Mark Blackwelder won the Kings Valley road race today. Our new teammate Kim Mullen placed 12th in the women’s race at King’s Valley. Robin Calver got 4th in the cat 4 race too! Wow, a team victory gets me all pumped! I think I may have a new cat 2 teammate racing with me soon. I hope. Then I will have someone to work for in road races. We’ve got to get Jess back on the road too.
Mark came by the shop with poor shifting and low morale yesterday. “just go ride your bike, let the race happen and see how you feel.” I said. Sometimes you have the best ride when you least expect it. I remember flying to the east coast last fall for a cross racing weekend. I was getting sick, and I scheduled my flight so I got in 3 hours before my race start. (risky, I know.) After a shitty flight, Dan Langlois met me at the airport with Emily and my bikes, we drove straight to the race, I ran out and as Dan put my bikes together, signed in and went to the line. I went on to have one of the best race weekends of my season.
Matt Hall is one of my teammates I am scared of. He knows it too. He taught me everything I know about mountain biking and will out-descend me any day. You keep your friends close and your enemies closer right? I’ve got my eye on you Black Markwelder. And on that flexy thing too! I’m impressed. Please tell me you had the powertap wheel on there.
Tomorrow: 6 hours, then we get to watch L’Enfer du Nord and eat cookies!
I don’t think I ‘ve gotten any more than 6 hours of sleep a night this week either. I’ve had a lot of stuff on my mind. Been spending lots of time with Pete and the Veloshop has been super busy. Been riding a lot too with the weather being so reasonable. That feels amazing for once. I can tough it out in the rain and put in some crappy miles but, it had gotten old forcing myself out in the wet and dark 4 hours before work. Big shout out to the person who invented the time change. Spring forward.
Stuff on my mind?
First: Wish the best for Saul Raisin. Heal up. Soon. Same with Dean Tracy, wrecked his car and was in the hospital last weekend.
Next: The “stiffness” test in Velonews. The article is in the print version. Basically the 3 racing bikes I’ve been hott for are rated the highest. The Scott, Lapierre and, Cervelo. Tests like that don’t define how a bike will ride but it still feels good reading about a fancy bike you have rating high on some goofy test in a magazine.
By the way, Veloshop is officially a Lapierre dealer, come get your carbon on. I’m stocking a women’s specific entry level road bike and you may see some of the Veloshop team on carbon Lapierre frames this summer. I’m also working on a Veloshop “shop” blog. I figure, I can easily upload photos and product updates and shop info on a blog. Here is the new address, I’ve got to work on it soon.
Adam Craig killing it on a cross bike during the Sea Otter Super XC. Look at the results. Sea Otter is like a World Cup! All the reports say it is muddy as shit. Sounds super fun.
Damn. I started this post Friday morning and have been screwing with it all day. Lost my train of thought. More later.
The Piece of Cake road race was today and I got dropped in the last lap. Felt ok most of the race but once I was off the back I was in the cross wind and had nothing to catch back up.
Thats cool, I’ve got a long year ahead. I feel really good. I don’t even feel like I rode my bike today, that is a good feeling.
Cary Miller and I are hanging out at Stumptown.
Molly: “Cary, what are you thinking about?”
Cary: “Girls.”
Yeah…
The new road racing bike just gets lighter and lighter. Notice how the carbon on the cranks matches the carbon on the frame?
I hate how this new program does not automatically “wrap” text around images. Sorry, I’m working on it.
Recovering from the break in at the shop is going well. It is a bummer that I have to put security bars up in the window. Oh well. It is getting so crazy busy again. Ira has been working out really, really well. There are a handfull of his frames hanging up in the shop.
Been sticking to the trainning plan and just took a look at my schedule for the year. There is a lot of racing to do this year and a lot of overlapping XC and road races. If I ever get a XC bike together I’ll default to XC races.
Take a look at these hubs that this guy from Ireland brought in. He told me that his friend from the Czech republic is making these hubs. They are pretty nice. Fancy wide alloy threads, alloy lockrings. Well machined axles. I asked him to get me in touch with his friend. I’ll be building them up in a couple days.
Finally got another 5 hour ride in yesterday. Ira Ryan and I barely did a shortened version of the Vernonia loop. I gots the knee pain in a bad way…
The ouch is for the fiscal beating the little Veloshop took with the break-in. I am very tired of talking about it at this point. Yep, I have insurance. I may or may not end up filing a claim. It may actually cost more in the long run to use my insurance to re-coup the thousands I lost. While it is not going to put me out of business yet, it is kinda like having a bunch of money saved and then just not having it anymore. You never touch your savings and don’t need to use it on a day to day basis but, all that hard work you set aside just dissappeared and you don’t get to use it. Feels wasteful.
But now I have a killer excuse when I am out of stock on something. “Well, I usually have 19 tooth track cogs available but…”
heh heh.
Well, there is a detective on the case, we have a witness and good fingerprints. I guess the best case scenario will be an eventual arrest and recovery of the bike stuff. Like I said, I don’t feel like talking about it anymore.
In other news:
Health-Net has the lead in the Redlands Classic road race in California.
Doug Ollerenshaw was 21st. Not bad.
I’m going to ride my mountain bike for 4 hours tomorrow, then drink a soy mocha and then true some wheels.
Yep, 2am. Again. Sweeping up glass and hanging out with the police. While the glass company is taking its sweet time getting my new window installed someone actually pulled down the board I had up over the broken window and came in and stole a bunch of stuff. I had a witness and everything! Again, my alarm company gave me a call and I sprinted down to the shop to deal with the BS.
Here is the kicker. All they stole was track racing gear. The cop is telling me the description of a person dressed in a black hoodie, black pants and riding a bike. “That sounds like me.” I laugh. Under my breath, of course, because I am pissed. Now I am waiting around for the fingerprinting cops to show up…
Yeah! They are here. I’ve learned in my experience that fingerprinting is usually pointless. I guess I am glad they are trying.
Well I know the burglar stole a few specific parts, keep your eyes peeled:
A single grey MKS track pedal.
The right side only of a black Sugino 75, 167.5 length track crankset.
A silver pair of 167.5 Dura Ace track crank arms.
A Suzue ProMax NJS silver hubset.
A Phil Wood sealed bearing bottom bracket.
I THINK that is it. Ok, I am going to board it up again and get to bed.
At least he stole enough stuff it will be worth it to pay my insurance deductable…
We are moving the blog over to a new setup.
You can still view the old version by adding “/blogger” to the end of my web address.
Sorry for the hassle, more soon. I promise.
Click HERE if you don’t feel like typing.
“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.
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