This time, instead of naming my bike, you need to guess how many bottle caps are in here.

And just like last time, the person that guesses the closest number without going over will will one of these.

I’ll announce the winner next Friday.

Things are picking up in the shop. Lots of service work to be done, and a whole mess of wheels to be built. It’s starting to feel like spring in these parts! Before you know it we’ll be riding in the woods.

In the meantime, there are two trail days scheduled for April 30 and May 1 for Perry Hill. Meet at the tunnel @ 9am, bring work gloves, sensible shoes and a snack. Tools will be provided. After a brutally long winter, there is sure to be a lot of deadfall to remove, drainage channels to unclog and lots of other things. Hope to see you out there!

I totally did not deliver the name of the now-to-be-named orange bike on Monday as promised. Instead, I used my blog time to be a complainer, and  I wasn’t even complaining about something awesome. It was been well over a month since I put the task of coming up its name on my readership, so now I feel I should make good with my promise of announcing the winner and delivering the promised T-shirt.

The name of the bike is:

Battlecat

Now, because Dough already has one of these t-shirts, and it’s pretty lame that I picked his suggestion, I am going to randomly award the shirt to the person that is picked by the first person who comments on this post with any number between 1 and 19 (excluding 3 and 14).

I know that He Man’s Battlecat is green, and is called Cringer when it is not in battle mode. This bike is not named after that Battlecat, and I am certainly no Prince Adam.

I chose Battlecat, because that’s really what the bike is for. It’s for racing. And even though I didn’t race it at SSAP, Mr Dejay Birtch did, with hopes that he might beat the reigning champion of the event for 3 years in a row, Mike Montalbano. That was a pretty tall order, and considering that Dejay had just come 3rd in the men’s Pro SS at Sea Otter not 2 days before in California, and was making do with a bike that was too big for him, I’d say he did pretty darn good, good enough for 2nd, and good enough to seal the fate on the bike’s name.

So there you have it. And while searching for Battle Cat images, I found this, the quality is pretty bad, but I totally remember this from the 90s. Enjoy!

Seems I was a bit hasty when I said that my bike seemed to have come away from SSAP with minimal damage.

I spent the good part of a rainy Saturday afternoon taking apart Rambo (the white bike). Wheels, bottom bracket, headset. All needed help. I had started to replace the brake pads, when I realized that the rear wheel did not spin at all. My headset had 270 degrees of motion.

Meh.

So, there I was trying to get the spinning parts spinning again, I found a couple of the bearings had completely seized solid in the rear hub, and was forced to replace them. I didn’t have new bearings, but I did have the set that I pulled out of my old blue wheels that were still perfectly good.

The old bearings did not come quietly though.In fact, while removing the last offending bearing, not only did I smash the heel of my hand in the slide part of my blind bearing puller, I also managed to crack a piece of my free hub off. It’s pretty much useless now.

Fortunately, I had a spare (for a reason I don’t remember), and was able to get the rear wheel spinning freely again, after about 2 hours. Double meh. Sadly, the only thing I had time to finish doing was purging my Chris King bottom bracket of it’s old dirty grease, and filling it with new and clean grease with the fancy King BB tool. Worth every penny in my book.

I changed my gear back to the 21 I have become comfortable with, and now all I have to do is deal with the headset and front brake. Then, I’ll finally have a bike (besides my roadie) that is ready to ride.

Well, I’m not currently leaving on a jet plane, but now I could bring my bike if I was leaving on a jet plane. UPS brought me a small odd looking box from Philadelphia. I knew immediately what it was.

My travel bike! I sent this bike off to Bilenky Cycles back in January. They told me it was going to be a 6 week turn around. I wasn’t about to hold my breath… because it’s like what 7 weeks now?

Anyway, I’m very happy with the finished product. And really, it’s not like I needed this bike right away.

So, here is my large 5.8 lb, S&S couplered, belt ready, single speed only, To-Go bike. I had Bilenkey take off all the cable stops as well as adding the various stainless steel fitments. The color? Carbon Black Metallic, the same color as the Executor. It seemed fitting as I spent quite a bit of time traveling across the land in it .

I’ve already named it, so there will be no contest for this one. I have decided to call it The Gozarian, as it will be going on fun adventures with me.

Oh, and BTW, the yet-to-be-named orange bike has a name, but you’re gonna have to wait until Monday to find out what it is.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sorry, I had to throw a Star Wars reference in there. And for any of you wondering if I meant Part VI, the answer is no. I mean part III. Because, while entertaining, I do not officially recognize the pre-quels as part of the saga. Sure the story line might make sense in the grand scheme of things, but it isn’t the same look and feel. Different movies, different story. Just saying.

But I digress.

So what am I trying to say? Oh, yes, I was talking about returning my Jedi-like bicycles back to their original working order. See, SSAP did a number on a couple of key components, such as brakes, and I didn’t have just one bike there, no. I had 3. Which means thrice the cleansing!

For some reason, the bikes seemed to have held up relatively OK. Headsets, hubs and BBs seemed unaffected, no gritty rumbling bearing noises there, but it was the brake pads that were smoked, right down to the butterfly springs on some. I have XX brakes on all of my bikes, and the stock pads use an organic compound that is grabby, but wears pretty fast in inclement conditions, such as the ones encountered on Sunday.

Looking at how stuff wore, makes me think I might need a few caliper rebuilds while I am at it.

Meh.

Anyway, there actually is a moral to all of this.

In case you were so dazzled at how good I looked while riding my bike through hub deep puddles, you might have noticed I was running my bike fully rigid. That’s right. And I actually found that I liked it. I also feel that this may have saved me from crashing into the ground at high rates of speed on more than one occasion.

Back in the day, I used to ride my BMX bike in the woods, which was a defacto rigid singlespeed. I rode it in the rain, in a box, on a car, or on a train. I used to love to ride that bike, I used to ride it where I like.

I had a mini epiphany on Sunday. I can still do this. I can ride a rigid singlespeed in the woods. Me and the bike. Maybe I won’t be as fast in some sections, maybe I’ll be faster in others. We’l have to see…

No suspension.

No gears.

Nothing to go wrong or not work.

I am going to change my gear up to an easier one though….

OK, now for the for reals race report.

It rained all night long. It rained hard. Bleary eyed, we woke up and gathered our things and headed to our customary box store breakfast at Panera. Dough and Ginger met us there, and we all had a good chuckle while we were imagining just how bad the course was going to be.

At race:30, we stood in our various start points, mine being Sport New York North, meaning, if I was from New York or North, this is where I was going to be starting from. There was a Sport Jersey South category that started ahead of us, which I have to call out as unfair. These guys don’t know how to ride.

This year, the course was brand new, but not totally unfamiliar to me. It incorporated a lot of trail from the DH40, and even though it was “wet”, I still felt as if I knew what to do. Except for the “prologue” section. This year, there was about 1.5 miles of what I could only describe as exhibition riding. It was close to the start area, and it double backed onto the race course, and thankfully was not repeated again.

Don’t get me wrong, this was fairly easy stuff to ride, unless you had a whole bunch of trail fodder fumbling at every rock or root in front of you. Oh, and then there was a huge puddle that everyone was trying to be all dainty about passing. Well, I figured I was going to be wet and uncomfortable all day, so I hoped off the bike and waddled through on foot. That water was cold.

I could go on and on about the varying conditions of the trail, that went from mud lahar to hero dirt to pond in the blink of an eye. I wont.

It was awesome. I had a great time, and in spite of myself, managed to keep a good attitude throughout the time I was stuck on my bike. I ended up finishing 28 out of 67 in my class. I checked out my time, and I would have been in the back of the pack in the expert/pro category, but I also heard there was less standing around and waiting for the choads to go between 2 trees in the prologue. Not sure if I am ready to step up yet, but I am strongly considering it. If for nothing more than to start ahead of the barney factor. Meh.

So we get done, and then it’s time to hang out. Dark Horse Cycles does not mess around when it comes to post race nourishment. There were hot dogs galore, and Niner Mike had brought up several kegs of Terrapin beer. It was really awesome to catch up with everyone after the race. Trail conditions were such that everyone had a story, and it was great to trade tales with everyone about the day’s battles.

I’m really stoked to have gotten to see some people I wasn’t expecting to.

Rebecca

Dejay

And of  course, everyone else.

Up next, Return of the Jedi, or Part III

OK, I’m going to get right to business here. This was an SSAP that was not to miss. See, I had a secret. I’m normally not very good at keeping secrets of this type, and I felt a little dishonest as I had to keep a secret from some of my dearest friends. About a week ago, I got a very frantic bunch of texts and Skype requests from my very good friend Mr Dejay Birtch. Seems that he went ahead and booked himself a flight so he could attend SSAP, but I was sworn to secrecy about the whole thing.

Obviously I told a few select people, but they were not liabilities, and I just had to tell someone. And as it turned out, there were going to be other Niner team riders there as well, Rebecca Tomaszewski, and Donna Miller. Add Niner super rep Mike and several kegs of Terrapin Beer, and oh, this was going to be fun times.

We left VT in JayPro’s (aka Shatner) packed to the roof truck after I closed the shop up early on Saturday. The weather called for rain all day, but while we were on a road, a phone call from Mike and a couple of texts from Dough told us that it had not yet started to rain. Maybe we were going to get lucky? Um, no. By the time we got there, it was a steady rain, getting dark and getting cold. Mandy decided she was going to pre-ride the course. Jay and I decided we were going to stand around and drink beer at Dark Horse Cycles.

Now as a side note, I have to say that I am a huge fan of these guys. Not only do they have a great shop, and run a couple of super awesome events, but they are just fantastic people. It sucks I only get to see them once or twice a year, but every time I do, it’s always a party.

So while we waited around for Mandy to finish catching a cold, we hung out in the upstairs of Dark Horse, chatting, having some beers and figuring out what we were going to do for dinner. I haven’t seen Rebecca since SSWC09, and it was really nice to catch up with her. I still had to keep my mouth shut regarding the gate crasher though, and I have to tell you, this was very, very hard.

We ended up at a surprisingly good Italian joint across the street from the shop. There were about 15 of us, and the restaurant was very gracious about accommodating us. We had some pitchers of beer, but I was keeping an eye on the time. Eventually, the plane landed and I got the call. I got up and told DH George that I had to run to the airport to pick someone up, and left before anyone could speak.

But now, the rain had turned into a torrential deluge. I got Dejay, and we went back to the restaurant. The airport was literally 5 minutes away, so I was only gone long enough for Shatner to decide he ordered the wrong thing and figured it was cool to eat the lasagna that I ordered.

Needless to say, the look on everyone’s face was priceless. DH George and Hawaiian Mike were beside themselves, and both Dejay and I were called a lot of names that are not appropriate for this blog, but all out of love.

After the dinner crew dissolved, we made our way to the hotel. Shatner is “new” to singlespeed racing, and went right to bed, while the rest of us stayed up for a few hours making sure we were appropriately malted for tomorrow’s race. Dejay, Mandy, Dough and Ginger were hanging out for about an hour, when T-hom and his Boston crew showed up to help us get rid of all the beer we bought. We stayed up well past our bed time. It didn’t matter, the rain was hitting the window in our room so hard, it sounded like rocks, not water. We figured it was best to enjoy the weekend in the company of good friends and conversation, than to wallow in what was to come tomorrow…

We woke in the morning to find that it had stopped raining at some point.

I told you this was going to be a Dick-esque post, you’ll have to come back tomorrow for the “race” part of the report.

If you’re not careful, I might try and milk this post all week.

I’m absolutely fried from the race, but I had a great time. I ended up finishing in about 2:50, good enough for a solid mid-pack finish (28 out of 67 that finished). I wasn’t at my strongest, I’ve been sick for what seems like a month now, and I had zero power in my legs.

In true Dicky form, I am going to have to ask y’all to come back tomorrow for a proper race/weekend recap. You’ll be glad you did.

So in the weird way that the bike world works, the new and extra awesome B29 Team kits showed up on my doorstep, 1 day before I hoped they would. I would have to say that I am flabbergasted, as the time from the sample approval to delivery was a spot on 3 weeks. Wow.

Facefriends of B29 got a sneak peak of the new leotards, but the pictures were very poor quality, about what one might expect from a 7 year old using an iPhone. After an afternoon of sorting through the box, checking everything in, and pulling stuff aside for the team, I got a chance to model the emperor’s new clothes.

First off, I’d like to say that I’m dead sexy in these things. Second of all, hats off to Mandy for making them happen again this year. While basic, they look fast, and better yet, they came within a time frame that was promised, not 2 months later. This means, you will definitely see these kits at SSAP.

More of them than you think too!

The team got short sleeve jerseys, bibs for the men, shorts for the women, and there were a few windbreaker/podium jackets, and some arm warmers.

Sadly, there are none left over for civilians. These garments were produced by Panache, based out of Boulder CO, and they were not cheap. These are full on, top of the line performance cycling costumes that come with a hefty price tag. I can’t wait to wear mine this weekend, because just hanging out in the shop, I feel 15-20% faster.

We might look into a cheaper, less “race” cut for aftermarket sales if the interest is there, but for now, look for us out on the trail.

Have a great weekend everyone, SSAP report to follow on Monday!

With less than a week to go before my first “official race” of the season, I am stuck in a terrible quandary. Which bike to run? Well, it should be pretty obvious, as the event is none other than the legendary Singlespeed-a-palooza held by Dark Horse Cycles. That means I will be grabbing one of my 3 singles that are ready to ride.

Well, actually, the choice has been narrowed down to 2, as T-Hom is going to be rocking out with Shredward. He expressed an interest while he was up at the Grinder over the weekend, and well, it isn’t often that someone of his sort of speed and agility wants to ride one of my projects on what is essentially a dare.

So that leaves Rambo, and the yet-to-be-named orange bike. And here in lies the issue, it’s how I am going to run either that is causing me most strife. See, the weather is going to be not that awesome over the weekend. The possibility of rain is infinitely probable, which means it will be the same slick and slimy conditions as last year. Woohoo!

I’m not that concerned with tires, as anything I switch to will be a mistake. I ran on Michelin Wild Race’rs last year, and they actually did a surprisingly good job of handeling the muck. I know I’d hate the Nevegals, too heavy, so I’m just going to run what I brung. I know the AKAs on Rambo do alright in the snowy gritty mud of Albuquerque, and the Aspen did pretty good in the wet while I was visiting Bradbury, ME last year. The Ikon is the only unknown for me at this point. Whichever bike, will keep the tires it already has on it.

Gearing. Well, 34-19, or 34-21. It’s a flattish area, but it does have climbing. 21 would be too spinny for the flat road sections, which I have heard are numerous. 19 would be too churny for the mud. I’ll likely split the difference and try a 20.

The big debate in wether to race rigid or squishy. I don’t think I’ll be especially fast in the wet, although I can sometimes find my zone and get into a groove in foul weather. I have not spent a lot of time riding rigid, and I don’t know if 26 or so miles in April is the right time to find out if I can. But, that Stuart mud gets everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Past seals, into forks, bearings, frames etc, and I’m not sure I want to have to perform an overhaul on my Reba XX so soon in the year. I’ll have to do a total teardown of the bike after anyway.

It’s funny, because a week ago, I was going to do the race on a full suspension. Now I’m considering going full rigid. Oh well, I guess I still have some time to figure it out, and if I do get a chance to pre-ride on Saturday, I can alway make that call after a mellow lap. It will literally take me 3 minutes to put the squishy fork on either bike.

Regardless of how it all shakes out, I’m really excited to see George and Hawaiian Mike. And I know there will be a few other characters down there who I’m looking forward to seeing again too. Dark Horse and crew put on an amazing event, so good, that not even crappy weather will deter me from going.