Surf City Psychocross: The new frontier

Never discount the fact that the spirit of cycling can be found in ANY form of racing. For years I held cyclocross at face value as a contrived sport, silly or perhaps down right lame. But, as happens all to often, I had my expectation altered in the best way at todays Surf City "Psycho"cross at Soquel High School in Santa Cruz. The following are my brief observations on the sport. Props to Jeff for his strong finish on a race he felt "ill prepared for". I shutter to think of a race you ARE prepared for!

1. These riders are ATHLETES. But what's more is that they are highly skilled at navigating the subtle challenges these courses have to offer. To anyone who has ever ridden a road bike you know how squirly they are. Cross bikes are not much more than road bicycles. Off camber turns, hills, loose dirt, these are all hazards to the cross bike and rider!

2. This is racing at its finest!! Fast paced non-stop action. Guys and girls battling for each position at every moment. Just the way I like it!

3. The Cyclocross scene ROCKS! The riders and spectators that show up at these racers are the exact vision of cycling that I hold in my mind. At one point a rider crested a brief hill after a solid impact that tore the tire off the front wheel. After I helped him get the bead back on the rim, a spectator ran up and asked, "you want another wheel?" At that point he immediately said yes, and replaced the wheel and kept going. Awesome. The "run ups" are the almost mandatory run sections of the course, though the few, the proud do actually ride up them. (beyond impressive) This section of course draws the finest of the crowd, whose singular goal is to heckle, roust, cheer and yell at riders. The slow pace of the run up allows for a sort of "dialogue" in which responses to heckles can be made, and further rebuttals can be made! The crowd consisted of beer drinking costume laden folks firing nerf darts at riders, screaming and laughing. At the end of a run-up on one of the last laps, the leader happily accepted a beer, not water, a beer from a spectator, took a swig and carried on.

4. Cross bikes are beautiful precision. They look like pizza cutters riding on loose dirt, and they make a wonderful hum when they zip over gravel. The lack of suspension and thin tires make the 100% efficient. The gearing remains mostly similar to road gearing, meaning all the hills must be tackled on hard ratios.

I'm looking forward to more time out at the course, and adding these events to the list that makes up our vast season! Enjoy this video from he day!

2008 Season Film

24 Hours of Old Pueblo: The new mission is set.

The gauntlet has been thrown down. The CyclePathic Tendencies are active again! Stacy and myself will be attending the 24 hours of old pueblo in Tuscon, AZ. The event dates are February 14-15th. Stace and I will be entering in the 2-"man" co-ed division! Clearly this changes the face of our endurance racing scene temporarily. Instead of a luxurious 3,4 or 5 hours on the bike, we will be shouldered with an even 12. Instead of cushy 3 or 4 hour breaks between laps we will likely have 60-90 minutes to repair bikes, change clothes, charge lights, cook/eat or (god forbit) sleep. Being that at all times one of us will be on course, the other will be left to their own devices, and I imagine the early morning hours will be particularly cold, lonely and tiring with no one to talk to, wake you up or cook food for you (though I've heard rumor of a blistering foos-ball competition in the wee hours of the night!). However, we agreed the mark of any true character building experience includes significant time with yourself in the face of adversity. I think this is where you generate you inner passion from, and an connection with the more basic form of yourself. So, for this event we are shedding the "fun" and replacing with a challenge. We will be without our beloved teammates (unless anyone else wants to rally together another team!) to cheer and encourage. Instead we will handle all mechanicals alone, cook our own food, wake our own selves up for our laps in the search of that better side of each of us!

This event offers a whole new challenge simple because it is desert riding. It will be February and the valley the event is held in is rumored to get very cold, occasionally snow. Of course the course will be ripe with rocks and very sharp cactus. I intend to do some research as to whether rattlesnakes are dormant during that period of the year... =) All are welcome to join and form another team of 2, 4, 5, 6 or whatever. We will be out there with the big white dome, the 2x4 bike rack and a lantern burning all hours for CyclePathic Tendencies!

Happy 33rd Birthday, Zach!!

New project, new therapy

The newest installment from the garage of Franken-bike/Miracle-it-went-back-together labs has began to take form. It's no mystery that I've become enthralled with simple one-speed bikes lately. Anyone who knows me has seen the crazy-eyed look I get around a noisy drive train. But this latest one was an appeasement of my desire for simplicity and a further exploration into working on bikes. Thanks to Zach donating his old steel Fuji touring bike, I was able to dive in up to my elbows in old, frankly archaic technology. Amazingly, though there is a simple beauty to these old parts.

Sifting through the wreckage.

Side note: this entire project was born from my almost defiant need to avoid studying. With boards looming ahead in about 4 months I battle between being highly motivated and desperately inactive. In the latter times I often resort to throwing a bike up on the rack and tinkering. But rarely does it get beyond an oiled chain, or a disc brake adjustment.
That all changed when I looked up at the old Fuji, in all its fender and gear rack glory, and decided to tinker. Back in the day, a company called SunTour was one of the more common manufacturers of bicycle mechanics. Known now as SunRace, they crafted some of the more hefty and classic hubs and cassettes of their day. Compared to today's technology it seems at the very least old fashioned, but again, there is a something amazing in the simplicity.

Once the bike was stripped, and the rear wheel came off, I knew this would be the crux of the project. Not only was I dealing with a thread-on cassette that had probably been in place for years, and with spokes also likely to be left without adjustment for some time, but the old thread-on hubs don't allow you to just space out the cassette to add just one cog when making a single speed. With modern hubs this is barely even an issue, but with these it's a journey into the inner workings of bicycles. I was going to have to re-space the hub, and re-dish the wheel.

The lab

Hubs had always given me trouble. I can't remember ever getting one to tighten properly. Not only that, I had never laced a wheel. I left a dab of tri flow on every spoke nipple and went to bed to sleep on it. The next day I had off, and I rolled up my sleeves and went for it. A crescent wrench and a ball-peen hammer made relatively quick work of the cassette. I worked out the measurements to re-space the hub to the right so the single cog would fall in line with the front chainring. This however takes the rim with it, leaving it rubbing up against the frame. Next was the methodical process of redishing the hub. 1/2 turn by 1/2 turn I loosened the drive side, then tightened the non-drive side until amazingly the wheel traveled easily 10mm back to center in the frame. Truly the wheel continues to amaze humans like me. But, to my amazement, it had worked! A few tweeks here and there and the wheel was true! No broken spokes, or bottomed out spokes. None of the spokes traveled up into the tube space. It was a thing of beauty!

After deciding this wouldn't be a fixed gear project, I bought a freewheel from the local fixie masters at Bicycle Shop Santa Cruz. This shop is a gem I never even knew about! Fixies are amazing in their simplicity, but in practice they can be death machines! If nothing else they are a little unpleasant to ride. The fixed gear makes perfect sense in a track racing environment, but on city streets it's just impractical. I kinda think they are a fad, myself... But, who am I! Personally I enjoy coasting, so a freewheel it was! This of course means I'll have to include at least a front break, but likely both, thus meaning I have to clutter up the simple frame lines with cables and what not... Oh well, brakes are a luxury.

As it stands a few things need to be tweeked to get it right. The bars and brakes remain as the next hurdle. I'm debating leaving the traditional bar on there, or doing the "flip and clip" style. Amazing to see where the mind goes when it needs a "vacation". Apparently for me losing myself in bicycle parts is as good as therapy!

PS: Special thanks to the late Sheldon Brown! His website continues to be a god-sent.

Trip Report: Northstar/Mr. Toads

I think I'll take this opportunity to offer my opinion on a bike while I'm reporting on one of the finest trails I have ever ridden. The weekends agenda included a Sunday trip on the slopes of Northstar and a Monday trip down Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, arguably the best trail I've ever ridden. The bike of choice for the weekend was a 2008 Specialized Enduro SL. Alloy frame, Avid Juicy Ultimate 7 brakes, SRAM build. I was a little worried on the first lift up at Northstar that the Enduro would act like nothing more than a long travel XC bike. I was prepared for a very fast twitch unstable feeling. Much to my surprise the machine handled jumping remarkably well, and remained quite stable on bumpy straits.Northstar was, to be generous, chewed up! The braking bumps leading up to jumps were brain jarring, caused by lesser experienced riders doing a last minute brake jam right before the jump. I'm not sure if Northstar is strapped for cash, or they are just lazy but they seem to be falling behind on maintaining the more popular trails like LiveWire or Gypsy. They are adding new jumps, so I know someone is up there working. Perhaps a constant grating down of the braking bumps will keep us riders happier.

Monday was a trip down Mr. Toads. The climbing to reach the trailhead is about 3 miles of HIGH quality technical uphills. Any rider worth their salt would consider it high priority challenge to ride a trail like this cleanly. Once at the top the views are enough to remind anyone that amidst all life is a beautiful thing. Decending beings right away, and will not let up. Initially the terrain is technical. A few of the steeper sections came at me pretty fast, as I was chasing Zach and didn't notice. So I hit a few of them much faster than I would have liked. Riding terrain like that versus regular single track is like the difference between pleasure reading and studying Harrison's text of Internal Medicine. You have to focus on every damned word on trails like this. The enduro handled this terrain quite well. My only gripe was that the rear suspension was not as plush as I would have like. Even at it's softest, it was still to springy.

Another major problem with the bike is the propiatary triple clamp/stem system. Being that they tout this bike as an "do it all" it's amazing that you are limited by two key points. One, you cannot replace stem lengths or change the angle of stems. Basically you are stuck with a fixed connection point. Two, the turning radius at slow speeds is severely compromised by the fact that the fork sliders hit agains the frame. I found tight turns at slow speeds actually kind of difficult.

Eventually the terrain mellows out and leads into amazing FAST sweeping sand turns. Amazingly fun riding. I'm very glad we all decided to not rest stop after a certain point because connecting the whole last section in one go was amazing!

I'm giving the Enduro an A- It's overall versatility is truly amazing. With the adjustment options for the rear shock on the frame and the adjustment on the front fork you can readily switch between a stiff XC machine and a slacked downhill worth machine! After this weekend I would seriously consider buying one. I would swith the fork out with a TALAS 36 for the same adjustment and travel ability, but decreased turning radius. I would love to switch the shock out with one of the Fox models.

Miracle Racing Film

Trailer for the end of season film for Miracle Racing. Sorry for the poor quality, but the video size needed to be small to upload. For more quality and the full length video come to the get-together!