Bike Tech Sunday

My bikes were in desperate need of some TLC. Sunday I spent the vast majority of the day overhauling & modifying.

Look closely. See the tricks?

Shrink tubing to hide the cables.
That's a die spring to give me a better feeling brake action on the TT bike. TT bikes are notorious for shitty brakes. Not with this little trick. Snaps right back & very linear.

New to me Dura Ace 7800 crank & external BB. No more Octa Link on this rig.

Back to my old sponsor Oury Grips. Not the lightest option but hard to find a cushier grip. No more bruised palm for me.

That's right. I built my road bike back up. I figured if TK the dirt road king did maybe I should as well & give my CX bike a well deserved rest.

I know white before Memorial Day, but need a little pizzaz. Thinking white saddle as well.

Garden part Deux

Saturday Mia helped me put in part two of our raised bed garden. She liked putting seeds down randomly so we even planted her a mystery garden on the side of the deck. I'm curious to see what sprouts since she took hand fulls of seeds & threw them @ the dirt as I tried to cover them.

Squash

Mystery Garden

Rip it & dump em.

2009 THE YEAR OF BEING SICK

This year I have been sick a total of 23 days. Damn near a full month. I'm pretty anti antibiotics since I'm allergic to Keflex , which always gets me a pissed off look from the Dr. since its so widely prescribed. It also stops me from taking anything in the penicillin family(something about shouldn't try it since it might kill me). Well enough is enough I'm going to pony up to the big pill popping counter & get me some drugs! Hopefully I can kick this shit & get back to normal. Two weeks is enough of not sleeping completely through the night.

Hogan's blog is too hard to post Comments too

Figures only Hogan would have a blog that you have to track down the secret key to the intraweb to post a comment to. Screw that I'm busy & I now have two WordPress.com accounts(two more than I need) thanks to him, so I'll comment here.

MacAskill is right! Great vid even though you stole it off Tilford's blog.

Looks like the mother land.

Saw Band of Horses open for Modest Mouse in KC. Good Band.

I guess I'd better update to keep this thing active

It's either feast or famine with this damn blog. Truth is the new job has me going from 4:30 till after 5. Makes for a long day. The proclaimed 4 day work weeks are actually 5 day weeks kinda like I knew it would be. Training took a hit this week since Mia got another ear infection which I picked up a cold from. Amber got it so bad today she went & got a shot. Me I just have a persistent dry cough. Not a lot of fun for sleeping or even riding. Needless to say I skipped racing this weekend. Hopefully I can get some consistency back & get some kilometers in before the Sylmo revenge or that is going to hurt worse than any amount of free beer can help. I look at it like this I need the training so why not get some free beer after?

Mia is with the in laws watching Disney on Ice & JQH Arena. Explain this one too me? We have an ice rink in the SPR but they have an ice show @ JQH? WTF is that about? Great use of the assets we have. Though it doesn't really surprise me all that mutch.

Watched Amstel Gold this AM. Kinda of a snooze fest. Except for Fränk Schleck and Matthew Lloyd eating pavement. Schleck was one of my picks for the win so kinda lost interest in the race after that. Cleaned house instead to help out the ailing wife. She's feeling really bad. Actually I'd better go stick a mirror under her nose she's been comatose on the couch awhile now.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

We're down @ then lake for Easter so I watched Roubaix on multiple Euro feeds this AM. I started in French & ended up in Spanish. Never fails if you watch a race on the Euro feeds the closer it gets to the end of the race more people log on & crash the server. Then you have to scramble to find another server. But it beats paying. Boonen got lucky avoiding the crashes at the end. It takes luck & power to win on the cobbles, that's why he has 3 cobbles on his mantle. I really wanted Hincapie to win but he just doesn't have the luck. I'm wondering if that was the last time we'll see him on the Pave'?

Yesterday part one of the garden went in. 4'x8' of raised garden bed. That's a lot of dirt, peat, & manure to haul in the back of the Volvo. This week part two will get built(hopefully). Yard work had top priority so no saddle time. But the yard looks good all weeded & new plants in the back yard. Now if we can keep the hounds outs. A few new runs of electric fence should work.

Mia is wired on candy this am. I'm expecting a big sugar crash at any second.

Good Friday Update

Its been awhile since I've posted so I figure I'd better update. Last week took a rest week after two straight weekends of MTB racing. My body took a beating as well as my Kona. Getting old is not conducive to MTB racing.

I also started my new job last week. Well Kinda of. Part of my severance stipulation was I had to work three days @ the old place & two @ the new. This week it was the reverse; two @ the new & two @ the old. I got a free pass thanks to the holiday so all ties are now done with the old defunct company(I hope). I'll be making less money but the commute is a little shorter & the place is climate controlled & fairly clean. A real selling point bonus for a guy in maintenance. It's nice not to have to dress in all my Carhartt's to stay warm & it will be even nicer not to sweat my ass off all summer.

I got the first mow of the season in last Monday. It has begun my seasonal fight with the weed whacker. Technically I didn't weed whack last week but if history shows anything I'll have to fight the weed whacker all season. To make things even more interesting I'm going to put out a garden this year too. Hopefully the last freeze is done & I'll get it going this Saturday. Just what I need more yard work. Yeah! Actually I'm pretty excited about fresh home grown veggies.

Training: A recovery week means FTP test this week. Got that out of the way on Tuesday. One whole watt increase. I know massive but a watt is a watt. Wanted to get in a nice ride today but the weather isn't going to cooperate so it looks like more trainer time. No racing this week. Next week hopefully will be another MTB race in Neosho @ the Tour de Tick. Then another week or two off & off to the Syllamo Revenge. A 50 mile MTB race isn't too bright but I got given a free entry so its hard to turn down. Plus I already got my first stupid move of the year out by racing in the mud & snow two weeks ago so its open season on stupid Scott tricks.

Tech WTF?

Gotta love Euros.