Rolling stones gather no mas

Gonna be a coo coo cachoo week.  Too much all at once.

I was outta town over the past weekend, and got what might be the last three rides on my Crux.  The highlight of those rides being a solo excursion in Charleston, WV whilst camping with my son and the son of my son.  

Planning a route on Ride With GPS is both a blessing and a curse.

I passed a fair amount of very underbikeable trail on Middle Ridge Road because I thought I had a lot of gravel riding ahead... until I came to the bulk of my route... which was all on very private property as I came to find out.  Never seen a whole-ass purple gate before.  West Virginia being the South Carolina of the Virginias, I knew better than to hop the gate.  

Your guess is as good as mine?

Losing as much as a third of all my planned route, I went ahead and rode over the steep ridge, outta the forest, and down into the city.

Sights that I've seen but worth seeing again.

Rode back outta the city and over the river on some pedestrian infrastructure that tested the limits of my acrophobia.  When I got closer back to the Kanawha State Forest, I went back to my OG route that wasn't quite what I intended.

What I thought was a road turned into a "trail" that was really just a leafy ditch on the side of a cliff.  I've never seen burgundy on my elevation profile before.  WV, you so funny.

I very wrongly assumed the boundary road would be kept clear'ish.  I was wrong.  I rolled the poison ivy dice on this one getting around it.

I would do it all again tomorrow if I could.

Topeak E-Booster Digital Mini serves all the purposes.

Anyways, it was a good memory to make before putting the Crux on the market* because this is showing up some time this week:

For me, this will be a semi-daunting build.  Almost every aspect outside of pressing the headset in will be kinda new territory for me.  Like, pull up all the Youtube videos and watch along while spinning wrenches kinda shit and also pausing a lot to mumble swear words to myself.  Bleep bloop robot shifters and droooper and a power meter (because YOPMO), and internal rootings and all manner of using my phone and apps to make the bike rideable.  Vassago Tom says he can build one of these up in about forty minutes, so I'm shooting for fewer than forty days.  TBH it takes me forty minutes to wrap my bars.

Also, these showed up over the weekend:

So... yeth, I had (still have, need to sell*) brand new Hydra II 32" wheels built back in January, but these are the sorta unreleased (yet) and basically unannounced (still) SOLiX 32" wheels from Industry Nine.  To silence the "32 inch wheels and tires are going to be at least two pounds heavier" cynics, here are some weights for you:

Hydra II 32" (32 spokes): 1,760 grams
SOLiX 32" (24 spokes): 1,520 grams
SOLiX UL 29" (24 spokes): 1,400 grams

And speaking of my SOLiX 29er wheels, mine are the UL (Ultra Light) that were one generation ago, but as of this past weekend, two generations ago?  I didn't see that Industry Nine snuck in a new line up of wheels until I started writing this post Monday morning.  Anyways, as of Monday morning, the I9 site was kinda clonking along, but mebbe the new 29" SOLiX system wheels on Whisp rims might be 1,520 as well (AI thought so), so my 32" wheels ain't all that heavy.  All together, wheels and tires... about 240 grams heavier... so just about a half pound... which ain't two pounds.

So, gotta get busy building a gravel bike that I've been dreaming about for months, but really doubt I'll have it ready for the weekend, and if I decide to do the Ridge Runout gravel event on Saturday, I'd do it on the 32" wheel single speed, and that would mean I'd need to mount the Aspen ST tires to the new wheels, so they are sadly sitting in stasis unshod of rubber meats, meanwhile I'm contemplating going to Girona in September to ride gravel, but I don't know if my internally rooted noodle bars will fit in my travel bag? 

Who even am I?

* Yeth, I need to sell some bike stuff to strangers, my joie de vivre.