The real post will be up later today, after I have thawed my frozen my keister. I’m off on the MAIDEN voyage of the Trundleraptor, while the ambient temperature sits at a mere -8°.

Come back later, and I will tell you my tales and hopefully not include any pictures of frostbitten limbs.

Finally, after a two week build process, I have finished the assembly of the Trundleraptor. That is what I have decided to name this bike. I ended up having to order a crankset for a Moonlander, and substituted the spindle with one for a Pugsley. Somehow, I managed to make it all work the first time. Only a couple more months of winter, and I want to put some miles on this beast.

it's trundle-icious!

The result is a pretty fun machine, and one that I can’t wait to get all snowy. Amazingliy enough, after a brutal few days well below zero, it has started raining here. I’m not afeared though, this ought to help the snow pack down a bit for when it gets cold and stays that way during the day, which should be later in the week. My parking lot test ride was enough to let me know that the components will work well. The Nates seem to have a very tenacious grip, even on the icy pavement. They almost sounded like a studded car tire as they rolled along. I think they will do just fine on trail.

trundle-tastic even

The build out is as follows:

Large Pugs frame and fork, King headset, DT 370/Surly 135mm front hub laced to Rolling darryls with DT SuperComp spokes, Surly Nate tires, Thomson seatpost and stem, Ritchey 10D crabon flat bars, Avid Elixir CR brakes (185/160 rotors), Ergon GE1 grips, WTB Vigo saddle, Jagwire Rip Cord cables and housing, X-9 trigger shifters and mid cage rear derailleur, Shimano SLX E-type front derailleur, Surly Mr Whirly double offset cranks w/22-36  rings, 11-34 cassette, and my vintage KORE DH flat pedals that are about 15 years old.

All together, this bike comes in at an impressive 34.6lbs. I’ve got a flask cage on it for “warming” drinks, and I’ve also added a couple of Knog Frog silicone LED lights on the front for marker lights, and a Knog Beetle blinky on the back for a little extra visibility.

Now I get to learn about what to wear while using one of these machines. I have a pile of old softshell jackets and pants from my days as an apparel brand manager, which will hopefully come in handy. I’m very much looking forward to this process.

 

 

bike parking

There is now an official SSUSA website, that will feature all the info you need to make your plans. The date is still Saturday, July 28th. I have however just been informed that the very fun Eastern Cup race will be held at Catamount on the 29th, so folks that can’t get enough racing might think about doubling down and hit both events.

I’ve been daydreaming of were the course might be. There are so many good options packed into this little area, it’s going to be tough to pick which ones to feature, but rest assured, participants will get a good dose of our local stash. July seems so far away right now, but I know it will be here before I know it, and probably long before I am ready. In 2 weeks, I’ll be in AZ, and when I get back, registration is on. Keep your eyes peeled…

Yeah, negative 17 as I write this.

ouch

Seeing as how it is too cold to even consider riding bikes outside, I figured I’d talk about a non bike related piece of equipment, but one that is almost essential to my daily life. Headphones.

My last set met their untimely demise under my car one day last fall, as they were caught in a closed door and driven at speeds of up to 60mph until they were just frayed wisps of copper. A sad day for sure. It was this day that I remembered just how crap the stock iPhone earbuds are. Absolute rubbish.

flava for your ears

Because I was a good boy this year, Santa brought me a new pair of my favorite headphones for Christmas. The Full Metal Jacket by Skullcandy. They have got to be the best set of earbuds out there. Unobtrusive, light, good bass, and a new button that allows you to answer an incoming phone call without fumbling through your pockets to answer it. Best of all, they stay in your ears. I call it winning.

What the hell is wrong with my frame? That’s what I asked when I pulled it out of the box.

croooked on purpose

Turns out, it was born this way.

Surly originally built the Pugsley in a Frankensteinian fashion. It was assembled from what was laying around. The big tires require special handling, which was addressed by using offset to get the wheel centered. Confusing I know. In order to get the chain to clear the massive rear tie, the cassette needed to be moved to the right. At the time, 135mm hubs were the widest thing readily available, so Surly ended up offsetting the rear triangle to the right to get everything to work.

deep dish

The rims are also offset so as to clear the disc brake caliper, but can be laced symmetrically if desired.

centered

Salsa has since come up with a new 170mm rear hub spacing which corrects the offset, which allows the frame to be built up symmetrically.

So much new stuff to learn! Like finding out that the front brake mount requires a rear brake adaptor to get the caliper to clear the rotor. Fortunately, I had the right one in my pile o junk. Other than that, it’s been pretty smooth sailing. I’m really looking forward to getting this bike out on the trails.

marker lights

this would look hot on my bike

The project Pugsley is slowly coming along.

Hubs arrived today, and I got my first taste of building an offset wheel. The biggest problem I had was getting the darn wheels to fit in my truing stand. Using Surly’s offset wheel building tool, the blades of the stand were just barely wide enough, as it was I had to use the 29er wheel extensions. The indicator on the stand was cranked all the way open too. My stand is well over 12 years old though, the newer ones have a lot more clearance and range, so I don’t anticipate this being an issue for everyone out there.

lopsided on purpose

I had a difficult time getting the wheels as round and straight as I wanted, but because I am really only tensioning one side of a very wide rim, I gave myself a little latitude. It isn’t like the tires are dead round either, and there is just so much wheel, I doubt I would notice much. Using a Surly New Front Disc 135mm hub, and a DT 370 rear, I was able to get the wheels built up at 1350g and 1420g respectively, using SuperComp spokes and alloy nips (purple of course). I have no idea if this is light or not, but they seem like they are happy to spin up even with the Nates on them.

lunar rover wheel

Essentially, I am only waiting on the cranks and the saddle for this bike. I went ahead and got a “special” saddle, acquired from one of my reps at a price way too good to pass up. The cranks won’t be in til next week, so it will be another weekend before I can go play on the trails. This is actually OK with me this time, we are supposed to get a fairly significant snowfall, perhaps the most we’ve had so far this winter. Following that, frigid temps (high of 10°) through Monday. I’m so not interested in going out in that. I’ll let the trails get packed down a bit, and the temps to be above 20° before I go for the maiden voyage.

Oh, and I also managed another 2 episode of Battlestar Galactica today. That makes 4.5 hrs on the trainer so far this week. I am taking tomorrow off, but will attempt another “ride” Friday and Saturday before my next rest day. The sad thing is how riding the trainer is making my legs (and ass) sore. I have fully wussed out.

 

I’ve slowly begun to get my legs working again after taking the month of December pretty much off the bike. The hardest part for me has always been finding the time. Between having to open the shop, take care of the boy, walk the dog, lack of usable daylight, this time of year I don’t have that many hours to spend on 2 wheels.

resting is training too

I will procrastinate to the power of a million if I have it in my head that things must be aligned in a certain way before I will commence any project. It’s a huge stumbling block for me, but one I find I easily overcome if I just suck it up and get it done. Example: I set up the trainer in the shop and let it sit there for a week so I could visually get my mind around the damn thing being there. I will always ride outside if that is my option, but it hasn’t been lately. Last week the weather and sick kid put a damper on my aspirations of making the wheels go round, which made the reality set in pretty quick for me.

If I wanted to pedal, it would have to be indoors. Bah!

The Chronus

As anyone knows who has spent any time on one of these torture devices, it can be very painful and almost impossible to stay motivated beyond 20 minutes. I came up with a solution that works for me. I have to ride through 2 episodes of the TV series Battlestar Galactica, which I stream from Netflix onto my laptop. Each episode is about 45 minutes. I can stop for phone calls or walk ins, but I also have to stop the video to deal with these “breaks”. Once I am done taking care of the customer, I restart the video, and keep riding. It’s actually a nice way to interrupt an otherwise completely dull activity. 1.5 hours of riding.

So far, I’ve logged 3 hrs in the last 2 days, which I think is about the same amount of time I have logged in the last 2 years combined. I’m using a Cyclops Fluid trainer that I’ve had for 9 years or so, originally bought with the good intention of use it. I haven’t been very motivated to use it up until now. Even though it was just another shitty trainer ride, I came off the bike today feeling like I had actually accomplished something. 2 trainer rides in a row in any length of time has never happened for me before, so I am on some kind of a streak.

getting some

I think about riding outside a lot while I’m spinning circles. This may be the device that forces me seize the opportunity to get out there and ride when it presents itself, lest I be left with the option of being stuck indoors going nowhere. If there is one nice thing I can say about riding the trainer, its that I have fiddled with my positioning on my road bike and improved my comfort on it. I was having some issues of “male numbness” that was highly uncomfortable, and would manifest itself after about 20-30 minutes. I discarded the stock Bontrager saddle and carbon post, which basically felt like I was impaled on a first, with my Mootspost and Devo saddle from the Gozarian. Huge improvement. I was AOK the entire time on the bike today, which means when I break it free from the trainer in the spring, I might just ride it outside more on those days when the trails are too wet to ride. Double win!

Seems like there is some sort of a bandwagon rolling here, and I am jumping right on it. Having had just a little taste of trail riding on one of these beasts on the small demo bike we have here, I immediately began plotting how to make the already good stock Pugsley better, conveniently for me, in a size large. Hey, it’s what I do…

I opted to build the bike up from the frame up. My goal was to keep everything as close to the cost of a stock Pugs as best I can. I didn’t want to go all out on a bike like this, at least not on the first iteration of what is a “seasonal” bike for me. Having a rather massive stash of parts who’s entire value is similar to that of a high end full suspension bike, I felt that I could pretty much build an awesome Pugsly up with my leftovers. I’d only need to get the specifics, the frame/fork, wheels and of course the extra wide crankset.

Le Pugs

Purple King

So I have a 20″ Pugs with which I adorned  my remaining purple NOS King headset. Notice how I have 2 lower cups? It’s twin is living on a friend’s singlepeed in the Republic of Boulder. The third is on another fatbike out in the middle west. So yeah, there will be some purple on this bike.

my rim Darryl and my other rim Darryl

The stock Pugs comes with the Large Marge rims. At 65mm wide, they are pretty darn wide, especially when you consider the fact that most MTB rims are less than half that wide. I opted to go with the Rolling Darryl, which is 82mm wide. The extra width garners a bigger footprint which equals more traction over varying conditions. Why settle for wide, when you can have wider?

bigger than the tires on my car

For tires, I opted to go with the Nate. The stock Larry/Endomorph combo worked for me on the short ride I had on them, but they didn’t seem like they would keep me as happy as something with more knobs would. I had my suspicions confirmed by a few local fatbike riders, for VT riding, the Nate is the tire.

Now I’m trying to guess how much this beast will weigh. The rim/tire/tube comes in at 6.1lbs (ouch!). I have a lot of lightweight parts that I can put on it, but I’m guessing I’ll be lucky if I can get it down to 35lbs. I’m still waiting for a few parts to come in, the wheels will get laced up on Wednesday, so I’ll have a better idea as to how much this bike will weigh once they are built and mounted. The only thing I don’t have on the way is a crankset, as the ones I want are out of stock at this time, but I may have a fix for that. More build details to follow!

 

 

Sunday marked the 3rd annual Frozen Onion winter bike race, held in Hubbard Park in Montpelier. It is a fundraiser for VMBA (Vermont Mountain Bike Association), and even though I was not able to participate, it looked like a lot of fun.

Team29 rider Nat decided he was going to have a crack at it, and I decided I would go along and support him. Having solo parental duties precluded me from joining in. The course was a short lap around the park, maybe about a mile or so, and was done in a lap format. Riders could pick the amount of laps they wanted, ranging from 2-4. It was more of a fun event than an actual “race”, but there were good prizes for the top 3 in each lap category.

And away we go!

Nat kicking in the afterburners

there was some good carnage

this fat bike thing is really catching on

off camber descent into a sweeping right

Despite being a short course, it was really all about the fun. I wished that I had figured out a way to have ridden, but it just wasn’t in the cards for me. I’m glad I went though, I got to see some folks that I typically run into randomly out on the trails in the summer. It was a good day.

Yay! A prize!

And Nat got 2nd in the 3 lap race. A couple of poorly timed crashes kept him from the W, but he was pleased with his result. Way to go!

I’m thankful that 2011 is in disappearing in the rear view mirror, but this first week of 2012 hasn’t been a bed of roses. I’ve been fighting off some sort of sickness that hasn’t fully manifested itself for what seems like a month. I havent gotten fully sick, but I’m not feeling super awesome either. Meh.

To top it all off, the boy came down with a fever of 103 on New Year’s Day, which has since kept him out of school all week with a nasty bought of pneumonia. Which means he has to hang out at the shop with me all day. Well, not all day, but a bike shop is not really a good place for a sick kid. My hours this week have been pretty limited, one of the most frustrating things about being a single parent and a business owner. At least this is a time of year where I’m not up to my eyeballs in repairs. His constitution is amazing though. In between quiet nap times, there are furious lego battles with a whole lot of pew-pew that rivals anything a healthy kid can come up with.

The weather isn’t really helping much either, we just got out of a nasty cold snap with lows below zero and highs in the low teens, and now it’s raining. Odd winter here, as it is in many parts of the country. Cold, wet and rainy are not good for sick folks, and all I can think about is the nice dry climate of the desert.

In awesome news though, I got my new 30t Center Track rear sprocket for my belt drive. This will replace the 28t one I’ve been using on the Rocker, giving me a spinnier gear for that awful 8 mile climb up Redington Rd in less than a month. The folks at Spot say that I will not need to get a longer belt to run this, which is a relief. In fact, what will happen is that the Kobe sliders will be almost all the way forward, which will shorten the wheelbase and give me shorter chainstays. It all adds up to a quicker handling bike, which I can’t wait to ride. I’ll post pictures and numbers once I get it swapped over, which I hope to do over the weekend.

Ride ‘em if you’re able!