Ridiculite

Every once in a while, you get to build up something so indulgent, that you can't believe your eyes when you see the finished product. And sometimes, what comes out is something that I classify as Ridiculite. The parameters are simple, it must be light, beautiful and functional. It doesn't even necessarily need to be the lightest thing in the world, it needs to work. Basically, it needs to function in a way that requires minimal maintenance down the road. There is a certain company that makes components that are some of the lightest bits out there, but they barely last a season, especially here in our wet New England climate. They do not fall under the category of Ridiculite.

So what we have here is a Niner One 9, with a White Bros IMV fork and a LOT of carbon, including the new and ultra sexy Truvative Noir 1.1 crankset. Delicious!


The wheels are Royale SS clones, built by a competitor who shall remain nameless (for obvious reasons). Because I built the bike up, I had the opportunity do a thorough inspection of the wheels. And they needed it. They weren't as round as I thought they should be, and they weren't dished correctly. It kind of validated my own personal idiosyncratic competition for perfection a little, especially when I spend a lot of time battling one wheel to get it just right. I can literally loose my mind on some wheel builds, but I always win, no matter how late I have to stay up. And I was pleased to learn that these competitor's wheels cost more.

Anyway, the result is still the same. Lots of tongues hit the floor when I rolled this baby out.
Enjoy!

A Good Weekend Ride

Before I get started on the ride subject, I'd like to express my deepest sympathy for those in San Diego (German for a whale's......). I used to live in North County, am very familiar with the area, have some very good friends that are now on the run, and some that are still in harm's way. Be safe guys, I'm thinking good thoughts for you.


The original title of this post was going to be "The Evil Leaf Strewn Rock Gardens of Pennsylvania".
We spent the weekend in PA, visiting family. As always, we brought our bikes. I'd heard of some trails that we hadn't ridden yet, and it was there that we decided to look for some of PA's
secret gems. We have been exploring Jim Thorpe for a couple of years, but have yet to stumble across anything noteworthy. Mostly fire roads, with a couple of technical sections here and there, but nothing "exciting". Don't get me wrong, we always have a good time, but I'll be honest, it ain't Vermont.

If anyone reading disagrees with me, I invite you, no, challenge you to prove me wrong about Jim Thorpe! There just has to be some awesome singletrack out there. We just haven't found it yet.

I'd heard of some trails in Salisbury from a customer. After some diligent web surfing, we'd gotten directions and some sort of ride plan.
We started on top of a hill just north of South Mountain, in a sketchy park, with absolutely no indication that mountain biking was nearby. As I was pumping up the tires on Red 5.1, I notice just how dirty the parking lot was. Yuck.





Once we got into the woods though, we were able to navigate the trails with the well placed yellow, orange, red and blue blazes that took us on our 2 hour ride. I'm pretty sure we rode everything out there.

Lots of challenging rocks, some fun stunt type stuff, and very well constructed, benched in singletrack. Absolutely no standing water on the trails whatsoever, despite the massive deluge of rain we had the previous day. Kudos to the Lehigh Valley MTB Club for all their hard work. What fun! I'm pretty excited to go back and poke around some more now.

It was rough on my body though. I have sat the last 2 weeks out for some self imposed recovery, and my IT bands were screaming again after just one hour of relentless PA rocks on the singlespeed. Also weird, was the constant noise of trains, and who-knows-what-the-heck they were doing on the valley floor. It sounded like they were dumping huge boulders onto hollow steel decks with massive machinery. There was a constant racket, punctuated with the occasional low flying helicopter. I guess I've never been mountain biking in an urban setting such as this before.


The cool thing is, is that those trails are there, and a total hoot to ride.
Now go get some.

My Last Race

You know that Fall is coming when the Catamount season is drawing to a close. Last night was my last race of the season, as next week, I am supporting the actual last race of the season.
It was Nat's last race too, as he is scheduled to have kid #2 next week.

I brought out Red 5.1 for it's second ride, and first race. I pretty much guaranteed it would rain by mounting my WTB Weirwolf LTs, and switching over to my "crusher gear" 34-19. It's actually not that bad until you encounter steep hills of any length. I found that even standing and mashing as hard as I could, forward momentum was hard to keep. I don't know how I made it.

I'm glad I only did 2 laps, I developed a searing stitch on my right side in the middle of my first lap that didn't go away until the last downhill of the second lap. Ouch.
It started to sprinkle at the beginning of the second lap, but it held to that. I thought to myself "I just knew it......!"
I pretty much spent the race alone. I knew I had to be somewhere near the front, but couldn't catch the leaders. I ended up finishing my 2 in 29 minutes, coming 3rd in my age, 7th overall.
Not too bad.

Red 5.1

Since the retirement of the original Red 5, I have lamented it's absence. It was such a fun and responsive bike. It was my very first Niner, which replaced the Karate Monkey as the resident singlespeed. I owned it for several months, but ultimately retired it because it was a first generation One 9, and it lacked the appropriate tire clearance.

For a while, Kermit was a good stand in, but has since taken on other roles in the stable.
I was without a singlespeed in the line up for about 3 months when the golden opportunity to replace Red 5 came about.


And when Red 5.1 came, it brought it's pimp stick.

As with any "x".1, upgrades from the original were made. This time, instead of Delgados, we have the Stan's Arch rims, run with Bontrager ACX Tubeless tires, the White Bros Magic 100, Avid Juicy Carbon brakes, an Easton EC90 seatpost, and Easton EC70 Monkeylite bars. All told, with pedals and signature carbon bottle cage (that's right Jay, carbon...), Red 5.1 weighs 22.94 lbs, a full pound and a half lighter than it's predecessor.


You'll note, the Rogue bottle cap on my YAWYD. Red 5 is Luke Skywalker's call sign in his X-Wing, and he flies in Rogue Squadron. I am such a NERD!

No go out and Pedal Dammit!