There have been many rumblings and speculations about what I am up to exactly. Well, now I can officially tell you. I am leaving VT.

It all started about 2 years ago, when my life underwent a pretty radical change. My 3 week road trip of the southwest awakened me to the fact that I was in fact, completely miserable where I was, both mentally and geographically. However owning a business, and more importantly, being a parent made “just picking up and leaving” very unlikely. So, for a long time, I waited. Patience is a Jedi trait I lack, but is definitely one I have been working on.

Well, it seems as if my patience has paid off. The business is no longer a factor, I have gotten rid of all but a few remaining items of inventory, and have placed B29 in carbonite, until such time as it might be needed again.

The parent part, well, that is ongoing, but negotiations have been made and long term plans set in motion. The subject has been broached with the little guy, who was both excited for the new opportunity for a new life in a new place, and sad that he would miss his friends that he has known since he was a baby. It was a very hard thing to do, break a little kids heart, but I know he’ll be OK. These next few months will be difficult, but the best things in life are seldom easy. These last few months have certainly been hard on me, but I have chosen to think of them as the universe’s way of purging all the unnecessary crap out of my life. Kind of like jettisoning the garbage before making the jump to hyperspace. 

On February 25th, I put the Green Mountain state in my rear view mirror, and point towards the Rocky Mountains. This isn’t the bummer ending of Empire, rather a new beginning in the wake of life altering change. Plus I hear there is some good mountainbiking out there…

More updates to follow, stay tuned…

Yes, all my friend’s blogs are doing it. I thought it would throw my hat in the ring too. The THANKSGIVING post.

Right now, I am out in Tucson, and will spend a good portion of the day on actual Thanksgiving driving east. As some of my face friends might know already, I flew out to sunny California, and will be driving back. Still unwilling to share the finer details of this excursion, but lets just say that there are many components to it that remind one to be thankful.

I’m really thankful for my friends. I have a good bunch of people around me that are practically family. I’m relying on many of these folks on my voyage, and it’s awesome to know they are there for me.

Obviously my family, as weird as things are right now. While this will be my second turkey day “in the wild”, I know that the boy will be enjoying the warmth and comfort of his grandparents in PA. While I’ll be on the road for a good long time, I will be arriving at some more of my very good friends to have dinner in Albuquerque. The insane road trip to have a huge meal is part of the whole Thanksgiving experience.

Then there are the things that I’m not going to share just yet, but I am pretty darn thankful for those things too.

And lastly, I’d like to thank all the folks that come and visit my blog from time to time, I really enjoy writing it, and boy do I have some fodder. Anyone remember my airplane story from Vegas in ’08?

 

… at the Cirlce K

woah

The last couple of days have been filled with all sorts of goings on. I can tell you that there are some big things cooking behind the scenes at B29, some rather important things. I’ll be able to talk about them soon.

I did manage to squeeze in a ride on Kermit on the record breakingly warm day we had on Monday. 71° was such a pleasant temperature to go bombing around w/ T-Vo at Saxon Hill in Essex. No arm warmers or bulky jackets necessary. I’m always amazed at how fun this network of trails is, and baffled that I only ever seem to ride them once a year – right at the end of the season. Probably because my local Stowe trails are so much easier to access.

With hunting season upon us, there are only a few areas that are “safe” to ride. Although, this is VT, I’ve seen flannel and guns on these safe areas more than once. Generally, they are just passing through, but it’s still unnerving. I tend to avoid the woods all together this time of year. Hunting season is relatively short, and since I’ve been riding my bike in the woods since March, I’m totally OK with sharing.

Sometimes, there is December dirt, but I’m prepared if there isn’t. I have the Trundleraptor ready to go…

It seems as if it were only yesterday that I was hovering over my computer, furiously trying to come up with a submission for the Green Mountain Showdown. I had run into MTBVT head honcho Ryan at Interbike, where he gently twisted my arm into participating. It wasnt that hard, as this was after 5, and I was on my way back from the tequila hour at one of the booths.

Of course, I put it off until the very last minute.

Which is sort of funny, cinsidering. Anyway, one of the hardest things about it was coming up with the right “tone”. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and I tend to be a bit overly self conscious in these situations. I had an idea, but no point of reference. I agonized for days on how I was going to execute it, what content was going to be in it, was it going to be mixed media, what music to use etc to the point where I almost went batshit. Oh, and I had to make it run in a time format that wouldn’t send people towards the door. Had I not procrastinated so hard, it might have been better.

So what we have here, is my submission. I ended up just going with a photo slideshow set to music. You’ve seen some of these images on this blog before. I wanted to come up with a little something that not only showcased  my pictures, but was also a sort of photo diary of the last 18 months of my life.

As we all know, my last 18 months have been rife with change, some of it not so good. These are images from my escape. I never stopped riding my bike, for a long time it was the only place where I felt like things were OK. It took me places I can only partially tell you about with pictures. The music I selected tells another part of the story. No one creates soundscapes like Ennio. Plus I’m a big sucker for Spaghetti Westerns. It’s a story of the big open spaces I’ve navigated through on my bike, both mentally and physically.

Unfortunately, the night the Showdown was to take place, it decided to rain cats, dogs, geese and chickens sideways. This pushed back the start of the event, and I was ultimately bumped from the line up. I was a little bit miffed, but stuff like this happens, sometimes you just have to roll with it. There were some really good submissions, and it was good to see so many people turn out in spite of the deluge. The best part about it, was that I got a little bit of validation in my efforts. My submission was different, but at least as good as some of the others.

This has me thinking about the next Showdown…

I’ve gotten quite a few quality rides on this machine so far, and I have to say I’m impressed. To some, the idea of a full suspension singlespeed might go against the very concept of simplicity – the single speed way. I suppose it’s true, but like Han Solo once said “hey, it’s me!”. I like to tinker, and why have limits if you don’t have to?

Bikes are supposed to be fun, and if I can’t have any fun on a bike, then why ride it? Rigid singlespeeds are fun, but only under certain conditions. I can’t ride one on super technical terrain very fast, or for very long. Adding a fork definitely helps things out, allowing me to ride longer and more comfortably. Still those longer rides beat me up. I mean, I can still DO THEM, but I feel terribly banged up anymore. Enter the next level of singlespeeding, front AND rear squish. My Niner Jet 9 RDO was hankering for some tinkering.

Having ridden just about any trail I would ever want to ride on my SS locally (there are ones I don’t), I can say that without a doubt, this weird bird flies. And flies well. Having put on a good show a couple of weekends ago over in Sterling Valley, and the Kingdom, I got another ride in on my locals, which basically was the deal sealer. I only had to walk one hill early in the ride, but that was because of lack of fitness and a cranky knee, and it is a steep assed hill. I’m not too proud to walk when I ought to.

something that should have no place on a SS?

So what makes it work? Oddly enough, it’s the rear derailleur. With any full suspension bike, you are going to have to deal with chain growth. Some grow more than others, just the nature of the beast. Niner’s CVA design has minimal chain growth, which makes things a lot easier for me. In a geared scenario, the rear derailleur handles the changing chain length by allowing the pulley cage to pivot as it needs too, which is how your squishy bike works, because the cage changes position relative to what gear you are in. If you take a look, one might bounce up and down on their FS bike, you might notice the cage moves a little bit. Now take away all the rest of the gears. Now you have a lot of extra chain flopping about. Now, as you don’t need all that extra chain, you can take as many links out as you can to stretch that cage out as far as you can while still allowing it to move. Again, the key here is that the Niner has minimal chain growth, so I can get that chain pretty darn tight and still have some movement on the deraiileur. Also important to note, you’ll want to use the shortest cage derailleur as possible to use the shortest amount of chain possible. Road derailleurs work great.

the transmission

Chainline is pretty crucial too, you don’t want it feeding onto the cogs at a funny angle, or you run the risk of having the chain walk off on you at some inopportune time. That is not fun. I run a shift cable through the barrel adjuster and anchor it right where I want it to keep everything lined up.

And pedaling induced suspension bob? Yeah, you’ll have some of that. But thanks to the miracle of modern rear shock technology, this is greatly minimized. Now, obviously you aren’t going to make a full blown DH bike into a singlespeed. This sort of nonsense is really only applicable to XC rigs, with short to mid travel. I found that the aluminum Jet was an absolutely fantastic choice for this with the Shreddie Van Halen experiment. The CVA suspension design, along with a few others do a pretty good job of isolating pedaling force from bump force, so if you have a smooth out-of-the-saddle pedaling style (like me!), you aren’t going to have much of an issue.

Shreddie

So why would I do this? Because I can, and so should you! Here’s to the next level of singlespeeding!

Get out there!

I’ve been riding Niner bikes for a really long time. They work for me. I’ve owned at least one of just about every model, with the exception of the EMD and the MCR. I’ve owned and ridden other bikes, there was a time when I had an Intense Spider 29er, and all of last winter I got to spend some quality time on the Spot Brand Rocker. But let’s face it, I’m a Niner guy.

The good news is that Niner makes a variety of bikes that work for many riders, but my one niggle is that they are a little slow to develop bikes in what I consider the “growth” category. Sure the RDO bikes are fantastically beautiful race machines, but not everyone races. In fact, the ratio to recreational riders to racers is a pretty big difference. I am referring to “trail” bikes. The bikes that people just want to ride.

Now, I’m a little different in that I’m a semi-weight conscious nerd, but there is one thing that I don’t like and that is heavy bikes. My WFO is not heavy by any means, but it is a 32lb bike. All things being equal, it is a beast of a bike, but there are similar bikes out there that are lighter, because they are made of carbon. Carbon is where it’s at, and Santa Cruz is currently singing my song with their Tallboy LTC.

mmm carbon

My friends up at iRide had just gotten one of these in, and offered me the opportunity to take one for a spin a couple weeks ago. I rode it back to back against Black Sunshine. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to get all nerdy with the weights and numbers as I was nowhere near my shop, plus the bike was a medium. I’d ride a large. The bike was set up with a 3×10 Shimano XT group, WTB Frequency wheels, Hans Dampf tires, Rock Shox Revelation fork and Reverb dropper post. A pretty legit build if you ask me. My course was to be 1 lap on each bike around the Adam’s Camp trails.

I rode Black Sunshine first, and it had ben a while since I had hauled my fat ass out on a bike. The DH40 to be exact. Ugh. Obviously, the climb up hurt a little, and I needed a minute or 2 to get myself ready to descend Kimmer’s. I wanted to concentrate on a nice smooth ride down, something I’m nit super capable of when I’m all blown up. But, I had a nice run down, not pushing it too hard, but also working the corners and keeping the speed up. Kimmer’s is a hard trail to ride fast, it pays to be smooth than speedy.

I got back to the car and swapped bikes. I set up the rear shock per the recommended rate of body weight minus 10psi or so. It felt really really firm. But climbing was fine, the 3×10 gearing allowed me to find a gear to get a good spin on, and I motored up to the start of Kimmer’s once again. I decided that I would drop some pressure in the rear shock. A lot actually. JayPro had ridden the bike the day before, so when I got my hands on it it had been set up for him. I dropped the psi form 200 to 170, and the back end felt immediately better. I left the ProPedal off, dropped the seat a couple inches, and also let some wind out of the tires. I like my Hans Dampfs around 22psi.

Well, it was a giggly good time, that’s for sure. The bike felt very agile and quick, but I’m willing to bet that had more to do with the size of the bike than any other factor. Still, it sliced and diced through the woods like nobody’s business, and I was hooting and hollering all the way down. The VPP suspension was great, very snappy and responsive, but in a different way than Niner’s CVA design. It had a bottomless feel that I really like, and did very well pedaling out of the saddle when exiting corners at speed. The frame was stiff and tracked with surgical precision. And it felt light. Flickable. Quick. Carbon. Love it.

Well, I gave the bike back with a big smile and thanked iRide for the chance to play with their new toy. I’d own one.

I tracked my laps on my Garmin. I knew there was going to be a little inconsistency in my lap times because I was farting around a lot longer on my first lap before dropping in on the downhill, but what I found is that the Santa Cruz was actually a tad slower in terms of overall speed. The WFO felt like driving a baddass truck by comparison, exhilarating but requiring careful attention to stay on line. Think of it like the difference between a Ford Raptor vs a Tacoma TRD.

Well, Interbike is coming, and Niner put a sneaky picture of something on their latest newsletter. I wonder what it might be…

I have all sorts of things to write about, and my internet at home crashes. It’s still down, and it has been extraordinarily frustrating. I still have updates to bring you on the Santa Cruz Tallboy LTC, my polo bike, the shop, and a few other things that have happened since the last time I was able to write. Unfortunately, I can’t just write anywhere. I need to be able to be creative, and let’s just say, the shop is not the place for that. That is where the work gets done, there are far too many distractions to get a good stream of thought going.

The good news, is that since my return to “health”, I have been spending quite a bit of time on 2 wheels. It’s really been helping me get through quite a bit of personal turmoil and anguish. I spent the weekend riding bikes with Dough and Ginger, we had some pretty awesome time. Saturday, we rode in Sterling Valley, and hung out at Peak a View for about an hour, sitting in the swings and talking, before finishing up our ride with some Lauren’s Loop, Kent’s and Godstreet. It was very relaxing.

Sunday was spent up at the Kingdom. We rode for about 4 hours, hitting some of the old favorites, and learning some new ones. The weather was picture perfect, a quintessential VT summer day. I saw a ton of wildlife, one of the benefits of being in the front and letting the love birds ride together. I almost hit a deer on Poundcake, and sent a baby black bear tumbling off into the woods on West Branch. I was piloting the RDO SingleSpeedwagon, which is becoming one of my favorite bikes of all time. Not only do you get the silence of the singlespeed, but you get the speed and control of full suspension, which is the only reason I can think of that allowed me to sneak up on these woodland critters. I’ll spill the beans on this bike in greater detail at some point in the future, but I can tell  you this, FS/SS is my new jam.

Until then, here are some images I grabbed from the weekend. You would have seen these if we are face friends or you follow me on instagram. I love instagram.

 

I’m not dead.

I have had a full week of activity though, which has made quality blogging next to impossible. I don’t like half assed posts, and really, who wants to read that kind of drivel anyways? I’m the sort of person that needs things to be a certain way to be able to be creative, and let’s just say my routine was far from normal last week.

Last Monday was a first for me, I saw my first ever Luna Moth. Shaun and I set out for an early AM ride to the Adam’s Camp area, and found this little guy on the trail. Not sure if it was alive or not, but I took a picture so it would last longer. These suckers are big, the wings are about 4″ wide. Figures I would see something like that with a full moon on deck.

Luna Moth

Dejay appeared at my place, late on Monday night. I knew he was coming back, just not when exactly. With the 4th falling on a Wednesday, it was difficult to get into any kind of a rhythm. We tried to get some rides in, but the weather had other ideas. Instead I focused on trying to out cook Dejay, which is a fun game to play. He’s somewhat of a foodie, and I had to really step up my game. I came up with a bourbon brined steak with lemon pasta, which he said I won at. Damn skippy.

get in ma bellehh!!!!

The fun only got better when Dough, Ginger and Omega showed up on Friday night, followed by T-hom. It was a full house. We stayed up way too late, made delicious food, and lots of empty bottles.

Dejay's Dog Chorus

After a morning of bike shop, where several misbehaving forks were set straight, we set out on an afternoon ride to check out some of the SSUSA course, which is right around the corner. Conditions were great, and I really think folks will be pleased with the route. There were a lot of B29 kits in our group, and T-hom did quite a bit of filming. He may or may not have gotten footage of me coming within inches of slamming into a deer at full speed. It scared the crap out of me, but apparently the deer was not that freaked out. He only made 3 bounds deeper into the woods, and shot me a look that said “asshole” before going back to munching on leaves.

In a turn of events I was not planning for, Dejay found a new home for my A9C (aka Rambo), which caused Kermit to come out of retirement. Unfortunately, riding Black Sunshine all summer has severely diminished my singlespeeding skills, and really felt the ride like it was March, not July. Plus there were a bazillion little kinks I still need to shake out of Kermie before he’ll really be ready to ride again. Nothing quite like turning 3 bikes into 1 immediately before hitting the trails.

My dance card will be full all week again. With no day camp for the boy, the imminent VT MTB Festival, planning for SSUSA, and a host of other things, regular blog posting will be hit and miss.

Sorry about the pause.

Lots of things happened. Awesome stuff, the sort of stuff that inspires, but doesn’t necessarily translate into a blog post that isn’t 9 million words long. You just had to be there. Yes, Dejay came to vist. Yes, Dough came to visit. Yes, we rode bikes, drank beer, ate food and goofed off. Oh, it was awesome.

fun times

Fact of the matter is, I needed a bit of a break from blogging. I know Dicky is just jealous that he couldn’t be here this weekend and experience the Podium Legs first hand, he told me so. This is all the more reason why he needs to get his ass to SSUSA…

 

 

I needed a day off. Actually, I could pretty much use a month, but that isn’t likely. No, instead I took a day to go ride some trails with friends, and get to experience a little bit of summer living.

I love the Kingdom

Don’t tell anyone, but summer here in VT is quite beautiful. In fact it’s the whole reason many of us put up with the rest of the shit we get to deal with to call this place home. Tuesday was a prime example of pay-off.

I had organized a group of similarly capable riders to go out and “crank some miles”, I was hoping for 30+ miles, 4K+ of climbing and lots of trail. I had some aggression I needed to pedal out, and I wanted to leave it all out there.

Well, I certainly left it out on the trail, but for different reasons. The ride ended up being quite a bit shorter mileage wise, but way more fun. We stuck to the Burke side of the trail network, hitting Dead Moose Alley, J-bar, Burnham Down, and then a quick shuttle to the outstanding Jester. It might not sound like we rode that much, but factor in that we rode from town to where we drop in at Moose, it was actually a stiff grind. The trails were dusty dry. The downhills were blisteringly fast. It was hard to not laugh out loud while flying through the dips and berms. It was all about getting happy.

The WFO was the right tool for the job. In fact, since my decision to pretty much ride this bike full time, that evil little demon of bike doubt has shut his little mouth. I no longer care about having the lightest bike anymore. Trickest bike, yes… I mean, come on… it’s me… With all that out of the way, I can concentrate on working towards riding it faster and with more authoritah. I’ve switched the tires back to the Hans Dampfs to I could get a good comparison to the Trail Kings I had been playing with. Big smiles there, but I’m sure you aren’t surprised. I have a long term report on the TKs coming up soon.