August & September

A very quick re-cap of the past two months:

Early August - DarkHorse40 – Great start. Flat on lap one. Cramps on lap two. Turned my race into a fun ride and the frustration of flats and craps disappeared and bike riding was fun again. Stopped to help Tom from Niner with his flat near the end. Finished the race just outside top 10 singlespeed but had a huge smile and helped people along the way. Fun!

Photo: Ed Burgess

Work got in the way of bike riding. 15hr days. No time to ride. Body was exhausted. Ontop of that, Ginger and I got engaged in July and have been busy planning our wedding for late October 2012.

Kingdom Trails trip with Ginger over Labor Day weekend by way of a stop in Stowe VT.

Stowe Trails (photo: Ginger)

Early September – Business trip to Atlanta – Big thanks to Mike Stanley from Niner for letting me borrow an Air9 Carbon while down there. Another thanks to Eddie & Namrita (race promoters) for letting me stay at their cabin the night before the race. Almost went from couch to FG100miler but was worried I wasn’t going to finish the race in time to catch my flight home so I did the 50miler.

FG50 – Good start. Lots of fire road climbing at the start. Dicky and I played games off the front with the locals. I faded on the first long climb a few miles in but recovered. Legs completely blew up at the 2^nd aid station. Full on cramps. From there to the finish I tried to ride and had no gas for ‘racing’. Rode some awesome singletrack. Really loved how snappy the Air9C is in acceleration. Rigid fork in Georgia is not bad at all. Nothing like rigid in New England.

 Photo (RegularJoe Photography)

 Photo (RegularJoe Photography)

T-Hom's driving drink of choice.
T-Hom's coverage of the event.

New Bicycle….  Despite working insane hours, trying to plan a wedding and not riding I found time to sell a bike and buy another bike.

2010 Gary Fisher Superfly 100 Singlespeed. RockShox SID 100mm travel 15mm thru axle fjork.  23.5lbs with spare tube and multi-tool. 

Replaced the worn rear shock DU bushings with needle bearings from Enduro.  Still working the chain tension. B-tension on Shimano road derailleurs is not enough (currently have a Shimano 105). When I can ride offroad again I am going to try a SRAM road derailleur as they have a higher B-tension. SRAM works great in this application for friends of mine.

Three rides on the bike and was having a lot of fun. Think this might be my race bike for 2013.