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“What else can I say? I pull the rear derailleur off of my Vanilla road racing bike and a Scott shows up on my doorstep last Wednesday morning. What can I do? Of course, I took it in, nurtured it, built it up and am gonna start riding it this weekend.”

Or not. This has been a hectic week. I started the above post last Monday and the days that followed have been chaotic.

I got a call from a cross racer friend who is also the Mavic-Adidas-Scott sales rep. The short version of the story involves breaking my van and leaving it on the side of the road to get hauled away by the city. Then realising my Record rear derailleur is busted, getting myself personally delivered down to Sellwood to pick up a broken derailleur to use for spare parts, rebuilding it, realising it is still busted, rebuilding it again, and staying up till 3am putting the new race bike together. Have I ridden it yet? Nope. Do I need to? Yep.

Will I get to? Not anytime soon. My mechanic’s last day is today and I am staring at so much work it is ridiculous.

Boo-hoo.

What else has been going on? I built up Steven Hunter’s gucci Sellwood edition Kona XC racing bike. He finally did it right. It is so nice. And he is really happy. We screwed around a lot with his XC bikes last year. Never got it right. Tried full suspension, tried different setups. I generally advocate just, “doing it right” getting modern components (for racing), as much new stuff as you can afford and I’ve recently become a believer in FOX suspension. (but, NOT thier phone answering service: another story.) I still really like to keep stuff running and y’know, use old parts that are still good and appear to be running well. But Steven and I had such bad luck. It just seemed like every race something would crap out or mis-shift and he spent the greater part of last fall daydreaming about a XC bike that actually worked. Well Steven, here you go. By the way, Steven Hunter is Veloshop’s current Oregon state cross champ. Trouncing the B field for the last 3 races of the 2005 season after getting a late start due to a summer injury.

Like usual, I am running late and taking advantage of my final day having someone open the shop up for me. My Scott weighs just over 16 pounds with some training wheels and Cary Miller’s old Truvativ cranks on it.

I’m anticipating the backlash I’ll get for racing on a non-Vanilla bicycle for the first time in a couple years. It’ll be like I started eating meat or something.

Sellout. Carbon fibre sellout.

An hour into the Vernonia loop today I ripped the rear derailleur off of my Vaniller road bike. Ugh. I busted out the chain tool, turned it into a single speed and kept on trucking. Ira Ryan and I climbed up into the snow and then just decided to turn around when the climbing got silly.

Friday night I got woken up by the ADT alarm company giving me a call, some street kids put a hole in one of the big windows of the Veloshop. So there I am 2 am, sleeping with my ladyfriend and the alarm company tells me a window is busted and the cops are down there waiting for me to show up. I’m panicked, thinking I got robbed but really, it was just some drunks. I got the pleasure of putting plywood over the window at 3am and daydreaming about the $700-800 a new pane will cost.

My mechanic gave me her 2 weeks notice too. So, I’m in the market for a new mechanic. I’d double what Sellwood is giving Fatson but KONA’s got thier grubby paws all over that shit.

Wait, seriously. I’m hiring a wrench for the Veloshop. Now.

All moaning aside, I had a killer ride today. And I would like to take a second to appreciate the finer things in life. Like this Sugino Zen track chainring.

Looking forward to nicer weather, iced soy mochas and mountain bike racing.

Holy crap.

We all know Vanilla bicycles are nice. Now there is a 4 foot tall trophy to prove it. What a year. A national championship, a best of show trophy. Mr. White has it all, money, power, influence.

Me? I spent the evening hiking around the forest in the snow doing some covert trail work. Got a bunch more done than I thought I was going to. Never used a chainsaw before. Next time you ride over this—> Thank Brian Ellin.

What is with the snow? Serious. I’m over it. What do we only get 2 months of warm weather?

My current problem is figuring out when I should start racing again. No Cherry Pie, no Banana belt, no Mudslinger… What next? Maybe I’ll make an appearance at the Piece of Cake road race. Maybe I’ll just show up at the Willamette valley classic stage race.

If Barry stood up straight he’s the taller of the two.

Peace out.