will saturate, probably the same time Downtown runs out of parking. All said it was a 2 hour ride and I had a great time. Trails should be dry for Tuesday night as long as I’m not at the hospital with Tara.

Tara is holding strong. A few contractions but nothing much.

Spring Cleaning

I had a plan to do a little spring maintenance on the road bike Saturday morning and then head out for a Foothills Parkway to 129, over the Dragon to Deals Gap and back ride. By 10:30 (when I should have been peddling) I had the whole bike stripped down to the frame. That bike has been through 3 seasons with little to no maintenance and it was overdue. Lots of parts where corroded together and all the components (9sp Dura-ace) are on their last leg. I cleaned, Polished and re-stickered the frame, broke down every part and cleaned it including brake calipers and hubs. Put her all back together with fresh lube everywhere, new cables/housings, new tires, new bar tape and a snazzy new geek mirror. It should be enough to get her through the year withminimal further effeort. Next year will probably require some major drivtrain and shifter upgrades which I kind of dread because I don’t want to go 10 speed!!


Since I was in cleaning mode I went ahead and did a light job on the Fixy. It got a wipe down, chain lube and some hand-me-down tires.
Mmmmm Lugs....


My favorit type of drivetrain....


I did get out and ride about four hours at the ridge on Saturday. I road with Jeff and Levi most of the day but ran into the Parkers when I was putting Levi back in the car and road with them a while. I went out on a brief fixy ride Sunday for about a half an hour around the neighborhood.

Tara is doing well but shows no signs of going into labor. She had a few contractions over the weekend but none were very strong and no pattern has ever developed. She had shower at the neighbors house today. She met some new people, ate cake and talked a lot about babies. I got some cake, red velvet to boot!

Washington

For all you non-Knoxvillians

Social Ride

Another beautiful day, and another night at the Boulevard. I met up with Dewy and Venezuelan Jeremy on my first lap. Dewy was spinning a mad small gear on his SS crosser while I cruzed my 42/16, our cadence difference was almost comical. Jeremy was out on the first ride on his new TCR road bike. It was actually the fist time he had ever ridden a road bike too. He looked to be having a good time. We parted ways after a lap or so and I headed of down the greenway, around through downtown, and back through campus. Twice I saw friends out jogging and rolled slowly with them for a chat. I ran into Monte Jones on the Greenway and road back to the boulevard with him. A little over two hours on the bike tonight I rode hard a few minutes and socialized allot.

A couple of phone/camera shots from tonight,

The Waterford, possible my favorite bike ever!



I am not a roadie!!!



Tara is doing well. She went for a walk this evening with Levi and the neighbors. She is super positive and I’m feeling pretty confident in her hopes for a drug free natural delivery. I have seen that girl go through allot of tough physical things, from suffering on a bike for hours on end to getting pounded in man eating holes kayaking and she always stays calm and focused.

Spring Tease

It got up to the mid sixties today, it felt like a taste of spring. I road the fixy from the Boulevard after work. Matt recently got a new Specialized Tricross and came out to ride with me. We took the greenway downtown and had just crested the steep-ass hill on the west side of the City County building (very hard climb on a 42/16) and Matt Realized he got a flat hoping a curb at the bottom of the hill. Of course he had nothing to fix it with and my 19-23c ultralight tube wasn’t going to help him a bit in his fat rubber. I motored back to the car to go so I could go pick him up but he decided to just ride the rim of his new bike and got back a few minutes after me. I still got an hour and a half on the bike tonight despite the events.



I got a couple of new toys today from my friends in California. A new Phil Wood bottom bracket for the BlackSheep. Since James fixed the creaking seat tube the creaking bottom bracket was driving me crazy. I was a little apprehensive to drop so much coin on a bottom bracket but the other day I was Union Jacks with Thomas and he said “I’m too poor to buy cheep parts” that helped me seal the fate of my Phil destiny. I also got an ENO disc hub and adapter. This hub will make singlespeed conversion or fixing the Wily (or any 700c bike) a snap. It’s also going to be my first wheel build. I have a goal this year of learning to build wheels and I have 3 builds planned to learn on in the next couple of weeks hopefully John Magnusson is going to give me some instruction along the way. As a bonus I found a little surprise in the box from California, a jersey from one of the coolest shops in the world, not just because of all the fancy parts, but because the staff has a real passion for bikes.




Tara had a doctors visit today. Everything is looking good she is 4cm dilated and 90% effaced. It could be any day now. Ill be hanging close to home for now till the day. I’m getting pretty nervous but excited like I’ve never felt before.

Southern Snow Ride

Jeff, Thomas, Dewy, Jonathan and I went on a 5 man singlespeed attach on winter today. We went down to Tanasi with hopes of warmer temperatures and a full tour of all the trails, but when we got to the White Water Center everything that wasn’t paved had at least an inch of snow on it and I knew the day was going to be different than planned. The group kept a positive attitude as we changed clothes in mid twenties with a 10-15 mph wind wiping through the lot. After some tire and shock adjustments five hardy souls all on singlespeeds (one rigid and one 26er) set out in a mood of nervous anticipation. .

We decided to keep to the river/left trails instead of heading up to Brush Creek. The first climb we were all giggling at trying to climb through the snow. As we headed up onto the Chestnut trail it was apparent this was going to be an epic event. Laying fresh tracks for the first hour our snow skills sharpened with every turn. Steep technical climbs were tuff, but rolling and descending terrain was about as much fun as I’ve ever had on a bike.

My tires (resolutions) hooked fairly well in the snow but they packed up with a snow/mud/leaves mixture the jammed up anything around the tire. If you stopped for more than a minute all the goop would freeze up solid and your tires wouldn’t turn.

Ever wonder why that wool jersey is so warm, it’s because sheep love snow,



Monocog in flight,



Typical trail conditions,





Survey the damage,








I didn’t get any pics of Jonathan or Dewey. Jonathan was on fire today, he led out more climbs as the day went on and made all the tough climbs with the minimal traction. This was the first out-of-town ride I’ve gone on with Dewy, I suspect we will se him out on some more adventures with us again soon, he had a blast.


So the basic rout was Bear Paw/Chestnut/Thunder Rock Express/45/West Fork/Chestnut/Quartz Loop/1330 Bypass/Riverview/Chestnut/Thunder Rock Express/River trail back to the car. 20 Miles and about 4 hours.

Snow rides in the south are truly a rare thing. Check over at Show up and Blow Up or Harvest the Ride for further trip reports.

Ice Pellets / Brown Pellets

Levi and I met Jeff and Thomas at the ridge for a cold snowy ride today. Well it wasn’t exactly snowing more like tiny ice pellets where gently pelting us throughout the ride. The ground was frozen so mud was minimal. We had a great time, lost Jeff mid ride he decided to take an adventurous turn along the way. I built a little log pile a couple of weeks ago but was on the fixy and was chicken to mess with it. We stopped and played around on it for a minute.

Jeff on his new Niner,



Long shot of Jeff,



Yours truly, sheep herding on the log pile,


Levi had a great day. He’s getting two bowls of brown pellets tonight,



Turned out to be a little over 2.5 hours on the bike. I felt terrible at the beginning of the ride but felt better as the day went on.

Slacker

I haven’t touched a bike since Sunday. I feel like such a slacker but its too cold for me to hit pavement and the trails are wet and fully thawed by late afternoon when I get time to ride. I’m going to have to bust out the rollers or take up jogging again if something doesn’t change soon. Walks in the park at luch aren’t going to cut it for Cohutta/PMBAR training.
The weekend forecast calls for highs in the low thirties and snow on Saturday. Hopefully I can squeeze something in maybe an epic snow ride in the Smokies.

Tara and I did have a great Valentienes day. My office had a lunch/shower for us and Karen and Jeff Williamson. It was a catered lunch done by Robin Farly’s husband. The folks at the office were unbelievably generous. We had dinner at one of new favorite restaurants Seasons it was on off the charts good diner and probably our last super fancy diner out for quite some time. Baby pool just started at my office and I here one may be on Knoxcycling soon.

Graduation!!!

Tara and I graduated from “Teddy Bear University” tonight. We are officially educated in all things parenting. Or at least all the things that can be learned in five, 2 hour classes.



Tara had a checkup today, Noah is dropped all the way down and she is starting to dilate. It won’t be long now at all. It’s a good thing we are fully educated on the subject.

Sunday’s North Slope adventure

Went to Pisgah today, the crew was Shawn, Jeff, The Parkers, and then two guy’s I had never met, Eric and Matt. It was a beautiful day, warmed up quite nicely from a frigid start. We started the day off riding North Slope. I had never been on this trail before; it’s a seasonal loop out of the back of Davidson river campground. We road it counter clockwise as was recommended. Lots of big patches of ice in the beginning, followed by some challenging water bar climbing got us up to what seemed an endless downhill. Shawn and Jeff fell of the back to get some room for the descent. Shawn’s stem came loose and his handlebar practically fell of his bike. Funny that between Shawn and Jeff, both where on brand new bikes out on a big backcountry ride and neither had an allen wrench. I hiked back up the hill to help Shawn out so he could enjoy at least a bit of that sweet downhill. North Slope is going to be one of my new favorite trails in Pisgah it is a blast of a downhill for minimal climbing effort.
From there we headed out to the highway up 477 to Clawhammer, down Buckhorn gap to the Pink Beads, back over Club Gap and down Avery. I think everyone got a little wet on the Pinkbeds and though it was warm out for February, wet toes and 50 degrees aren’t a good combo. The initial plan was to head back up Maxwell and down Black mountain to the car, the day had been big enough already for most of the group and they were all ready to bail. Shawn and I started back up the ridge but couldn’t get too excited about parting ways with the group so we turned around and hammered 477 back to the car. Mexican in Brevard to finish off the day. It was a great day as always in Pisgah. Total time was about 5:20.

Saturday spin at the ridge.

Well after I shot my mouth of earlier this week about how sweet the trails were at the Ridge tons of folks showed up today. I didn’t think things were frozen on Wednesday but I guess they were because it all melted today and made a muddy mess. I did 2 rides, went in solo on the Blacksheep, I set it up all 1x9 style this morning and that would probably be pretty fun but the jump-stop I bought was the wrong size and I dropped my chain about 12 times. I went back out to the trailhead and converted the bike back to singlespeed in a matter of about 5 minutes. Jeff showed up to shake down his new rig and we went back into the woods together. Second trip into the woods I picked trails better staying on the leafy seldom ridden and ridge top stuff. It was tons drier this loop. Jeff’s bike barely got dirty at all. We had a good time and identified some issues with jeffs new bike to fix before Sunday’s trip to Pisgah. So total today was a little over 2 hours on the trail, Levi spent the day with me and had a blast, the final decent from the top of K2 back down through the Saddle and Soccer broke him though, he went home, ate, and went to bed.

Eggplant Mothballs

Game night at the Murray’s, slushy apple-pie moonshine and dorky trivia questions makes for an excellent evening. Magnuson pulled mothballs out has A$$, kids running everywhere, good times.

I lent my Maverick expertise out today for the installation of the fork on Jeff’s new bike . It’s going to be a Hell-a-Cool ride.



Love the rim/nipple combo looks like eggplant.

Not the least bit doughy

Cruised around the ridge tonight on the Sheep.
It sux when your about to go into the woods and all your friends are coming out talking about beer. The ride was a blast though, it was 43 degrees when I left the trailhead. That’s the warmest temp I have ridden in over a month. The trails where fast and tacky, the Resolutions were really hooking up on the corners. Don’t totally understand how, but James made that bike to carve with soul.

Its only 5 weeks until Noah is due, Tara pointed out today that some babies born 5 weeks early are fully cooked, not the least bit doughy, and ready for action. He will be here before you know it.

barefoot

Many women consider the term “Barefoot and Pregnant” as a condescending term referring to a woman’s main value as a tool to stay home and produce children. All I know is Tara is anything but a tool, and she looks hawt cooking up some tasty treats, all barefoot and pregnant.

Frozen Fish

Took a spin at Norris today on the Blacksheep. Man the freewheel is a great thing, titanium is the metal of the goods, and suspension transforms the forest into a playground.

It was pretty cold out, I changed hats mid ride and by the time I got back to the car my first hat had was frozen solid. The hose on my camelback slushed up between sips. The trail had a fair amount of snow on it on the north facing slopes. Yesterday must have worn me down a lot more than I expected I was super slow today. I saw Tim Troutman and crew out on the trail today, it was the first time I have seen him around in a while. I hung out in the parking lot with him a while post ride for some good’ol fish stories.

Sheep, Coyotes, and Weimaraners

The BlackSheep showed back up Friday night, I got it built back up and ready to roll but left her in the stable today because of all the mud from this weeks rain and snow. Hopefully the sheep will be quite again, a little neighborhood testing produced not a squeak. I haven’t ever realized until late but I have a seriose attraction for tank tubes. The Wily, Blacksheep, Ventana, and the C-Dale all have e’m.



Since Tara is off the bike these days my best regular riding partner is my boy Levi. I’m not sure if Levi really cares for the Wily though, he says, “Dad that bike is slow”. We road 2.5 hours today and I don’t think I dropped him for a second the whole time. I’ll have to get him back out with some hills and a freewheel soon to put a hurting back on him.



The fixy did put a hurting on me today though, mid thirties, thick mud, and heavy winds all wore me down today. I was walking some easy climbs by the end of the day. I am getting better at timing simple wheelie drops and stuff though. My fixy skills are coming along but I’m ready for some speed.