Fornicating the view

It was nice to have my first summer weekend sans training. I had a pleasantly paced ride with Stabby and Eric Van Driver followed by a sit down restaurant style gorging feast. We rode just under 20 miles, burned 1,000 calories and ate 1,500 calories. A few hours later it was a date with The Pie which included a thrift store safari and a very large pizza. Victory!

Sunday I had to lay low since I almost over under trained the day before. My bike room was a mess, so I started working at one end and cleaned my way to the other. Tires, cogs, tools, parts, compression wrist bands, helmets, shoes, forks, wheels, and frames all cluttered the room and made it hard to get anything done without stepping on something breakable or greasy. When I made it to the far back corner I found a pile of tires and tubes that needed to be sorted out. Some punctured and some not and no way to tell who was what by looking. Once I determined which rubber beings were in need of repair I broke out my trusty patch kit that at one time had 100 patches in it.

Meh. I bought this directly from Genuine Innovations back in 2002. They no longer sell the small patches in boxes of 100, since nobody would use that many except a shop, and most shops just throw punctured tubes away. Now that they are one of my Dick Supporters perhaps I have more influence on their product range, and I can request that the 100 small patch kit be offered once more. Since I was busting out the remaining patches I went ahead and got my picnic basket of punctured tubes I had in the closet and had me an old fashioned patching party.

There's a couple 490 A-C Niner forks back there for sale if you want one. Too many rigid forks lying around not serving a purpose taking up valuable real estate.

It's quite a process doing flat repair in bunches and it helps to have someone pumping while you listen for air escaping out of a tiny pinhole in the butyl, someone to blow out the small fires (flaming glue dries faster), and someone to screw down the vise while you hold the tube flat. We probably spent close to 1.5 hours patching tubes (5 hours if you include a break to see Shrek 3 with popcorn), and luckily I don't feel as if I gained any health benefit from the activity, so I can still lay claims to not training for a full week.

Three weeks till the Breck Epic. Time to break out the big boys:

What have I got here? A sticker from my cog sponsor that says "Fuck the Scenery" and three very large cogs from Endless Bikes. The cogs above are 21T, 22T, and 23T from left to right. Peter, purveyor of a much blacker sort of cogs, never sent me a 21 tooth saying that I didn't deserve the full range of Misfit Cogs, so he excluded one of his choice. My 22 tooth Misfit cog was put to good use last year and has seen better days, and Peter doesn't make a 23T as he believes if you can't push a 22T you should buy a geared bike or take up slot car racing. Two of these cogs from Shanna of Endless Bikes have come my way via various schwagathons from my many podium appearances from the old days when I used to race "competitively"... like I used to last week. Only the 21 saw some use since Peter neglected me in that manner, the 22 is brand new, and the 23 (which was purchased with Breckenridge in mind) was only mounted to check the fit after taking a file to it (notice the Sharpie marks indicating "file here"). There was a bit of a fitment issue on my Industry Nine wheel, but now everything is hunky dory. I don't know why I'm bothering to bring all three of these cogs to Breck Epic anyhow since I'm almost positive that the 23T will be the only one that sees service all week. My standard go-to 18T,19T, and 20T cogs? They'll be staying at home this time instead of needlessly using up a small portion of my fifty pound baggage limit.

Ironically one of the reasons I'm going back to the Breck Epic???

The scenery.

Maybe this will keep Peter off my back and keep those Canadian $$'s coming my way: