With great power comes great irresponsibility

After realizing the awesome potential of being named one of The Top Fifty Most Influential Cycling Blogs Bad Idea Racing Manager Mike Piazza realized we needed to strike while the iron was hot. Recently he was relieved of certain duties though, so he suggested that sponsor liaison Admiral Ackbar should compose an email to the Dick Supporters informing them that they are now the people behind the scenes of one of The Top Fifty Most Influential Cycling Blogs in the world. Of course after composing the email I would sign off on it before it was sent to our people. You don't think Lance composes his own emails, do you? Hell, he even has people that twitter for his unborn fetus which will probably put his unborn fetus on the list of The Top Fifty Most Influential Cycling Blogs next year since twittering seems to be the key to cracking the top ten. Anyways, this is the email that went out to the Dick Supporters yesterday:

Subject: I'm very influential

Good morning all,

As you are all the individuals (who represent your companies) who put their money where my mouth is I thought you would wanna know that I made the list of The Top Fifty Most Influential Cycling Blogs. I'm sure these results are so scientific that a NASA rocket scientist couldn't dispute their validity, so take pride in the fact that you are the people behind the scenes that make it possible for me to be interesting enough to lock up my solid 36th place. I've set my sites on attaining a rank as high as 26th place in 2011, so look for big things in the year to come.

Be sure to forward this announcement to the highest of highs at your respective places of employment in order to prove to your superiors that you didn't necessarily piss away your marketing budget on me. If you're as high as it gets in your employment food chain just reach around and pat yourself on the back.

In the words of the immortal Frank Bartles...

"and thanks for your support"

Dick "36th most influential cycling blogger of 2010" Dillen

PS: Be sure to add an extra zero to those checks next year as I skyrocket up the ladder of influentiality.

And this first response from Mike Farney of Raxter Racks would explain why I choose the companies I do:

Wow! That’s amazing. I feel like we’re riding the coat tails of a blazing comet (do comets have coat tails?). Glad to be part of the ride. Like George Jr. and George Sr. Bush do to avoid the formality of calling each other “Mr. President”, they just call each other the number of their presidency, “41” and “43”, we all should just start calling you “36”. Let us know when you change your name.

Congrats on your influentiality.

Mike

You get me, you really get me.

Yesterday, no doubt due to my rising value in the industry as on of The Top Fifty Most Influential Cycling Blogs, I garnered another follower. This now puts me up to 100 followers, not only making it that much harder for The Original Big Ring to achieve his goal of getting 1/3 the following that I have I am now that much closer to my goal of having 1/9 the followers of Jill Homer, fellow non-twitterer and convicted raisin smuggler. Perhaps I'll start adding some Speedo photos to my blog in order to get the sex appeal thing going for me like Jill does constantly on her blog (Jill has recently started posting photos of her attractive sister like it was sweeps week in the blog world... shameless).

Blog racing at it's best.

On to something else....

I was reading Bike Rumor (also one of The Top Fifty Most Influential Cycling Blogs) yesterday, and found an article about Industry Nine's new carbon rimmed wheels. Holding said wheels in the main photo was none other than my contact at Industry Nine Jeff Baucom.

Below the photo was the following caption:

Presented here by Jeff Baucom who says “if I didn’t look like some sort of dirt bag in your photos, Tyler, it just wouldn’t be a good Bikerumor picture,”

What do you mean exactly by "some sort of dirt bag" Mr Baucom? This sort of dirt bag?

Admiral Ackbar will be in touch, and he said to expect your kickback check to be short this month (things are shady like that in the bike industry).

So anyways... PMBAR tomorrow. I WILL BE WEARING THE GOPRO HD CAMERA. There will be footage. It will probably take awhile for me to edit it, so don't get too excited. Expect lotsa PMBAR related posts next week and maybe a sneak peek at the footage... a big MAYBE.

Yes sir, my name is on the list

I was checking out Kerkove's blog the other day to see his daily Kerkovian on-the-bike shot and heart rate/elevation/distance/caloric intake/weather/horoscope chart when I found a nugget of information worth sharing with the class. Jeff was proudly announcing that he had made the list of The Top Fifty Most Influential Cycling Blogs (although he waited humbly till the end of his post to make the announcement).

There he is at number 39.

Of course I went looking for my name, and I was thrilled that I beat Kerkove at something cycling related, albeit by only 3 places. I was kinda bummed at my placing, for as we all know if I can't win I want to at least come in at 6th place or dead on mid-pack. I was neither and none.

I did my best to understand exactly how these rankings were established, but I won't lie to you and say I totally grasped the rules. Some of it has to do with having a Facebook page that can be "fanned" and also "twittering" was another factor. I do neither, and I don't think that this report will be the impetus that moves me to do either. Jill is way the hell up there, and she doesn't even twitter or have a "fannable" Facebook page, but then again she keeps posting the occasional hottie image to keep her male fans coming back in droves. Of course Bike Snob and Fatty are crushing it, and I doubt anybody really woulda thought that coulda been any different. It's an interesting list to say the least, and perhaps I'll find some time to click over to some of the other sites I've never heard of before. Not because I want to expand my horizons, but just to see what makes them better and then copy it over here.

Funniest thing I read about the Top Fifty?

"As much as there is a vast quantity of cycling blogs, these are clearly of a professional grade."

He (she?) obviously didn't actually read my blog.

Regarding yesterday's comments...

WPG said... Awesome. Film more please.

More film? That film was the culmination of multiple time consuming efforts, starting with a 2.5 hour ride that normally takes 1.0 hours to do when I'm not fiddling with a camera and going back to an interesting section for more takes. Then there was an hour spent watching the clips and labeling them so I would know what I was looking at when I went to edit them. Then I spent another hour renaming them in chronological order since when I renamed them by trail feature they went into an alphabetical list making it hard for me to remember the actual order of events. After that there was the 3.5 hour marathon session of editing Tuesday night. That essentially means "creating" the video was a seven hour process. Of course most of the time was spent fixing my mistakes and learning how to use Movie Maker, so perhaps I could cut that time down substantially next time.

AdamB said... STRIKE! Freakin' Awesome. The way you are riding the Niner I wonder why you need the Moots-brothers bike/fork combo. Nice work.

There are other features out at Poplar that I won't hit on a rigid bike EVER. I look forward to getting the squish out there, and I had mixed feelings about riding the Meatplow out there, but I needed to ride the new cockpit at least once before PMBAR.

Blair said... You're gonna need to ask for some vacation time to edit all the video from PMBAR....

I am considering wearing the GoPro at PMBAR. I have checked to see that it is compatible with my hydration pack, but since I kinda want to win I don't know if I want an additional, unnecessary distraction to take my mind outta the game.
Luis G. said... How does the Niner fork behave on those drops?

It felt like a rigid fork. I can't tell if it was any better than a steel fork in those types of situations. Where it truly shines is on fast, rooty bumps... high frequency stuff. On the drops it did what I wanted it to do... not break.

jonnyb said...

I think I read somewhere that there is a way to put the camera in the chest harness upside down so that you can see down the trail more.

Point taken. Tried it upside down last night... worked like a charm.

Karen said... It's not often that one sees video of moves like that with a computer on the handlebar also in the frame. Probably a HR monitor no less.

Stabby is not so much interested in how far he goes, but he does like to know how fast he moves. HR monitor? Not the Stabby we all know. I think if he knew his heart rate he might become concerned and quit riding altogether.

Well, I'm off to the doctor's office with my mom where I will spend the day in a waiting room posting my old shit on eBay, tinkering with ideas for my next Dirt Rag article, and perhaps playing a jolly good game of Minesweeper.

Things I did last night (but actually in the now)

Bastards.

As I write this the time is 11:05 PM Tuesday night. I started editing footage from Sunday's ride at 8:15PM. I had it all edited down to 3:05 play time before 9:00PM. Well then I had to add music, publish it to youtube, hate it, change it, publish it again, realize it wasn't in HD, change the music, try again, fail, and as of right now it's loading back up again. No matter how it goes when I wake up tomorrow I will post this and hopefully embed the video... or just this and no video. We'll see.

I knew this would happen. You knew this would happen. Who amongst you with a brain and some knowledge of my past behavior couldn't see this coming? Meh.

I'm pretty sure I failed at loading the HD thing although I had it figured out less than 72 hours ago. I did drink some beers the other night while I was doing it. Maybe that helped. It usually does. I should be sleeping and getting lots of rest for PMBAR, and here I am wasting time pre-writing a post while the video uploads.

Gah. I just checked, and it's still at 50% published. That's 30% more than it was awhile ago, but 50% less than 100%.

Let's see... what else can I do to kill time? How about I post a photo The Pie emailed to me while I was at work the other day? Sure? Why not.

I do not think equipment acquisition director and sponsor liaison Admiral Ackbar likes being left at home alone with The Pie. I apologized when I got home, but he told me the diaper was saving him a lot of time and the hat was doing a fine job keeping the sun outta his eyes, so perhaps we should leave well enough alone for now.

Ahhhhh... 93%. I'm in the home stretch.

Almost, almost, almost....

ahhhh

No HD, and my brain is fried.

Damn.

Just remembered how I did it last time. Fuck. It's 11:25PM.

I can't believe I'm gonna try this again. One more save, one more upload, and I'm going to bed. Either I wake up and it worked or it didn't, and I will have wasted 3.5 hours of my life two of which I shoulda spent sleeping.

Fail.

One more time? Why not.

60%.

Like watching paint dry, or Thad descend in Pisgah, only slightly faster... and less frustrating.

Saved.

Loading the 720 HD version to youtube now.

47 minutes remaining.

Good night.

and

Good morning...

Victory.




Watch it in 720 HD yo.

Keeping my eye on the ball

Getting ready for PMBAR. Gotta get through a week with some responsibilities first, but then the irresponsibilities will reign supreme. Packing is a light priority. Some of the PMBAR required gear is kept staged and ready in a handy pouch, other gear is kept close at hand, and yet some is sitting in the back of a truck.

The white whistle (actually half a whistle) is from the 2004 PMBAR. I informed my partner I had lost my whistle somewhere in the woods, so fearing that there would be a gear check at the finish we stopped on Pilot Rock and cut his in half. Success.

I used to worry more about this race in the past. That's kinda odd since the plan was usually to nab the minimum amount of checkpoints and get back to the keg ASAP. This will be the third year my team will be going for the big "W". It will probably be the hardest year yet, competition wise. Sam Koerber (Willow's prettier sister) will be teaming up with his dad Grandpa Bob Koerber. Sam won PMBAR back in 2008 and Grandpa Bob's team finished right behind Thad and I last year (although Grandpa Bob has beaten me every other time we've met on the field of battle).

Slow and slower.

Rumor has it that Sam's partner from 2008 Brad Kee is out at the Arizona Trail Race, but intends to finish in time to catch a plane to the Asheville Airport where he will be choppered in to the venue minutes before the start.

Of course last year's winner Wes Dickson will be back with whoever won the tricycle race qualifier in the parking lot at Sycamore Cycles. He may actually be considering a proper sized wheel option, so perhaps Armageddon is around the corner.

Win, lose, or draw Thad and I are gonna have a great ride in Pisgah whether we like it or not. PMBAR is so fun it should be illegal... like free beer at the venue. Don't forget it's BYOB this year kiddies, and if you drink, don't drive. The fuzz will probably have some presence on the forest roads again this year, so don't fuck it up for everybody else.

and random mode....

Don't know what to do with your Thomson seat post clamp bag? How about Peanut M&M portion control (Bill Nye uses the 410mm seatpost bag).

I think I witnessed a driver practicing for Zombieland yesterday.

Very bad things

How many packages showed up on Friday?

"One, two, three packages...

Ah ah ah."

First off George "El Diablo" Wissell from Bike 29 sent me the final piece of the puzzle to finish off the Meatplow, a Park Tool SG-6 cutting guide.

With it I was able to competently trim the crabon frok steerer tube and take 10mm off the ends of my Easton Monkey Lites. The bike c'est finis.

I did a little more tinkering on the bike while I still had time, and it's the return of the awww.. wait, no wait, you're kidding, he didn't just say what I think he did, did he?

The Assgrater 2000

Why not? Look at all that room between the plastic scrotal wrecker and the MOOTSpost. That's plenty of space for the "saddle" to flex in the manner in which it was designed. Match made in heaven.

I'm pretty stoked about the Shimano stem, although it looks a bit egg-like.

It does hold the bar 70mm away from the center of the steerer tube quite efficiently, and I ended up having enough ti hardware laying around to kit it up pro style.

I know you've seen it, but I don't care. I just think this looks plain awesome.

Clean and ready for PMBAR'esque destruction, in this corner, The Meatplow....

weighing in at...

Since I just washed it I think that the foam grips absorbed an extra tenth of a pound of water... whatever.

The second package I opened contained one of the final pieces I need to pull off a very unprofessional look for the 2010 "Season"... something I've been wanting since I laid eyes into them.

White Tifosi Dolomites with more bad ass lenses than you can shake a lens specific shaking stick at. Theses will come in handy when I attempt to fill in the big shoes that Bike Snob left empty. Yes, that's right. Since Bike Snob has come out of the closet and made his true identity public knowledge I have decided I am going to swap my blog over to anonymous mode. I'll let you know how that goes.

And thirdly, a generous, philanthropic fan of Bad Idea Racing has decided to make my life more complicated by throwing one of these at me.

That there is the GoPro HD Camera-ma-thing in its very own biosphere camera terrarium. There are many like it, but this is mine. Now I will have to wear this thing once and awhile and share with you the highlights of my many great bike rides. I have tested it out. It works well.



That was only a test. Yes, that is my backyard. Yes, I posted it on youtube to share with the world, but mostly yinzers. My skills will improve, or maybe they won't. I shot some more footage with Stabby yesterday at a local trail, so perhaps when I get a chance I'll edit the raw footage and polish it up. I did find out that too much use of the Chesty strap is annoying to watch (I need to adjust the angle), and that's what I took the most of yesterday, so be prepared to be annoyed soon.

Things are s-l-o-w-l-y coming together

On Tuesday I said "Hopefully I'll have happy feet, protected eyes, and a finalized cockpit by the time Friday rolls around." Well, one outta three ain't bad. Postal delivery, or the lack thereof, and other manner of inconveniences kept a couple things outta my grubby hands, but I have been told to rest easy and know that all will be fine before the big show.

My feet were made doubly happy though, with the delivery of the new 2010.5 Swiftwick Fours (now with new and improved ankle logos) and the SIDI Dragon 2's from the SIDI Community Contest back in February. Apparently there was a hold up since I won another pair of SIDI's on the Sea Otter Facebook page, and some sizing issues kept my shoes over on the left coast for a little while.

I have to admit they are quite loud. I've been wearing them around the house (while wearing ear plugs) trying to get used to the concept of wearing a pair of shoes that would make a clown blush. They are stiff and fit like a glove, and I dare say that if those were qualities a clown were looking for in a clown shoe I think he might just swallow his pride and wear them. As for this clown, we shall see.

I'd love to say that I have some secret, last minute PMBAR training planned this weekend, but with The Pie at an adoption conference all weekend I'll be lucky to fit a short ride into a Nia packed weekend that starts off with a Daddy/Daughter Dance tonight. I hope they have some refrigerator boxes on the floor so I can let loose with some headspins. I've got to try hard if I wanna win the Dopest Dad Contest.

C'est la vie. Just another one of the situations that arise when you live the life of an UNprofessional cyclist. Family, work, responsibilties... then bike rides.

To those of you who did not buy a Bad Idea Racing jersey during the pre-sale who are now seeing that the jersey is showing "out of stock" on the Twin Six website (the T6 Dark section) rest assured that they will be "in stock" and available for order in a few (maybe 3-4) weeks. You did not miss out, so please stop with the threatening emails. You'll get your chance, I swear.

Now let's just get through this next week and look forward to one of the best races I do all year, and have done every year since 2004, PMBAR. I can't wait. Oddly enough the only PMBAR I ever missed was the 2003 edition which was known at the time as the Pisgah Death March. Coincidence? Maybe. Destiny? Perhaps. Wicked strange? Definitely.

The "25.4 is Dead to Me" Revolution

I think I might have misinformed you in Tuesday's post regarding last weekend's ride with the infamous Craig Barlow and the rest of the nobodies. So maybe there was one mechanical I failed to mention...

photo cred: Big Worm

My rear tire felt a little squishy, but Industry Nine's big idea man Eric White suggested we pour some of his Teddy Graham crumb's into the rear tire to help the Stan's fluid coagulate. Needless to say it worked like a charm, and I fully endorse this sort of behavior now.

Now onto today's topic.

It's not like I asked for it. The planned obsolescence of an industry, whatever you want to call it, forced my hand and pushed me down the path to a better future I didn't even know I wanted. When I found out that my 25.4 X 70mm Thomson stem didn't play well with the Niner crabon frok steerer tube I had to think fast since the Six Hours of Warrior Creek was just days away.

From the Niner Crabon Frok Book of Armaments:

Injury and death sounded like a poor option so the only other thing I could do was to steal the cockpit from the Death Stick. After the race was over I ignorantly postponed my search for a real long term solution, and with PMBAR around the corner I realized late last week that something must be done.

I wanted to keep running my MOOTSbars, but finding a 25.4 X 70mm stem these days is pretty rough. Sure there are some old skool downhill stems made from a 1/2lb of aluminum and held together with nine bolts, but I wanted something with an XC weight and definitely something less stupid looking. This was proving to be quite an uphill battle, and the forces of corporate evil were working against me. I knew that I could get a shim to get the MOOTSbars up to 31.8, but calling MOOTS and asking for a favor so I could build up my Niner? Poor form indeed.

So instead of taking my problem to George I went looking for OPS (other people's shit) on eBay. It wouldn't be fair to take advantage of George in this situation since I'm probabaly gonna hate the first three things I try and end up swapping parts a few times. Why drag him into my cycle of self hatred and extra expense? Also I discovered that when I put the MOOTSbars and Thomson stem on the Death Stick not only did I lose my moto look without the fat riser/stem combo I also lost brake lever clearance on the top tube. Meh, I needed a stem and bars to pull the full swap off.

So here's how things ended up after spending a minimal amount of money on eBay:

A close up for those of you with poor eyesight:

The bars on the Death Stick? The cheapest, whitest bars I could find on eBay fitting all four of my qualifications (cheap, white, 31.8, and with some rise). The stem on the Meatplow?

A Shimano PRO FRS AM/XC MTB stem that fit the same bill quite nicely (cheap, white, 31.8, and with some rise). A small amount of rise will allow me to run the stem upside down when I have the EBB in the low position or flip it when I run the EBB on the high side. Brilliant, I know.

For those of you in the know I am aware of this other rule from the Niner Crabon Frok Book of Armaments:

Those spacers are there just to get the sizing right until I receive my sexy Park Tool SG-6 from Bike29 hopefully today or tomorrow. Then I will proceed to get it right, get it tight.

Those of you with a keen eye might have noticed my handiwork that I accomplished over the course of my lazy past Sunday:

Sure, it's no custom h8'er headbadge, but you do what you can with what you got. You know it looks good.

Others of yinz might wonder just how I will mount my number plate since my old high tech number plate mount was only 25.4 compatible.

Well, I have to admit I was thinking ahead on that one. I've had this ready to go for a few months now.

Success. The 25.4 is Dead to Me Revolution is complete.

I win, 31.8 wins, and Thad loses.

No, as a matter of fact I wasn't at Sea Otter

It must have been some kind of oversight, and I'll just have to assume that my "department" at Dirt Rag had some trouble reaching the folks in the travel department. I expected all my Sea Otter arrangements to be handled for me, but when I was out at the curb on Thursday morning waiting for my driver to show up, he never came. I guess somehow it just slipped through the cracks... maybe next time.

I guess someone was expecting me to come out to California and play in his old sandbox. I'm surprised he even thought about me since one would think when he came within five feet of a couple attractive women he woulda spent the rest of the weekend making withdrawals from the spank bank. It's obvious that he still hasn't had time to sober up from his binge drinking Jim Beam and Country Time Lemonade since he ended up posting 2/3 of his amazing Sea Otter pics sideways. At least he sacked up and rode a real man's bike for a change (albeit with a squishy futuristic crutch), so perhaps he's not as lame as I remember him. Either way I think he's gonna have to get knocked down a peg or two come the last week in May. That ocean air and big boy drinking must be clouding his mind.

"But I do know with 100-percent certainty that I’d manhandle this twerp at his own game, assuming he’d bother to show up to a nationally sanctioned race." --- Cushionbury

Manhandle? I've heard Mike is quite the "manhandler".

In other Sea Otter news...

I looked at all the Sea Otter coverage I could find. One thing tweaked my head a little though, and I couldn't help but look into it a little further. I found this picture of Jeremiah Bisquick and I knew I had seen something similar somewhere else...

photo cred: singletrack.com

Ahhh... here it is.

Ignore the finger banging guy from Genuine Innovations. He's not aware that he's throwing down Contador's leftover moves.

It would seem as if Jeremiah is going with throwing the "hang loose" as his new gimmicky gang sign with the added flair of the Micheal Jordan tongue move. I thought he had been using something different in the past, so I did some research.

I found this image of him from last year during what must have been his transitional period from the Trek years to the Cannondale future. Here he is throwing the "walk like an Egyptian" gang sign while telling Mike McCormack and his bored cowboy infant about that day's stage of the Breck Epic.

"So like there I was with Travis Brown up on Wheeler Pass, and I was all like "If you pass Bisquick, oh whey oh, you're falling down like a domino". Yeah, he was soooo not passing this gold crocodile."

I thought Jeremiah Bisquick had a different Bischtick back in his Trek days, so I did some more research.

Here's an image I found of him during his "Wave like the Queen of England" phase (apparently it was Chris Eatough's idea):

That move didn't really pull in the fans like he thought it would, so he went with the more popular at the time GW approved "thumb's up".

In the early days it would seem as if he had trouble with the concept of having a catchy gang sign, and his "thumbs up" moves seemed awkward and strained...

But eventually he took to it like a pro and did what he could to inspire the next generation of hair gelled riders.

"Stick with me little kid and someday maybe you'll have a nice tricked out Volkswagen with littlekid.com printed on the side."

Yeah, some other stuff happened at Sea Otter, but I'll leave all that boring stuff to Tyler "Tool Bag" Benedict to write about.

I kid Jeremiah Bisquick, but he is just as his name suggests... he's good at everything; short track, marathon, XC, pancakes, biscuits, muffins, crepes... you name it. There's nothing he can't do (except go out in public without hair gel).

Yet another product falls just short of perfection

Photo cred: Big Worm

Saturday's ride was one of those kinda rides. Lotsa trails, lotsa creek crossings, lotsa people, lotsa bullshitting, but oddly enough not one mechanical outta twelve riders.

We had a large crew on Saturday. I traveled with Jerry "Enoch" Adams and Big Worm, and we met up with The Original Big Ring and Mark from Canada, Eric and Drew from Industry Nine, Eric "PMBAR Honcho" Wever, yet another Eric, Bill Nye, Leyonce, and suspension tuner to the stars Mike Rischitelli (you may not realize it, but just typing the twelve names and placing links where appropriate wasted seven minutes of my morning). The route was another dynamic Pisgah epic with route changes from the early planning stages on Thursday straight through the two hour mark on the actual ride. Oddly enough with that many riders we had zero mechanicals and only a few minor trail incidents (Jerry tried to pluck his eye out with a mountain laurel and Drew attempted to insert one into his backside).

Now about the fork....

The Death Stick is in a state of disassembly due to the "25.4 is dead to me" revolution.

It was kinda nice having Mike R. there to chit chat with as we rode along. I asked him questions and gave him feedback throughout the day. The fork's performance was night and day from the way it was originally when I first got it (semi used from another Bike29 customer). It actually moved up AND down as I rode the more technical climbs on Squirrel (previously the fork could not overcome its excessive stiction on slow technical climbs). On the ripping fast descents like Laurel Creek the fork was sexy smooth through all 130mm's of its travel, but on the slower, ploppy descents I was diving through more travel than I woulda liked. I asked Mike about adding more air, but he said he would like to see me on a slightly stiffer spring without any air adjust, so we are going to go that route. Perhaps Mike thought that since I weighed as much as a little girl I would ride like one too (I only say that since I believe I have alienated 100% of my female readership by now, so what harm can it do?). Things are looking up for me in the world of squish, and since this is the only fork that I can run and have the crown clear the down tube it's a great relief to know that I'm not stuck with a fork that just plain sucks.

This fork, with it's super stiff 20mm thru-axle Industry Nine wheel, is now a contender.

I was telling Mike that I think it's a great idea that he does a ride along with all of his customers after they get their forks worked on by Suspension Experts. He informed me that his prescence was more of a coincidence and not part of the service I paid for, so with that in mind I give Suspension Experts my...

SEAL OF SEMI-APPROVAL

I was under the impression that Mike (or Kevin) must go out and ride with all their suspension tuning clients, but alas I was getting the white glove, superstar, red carpet treatment due to my elevated status and high end media connections. If you decide to get your fork worked on by the guys at Suspension Experts do not think for one moment that they are going to show up at your local trailhead for your first shakedown ride. Apparently this is a privilege reserved for the elite cycling media and industry types like me, so all you normal folks who send in your Fox, White Brothers, Manitou, Rock Shox, Maverick, and Marzocchi forks (sorry, no Headshocks or Lefties, but they do work on some other left field suspension products) will not be getting any preferential treatment. Sure, your fork will stop sucking ass, but nobody's gonna hold your hand when you go out in the woods with your now high performance, highly functioning fork. Seriously, give these guys a call if you have any suspension needs. Leaky seals, poor performance, or just want your goods to be gooder, they're the people you should call.

and finally...

Things are starting to show up to complete a few projects that needed to be completed but will be talked about later. Parts acquisition manager and sponsor liaison Admiral Ackbar is quite proud of his first actual contribution to Bad Idea Racing and the "25.4 is dead to me" revolution (not because I asked for it, but because it's over whether I like it or not).

Soon my squid like friend, soon.

One more time before there's another time

Tonight at midnight the 2010 Bad Idea Racing jersey pre-sale ends. What does that mean for you? Well, first off you won't have to hear about the jerseys again until after they are actually available, which means you will be able to enjoy some shill free posts for awhile.

Secondly, I will have to think about something else to write about in the mean time, since my next race is still two long trainingless weeks away.

Thirdly, today is your last chance to have some of the proceeds of your purchase go to a family in Haiti to help rebuild their home. That's right, 10% of my profit from all the jerseys ordered before midnight tonight will be going to the Dindin family with a matching donation from Twin Six (isn't that nice of them?). After that time 100% of the money I end up making through jersey sales will be pissed away on racing, travel, and beer. If you want to help the Dindin's without contributing holistically to my beer fund there are other ways, so don't feel like you have to buy a jersey to make a difference in the world.

Big Worm snapped this image at the Tea Bag Party in Charlotte last week:

Apparently this woman wasn't paying attention to the scheduled speakers and was using her time wisely trying to figure out if she could squeeze her purchased womanhood into a small Bad Idea Racing jersey or would she be better off going with a medium. I think the small with the full zip Liz Hatch fit adjustment would be the best option, but that's just me.

So click on over to the dark side and buy a jersey today.

Meh... just my luck. I clicked the link to Twin Six at 6:23am, and I got the following message:

Apparently so many people went over to look at the Bad Idea Racing jerseys over the weekend they crashed the Twin Six site. Hopefully things will be up and running before your time runs out.

Hopefully this week a lot of shit will show up at the house in dull packaging thus annoying The Pie as she goes about her work from home day. Hopefully I'll have happy feet, protected eyes, and a finalized cockpit by the time Friday rolls around. Also I will have an ample supply of blog fodder which is always nice since I don't have to think so hard in the morning.

Tomorrow I'll be posting up about the massive ride of global implications that occurred last Saturday, and also my feelings regarding my Suspension Experts custom tuned White Brothers Fluid.

I guess Eric PMBAR Honcho Wever took the time to paint this image of me crossing the bridge over South Mills River from memory (with custom fork tuner to the stars Mike Rischitelli right behind me).

Late Edit: T6 site is back up and rolling for your jersey needs.