rubbish heap two

The color of Hesh puking in his mouth...

Wish I had the money for such a sweet bike...

4 hour ride in the rain today with 3 flat tires amongst our group. Sometimes no-drop group rides really suck - there's nothing worse than getting a nice tempo established, with your body heat warming you, and then ruining it all to stop for a flat repair. Just completed my biggest hours in a week to date. Taking a deserved rest this next week. I felt absolutely great today and was rocking all the climbs, descents and sprints without going race-pace hard, but I'd say a structured rest is going to give a lot more benefit than slogging through another week of base. I don't mind the rain at all, but I'm really thinking that long rainy rides are best done in the company of 2 or 3 other people at most. Getting road grime water in your face is never fun and the bigger the group, the more it's going to happen. On the other hand, there's something really peaceful, calming and spiritual about riding alone on long hills in the rain.

I concur - I can ride around in 20-30F weather for months but when it spikes above 95F, my riding goes down the drain on account of plain old not being able to get fluids/electrolytes back in as fast as they're going out. If it's 125 out, you have a lot worse things to worry about than riding a bike. Chocula - damn, that's a shit ton of climbing. Nice job. Is your region just hilly as hell or what? You must be a skinny dude. I got 84 miles in today, not sure on the elevation. Real nice weather for January... as good as Thursday with less wind. 50F feels like paradise right now.

It's called heat acclimation. Man up, 10,000 years ago it wasn't the norm when people weren't pussified by year round indoor heating/cooling.

My rollers would eat tires pretty good if I'm pedaling a big gear/riding for a long time. Sucks but comes with the territory. Indoor riding in general is a mind numbing experience and I resolve not to do any of it this year except for leg speed work and track use.

Sounds like Bull Run? I wish I had a Garmin period...

I have decent luck with mine - they're a training tire that doesn't ride like complete shit. Are you talking about for the rear for skidding, or just for flat protection in general? For skidding, if you don't care about weight or ride quality (which a lot of fixed guys don't), get Vittoria Randonneurs or Schwalbe Marathons. If you're looking for flat protection/ride quality, my money is still on the Gatorskins - I'd say you got a defective tire. Do you skid a lot or not? If you don't skid at all you can get away with pure baller shit on fixed gears, like GP4000's or Pro Race 3's and have them last months. If you skid..... forget it. One caveat though. Fuck Soma Everwears.

Chocula... I wish I got pics. I don't own a digital camera, and if I did, it's hard to find room to store it between spare tubes, sandwiches, air pumps and Clif bars in my jersey pockets. Joker, can't wait for the first race. Although that short 15% grade uphill finish hits you like a ton of bricks when the rest of the course is pancake flat. I think I may ride out to Albany and preview the finish line in a week or two.

Well I made it. 144 miles and 3000' elevation gain, from Eugene to Portland. Things that sucked about the ride: -Last night I was playing basketball with my roommates in some worn ass shoes, and ended up getting blisters on the balls of my feet. Today, I could feel the blistery pain for about the first 30 miles, then it disappeared. -I flatted in the first 15 miles... never a good sign haha. -It was rainy for the last 50 or 60 miles, but at least the wind was in my direction mostly. -I took a wrong turn, got lost and rode about 7 miles in the wrong direction, and my phone's GPS was doing some major failure shit. Backtracking was the only thing that got me back where I needed to be. -I hit a pothole in the last 10 miles in Portland, in the dark. Just plain couldn't see it, and it was a nasty deep one. Somehow I didn't pinch flat (definitely should have with how bad the hit was) but did throw the rear wheel a good deal out of true, so I had to disengage the rear brake and it was rubbing the fender for the last stretch. Cool things about the ride: -The Williamate valley scenery in some places. -Silverton. Pretty cool small town. The fucking Main St. turns into a 20 percent grade from downtown to residential... -Longest ride for me yet. I was in the zone for awhile and feeling great, especially on some rolling hills with a tailwind where I was keeping my cadence above 100 in 42/11 (on the descents) and just stomping. -Some other spandex dude wanted to race me in the last 10 miles in inner city Portland. I won. I really wanted to be like "dude, jokes on you, I've been riding the last 8 hours from Eugene" but I kept my mouth shut. -I made a bacon jelly cream cheese sandwich to eat as comfort food over the last 40 miles and it was SO GOOD. Try one. Seriously. -Nuun tablets are the truth. No cramps.

gitmosteez you talking about the St. Johns bridge in PDX?

Yeah, we know that. The question is what model, and why they aren't on adidas.com. I like to think my Sidi's look halfway decent, but those shoes are straight flossin'. Also, if a world class athlete is riding them, that probably means Adidas may have actually gotten their shit together as far as cycling shoes go. Normally, that would be a totally moot argument - pros get paid to ride what they ride and generally don't do it out of preference, but all contact points - saddles, shoes, handlebars, and tires, are generally still ran out of preference.

Damn, I wanna know more about those shoes she's wearing...

Going to ride Eugene to Portland on Saturday... very excited. 130+ miles... then turning around and heading back Monday.

Gitmosteez - about the cheapest you'll find a steel track fork is ~$80-90 online. If you just want to do it janky style, you can always do a threaded-to-threadless adapter and just buy the new stem.

Exactly... the hip shit these days is an Italian road bike with possible aero wheel, single front ring and risers.

Well dawg, no hate but you're jumping on a trend that peaked in '07. I've been there, done that (the track bike thing, not the Aerojoke). Shit has been played like gazelle shades. Classic road bikes are a hell of a lot more 'hip' these days to those in the know.

^ Good strategy for a sprinter...

Aerospokes are a strict vanity wheel, ride sloppy as hell, and are generally only ran by clueless fashionistas and people who don't care how their bike will ride.

Chocula, best not to rock a new/fancy bike in the crits until 3's or something. Even then, there can still be gnarly crashes.

It's your headset. Take the bike to a shop and have them look at it.

Good weather (by January in OR standards, which means not raining) and good riding today. Although dudes who don't ride with fenders, or have shitty ones, are never fun to be drafting in the paceline on the big group rides. Mad water up in my eyes... 60 miles with over about 2.5 hours today.

Very nice..... Eventually I want to get a SRAM group on my cross bike. I'm gonna start with the shifters and rear derailleur... that alone should shave nearly half a pound off the 105 shifters/Ultegra RD on there.

Gatorskins. You get flats on train tracks from not having enough pressure, so pump 100 PSI or higher.