Traveling Man

I’m heading out of town again, but unlike George and Dicky it’s not for a race. No, my real job is sending me to the Washington D.C. area all next week to do some upgrades on the phone system of a new hospital we’ve acquired. The weather promises to be shitty and not very bike friendly, so I won’t get to ride at all. Hell, I can’t even promise that I’ll be here every day with any kind of decent blog posts, aside from the Winter Series Race report on Monday morning.


The plan is to race at 1:30 p.m., go home and get cleaned up, then drive my happy ass 6 hours to Northern Virginia. It’s not a bad drive, but I’m sure I’ll be pretty tired after “racing.” I’m looking forward to the race though, and I can’t wait to see if my new 1X9 setup holds up again. Hell, I can’t wait to see if the Space Cowboy can race without his shit breaking apart. Should be fun for all.


In other news, I finally did a singlespeed conversion.



I took all the parts I’d been gathering the last few months and put them to use. You may be asking yourself, “Why do those wheels look so small?” Well, take a closer look:



Yes, that bike has 26 inch wheels. It’s an old Diamondback Response that I had in the shop, and yes, you’ve seen it before. It is the frame and fork of the former “Greatest Short Track Bike On Earth” (or better know as the Greatest Piece Of Shit On Earth) that I used last year in the Winter Series. Since I am only racing my 29er now, I wanted to test out the singlespeed waters with a bike that I didn’t have to commit to during an event. I figured that it would be a good way to see what this singlespeed thing was all about and maybe, just maybe I could swap all the parts over to The Big O if I like it.


Sure, the wheels are the wrong size, but it’s good enough for “testing” purposes. I won’t get the same feel as I do when I ride my big bike, but it should be close enough to see what all the fuss is about. These days I barely ride on 26 inch wheels, but I’m willing to try it for the sake of testing out this new singlespeed setup. It just looks so simple:





Oh yeah, did you notice in the second photo (you know, the one of the whole bike) that I have v-brakes on the back, yet there is a disc brake rotor on the rear wheel? Well, the frame isn’t disc brake compatible, and I was too lazy to remove the rotor. Maybe it’s time I talk to my pal Benson about getting one of those fancy disc brake adaptors he makes. I don’t want to invest a lot of cash in this test bike, but it may be worth it to get the full effect. V-brakes just plain suck.



That’s it for today I guess. I may bring my new singlespeed creation to Northern VA just to cruise around the streets or something, but more than likely I’ll go a whole week without riding anything with wheels. Maybe my hotel has a fitness center with a shitty stationary bike I can ride. Oh joy.