It's Only the River, It's Only the River

It’s only the river, unless the river is the city in which you live in.  After the 100-year flooding that has engulfed Boulder and surrounding areas, most notably Lyons, there won’t be much to talk about in the cycling and racing world for me.  I’m not even sure yet what my training routes – the canyons west of town that I do most of my riding in – look like or their accessibility for any time in the near future.  Pretty much this entire area has been washed out.  Lyons was completely underwater; emergency messages warning of “walls of water” came in every few hours Wednesday evening; pictures of homes floating off of foundations; piles of rubble, mud, rock, and cars being pushed down these narrow canyons; major roadways destroyed.  It’s been an interesting week to say the least.  

I was planning to end my season with the inaugural Epic 50 race in Winter Park.  That was today.  I was excited for the race, and just about ready to cough up the bucks for it on Tuesday night as I continued to watch the rain batter down for the 2^nd consecutive day.  I decided I’d wait one more day to make the call.  That one day proved crucial, as by Wednesday night our basement had accumulated 6” of water and rising, and me and the good folks I live with were busy bailing water, setting up makeshift drainages, attempting to clear pipes and gutters, pump water, etc.  The race I had previously looked forward to was no longer my concern.  Watching this disaster unfold in front of my eyes took front seat.  I’ll have a “season recap” coming soon full of thoughts and thoughtful thinking things of that nature.  That isn’t to say my “season” is over.  I may be done with this saison, but my season will continue.  That’s because there is still so much more riding to do and fun to be had!  What season?  I’ve already gotten word that I may be headed to 25 Hours in Frog Hollow at the start of November as part of a 4-man team.  Night riding in the desert outside of Hurricane, Utah?  How could I say no?  It will be a new one for me, but I’m already getting excited.  When the good folks of 92Fifty Cyclery/Performance Studio/AidStation3 offer you must accept!  More info on this new project to come.  All I can say is that something special is in the works.

Something else special is also in the works, literally.  For this, as to not preempt any un-happening happenings, thwart my luck or jinx myself, I’ll just offer a few pictures.  The first of which is my Niner One9 frameset that is now up for sale. 

Any takers?  I also just reset my White Brother Loop fork from 100mm to 120mm.  BRRrrrappp!!!

 

ShaNAHBSanigans

NAHBS 2013 was a success.  Success is like, your opinion, man.   

How does the saying go? “Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one, but mine smells better than yours”?  Yeah, I think that’s it.  Anyways, from my perspective, which was admittedly much skewed as the result of ultimate bike fanaticism mixed with sleep deprivation and alcohol consumption, it was a good day. I think the other Dicky had a similar experience at the Richmond show.

It started off with a 9am bus ride from Boulder to Denver on Saturday morning.  I’d been up since 7am waiting for my buddy from Fort Collins to arrive.  I’d also been up until 3am the night (morning?) before working like a monkey on crack.  I felt good at 3am going to bed.  I did not feel good at 9am boarding the bus.  My mind was in a daze of epic proportions.  Coffee had no effect.  Good conversation had little effect.  It was just going to be one of those days, so I rolled with it.  Walking into the show, with the excitement of hours of bike-gazing and industry talk ahead of me, part of the daze disappeared.  At least that was my perspective.  For all I know I looked and sounded like a drunken sailor as I babbled on with the first set of builders.

Let me regress for a second.  This would be my 3^rd NAHBS.  The experiences have all been largely different.  The first one was in Indy.  I was probably most-impressed, most-wowed, and least-informed during this event.  I knew (or thought) I liked track bikes.  The word hipster comes to mind.  Every lugged steel frame I saw had me oooing and awwwing.  It is not to say that I didn’t appreciate the craftsmanship, because I did, but just that I was there for different reasons.  The hipster after-party in an old warehouse-turned-apartment-turned-art studio was the highlight for me; Macaframa showing, gold sprints, PBR and flannel.  My next NAHBS experience was in Richmond, VA.   I don’t have much recollection of this event, only that I didn’t get to stay for as long as I would’ve wanted, indulge, and immerse myself in the scene.  Word to the wise: don’t go to bike events with girlfriends who don’t care about bikes.  Even though the overall experience wasn’t something to write home about, something happened at that show that would change my life forever.  I was just starting to enjoy mountain biking at this time, but still knew very little about it.  This one rigid singlespeed 29er from Engin Cycles forever changed my worldview on mountain bikes.  

For some reason it caught my eye and stuck out as the show-stopper for me.  Upon getting home from Richmond and going through my NAHBS swag, there was an ad from Niner bikes on some page of some magazine. 

That was it.  I was sold with one picture.  Anyone who tells you advertising doesn’t work is full of shit.  It wasn’t but a few months later that I had a gold Niner frame and rigid carbon fork.  The rest is history.

Back to this year’s NAHBS.  Now that I’ve had a little time to let the bike-world-maturation process take place my experience this year was way different from the rest.  Hopefully the maturation process of someone in the bike industry is like a fine wine, although I’m afraid it’s more of a pickling.  This year I was less wowed by the innovation and design of various bikes, and much more interested in meeting the builders themselves, where they come from, why they build what they build, and hopefully building some relationships in the industry.  I was completely in my element here just nerding out on bikes.  The conversations I had with builders and industry people were something unexpected and wonderful.  These people whom I may have looked at as gods before are just bike junkies like me.  I had a good time hanging out with Chris at Generic Cycles. The bike he brought was basically the exact frame he is building for me, so it was whetting my chops to look at.   

There was a ton of titanium there, literally.  There were also some fantastic bamboo-carbon bikes from a few different companies.  Overall, there was plenty of eye candy, but I enjoyed most the opportunity to meet and talk with some of these people.  I even got the opportunity to “test” a prototype bar-end integrated shot glass made by King Cage at the Black Sheep booth.  The Bulleit bourbon went down smooth, so I'd say it passed.  And then I passed out against a wall in a slumber of sleep deprived intoxication.

The after party was what it was.  Nothing special, besides the tap wall at Star Bar in Denver.  They had about 6 Lips of Faith series beers from New Belgium along with about 15 other exotic choices.  I remember drinking 2 Tart Lychees, because it was more delicious than anything else to my palate, sitting in an outside patio lounge and talking to builders from various companies (or more so listening when the conversation turned to specific brazing techniques) as the snow fell on our heads.  I had a quick meet and greet with Todd at Black Sheep whom I share mutual friends, and that was it.  NAHBS 2013 all rolled into a ball and thrown out of the window.  Splat.

I have pictures.  They aren’t very good, as my photography skills, motivation, and attention span were all on the low end.  At some point early on in the show I stopped taking pictures all together.  There are a lot better examples of NAHBS photo galleries from people here, here, here, and here.

PreNAHBS Preview PreTalk PreThoughts

The North American Handbuilt Bike Show, or NAHBS, is happening this weekend in Denver.  Bike nerds rejoice!  This means 3 days of the most beautiful, innovative, creative, wild, wacky, and irresponsible use of bike building skills and materials in North America.  Everything from the most functional Di2 equipped mountain bikes to completely functionless but still lovely in every way works of a custom builders’ imagination.  This is the beauty of NAHBS.  Everything wins.  It’s a mega-art gallery of epic proportions.  Every weird idea that these weirdo bike builders (trust me, they’d appreciate being called weirdos) could drum up in their caffeine and booze-addled minds was then formed, cut, welded, and painted and will be on full display this weekend.  There will be a cornucopia of innovative bikes and ideas, using the newest-to-market standards and components, prototype parts, etc.  There will also be the full onslaught of classic lugged steel road bikes, commuters, track bikes, fat bikes, and hopefully a tricycle or two to feast on.  Frame-building materials will span the entire spectrum of various types of steel, aluminum, carbon, titanium, magnesium, wood, bamboo, etc. etc.

I’ve been to NAHBS twice, and been completely blown away and overwhelmed twice.  I don’t expect this year to be any different.  In fact, given the high concentration of custom bike builders on the Front Range, and in other parts of the west, I expect this year to be the biggest yet.  I think mountain bikes and fat bikes will dominate the spectrum.  And not to brag, but just to boast, it will be pretty cool to have a frame-builder there who is in the process of building me a bike!

I wish I could spend a couple of days immersed in this ocean of bikes, only coming up for a breath of fresh beer before diving back in.  But, as life dictates, NAHBS will be sandwiched in between work, so Saturday is my day to get wet.  It’s Friday.  That means beer.  Cheers.

Happy New Year

This New Year starts off all old and crusty.  It’s like I got rum-drunk in a shrimp shack full of drifters and fisherman, stumbled to the beach, folded out my broken Corona beach chair and passed out.  When I woke up with sand in my crack and the sun in my bloodshot eyes it was 2013.  Who’s ready to party?  In actuality, the last days of my 2012 were spent in similar fashion, albeit a little more responsibly.  I did hang out in seaside tiki huts.  I did eat copious amounts of fresh shrimp, washed down with Budweiser.  I even met some fisherman.  In fact I enjoyed one of the best Christmas days in memory.  It consisted of sitting on the beach in the Florida keys with my closest family, sipping down watery beverages, swimming in salty water, staring at girls in bikinis (some not so nice), and eating the freshest seafood that money can buy.  In fact, the only way it could have been any fresher would be to personally kill the fish with my own teeth.   But large grouper are scary looking, so I’ll let someone else do the killing. 

  

It's good to be King.

Then I came back to Colorado, where it’s cold and crusty.  Nothing moves very fast.  The thought of riding in this environment, after running half-naked next to the ocean only days beforehand, is hard to grasp.  Along with my unwillingness to brave these conditions and disdain for them, it goes that I’ve been singlespeedless for almost three months now.  The real crustiness of this New Year was hanging on my wall; a beaten down and broken bike frame that had served most of my purposes in the last couple of years.  So upon my arrival in this frozen tundra, I decided to take matters into my own hands.  Armed with a hack saw and the desire to put this piece of steel in its final resting place, I went to town.  On a less dramatic note, to be able to get a new Niner frame at a discounted price, what they call a “crash-replacement” (not sure how this applies considering the absence of any crash in my situation), they make sure you thoroughly destroy your frame by cutting the bottom bracket out.  I could have used a power tool for the job.  But I felt it was my duty to put some blood and sweat into killing this machine that endured my constant abuse for so long; a last hurrah. 

So at some point in the next couple of weeks I should be seeing a brand spankin’ new fresh as frozen fruit sparkly hand-robot-welded-Taiwanese-made bicycle frame show up, in all its mass-produced yet still considered “small-box” glory, with full singlespeed capability.  It will undoubtedly be an upgrade from the old SIR9.  Although not their top-of-the-line crabon fibre model, it will still be a whole lot lighter, stiffer and more race-worthy than Old Golddy.

I am also awaiting the arrival of, or word of, or even half-brained ideas on my custom Generic Cycles titanium hardtail.  The builder has been less than responsive about its creation or any other details.  You could say that he’s been completely unresponsive, but I’ll cut him some slack.  He does build bikes for an awesome brewery up the road from me, and with that he stays in good faith.  That being said, parts are starting to arrive for this build.  Parts that, aside from a completely custom hand-built titanium frame, I cannot wait to try out.

Next up, the tingle that goes down my spine when I think of riding in Moab and Sedona; and on  a bike capable of such.  These are not places that were designed, through millions of years of volcanic activity, wind and water erosion and the harsh desert, for a hardtail race bike.  No sir.  To fully enjoy the fruits of our earth’s labor, one must be on a machine of squishy forgiveness.  The same reason you let your wife get fat.  So in addition to prepping new builds for the upcoming season, I’ve also got my eye on some fun-candy.  The race bikes are that apple you got on Halloween.  What I’m spying is the full Snicker’s bar.  Tell me which neighbor you liked better?  

And when not drinking beer, in preparation for the upcoming season, one can always find solace in a 35 pound bucket of peanut butter, in all its creamy goodness. 

I'm going in!

Happy New Year!

Candy Store

This weekend saw a trip to the largest bike swap meet in the country, Denver’s VeloSwap.  It is a dangerous place.  Among other things it is a test in temptation and self control.  I passed the test, just barely.  Hey, I could’ve easily emptied my bank account and still left desiring more.  Instead I happened to pick up some much needed essentials at good deals.

I had never seen anything like VeloSwap, and left feeling like I had just taken a 3-hour Calculus final exam.  My brain hurt.  My neck hurt from constant head turning.  My eyes hurt from trying to take in a thousand shiny objects at once. It is nothing more than a candy store for bike nerds.  Didn’t bring enough cash with you?  No worries, there’s two ATM’s in the convention center.  I didn’t know I had attention deficit disorder until going there.  It’s a good thing I went alone, because I would’ve lost any accompaniment in the first five minutes.  It took me about 3 hours to peruse the venue, which consisted of maybe 200 or more vendor tables, each stocked to the max with goodies new and old, from $5000 bike frames to that old Campy piece you’ve never been able to find.  Anything and everything your bike fetish ever desired could be found there. 

I spent more mullah than previously intended, but made a conscious effort to buy what I needed, instead of all that I wanted.  I got some winter lobster finger gloves with Thinsulate, windbreaker fabric and leather palms, for about ¼ the cost of other competitors’ offerings.  

I scored the elusive Cannondale Save carbon fiber seatpost.  Save, as in “save” your tender bits.  Cannondale doesn’t sell these posts separately.  All you have to do to get one is buy a $6000 mountain bike, or go to VeloSwap.  And I got it for about half the price they go for on the Bay.  Now I don’t have to continue to switch my one seatpost between two bikes.  I’m stoked to try it out and see if it flexes as much as advertised.

 

A few other items were haggled down in price and bought.  That is the beauty of VeloSwap; nothing is set in stone.  No prices are firm.  Want to buy the vendors whole table?  Make him or her an offer.  I didn’t pay the “listed” price for anything.  The big score of the day was a new set of high quality hydraulic brakes.  As my new build gets going, I knew that one of my biggest expenses would be the brakes.  I was planning on having to spend in the territory of $600 on a set.  That was, until I came across these babies:

Finally, a real set of brakes.  Out of the dark ages.

 

A brand new set of Magura Marta SL brakes in fancy red, with their fancy self-cooling two-piece rotors as well as the standard rotors.  They were sort of hiding on the guys table when I saw them, and no price was listed.  Upon inquiring about the price, my eyes lit up and certain juices started flowing.  Juice can also double as the flowing of cash out of the ATM machine into my hand.  I then went back and haggled the guy down another $20 on his previously too-low price.  Score.  They are a couple of years old, but still brand new and proven to be a great set of high quality super-lightweight hydraulics.  I can’t wait to give ‘em a try.  They will be much lighter and way more powerful than the Avid BB7 mechanicals I’ve been using since the olden days.  I was planning on putting them on the Niner until my new Generic comes in.  Then the Niner decided to take a break.  More on that later. Review to come.