Lately on my work-at-home fridays I’ve been getting about an hour of fast easy XC and then ending at the RMR pool for some laps. since i’m easily distracted, and think it will end on a cool note and hardly be hot on fast XC (true, in a wind-chill at 110 still makes it about 98 sort of way), this ride had been occurring way later than is sane for summer in Phx. and i gotta deal with sunscreen, and getting baked at the pool, and signing in with the guy who works at the gate.

I had plans, big plans for getting to bed and getting out early. I even got my yoga class in on Thursday so’s i wouldn’t flake on the ride to goto the Friday class. This actually turned out to be a big mistake, the class stunk, and being up late made me and G both sleep in. So, when it still looked pretty damn dark out at 7:30 in the morning, i felt infused with fresh motivation!!!

she ate, i packed, we hustled out the door. i detected a faint trace of confusion in the baby compared to our normally leisure mornings, and vowed to make it up to her that afternoon as i flung her in the Ones room. which I did.

riding by 9, and it was still grey and lovely. lovely enough to climb, so i shot up Mudflaps and was coming down Saddleback when i saw nothing become a giant huge something out of the corner of my eye. On the edge of the trail a big raptor was sitting — might have been an eagle but I think it was more likely a hawk — whatever it was, as soon as i rounded the corner it scared into flight. The trail was going downhill along a little run-off, so I got a great view of the bird extending its wings and floating away and down from me. Yeaaaa!!! That made the ride.

Hammered hammered out of the system, down TRW, my Kenda Kinetics was slow as molasses and it better be making me stronger (as per my pre-Heckler strength building plan) cause it sure as hell is making my rides suck — never even broke 20 on TRW. Up to the pool, a good half mile, home in time to start my workday as per usual at about 10:30.

Beckie is running the Chicago marathon, which is the same weekend as the TOWM this year. I am bummed, but somewhat relieved to not be facing the whim of Mother Nature this year. The last 2 years its rained hard, and the mud up there is the nastiest most peanut buttery crap in world. 12 miles took 3 hrs and most of that time came on the 5 mile stretch when I was carrying my bike — the mud was so bad I couldn’t even push. Then last year, they re-routed the course so the 66 miler became a 100 mile fire road ride. It was fun, and amazingly not dull, but more a quiet and subdued mellow day.

So, like last year, I hung onto the hope for the potential of how awesome this route can be. But truth is I ain’t that upset about taking this year off. Maybe I will go ride the route soon to get out of the heat.

Some memories from the past races:

2005

Beckie: woohoo my race was so great! I think I did really well! how was yours?

Jason: mine fucking sucked, i hate myself, i hate my bike, shut your fucking pie-hole.

Beckie: Really? Our course was fast and tacky. Yours wasn’t good?

Jason: Did the phrase “fucking sucked” elude you, stupid bitch?

Beckie: I better wipe my bike down, this shouldn’t take long.

Jason: My fucking hands are raw, my bike is still encrusted, hurry your ass the fuck up and help me.

Beckie: Wow I think I placed!

Jason: Eat shit and die!

Beckie: Wow I think I won.

Jason: I wish I never met you, fucking sadistic whore.

Beckie: let’s stay for the awards, there are cookies.

Jason: mmm….cookies

2006

my new shoes for the Heckler arrived recently. Specialized Taho’s, nice combination of lightweight hikey shoe with a pretty stiff bottom. Not as light or stiff as my last few pairs, but this bike requires slightly more bipedal-oriented and less pedal-oriented footware. They also are said to work fine with some fat Time Z pedals. the shoes I never tried on, but my last mtb shoes and my roadies are Specialized and they are very consistent w. size, plus they make damn good shoes if you can avoid their premium prices. turns out Beckie actually had this same shoe, and liked it, and cause they don’t fit into Specialized’s all racey racer image they list for only $75. Got em for $73 incl shipping. The pedals are another story I have never run that style clip and its been ages since I ran flat-style pedals. I thought it would take serveral rides to get the feel of all that bidness. In fact, I mounted the pedals on the Blur and rode a few rides that way. The pedals were a minor change and took me 1.5 rides to get comfortable on, not quite there yet but after a ride on National and a couple spills I now believe I can drop the damn bike and get out just as fast as with the spds. Getting the cleats places right has taken some doing, and of course after one ride on National the pedals look as beat to shit as anything else. I didn’t feel much better with the flat style, didn’t seem like I could remount and ride off any faster. It is a steadier base unclipped, but I’m not sure how I will use that…hopefully riding with some better tech riders and seeing them in action will help.

Ironic that everyone always says shoes are so personal and you have to try them on. They were the last things I needed to pick out, and by then the whole damn bike was something I barely tried on. At least I knew the shoes would fit! Its totally metaphoric for this entire experience. In order to decide what in the hell I wanted to buy when nothing was available anywhere to test ride, I had to put a label on how I would ride this bike and the tools I wanted for it so that I could buy them amidst the myriad of possible combinations. And I didn’t get to actually see or touch any of em before-hand. So much like how I trust in the Specialized shoes, I have to trust in Santa Cruz and Adventure. Meanwhile, its been 4 weeks where is my bike tick tock tick tock.

Soon after, the fork arrived, followed by the hub and pedals, and eventually Xmas will continue with the arrival of my thru axel adapter for the rack. I took the fork out of the box and looked it all over, but didn’t want to disturb anything. Like what am I gonna hurt laying it out on the kitchen table, when its going to take me up and over South Mountain? Its like I’m scared of it cause I don’t know quite what it does, which is yet again ironic because I had to pick the entire thing out based on specs and message boards and things I did not know what they did! Somehow cause I’ve spent so much time and energy on all this stuff its seems like I shouldn’t fear holding it like a newborn, but it all doesn’t seem real yet and I’m sure if I hold it I will break something.

and since with my riding that is often the case, I feel safer hiding from it all!

How does this happen!??!?!? One day, I’m out enjoying a ride with my dog, the next day I am customizing a ridiculously expensive bike and picking out ulta specific parts and contrivances with interlaced interworking feelozometers to give me exactly the something I am desperately trying to get. But now, through no forethought of my own, I can appreciate the positive rebound of a VPP, the lateral stiffness of cross laced zircon spokes, and the effect a head tube angle might have on my facilitation of a rock garden, either ascending or descending.

I bought a car the other day with 1 hr of research and 2 hrs of shopping. I’ve spent about 6 work weeks researching and building a new bike; countless posts and post reviews; minutes and hours from many people have been burned in thought, dialog and consultation. I spent about an hour on the Yeti site picking my way through a review in French to see if the thru axle performed well on moderate climbs vs. a qrv axle. I spent an hour on kia, hundai, toyota, honda web sites combined and bought a car.

Upon the arrival of my new car, what discrepancies and remedies did I feel were in order for my two existing cars: Acura: deep clean and buff $250, Truck: new stereo and vacuum out the dog hair $150. My Blur desperately needs and cannot live without: new shock, wheels, disc breaks, and seat for over $1000.

How did this happen?!?!?

i was recently reviewing my training regime, which mostly sucks and is without structure. I try to ride 3-4 days a week, totalling 6-8 hrs, on whatever is fun for me at the time. since i usually go hard, its a good workout. i shoot for a 4hr ride at least once a month. other than that, i typically do another 6 or so hrs a week of weights, yoga, hiking etc. etc.

good for overall fitness, but sloppy as hell for serious cycling. hey what do I know, I basically replaced practices and tournaments with rides and kept all the cross training. i also have very much avoided structure and regimen in riding because i just want to have fun; no pressure, no losers and winners, just a good day on the bike. its probably got a lot to do with why i switch rides and styles so often: road, mtb, tech, XC, climbs, social. its also a bit of a cop-out, no matter how you spell it I am not competing or forcefully holding myself up to a standard.

beckie and I were comparing what you get in with what you get out. her marathon training hrs would be comparable to my cycle hrs, or what seems to be comparable to a Cat4 racer; Beckie said pro marathoners run 15-20 hrs a week, which is much closer to the sort of hrs good teams do. Pro riders are like 25 hrs a week?

We concluded that we are near the top of the bottom of the pack in our respective sports. YES!!!  

errr…

SHIT.

woe, the training of the all-mountain rider.

I bought a new 2007 Santa Cruz Heckler on recently (July 13…long wait!) Liquid Blue. It should be ready in a couple weeks. The shopping was agonizing as I found it impossible to know what I wanted when I’ve never ridden a 6/6 bike before, and no shops seemed to have anything available that I could ride. seriously!!! Adventure, Cactus, Rage, SMC, Pig — inventory was hard to find. It came down based on just reading and specs to the Heckler, a Turner RFX and a Yeti 575. Bill at Adventure finally got a medium Heckler in for me since I nagged him so much, and I liked what I saw. Its stout and simple, but can do a full turn inside a parking space just like my Blur, and is in a comfortable price range for me for a 2nd mtb. Though partly I just caved and went with something I knew would be good, and in my price range, cause after 2 months and countless hours of reading it was all just academic without a test ride on a trail, and I wanted a d@mn bike! Motherfuck I fucking wanted a fucking bike!!!! Its a Santa Cruz, its a tried-and-true rugged design, and I have a good relationship with the shop — I’m sure it will be good to me. And I wanted a fucking bike.

I went with the All Mountain X9 kit, and upgraded the fork and front wheel to a 20 mm thru axle. I’ve never customized a bike before so this was new territory and a little intimidating for me — the cheapest thing to do was buy my own fork (Pike 454 Air) and front hub (Hope Pro 2), then sell off the parts from the kit (Fox Float 140mm RLC, Swiss DT 340 front hub QR) and have the wheel re-strung with my hub. I did a lot of research on ebay and the discount dealers, and it looks like the customizations will cost me about $200 when its all said and done if I can unload the fork for about $450 and the hub for $60 — not too bad to upgrade to something beefier. Should be just about 30lb when done and after I Stan’s the wheels.

Unfortunately there is more to do. So much more. i had to go to the shop and ask about the other parts I needed, if they could provide them or if they were cool with me bringing them in. Bill totally understands about inventory and mail order and whether or not its worth it to him, but the way of doing it all respectfully is giving me a goddamn headache. I wound up talking to Brad and everything except the bash guard they just didn’t carry, so I think all the politics and what not will fall into place. Plus I want to buy a shop jersey! I’m hoping when its all ready I can help build it up, take some vacation time and learn a ton in one day.

I decided finally to go with some flat pedals that will accept spd-style clips, and some hike-oriented sohes. I also finally decided to go with the wide-chamber air shock which should be plush and light. Riding Alta a few weeks ago was great cause it gave me a sense of what I will really use this bike for, and I got to check out everyone else’s gear — man I was like an annoying 4 year old on Saturday with the questions “why are your pedals flat? why do you have a coil shock? why is my bum so sweaty? why did DurtGurl roll down the cliff?” Going for the shock for the Fox RP23 for the shock instead of the DHX 5 coil, since even on the gnarliest things I’m not doing anything big or hard, so might as well save the weight.

now…its like that scene from the gun-control episode of the Simpsons. “but I’m angry now!” tick-tock tick-tock the waiting is the hardest part.

nah its all good the waiting will make me enjoy it more. for now, this is the picture that I take to bed each night:

---

And here is what a geek nerd does to track all his decisions.Blur $1000

1. shock
   1. http://www.santacruzbicycles.com/
2. wheels
   1. http://www.oddsandendos.com
   2. colorado cyclist
3. disc brake upgrade
4. seat

Heckler

1. heckler will be about 2800, or 3k w. 32mm fork setup for thru axel
2. A beefier bike is really worth it to me
   1. Fox Pike 454 or 426 for 200

		454	426/409
Coil	95-140mm	2281 g (5.0 lbs)	2435 g (5.4 lbs)
Dual Air	140mm	2023 g (4.5 lbs)	2177 g (4.9 lbs	call SC and find out if 7.5 inches will work for fork
Air U turn	110-140mm	2113 g (4.7 lbs)	2267 g (5.1 lbs)

shock	weight	cost
dhx5	+1 lb	+112
rp23	–	+89

fork	weight	weight	cost	todo
409 dual air	4.9	+1.2	+112	see mtbr, ebay has 2 for 500 and 400
talas 36 rlc
float 32 rlc		—

buying a fork for 400 and selling the other for 450 still leaves me with some
install and the need for a thru axel hub

45 grams= .10 lb

the one Adventure proposes swapping is likely the Bontrager Rhythm comp. the
hub is probably $50 vs $100, 28 holes on bontrager vs 32 in dt swiss

trading – downgrading hub by $50, downgrading fork by $50. adding $200 to cost.
net loss $300

doing it self – hub for 80 + fork for 500 = $600 in, get back 500. plus 100
labor. same cost, .5 lb less on fork.

or

buy and use or buy\resell wheels, and fork. still can lose 200. fork will fetch 4-450 tops, wheels maybe 350

dt swiss 5.1 w. 340 hubs	500 g x 2 + 238 (thru) F or 196 + 372 — probably be 1950 grams	ebay
dt swiss 4.2d w 240 hubs	400 g x 2 154 + 273 1593 grams	ebay $520, CO cyclist 535
dt swiss 4.2d w 340 hubs	400 g x 2 196 +372 1811 grams	ebay $400
hope pro2	pricepoint	80

shimano rear was 370, and the mavic 819 rim was 465

Heckler or Turner

1. any bike I get is going to ride differently. i will surely enjoy any of them.
2. want a durable stout bike
   1. heckler
   2. turner
   3. yeti
3. there is no discount to buying offseason, so should i wait for selection in a few months? no
4. New
   1. Heckler – 3k w. thru axel
   2. Turner – 4k
   3. price estimate from Adventure – 3k w. tax for thru axel
      price estimae from Pig – na
   4. speedgoat.com – na
   5. colorado cyclist -na
5. Used
   1. Turner
      1. http://classifieds.mtbr.com/showproduct.php?product=7443
      1. http://classifieds.mtbr.com/showproduct.php?product=7346&cat=3
      1. eric at slippery pig
   2. Heckler
      1. http://classifieds.mtbr.com/showproduct.php?product=7307&cat=3

Ok my excuse was ostensibly to get some skeelz back before the mtbr ride I was leading to Saguaro Lake. but this is becoming suspiciously more serious for myself personally and amongst the mtbr crowd potentially pandemic. We did another “MTBR’s on Skinny Tires” ride today to Bartlett Lake, people are discussing rides for cooler weather, regular occurrences, invitations for training partners. WTF?

In reviewing my riding log, I’ve done 16 road rides this year but 7 in just the past month. 1.5 a month to 7 a month. WTF?

Something is afoot! My theories are wide-ranging.

First, the Tour De France is always good for a few extra road rides. Sure, TV coverage sucks, and I’m sick of people saying “just get OLN”. fuck you and your OLN, its the biggest event in the sport and the best CBS could do was 1 hr a week when Lance was riding and its the middle of baseball season? ESPN’s coverage has gotten better this year. The Bobby Julich Blog and Jim Caple’s articles are good, and and they now have a regular Tour columnist in Bonnie DeSimone. Austin Murphy on cnnsi is good, but he is very irregular (This by the way is one of my favorite bike articles ever). So there is stoke to be had, without resorting to going euro for Velonews.

Second theory: Its hot! Goddamn its hot and not only is it hot but it stops being cool very very quickly. Its so much easier to just get on the damn bike in a hurry and ride during the quick cool window of morning, with no gear or straps or dangling armor. and once you get going you at least think its cool until you stop and boil over. I find the heat is such a burden to overcome its just joyous not to have to always be cleaning and fixing and fixing and cleaning stuff.

Theory 3: The roadie is much easier on most injuries. People go up and ride the lifts at Sunrise, break stuff, and decide road biking isn’t so bad after all.

My Personal Doomsday Theory #4: The Heckler Effect. I’m really sick of mountain bikes since the Heckler shopping experience was so exhausting, and likely there are hoops to be gone through yet. And now that I’ve ordered the Heckler, and got my ass handed to me last week riding Alta, I really want to wait wait wait to ride much of anything technical, and I really don’t want to break anything new on the Blur.  And in some small way, this whole Heckler-obsession project seems like cheating on the Blur, and riding the Blur while thinking of another bike I would rather be with seems hurtful to the Blur. The Blur has carried me to the corners of the world and back, if I’m not willing to give it complete devotion when I’m with it, what kind of selfish partner would that make me?

was how it was billed on mtbr. the impetus came out of a somewhat lengthy thread offering advice to Dirtrodr on a purchase, wherein the course of it was revealed the DurtGurl has a fabulous trophy bike from an insurance settlement that she never never rode. after much chiding, she guilted me into setting up a roadie. Billed as any of “DurtGurl’s Intervention Ride,” “Dirtrodr’s Debut” for the thread that started it all, or my personal favoritre “Closet Roadie Pride Day.” Postings leading up indicated towards a decent crowd. Between mapping the route the week before, and hitting the roadie a few times out of disgust with my slowness, I was feeling decent for the ride. I bought a bunch of water to drop at the bridge 10 miles into the route, and some vittles and mimosas for an after-gathering. We also managed to get Gina to come babysit at 5am for us, so Beckie was coming along woohoo!

We wound up getting 15 or 16 at 5am at the Hawes Walgreen’s. It was fun rolling up the hill and seeing a bunch of cars and riders and knowing that was the ride I was jumping into. Beckie came along 15 min later after getting Gina setup, woohoo! Notably absent were Jeff and Su Ling. This was too bad, since Su Ling desperately needs a group ride to get a fair taste of roadieing, and this route with what would prove to be a inclusive vibe would have been perfect. But yknow, serves her right for flaking. FLAKER!

We were rolling by 5:20. I really had no idea what to expect with so many different riders not used to riding with each other or others in general on bikes they didn’t ride on roads they were not used too in summer. In the end, it all worked out great. Between the water breaks and a bit of doubling back, it never felt much like we were waiting around. This makes the fast and the slow riders all feel so much better about things. I wound up enjoying doubling back and having some casual spin breaks with Beckie or to talk to others I wasn’t much riding with, and as long as she is moving and not idle Beckie is much funner to ride with woohoo! It was fun passing my friends on the climbs, moving up the line to different people really breaks up the horribleness of climbing. In theory, this should be just as much fun if you are slow and getting passed, but its not.   Duh.

Some of the memorable moments of the ride… coming up to the hill on Power, I accelerated a bit off our line’s 18 mph pace to get into the downhill. Maybe 5 seconds over the crest 3 guys come zooming by me. Well that was cool if they could do it so could I, and soon enough I felt myself going faster higher up the hill than I’m used to. Dirtrodr had sailed in front of me, and honestly I was not sure how he’d react to going so fast, not to mention I was a little scared to be behind him in said situation.. We both hung in there and topped out at 43, my fastest time on that hill. Found out later Beckie was just as fast, she said she was caught up in the moment too, woohoo!     The other highlight came making my way up Usery, and really not closing in very fast on Beckie coming up the hill.   Twas surprising that she would be so solid with so little riding, but there ya have it woohoo!

About 10 people came back to our place for apres-ski, but left us with a disgusting amount of mimosas, fruit salads, and donuts.   These were put to good use over the course of the rest of the day.

Last week I rode Alta and Bajada, trails around “the other mountain” in the north west part of the South Mountain park. This was an mtbr ride, and while normally I dread going back down to Phoenix on a weekend this was looking to be a big ole group fun thing. Indeed, we had maybe 15 odd riders rolling by 5:30 am, from 2 miles into the Central Ave entrance. Not bad.

Alta did not fuck around, immediately up a staircase up up some more up and more up up up. Many tight switchbacks, lots of looseness, I might have gotten 3 of them. But I can push, and thusly I was as usual among the lead group to the top. Big views, but alas pre-monsoon not a goddamn bit of cool wind even at 6:30 in the morning. I padded up and we rode the very narrow, loose and jagged ridgeline for a few miles. The exposure and off-camber was pretty intense, and there were a number of scary trials. I was not really feeling in a good flow, maybe it was the newness of the trail or all the on-again\off-again, maybe it was genuinely hard and the Blur was bouncing around as bad as I thought…whatever, I kept it pretty conservative and didn’t hit a lot. Somewhere amongst a nasty shoot DurtGurl flopped over the side and boinged her way down like 15 feet. Its funny now that It was no big deal but a fractured butt bone, but wow it was scary in retrospect, as a little more flopping and she would have fallen a long way. Props to the girl she showed up at the end of the ridge like “la-di-dah no big deal, where is my peanut butter samich?”.

We rested at the top of the DH for a good while waiting for everyone to arrive in one piece; good times. I knew a lot of the people on this ride already, and so it was easy to get to know everyone else. Lots of fun hanging out and looking out over the big descent we were about to hit as it dropped to the green flat expanse of the West Valley. It looked steep! The day before, I dropped $500 on the deposit for a new 2007 Santa Cruz Heckler. That will, rest assured, merit several of its own entries, but this ride was so cool to remind me of exactly why I bought the new bike. Or at least what I hoped to get out of the new bike. I had been riding safely, but definitely felt that the stability of the thru axel and the bigger suspension would have been a good call today. Any shred of buyer’s remorse dropped off the cliff soon after we dropped into the gnar on the Alta downhill. The Heckler is going to become my friend. Meanwhile, the Blur and I were riding chilly at the back of the pack, certainly not my best ride but no blood and no damage, and worked my way down slowly to the bottom where it meets with the very west end of National.

We took off our pads and it felt like the temp dropped 10 degrees. wow that stuff is hot, but worth it for sure if you are gonna ride anything nasty. we then rode National for an xc stretch of a mile or 2, until it crossed San Juan road and linked up w. Bajada. A couple of the group bowed out and opted for the road back at this point. They said the trail was fun and rolling tech, but loose rocky and tiring. It was maybe 4 miles back around the mountain, so I figured I was in for an hour more and rolled on w. 4 others. 3 of those 4 others happened to be fast as shit, and I was quickly alone, without my music (antisocial) or my computer (put it away in the gnar), and suddenly wanting this ride to end. I guess the trail was good, but it was hard rolling and hot, so for me the trail was Blowjada. After riding most of it, we jumped out on the road maybe a mile before the end. none of us were having much fun at this point, it was hot, for one of the first times ever I really felt like I was heating up to a point that could be bad. And I probably was not even close to in trouble. We later heard that this same day a 15 year old kid from New York rented a bike from Cactus and went out alone, with one bottle, no partner parents stayed at the hotel, in pads and full face, and got lost somewhere on National — they found him just in time, almost naked half covered in sand in the wash near Fat Man’s Pass.

Back at the cars, some quick goodbyes before it was time to tag back in for baby-duty. On the ride home I concluded I will go with an air shock instead of coil — even on a nasty ride I am not doing big hits, so the Heckler can save a pound next time we hit this beast.

Some good videos and photos, and some different writeup, found here on my new bud Sam’s blog.

We’re In This Together – Nine Inch Nails

I did the Usery Loop today on the roadie. I was looking forward to this ride all day, planning to be fucking gone gone gone from the office before 6 so I could manage the whole ride in the last hour of daylight and capture a little bit of cool and shade. the speed and rhythm would help pull the soul-draining hairshirt of monday off me. plus it would help cure my residual hangover from a weekend of drinking heavily and eating wrong in Rocky Point. I was hammering pretty hard from the get-go, the short ride and the day’s anticipation driving me to a strong start. i’ve felt slower than I used to be on the roadie and its been eating at me, since…like since the Tour de Phoenix about 15 months ago when I trained pretty hard and just managed to break the platinum group at 3 hrs 14 min. sucking on the roadie shouldn’t bother me because I have not been putting in the road miles plain-and-simple, I have done Tortilla Flats once this year compared to about once-a-month in times past. but it does bother me, because I hate to suck just on general principle. there is also a social MTBR road ride coming up in 2 weeks, and while I’m not worried about being slow, its always fun to feel strong in a group ride. So, I was hammering, and realizing I had a good split at the 4-way stop sign, pushed myself along up Usery Pass.

hit the climb up Hawes at 48 min, which means i’m right on pace for my strong times for this ride. i was feeling it all over…back, quads, arms…but whatever there was only 15 min left, and short hard rides like this are the perfect way to get stronger. so i dug in for the 6 minute-long final climb. then Nine Inch Nail’s “We’re In this Together” comes on my player. sweeeet, this is exactly what i needed, this song will give me at least 3-4 minutes of motivation before the fatigue overtakes me, and by then i’ll be close enough to the top to shoot my wad and then the climb will be over. the grinding angry pounding rhythm totally matches the rumbling in my core as I launch into the climb, and i’m pushing strong smooth strokes and feeling good and feeling just the right amount aggressive and just the right amount content.

then the battery on my player dies.

G’s voice now in my head “nooooooooooooooooo”.