Bad Idea Training Day 7 and 8: Whipping the Throbbing Members into shape

Day Seven: According to the Book of Armaments, Chapter 5, Verses Seven through Eleven Industry Nine wheels built on Stan's Rims (or with lightweight .090" spokes) should get a nice shakedown ride lasting from one to four hours. Five would be too much, and a half hour would be to few, while seven is right out. Then they should get lobbed into the nearest truing stand from a distance of less than two feet and then thou shall proceedeth to have a tensiometer put to thine spokes. Once brought back to full tension the wheels may be enjoyed until they shalt be checked again corresponding to normal bicycle service intervals, and the people shall rejoice and will feast upon the lambs and toads and tree sloths and fruit bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals.

So I went for a short solo ride Saturday after my dentist appointment at Sherman Branch. I was just in time for the freeze/thaw effect to take place under my wheels. I was frozen as frozen as the trail when I started my ride and by the time I was finishing up I got to enjoy thawed (muddy) trails. For those who mighta been curious about the Mountain King 2.4 I mounted up all shiny and new last week it was a great performer under those conditions, but it won't be enough tire up front when I go back to rigid. Wah-wah. Someday somebody will make the sub 1,000 gram, sturdy, all conditions 2.5 of my dreams... someday.

On muddy days it's nice to not have to throw my MOO... I mean my yet to be named Zion in the back of the Dirty Little Box. When you have a tiny little six year old crawling around on the floor of you car interior cleanliness is appreciated.

Day Eight: This year's Burn 24 Hour Challenge will see the return of Captain Dick and the Throbbing Members. Returning from the 2004 sqaud is our lead off rider Bill Nye. Back in 2004 he broke his chain early on the first lap and ran most of the six mile course to put us in DFL from the very beginning... (no, he didn't know he could turn around and quit the lap). Also Stabby (who had gone free agent after the 2004 season) is returning to the team, but only if we agree to his contract. Back in 2004 he was unhappy when the rest of the team plotted a "lap strike" till dark to enjoy adult beverages while he was out on the course. He vowed to continuing riding until one of us sorry POS's got off our asses and went back out, thus shaming us back into the game for a stellar 17th place out of 22 teams in the male five man division. Big Worm and The Wonderboy will not be returning, but in their places we will have Ben "Bubba" Cohen (shrimp lover and Red Bull fashionista) and his friend who shall remain nameless until he passes the drug test.

So secretly I got them all to agree to a team training camp, well all except the nameless one who could not make it since he was busy trying to ensure his name didn't show up on a google search. We met at Poplar Tent for a social paced early season team building exercise.

From L-R: Stabby (not doing what it looks like he's doing), Ben (trying to figure out just how much Red Bull labeled clothing is just enough for the temperatures), and Bill Nye (who keeps insisting we should have "In the Navy" be our theme song)




So even though our pace was sorta slow we practiced hanging out quite a bit which tends to be the most involved activity at a 24 hour race. Stopping at the multitude of stunts and features that make Poplar Tent the great trail that it is we lost track of time and our first 10-12 mile lap took... well an amount of time that reflects the amount of time we spent standing around not riding. Ben did have a mechanical that slowed him down until we got back to the parking lot for a semi-fix.

No, he could not clip out and back in again, so for awhile he was the off-road equivalent of Dave Stoller. Yes, this does give us an idea for a team strategy for the Burn 24 Hour Challenge... get a big LCD HD TV and watch Breaking Away the whole time for inspiration.