Well Poo

It's doing that stupid thing outside again. That cold, wet, white, and fluffy thing that prevents me from riding a bike. Snow. This has been one of the reasons i haven't been posting for a while. Absolutely nothing exciting has happened. Now sure i have found ways to entertain myself. Things that are both beneficial (like working out and eating right) and things that are not all that great (the regular college shenanigans). But still no bikes.

Stupid Midwest Snow

I guess it is not entirely that i haven't "done" anything with a bike. I did get out my single speed road bike (yet another single speed) and clean it. Man did it need it. Paper towel was black from the rims. No wonder i couldn't stop very well at the end of last year. Just need it to warm up so i can get it dirty all over again.

Spring Cleaning

I also came to the realization that i really need some QR skewers on this bike. Really inconvenient to be at college without all the necessary tools. So thats all i've been doing. Still not a whole lot of excitement, but what you gonna do.

Oh and my wrist still hurts. I can bend it back almost all the way now, but my palm still hurts a lot when i bench. So i haven't benched in like a month. My titties are shrinking...

Enough complaining, time to go work out, here is a sweet vid.

Part 1 of 2 is Finally Here!

So after a month of waiting my Token Titanium/Alloy Skewers are here. This is the first set of skewers i bought. And because i thought they were long lost i got an extra pair (USE Tula Spin Stix). Which aren't here. Of course not.

So i haven't had time to try em out yet. Just look at em, touch em, and weight em.

Light huh?

Very surprising. Thought for sure they would be at least 50grams. How nice of them to make it lighter. I did't have time to try them on my bike. And now that i am at school i don't have my bike.

And why was i at home? Just preparing for Spring Break 2011. Getting all the necessities.

Yes i  have a drag suit. From my many years of swimming. So me and Boner and Zombie and a couple other ladies are going on a cruise down in the Caribbean. Should be quite a time. Sure the only problem is that i will be doing many stupid things and eating too much and not being able to work out like i can while i'm here at school. So there's that. But it will be a good time.

Oh and the weather here is just delightful. Supposed to hit 61 here in a few days. Hopefully i can get out for a bike ride. Whelp gotta go work out.

My Unprofessional and Premature Niner One 9 Review

This coming review is highly unreliable. I have only really ever ridden one other 29er single speed in my life. It is now my long lost love. A 2007 Raleigh XXIX. Rigid and single. Another reason you should disregard most of what i say is because i have only ridden my new bike once. Indoors. For a few hours and even less miles. So think of these coming words as a First Impressions review comparing my old bike to my new. Here it goes...

First thing i noticed was actually during the final stages of the build up. The EBB. Those stupid things are just a pain in the butt. Seriously. To shift the EBB to the right place you have to put an allen wrench in the hole in the hole in the side of the EBB and shift the crankset abound so it actually pushes on the allen wrench. There has got to be something i am missing? Perhaps a tool? Anyways, this is just the one thing that bothers me. But everything is just awesome.

Needs Some Of These

The second thing i noticed while riding the bike is the acceleration. HOLY CRAP the thing moves. Just about flipped over backwards. Now this is mostly because of the fact that the bike weighs probably close to ten pounds less then my old Raleigh (by "my old Raleigh" i actually mean "my Dads Raleigh i sort of borrowed for an extended period of time"). Most of the Lbs coming from the massive WeirWolf 2.55 up front and the Maxxis Ardent 2.4 in the rear. Both with heavy tubes. Compared to the light wheelset and light Schwalbe Racing Ralph 2.25's on my new bike, they are beasts.

The third thing i noticed while riding was the feel of the suspension fork vs. the rigid fork. Now this took me some time to get used to. The Raleigh had a non-suspension corrected fork. Real low and real agile and real clean. The first time i went out on my Niner it felt a bit... sketchy. I really wasn't used to the extra few inches you sink down and when your weight shifts forward. Kinda made me nervous about everything. But after an hour of riding it around Ray's Indoor MTB i started thinking it was the best thing ever. It really made me excited for the Brown County Breakdown this year, becuse last year i did it on the Raleigh and after 40 miles thought my hands were going to just fall off (really wreck my career as a hand model). Maybe to the 60 or 75? Just have to wait and see.

Whelp time for me to go to class. Hopefully this shed just a shard of light on those who are thinking of purchasing a Niner One 9. I highly recommend it. And in a few months when this snowpocalypse is over, i will write a review when i ride it on some good old dirt.

Vid stolen from BikeRumor

Ray's Indoor MTB for the Weekend

I have put off posting about Ray's Indoor MTB for the past couple days because i have been trying to put on some weight for when we are stranded inside the dorms from the Snowmageddon 2011. But all was lost because it is now over and it wasn't nearly as bad as some were saying. Although it was enough to cancel all my classes until 11am today and one more class at 1 has been cancelled so i only have one class! Nice!

Now to the drive down there on Friday night. We (me and my dad) ended up going up there with about five other gentlemen. So we packed our bikes in a U-Haul and stuck it behind a buddies F-350. And went on our way in a rented minivan (which, by the way, are crazy machines). With so many interesting characters it kept the ride from having any dull moments. We arrived at our hotel about midnight and went straight to bed because we planned on arriving at Ray's as soon as they would let us in.

The Journey Begins...

So now we are at Ray's. In a few words, it was friggin' awesome.We started out riding the XC Loop, which is about 3/10ths of a mile long. And even though it was short, it had quite a bit crammed in. From a pump track to steep descents and inclines to a few skills things scattered about. After a few laps it really got your blood flowing. Now on to the Skills Section. You could really tell they spent some time designing these areas. There was a Beginner, Advanced, and Expert. None of which, even the Beginner, were even slightly boring. And the only place i really crashed hard was on the Beginner... um yaaaaaaa. So not too proud of that but it happened. To my defense i wasn't riding my own bike. I had just let my dad try mine out so i was stuck with his squishy 26er. So i thought to myself, "How bout i try out the full suspension out on the rocky section by going as fast as humanly possible". Well as soon as i hit the rocks i also hit the only big rock that wasn't set down in the concrete. Now i saw it a spit second before i hit it and slammed on my brakes. Between the suspension compressing, my weight being shifted forward, and hitting the large loose rock, i went over the handle bars (don't tell my dad). It seemed to happen in slow-mo. But it hurt right away. I protected my body with my hands and only seemed to slightly bump my ribs. But my hands.... ouch. They are bruised and i have been unable to grab anything in the past few days. Although the really important thing is that my dads nice expensive bike was uninjured. Thank goodness!.

Her Inaugural Ride

Ok enough about my injuries. Back to the Skills Section. So as you can tell everything there is fun (except for falling) and the expert section is just as ballin'. This was after my whole episode of falling so i really didn't spend a whole lot of time over there because it is usually a good thing to be able to hold onto the handlebars without pain. I did spend enough time to see that some parts of it were challenging but others were quite easy just intimidating. Oh and i saw one of they guys who we went with tearing it up over there. But enough about his accomplishments, my hands hurt...

So that is about the lowdown on the place. You should go. Now. Especially because it is likely a tornado of snow outside right now where ever you live in the Midwest. And if you are lucky someone from Milwaukee is with you to show you all the great places to eat (and order baked oatmeal!). Oh and did i mention Heather Irmiger was there?

Got to ride a lap behind her ;)

Next time will be my unprofessional review of my new Niner One 9.

Vid...


Whistler Bike Park From Top To Bottom from Jack on Vimeo.