This is what it's all about

What I miss most about the East Coast is riding with folks who won't let the cold and snow get in the way of getting out for a spin.



Its awesome that the Trails are not sterilized, someone tried to make a wuss way around this log, but then someone fixed it!



Anyway, I linked up with Acura Matt and Solt for a quick loop in Bethlehem. The snow was a little slippery which made single speeding a bit difficult, but I got some good cardio in when it flattened out and it was a lot of fun trying to hold a line through the crust on the downhills!

Back To the East...

What is it with Long Islanders? I guess it starts with some lights, maybe the plastic frosty and a Santa, Then before you know it 30 percent of you pay is going to the Long Island Power authority so your house can be seen from space.



Any way, Its cold here. I am not very familiar with the good single track on long island and how it rides after snow so I checked out Pops indoor recumbent excercise bike. I got a pretty good work out and threw in some core work pushups, and miscelaneous abdominal exercises. I used to do a shit load of ab exercises in the military, i think its time to bring it back, especially during the crap weather.

Back from the East

3 Weeks and 10 pounds later, I am finally back in California




I brought my bike with me, but I didnt ride it. We drank a lot, worked then drank some more, saw the family. I got rained out of the post Thanksgiving MTN bike Ride at Sals, and never got around to riding again. The Single Speed is in NY, so maybe there will be some riding with My PA peeps when i head back for Christmas.

After 3 weeks off the bike i put in a pretty good effort to get back into the game this week with 5 days of riding this week and lots of climbing. Lost about five pounds this week.

United can Blow me.

Yeah, so I knew i had to fork up 175 Bones to bring my bike aboard, but you know i thought it was worth it since ill be back and forth to the east coast till new years, so was planning on leaving my bike at mom and pa's, but on top of the fee they charged me 25 bucks to check this as my second bag....talk about misleading. My first bag they charged me an additional 125 bucks for being overweight.....which i could of stuffed the extra 15 pounds in the bike box, but not in front of the agent...anyway the airlines suck....

Its cold here, i need to man up cause i love this stuff.

East Coast Bound

Buisness trip-

The Niner Sir nine is boxed up- along with every piece of cyoing clothing I own. Yeah Im soft. Its just over two years since I have ridden in the east coast fall/winter season. Time to get hard, never mind that sounds bad.

Actually I just forgot what the weather is exactly like in the woods at this time so Ill figure out what works. Most of my time will be spent in boston, so I am planning on hitting up some of the local trails there. Some of the exploration will be at night, so i better find some locals on the internets to show my ass around.

Im defintaely going to spend a day or to with my PA peeps at sals, so you all better be ready.

Some New Wheels

Big Al from bikeman came through with a hookup on some bontager race light 29er wheels for a great price, they look pretty sweet interesting how bontrager uses there there rim strip for tubless, its this big plastic ring. neat.

I think this is where I get ready for next year.......

Well, im starting to come off of 6 weeks of inactivity....mostly due to work travel, partly due to laziness and the opportunity to sit on my ass and drink beer.



We hit MT Hamilton today, its a 20 mile climb with about 4,000 feet of elevation gain. It was the typical brutal battle to the top between my riding buddies Joe and Ryan. Its not a very steep grade, but it takes almost two hours to get to the top, so we were pretty smoked when we got to the summit. It was a beautifull day, and Im glad to be back on the bike. The transition phase has begun.


Im starting dream about next years bikes. First on the list is to replace the Klein Frame, for something that fits me a little better, my buddy Dan hooked me up with this ride for a great price when I was in PA. I had a little incident where the derailleur broke and bent the hanger real good. The shop did a mediocre job straightening it out so I need a new frame.

It looks like the Salsa Podio is going to do the job.



The paint job is just sick!

Next up, we may be replacing the Mamasita for somthing with a little bit of cush. I really love the mamasita, but after getting my nuts slapped around for 10 hours in the Sierras this summer i have been dreaming of the Dos Niner -



Stage 3 of the Tour of California is Ripping through my Hoood!

Francois has reported that the Tour of California is coming up my favorite Road Climb in the Bay!. I spent a lot of time on Tunitas Creek Rd. the last two summers climbing up from the coast. Im trying to convince a few of my buds to pre-ride the entire stage - we shall see.

Time to Get the Niner Rolling again

The Sir nine hasnt been ridden since i built up the mamasita. I finally got her built back up and i miss riding the steel frame.



I decided to put the Reba on the Mamasita since it has more travel, and the lefty is now on the Niner. I think it fits the one speed better.

Tahoe Sierra 100

Scenic Views, Lots of climbing, lots of fire roads....and lots of climbing.


Well, consitent with the 24 hours of Cool, Jimmy put on a really nice event with a very cool vibe.

After the typical pre-hunred miler rituals (Coffee, cereal, race to the bathroom, etc) I rolled to the start to see a lot of familar faces from the East Coast Hundred milers. Harlan and TomiMcmillar from PA, Tinker, and those famous guys from Trek.


The First 4o Miles were pretty fun. Nice Fire Road climbs in the shade followed by some really fun and fast fire road descents. It was very challenging as it was really dusty, making it very hard to see.



I caught up with Tomi for a quick photo op at nice scenic spot- this would be the last time I would see him as he was turning the cranks very well.



So it was pretty much a lot of fire roads. I caught up with tinker somwhere around mile 40 or so - He was planning to bail and told me to get him some help.

Around mile 50 I found a guy on the road unconscious. This was pretty scary. This guy caught me on the climb and we were racing pretty fast on the technical decents, really hauling ass. He got away from me on the next climb, then I started descending, doing about 30 MPH on the fire road. I came around the corner and saw the dude laying in the road. Eyes open, face banged up, but nobody home. Fortunately he was breathing. A few others gathered arouund and he began to come to. He was still out of it, he didnt remeber his name and mumbled something about a Mercedes. We were far from any check point, so I started to get worried, but luckily the search and rescue motos happened to be headed our way. By the time the motos got to us the guy was already standing, so we handed him off and got back to the race......at a munch slower pace thinking about what we just saw.



We all knew mile 69 was going to be bad from the elevation profile...and it was. I actually had to do a bit of walking near the top of the climb



Anyway, i rolled in around 10:20 something, the Garmin had 11,000 feet of elevation gain. Time to jump in the lake. Drink beer and eat hot dogs.

5 Hours of Single Track, Fire road and pavement......on the road bike

We did things a little different today when my friend Ryan sent out the email....He wanted to explore some of the dirt roads in the South bay, and we found them. I wasnt expecting to hit single track though, that was kind of fun.



We cleaned a lot of technical sections with the road bike slicks and got some cheers from the dudes on the mtn bikes. This was a good warmup for the Tahoe Sierra 100 next weekend. Ill post some more pics later

Grass Roots Racing - The Lake Sonoma Special

Well I actually got back in the saddle for a race last weekend at Lake Sonoma - Because of the heat, the race would start at 530 PM - this is my kind of race!

One big 14 Mile Loop and I don't have to get up at the but crack of dawn to get to the venue on time.

It was the Typcial chill Lake Sonoma Crew. If you zoom in you can see the guy with the Fish on his head.



I was sporting the Mamasita Single speed Setup and my heat went off with the Pro's and Experts in a field of about 15 in the massive group pictured below.




The race started out with a climb up that road pictured above followed by a hairy decent through some loose fire road then overgrown single track, then up some long wicked fire road that went forever. I have to admit i am a bit out of race shape so at this point i was turning purple and had to lay off the gas.

I guess i was sitting in last place at this point when the Sport Crew caught up with me, but at this point we entered some wicked technical single track downhill switch back and 3 guys in front of me went over the bars, so i got back ahead of them and dropped them. Then I got a flat and couldn't fix it. That was pretty much it.


I made my way to the road and road the flat in. I rolled across the finish line about 5 minutes before the race leader so people thought i was winning and started to clap and stuff.

Anyway beers and burgers soon followed all included in the 20 dollar race fee. Please check out the race next month, http://www.bikemonkey.net, Carlos puts on a kick ass event!



Oh almost forgot, my buddy roadie joe took second in sport and won this fresh melon.

Not a lot of riding going on.....

I hear ya dan..

yeah my project at work has been pretty crazy...so riding has been pretty much limited to the fun social rides when i can get out and the Rides with E....which are great, shes starting to get better.

The Cascade Cream Puff 100 is next weekend, im registered and paid (a very steep fee i might add) but not sure if im going to be able to get up there. Its an 8 hour drive and i will need to take monday off to get back. Its going to be a real expensive drive with gas prices....fuck you only live once right?


At least the sales guys keep sending us beer

Well; I rode today

Left the house at 830 on the bike, climbed 2 to 3 K to get to the trail head, bombed some sweet single track for about 30 minutes then linked up with the mtbr norcal crew for some sweet Techy climbing.

Some awesome trail riding today- until i realized i lost the key to my apartment,so i had to bail, ride to my office call the landord wait for him to come.....its a good thing the fridge at work was loaded with beer. I ended up back at the house by 7 PM.


Its all good.

The World would have to wait for the Great Taste of Bud light and .......Clamato?

Wait no more folks, its here. Bud light and Clamato - in a can. Not really sure where this came from nor why you need it.

Racer 5 IPA

I think this is one of the best IPA's i have ever had. Brewed in Cloverdale, CA. It has a little bit of citrus twang too it I think, but its definately not one of those girly beers. Im going to drink about 6 so that i can forget that i wasn't tearing it up at French creek this weekend.

Holding on for dear life.....

So the wed road ride is the super fast race ride...with over a 100 people its pretty scary. To give you an idea, we showed up to corner of pagemill rd where we pick up the ride and waiting at the corner is Dylan Casey retired USPS rider Chatting away with some other dude in a slipstream chiptole kit. The ride made its way over to us an they took off to the front. The pace picked up and It really hurt.

I started out in the middle of the pack, were doing about 20 uphill and 35 on the flats, I looked around and Roadie Joe and my friend Ryan were nowhere to be seen. I didnt change positon at all and i suddenly went from middle to end of the back. We lost over half of the group. I was pretty stoked to get back to work and give them some shit for getting dropped, but damn that was fast.

A little Mount Hamilton Action.....

Well, 2 weeks ago I asked roadie joe if he would be up for a century this weekend and he surprised me. I Look forward Riding long with joe, cause its usually the only time that I can put the hurt on him. Well Joe came up with a nasty route, up and over Mount hamilton and into livermore.

The ride starts out with a 4,000 foot 20 mile climb up Mount Hamilton. We were joined by another friend Thorestein who has never completed a century before. Thorestien is a natural athlete who rides about half as much as Joe and I but can crush us on some of the shorter climbs.

The climb up hamilton started off at a pretty chill pace. On any given climb one of us usually attacks, but since we had a long day ahead of us everyone was showing some humility.....well up until i turned my IPOD on.....about an hour and a half into the climb no one was talking, I decided to turn the tunes on and well it was game on. I pulled away putting a hughe gap on roadie joe and T. I thought i was going to break free when about a mile from the Top I saw Joe, realing me in. He rolled up next to me and rolled on past.

at this piont we were getting really close to the observatory, you can see it getting closer and closer, and somtimes further away, making it difficult to judge the distance to the top.

Joe put a 100 yards on me and i couldn't tell if we were on the last switch back or not....I idnt thing I was going to be able to real him back in, but I gambled that we were on the last switch back and stood up and hammered...i was able to roll past joe about 100 feet from the top....phew..that was a smoker..


We headed down the back side of hamilton, it was awesome. we were out in the middele of nowhere

Coolest 24 (8 Hour Version)

Well we rolled into Cool, CA for the 8 hour race. It was hot, and exposed mostly double track with some single track and lots of dust. We started off behind the 24 hour folks and it was almost a total black out with the dust that was kicking around. I tried to chill for the first two laps since there were so many people to pass, i decided that it would be a waste of energy to Pass and then just get bogged down again. The dust was so bad that by the third lap i thought somehting in my rear wheel was dragging, but it seemed to work itself out.

This is my favorite photo, not because i look all bad ass and stuff but, if you look closely you can see my buddy roadie joe in the background.....way behind :)




Anyway, I finished in 11th place out of almost 50 I think, which i was pretty happy with since i wasnt super motivated to race on this course since it was really hot and pretty exposed (roadie type singltrack), so I kept a pretty conservative pace throughout the race but, it did start to hurt a bit


Jimmy did a great Job putting on the race, the vibe was absolutely amazing and so positive, with all of the money going to Cancer Research.




The mamasita held up well. The lefty generated lots of interest and the Salsa Delgado ghetto tubless converstion held up

If your board......

Well if your board tommorow, you can see how Im doing by clickicin onRace updates, Karl from Ride424.com will be givin updates on the coolest 24 hour race but i dont know if he will be tracking the 8 hour guys like myself.

Caffeine....its not spicy enough.

Check it out, My Lefty came in!!! woot, so we mounted her up with the Project321 adapator and my buddy Thorstein cut the Steerer tube down to size on the Lathe in our machine shop. The lefty came with two Salsa Delgado wheels, I decided to put on the Hutchinson Pythons (i am stoked to find these in 29er sizse) and Convert them to Tubeless utilizing the Ghetto Stans tubless mehtod, it worked out very well, but they are a bit heavier then then Stans wheelset I was running previously, but they were destined to get mounted back on my single speed. I think a new wheelset will be a project down the road. I have heard a lot of horror stories with converting these wheels but i have had a lot of experience with the Ghetto method so we will see. If this works out well i may even try experimenting with valve stems and the stans yellow rim tape.





Going to break it in this weekend at the8 Hours of Cool