ouachita challenge (short version)

awesome race. 1st single speed, 19th overall. way above expectations. ecstatic with how i raced and how the body held up. just got back and not even done unpacking yet. longer version with pics tomorrow. jabber rode amazing and the nano rear/weirwolf front proved a perfect set up. will most definitely have a suspension fork before august.

spring cleaning

tried to make the most out of an ice-ruined day by swinging down to travis's place and giving the jabber a little bit of love after a long winter of neglect broken only by the occasional day of abuse. got everything shined up and virtually race ready for the trip to arkansas. i realize that's a month away but i really don't expect this bike to see much ride time before then unfortunately. everytime i really take the time to go through this bike and clean it up/adjust brakes/new chain/scrub drivetrain/etc. it just reminds me how much i love it and why i was so particular about the build in the first place. a couple pieces have been changed but not many. its light enough and with the nano rear/weirwolf front i just set up for ouachita it will be fast enough that the only thing holding it back will be me and the months that have passed with no technical riding to speak of.

mmm...shiny

this is an explanation of the impetus behind the previous post. travis had this parked out back for just a few hours before all this ice built up.

dams, nipples and wolves

good weather meant lots of gravel miles this week. following sunday's big ride, got in a nice recovery ride with spinner monday night, a noon ride with ogara tuesday, semi-relaxed solo ride wednesday, took thursday off and got out and fought the wind on the maiden voyage for fisty's new wheels. apparently time/stress/miles/salt/snow had taken their toll on the blue alloy nipples and they started breaking all too frequently. travis got them built back up with some brass dt prolocks so they should be good to go for transiowa. since travis had it pulled apart anyway it gave me the right opportunity for my snow/interwolf project. the low tread 38c wtb interwolfs actually worked great on the hard snow pack gravels today. a little more width for comfort/float but rolled super fast. i wasn't totally sold on these as a gravel tire when the gravels were bare cause they kinda skated across the gravel but they rocked today. hopefully the conditions for cirrem will allow me to run them there.

wedneday's ride led to this road...

which led to this dam...perspective sucks, but the "waterfall" is probably 20 feet tall, give or take

my bike is bob barker approved!

yep, fisty got fixed again. following a weather (snowy roads) and health (2-week chest and head crap) related bail out on jingle cross (which pissed me off a bit too much to write about it) my race season seems to be officially over. so, fisty got the rear wheel flipped as well as the 17t boone cog put back on the freehub side (just in case). the snow we have right now is allowing me to still run 32's but much more and it will be time to get started on the wtb interwolf 38c snowy gravel road project. kinda curious to see how they perform. less tread/more float...not sure. just got done with a hard fought 25 miles with wild bill in a cold headwind through fresh snow. a lot of fun but and a lot of work. i definitely need to spend some more time on the bike.

weekend review

spent the weekend in the quad cities completing the DICE cyclocross race series. race #3 was saturday and it was cold...damn cold. a fairly long, stretched out course with a couple fast downhills and a mean run-up that was frozen to the point that my toe spikes couldn't dig in. i felt pretty good and had a really tight yo-yo battle for 5th/6th which i eventually lost. the guy that beat me was a strong rider and it kinda felt like my weeklong head/chest cold finally kicked my ass on the last lap (at least that was my excuse til he beat me worse on sunday). pretty cool course that was a little more wide open than races 1&2 of the series. sunday brought warmer temps, the biggest field of the series and my favorite course of the series. it was fast, a little soft and muddy in spots, had another tough run-up, and had a super fun downhill to a jump. can't say i really expected to be jumping fisty but you kind of had to try to NOT jump off this thing so you might as well put your head down and head right for it. top ten again (9th i think) which ended up getting me 5th overall in the points series. i think i ended up winning half my entry fees back over the course of the four races...not bad for a whole lot of fun. oh...and the vassago fisticuff continues to rock, and making the switch to wtb crosswolf tires is something i should have done a long time ago. these things have tons of traction. for me, cornering at speed is all about confidence. you don't have to ride a set of tires too long before they either give you that confidence or they don't. i won't be racing any other tires for a while. next up...hopefully gonna make it down to iowa city for the single speedo (not a typo) race on sunday of jingle cross. picture low 30's, rain/snow, and a nice blue speedo that goes with the color scheme that fisty is already sporting.

cold and running and jealous of the warm people drinking

sometimes racing is just fun

i really kinda sucked at barriers this weekend

grampa and larsson checking out the action