If only the weather would cooperate….

Anyway, last week I showed you the “heavy” WFO. Some parts swapping later, I present to you the 29.9 lb WFO. I’d really like to ride it, but it will have to be on hold until after I get back from CO. The ground is soggy, and let’s face it, this bike is almost too pretty to get muddy.

Gone is the 2×9 set up, replaced by the new SRAM X0 2×10. I went with 185mm rotors front and rear, it worked out well on my old RIP, and I have a feeling that I will enjoy the greater stopping power on this bike. I replaced the Marzocchi with a Reba 140. Thank goodness for this fork option, tunable, reliable, and light. My fork weighed 4.1 lbs with an uncut steerer tube.

I also acquired a Rock Shox Reverb dropper seat post, but I have opted to leave it off the bike until such time I have the free time to shorten the 9 miles of housing between the post and remote lever. It’s hydraulic, much like the X-Loc on the XX Rebas. It works awesome right out of the box, but I want to get it set up right.

Once again, the rains have come, and it seems they had some unfinished business.

No sooner had I finished dialing in the WFO (future post coming) in preparation for the Thursday night shop ride, the skies opened up with a vengeance. The sky turned black, and a wall of water engulfed the shop. So much for the ride. Instead, we had some beers in the shop, until the power went out, at which point we decided that we probably weren’t going to be riding our bikes any time soon.

It rained hard all night, and I mean hard. The lightning was impressive, and sometimes so frequent you could have sworn it was daytime. The street was a flowing river. Something like 7″ of rain fell overnight.

I woke up to no internet. Montpelier woke up to 18″ of water flowing down Main Street. The state was in some sort of crisis. No internet at teh shop also means no phones, and no ability to process any sort of transaction, so I hopped on my bike to survey the damage in town.

A lot of the surrounding low roads were under water. The river, the same one that inundated our capital city just a few miles upstream was out of it’s banks in spots, and almost out in others where it would have caused more serious problems. I’d say we got pretty lucky in Waterbury.

It hasn’t stopped raining either. It seems like we’ve gotten pounded for at least a couple of hours every day since, keeping the waters high, and the trails unrideable. My Kingdom trip was abbreviated, while I made it up to camp, I did not make any rides, mostly due to weather. Meh.

Route 2, one of the main roads up to Danville was closed, there is a huge dam up there that was apparently overwhelmed. All non local traffic was rerouted through Cabot via back roads, which displayed some serious damage. I didn’t have my camera handy as we drove through town, but I was amazed. You could see from the debris and rubble that they had almost lost a majority of the buildings in town. Parking lots were upheaved, ground in between buildings was washed away.

It will be a while before things are back to “normal” in much of the state.

So, I’ve been slacking on getting my FS/SS back on track. Let’s face it, I spend so much time working on other people’s jalopies that I have very little time to fix my own. After T-Hom borrowed Shreddie, messed up the position of everything, got it filthy, ruined the brake pads (not really his fault at all), I had to spend a bunch of time making it all right.

And it isnt even done yet .

But, I decided to do something about the chain guide. See, the Yess tensioner had this silly pulley that the chain just sort of ground through. There was a ton of drag in the drivetrain, which did not make me happy. After the mud of SSAP, the pulley stopped turning completely, and pedaling was a real drag.

I’ve been speaking with my peeps about FS/SS chain tensioning devices, and some of these folks use old 8spd XTR or road derailleurs. I happened to have this SRAM Force derailleur kicking around. Why can’t this work? Short cage, strong return spring… My biggest gripe (besides the drag) on the Yess tensioner is the fact that I had to completely disassemble the back end to remove the rear wheel from the bike. Lame. I mean, what if I got a flat? The limit screws don’t really do anything in this application, and there was a lot of lateral movement, which I took care of by running a shift cable through the barrel adjuster, thus holding the derailleur in place.

Does it work? In the parking lot it works awesome. I hope to get some trail time with it this weekend.

And so little time.

And only one of me. A long while ago, I made the commitment to go to SSUSA, which in 2010 was held in Tucson, and hosted by Mr Dejay Birtch. In February. Because it was such an early event, the winners of the hosting shenanigans (Jake and Kramer) had the rest of 2010 to come up with a plan for 2011 before it was their turn to host.

SSUSA 2011 is going down in Boulder on June 4th, which is not far away. So back in Feb ’10, I knew that I was going to Boulder in ’11, but didn’t know when. Well, in between these SSUSAs a couple of events have piqued my interest. One of them being the Transylvania Epic, which will have occurred twice before I get on my return flight home from Colorado.

TSE is a multi day stage race among PA’s finest rock gardens. Don’t get me wrong, I love riding in PA. It is like no other place, and after reading Dicky’s recaps of the race last year, and listening to him spew on and on about how I should do it, I thought that it might be something I would like to do someday, maybe even in 2011. Except I already chose to do SSUSA, which happens to be on the tail end of this year’s TSE. Dammit!

So sadly (not really), I will be in the snow laden Rocky Mountains whooping it up for a marathon of partying and one big bike ride, while Dicky and Dough are duking it out for podium spots in the singlespeed category over 5 days. I almost wish I could be at TSE though. I know Dough has been secretly training to maintain his dominance over Dicky. I know that Dicky has not been training much at all, except for riding his road bike early in the morning on Wednesdays (or so he says), but he literally rides a bike for a living, so I expect him to at least do well enough to hang on to that shortest step on the podium.

Will he have a strong finish? Or will it be like SSWC09 all over again?

Only time will tell, and you know Dicky will not be blogging while he is away. And Dough can only manage to write one post a month. Lame. How am I supposed to know what’s going on? I will bring my laptop. I will post about the goings on. I will take the time to let everyone know about my nefarious plot to bring SSUSA to VT for 2012.

Or maybe I wont.

So as some of you might know, I sold my RIP. Basically, I sold it to pay for my little trip to Sedona. I hardly rode the bike, and I felt pretty bad having such a nice bike hanging out and collecting dust. It was time for it to make someone else happy.

This left me without a “fun” bike. Or so it would seem. See, I have this other bike that was just hanging around collecting dust.

My WFO has been for sale for over a year now. It has sat in the shop, unridden for a whole season, apparently with nothing to offer. Reasonably spec’d with I9/Stan’s wheels, a Joplin adjustable seatpost, and a mix of X9/X0 parts, the bike failed to catch anyone’s eye for the song I was giving it away for. Well, you all have missed your chance.

As the bike sits right now, it is a portly 34.8 lbs, considering there is 8 lbs of tires on it, it is pretty light for what it is. Well, pretty light doesn’t fly with me. This WFO needs to go on a diet. I’m not expecting massive weight loss, but I will be swapping some parts from other bikes onto it to get the weight to what I would consider manageable for what the bike is capable of.

This weekend is going to be our annual attempt at camping up in the Kingdom. I hope to have the bike ready for that long holiday weekend. I got some trails I want to visit…

As luck would have it, the monsoons let up over the weekend just enough to get a couple of quality rides in. The need to ride has gotten to a fever pitch around here. It has rained hard at least everyday, making most of the trails sopping wet. This is driving many of us out on our skinny tired bikes.

Saturday began with torrential rain in the morning, but sun and big puffy clouds in the afternoon. M2 and I tried our luck, and set our sights on App Gap, one of the bigger paved climbs in the area. I have talked big for years about doing this ride, and I was hoping that Saturday was the day. My schedule was free, and I had nothing else going on.

Seems like Ma Nature had other plans though. After destroying the hill up and over Duxbury Mtn (big ring), and super cruizing along Rt 100 to Waitsfield, a big ugly dark cloud rolled over Roxbury Mtn from the east, and is was not looking good. Big drops started to fall, and we took shelter under the covered bridge in town. It rained HARD. And there was thunder and lightning. M2 and I discussed our options. I consulted the doppler map on my iPhone, and saw that the big red blob that was dumping gallons of water on us was headed to the same place we were.

It didn’t take long for us to decided that a mountain pass was not the right place to be during a thunderstorm, so once the rain diminished, we headed back the way we came, and did an extended version of the ride I did on Wednesday. Not necessarily a ride fail, more of an objective fail. The good news is that we rode back in warm sunshine, and we lived to fight another day.

Unlike my Garmin, which after 5 years has decided to stop working completely. I guess 5 years is good, considering my track record with consumer electronics. I’ve had 3 digital cameras, 2 iphones, 3 ipods 5 heart rate monitors and 2 laptops.

Sunday it decided to not rain. Mandy and I headed out to Pine Hill Park in Rutland to see hoe the trails were fairing there. Because of the rocky nature of the terrain, and the way the trails built – they are well armored, and they tend to dry very quickly. We found only a couple of mucky spots, and had a fun time tearing around with Seamus the dog.

While we were getting ready, I heard a voice “George Wisell?”. I looked around, half expecting a relative or the police, because only those people know how to pronounce my last name properly. Turns out it was Nate, a reader of the blog, and a local to PHP. Nice to meet you.

We rode for about 2.5 hrs, and hit a good portion of what was there. I love riding Pine Hill, as it is so singlespeed friendly. The climbs are manageable, even the technical ones, and the downs are so fast and flowy. The only down side? Bugs. The skeeters were super bad, and stopping meant that you would get swarmed.

Got some footage of Mandy, who is riding strong right now. Much stronger than I am, but she rode her bike all winter, and I sat on my ass and got fat. For some reason this got cut short, as I was editing the video and watching the Cubs/Sox game, and not paying much attention to the computer. Still managed to get the good stuff though.

And I got to have a singletrack experience with my new Ergon GS1 grips. I LOVE these grips. They are like a cross between the comfort/performance GP series and the racier shape of the GX series. They are way more comfortable than the GXs I had on there, I think because the grip has a bit more girth to it, and the paddle portion is a bit softer.

We finished the day out with a trip to the Village cree-mee stand in Bristol, before heading over the App Gap back to home. Apparently, cree-mee is a VT term, that no one outside of the state knows about. They are awesome BTW. First one of the year!



 

It was a small turn out for the shop ride this Thursday, just Nat, M2 and I from the regular crew were present, but we did also have 2 new faces, one of them a girl! We don’t normally have girls riding with us on the Thursday ride, not because they aren’t allowed, but probably because they are intimidated by our stunning good looks and bulging muscles. I hope the trend continues, most of the girls I know ride better than a lot of the guys that show up on Thursday.

Because of the continuous rain, we opted for a gravel road ride. I proposed a trip up Camel’s Hump Rd. It’s a nice out and back from the shop, and puts you in some of the more scenic “wilder” areas we have available locally. The climb up is pretty stiff, but totally doable on a singlespeed without blowing an eyeball out.

I used this ride as an opportunity to test out The Gozarian. I’ve never ridden a bike with couplers before, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I was pleased to find that I didn’t notice them at all. I made every effort to hit every pothole I could on the ride, anything I could to put as much abuse on the frame that a gravel road ride can (which isn’t a whole lot). I did however remember why I love the feel of steel. The SIR is so smooth! Having a Ti post helped a lot, but damn that bike is buttery! Steering isn’t quite as RIGHT NOW as the A9C, but it is still really good, and didn’t make me want for anything more.

My next ride will have to be in the woods, but I’m gonna need it to stop raining for a bit.

I also checked out my fancy new clothes from Club Ride Apparel – I don’t always need to be tight and bright. I was wearing the Nut Head, and Car-Go-Away short. I love this stuff, ever since I got my first jersey I was hooked on the product. The fit of the jersey is baggy without feeling like you are swimming in it, and the technical fabric does an excellent job of wicking away perspiration. It was pretty humid for not being that hot on our ride, and the grind up the hill made for a lot of sweating. I was comfortable the entire time. The vent panels are really nice too.

The shorts were excellent. They feature a removable liner which you can also use in the Half Rack knicker (I’ve been wearing this item casually for the last week – LOVE IT), and same stretchy outer material as the jerseys that wick sweat away. Not once did they bunch up or get caught on my bike. Fit is excellent, and can be tailored perfectly with the side adjustment cams to dial in the waist.



The best part about the Club Ride stuff, is after you get off the bike, and go someplace, let’s say the Alchemist, for post ride refreshment, you don’t look like a tool in your cycling costume. Although, it is not uncommon to see this sort of thing in Waterbury on any given night, so it’s sort of normal around here.

So, if it’s the end of the world, I hope you had a good life, if it int, I’ll see you Monday. Have a great weekend!

There was a break in the rain. I had to ride.

Immediately after closing the shop, I hopped on my road bike and went for a little spin around the block. I did the “Rt 100 Shuffle”, south on 2 to Middlesex, then Rt 100 back through Duxbury. It’s a nice 25 miler, and as I went around the loop clockwise, I got a nice warm up before going over Duxbury Mtn.

And, in typical Vermont fashion, just because there was blue sky over the shop, didn’t mean that it wasn’t raining a few miles down the road. In fact, it was, but somehow I got lucky, and it rained around me, but never on me. Still, it made me put as much hustle on it as I had.



It was actually a really nice night to be out on the bike, despite feeling like I didn’t have any power. It seemed as if an invisible hand was pushing against me, but I might have just been feeling the sloth of 4 days off the bike. Regardless, I’m glad to have motivated to ride.

It’s been a bit slow around these parts, mostly due to the large amounts of water falling out of the sky. It seriously has not let up. While this has allowed me to get caught up with wheel building, repairs, and ordering copious amounts of tires, it does make me long for a nice ride with my bike.

It does look like the rain is going to be less consistent as it has been over the next few days, so with any luck, the Thursday night shop ride will be able to happen. I’m going to take a walk up there on Thursday morning and see what the trails look like, and make the call that day. If the trails are too wet, but it isn’t raining, we will likely do a dirt road ride, just to keep the legs spinning.

I took some video on last Thursday’s ride. Because I was on the rigid fork, a lot of it was too blurry to watch. I did get a little bit of smoothness on the last part of our lower (Yellow Loop) trails, which came together pretty nicely. I had the camera pointing behind me. I love this part of the trail. It’s super flowy, and can be ridden just as fast as you like. The good news is, that when the upper trails are closed because of heavy rains, this section is normally still in very good condition due to the sandy nature of the soil.

I can’t wait to get back up there.

Instead of choosing the form of the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man, it has chosen to assume some of the parts form Battlecat. That is a completely different story BTW, one that I will get into in due time.

Anyway, the Gozarian is complete, save for a couple of changes I might be making once I start figuring out how it will get disassembled and packed into it’s little case. I’m still scratching my head trying to visualize how it will work, but I have been assured by several trustworthy sources that it will indeed fit into a 26x26x10″ case.



My initial parking lot test ride exhibited no funkiness. I guess I wasn’t sure what to expect with the couplers, but was pleased to feel that there was no difference between it, and Kermit, who’s main triangle is still intact. The bike went where pointed, there was no wind up or flex in the frame. I’m gonna like this bike.The weather forcast is for a solid week of rain, so it will be unlikely that I get a chance to ride it in the woods any time soon, but I plan on making this my full time ride for the next couple of weeks, just to make sure everything is working before it goes to SSUSA in Boulder in a few short weeks.



The eventual goal is to have this bike set up as a belt drive. I already have several chain drive singlespeeds, why not try something new?



The weight is a respectable 23.7 lbs, with pedals. I’m interested to know what it’s gonna weigh in the case, above or below the magic 50lb mark?