A Good Idea at the Time

Warm weather has finally made it's way to the southeast!  Hopefully it's here to stay. It's been over 60 degrees since Wednesday, and over 70 for Saturday and Sunday... I've had a nicely diversified week of riding, with a some good greenway runs, commuting errands, road bike runs, and finally some mountain biking. The tanasi trails at the Ocoee whitewater center were in fantastic shape today, and I was able to get out on the geared superfly for the first real ride. It performed great on a 40 mile loop hitting most all of the singletrack in the area.

Tomorrow is time change day... I guess it's worth losing a bit of sleep for the good weather... 

Even though I ordered them 8 months apart, both of my shiny bikes for 2009 showed up the same day.  After a frantic day of building bikes, swapping components, and tubeless fun, I got the bikes mostly up and running.

The Superfly SS is gorgeous, as expected. It needs a little more love, as I am still waiting on some centerlock rotor adaptors and a rear skewer.  I'm going to go for a 5 mm bolt-on rear skewer for hopefully a little more security in the dropouts than a quick release. With the adaptors and a standard quick release, the bike weighed in at 21.00 lb with pedals. Not too shabby, as the new frame dropped 1.5 lb from the Rig. This is pretty much final spec for it, it's more than light enough.

Also shiny is the new geared superfly.  The bling factor of this bike kind of caught me off guard. I mean, I expected it to be blingy, but it's kind of next level.  Maybe it's the white spokes that did it. Hmm... Should be equally as awesome as the 08 superfly, as it is the exact same save for a change in crank and wheels. I didn't bother with weighing it, as I've still got a few minor things to do to it. 

Now I just need to find a race where I'm actually going to use gears. Tsali maybe?

Looks like the shiny Superfly SS framesets are now shipping. It should show up either Friday or Monday. Then I just have the fun of swapping over everything from the Rig. Not sure what it will be weight wise, I'm estimating it to be around 20.25 - 20.50. We'll see...

Speaking of the Rig, it will be up for grabs after the switch... I'll be selling it as a bundle of the 17.5 Mocha frame, Fox F29 RL fork, Cane Creek S-6 ZS headset, Eccentric BB, seat collar, and 2 bottle cages. Give me a shout if you might be interested... Can be run as geared or singlespeed so it's quite the versatile frame.

Other than that, I've just been continuing to hone in on bikes/components for the season...  No major changes, pretty much just cosmetic upgrades which should hopefully be taken care of in the next week or two. Gotta look good, right?

The weather continues to randomly fluctuate. In a day and a half I've gone from riding in full summer wear to being coated in snow and barely being able to pull my frozen car door open. Saturday was pretty nice with temps around 45 and a good ride up at Norris with E, Caleb, Andy, and Abby. I somehow made it out there with only one armwarmer, so Abby stepped it up and I got to rock the cheetah armwarmers. I feel they only improved my catlike reflexes...

Sorry ladies, I'm taken...

For Sunday, we made the drive down to the Ocoee Whitewater center for some Tanasi fun. It started off sort of chilly, but within a few hours my pockets were completely stuffed with discarded layers and I was down to just summer wear. It was so nice to see my knees for the first time in months. The trails were mostly in great shape, with only brush creek being a sloppy mess. Riding down there reminds me why I love those trails so much... I can't wait for the Cohutta and the Black Bear this year!

Monday brought back the winter, with a steady snowfall all day. Nothing stuck to the roads, but everyone freaks out and they close all the schools anyways. It's kinda nice to see snow though, since it only happens once a twice a year here.

Good finds over the last week or so:

Recommendation Letter:

A student gave this to my professor at UT and wanted him to sign it as a recommendation letter for some scholarship. It's quite awesome... Clicky

C D Used Cars in Knoxville:

I heard this one on the radio, and thought it was a joke... Apparently not... I'm not really sure who would want to buy a "seedy" used car...

Ok, back to work on trying to be this cool:

Well, before the three day long deluge, I got one nice road ride in while it was nearly 60 degrees out. The day started with perfect blue skys, and I rode with bare arms for the first time since... umm... well, I don't even remember.

Made it out to the Foothills Parkway, and got the lovely road closed sign. The road was actually still open, but was covered in an inch of slush. I climbed a couple of hundred feet up and decided that it wouldn't be fun going up or down.

As I was coming back, the perfect blue skys turned into a swiftly approaching wall of dark cloud... It almost looked like mountains. When I got back nearer to town it was definitely dark and forboding clouds, but I managed to avoid the rain... At least for one day...

The 29er Crew is back by popular demand for 2009 with some snazzy new kits. Does this mean that I have to start referring to my bikes as "XXIXers" now?

The 2009 schedule is slowly coming together. My money is in for the Lumberjack 100 up in Michigan. I'm looking to do some more of the NUEs this year. I'll be doing the Cohutta for sure as well. The Fool's Gold and Shenandoah are strong maybes right now. I want to do the Mohican also. but I'm gonna have to decide between it and the Burn 24 hour... One week is not so much enough recovery time from a 24. Other than the NUEs, I'll still be doing alot of the 6/12 hour races. I'll also be venturing out to some other race types with some road racing and xc.

The rain continues again today...Meh. Dry singletrack seems months away. Looks like Norris fireroad will be the off-road option for the foreseeable future. 

After nearly two weeks of rain and clouds everyday, the Sun finally made a comeback last friday. I managed to squeeze in a nice 2 hour road ride to spin out the legs and enjoy the good weather. The sun brought some warmer temperatures with it, but my feet and hands remained frozen as always. As I was riding, I couldn't help but think that I couldn't remember the last time I had seen my shadow on the bike... 

Too bad it was 6 degrees this morning... Riding in 20 degrees commuting around this week is pretty much the limit for my hands and feet, which refuse to circulate blood. I'll never be next level.

Saturday brought the Rain... The KnoxieCross series began with fitting cross weather, as 40 degree temps and pouring rain made for an epic day. I was not wearing anywhere close to warm enough gloves, and after a lap or so, my hands were so stiff that they were more claw than hand... Shifting and braking were painful, and my lap times slowed horribly as I was thinking in my head how many fingers were worth losing to finish the race. I managed to finish, and spent the next half hour in the car with the heat on full trying to convince my appendages to circulate blood again.

Looking back, 2008 was a pretty good year to be on the bike. I started January off by getting a Soho S to commute around on and run errands. It turned into one of my favorite bikes, and ended the year with nearly 2000 miles of commuting and greenway riding on it. If you don't have a cheaper bike to just commute around on, get one! You will not regret it! Road riding was good as well, with tons of miles, and lots of new routes explored around Knoxville.

Getting new bikes is always fun, and I couldn't be happier with my Rig and Superfly. Singlespeed was something I always wanted to do as something different, but I was surprised with how much I enjoyed it. After waiting 5 months for a Superfly, I was enjoying the SS so much that the long awaited geared machine certainly felt neglected. The Rig has been a wonderful ride, and I can only imagine what joys await me when the Rig is converted to shiny carbon and horizontal dropouts flavor. Despite the greatness of the Rig, there are those days and races where you need gears, and the lightweight ride of the Superfly can't be beat. The big wheels are the real deal, and I can't imagine ever riding anything else.

My mountain bike season started off well with a win at the Dancing Bear 6 Hour race on New Year's day. A shame they didn't have the race this year. [Although, I can't say I miss the experience of riding all day with a 33 degree high and then trying to change clothes in the freezing dark afterwards...] I got my first taste of the NUE series with a good singlespeed ride in the Cohutta 100. I then proceeded to nearly burn myself out by racing a 100 miler, two 12 Hours, and a 24 Hour race within a 35 day period. I really enjoyed the NUEs, and more of those will definitely be on tap for 09...

Alot of near misses this year, with a 4th place in the SS at Dirt Sweat and Gears, 5th at the Burn 24 Hour, and 2nd at the Cowbell SS, Black Bear Rampage SS, and Tsali 12 Hour. Those days are just motivation to work harder, and a win at the Night Train 12 Hour was a nice reward.

A big thanks to all my sponsors for 2008. There's nothing better to roll on than big wheels from Gary Fisher, and best in class Bontrager bits and goodies complete the ride. Infinit Nutrition has definitely elevated my riding with customizeable nutrition products to keep the energy coming for everything from hour long XC races to 24 hour suffer fests. Thanks again, and I'm looking forward to another great year in 2009.