A certain singlespeed web celebrity (weblebrity?) has talked big about coming up to the Gravel Grinder.

I hope he makes good on the threat.

We have been bantering back and forth about this since SSUSA.

I am talking about YOU Thom Parsons!

I think that this will be that fun ride you’ve been looking for. While I can’t promise that you wont crash, or fall in dog poop, I can tell you that the ride will be fun, and you can even do it on your singlespeed. It might not be as fun as AZ, but you will not have to sleep under an RV.

To sweeten the ride, I will buy you a Clamato, and I will donate to your NZ fund if you come up.

You can come up can’t you?

Not gonna tell you exactly where I went, but some of the ride took place on the “new” Gravel Grinder route. I can say this for sure, it is getting soupy out there! It seems to me that all this mud is happening early this year, which is a good thing. This should mean that the road conditions for the Gravel Grider on Arpril 18th will be primo. Make sure you sign up now! It is historically the driest week all year.

Wednesday was another day this week that I played the “I close at 2:30″ card.

It was 50° by the time I left the shop with the La Cruz on the roof rack. I finally got to ride the 34-32 combo, and I have to say it wasn’t exactly what I expected, but more on that later.

I wasn’t expecting company on my ride, but was glad to have some. My buddy Dr. Jones had also decided that today was a good day to play hookey and met me at my house for an afternoon of bike fun.

There was no plan. In fact, there was a lot of stopping to take pictures. This was more like a goof-off than a ride, and I was pretty OK with it. So rarely do we stop to take in the surroundings, and today was just so spectacular. Cris and I were in no hurry, and perfectly happy to soak it all in.

Still, we managed to rack up 12 miles and 1300ft of climbing on our reconnaissance ride.

Now, back to that 32 tooth cassette. It made a difference for me today. I was able to sit and spin up the climbs, despite the soft road conditions. It wasn’t mind blowingly easier, which is what I kind of hoped for, but I’m willing to wager that the mud was tarnishing my experience. And, frankly, I’m pretty tired. I didn’t have a lot of power after a hard fast single speed ride followed by a night of core training earlier this week.

But, I was pretty stoked to ride, and so that is all I took it for. A ride. What a fun concept! Riding for fun, I hope it catches on…

During all this fun, I did find out one thing. I found the general gearing to be a bit more to my liking.

Here is the difference, just for the nerds:

PG1070

12,13,14,15,16,17,19,21,24,27

XX

11,12,14,16,18,20,22,25,28,32

I come from a mountain biking background, I have no idea why you would need to have a one tooth increment from one gear to the next. It seems like it doesn’t do that much, at least for me. I know that for some roadies, it makes all the difference in the world.

Today, I was all about the big cogs out back. When you can see the sky in the road, you know it’s going to be a tough going.

Tuesday, I was feeling a bit tight and sore from throwing myself and bicycle up two really steep hills. The most concentrated pain was in my lower back, a place where single speeding often manifests itself when I am not in my best form. Standing around in the shop all day doesn’t really make things better either.

I have decided that sitting around and drinking beer is only good for training for rides like SSUSA and SSWC, and that I need to start actually getting myself ready for rides like Singlespeed-a-palooza. Well now I have a new activity, dynamic training.

Mocean 365 is a group that specializes in such activity. They are running a series of Adventure Conditioning Camps over the next few months, and Tuesday marked the first night of the Base Camp series. It basically is an introductory course in getting yourself outside and getting active. These guys run camps like this all year, but this is the first one in Waterbury. Not only am I a participant, but Five Hills Bikes is also a sponsor. The courses will get more involved as the classes progress.

As with anything new, I had a little apprehension. The same lame excuses the lazy side of my brain that always talk me out of going to the gym were in full force. I shut them down though, I gotta get serious some time, and it may as well be now.  After the first 20 minutes or so I was all limbered up, the pain in my back disappeared, and I was able to really get into the activities. To be honest, it was a lot like playing. It was fun and challenging at the same time.

Skye (founder of Mocean365) did a great job of keeping the mood light, all the while gently pushing us to see where the limits are. This is an introductory class after all, and overdoing it is something that is to be avoided. We focused on a lot of core exercises and balance. I remembered most of them as ones I was supposed to be doing to help me with my knee…

The first night was great.

I needed to take a creative day off on Monday. Sorry.

Saturday I was as busy as I have ever been. The state tax holiday brought out more than a few frugal shoppers, and there were all ready to buy buy buy! I literally was going non stop from 9 to 5. I sold a lot of bikes, bikes that were in desperate need of a new and loving home. There are still a couple left, including the 19″ Superfly…

Sunday was spent mostly in the car. The boy and myself went to Down East’s open house, which was only 125 miles away as the crow flies. But as we say around these parts “can’t get there from here” and it was 3 hours there and 3 hours back. Thankfully the weather was great, and the roads were too despite being a bit frost heavie. I actually got to catch up with some old industry friends I hadn’t seen in a while, so it was a worthwhile trip.

I spent Monday morning taking care of all the things I needed to order/deal with etc, and I spent the afternoon enjoying my winter hours for once. According to the sign on the door, I close at 2:30 Monday thru Wednesday, but I always seem to be there no matter what. This time, I locked the front door and left out the back with Kermit, and cranked out a nice although quick ride.

I’ve just started to figure out how to make my Garmin 305 talk to my computer. I haven’t figured out how to embed the map onto the blog post, so here is the link until I figure it out. Or if anyone has the secret, please share.

I felt pretty good despite feeling slightly crumby. I seemed to have developed some sort of annoying sinus malaise over the weekend, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me from getting out and enjoying one of the warmest days we’ve had this year.

My route was a 12.8 mile figure 8, and took me up Loomis Hill, across Sweet Rd, over Stowe Hollow, past the Pinnnacle, and back up the Hollow. Sweet Rd was still 95% frozen, the rest a nasty cold wet muddy slurry. It was the only truly sketchy part of the ride. The other gravel roads must have been dragged earlier today. They were smooth but very very soft. This added a bit of resistance.

I came across a rafter* of turkeys. There were about 7 or 8 of them crossing the road about 10 feet ahead of me, I somehow had snuck up on them. They weren’t really interested in hanging around for a good picture as I fumbled around for my camera. Those suckers can move pretty fast when they want to. This is the second ride in a row where I have come across these funny looking creatures.

It was a great ride, and badly needed.

* I actually looked it up. This is so as not to confuse them with the other kind of turkeys the locals tend to complain about up here. The other kind are normally found in SUVs talking on cell phones.

Boy what a tough one. There were so many good suggestions, but unlike pre-school graduations and pee-wee softball league, only one person gets to win.

I had originally though that “Sith Lightning” would have been a good one, but maybe a bit too evil. Not really the spirit of the bike.

Mystique would have been awesome, but frankly, my mind would have been elsewhere while I was riding it, and that could lead to calamity.

Blue Balls, funny, but if I ever asked someone else to get my bike for me “Hey, can you get my Blue Balls?”. Um, no.

Blue 2 was a good suggestion, but I feel like I beat the whole Red 5 thing to a pulp. I rivals even my nerdiness.

Speaking of nerdiness, the whole Tekken thing? Wow! I stand in silence.

Boo Berry was another good one. I used to love that stuff, but the color scheme is more of a Boo/Franken Berry hybrid.

The winner is Ian, who suggested Mr Furley. I picked this one because it’s funny, and because he had a point on the wardrobe/color scheme. Also, I think that Dicky needs to make good on his promise to rename the Meat Plow “Tripper”.

Thanks to everyone that chimed in. We’ll do this again sometime soon.

Wow, so many great names to choose from, but I will say, that the best name for a bike I have EVER heard, is the dunderchee…

You will find out what I’m talking about if you go here.

I shut it all down tonight, so lets keep those names coming!!!

In other bike news, tomorrow is a tax holiday in VT. I’ve been furiously buffing out the shop, making sure that all the bikes on the floor are ready to go. I have a bunch of the leftover 2009 bikes on super duper sale, so folks looking for that deal they can’t refuse should make the trip to our showroom. I’ll be open from 9-5.

Sunday, there is an open house at one of my distributors. I’ll be making the trip to Maine to see some of the new products they are carrying, and see what sort of 29er products they’ll have. It’s a long drive, but sometimes a quick change of scenery is good thing.

The weather is supposed to be awesome this weekend, so get out and ride your bike if you can

OK, I’m bored. Spring is not coming fast enough.

I still haven’t named the blue bike, but it’s going to need a name. I’ve had some ideas, but I sort of feel like it lacks soul, like picking your own nickname.

I named Guitar Ted’s purple Gun-Kote El Mariachi “Grimace”.  I didn’t win anything, but you can!

Post your submission  in the comments field, and on Saturday, I will select a winner that I feel captures the spirit of the bike. Sarcasm is greatly appreciated but not totally necessary, but all entries should be G rated, or they won’t get published.

What do you win? Why, one of these nifty Bike29 Wisecrackers, that’s what.

Well, actually, to be more accurate, I blinded me with observation.

I’m not gonna lie, it was seriously pissing me off that the whole derailleur thing wasn’t working out for me. Like, throwing stuff mad. I had it in my head, that I was going to have this thing all worked out and it was going to be a smooth installation of new and hither-to-un-experimented-with parts.

GAH!

After messing around with cable tension for about an hour, I decided that maybe, just maybe, my idea wasn’t as awesome as it originally sounded. Or maybe it was, but I was trying to circumvent the system.

Little did I know, that the system was out there.

And it was looking for me.

One red pill later (ok, probably a 6-pack), and I think I had it all figured out.

Obviously, to cram 10 cogs in the space of 9, something had to give. I was not able to get the shifting to cooperate once I reached 4 from the bottom, nor could I finesse it with cable tension. And once I got it to work in 4, it totally failed to achieve the next shift up.

Drat! Drat! Double Drat!

All of a sudden it occurred to me, that the cable exited the SRAM road rear derailleurs at a pretty acute angle. I investigated this a bit further, and, a few pinched digits later, I came to the observation that the leverage actually changes on the 10 speed derailleur.

See this awsesome X0 9 speed derailleur:

With no tension…

… and all the way tensioned

Notice that the length of cable “required to make this motion happen” has not changed.

Now check this out:

None

And all the way to Reno

OH SNAP!!! Those sneaky nerds at SRAM have literally “engineered” the shift! They have incorporated a fulcrum within the system that releases just enough tension to make the next gear happen smoothly. Science nerds will notice how there is more leverage with less derailleur action as there is when it is deeper into it’s travel. If this is all flying above your head, then this might help you.

Bastards! Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, well, the fool, ah screw it, where is my wallet. I need another XX rear derailleur.

As of right now, the XX is the only “available” derailleur that will allow this sort of gear anarchy. Word on the street is that SRAM has a new price point group called Apex ready to hit the market late ‘10 that will allow such a wide range in gearing. This is great, as it is an inexpensive parts group that will allow easier gears for mere mortals and weekend warriors to churn while riding their bikes up steep hills, and leave enough money for ice cream and/or beer whilst on said rides.

I’ll tell you how it rides later…

Oh yes I did. I brought it like it’s never been brought’n, at least to my knowledge.

Trolling around our local gravel roads in the dead of winter makes you realize how weak one can become in these months of lean riding. While out mapping the Gravel Grinder route, I came to the realization that some of these hills are steep, and downright hard to ride on my La Cruz mostly because of the gearing. My lowest is 34-27.

While it isn’t impossible, it can sometimes be more difficult than other times depending on the condition of the road. As of now, the roads are packed with ice and covered in slush, and it’s not uncommon to spin out because you have to get out of the saddle to get a bit more power to the ground. Being seated and keeping the weight over the rear wheel would help immensely, and this got me thinking “if only there was a way to get some lower gears on this thing….”.

Well, the PG1070 10 speed cassettes only come in 11-28t, but, wait, didn’t SRAM just come out with an ultra fancy 10 speed mountain bike group? Well, I just had to find out if I could do a little mixing and matching and get what I was after.

The XX cassette comes in two flavors, 11-32 and 11-36. I didn’t feel that the 36t was necessarily what I was after, so I scored an 11-32. Next I needed to account for all the extra chain needed to accommodate all these new gears, so I got my hands on a mid cage derailleur (a Tango XO – to match my orange bike).

After spending the better part of an afternoon and the following morning cleaning all the last ride off of my bike, I got the new parts installed and went about dialling them in. Well, wasn’t I surprised to find that 9 and 10 speed rear derailleurs are not compatible. D’OH! I’m pretty happy I found this out now, before telling people that “oh yeah, it’s easy to get a bigger gear range out of your 10 speed SRAM group”. It isn’t that easy. The big culprit was in fact the leverage on the rear derailleur itself. The 9 speed is linear, for every inch the shifter moves, the derailleur moves an inch. The 10 speed is slightly regressive, the further up the cassette (bigger cogs) you go, the less leverage it takes to make the shift. It took me a while, but I finally figured it out.

Did that stop me from completing my mission?

Nope!

New England weather is just plain crazy. We get two feet of snow on Wednesday, followed by rain, and now a weekend in the low 40s. Most of the snow that fell is gone in town, but still very present in the mountains.

Sunday marked the annual running of the Stowe Derby, which Mandy got suckered into doing because her work is one of the sponsors. It’s a big XC ski, about 9 or so miles, that starts on top of Stowe Mountain Resort. That’s right, a free fall down the back side of VT’s tallest peak on skis with little to no edges, then a long XC ski into town. Silly.

While she was doing that, I took the boy and the dog up into Smuggler’s Notch. It’s a beautiful place. There were a lot of folks out enjoying the day, I saw a few ice climbers, a bunch of XC skiiers, some snowshoers, and Seamus got to meet and play with a whole bunch of other dogs, one that was the size of a small Bantha. The boy insisted we went all the way to the top, which was great, as he is normally opposed to hiking in general. We ate lunch, and started our way back down so we could go rescue mom from her ski.

Unfortunately, there were also some JOSOMs out there too (Jackoffs On SnOw Machines). Now, I’m not hating on snowmobile riders, let’s get that straight right away. I am hating on stupid rednecks that come tearing up and down an area that folks come to enjoy without burning fossil fuels. The sleds are generally barely running, spewing noxious oily blue smoke that hangs in the air, loud as hell and are piloted by rude inconsiderate meatheads. Fortunately, you can hear them coming from a long way off, and you can gather your children and pets as needed and get to a safe distance away from the beaten path.

Noise and nasal pollution aside, it was a great day to be outside. It is really beginning to feel like winter is slowly ebbing away.