Last day to show me how much you love me

What was I busy doing Wednesday night?

It was supposed to be a thirty minutes job. I was headed over to Jerry's place with my new hitch so he could help me install it, but before I got out of the driveway the UPS guy showed up with all the parts for my new Raxter Racks. Yes, racks plural. I got a three bike Thorax and a single bike Stinger. I threw it all in the car and hopped into rush hour traffic.

Jerry and I (mostly Jerry) had the hitch on in less than thirty minutes, and because I had thrown the racks in the car, we assembled the Stinger and mounted it up. It was sorta low on the Fit and stuck out a bit far. We stood there scratching our heads for a bit, and then came up with a plan.

We shortened the folding unit of the Thorax and then cut and drilled the Stinger to fit like a folder. Voila.

This is not stock. I can take out one bolt, push in the retaining pin, and swap over to the Thorax in less then five minutes. I'm not sure the folks at Raxter would ever see a market for the folding one bike rack. You'd have to be really picky like me to want something the folds up this tight when not in use.

The bike sits about as close to the car as I would want it. No chance of it swaying back and forth and hitting the car.

The timing on this all working out is quite weird. It was just two years ago that I got my first Raxter for my Element (along with a pretty ti bike) right before the Six Hours of Warrior Creek.

Anyways, if you have a Thorax and want to swap it out to a folding Stinger when the mood strikes you, bug the folks at Raxter and tell them how brilliant I am. Raxter, best rack I've ever used... period. Contact me at teamdicky at hotmail dot com, and I can get you a discount. I know people.

Warrior Creek. A friend of mine asked me if I was ready for the race this weekend. I did not know how to respond. My new 2011 "training" plan was to not train at all in March, so I'm as ready as my plan allows me to be. I firmly believe last year's mid-season burnout was a result of trying to ramp up way too early in the year. I hate "training" in March. I get into the swing of early morning rides, and as soon as I accept it as part of my daily life, the time changes and my early rides are in the dark... and cold. Fuck March.

My ankle (yes, I'm going to mention it again) is still swollen to about 145% of its normal size. It's stiff (my ankle) when I wake up, and it sometimes gives me problems throughout the day. Meh.

My weight is closer to where I want it than it was in February, but nowhere near my stupid, and perhaps unobtainable goal. I am swollen to about 145% of my ideal size. Meh.

I don't have my act together, and that means no blogging tomorrow morning. I gotta dig out and organize my six hour pit (a folding camping table, six water bottles, and a few packs of gel leftover from last year). I still need to pick out an outfit as well. I got my Dopers Suck jersey last week and spent over two hours making into a Team Dicky Edition sleeveless jersey.

Now we're looking at low 40°s at the start, so I'm gonna have to sack up if I wanna go to the gun show this Saturday.

Today is the last day to like and/or comment on my video for the Topeak Ergon Basecamp contest.

I've got plenty more likes than my competition, but I am quite lagging in the comments department. Half of them are from Peter and the other half are complimentary. After today the decision gets turned over to the powers that be at Team Topeak Ergon, and they will announce the winners tomorrow. Yes, winnerS. There will be a female selected and the competition between the two front runners has been way more heated than the men's contest. Politicizing the shit outta the facebook, they have. Can't wait to see who wins that one.

Remember, if I get picked this blog will get awesome for a few days in May while I regale you with tales of mixing it up with Team Topeak Ergon in the Sedona desert. If I don't get picked? Things will get ugly on here, like the Blogcott of 2009 ugly.

GO HERE NOW. LIKE IT NOW. COMMENT ON ITS WONDROUS AWESOMENESS NOW.

I've got better things to do

I feel like I'm missing something...

Oh yeah, sleep.

Go to bed late, lay there trying to process the last 5+ hours of my day, endure a restless night's sleep, all to wake up at 5:45am when I throw in the towel.

Pouring rain right now. Gonna pour for awhile. I checked thefuckingweather.com to see how all this precipitation is affecting the course at Warrior Creek, but it is currently down so I had to go to the old fashion weather site.

Meh. The trails may be moist. You will get muddy, you might get nasty.

I got a new Awesome Strap Race the other day, and I don't see this pattern available for purchase on the site.

I do not know what is up with that. Maybe it's a Team Dicky exclusive. Maybe they just forgot to put it on the website. I wonder if it's tougher then a standard strap.

Diamond Plate = Metal

There's a new post on Cush's TSE blog. Yet another interview with the nefarious Mark Weir. Also photographer extraordinaire AE Landes did a little digital image retrospective of the times between the racing at TSE. Among my favorites is this captured moment of Grig Martin giving us fellow single speeders an impromptu lecture on how to be more handsome just by using the power of your mind.

Also in big TSE news, the race was included in the Velonews Ride Guide "Must do" list.

I haven't seen it for myself. I don't write for Velonews, and I've never been in it, so it must be a semi-irrelevant publication. I only found out about the good news from the Facebook.

Facebook and mountain biking. There's a topic worthy of some literary genius's attention. If only we had a literary genius in the house that wrote for an established and awesome mountain biking periodical. Pulitzer stuff right there.

The (other) folks from Dirt Rag came down to NC for a visit. My phone never rang. My esteemed colleagues from Industry Nine and Cane Creek played the part of mountain host while I lived my normal life here in Charlotte.

From left to right: Some older guy from Dirt Rag, some younger guy from Dirt Rag, and some guy from Cane Creek that didn't call me.

I guess departmental memos are going missing again. I'm going to have to have my people look into this... as soon as I get some people. I need some people to help me get some people.

As I type this morning I am disturbed by what I see. My bike room is an abhorrent mess. Cardboard boxes, sundrious new equipment that needs addressed, and clothes strewn about the floor. Instead of begging for more traffic on my video (no link required), I'm gonna clean this mess up now.

All your junk or just the business?

Some of you, and definitely not all of you, watched my Topeak Ergon Basecamp contest video.

Some of you, and most certainly not all of you, might have noticed that I changed something on the Superbeast before the video.

Yes, I mounted up a set of Ergon GA-1 grips before I made the video.

There were two reasons that I just put them on my bike. Of course the first reason would be that I was making a video to win the Team Topeak ERGON contest. That is obvious, and I will not deny it.

The second reason I recently installed the GA-1 grips is because I'm a dumbass.

Last May after the dust had settled at PMBAR and the hanging out portion had begun, I found myself sitting around with my partner Thad and Topeak Ergon riders Eddie and Namrita O'dea. We talked about plenty of things like "Do you think Thad might vomit again?" and "Did you think one person could vomit so much?", but at one point we talked about grips. Namrita suggested that if I could obtain a pair of GA-1 grips from the prize table I might find them to my liking, so I made sure I went home with a pair.

I did not mount them right away. I played with them, fondled them, considered putting them on the Death Stick, reconsidered my consideration, and put them on the shelf. Months later a friend was over at the house working on his bike and asked me if I had any extra grips. He saw them, he wanted them, he ended up with them mounted on his bike before he left. Once they were on his bars I gave them a feel and was immediately pissed that I let them go without trying them.

So months and months later this contest comes up, and I realize I should have some Ergons mounted up for the video. I obtained a pair of GA-1 grips since I knew they were the ones my hands felt most happy gripping and decided to give them a go. Like an idiot I put them on my Niner for a test ride, but I hadn't swapped out my tire selection before the ride. I was still riding the narrow tires from the Southern Cross race with higher than normal pressure, and I felt beat up after the ride. I made the mistake of having to many variables on a test ride, thus invalidating the test.

With the Misfit en route and my variable elements increasing I decided it would be best to mount them to the Superbeast since nothing would be changing on that bike any time soon. It was a success. The GA-1 grips fit like a glove or more like the inverse of a glove. They felt good enough that I'm leaving them on there, which is saying something because I'm not very patient and sorta fickle, and if I don't like something right away I usually remove it immediately. It doesn't hurt that they are flashy and white... not a bit.

The only thing that would be any more dope would be some Ergon white on Ergon white action (not currently available):

So yes, I jumped on board for not all, but some of the wrong reasons, but most importantly, I am staying on board. Will I ever get some for my rigid bike? Who knows? I'm nervous about switching around the formula so close to the "season." I still deal with that recurring thumb injury that scares me whenever it starts creeping around. It gets so bad that it hurts when I release the strap on my messenger bag or hold my underwear down while I pee.

Which brings me to another topic, a conversation I was having with George, or as I like to call him, Ralph Nader. I asked him if most guys (or at least him) pull out all their junk when they pee or just the business end. George and I both agreed that with all the junk out it seems like the flow is better, but it does put enormous stress on my weak thumb (don't ask me to switch my grip either). What's the general consensus on this topic?

My nutsack is not a flotation device

Whatever it was I did over the weekend had me crashed out on the couch by 9:00pm last night. I woke up very early each morning with an agenda, a sense of purpose that could not be denied. Saturday I was up at 5:30am so I could load a bunch of music onto a flash drive since I discovered my Fit has the capability to play tunes right off the tiny digital wonder. Now I'll never have to hear any new music ever for the rest of my life.

Success.

After that I headed out to Poplar Tent to mix it up with some folks that are way more familiar with the twists and turns out there than I am. Trying to go fast out at Poplar Tent requires some skill and a certain tolerance to smashing your knuckles into trees. I was a close-up witness to a tree clipping gone bad that resulted in an abrupt thighs-to-a-tree type stop. I managed to stay upright, but ended up bashing my left pinkie twice, glad that I had cut the Niner crabon bars down.

2.175 laps in on my ride I stopped to make an adjustment. My new flat bars were a smidge too low for stand up style climbing. This would not do, so I flopped the stem to positive rise and finished the ride. With the bars higher I couldn't lean into the corners as hard in order to avoid the trees, but I could stand up and produce more power when climbing.

Hmmm...

So I woke up early on Sunday and swapped the bars back, lowered the EBB, and dropped the saddle. I think this will be the sweet spot for the high speed banked turns at the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek next week. We'll see.

Remember my post about the tool holster device I created out of recycled beer coozies?

Backcountry Research is moving forward to make my dream a reality by producing quality versions of the product, and I got samples in the mail over the weekend. I can't show you any photos since they're all prototypes, but I'm rather stoked.

To keep people from getting confused....

This is my nutsack:

The final version of the tool holster is not my nutsack. It doesn't even resemble my nutsack. It is and forever will be the Tülbag (pronounced tūl-bahg). Tülbag is the the Scandinavian word for nutsack, but anyways...

Peter sent me some posters in the box with my frame. I wanted a hoodie. I got posters.

Some of this one:

and some of that one:

I don't have enough wall space for all of them, so I'm bringing them with me to the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek. If you see me by my car I'll give you one (if you ask nicely).

In one place and all over at the same time

Yesterday the final (perhaps) piece of the puzzle came to the house.

A flat bar, more specifically a Niner carbon flat bar. As much as I would like to say that I bought a Niner bar just to piss Peter off, I can not. I planned on putting an ENVE carbon bar on the bike, but not until I made sure I did not want a riser bar by giving the machine a test ride. After I decided to go with the flat bar I called George at Bike29 and asked him if he could get me an ENVE bar before the weekend...

"No."

It's not that he didn't want to, it's just that getting one before the weekend was an indefinite possibility as stock of the ENVE flat bars is currently nill. I had waited too long, the window was closed, and I needed whatever I could get. He had the Niner bars in stock, and although I woulda wanted red logos, I got Kermit green. Meh.

Snoozer and loser, right here.

They are long. How long? Too long. As opposed to going through my normal routine of riding the bars at length, re injuring my thumb with the awkward stance, and then cutting them down, I decided just to skip to the last step. I broke out my Park Tool SG-6 and went to town.

Just as the Original Big Ring recently gushed, I too love blue tools. My favorite? The Park Tool HCIDA-1 (Headset Cup Insertion Depth Adjuster-1).

I guess I coulda used it to cut down the bars as well, but the right tool for the right job and all.

No sooner does the new Misfit Psycles prototype get some press, I go and change things around making new news old news.

The weight that they (tHom) went to virtual print with is shown as 20.14lbs, but I'm happy to report that with the new flat bar the bike lost .02lbs, and is now a slender 20.12lbs. Get with the times slow loading Bike Rumor, and Tyler, if you want my bike to lose weight by swapping over to Hayes Grams, well then just send them over and I'll mount 'em up. Yep.

Speaking of press, I'm all about getting exposure for last year's sponsors and outdated clothing.

That's me down there on the bottom right rocking out in my white Twin Six Deluxe kit (no longer available) riding my Niner One 9 (currently sitting between the mysterious blue bins of marvelous curiosity). I am the, all right, just one of the poster boys (and token female, Kim) for the 2011 Trans-Sylvania Epic. This is the race that I am most excited about this year. Yes, the Six Hours of Warrior Creek is my favorite multi-lap format race. Yes, I've done PMBAR six years in a row. Yes, ORAMM is still the most important race on the international cycling calendar.

But TSE? It is fun... plain and simple. And I can't wait to beat Sonya Looney. Looks like some of you guys want me to do it on my own without the aid of the Topeak Ergon Basecamp surveillance I had planned.

Just two clicks of the mouse people... play, like.

Seriously.

Grieving over

Yesterday I caved in on a car that I had said no to previously. Above my desired price, but way below my desired miles. I made the decision while I was at work, so I had to run to the bank to get a check cut, call my insurance company, and then ride 13 miles up a hellacious stretch of Statesville Rd to the dealership. The Pie said I was probably the first person to ride into the dealership on a bike and pay cash for a car.

So I got a Fit. No pictures since it's dark outside right now, but it looks like all the rest of them out there. Mine is black, I wouldn't say there are none blacker. It looks like this with wheels.

I did install my spring loaded Chihuahua on the dash last night, but the large laundry basket of shit that I took out of the Element will have to be sorted as it is all not going to fit in the Fit.

Coming home from the dealership I got like a million miles to the gallon, so there.

I'll be able to get to a trail this weekend... maybe the mountains. I'll be able to drive to the Six Hours of Warrior Creek next week where the world will discover the drawbacks of my new "training" program. And the next next week I should be able meet up with the Original Big Ring who will be on his yearly sabbatical to the mountains of NC.

Shit.

Clicking on my link to the Six Hours of Warrior Creek I noticed that I'll be halfway through my planned 2011 "season" in less than a week. This does not mean that I won't be doing any more racing after July. It just means I haven't planned very well.

A week to freaking go before this contest is over. A week. On April 1st we will all know if I'm going to Sedona, AZ to the Team Topeak Ergon Basecamp. One thing that I can say is that if I go you will get to read about the whole thing here on the blog. Somebody else wins? Who knows.

I can guarantee that my posts will suck during the period of time from May 1-4 if I do not go. Serious suckage of massive massitude. I've got thousands of blog readers, 700+ face friends, and only 335 likes on the video. I'd better start inventorying the big blue bins for the next in the series of more Virtual Tours of my bike room.

"Part Three: What's in the Big Blue Bins?"

Go like the video now. If I get over 500 likes before next Monday I will drop this subject on the blog, and go back to blogging about something sorta bike related (that losers can then leave incoherent and humorless anonymous comments about).

Grieving filler on a Wednesday

On Sunday I sold the Dirty Little Box, my vehicular conveyance for the past almost six years. It was a sad day indeed. I've had so many adventures in that car, and it will be sorely missed. Trips all over the right coast, from Michigan to Florida and all spaces in between. Trips shared with so many different people going so many different places.

I didn't have to sell it, but it has been the plan for a couple years. If the right person came along with the right amount of money I wanted to replace it with a Honda Fit. Back when I got the Element it was easy schmeasy to get four guys together for a mountain trip almost once a month. Now with commitments, family, jobs, old age, and whatnot, it is much harder to fill the car with human cargo, and its spacious interior is often left vacuous as I blow through a tank of gas to get my mountain experience.

I am now carless for the moment, something I haven't experienced since 1998. I guess I'm not totally carless as The Pie still has the 2002 Corolla that she plans on driving into the ground, but I have no personal wheels with which to shuttle myself and my bike hilly nilly over the land.

I'm also going to be losing the ability to run a four bike mount Raxter since I will no longer have a 2" receiver. I will be able to run a three bike Thorax, and I think I'm gonna pick up a one bike Stinger that I'll leave on most of the time for my weekly'esque solo rides. As long as I can carry my bike around without shoving it in the back and screwing up the pink shag carpeting I plan on installing once I get my new Fit.

This is not as painful as when I sold my Suzuki Samurai, although it had just been more of a toy than actual transportation.

Yes, lame post.

I know.

I figured I made some people's heads hurt over the last two days, and it was time for a palate cleanser. Too many people hung up trying to figure out the whole Sander VS Headset post from yesterday.

It is the rabbit.

My little package

So about the other package I received last Friday...

I knew it was coming, and I knew it would mess with me. When I informed my contact at Cane Creek that my frame would be here soon, he said he would go out on the "floor" and get my headset together. He then told me that the new 110 headset has some new features, and then he started to tell me about them...

And then he had an idea.

"Why don't I just ship it to you disassembled so you can see what's new for yourself?"

Meh.

I was excited to open the box regardless of the state of assemblage (or lack thereof) of my new headset.

That definitely seemed like more parts than I would need to make one headset, and I had never seen some of these parts in any of my other 110's (aside from my personalized stainless steel 110).

Hmmm....

Here's where the joy of prototypical frames comes in.

Something looked odd. The headtube had been reamed out for a zerostack headset (44mm), and the depth looked precise. I cracked open a beer and got out my little ruler that came out of my dissection kit from a biology class at Youngstown State (hey, college wasn't pointless).

I measured the depth of the top ream... 10mm.

I measured the insertion of the top cup... 10mm.

I measured the depth of the bottom ream... 10mm.

I measured the special cup that allows you to run a 1.5 tapered fork in zerostack head tube...

12.something mm.

And then The Pie called me to dinner.

I sat there and thought and thought and thought. This was an issue. The frame had been reamed deep enough for a standard zero stack headset, but none of us (on the non-headset guy end) knew that the non zero stack lower cup had a slightly deeper insertion. Hmmmm...

I tried to insert the cup after dinner and it was a no-go. It would not go in all the way. I knew it would fail, but I was hoping that it was all a dream or an optical illusion.

I try to contact Eric at Cane Creek... on a Friday night.

I tried Peter... who was in Shanghai.

I called a mechanically oriented friend who told me not to do anything stupid.

I opened another beer.

I got out a piece of sandpaper and started to work on sanding off the unwanted portion of the lower cup. It had a decent taper on it, close to 3mm, and I felt as if I could live without most of it. I sanded and sanded and sanded and drank more beer. I tried the cup back in the frame, but I had not sanded enough off the cup.

Out of desperation I went into the storage closet and pulled out the small Ryobi orbital sander I bought when I refinished the hallway. I put on a rubber glove, got another beer, and went to town. After removing some more material I tried it in the frame again. No-go. Back to the sander, back to the frame, no-go once more.

I went to remove the headset, but this time proved to be more difficult. I discovered that as I was sanding off the portion of the headset that gives the headset removal tool its purchase. I got it out, but I realized I had one more shot to get it right, and then this headset was in for good.

I sanded some more... by hand. I measured, sanded, measured, sanded, measured, sanded, measured, and then went for it. It went in, and it's staying in. It's pretty much flush with the non reamed portion of the headtube, and it will remain a part of the frame forever.

I must admit, it was a dumb thing to do, and that you should not try this at home. I am sponsored by Cane Creek, and as long as I apologize profusely for bastardizing their top tier product I will probably be back in their good graces. Obviously I'll be sure to get the exact specs before we go making another prototype.

Those carbon top bearing covers? Not part of the new 110, but something off the 40 series headset. Eric trying to confuse me, or make my bike lighter, or trying to confuse me? Dunno. The split compression ring was much easier to install into the bearing cover, and the whole top portion of the headset was more sealed from the elements than previous versions.

The bottom cup had a convenient drop in bearing and a groove for an o-ring which held the bearing nicely in place while I put everything together. I'd bet the o-ring was designed to do more than that, and I would have got a picture, but at that point I was many beers into the project and running a little behind on the build. Since I was not familiar with the assembly of the headset and my brain was getting a little fuzzy, the procedure lasted a little longer than it should have. Don't worry, if you order a 110 it will come in a nice box already put together, and you shouldn't have to sand it with a Ryobi to get it into your frame.

The cool thing about the 110 headset? Although Cane Creek has a 110 year warranty on the thing already, they are still spending time to make it better. I'm stoked to see drop in bearings, since I'm not a big fan of the press fit. Press fit works, but serviceability is workier. It's nice to be able to replace them at the consumer level with ease if you have to.

Everything else on the build went smooth, and then I woke up the next day with a hangover and terribly dehydrated.

Victory.

ALL INFORMATION REGARDING THE NEW 110 THAT YOU READ HERE MAY BE CORRECTED AT A LATER DATE AFTER I GET A PHONE CALL FROM ERIC AT CANE CREEK CORRECTING MY ASSUMPTIONS AND WILD GUESSES.

The yin, the yang,and the bang-bang.

Friday I got two packages. One was a neccessary part for the new bike from Cane Creek.

I'll talk about that tomorrow.

The other was the actual frame I'd be sticking the headset in.

I am no longer crying wolf. A real frame showed up, and as far as I can tell it matches the drawing quite nicely.

Skipping along to the full on shot and not teasing any further, here it is.

Of course I weighed it (weighted it, for you MTBR folks).

Respectable, but .15lbs have got to go.

I got what I wanted. Full on Cane Creek 110 ZS44/28.6~EC44/40 in action.

This headset lets you run a tapered fork in a non-tapered zero stack compatible head tube. The 110 has been redesigned, but as I said, that is a topic for tomorrow.

The dropouts were a modified design by YESS. I like hooded dropouts for my own anal retentive reasons. I was pleased that they were able to acquiesce my request.

The post mount brake was not my idea. Thomas Wood designed it, and so be it, it was added to the frame. It works.

Is it the way of the future? Sure, a Blade Runner future complete with sex robots.

Chainstays? We got 'em. Clearance for mud, goop, and run down British children.

Room for two water bottles? Why yes, we can accommodate your hydration needs.

That third cable guide was my idea. At first I liked it, and then I didn't, but now I do again.

27.2 ti post, no shim, sexy new white seatpost collar with a ti bolt (still not light enough to break the 20lb mark).

Tense?

That's a Niner Biocentric EBB in there. I've already pitched my fits about sliders here and
here. It works for me. Hate on it all you want, but debating the merits of SS tensioning systems is the cause of more civil unrest than wealth distribution, taxes targeting the middle class, and the multi-billion dollar subsidized corn industry. Be careful, you might start a riot.

I was hoping that the new geometry would get me on some flat bars. I was correct. After one ride I knew they were on order, so they are now on order, and happiness is coming soon. You might have noticed I chose to go with the sticker as opposed to Peter's brass headbadge.

He's not pleased with my decision, but I have made him ill countless times over this bike, so whatever. He got his revenge.

And here are all the little details for those that have to know:

First and foremost, I will not be racing for Peter or Misfit Psycles in 2011. Obviously I will be on this frame when I race almost all the time, but as far as being some exorbitantly paid rider representing the Empire?

No.

I can still ride my Tallboy whenever I want to. I can wear what I want to wear, pick and choose my pieces parts, and go wherever the hell I damn well please.

Peter is a friend. He asked me why I wouldn't I ride one of his frames since I wasn't really racing for anybody in particular back in 2010. I told him how I felt about sliders, and he deservedly scoffed me.

He said "What if I let you have an EBB?"

I said "If we're going to do that how about this, that, and the other?"

Obviously there is a marketing angle to the project, but it was also about exploring future possibilities. I think the Cane Creek 110 ZS44/28.6~EC44/40 is a pretty brilliant idea that makes things a lot better for small builders, but I think it should be considered by the big boys as well. It's just tits. I'm not saying that Misfit's going to be making major changes to future designs, but Peter just got back from the Taipei bike show, and he was pretty excited (about more than just the cheap food).

Frame weight? It's 4.3lbs. I compared it to the One9 with the rear brake adapter and shim installed (and with both frames with their respective headsets in place) and the difference was .6lbs. I figured that was a better apples to apples comparison.

Peter was pleased to point out that my "custom preferred" cockpit dimensions were surprisingly similar to his medium frame, with just slightly more relaxed geometry and more standover.

The powder coat. Half accident, half what I wanted in the first place but was afraid to ask for, and what I want on the next one. My wife says it's pretty.

Not entirely sure what we will do differently on the next one if there is a next one which we think there will be. I guess I should ride it a bit more before we go there.

Oh, and I quoted what movie in the title of my post?