FEOB ISO REOB

Front end of a bike ISO rear end of a bike for long term relationship, likes trips to podiums, long rides in remote places, and piña coladas .

If you blow up the photo you can see my shiny bits awaiting installation in the background and a subliminal plug for 55Nine Performance.

Well, there it is. If every thing works out as planned Will Bolt of Bolt Brothers Cycles and Mattress Emporium will be heading over to Casa de Dicky this evening with MOOTS in hand. Some lesser known racer types already got theirs, but it appears as if it traveled in time from the distant past as it only has 26" wheels *gasp*. My frame should grace my fork with its presence this evening, but the MOOTSbar and MOOTSpost will not be here till later in the week. They're coming swaddled in MOOTSkit and MOOTSwearables later in the week so I can look all spiffy when I toe the line at the Six Hours of Warrior Creek this Saturday.

I spent last night putting the front end together; super chromed powder coated Niner fork, Industry Nine sexy time wheel, shorty Thomson stem, Salsa 17deg bar, and Stroker brake. I also did a little sweating of the details while I had the time to kill and drill.

Clicky make biggy and marvel at the wonder that is SUPER CHROME.

Putting a hole in the back of the fork for a zip tie keeps the hydraulic line from damaging my $15 powder coat finish. Devil meet details.

I'd love to do a liveblog build like Fatty did with his Superfly, but... well, I'm not. I'll be too busy turning wrenches to care too much about blogging while I'm doing it. Glamour shots of the build may take awhile since Wednesday we're looking at rain, and I won't have my ti bits to hang on my ti bike till later in the week.

In other news...

Bad Idea Racing has taken a technological leap from 2000 to somewhere around 2006 with this new addition to the IT department:

Goodbye Windows 2000, hello Windows XP

Compliments of blog reader, riding friend, and one of the Throbbing Members Ben "Bubba" Cohen. I now not only have a faster computer than my 2000 A.D. Gateway it also has photo shop programs that will allow me to cut and paste the heads of my rivals on inappropriate things at will. Eventually I'll figure that out, and I will no longer have to write anything of importance here whatsoever (sorta like Faces of Dicky with other people's heads)... and no, I am not sponsored by Red Bull. I just asked Ben if he could put some flame decals on the tower to make it look fast, and he decided to add some corporate flair of his own.

What's in the box??

What started out as a friend in Canada doing a friend in the U.S. a favor ended up as a beautiful thing, a love story that makes Marlee and Me look more like Saw 3 (or perahps vice versa; read on). There's a long story behind my old digital camera and the people of Nikon of Canada having it for almost two years, but that story is long and perhaps less than entertaining, and suffice to say not as thrilling as it would seem unless it was your camera involved in international matters as mine was at the time. The end result was that Peter of Misfit Psycles was willing to be my middleman in the transaction saving me somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 in shipping to get a camera (which had already been replaced twice over) back to my domicile.

I asked Peter if I could purchase a coupla sets of cassette spacers to replace the clapped out bike shop bin discards I'd been using since I started single speeding back in 2003. You know, a little sumpin-sumpin shiny for the new rig that's on its way. He said it wouldn't be a problem, but he wanted to wait till he got his new coasters in so he could send me some in the same box (you'll have trouble finding them on your own on his site since he lists them as Misfit Psycles Circular Death Discs).

So when the box arrived Thursday (the one with the fine artwork you saw last Friday), I found it to be much larger than I would have thought necessary in order to safely ship a small camera and a pack of five coasters. I opened it feeling like a kid at Christmas, albeit a balding child with a limited scope of imagination. Once inside I basked in the glow of love that shined out through the opaque plastic wrap and zip lock bags inside.

Notice if you will, that I am Conscript Number 000006. Peter actually took the time and consideration to make me number six (my favorite number) in a group that might eventually total 100,000 members. These coasters will identify me to my sweaty beveraged brethern as an official member of the Misfit Psycles Empire Team. Take that Rush Limbaugh.

What else did the generous box of cyclical love contain?

Well of course my spacers as requested, but also some sexy Cod Cogs.


Shown here is my Industry Nine race wheel equipped with the 18T Cod Cog and Misfit Psycles Conversion Kit BASIC spacers all ready to go to battle in this weekend's Six Hours of Warrior Creek. The Cod Cogs are much lighter than my trusted stainless steel cogs from the unmentionable manufacturer (that competes in the same realms as two of my other sponsors), and as such the uberlight Cod Cogs are race approved product.

The funny thing is that last year I managed to get by with just an 18,19, and 20 tooth cog. A few times I was wishing for a 21 for slower rides in the mountains, but I made due since I didn't feel like plunking down the $$$$'s to ease my pain. Imagine my excitement as I pulled a multipack of zip locked love from the box containing an assortment of Cod Cogs. I laid them out as I unpacked them, tearing up a little as I could feel the positive energy being transferred from the shiny black 7075-T6 aluminum to my trembling fingers, 18... 19... 20.... 22?

No 21? The one cog in the world I felt necessary to complete me was left out. Was this an oversight or perhaps a purposeful, well thought out mind game? I would need more information to form my opinion on that for sure, as Peter has all but declared a very public war to be fought at the Breck Epic this July.

What else could possibly be in the bottomless box of good times?

Evidently Peter wanted me to see how good I woulda looked in a Misfit jersey had I decided to race a Dissent in 2009. Little does he know I can make anything look good, so please don't base your purchase of said jersey on how sexy it looks in the above image. I assure you that's all me.

The last few items in the box have me thinking that the whole thing is surely some form of undeclared mind war Peter is trying to unknowingly wage on me. He sent along an FU Bar, an FU2 Bar, and two very long FUgly stems to try out. Of course he said he was only interested in helping me with my wrist issues (which he acknowledged as being quite limp), and he said he hoped he could help out with these ergonomic bike steering devices. I mounted up the FU Bar (being a big Tango and Cash fan) and the 120mm stem on my summer of 2009 training machine and headed out for a ride on Sunday.

Little did I know when I planned my stupid ride on Saturday that I would be riding in a 35 wind gusts for a great part of the day along the Charlotte Light Rail Line Corridor (as exposed to the wind as it sounds). The ride was as unpleasnt as all get out, but I must say that my hands were in a happy place. When I got home though I flipped the stem and put the bars on right side up as although my original set up felt good it would make it very hard to balance a box on it at work.

Not an optimal box hauling platform.

I also stared down at the currently unused FU2 Bars on my floor and realized that this may be just another attempt to mess with me.

Peter knows I mess with shit. He knows that when I have options I want to try them all no matter how wrong I know the outcome may be in advance. Having two stems with two ways to be mounted along with two bars that can also be mounted right side up/upside down I have something like 4,600 different configurations to consider. If I've done my math correctly it will take me five months to try them all, just enough to keep me totally distracted right up to the Breck Epic.....

Not convinced that this generous gift is a ruse? Consider the following:

This is a problem. Maybe this zip lock bag has a fart in it, but then again maybe not. The only way I'll ever know is to open it and find out. If Peter did successfully capture a gaseous moment in a bag do I want to smell it? I dunno, but some part of me wants to know, and it has me laying awake at night wondering if he did or didn't send me a fart in a bag. So you tell me, is this box a symbol of generosity and perhaps an olive branch ending a hard fought battle between two rivals, or is this just another sortie fired over the lines, a covert attempt to undermine all the good I have done and will do?? I'll give Peter the benefit of the doubt (hoping I don't regret it later) and add him to my list of athletic supporters for the 2009 race season.

Thanks Peter (or not). Your support (or hinderance) will not be forgotten.

Bad case of the "Fridays"

Another gloomy weekend in the forecast for the Charlotte local trail system.

SATURDAY:

Showers during the morning with strong thunderstorms developing in the afternoon. Storms may produce large hail and strong winds. High 67F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.

Hail, that sounds awesome. Maybe I'll go out and see if the Bee Stopper mesh in my new Uvex helmet can prevent forehead hail damage. At least I got a shipment of goods from a new sponsor to keep me busy with projects over the weekend. No, sorry, no MOOTS in a box, but something that will involve tools and assembly. Shiny things shall be mounted in the name of all things bicycular.

Why not divulge the maker of said shiny bits? Because it's Friday. Blog readage goes down a few percentage points on Fridays, although I do get the weekend trickle* of the truly bored folks that catch up on weekends. I wouldn't want to deprive this sponsor of all the public praise and adulation he/she/it deserves, so I'll save the announcement till I have the full attention of the class next week.

I can divulge some hints. Below are some of the crude pen and ink renderings that adorned the box of goodies, but keep in mind that it is rare that I get a box without some creativity displayed on the exterior surface. I can only imagine that people assume I'll appreciate their artwork being that I have a BS in Art Education. Lucky for most of them I am certified to teach K-12, as most of their work would fit in better with the Popsicle stick construction efforts of a seven year old as opposed to the oil on canvas work of a tenth grader.

Apparently I blog in overalls, I'm running out of things to write about, and I am screaming at a tumor on my right knuckle... I guess. At least my 2001 Hitachi monitor is close to scale.

This one's pretty dead on, except that I'm not a "Drop bars, not bombs" kinda guy (like Big Worm). I do ride around making ambulance noises and waving at crowds of adoring local fans. Charlotte folk can't enough of this local boy done right.

This last one is a bit more abstract, kinda Salvador Dali'esque, but perhaps more like the work Sal put out when he was five years old (he didn't start heavily abusing drugs till he was eight... kinda like my new sponsor).

I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge some true artistic effort that was posted this week on Faces of Dicky.

Join the Army.

* No Thad, not the kind of weekend trickle you got back in college.

Sorry blog fans... or you're welcome... not sure which

Got back late from The Pie pickup last night, and had to go back to the 8-5 schedule today, so you get public service announcements instead of a quality Thursday blog post. Mind you, these are quality public service announcements, so please do read on.

Win some cool bike stuff and support HERA at the same time. Remember causes are like assholes. Everybody has one, but mine is better than yours, and it makes sunshine. Support this cause, and don't be an asshole. You can win cool stuff from important people like Chris Eatough and... unh... Tomi. Last year I won a T-shirt, and I guarantee that if you din't register last year you didn't win a T-shirt. Don't let it happen to you again.

Also....

Don't forget the Gear Heads multi-sport gear consignment sale and expo coming this April 24th-26th. There's gonna be a whole mess of stuff going on, so I don't care if you live in Saskatoon or Ho Chi Minh City this will be worth the trip (no guarantee implied or suggested). There will be pro dirt demos, computrainer races, bunny hop comps, kids races, fixed gear bike polo jousting barrel night racing over a pit of fire (alright, I made that one up)... fun for the whole family, unless you're a Republican. In that case you can just come and pretend to not have fun and blame the liberals for the dirty bathrooms and bad hippie vibe.

Bike Snob writing for Bicycling Magazine?

What's next?

Fatty writing for O?

Me writing for Highlights?

Parting with such sweet borrow...

Tonight will be my last night of riding a trainer for a very long time. I'm heading out to the airport to pick up The Pie tonight around midnight, so life as I've come to know it should return to normal very soon. Oddly enough in the time that The Pie has been gone (fifteen days) we've both lost our maternal grandmothers, who both (oddly enough) chose to not have funerals. Yes, that is four dead relatives back home in less than a year's time. Enough already.

So back to the trainer...

Without the trainer that Will (one half of the Bolt Brothers) allowed me to borrow I would have not gotten in 14 hours of saddle time while The Pie was in Haiti. I must admit I lost interest in intervals after the first ten or so days, and have been just spinning along killing time in front of the tube. Lucky for me I have three dogs that occasionally simulate actual outdoor road conditions from time to time.

"Look out!!!! It's some kind of rodent!!!.... oh, it's just Wally the incredibly long term foster dog."
Late Edit: I just realized the other dogs did their part as well. Maggie's tail is apparent in the upper left while Chloe's front paws are on the right. Thanks guys for keeping it real.

I would say that I feel like a better man now, but by better I wouldn't mean "better than ever" but more "better than you could ever hope to be".

Word on the street (and in my email inbox) is that the Swiftwick/MOOTS frames are on their ways to all the deserving little girls and boys (just boys actually who ride like girls). Being that I am not part of the actual Swiftwick/MOOTS team per se, my frame is being held for another coupla days to add to the irony and ridicule potential from my peers. I know there's gotta be a pool going on somewhere (probably some secret link over here if I didn't know better) based on my past experiences with this kinda thing.

I'm sure the options are something like:

1. I will never get the frame due to some mystical life force that never wants me to be happy, and I will change sponsors yet again.

2. The frame will be the wrong frame entirely, probably originally intended for a midget in Texas or a semi-pro basketball player in New Zealand.

3. My bad luck with bicycles will have spread like wildfire, and an actual wildfire will burn down the MOOTS facility the day before my frame ships.

4. The frame will not fit a 29" wheel, it will require a 42.75mm seatpost, and somehow the frame tubes are inside out.

5. The frame will be crushed by some random UPS employee who drank too much PBR the night before.

6. I'll get my frame in the nick of time and race it at the Six Hours of Warrior Creek to supreme victory in a very dramatic manner.

I think the guys and gals at MOOTS are well aware of my reputation and all the bad luck and lost baggage I bring with me. They probably took out an extra insurance policy when they brought me on board and opened up a new wing of the MOOTS factory to house their new legal team. I wouldn't be surprised if two armed guards in fireproof suits showed up in a helicopter on my front lawn with my frame handcuffed to their wrists sometime next week. Well, a guy can dream, can't he?

Yesterday I wore my shirt from the 2006 E100 at work.

While standing in an elevator I looked into the mirrored doors, and I could see the subliminal message that Boris (E100 race promoter) managed to slip into the design.

Boris, you cheeky monkey.

Putting the "pro" in "probouleutic"

The other day I got to talking to Will Bolt (owner, operator, vagrant who lives/works at Bolt Brothers Cycles). We talked about life, bikes, floor lamps, and pudding recipes at great length, but most importantly we talked about racing. Will has rubbed elbows with quite a few pros in his life, and he has gleaned some valuable information in his many years of articulated appendage joint contact. He asked me about my racing and training strategies in order to evaluate my knowledge base so he could further my success facilitating the usefulness of his cornucopia of racing, training, and proper pudding storage smarts.

I explained to him that I planned my training on a daily basis, usually based on my emotional turpitude, time constraints, and boredom level. My race strategy is mostly a pre-race strategy of smack talking here on the blog and elevated cookie consumption the week before the race. It has worked pretty well for me so far (at least once a year), and I had no plans to change "the process". Besides, if I got too good I would have to upgrade my USAC license from "unprofessional" to "semi-professional".

Will explained to me that it's not important that I race or even train like a pro as long as I look like a pro. Looking pro can get you pretty far in this world from out on the race course to getting action at singles clubs. Mario Cipollini was never very good at cycling, but as he blew past the other sprinters they were too busy being moderately attracted to his overt professional sexiness, and for that split second as they were being passed they were convinced they could never beat someone who looked that spectacular. We decided unanimously that we should take a page right outta the master's book, and attempt to copy his look as best as possible (and within the budget restraints of a local bike shop and a unprofessional cyclist).

Will didn't have any zebra skinsuits on the rack (they're on back order) so we went with the next best thing to get me one step closer to "faux-pro" status.

What are you looking at? On the left we have the Uvex Supersonic RS helmet (holy crap, my main manTimmy Dougherty is right there on the Uvex website... see what I mean about looking pro without actually being anything close to a pro?). I know what you're thinking, didn't I already get a new Uvex back in January? Yeah, but it didn't have the bad-ass Mario inspired zebra strips, did it? Honestly the Uvex helmets have dethroned the long line of Giro's that have adorned and protected my head for the last eleven years. I could go on and on about them, but they beat the much more expensive Giro's hands down in terms of comfort and fit. No more RockLoc shoving my forehead into a hard, lumpy chunk of styrofoam. I would say this helmet is the bee knees, but the inmolded Bee Stop mesh has me aiming for the whole bee body mocking their ornery stinging bits as they bounce harmlessly away from my forehead fortress.

Up next we have the new Mavic Razor shoes.

I know I just got done telling you that the Shimano M086 was going to be the race shoe for the 2009 season, but Bolt Brothers carries the Mavic shoe line, and so I got my first hands-on looksee at the shiny shoes from the notorious maker of all things wheel (albeit inferior wheels). Needless to say I was impressed. Not only did they match the Uvex helmet and get me one step closer to pulling off the super sexy, faux-pro Cipo look they were superior to the Shimano shoe in every way. A pair of size 40 M086 weighs in at 730 grams while the same Lilliputian sized shoe from Mavic comes in at 360 grams. Assuming both manufacturers are lying about the weight proportionately that's still pretty impressive. What else is great about the new, very white shoe?

Look at those lugs. Yes, my hike-a-bikey friends, those are rubber lugs. Also each pair of Cipo approved shoes comes with two sets of shiny brass plates so you can shim the cleat (in order for the lugs to clear certain pedal systems, to keep the shoe from getting torn up from the cleat to allow for easier adjustment, or to add weight to the shoes to keep them from floating around the room like a helium filled balloon). Also notice that the placement of the toe spike holes is kept out of the way, nice and tidy like, since you're not going to use them anyways. By the way, these shoes only weigh 10 grams less than the jeremiahbishop.com approved, World Cup circuit ready, and very yellow Mavic Fury.

So these shoes are right around the $130 mark, fit like a Sidi, weigh as much as three small pudding cups, and have all the traction goodness of a pair of Shimano shoes that weigh as much as five pudding cups. Did I mention that they come in white (and also a very bland black/gray for the less sexy people of the world)?

I think I am really pulling my "faux-pro" look together. I wanted to get a shot of me in my MOOTS kit, but since it's in Steamboat Springs and I am not I put on the most paraprofessional clothes I could find in my closet.

Fjear never looked so good.

Run Deforestation, Run

Only three more days till I head to the airport @ midnight to pick up The Pie. Since she left almost two weeks ago there has been a death in the family (my grandma), a bad car accident (my aunt), a case of credit card fraud (me), The Boy and I finished the hardwood floor in the hallway, and Fajita lost a tooth. The Pie has been able to call us from Haiti now and then on a SAT phone, and it sounds like she's seen some amazing things. I can't wait to see her.

Saturday I had a small window of opportunity to ride while Fajita attended a birthday party. I was planning on coming home to the trainer, but looking out the window from my pain perch while the sun was shining outside seemed to make very little sense. I decided to take the beater DeBernardi OUTSIDE for it's virgin ride that didn't involve the rear hub being held in place. I only rode for an hour in the interconnecting neighborhoods near my house, but it was better than spending an hour watching infomercials or golf and making a few half hearted attempts at intervals. Honestly there are tons of twists and turns within a five mile radius from my front door that can be taken at speed and a few descents that approach 40MPH (if you pedal like mad from the top you will see 40MPH for almost one solid second).

Sunday I tried to get all the Throbbing Members out for a little Burn 24 Hour Challenge team training. Only two of the four members were in attendance, and Bill Nye and Luke Sagur will be fined for missing practice. After that I beat feet to get home and clean the house so it didn't look like I hadn't cleaned anything in two weeks.

After I got Fajita in bed I was bored as The Boy was at the airport chasing his dreams of future employment. Being alone and bored and having no bike maintenance to attend to I did what I normally do when I'm bored.

Hair removal is always cleansing in some weird way. It's some kinda mental warrior battle transfer preparation for upcoming bloodspilling events. You know when the hair comes off it's "business time", not Flight of the Conchords "Business Time", but definitely some sort of business time without the sexy sock removal or sorting of the recycling bin (although that's very important).

I did get a little carried away though. A tight haircut led to some shaving which led to more and more shaving.

Faces of Dicky could use some more fodder anyways

The Pie will not be surprised. I've done this before when I've had too much time on my hands. Shaving around that broken left collar bone always has me regretting that I started shaving to begin with, but eventually I get into all the nooks and crannies and end up looking... well, satisfactorily odd. At least I ended up killing a half hour or so without hurting anybody. For a pre-growth removal photo click here for reference.

Hmmm... nothing on the agenda for tonight. Think it would be over the top to polish my nipples?

Less than two weeks till the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek. Are you ready? Me neither, so you have no excuse to not be there.

Proceed with countdown

Two weeks till the first race. There was a time (a coupla weeks ago) when I was thinking "Hey, it's only a 6 hour race". Lately I've been dwelling on the fact that I may be looking at 60-70 miles of racing in those six hours, so "it's only a 6 hour race" doesn't sound so comforting. I really haven't been on anything I would consider a long ride (more than two hours) in quite awhile. I currently don't have a "plan", but a recent trip to Trader Joe' s has me thinking I'm going with a box of these for nutrition.

At 140 calories, 6g fat, 19g carb, 1g protein for every two cookie serving I think I can get by on five cookies a lap, fewer if I remember to bring some Gatorade. "Gatorade?" you ask. "Isn't that kinda low tech?"

Yeah, Gatorade may be kinda low tech, but the shit is cheap. My stomach isn't really bothered by it, and when I mix it at half concentration it's not too bad (and cheaper than real electrolyte drinks), so I'm gonna stick with it. Besides all that, when I drink it with cookies it reminds me of the Kool Aid we used to drink at Vacation Bible School. I still have a half jar (one pound) of lemon lime HEED at home, but I drank so much HEED at the hundies back in 2006 I can't stand to even smell it. If you want it let me know and I'll give it to you (provided you're going to be somewhere I'm going to be at some point in the future). I suppose if it were actually a real product I would drink Power Thirst which would give me gratuitous amounts of menergy and make me feel like I was flying a fighter plane made of biceps.

Peter Principle

The Pie has been in Haiti for just over a week now, and I haven't missed one date with my new riding partner, the television.

One hour a day, except for last Sunday, which ended up being two hours based on the guilt of not getting outside for a ride all weekend. In my defense it was a nasty, cold weekend, and I hardly wanted to pay for a sitter to go pound out a three hour ride in a 39 degree constant rain. I've done some interval work, nothing too organized, but definitely some elevated efforts with some random periods of respite mixed in for reflection. I've seen RocknRolla, The Incredible Hulk, and way too many hours of shit I can't believe I watched on network TV. I like Netflix, but the dry spells in between movies have forced me to watch things I'm embarrassed to admit sitting through. Then again there may be some benefit regarding the mental training aspect... something to prepare me for the long, boring sections of pavement at the Shenandoah 100 this year....

Mebbe.

Looking at the stats the other day I came across this site which linked over to mine:

Project Clarity


About this site

Project Clarity is Mark Harrison's marketing communications and public relations blog. Mark lives and works in Matthews, NC, where he is founder and principal of Opus Communications.

Mark had this to say about my blog (he mentioned some other stuff, but it wasn't about me, so let's just skip over that):

"Bad Idea Racing — not a marketing blog, but a brilliant lesson in self-promotion from Charlotte “unprofessional cyclist” and bike messenger Rich Dillen."

Did you read that? BRILLIANT. I bet none of you reading my daily verbiage realized that I was providing you with a brilliant lesson, did you? And self promotion? I had no idea this is the direction my blog was currently headed. I thought I was allowing myself to be unwittingly (to you, the reader) used as a marketing tool by my sponsors, but this whole time this blog has been about me? Please, please, please nobody tell my sponsors that I am trying to promote myself here. Don't worry, none of them actually read the stuff I write, but we don't want them getting an earful of bad information, do we? They (my glorious and most generous sponsors) don't need to be bothered with this trivial detail. Let's just let them sit back and watch the sales go through the roof while I shill along with a little sing and dance to sell their products like snake oil to the unknowing masses.

I beg to differ Mark. I am 100% marketing oriented and not the least bit concerned about promoting myself since I am number one racer here at Bad Idea Racing.

Thank you, good night, we love you all

The results came in, and I must say that Fatty has this premature victory announcement thing figured out. I ended up on top with Tomi, Jen Hanks, and the combo pack of Heather Szabo and Mary Monroe filling out the rest of the field. Now I am committed to three pre-race articles (between 500-1000 words) and six race day articles (of the same ambiguous length). Extra writing assignments!!! Whooopeeee!!! I guess the Tomi and I at least have a leg up on the competition as we already have blogs that use actual words to convey a story, and I'm sure that Tomi can think of at least 500-1000 of them at once. They may not actually be in sentence form, but I'm sure he'll hit the mark.

Since Jen is a fellow Race Face Ultimate XC Challenge winner (I went to Trans Rockies in 2006 and in 2007 she traveled to Europe for the Trans Alps) we should have lots to talk about. I got to talk to Big Worm at great length regarding his Race Face supported adventure to Trans Germany in 2007 (with teammate Tommawicki), and how much different it was from my experience (with my teammate Josh the Wonderboy) at the Trans Rockies. Bill and Becky (BW and Wicki) traveled with race winners Karsten Bresser and Alison Sydor, stayed in hotels and slept in beds, sported Race Face wear at all times, and were treated like kings. Josh and I had no famous travel partners (although we did chest bump Andreas Hestler at the after party) slept in cold, wet tents, wore our civilian attire, and we were treated as commoners (well, commoners who got free bike parts, airfare, and a free entry to a kick ass race). Should be interesting...

Well since BE promoter Mike McCormack is demanding an acceptance speech from each of the members of the Breck Epic Luminary (a person who has attained eminence in his or her field or is an inspiration to others) I need to get on that right away. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, and never turn in a writing assignment late when someone is giving you a free entry into their race.

Thanks everybody for making me feel all warm and fuzzy and loved and validated and... well kinda like you're all hugging me at once (whoever has their hand on my ass please feel free to leave it there).

Remember folks, there is no "I" in team...

I couldn't have done it without you....

photo cred to Brado

At this point the voting is over for the Breck Epic Blogger's Grant. I woke up hoping to see the results in my inbox, but apparently promoter Mike McCormack's abacus broke, and the 24 hour abacus store was closed for inventory purposes last night, so there is no final tally as of yet. I have no idea if I was the contestant with the most votes, but like Fatty (who claimed an early victory in the Bloggies or GW who claimed an early victory in Iraq) I can see no harm in claiming a total premature victory. It worked for both of those guys, right? (after further investigation I see it only worked for Fatty)

I have to thank Fatty for the public endorsement yesterday. I didn't even know I was on his radar, I mean him being a red carpet walking blogger, and me being the guy who cleans the carpet so I can pick up a piece of popcorn he dropped and blog about said collactable kernel on my blog the next day. He also endorsed Jen Hanks (2007 Race Face Ultimate XC Challenge winner) who had taken the lead from me yesterday, which just goes to show you that sex always sells. If she does end up in the top four she very well could be the only person to win a free entry in the blogger's contest without actually having a blog. This may start a new trend in the world of blogging... bloggers who don't have a blog. I have to look into this, as it has the potential to save me hours of effort every week, and perhaps I could spend that time "training", sleeping, or prosteletyzing. Heck, I could spend the first week just trying to figure out what one does when one is "prosteletyzing".

So thank you for your support. I plan on doing everything within my power to make it an interesting trip/read. I will not purposely improperly install my rotor bolts or drink way too much the night before the hardest stage (I said "way too much", but I didn't say "much too much"), but I will do my best to have the ding darndiest time and share my story with the class. I promise that you will not feel like you wasted your vote (like you did back in 2000).

And the "winner" is....

Sweet. Second time I've used that title here on the blog.

Anyways....

I would love to tell you who the winner is for the Breck Epic Blogger's Contest, but voting did not end last night at midnight as originally planned. Race promoter Mike McCormack got all mavericky on us and extended to voting for one more day. That means voting ends tonight at midnight, and by tomorrow morning the waiting will be over. He has provided the participants with updated results a few times along the way, and I've been able to maintain a lead thanks to your votes. Of course in real terms "winning" doesn't mean anything, as the top four all get the same benefits of a free entry, media partners to publish our race related spews, and the service of royal bottom wipers for the duration of the actual race. In my world though, things are different. If I can manage to pull out a clean victory (I've used no vote enhancing substances throughout the campaign) I can chalk up an early season cycling related triumph, thus taking the pressure off and curb the early season performance anxiety with a fat "W" in my 2009 results.

So let's bring this one home. I don't need to win. I want to win. Voting takes seconds, so please click on over and give me thirty seconds of your time... I won't regret it.*

Also...

I have joined the ranks of Pua, Jeremiah, Sue Haywood, Georgia Gould, Tony Ellsworth, Fussy, and DePlayed (out). I am the subject of the interview of the moment over at BikeRumor.com. Of course the interview slipped in over the weekend when nobody bothers to look at the internet (why bother when most of us have hours with nothing to do at work?). So anyways, I'm playing this card now:

Why should I bother to really post anything worth reading today when there's enough Bad Idea Racing insider info over here for two posts. Click on over and see "HOW I ROLL".



* Only vote once. Mike can smell a cheat from 1,000 miles away.

Monday afternoon vote update....

The Breck Epic voting got a little scrambled over some possible "shenanigans", so as of now I sit in second overall. If you have voted for me once DON'T VOTE AGAIN, but if you haven't voted yet you have till midnight tonight to do so. I'm not saying some blog stalker voted for me 7,000 times, but I wanna make sure all the votes count, so do not vote more than once or your vote might not count at all. Capiche??

I should add that Mike McCormack (BE race promoter) is doing everything possible to make sure everything goes down legit. He even asked me if I had a "hanging chad" and if I did could he see it.

Weird.

VOTE NOW HERE!!!!!

The Pie has spoken

The Boy, Fajita and I have survived two full days without the adult supervision of The Pie. We got a call from her late Wednesday night from the orphanage's SAT phone so we knew she made it there safely. Since then we've gotten a coupla emails here and there letting us know what she's up to. She sent along this photo of her and one of the eight babies she's assigned to work with.

I know what you're thinking.... "Man, are there any trails there?"

So the new schedule for the day has me waking up later than normal. Instead of heading into work at 7:40am (earlier if I was "training" like I should be) I'm dropping the Fajita off at school at 8:50am and then doing a five mile time trial to work to be there soon enough to take credit for being there for a 9:00am pickup. The work day goes like normal, but when I get off instead of coming home to a fully prepared meal I come home to ingredients and a cold stove. Then it's cook, eat, check homework, bath time for the smallest person in the family, a little time for goofing off, read a book, tuck, and chamois up for some stationary trainer time. After I cool off a little, I grab a better than average beer from the fridge, take a shower, and unwind. That's the new deal, and I have eight more business days to knock out that will be very similar.

I'm glad I borrowed the trainer from Will at Bolt Brothers. I'm pretty sure it's the only way I was going to get any extra saddle time in before the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek in early April. I'm only riding an hour a night with some kind of intervals thrown in to break up the monotony. I know doing intervals every night probably doesn't make sense, but I assure you they are hardly quality intervals in any way, shape, or form. This is more like mental training... I feel better knowing I'm doing something as opposed to nothing. Intervals also allow me the added anticipation for the respite that the ten minutes in between each period of pain provide.

Even though I arranged for some "me time" this weekend so I could get out in the real world and ride it would seem that Mother Nature does not feel I deserve it. Rain and wet trails are showing up in the crystal ball, so I'm gonna have to come up with some kinda plan. As I sit here I'm staring at the trainer in my living room, and it's staring back at me. I DO NOT want to spend ten days straight on the trainer, but I'm not gonna not do something. Perhaps there's some version of "the stranger" I can do where I sit Indian style (Native American style??) for an hour and then get on the rollers feeling like I'm training with someone else's legs....

Last of the SH SD60Bohicans

I broke out my last pair of private reserve Shimano SPD sandals a coupla days ago. These are the original design, not the warmed over turd version they started offering some time in 2007. When they changed the design I increased my investment on eBay, and bought every pair of 43's I could find at a reasonable price. This is the last of them. In my defense I have worn each pair out till the soles wore through, or when they had a strap blow outta the sole. I've also been wearing them a lot less throughout the cold months in order to increase their longevity. The side benefits of not wearing sandals all year round would be that my feet didn't crack this year and my pinky toe didn't swell up and start looking like a small alien life form attached parasitically to my foot (no more need for a toe sock)

I figure these will get me through till the full depression Armageddon sets in...

On the Bad Idea Racing jersey front...

Pete-unh is hard at work on the design. His first efforts were a bit shoddy, but he has been redirected, and he's using a computer instead of spray paint now, so perhaps we'll see some progress on that front soon.

Good things come to he who waits, prepays their order, provides correct shipping information, waits some more, checks their mailbox daily, and in the end owns a Bad Idea Racing jersey.

Sooner or later I'll have something to show you, and given Pete-unh's repertoire of artistic renderings and surprising talents it should end up being your daily go-to jersey. I'm also happy to say I (he) found a vendor in Canada, which makes me feel a little bit better about the project than I did last year when I had them made in China. I'm gonna keep the price around the same as it was last year, and I just hope I can make up the difference in overwhelming volume.

Big Worm let me borrow a book that he borrowed from Swayze. Big Worm left his bookmark in there, and as usual it was a random piece of garbage he probably found in the street. This time it was a football card, with Xavier Abidi on it. What intrigued me about this card (and what I need to share with the class) was the image of a referee on the back. Either he is using body language to convey an illegal use of hands or he is demonstrating how to give himself "the stranger".

You decide.

Large and in Charge

This morning I was up at 4:00AM to drop The Pie off at the airport. She's on her way to Haiti by now to start her two week stint as a volunteer at God's Littlest Angels. What she is doing down there is simply amazing to me, and my part of the deal is to hold down the fort for two weeks and keep two kids and three dogs happy and fed. Dicky in charge of our days and our nights.

Since I had to give up some sleep to get her off on time I went back to bed when I got home, so as a result you get to read a half ass blog entry. Sorry, but staying up for five hours before I actually have to be at work today wasn't in the cards. I feel like I should be on my A-game for my first day as a single parent. I'll be under close scrutiny by the judging panel, and they are used to quite a high standard of care.

Since there are only five days left to vote for me in the Breck Epic blogger's contest I will make this the absolute last time I ask for your vote. From now on there will be no more pleading and begging for your support. I may demand it, but if you haven't voted by Sunday then your voice will have gone unheard.

Don't listen to the famous people... vote.

If I actually win I've been told that Breck Epic promoter Mike McCormack will send out a group of Secret Service agents to protect the blogger elect until the event. I'm not saying my life's in danger, but there's been some things that have me questioning my safety if I do end up in such a position of power.

All images today were ripped directly from the pages of Faces of Dicky.

The Shittiest Wheel in the World, and new interest in old post

Back in 2004 I blew out the rim on my messenger bike after a night of alleycat racing. I had pumped up the tires to 120 PSI for speed, but apparently the rim (which had previous been touched by brake pads) wasn't up to the task. I went ahead and borrowed the wheel off my road bike as a temporary fix, and waited for the next swap meet to replace it.

I bought this wheel for what I thought was the bargain price of $10 or $20 (I can't remember, but it was dirt cheap and shiny). It has a Campy hub, a Campy rim, and aero bladed spokes, so I assumed I was purchasing a quality previously owned wheel.

Over the years I have broken more spokes on this wheel than I care to remember right at the J-bend. The breakage usually happened at work, so I would roll by my local bike shop on the way home and pick a new spoke up. After it started to seem like a trend I started buying them in greater quantities, and I even wrote the spoke length on the side of the rim so we wouldn't have to measure it every time.

I also ended up becoming a semi-professional spoke replacer. Of course I had to get rid of the sticky velox rim tape, then I threw away the snap on Mavic rim strip that was oh-so-hard to remove, and eventually replaced it with the cheap, stretchy (easily pulled outta the way without full removal) department store style rim strip.

I also learned the hard way that a ten minute spoke replacement can become a twenty minute spoke replacement if you drop a nipple in between the rim walls. Once you do that you've got your own homemade Cracker Barrel brain teaser puzzle to entertain you while you shake the rim, spin it, twist it, and try to coax the nipple to come out from it's aluminum refuge. Eventually I remembered a tip I saw somewhere at some point in my life that I thought was pointless, but with my untrustworthy wheel, quite useful.

Take and old broken spoke (assuming you're replacing one you should have this already) and bend it all up to make a handle.

Thread an old nipple on the end backwards and as far as it will go, exposing some thread when it's completely jammed on the wrong way.

Then thread the new nipple on backwards (lightly), and stick it in the appropriate hole on the rim.

Now you can thread the nipple on using your half-assed tool, and you won't drop the nipple into the rim, unless you want to play the Cracker Barrel game, then by all means go ahead and try to do it with your fingers. I suggest you lose your nipple in the deepest section rim possible to add to the challenge.

One of the things that is supposed to make being a bike messenger so great is that you never take your work home. This is a bold faced lie, and as far as I'm concerned the biggest reason most career messengers end up on fixed gears. Quite simply put, it's just less shit that can go wrong. I spent way to much time in my first five or six years fiddling with gears, replacing brake pads and what not when I shoulda been drinking PBR's and getting tattoos.

Some of you might remember my idea to start a company that could tune rigid forks to suit each individual's needs. I called it SHOVE Industries (a little play on PUSH Industries, a company that custom tunes squishy bits FOR A PROFIT), and even though I had a catchy name I never actually had someone send me their rigid fork for some custom tunage. That post is almost a year old, so imagine my surprise when I got the following comment:

I only wish I would have come across this sooner! :D

To be honest, I always thought someone would start PULL Industries before Shove!

Good Stuff,

Darren Murphy
PUSH Industries
dm@pushindustries.com

PULL Industries?? Was that where I messed up? Did I just go with the wrong comapny name? I'm gonna have to see how Mike Piazza feels about becoming my new marketing guy since evidently I suck.

BTW: What might Darren have done if he had come across this sooner? Is he talking lawsuit or multi million dollar buy out? I guess we'll never know....

It does happen

Phone picture credit: Stabby the Walking Dude

For my first real ride back on the rigid fork I headed up to Wilkesboro with Stabby, Eric Van Driver, and Bubba to try and hit all three trail systems up there. Big Worm was supposed to be along for the ride, but he got caught out in the space/time variance that is Daylight Savings swappage.

First on the menu was the Warrior Creek trail system. Since I'll be doing the Six Hours of Warrior Creek in one month I was anxious to see the course as I hadn't been on it since it was still being built. It was still a bit early in the morning when we started, so we got worked over by the soft trail, but the evidence of all the recent machine built handiwork was evident. To do well over the course of six hours you best get your pump track practice in soon. Every single turn that could be faster with a bank was built with speed in mind.

About half way around I stopped and waited for the rest of the crew to catch up. After waiting too long Bubba finally rolled up and said Stabby's wheel was toast. I turned around and went looking for the scene of the repair stopping every once and awhile and calling out to Stabby and Eric. If you've been riding with friends long enough you know the scene... the uncertainty of whether or not your friends turned back or left the trail all together, leaving one person behind (or ahead depending on how you look at it) while searching for some one else, the realization that you have the only map and are really the only one familiar with the area, figuring out a better plan after you've already initiated an ill advised rescue attempt, standing in the woods alone wondering if you're gonna spend the rest of the day looking for your friends rather than riding....

I found Stabby and Eric plotting an escape route back to the car VIA the service roads. I handed them my map and headed back out looking for Bubba. Upon finding him we managed to sorta stay on track and finish the trail out passing some of the BMCC trail workers on the way out. I thanked them for the awesome work, and told them I'd be back for more in less than a month. The work they do up there is just outta hand stellar. I have never seen trails like the ones in the Kerr Scott Reservoir area. Period.

We decided to make the most of the situation at hand and just head over to the Burn 24 Hour race course so Bubba could see it for the first time. He is one of the Members making up our crack team of single speed enthusiasts that are combining our efforts to be The Return of Captain Dick and the Throbbing Members. Bubba's first lap, Eric's umpteenth, and my sixty or seventy'th time around the course was taken with a few stops to point out the important stuff to Member Bubba, with an occasional phone photo op courtesy of the now on foot Stabby who was running hilly nilly through the woods to kill time.

Oh well, 17'ish miles when we were looking for 34'ish. Shit happened.

P.S. I love my rigid fork.

So many options...

The title coulda been:

Back in Black

Stick a Fork in Me

Ebony and Ivory

Fat, drunk and suspended is no way to go through life

Either way I have decided it is time for the rigid fork to go back on.

I was going to wait for the MOOTS to get here before I went back to riding rigid, but with my first race now one month away I feel like I'd better figure out to ride with a rigid fork again. Quite a few times over the last few months I've ridden with my Fjox Fjork locked out, so it was painfully unpainfully obvious that I think I'm close to ready. More hours of each day go by where I don't think about my wrists/hands, so it's safe to assume something healed up in there somewhere.

I've missed my rigid fork sooooooooo much. I've had a few happy fun times on the squishy fork, and I definitely did a few things I wouldn't have done on the rigid fork, but I couldn't be more ready to move on. I'm also anxious to know whether or not the Rampage mounted to a 355 is gonna be cushy enough for some of the rougher hundies this year and the Breck Epic...

Oh yeah...

It's been awhile, but if you've been slacking off get over and place your vote so I can get a free entry to the Breck Epic. You only have nine days left to place your vote, and even better, you only have nine more days before I stop asking for your votes.

Hugs and kisses,

Dicky