Not Much Party

I missed yesterday.  No one is paying me for this stuff (thankfully.)  I may get into the reasons tomorrow, or maybe I won't.  Who gives a shit.

I really took it easy over the weekend.  It was the series finale for the winter short track, but I didn't bring the party.  With the rest of my heckling crew either out of town or sick, I decided to just bring my buddy Carl out for the day.

With no party responsibilities, it was nice to have my pal with me.  The only thing close we got to heckling was a wee bit of creepy baby hand action.

I did get a little shit from some of the racers for not bringing the party, but that's how it goes sometimes.  Also, in my quest to be what's wrong with this sport, I heard quite a few comments like:

"We need you out there!"

That was nice to hear.

I stayed out there a while, and it was nice to hang out with friends.  They all love Carl.  He loves the attention.  And I loved a nice, relaxing day with good weather.

Back on the home front, I guess I should mention that it was also Anniversary Day for me and Little Miss Sunshine.  She encouraged me to get out of the house for the day (She was on call for work), but that didn't stop me from celebrating.

I cracked open one of my home brews that had been aging for over a year.

Okay, I kid.  Although I did open that beer (and drink it), that's not how we celebrated.  We're actually taking a big trip next week (like we do every year.)  We don't give each other fancy gifts and go out for expensive dinners.  That's just stupid (for us anyway.)  We just have fun together, and gift giving for this occasion is discouraged.  But, that didn't stop me from giving her one anyway.

Yes, we love Star Wars.  And no, it's not the same size as her (only slightly smaller.)  Little Yoda there will train you to use The Force, and bestow wisdom upon you like only a tiny little Jedi Master can.  It's actually pretty rad how he moves around with his lightsaber flailing about.

Carl hates it though.

Meh.  It's what we do.  We've been through a lot of good and bad over the years, and we try to keep this thing going any way we can.  Mostly that's done by having fun, since everyday life can stress you the hell out.

So what if we're a couple of Star Wars nerds.  It's what we do.

See y'all tomorrow I guess.

All Alone

Instead of going up a little bit further to one of the PMBAR checkpoints, I decided that I’d rather just keep riding.  I knew that if I saw someone I knew working at said checkpoint I’d waste most of the day shooting the shit with them.  After that, I wouldn’t feel like riding anymore.  So, I turned around and headed back down Black Mountain.  I stopped when I saw this sign:

I’d never ridden Turkey Pen Gap before, but I’d heard about it.  Also, there was a checkpoint out that way so I figured that I might run into some racers.  I took off, enjoying some fun, fast downhill for a while.  There were quite a few trees down blocking the trail, and a lot of the first part was a vegetable tunnel.

My GoPro (attached to the top of my helmet) kept getting stuck in the trees above me, nearly ripping my head off on quite a few occasions.  I decided to remove it and put it in my pack, taking it out later to record some video when the trail was a little more open.  After a long downhill I came to a big climb, and decided that I’d found a good place to hang out for a while.

I relaxed with a beer and watched for anyone (or anything) that came by.

I hung out there for a good bit but no racers came by.  I heard a bear off in the distance, and I think the fact that I wasn’t making any noise made him a little curious.  The clicking sounds and rustling in the bushes started getting closer, so I decided that I probably should move on.  I mean, I set up a hammock in a bear’s living room so of course they wanted to check me out.  I really didn’t want to doze off and wake up later with a bear snuggling with me.  I’ve encountered them in the wild on camping trips before, so packing up and leaving was a little weird.  I didn’t plan to stay out there all day anyway so I climbed back on my bike and took off.

Turns out I'd setup my hammock in his bathroom, and he just wanted to go pee.

Eventually I decided that I was done riding.  I saw very few racers out there (and no one I knew), so when I ended up back at the intersection of Turkey Pen and Black I figured it was time to head back down to the Ranger station.  I mounted up my GoPro, turned it on, and set out for some rad downhill. 

Video will come later.

 I rolled back to the finish line around four, and I saw that a few teams had come in.  After getting myself cleaned up I grabbed the hammock again and decided to walk back up the trail to see if I could catch some of my people riding to the finish.  I found a good spot a little bit from the end of Black, setup my hammock again, grabbed a beer, and relaxed.

It was so peaceful.

When someone would come by, I would grab the camera in case I knew them.  I saw nothing but strangers.  I fell asleep for a little bit, until some shit came crashing down from the trees.

It was a really windy day, and branches were falling all over the place.  I gave myself fifteen more minutes to stay there to see if I could get a photo of anyone I knew.  Just then, I saw a familiar face.

It was Dicky, hauling ass to get to the finish line.  I yelled something encouraging (too late at this point), but I don’t think he knew it was me.  Oh well, I knew who I was.

I hung out at the star/finish for a while, drank some beers, and heard some of the stories of those out there suffering.  I had a great day in the hills all by myself, and I didn’t feel one bit guilty about it. 

I was a little sad to see the mountains in the mirror on the way home though.

  

What an awesome day.  Just what I needed.

It Was A Good Day

Tired as hell from a long week at work, I had to drag my ass outta bed and get moving somehow. It was gonna take a lot of coffee.

The Force was with me.

I got going, and my goal was to take care of some last minute Christmas shopping.

Delicious IPAs from NoDa Brewing Company here in Charlotte.

I stopped in a couple of local bike shops to pick up some odds and ends and got more than I bargained for...

in the form of the Gentle Ginger test riding kids bikes.

I ended up spending money in three local shops that day (and one local brewery.) I had my bike with me, which meant that I planned to go for a ride. I headed up to the north side of town, with the plan to ride after I stopped in to visit my shop, The Cycle Path.

I hung out there for a while. In fact, too long. I didn't end up riding. Instead, I had a nice, relaxing day. I got a little shopping done (putting a little money into our local economy), socialized, and didn't get caught up in the crazy crowds that are rampant this time of year.

I mean, I even saw the lights on a blimp...

Yeah. I gotta say it was a good day.


I'll be back tomorrow. I know it's Christmas Eve. Big deal.

My Mechanic Has Taken A Vacation

Damn you R2. Just when things start to get busy around here, you take off and mix it up with the ladies. Those are ladies in that photo, right? It’s hard to tell since they are machines. Anyway, I would fire his ass, but since I’m not really paying him I shouldn’t complain. I can handle the workload I guess, but I have to pay closer attention to what I’m doing.


Since I’ve been having issues with chains a-dropping on my 1X9 setup, it was time to figure out what was going on. With the chain watcher thingy in the way, it’s supposed to prevent the chain from dropping, but actually it just made it more difficult to put back on when it did fall off. I think I may have figured out the proper placement though.



I moved it down a little further, and placed it a little closer to the crankset. I did some on the workstand testing, and I couldn’t get the chain to fall down in there no matter how hard I tried. I left as little room as possible.



I think this might be the sweet spot. I did the same to Lunchbox’s bike too, but we haven’t had a chance to test it out on the trail. I’m pretty confident that it will work just fine. I have a little bit of riding planned this week, so I’ll hopefully be back here with a success story. If it does indeed work, then I guess The Dirty Party Cycle will be bringing his bike for some adjustments as well.


The next item on the agenda was something I was unsure about. I’ve been rocking my Cane Creek Ergo 2 Bar Ends for about a year now, and I like them. Well, when I remembered to use them anyway. They are great for climbing, but most of the time I never switched my hand position to use them for that. Plus, my hands would hurt sometimes when they pressed up against them (in the normal hand position), so I started to feel like they were in the way. I noticed that the last few rides I’ve done that I didn’t even use them once. It was time to get them off of there.



I liked them, I really did. I just figured that I would try riding without them for a while though, just to see if I would miss them. Besides, it did save me a little weight when I replaced them with the standard Lizard Skins lock rings.



Even without R2D2 doing all the work, things still went well under the supervision of my pal Boba Fett. He’s a real ball buster, so there was no chance of me slipping up.


I got some other odds and ends wrapped up, and then my pal Space Cowboy dropped by for a visit. We had to setup his new tubeless tires on his primary ride, and then get his spare bike back together. He plans on using it in case of an emergency only, which is a good thing because I’m the one who put it together. That shit could fall apart at any time, and I don’t want to be the one responsible for him having another DNF. He was taking plenty of pictures while I did all the work, so I expect that he will put them on his blog in the near future. You know, as soon as he is done blogging about his wedding and stuff.

I’m out. Y’all just relax here until I come back tomorrow.