I'm in love

I have now had the opportunity to ride my new bike three times now and I feel that I can now make some observations about the ride.
It rides really well... there.

OK, honestly the thing is amazing. I cannot tell you how fast it feels. The handling is crisp and responsive and it's incredibly easy to take it off the ground. All in all it just feels light. I have not weighed the bike yet because I'm afraid of what I will find out, it feels like it's insanely light, but it's probably only about 5 lbs lighter than the Enduro. The bike is responsive, light, and fast. What more can I say, it's probably the nicest bike I've ever ridden.
My only problem with it is that I am not in good enough shape for it right now. Every time I'm riding it I feel like the bike wants to go, but I'm just don't have the leg strength to go all day at race tempo yet. One day I hope that I'll be able to make the most of my new race bike, honestly I hope that's February to be honest.

Pictures and a parts list to come soon.

A stupid idea

You know it is a bad idea when I shoot an email to Jared or Jono saying, "hey, this looks stupid, let's do it". Well that is exactly what I did when I found The Most Horrible Thing Ever.

Yes, I know, I know. Racing in February is not a cool thing. No, it is actually cold, possibly even freezing. All the more worth it.

And yes a also realized that it is just one week before my senior art show goes up. Thats ok, too, as all my work is done.

What I do find to be a bad idea is that I will get back from Italy exactly a month before the event which leaves me with 4 precious weeks of training before this beast.

January is going to be fun and full of riding.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Yes, that means that finals are here. That is probably why none have us have posted in a while. And also why I shouldn't be posting right now. But I figure this would be a stress outlet while I don't have time to ride (don't ask). What I am looking forward to however is Thursday spent building up someones bike and maybe a ride. And then a Friday night of celebration (my senior show will either have been approved or failed by then). Then exams and final projects to attend to until Wednesday. Thank goodness for the looming break and trip to Italy behind all the chaos.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just realized that I deleted one of the logos that I was supposed to email to my professor! Which means that I submitted the wrong logo for my final! Damn it!

Got to go fix this before it becomes fubar.

Leesburg

I promised a post about my first race of next season and here it is. My first race is going to be on April 18th, in Leesburg, VA, for the Leesburg Baker's Dozen. I know that it's a little odd for me to be announcing this right now, especially since I can't tell you if I'm going solo, two man, or even three man, but there are several reasons for this.

1) Publicly announcing my intention to do something now forces me to train for it, no just waiting for race day and then showing up... I have to be prepared.

2) This will be the debut for my dream cross country bike that I'm building up right now. I'm planning on heading down to the shop after classes today to start putting together an order so that I can have more than just a frame and a fork sitting in my living room.

3) I'm skipping my cousin's wedding for this race.
It's not that I don't want to be at his wedding, it's just that this was the race that got me addicted to endurance racing, if it weren't for this race there wouldn't even be a dream XC rig. I really do wish Matt and Jess all the best, but they just should have chosen a better weekend to get married, or alternatively hold the ceremony in the pits at the race.

There you go, the first race on the calender for next season.

Why I want you to livestrong

Someone asked me recently why I was taking part in the LIVESTRONG challenge set up by Fatty. Many would assume it was because I like bikes, therefore I like Fatty and Lance Armstrong, and would therefore do something involving them. To a point true, but not at the heart of the matter. What really caused me to start my fundraising campaign also caused me to start wearing a LIVESTRONG wrist band 4 years ago. I have lost three people to cancer. Two great aunts, one of whom I watched battle brain cancer as I was growing up. The third person that I lost I never knew. My grandfather died when my dad was a kid. Never meeting him, only having photos to remind me of him have made me realize how devastating this disease is.

It's been many years since cancer has affected a person in my life. But this past month Andrea's father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. And again I was reminded of how cancer is everywhere. So with that in mind I jumped on Fatty's request for team members and renewed my support of the cause I began supporting a dollar at a time in high school. So in honor of Mr. Behrer and in memory of Curtis Jones, I will raise money for the Armstrong Foundation. And as an extra incentive to those of you reading if I not only match my goal of $250 but surpass $600, I will ride a century on my fixie. (For those non-cyclist readers that means riding a hundred miles on a bike with one gear that you can't coast on.)

So come on and support a good cause. I don't care if you donate, volunteer, or spread the word, just make sure we get as many people fighting this disease with as many resources as possible.

Why Livestrong?

Note from Breaker- I set out today to write a serious post but I think there may have been a joke or two that slipped in there. I have decided that I will not actively try to get readers to donate to my Livestrong page in my post (I'll link it here though just in case you're easily swayed) and instead just tell you why I feel that you should make a donation to anyone (that's a part of Team Fatty of course). I'll have another post coming up soon where I will make an important announcement about the first race of the season next year.


The question has been asked of me,

"Jared, you hate people, why are you doing the Livestrong Challenge? Is it just to have an excuse to go for a bike ride?"

I think that I need to address these concerns because if I am going to go around begging people for money I had better be prepared to defend why I think that this is a good cause, especially since I have already begged my parents to donate to this particular organization on more than one occasion.

First of all, I do hate people. Not all people, obviously only the stupid ones, and if you are smart enough to support Team Pink Racing than you are not one of those people. It is true though that if you were to take a random sampling of the world population as a whole I'm quite sure that well over 50% of them would fall into my, "what an idiot category."

Be that as it may, I do take pride in the fact that most people don't know that I hate them. I consider myself very good at pretending to listen, pretending to care, and pretending to provide an educated opinion. In the ultimate attempt to make it appear that I care about humanity in general and not just about my selective group of friends I will occasionally do some charity work, be it helping my dad take some kids from Over the Rhine to Louisville for an afternoon, riding the Tour de Cure, or even donating money that I don't really have to give up to a worthy cause.

Now I have breached the subject of riding. In many ways the cyclist is the ultimate at the fine art of slight of hand. The charity ride allows us to have an excuse to ride that is so good that even we can't talk ourselves out of doing it. We aren't getting together for a group training ride, we are raising money and/or awareness for a problem/organization/evil corporate sponsor. This allows us to feel good as we neglect family, jobs, and personal hygiene.

This ride is different.

Honestly I have considered at different times never doing another charity ride again because I don't feel a need to hide the fact that I'd rather be riding and I don't enjoy fund raising for any reason, and doing a Livestrong Challenge because I really think that it's a good cause and it has quickly become the ultimate charity ride in the country.

This really isn't just an excuse to ride. Steve and I are making this our official stupid event of the year, which certainly doesn't mean that we won't do anything else stupid, just that we aren't going to do the Hotter than Hell Hundred or another Allamuchy or anything like that.

I think that this is a good enough cause to warrant putting my time, energy, and money into and I believe that if you think about it you'll agree, so what are you waiting for, pick a link on the side bar there and donate to one of the Team Pink members.

Not that it matters or anything, but remember that we are also helping Team Fatty in the quest to become the largest and highest earning team in the history of the Livestrong Challenge.

New Info for Team Fatty: Fighting for Susan

Today Fatty has released all the information for the Livestrong challenge. I have just joined and later today I expect Roadie Steve and Jared to join up too. Now once we have all joined, we want you to help. We need you all to donate, any amount, anything you can give. You can even join if you want, but every donation to our pages helps us, and most of all, any donation helps the Livestrong foundation.

If you want to support the fight against cancer, then donate some cash, and help out a great cause.

The links to donate will be on the right side of our site. Just click and then donate.

We will post more a bit later and have all the links up later today.

-Jono

Building up bikes

Seeing as Jared is building up a bike from the frame up and I will be making some minor upgrades to my main racer in the spring.

So here is my list that I am posting for others to make suggestions:

Saddle: World Trail Bikes Shadow V
Seat Post: Thomson Elite
Pedals: Time Atac XS
Grips: ? preferably pink, but must work with grip shift

Here are my suggestions for Jared's build.

Wheels: Mavis Crossmax SL or custom built DT Swiss
Headset: Kris King Pretty in Pink
Stem: Thomson or Ritchey WCS
Handlebars: Ritchey WCS Alu
Grips: ODI Lock-on pink edition
Breaks: Avid Juicy or Elixer (non-carbon knowing your riding style)
Shifters: X-O pod-shifters, or pick up a set of X-9 twist grip and you can take the unused X-9s from my Scalpel: save a bit of cash)
Rear Derailleur: X-9
Front Derailleur: XTR (why not save some money and go with XT, only a little heavier)
Chain: SRAM PC-990 Nickle Plaited
Cassette: Deore XT
Tires: Maxxis Ignitors or Continental Speed King (this should be your last choice so we can all test them)
Cranks: Shimano XT Hollowgram w/external BB or FSA Afterburnner w/external BB
Saddle: Shadow V
Bottom Bracket: Shimano or FSA External BB


Hope you all are having a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Addiction

I may have an addiction. I spent last night out in the back yard breaking in the conquest that I purchased from a friend, and while I was out there sprinting around my make-shift cross course I was trying to figure out how on earth I can possibly pay for the parts (and to be honest even the frame) of the mountain racer that I am building up.

Not only am I spending money that I don't have, but I am actually at a bit of a loss as to what I want to put on this bike. I always have a dream bike floating around in my head, but it's more like a downhill bike than a cross country rig... OK, it's actually totally a north shore style bike end of story. What I need to do is figure out what parts would make this bike an amazing race bike, mostly for endurance races.

Here's what I've thought of so far.

Wheels: Mavis Crossmax sl or custom built DT swiss
Headset: Kris King Pretty in Pink
Stem: ??
Handlebars: ??
Grips: ??
Breaks: ??
Shifters: X-O pod-shifters
Rear Derailleur: X-9
Front Derailleur: XTR
Chain: SRAM PC-990 Nickle Plaited
Cassette: Deore XT
Tires: ??
Cranks: ??
Saddle: Shadow V
Bottom Bracket: ??

Wow, lots of decisions left to make... and lots of sperm and blood to sell to be able to afford it all.

A highly edited post

Disclaimer: This post has been highly edited for our writers safety.

I got a new ______ this weekend. I know what you are all saying, "You all ready have too many ______." To which I have usually replied, "The number of ______ one should have is n+1 where n is the number of ______ you already have." It is pretty simple, this ______ is perfect for what I specialize in, ____, _________ ______. The ___________ _________ _ is an amazing ____ ______ with _ _____ of ______ ______ and ______ weighing in at just over __ lbs (with all of the ______ _____ I've made). I am really looking forward to _________ it once the __________ gets better. Too bad that won't happen for a while.

or

Enjoy the snowy weather.

Changes in the Industry

Why is it that when something works, and works well, people have to change it? This happens in everything we do but lately it has been happening a lot in the bike industry. Lets take a look, shall we?

First off we have Banjo Brothers. This is a great company, with some really nice products. Their large messenger bag was very nice when they first produced it, but then they decided to change a few things. The biggest thing they changed was the outside material. It was truck tarp but then they changed it to a normal ballistic nylon with truck tarp on the inside. This is fine, this is great, why not change it if it still works. The thing that they changed that doesn't work anymore is the shoulder strap and the way it all connects.

Here is the old version(which works):

Here is the new version(which I've already broken):

Now, why did they have to change this? Why did they have to make it "new and improved"? I say that they didn't make anything better and just tried to save money.

Another problem is when a company who has made awesome products starts to create products with shoddy construction. This is the same bag that I broke before. I just got it back from warranty replacement about a week to two weeks ago and I found this today:

Other companies have done basically the same thing; taking products and making them "better" when in truth they have made them even worse. Another thing companies do is ride on a great companies name. They take a great companies name and slap it on some of the worst bikes or products I've ever seen. 

Pacific bicycles is known for this. They have taken so many great companies and have made their bicycles into crap. Sure they are cheap, but you cant really replace anything on the bike with something better. Schwinn was a great company that was taken over by Pacific Cycles. Now they are some of the crappiest bikes made today. 

Another couple companies are Motobecane and Mercier which were taken over by Bikes Direct. These two companies were awesome back when they were doing their own thing, but then the business crashed and the name was taken over by another shoddy company later on. 

I am wondering how much longer this can go on. How much longer can we stand these kind of "improvements" or getting something that we think is great for cheap? 

I am tired of things starting as a great item and then becoming something you wouldn't give your worst enemy. 

Remember kids, you get what you pay for.

Just my rant for the day.

-Jono

PS: I just sent the bag's company another email to see about repair or replacement, and this is the message I got back:

"Oh, for for f*&^'s sake. Just send me your address again and I'll send out a fresh bag.."

Seems that someone wasn't too happy that I was unhappy with the craftsmanship and spoke out about it.

Ah Well

A Weekend Without Biking

Last weekend was interesting, I went for an entire weekend without going on a real bike ride. Honestly I did not even spend time in the back yard breaking bikes on the trials toys. Homework, football games, and other responsibilities conspired to keep me far away from my bikes.

While most people would assume that a weekend without a ride would somehow not involve any riding. Those people aren't me. I did ride to the football game on Saturday and then home from that game, in the rain and cold, but I suppose it says something about me that I don't count that as a ride.

I really hate not getting a chance to ride on a weekend. It's such a perfect opportunity to go out and spend some time on the mountain or get a long road ride in. Instead I was doing homework Friday afternoon, was at the E&H football game all day Saturday, and of course Sunday is always spent sitting and watching football. While it feels good to get some work done, and I love watching football, but it's just not a good feeling to wake up on Monday morning with no more mileage on your legs than you had on Friday.

It's one of the downsides of the off-season. The weather is bad, school is stacking up, and it's so easy to find something else to do that keeps you off the bike. I have to say that I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving break when I can make up for weekends like this, and all the days during the week when all I get is to and from school by trying to ride off all the turkey.



"The sun never sets on those who ride into it."

Weasel Boogers and Other Whimsical Musings

So when you ask a trumpet player, a geography major, a sociology major, and an art procrastinator (doesn’t deserve to be called a major) to write an article, what do you think you will get? Well, here it goes. Except in our case it is more like three bikers and the only person who is willing to put with said bikers for any length of time.

The most important part of any article is reaching your word limit, which in our case is 509 words. Now that the hard part is done let us get down to the meat and potatoes. Any good humor column has got to have a shtick. Now you ask what the heck a shtick is. Well, a shtick is a gimmick, something to catch your attention and make you laugh. We are mainly going for the latter. So we will borrow from the great Dave Berry. We will work a random word into the body of our article. Or in our case two words. What words you might ask? We will let you know at the end.

So what do three mountain bikers do on any given Monday night? Well we celebrate the first day of the week with a tradition we like to call Happy Monday. Does this involve copious amounts of alcohol, you might ask. Nope. All Happy Monday entails to us is a late night bike ride. Now you are thinking that we are crazy. This time you are correct. Why, you ask, do we ride around on back country trails in the dark? Our response: it is just flat out fun.

The only time it is not fun is when you plow head first into a tree and wind up spending the night at the hospital. The hospital stay and ensuing bills are not the worst part. The worst part is having to find the right sized nipple wrench to true you tacoed wheel. Often this involves digging through handful of different colored nipple wrenches to find that elusive green nipple wrench. (Why am I here and why do they keep saying nipple wrench). Just to let you know, anything in parentheses from here on out is from the peanut gallery that is our lone female contributor.

It is at this point that we would like to ask our reading audience for some assistance. Should we be allowed to write another installment, we would like to have a random word or two to incorporate into the article. So just send your words to pinkracing@hotmail.com and we will use our favorite. Just please keep in mind that this is for the school newspaper, so even if your word is our favorite, if the editor does not approve of it, we will have to choose another. At least for the published version.

So we are at the end of the article and as promised we must give you the words. Well, we sure hope you guessed this one right. The words are “nipple wrench.”

The End. There! 509 words on the dot.


Jared , Rodie Steve, Jess, and Trials Dude

5:30 am

Some people may wonder what sane people would be doing up at 5:30 in the morning. I think that if you ask that you are probably almost as insane as we are. Last night we went with some friends (some of whom don't even ride bikes) to go see Quantum of Solace at 12:01. After the movie Roadie Steve, my housemate Joe, and I decided that it would be a good idea to drive down to Kingsport and get ourselves some hot off the line Krispy Kreme doughnuts. It was a great success, eating our doughnuts and having a good time. Of course, now I'm a bit tired.... but it's nothing that a few hours of napping through the day can't fix.

Team Fatty: Fighting For Susan

Yesterday Fat Cyclist announced that he is starting "Team Fatty: Fighting For Susan." This team is a cycling related team but it is more of a contest on who can have the most people and most money raised for the Livestrong foundation. I know that I am going to join as a member and my girlfriend Jessica is going to join, too. I am also pretty sure that Jared and Steve are going to join up too. We want you however, to help out and be a part of something great. We want you to donate some money through us to Team Fatty and thereby donating to the Livestrong Foundation. 

If you all don't know about Livestrong, then you should check out their website. They take around 10-20 % of the money they receive to go towards keeping the foundation running and pay for salaries and things of that nature. The rest of the money goes towards helping cancer patients and cancer research. 

So we want you to help, any amount is great. There is no amount that is too large or too small. 

This will all be starting around December 1st, so check back on the site between now and then and we will have more details for you. Save up and help a great cause and help break a record. 

- Jono

Dark

Friday Roadie Steve and I took a friend on his first real mountain bike ride. Being the kind and considerate people that we are we may have gotten down to the shop a little bit late, but we decided to make this up by driving to the top of FS 90 rather than making our poor newbie ride from Damascus to the top. After taking our friend's truck to the top of the mountain and getting the bikes off we set out down the backside of FS 90 and I was immediately struck by how slow our newbie was going... this was going to be a long day.

As we hit the first bit of single track my outlook changed, Roadie Steve shot off the front and I held the rear to clean up any messes but he did just fine. We moved slowly but consistently for quite some time, and it wasn't until the rocks got off cambered with roots cutting through than our newbie even put a foot down.

We continued along feathercamp ridge for quite some time watching the sky get darker and darker, and I must say regretting the fact that I hadn't tossed the trinewt into my bag, it's not like I don't have space. The trail was getting harder to see, and often I was simply trusting the bike to take the bumps that my eyes were failing me on. At this point I knew that we were in trouble, because we hadn't hit my favorite trail yet, and it gets dark early on beachgrove.

At the top of beachgrove it was beginning to transition from dusk to dark, still I announced, though I'm sure nobody cared, that I was intending to get down this thing without tapping. I took the lead and was heading down the trail at approximately 1/5 of my regular speed. Despite my care in picking lines, on the third switchback I put my foot down for the first time. The trail was dark enough that I was only picking up vague shape and contours with my eyes and was then using my knowledge of the trail to pick the best way through (and to figure out where the heck I was). Once I got through the last rock garden, where I had to tap twice, I started really moving for several reasons:

1. I was almost out of here

2. It's relatively flat from here on out

3. The moon can get through the lack of leaves down here and now I can see a little bit better

As I'm sure you know from watching Robin Hood Men in Tights, thinking you can see and actually being able to see are two different things, which is why with about 200 yards left to go on the trail I hit something, locked up the back wheel trying to save the fall, and then ended up spinning out the bike. I ended up hitting a tree sideways... with the back wheel of the bike pointing down hill and the front pointing up. Once I got over the "what the heck happened" aspect of not being on the ground with the bike in the wrong direction I uneventfully made it out to the road, where I had to wait for quite some time before our poor abused newbie and Roadie Steve got out.

With only 4 miles on the Creaper Trail between us and the shop and enough moonlight to almost see we cruised back into town, often two abreast... although incoming headlights on more than one occasion threatened to cause me to ride off the trail and trestles were not much fun.
To be honest with you as a mountain biker I considered this to be great fun, and while I am hitting myself for not having my light with me... there is not guarantee this won't happen again. As to the all important question of weather Stephen will ever ride with us again... well that remains to be seen, but come on don't you want to join us on our next ride. OK, not the next one, Steve already wrote about that.

Lost

After the group ride yesterday (which Jared might post about later), Jared and I agreed to get up this morning and hit the trails in Bristol. A little moist after an evening of rain, but otherwise beautiful on a crisp, fall day. The only constraint that we had was that I had to be back on campus by 2 for a group project. Not bad seeing as we left my apartment at 10 am.

We arrived at the trail head map and sketched out a nice little loop to ride. Setting out, I felt good. We did the normal hike a bike thing (Bristol's trails have some unridable features such as steps on climbs and horrible erosion). Then we settled into some fun descents and a few decent climbs. Then we came to an unridable descent. But I noted a second almost trail that seem to wind up at the bottom. After finally getting to the bottom of the crazy descent/ sketch trail, we had several option.

A) Go strait up the next hill... completely unridable.
B) Go down trail next to creek bed ... if it was a trail.
C) Take clearly blazed trail... that led in wrong direction.

We chose to A and hiked our bike to the top of the next ridge. And kept hiking. And then made an important discovery. The "trail" that we had come up was actually a really bad run off. This is where we began making decisions. And by decisions I mean bad ones. We decided to not go back the way we came. No... we had worked too hard to get to the top of the ridge (20 odd minutes of climbing). But if we kept going on the ridge line, we felt we would find a trail for sure. Unless of course you can't walk along the ridge line because of all of the thorns.

So why not go for that trail at the bottom of the hillside? Ok.

So down the hillside we slid. Only to find it was a drainage ravine.

Lets follow this ravine down to the lake? Cool.

Lets keep with the creek to the the lake? Fine.

And that is how we wound up back where we started, with choices A, B, and C. This time we chose C. And C involved lots of hiking, curing of erosion, and little riding. One fall on the already sore knee later and we found a trail juncture.

Right or strait. Strait.

Right or left on a gravel road. Right.

How come I can see the speedway and Volunteer Parkway?

And that is how we found ourselves on the backside of the park.
We (rightly) chose to ditch the dirt and take to the pavement to find the car again. So 40 minutes of riding through Bristol later and I was more excited to see Jared's car then I ever have been in my life. Next time we do a morning ride, I am eating a lot more then 2 toaster struedels! Needless to say I was way late for my group's meeting (which thankfully was canceled. This brings Jared and I to 2 death marches in 2 days. A feat which I hope I never reach again. (Want to do it again next week?)

Idea for a Bike

I stumbled upon an awesome street/dirt jump bike on the forums. This guy uses an industrial Sharpie to draw these designs onto the bike. I think it is about time to try this (with some color) on the F1. If all goes well, the new Scalpel might get some too.

In other news I have been running a fever, had a sore throat, and in general been feeling downright shitty all week. This has meant, little riding this week. But tomorrow is looking good. I am feeling much better after taking a day off of everything and feel like a short jaunt through the woods.

Whats even better is the Jared and I are supposed to take a New-Be out for his first Iron Mountain ride. Should be fun. I hope he comes out better than I did!

Now off for more Sharpie scheming!

Google

I was wandering around the internet the other day and I came across something so cool I could barely contain my excitement.
OK, so that may have been a bit of an overstatement, but it just goes to prove that Google is the most all-powerful corporation ever.
Google's store has a bike jersey, now it's not pink, but it is pretty sweet looking, and the light color would make it great for wearing on those really hot summer days.
It just goes to show you that you never know when you will run into a really cool piece of kit, even if it does cost as much as a Brooks.

The School Ride

Here I am sitting in the instrumental rehearsal hall, still in my bibs from this morning ride, just thinking about how wonderful it is to finally be on a bike again. I had been riding to school pretty much every day when the school year started in August. Took a couple days off to take stuff to and from school in my truck, but once everything was set up, I was riding every day, and it felt good. 

But of course, life had to intervene. I started having to do things late at school so I would drive. My girlfriend would be staying over with me, and I would drive us both to school early in the morning because she had an 8 o'clock class. I twisted my ankle and thought I had broken it or torn something serious, luckily it was just a sprain but I still used that as an excuse to drive to school(the ankle is better, still not fully healed though).  And I just kept finding reasons to drive to school instead of riding my bike.

Then the pledge week started. My girlfriend, Jessica, decided to pledge into a sorority, so she was not going to really be able to see me at all during the evenings because of pledge activities. So I decided to start driving that week so I could spend as much time as I could with her. Then being away from her caused me to stress and start smoking again. 

So, smoking, not riding, getting fatter. All those lovely things started happening. I felt depressed and I didn't really want to ride any. I couldn't make it up the hills that I used to be able to power up with no problem. The only riding I did from September 23rd to November 3rd was one short 17 minute session on the rollers, and some riding around campus on various bikes, along with some trials work at the house and campus.

I kept finding reasons not to ride and kept the smoke stack going. Finally, I decided to ride to school again. I was wasting money on gas and cigarettes and I couldn't afford it anymore. 

Then I realized something on the ride; I needed this time to myself. I needed to have the wind blowing on my face, the feeling of going my own pace in life. I realized that without that morning commute, I was worthless during the day. I was worthless at night. All I wanted to do is sit and do nothing but surf the net and watch T.V. 

So, I am finally riding to school again. I am feeling better and stronger every day. I have lost quite a bit of fitness, but hopefully I will be able to regain some of that this winter. 

The moral is, if you start finding reasons to not ride, realize that its not good for you(unless its an injury). You need to find reasons to ride and feel that wind on your face. Go out for a ride, I promise that if you look around and see what's going on and don't just focus on pounding the pedals, you'll have a great time. 

- Jono 

No Shave November

November is upon us and for those of us here at pink racing that means two things:
1. The memory of being in racing shape is starting to seem more and more fuzzy. The words, "we used to do this ride in two hours?" can now be heard an hour and a half into a ride that has not even reached the ridge line yet. Last season may be a fading memory, but next season still feels far enough away to not be overly concerned that many of my days consist of nothing more than riding to school and then riding home a few hours later.
2. It's time for No Shave November! I'm sitting here right now with three days of scruff on my face and to be honest I already miss my beard. I look way too young without it. I was even carded at the ABC Store the other day. It will be worth it though because at the end of the month it will be Mustache Monday, a holiday that demands pictures and I assure you they will be provided.

In other news, Jono and I have started setting up a trials park in the back yard. It's still definitely a work in progress, but it's fun to have something to play around on.

Jared

Halloween

So now that I've had some time to recover from what I believe was a successful party up at the Tipple J Ranch I think it's time to post a picture of the pink racing team in costume.
I suppose now it's time to go get to work, got to pay for that last bike purchase, but more on that when the bike comes in.
Jared

Why does changing one part lead to several parts?

So, I have almost finished my trials bike....again. I started out with a beater trials bike, which was fun but I was never able to really get into it since it didn't really fit me. So, I bought a new frame and fork, and thought that would be good to change things out so I could have a better feeling bike. Well, one thing led to another and a fork and frame came out to be a bit more. Heres the way it went:

1 Frame and fork led to a new headset.

2 Which led to a new stem so I could use the awesome headset cap. 

3 The stem led to new bars.

4 New bars led to new grips. 

5 The frame came with a new ISIS bottom bracket which led to new cranks. 

6 New cranks led to a new set of pedals. 

7 The cranks needed a new cog since the vice is broken and I can't get the old one off my old cranks. 

8 Then I found out that the bolts for my brake mounts were too long and that my brake wouldn't hit my old rim as well as I needed. This led to a new wheelset a new brake mounts.

So, my slight change outs basically came out to be a new bike. The only thing left that is off the old bike is the brakes and brake levers. Who knows, I have to fix the rear brake. Though I have said to Jess that I will not buy anything else for a while. But I do kinda need to rebleed my maggie. Yeesh. What to do, what to do. Guess I have to wait to spend money again.

Lesson learned.

NEVER try to just switch out one part, it will never work. You will always find something else to make the bike work better.

Jono (trials dude with a spending problem)

10/31/08

Well, there is an update to this problem. The rims work great with the brakes, but it seems that the snail cams don't really work to hold the wheel where it is supposed to be. Maybe the old snail cams will work. Too bad that the nice threshold tensioners dont work, just because the axle is too thick. Maybe I can drill it out some.

Anyways, NEVER try to change out one part. Something else will go wrong and the whole bike wont work to your specifications.

Peace.

Jono

Rain on my Parade

I had been looking forward to Friday for almost the entire week. School was a drag and I needed a break. Steve and I had decided that we would head down to Bristol after classes ended and get in some riding on some trails down there that he had found. Wednesday I found out that my cartography class was canceled on Friday and it seemed that the world was conspiring to help me relax a bit.
As I picked up Steve Friday after class it started to rain a little bit. As we swung by Steve’s place it was really raining. We loaded up the bikes and then drove down south. The cold rain was bracing as we set out on the ride. The paved path around the lake made for a good warm-up and then fate arrived. There was a dam with water flowing over it and I decided to ride across it. I got about half way when the wet leaves got the better of me and the bike flew down the slide. It was like going down on a downhill run, I slid perhaps a foot and was just watching the bike as it slid away. The trails were great fun even if they were wet, slick, and covered in those darn wet leaves. Nothing beats a good ride on new trails with a big bruise on your hip and rain falling the entire time.
It just goes to prove that the worst day of riding is much better than the best day of pretty any thing else.
Jared

Bikes, parts, and problems

Well, we cant let steve have all the fun, now can we?

I'm Jono, the trials dude, the weird guy trying to jump up on stuff with his bike. 

Ive been doing trials for a while and having a lot of fun with my old bike and have just upgraded to a new frame and fork. It works great and feels great, but there is a problem with the bike; how can you jump your bike up on stuff when your rear brakes wont really touch your rear rim? 

Well, you can't. 

So I've bought a new wheelset with a wider rear rim, and I'm wondering what I should get now, the really good freewheel, the lesser freewheel for cheap, and what about brake mounts? The new or the old? So many things to try and figure out before I can even touch the bike again. 

Bummer.

We will just have to see what happens.

-Jono

leaves+rocks+roomate=hospital

So Jared and I went out for a nice spin through the woods today... at least I thought it was a nice ride to start out. The few leaves on the trees were still vibrant. But when there are few leaves on the trees, there are many leaves on the slightly wet and rocky trail. Yet it was a beautiful day and neither of us had to work so we went for a ride. 

Great climb up 51 and FR 90 (though climb showed that both of us are out of shape), awesome start on the Iron, got into the groove early. And then an unseen slick rock sent me into the bushes. And said bushes caught my bar and sent me spinning across the trail and headfirst down the slope. 

The next two miles of trail hurt like hell, causing sharp, shooting pains in my shoulder and nice, warm pain in my rear (no really, a 4 inch square patch of bruises and scrapes). To make matters even better, once on the road my tire kept going flat. So Jared would pump it back up (by this point my right arm was useless as was evident by my swerving whenever I tried to stop) and we kept on trucking. 

Finally back at home, I settled in for a nice relaxing night of TV and food. Until my roommate came in, saw my right shoulder drooping 4 inches bellow my left shoulder, and immediately demanded that I go to the hospital. Now an hour of waiting, 3 x-rays, and one loritab latter, I know what I thought before, my shoulder huts. Thats it... no dislocation, fracture, or major sprain. And now I have boatloads of papers to fill out when I get home from the insurance companies. 

So lesson is learned. Ride on wet leaves. Just don't let your roommate take you unwillingly to the hospital.

 

Steve

Welcome to Pink Racing

Welcome to Pink Racing!

This is a blog of three college guys who love to bike.

While we all ride a variety of disciplines, each of us has a specialty.

Jared - adrenaline junkie, thriving on fast descents (road or mountain)

Jono - technical perfectionist, must get up and over random objects (trials)

Steve - pain addict, prefers long climbs and even longer races (road or mountain)

Each of us will post as we please.

Enjoy.

-Steve