Woke up in all my clothes.

My ladyfriend and I drove up to Seattle Friday night and ate sushi with some of her friends. Spent the night in the Wallingford neighborhood and she woke up to run off and help a friend move. I slept in pretty heavily and scampered off to find a coffeeshop and internet access. Hopped on the pit bike for it's first ever ride. (I was frantically gluing tubulars and wrapping bartape as we were running an hour late yesterday.) I got it from Sacha Wednesday morning and spent the last 3 days getting it together while running the shop. It weighs exactly 18.5 pounds with the Chris King clincher wheelset. One pound more than the race bike with the Chris King tubulars. It is atypical of me to just hop on a bike and race it before riding it in a bit, the rear brakes feel tight but, besides, it is identical to the race bike.

Sweet. I feel tight but, excited to race. I did not rain nearly as much as it was in Portland and the course should be tacky but not a total mudfest.

I'm going all out. My realistic goals for the year are top 20 finishes and not getting lapped by the Trebons and Wickses of the pro cyclocross scene. I'll only get faster when I ride with faster people. By the end of the season I may change my expectations a little bit. Been pre-registering for a bunch of my east coast races: Granogue, De.+Cross Nationals. They do the call up based on UCI points first and then order of registration. Since I currently have no UCI points...

Off to Thai food.

Wow. I am still recovering from last weekend. Have not even unpacked from our race on Saturday. Still got boxes of stuff littering the floor of the shop. I am super stressed out!

The promotion of our first cyclocross race went flawlessly. 270+ racers in attendance and almost no problems. There were a few missed start times, noteably in the singlespeed and women's races. Which actually made the racing exciting, as some of the favorites were about a minute or two behind the race for the first few laps. I think we made a little money on the race which is pretty stunning. We will keep that in our pockets for the next race we are promoting.

The Veloshop PIR supercross. Maybe we have a race flyer up? It is not finalised.

My race last Sunday in Eugene went pretty well. I rode smart and attacked Jon at the bell to snag 2nd place. Jon Myers is a diesel engine. If I eased up for a second he would have ridden right away from me. I was pretty stoked to hold him off in the last lap. He always whips my butt on the mountain bike. It would not have mattered which one of us won, we just had a really great battle for the last 8 or 9 laps.

As you know, my laptop computer died and I got a new harddrive installed for a couple hundred bucks. Any lessons learned? Back up your data. I lost a ton of great photos, my racing resume, the updated version of the Veloshop website, tons of sweet euro cross footage I snagged off the web, etc, etc. Ouch. I have spent the last 3 days restoring my Ibook to OSx and getting it all cleaned up and useable. I still need OSx versions of all the programs I had, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Quickbooks, etc. (hint-hint)

Looking forward, I'll be in Seattle this weekend for the Starcrossed race. And back down on Sunday for the first of the Cyclocross Crusade series.

I just snagged Ryan Trebon's old black spooky brakes for my "pit" Vanilla. I'm still waiting on the Carbon Spooky's to arrive from TUFO North America. My Ritchey components arrived 2 days ago, I got my Chris King clincher and tubular wheelset built up and I spent hours debating between the black Arione saddle or the limited edition silver and blue Arione saddles Fizik set me up with. I went silver and blue with white bartape. I'll likely switch to black when the going gets super dirty.

The epoxy is drying on the steerer tube insert on my Alpha Q fork and I'll have the pit bike rolling tonight. FYI tech nerds, here is what I am running. All the gory details. Both Vanillas are built up exactly the same besides the frame tubing. The race bike is True Temper S3 and I think the pit bike is Columbus Foco. I'll ask Sacha and clean up my techy info later. I HAD photos of them (remember my laptop died?) I'll take more today when I get the pit bike out on a test ride:

Chris King 1-1/8 black threadless headset
Chris King Classic 28 hole hubs front 2x rear 3x
DT Swiss Revolution 1.8-1.5 double butted spokes with alloy nipples.
Velocity Aerohead/Escape rims.
Zipp Ti skewers.
The wheels weigh in at 1475gm. I have not drilled them out yet. (heh, heh.)
Dura Ace 9v 12-27 cassette, DA chain, single right DA STI and DA 10v rear derailleur.
Ritchey WCS 44cm 31.8 bars
Ritchey WCS 110 stem
Ritchey WCS 175 crankset, single 42t ring w/Spooky carbon chainring guard outer.
Chain watcher on the inside.
XTR 112 bottom bracket. Perfect chainline.
Crank Brothers triple ti pedals. Quattro road cleats. (Q-factor adjustability!)
Spooky brakes with Ritchey red compound brakepads.
Ritchey WCS carbon seatpost. (I hacked 20 grams off the post, got it sub-130 grams!)
Schwalbe Fast Fred tyres (dry, fast)
Schwalbe Racing ralph tyres (wet)

I know, I am a big nerd.

But, besides training, equipment is one of the most vital aspects to a good race. I value equipment that will not crap out on me (obviously) and like to push the limits on what I can get away with. I ALWAYS test out my new or modified gear while training and make sure it is solid before I go out and race on it. I'm a pretty light rider and decent bike handler so, I can get away with super light gear and Ti parts.

The bikes are solid.

Just under 18 pounds with the tubular wheelset.

Believe that!

So, my laptop died. I'll get it back in a few days, the hard drive is
dead. All my data on it is gone. That means I'll have a lot of work to do
when I get it back.

Ugh.

We promoted our cyclocross race this Saturday and then Brian Ellin and I
raced in Eugene on Sunday. I got 2nd behind a, not quite recovered,
bandaged wrist, Ryan Trebon. That is exciting.

I have a hundred people to thank for this weekend, I'll write a real entry
when I have a computer again.