Published at: 08:02 pm - Saturday February 13 2010
The new trail rocket is finally complete! I went and picked her up this morning and after hanging out at the bike shop for a while letting everyone drool over it I decided it was time to get the tires dirty for the first time.
Sadly, once I got home I discovered that I was feeling like ass from the night before and all I wanted to do was lay on the couch and fall asleep watching a movie. I did, however, set the bike up in the living room so I just stare at it. A sickness? Maybe…
Published at: 03:01 pm - Wednesday January 06 2010
I went by my LBS (local bike shop) yesterday to hand over some of my hard earned cash. Well, actually, I handed over the gift certificates I received as Christmas gifts from my family (thanks guys!). I was hoping that they had done some of the build just cause I’m excited to see it all put together. Alas, the only thing done to date is the wheel set. The build for the wheels consists Mavic XM 719 rims w/ Stan’s tubeless conversion kit, Shimano Deore XT hubs and Kenda Karma tires for that fast rolling steamroller-like ride.
To say I’m excited may be the understatement of the year….it’s just getting started though.
It’s finally started. For the past two years I’ve been racing and kicking the asses of most (but not all) of my opponents on my humble Rockhopper. (Something I have taken great pride in considering it is usually one of the cheapest bikes out on the race course.) Besides for the disk brakes and wheel set it is still almost completely stock. That bike and I have been through a lot together but its time to move on. Next season I plan on moving from Cat 3 to Cat 2. That means racing twice as far against opponents who are a lot faster. I love my hardtail but that thing just puts a beating on my lower back a couple hours. I can suffer for 10 miles but I think I would need to see a chiropractor after a 20+ mile race.
That’s why I ordered this! That’s right, boys and girls. That is a Stumpjumper FSR 29er frame. Over next couple of months I will be peicing this together with a mix of new and already in-use parts. I’ll be canabalizing most of the drive train from the Rockhopper since I plan on converting it to a single speed anyway. That is a blog post for another time, though.
So now that the first and most expensive part is out of the way I will turn my attention to the other 29er specific components. The wheels and fork. I think I’ll get the fork first. My local shop has some wheels on hold for me so that’s taken care of.
Check back to keep up with the progress and look out for big wheeled monster on a trail near me by Febuary.
Update: Fork aquired! I managed to get a sweet deal thanks to having a great relationship my local bike shop. I had just ordered the frame pictured above and was shopping for forks on “teh interwebs” when I get a call from my good friend Michael Dingmon (who manages The Bike Shop in Mobile)to tell me that someone “gave” him an ‘08 Rock Shox Reba Race 29er and that he wanted to sell it to me for 100 bucks less than I could find it anywhere on-line. Sold! (duh)
Published at: 02:09 pm - Thursday September 24 2009
This weekend I’m doing a charity ride to benifit the epilepsy foundation. This is an anual ride put on by my cycling club, Mobile Velo. It consists of a rides of varing lengths and a 1.8 mile walk through the Bankhead tunnel. The first organized walk the took place when the tunnel was dedicated way back in 1941. This Saturday cyclists and walkers will be allowed to ride/walk through the tunnel once again for a good cause.
Below is a map of the 60 +/- route I’ll be riding. (Not including the less then 2 miles from my house to the start/end of the course.
This past Saturday night was the long awaited rematch of Mobile Roller Derby and The Mississippi Rollergirls. Why was this such a monumentous occasion? Let me give you a quick history lesson.
MSRG and MRD met for the first time way back in 2007. It was the first bout for both teams and they were both at equal levels of inexperience. Each team thought they knew what to expect. Both were probably wrong. Anyway, MRD was the clear winner of the bout but there were some issues with inexperienced refs that lead to the score being inaccurate. The points spread was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of right but both teams scores were inflated. As a reult both teams laid blame on each other and each others refs. Feelings were hurt and shit talking ensued. What should have been a friendly and competitive rivalry quickly turned into bitter grudge lasting well over a year. Sigh.
Fastforward to the present; Both teams have gone though a lot of changes. Both in terms of how to play and train for rollerderby as well as changes in personell. To put it quite simply each team has only a few people left that were involved in their first meeting. So they got over it.
Bout summary
As everyone prepared to get started there was not the tension in the air that some people were anticipating though it was made clear in the first few jams that both teams showed up with thier “A” games. MSRG jumped out to take the lead in the first few jams but they would not hold it for long. Over the course of the bout the lead would change hands many times. I lost track of how many times exactly so I’m just gonna go with six. Yeah six seemslike a good number. Anywho, at the end of a hard faught and exciting first half MRD headed to the locker room with a one point lead. ONE POINT!! The lead would continue to change hands throughout the second half . The biggest lead I think anyone had up until the last three jams was MSRG with a twelve point lead and that did not last long as it was closed in a single jam by MRD’s Nitty Gritty Kitty. The Bout ended with MRD coming out on top with a final score of 126 113. The last jam of the bout was perhaps the most exciting. Edie Collie of MSRG had skated the entire second half with three minor penalties hanging over her head (4 minors = a minute in the penalty box) when she finally committed her fourth. The period clock had already run down so when Edie was sent to the box with MRD in the lead the game was over. I had no choice but to peg her for the penalty but the sports fan in me really wanted to see what would have happened if she made it through the entire jam. Could she of won the bout? I think that is a strong maybe.
That was pretty much how the bout went but there were certainly other stand out players other then the couple mentioned above and each team certainly had their own strenths and weaknesses. For instance MSRG owned the front of the pack most of the night and there were few MRD skaters that were effective at breaking up thier wall. What MRD lacked in pack domination they made up for in endurance and superior jammers. Nitty Gritty Kitty and Faust n’ Furious are both amazing to watch. Violet Vengance, Sonic Boom and Devlyn Mee all turned in some impresive jams. MSRG has a couple good jammers in Marquee Desquad and Edie Colie but what they lack in jamming power they make up for in pack strategy and one of the best blockers on the gulf coast in Ivanna Bruiser.
All-in-all I have to say that MSRG vs MRD II was one of my favorite reffing experiences to date. It certainly takes a place in the top 5 most exciting bouts I’ve had the pleasure of watching and/or reffing. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another 2 years for these two teams to meet again.
This past weekend was the Bump n’ Grind at Oak Mountian State Park in Pelaham, AL located about 15 -20 minutes south of Birmingham. From everything I’d heard in my 2 years of racing this race is the one race you don’t wanna miss. (I missed it last year) And because of it being part of the Kenda Cup this year it was huge! By all accounts much bigger than it has ever been in its 15 year history. All total there were 600 + racers present.
All the pros were there and they were amazing to watch. I couldn’t believe how fast they were and talking and hanging out with them all weekend was pretty cool. They were all just as cool and down to earth as any of the ametuer riders that I race with on a regular basis.
Here is a full length video of the pro men’s race from cyclingdirt.org.
Cycling Dirt follows the US Cup Mountain Bike series and is packed with tons of pre/post race interviews and footage.
Men’s Cat 3 (30-34) (my race)
We (Rick & I) arrived at Oak Mountain around noon. As Rick noted I parked the truck jumped out and was ready to ride. Due to scheduling issues we had to wait. Pro practice was slated from 1-3pm (part of the pro course ran part of the cat3 course in reverse) and we couldn’t register until 2pm. During that time we just walked around and took in some of the sites. Mostly lusting over the bikes at the Sho-Air and other pro team staging areas. One of the coolest things was when we happened upon the Kenda trailer. Rick got some tires and I got some bib shorts. The prices were ridiculously cheap. Nothing like buying straight from the manufacturer I guess. Once they opened registration we got all signed up, got our race packets and tried to figure out the Cat 3 race course. Once the course was opened up we got our pre-ride on so there would be no surprises on Sunday.
Race Day!
We woke up at about 5:30am, got our stuff together and headed to the race. After a little drive train cleaning and brake adjusting it wasn’t long before we were lining up to start the race. The race started about 1.5 miles on asphault (mostly uphill) before entering the woods and beginning another somewhat grouling climb. At the start of the race I refrained from my usual strategy of sprinting to the trailhead. Instead I tried to just keep the lead withing a short sprint until which we reached the first down hill on the asphalt portion of the course. Here I shifted up to the big ring and continued to pedal while others were coasting. I managed to make it into the woods first. I got to enjoy being the winnerfor a couple of miles but towards the top of the climb I was passed by 3 people as I began to tire. Once we crested the hill it was nothing but blistering fast single track downhill. One of the guys that passed me on the climb wrecked here. He wouldn’t be seen for the rest of the race. Me another guy would trade 2nd and 3rd places for the rest of the lap while passing alot of guys from the younger age groups (gotta admit, that feels good). We’d continue to trade places until about 1/2 way up the big climb on the 2nd lap where I ran out of gas and 2nd place put about a minute on me. And that’s the race ended up.
All-in-all it was an awesome experience. Getting on the podium at “the big race” has given me alot of confidence as well the drive to work harder to move up to cat 2 next season. But even better then standing on the podium was beating Rick for the first time since he convinced to buy a mountain bike and start racing 2 1/2 years ago.
Not to take anything away from from all my derby girls out there but your little rink rash ain’t got shit on some nasty road rash. Last weekend I went to Baton Rouge, La for a bike race and had a bad crash. I’ve wrecked in races before but nothing quite as bad as this before.
I was all lined up on the starting line ready to go. A little more serious than normal, not talking or joking with any of the other racers at the start line like we sometimes do. When the whistle blew I took off and with just a few rotations of the cranks I was in the lead and putting a little space between me and the rest of the field. Just were I wanted to be when turning into the woods that consists of some very tight single track where it is near impossible to pass. It was this point (the turn into the woods) that everything went terribly wrong for me.
While turning into the woods I hit a patch of gravel at what I estimate to be pretty close to 20mph and went down hard, resulting in the injury pictured below.
When I went down I was in 1st place and when I got up I was in last. To my own credit I got up and finished the race. I Actually made up about half the feild. Had I not fallen I may have been comepeating for 3rd of 4th place.
I’m full of excuses.
update: The wound is healing quit nicely and is now down to about the size of a sand dollar. It will probably leave a scare for some time to remind me that gravel + fast = ouch!
About two weeks ago a local sportscaster came out and did a story on Mobile Roller Derby. Yes, that’s right. An actual sports story on roller derby. Not some fluffy piece about a strong-willed and diverse group of broads that like to skate around in circles real fast and knock the crap out of each other. Just sports. Awesome!
It starts off with some intros of a few skaters and a very brief overview of how the game works. But let’s cut the crap. I know what you cam here for. You can peep the Matt Adore @ 1:55 in.
Seriously though, kids. It was really great exposure for the league and the sport in general. It always makes me happy to see roller derby get the credibility it deservese as a ligitimit sport.
this! That’s right, boys and girls. That is a Stumpjumper FSR 29er frame. Over next couple of months I will be peicing this together with a mix of new and already in-use parts. I’ll be canabalizing most of the drive train from the Rockhopper since I plan on converting it to a single speed anyway. That is a blog post for another time, though.
To my own credit I got up and finished the race. I Actually made up about half the feild. Had I not fallen I may have been comepeating for 3rd of 4th place.