Eye Robot

The weekend... before the long week of not really doing much that far from home yet doing more than usual.

Firstly, the great news that my Vertigo is (basically) done.

Just some facing, chasing, reaming and boxing and this will be mine.  All the pieces parts (save for the 142X12 DT Swiss/Specialized thrü-skür) are in my hands.

Lacking a plan of my own on Saturday and with all the trails in Charlotte being closed, I agreed to solo drive to the mountains to meet up with Sad but Drew from Industry Nine and Shanna from Endless Bikes (and a few of their friends) for some local flavored Pisgah riding.

photo cred: Shanna

A spectacular day in the woods... minus one missing dog, one errant cleat bolt, one broken chain and the need to hot foot the last few miles by myself in an effort to make it home in time for date night.

The Dickstickel Meatplow V.6 performed valiantly in its current state... sorta.

I swapped out the XT Trail pedals and rear Ardent 2.4 for XTR pedals and a worn-out Ikon 2.2 to take some weight off the beast.  That brought it down to @ 25lbs but the slick tire made a wet Squirrel Gap a bit harder than it needed to be.

Damn.  I just had the wheels relaced to new rims a few months ago... maybe got in five rides.  Maybe eight?  Dunno.  At least it held air for the rest of the ride and wasn't too difficult to bend back into a reasonable shape.

So this got me to thinking.

Do I want the Crest/Industry Nine (older generation) wheels on the Stickel, which is now equipped for full time mountain use?  Would all be better served if I moved some wheels around, maybe put my Torch wheels with the Enduro/Trail rim combo on the Stickel and put the Crests on the Misfit?

Although all the wheels were swaddled in different meats and sporting dissimilar rotors, I decided to weigh the wheels and make up my mind... and then almost killed myself.

I weighed the wheels with my Feedback scale hung from my pull up bar.   Back and forth, mounting the wheels up, standing back, making decisions... piddling.  In and out of the room multiple times banging my head on the scale until....
I forgot about the scale and walked right into it.  Instead of it glancing off my forehead, the hook went into my eye, the tip of it went up into my occipital orbit, and I got yanked solidly backwards by my skull.  I stood there dazed for a moment before I figured out what happened.  My head pulsing, I wondered if my eye was still in my head.  I went into the bathroom to inspect the damage.

Fortunately, I escaped with just a contusion above my eye, some swelling and a decent headache.

That's a mistake I won't make again... until I do.

Convinced I had done enough damage, I just put the wheels back where they started and called it a day.