So I’m deleting some stuff off my hard drive, and came upon a folder of photos – called “BIKE” Funnily enough, they’re images of, well, my bike. More to the point, images of bikes I’ve owned. So here, for posterity, is a timeline of my mountain bike purchases.

First up.. the Trek 4300!

The first bike – a Trek 4300. Bought at Revolution Cycles in 2003 for $429 (using a $400 gift certificate I bought on Craigslist for $325) Added a Manitou Black Elite fork, some bar ends, and a new saddle. The thing still weighed a ton. I rode it on the W&OD trail, twice at Burke Lake, and once at Wakefield. After riding it, and realizing that I enjoyed riding off road, I knew it was time to upgrade.

Next, the Money Pit Marin Rift Zone!

This was replaced by this Marin Rift Zone. Bane of my existance. I bought this used from a workmate of Jeff’s last January (2005) when I realized I wanted to step up to a full suspension. This was bought used for $1,000 thanks to “lots of custom parts” he’d put on it, and it turned out in the end to be a complete bust. Having ridden it once or twice, the bike felt… wierd. Not right. Like it didn’t fit. So I tried selling it. Drew almost bought it, but it didn’t fit him either. Thankfully – I would have felt horrible had he got it, since about a month later I took a maintenance class, and the full extent of this bike’s issues became apparant. The rear triangle was bent, the derailleur hanger had been bent and rebent back so many times it was on the verge of snapping, the rear derailleur was shot too, the bottom bracket was toast, the hubs were falling apart, and the shiters were on the verge of exploding. It ended up getting stripped down. Sold the frame on ebay for about $300, the fork for about $200. I was out of pocket $500, and for that I had a crankset, crappy wheelset, X9 shifters, X-Gen front derailleur, Hayes Nine hydros, two saddles, a crappy seatpost and stem. And a lesson learned.

Then came the move to the state of Ellsworthia
Having been ripped off in the used market, I decided to make the next bike a new one. When the Rift Zone was sold, I was sans bike. I began amassing parts from places like Pricepoint and Blue Sky. Took me about three months, but I finally had everything I needed to build a new rig for myself, except a frame. Then I saw her on Universal Cycles’ site. A small black Ellsworth ISIS, reduced from $1,499 to $649. Putting myself in the poorhouse for the rest of the month, I jumped on it, and in April of that year I had her ready.

This bike was SO much nicer than the Marin. This time I knew what I was doing, for a start – I’d been spending a lot of time on the MORE boards, and my knowledge of the sport and of what to look for had gotten SO much better. I bought components based on the recommendations of others, and of the ratings on MTBR. The only thing I DIDN’T count on was how much this thing would weigh – almost 30lbs. For an XC bike! It lasted through the rest of the 2005 season, and then it happened.

While perusing the boards on MTBR, I was reading a thread about some guy who’d gotten a screaming deal on a Turner frame from Supergo. Hah! Yeah, right. Like you could get a brand new Turner frame for $799. But sure enough, it was true – prior to their eating by Performance, Supergo had lost it’s status as a Turner dealer, and was forced to blow out it’s remaining stock. But like there was any chance they’d have one in my size. But just for shits and giggles, I shot an email off to Brian, the manager of a Supergo store in Arizona, and a guy who I’d chatted to on the boards a few times. An hour later, Brian phoned me at work – “Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is, I don’t have any small Burners left. The good news is… well, do you want red or black? I searched the national inventory, and there are two left, both in CA.”

I took the black one. And called it Ike.

Fast forward to now, and a lot of the parts on there (cranks, derailleurs, bars, saddle, stem) were from the Ellsworth. I did decide that I needed a new fork when I bought her, so got the Reba, and my Christmas present to myself was a new set of wheels from Odds and Endos. The Ellsworth, Vanilla fork, and wheels were all sold to my buddy Daniel, and I’m now in posession, after two years, of the bike of my dreams.

At least until upgraditis strikes again…

Horrible weekend… every year I go through the same crap with certain folks at work. I tell them how to give me materials, take them through step-by-step the way to do it, and every year they damn well ignore me. Meaning they just throw me half-formatted crap, which they did in a rush so they could enjoy their holiday weekend. Meaning yours truly gets to spend MY afforementioned holiday weekend stuck in front of a computer screen working. So no riding for me this weekend. And what’s worse is that I got stressed enough to the point where I broke down and bought a pack of cigarettes. (Rest assured, this will be the one and only pack, and as I did when I smoked before, they will not be consumed anywhere but in a bar with a beer in hand, as two were on Friday night. And what was even more shocking is that when Tracee saw me crack, she decided to have one too!)

The nice thing was that my new brakes showed up. Fair play to Cambria Bike for getting them here so fast. (Granted I had to go to the FedEx place to pick ‘em up, since they wouldn’t reroute to home instead of work!) Haven’t had a chance to ride on them yet, but I did get them installed, cut down, and bled last night, and they feel really good. Setup and installation was a breeze, although I did manage to spill DOT fluid on the rear rotor. Cleaned it off immediately with alcohol, so hopefully it’s okay – I guess I’ll find out the first time I head downhill and need to stop!

The future in-laws arrive today, so prepared for a week of eating out and drinking every night. Which really doesn’t jive with the weight loss plan, but the way the weekend went, and the way this workweek is looking, is gonna be just what I need… blech.

Working for the weekend…

Ahem. Sorry about that.

I love my Hopes. I really do. They’re small, and they’re cool, and they look mega blingy on Ike. Very trendy, and they put me in my happy spot. Then I ride on them. And they do a wonderful job of stopping my fat arse as I careen clumsily down a hill. But the noise. Oh, the noise. They sound like a rabid banshee on crystal meth. (I should know, I’ve dated rabid banshees on crystal meth.) I’ve been dealing with this issue for a couple of months now (at this point, everyone shout “Why? Surely they don’t make noise when the bike is sitting in your apartment, and that’s all it does, since you never ride it!”) and have been seeking many alternate solutions. One was to replace the Hope pads with Kool Stops, or EBCs. Nope. There’s brake goop that you can buy at auto stores to help. Nope.

This is a common problem with these brakes. Buggers. So I email Hope tech support, asking for opinions. A month later (yesterday) I got a response back.

The upshot of the email (I’ll spare you the details. It was written by a lad from London, and therefore Americans are incapable of understanding it.) is that I need to have my tabs refaced to Hope’s spec. Once that’s done, since I can’t seem to do it myself properly, I get to have a Hope authorized place reinstall the brakes, since while they’re great brakes, they’re also by far the most tempremental to install and set up. This will probably take care of the problem.

Probably.

So should I drop another $150 on bringing Ike into the store to get the frame refaced, new pads, and have the whole setup reinstalled, or just sell them on ebay or whatever, and spend augment the $150 into the proceeds to replace them with a set of Juicy Carbons or something?

Decisions, decisions…

Update… Ah screw it, I just ordered Juicy Carbons!

This past weekend was one of those weekends you just love to have. I’ve been in a major state of bummer since I got back from Colorado, knowing that the next chance to get out of DC isn’t going to be until end of July, with the conference looming like a… big looming thing in between. And Woodbridge was in the same boat.

But Saturday and Sunday were just what we needed. Tracee’s getting hit up with her audit, and had to work this weekend, leaving me to taste sweet freedom. (Apart from Saturday night, when we had to endure a graduation party for one of her friends. The graduate, Jen, is cool, but I had to put up with some of her other whiny associates, whom I think I did well to avoid repeatedly smacking in the face. But I digress…)

Saturday, Michael swung by, we threw the bikes in his truck, and hit up Rosaryville. I’ve done work out there a few times, but never ridden the trails for some reason. But today was the day. And man, Rosaryville – where have you BEEN all my life?! What a blast those trails are – superfast flowy singletrack, with not a lot in the way of TTFs, the climbs are short and the descents are fun. Pedalled back to the parking lot, and we rewarded ourselves with some icy cold Fat Tires I’d brought along.

Now, as anyone who’s enjoyed a tasty refreshing beverage from New Belgium will tell you, one is not enough. So, we retired back to my place, and kicked back on the roof with some more NBB beverages, and some tasty sambos from the Italian Store. Drinking and shooting the shit in the sun, listening to Jack Johnson, bonding over our shared distaste for DC, and plotting camping trips and drinking sessions for the summer.

More of the same the day after – this time we got Fookie off his duffer, and hit up Schaeffer Farms, via Seneca Creek. Well, Seneca was the original destination, but when we got there, we realized that it was resplendent in it’s overall gayness, so Schaeffer was the alternate. This was the trail that had kicked my arse a month or so ago, but some commuting and the confidence gained from bombing around Rosaryville had me in good spirits. Step forward, lactose intolerance. The latte I had with Tracee that morning seemed to rear it’s ugly head, so every time I got my heart rate up, I was rewarded with a wave of nausea. Blew chunks twice on the trail, and just couldn’t get any sort of flow.

Still, was just good to be back in the saddle, and after some tums and a lie down, it was off to Woody’s for burgers and margaritas with Cate, Fookie, and Tracee. The perfect end to a perfect weekend.

Well, perfect apart from the whole throwing up thing…

Well, back from Ben and Jackie’s wedding in Colorado, and back to work as well. Yet another place to add to the “places much cooler than DC” list. Actually, not entirely true – more like most of it is cooler than DC. Fort Collins was great. Boulder is a way cool place, the most bike-friendly town I’ve ever visited in the USA. Colorado Springs was pretty decent. (Parts of it) Estes Park, where the wedding was, is a beautiful place if a little cheesy and… religous. (They love them the late JC up there!)

It was, all in all, an extremely alcoholic trip. The first stop, literally, as soon as we were off the plane and into the rental car, was to head STRAIGHT to Fort Collins, and make the pilgrimage to the New Belgium Brewery, home of my beloved Fat Tire. An amazing place, and amazing beers. The tour, while not exactly mind blowing, did give a ton of insight into the company, and the pro-environment, pro-beer, pro-fun philosophy.

And oh, the beer. Oh, dear Lord, the beer.

After we got out of there and ate some lunch, it was straight down to Colorado Springs. And a trip to Bristol Brewing Company, home of Laughing Lab, and many other tasty beverages. Two breweries, one day, I was digging this Colorado thing.

Colorado in general is an extremely bike-friendly spot. While heading up Pike’s Peak (via Cog Train… I wanted to hike up, train back, but that was vetoed by Tracee!) I spotted a group of Mountain Bikers, and had to bestow much kudos to them for making it up that climb. (That said, they could have drove up and could just be DHing back).

Later in the day, I had the pleasure of meeting Zack at the Garden of the Gods. Here’s some snaps of him doing his thang…

Right. This is starting to ramble on, so let me sum up. After all that, we hit Estes Park. Met up with Mikey, Frigo, Michael, and Lori.

Had fun at Estes Park Brewery (Food sucked, beer’s fantastic). Had a blast at Ben and Jackie’s wedding. Fell in love somewhat with the mountains. Headed to Boulder on Sunday after saying goodbye to everyone. Loved Boulder. Saw a guy with a Turner, got excited. Became insanely jealous of a place that’s bikecentric, sorrounded by beauty, and conscious of nature. Flew back to DC, where it was pissing rain, and immediately fell into a funk. One more year, and we’re out. One more year.

PS – Liverpool won the FA Cup. Hooray!

Okay, I was planning on playing soccer Wednesday night. Thursday night. Friday night. Saturday morning.Nope.

Game was cancelled Wednesday. Long story. The game Thursday with Bootleggers went ahead, and I played the full game, but man it was tragic – this team takes ineptitude to a whole new level (not that I did a whole lot to raise their game) Friday I stayed home from work, with the honest plan of throwing the bike on the car, and heading to Rosaryville at lunchtime.

Nope.

The window work was once more going on, and the car was again blocked in until about 3:00pm. At which point I decided it was too late, since I had leave at 6:00pm for a Cats game.

Nope.

Game was cancelled at 5:30 thanks to a referee shortage. A referee shortage. Oh well, at least I’ll get in some pitch time in the morning at pickup.

Nope.

Tracee’s friend Tara was in town from Guatemala. She’s a bridesmaid. Which means I HAD to meet her. She came over for dinner, the three of us hung out. Tracee made some fantastic pasta. We killed two pitchers of margaritas (it was cinquo!) two bottles of Zin, and a few beers to boot. Which left me rather useless the following morning. Sunday was out long ago, with me scheduled to be on my duffer enjoying the last day of the Premiership season. Well, at least I have my commute in on Monday, and a game that night.

Nope.

Rain. Passed on the commute (wuss) and there’s yet another cancellation tonight thanks to said rain. Oh well. At least I have a game tomorrow night, and hopefully I’ll be back in the saddle too…

Well, I’ve been biking back and forth to work for about two weeks now, and am still alive. (Missed chunks of last week thanks to the appearance of horrendous allergies that caused sleepless nights and me staying home sick). The quota at the moment is ride in Monday-Thursday, work at home Friday (and hopefully sneak in a ride on the Turner). The past two weeks, the temperature outside has started to inch up a little – yesterday was the warmest I’d ridden downtown, with temps in the upper 70s. The heat didn’t bother me so much as the air – at 6:00pm, there’s a lot of buses and cars on the road, and with humidity, ozone, and fumes, breathing was harder than I’d noticed the day before.

But that aside, two weeks of doing this has shown some results. I now ride home a lot easier than I did the first day I did it, huffing and puffing the whole way. I’ve seemingly become a LOT better at clipping and unclipping, which is something I always had trouble with, for some reason. My riding has, I think, improved too – I’m finding that I use a lot more MTB technique on a commute than I thought I would. I think I pictured just standard road riding, but in truth I’m hopping on pavement, back on, back off, up pavement ramps, dodging in and out of pedestrians, avoiding lampposts, et al. The best part though was putting on a pair of jeans this morning, realizing that they were looser than they had been, and the scales confirming that I was down 6lbs. Hooray! Celebrated by ordering up some slicks to make like a little easier.

My offroad riding was non existant in the month of April, which bothers the crap out of me. What’s worse, is with the onset of footy season, the chances of free time for biking decreases. I enjoy being on the trails, but love my ball kicking more. Had a game last night (cancelled at the last minute by Lou, dumbarse), a game tonight with Bootleggers, and another Cats game tomorrow night. Pickup Saturday morning. Another game Monday night. Which leaves Sunday as the only day I can feasibly get out and ride, but ONE day off for my poor stubby legs to recover would be nice. Was chatting with Bukit today, and he was telling me about his ride with Ricky last night. Found myself feeling jealous and somewhat inadequate at tales of 25 mile rides at a fast pace on singlespeeds, knowing that my limit is half that distance, at half that pace, on a geared high end Turner. It’s the old catch 22 again – I kind of subconsciously don’t ride more because I know I can’t hang, but I’ll never be able to hang until I ride more.

Don’t matter this week – I’ve got to ride home in a bit to make the soccer game, where I plan on doing some damage.

Allergies are sucking big time. BIG time. Yet another night last night was spent repeatedly waking up drowning in my own runny nose and sneezing. Poor Tracee got the brunt of it too (and is letting me know it!) Have been experimenting with various over the counter things, but am convinced they’re all placebos, and the ones I’ve gotten only last 4 hours. I need sleep.

This time I mean it. I’m never drinking again.

The BBQ on Saturday was a blast. The food was excellent, the booze was flowing, and the company was magnificent. 20 or so folks in Michael’s house, all having a hoot. Next time the 3 gallons of margaritas can be skipped though.

But everything comes with a price. I fell out of bed at some point late Sunday morning with a sore head and an extremely uncooperative stomach. By way of the bathroom, I ended up on the couch where I basically didn’t move for several hours, staring at (rather than actually watching) the Birmingham/Newcastle match on FSC. Tracee spent the afternoon at the Darfur rally downtown, leaving me to my own devices, and I’d planned on going for an introductory ride with Ben today, thinking it would be just the thing to sweat the hangover out of me. I called, and discovered he was in worse shape than me, and knew it wasn’t going to happen. The couch was my home for the rest of the day, and now feel remarkably fat and lazy. Planning on hitting the gym hardcore tonight. YEAH! DO IT!!! (Cough!)

Me? Drinking? No ossifer, I’m completely thober.