rubbish heap two

Hell, probably wasn't born yet. Not even trippin'.

Shit, zone 3 is the fun stuff... I have a blast doing those on any type of rolling terrain. Right now besides basic LSD miles, I've been doing "slow frequency repetitions", some old school shit popularized by now deceased coach Aldo Sassi. 2 minutes trying to spin perfect circles under a big gear doing 40-60rpm, repeated 6x with full recovery (like 3-4 minutes outside, a hair more on the trainer) in between. Seems like it'd be a real knee buster but as long as my bike fit is on par it works well. We'll see how it fares come crit season though... since I can't lift right now (broken hand) this has been my alternative for strength training. I'm fortunate in that I had barely any off time before I could get back outside to ride with the cast on, but damn, I want to be able to throw sprints right now and I can't...

Dondi riding a track bike on the street before half this forum knew what a fat cap was...

1) Hipsters have been into track bikes for the better half of the last decade. 2) By "real rider", I'm guessing you mean actual track racer, in which case vintage track frames have almost no intrinsic value unless you're a) over the age of 30 and started out racing on steel in your youth, or b) on the Japanese keirin circuit and therefore required to use NJS stuff. Aluminum and carbon are better in nearly all regards for down and dirty racing.

Sickkkkk. Always a sucker for vintage Italian frames.

It's pretty simple assuming you have the right tire setup and the snow's fresh. Ice and two week old tracked out black slush, though, that shit sucks.

Tell me about it... trying to be legitimate at anything else in life gets in the way of training.

It was 55 and sunny yesterday when I rode... which to us up in OR is pretty amazing. Been training with the broken hand. Put in 3.5hr outside yesterday and 3hr. the day before on the trainer. Not too bad with the cast and all, though riding in the drops is impossible and shifting the FD hurts a shit ton. Whatever. Just gotta repeat HTFU all day cuz bike training/racing isn't supposed to be easy. Also, everyone who's ever shaved their legs or put on lycra should take a few minutes to read this: http://www.bigringriding.com/post/741407744/i-didnt-want-to-abandon-the-giro-in-the-year-of-my-retir

Sup with the new name, Joker? I'm borrowing a friend's trainer and wrote myself a new base plan sans weight training. Gonna find out how much indoor riding I can take before going postal haha.

Ugh. Crashed on a road ride Saturday, hurt my hand/wrist but rode home fine and have been riding since. Saw the doc today, 'just in case', got x-rays and found out I broke my hand. God damn.

Well yeah, that's exactly the point. Heavy, overbuilt and sturdy are pretty come by when you're building with the cheapest material in the game. The old expression still rings true... "Light, strong, cheap: pick two (or pay up)."

God damn that Yeti is so fucking fresh...

fuck. yes. speedvagen would be cool too. after all, dario helps weld those...

Been gettin' pretty blown up delivering Christmas trees around town via bike lately. Real talk, climbing a 10% grade with a tree attached to your trailer is a whole new world of hurt, never mind having a triple crankset and touring cassette. Choc, whatchu know about 21st Ave. Cycles in Portland? Joker, you lifting this off-season? I've been doing squats in the gym lately - trying to improve my sprint for Spring/Summer 2011.

Super windy ride today... it was like riding uphill in all directions when we probably had about 100 ft. of elevation change! Good to be back on the roadie though. Also feelin' some weight lifting this time of year when it's real shitty out.

$200 for the bike, maybe $250. You got a few things riding against you on this one: 1. It's winter (assuming you're in the Northern hemi). People don't buy bikes as much in the winter, and they're not willing to pay as much. 2. It's mostly no-name stuff. 3. It's a road conversion. But hey, there's always some sucker out there willing to pay more.

Should be - biggest advantage of a 29er is that it makes way more sense for tall dudes vs. a 26er.

Soup, how much you weigh? @ 170lb, I've never found it necessary to run more than 50 psi for a Mud 2 on clincher, and that's for rear only. Always below 45 up front. With my tubeless wheelset I can safely take my Mud 2's down to the 20's up front, lower 30's rear... Higher PSI is going to make your whole body get jostled a hell of a lot worse on a DH trail, and make it way harder to handle your bike. I'd recommend running about as low as you can go before pinch flats become an issue. Wheels going out of true on trails is just the way of the world - if they're properly built, it shouldn't be too big of an issue, nothing just a couple turns in the stand can't have back to perfecto status. And yeah, since you're not racing you could probably afford to go with the biggest tires you can fit into the frame. Since tire and PSI are really your only form of "suspension" on a cross bike, 700x38's could be pretty ideal if you can sandwich them into that rim. If not, look into wider rims in the future if you plan on staying clincher. Road clincher rims IMO don't make a whole lot of sense with cross, but with Velocity and HED doing the 23mm wide thing now, those would be good candidates.

Choc, is that off Redwood Rd? You weren't doing that on a road bike were you? That moisture/mud looks about perfecto home terrain for a cross bike, assuming there's not a bunch of rock gardens and gnarly roots hidden below.

Dang Joker, that sucks! Rolled tubbie and all.

Somehow my taint stays iron-tough.

I always thought cross reports were kinda boring without pictures or video, but that's me. I still feel like sharing anyway, and the haters can just scroll past :D So here's a pic of me that would otherwise be really cool if I wasn't a foot too high above the saddle and had a knee warmer slipping down. You can see that peanut butter all stuck to tires and bike though... buck nasty.

My USGP day two.... There was a crash at the starting line that I nearly avoided, but then got a little tangled in at the last second. Didn't really go down but my rear wheel got knocked out of true and was stuck in the brake pads. Spent about 30 seconds fooling around with the cables to get it moving again. After that, thoroughly rode myself into the ground for the rest of the race to get 18th out of ~60. Way drier today, and ran ]stupid low pressure on my tubeless wheel set up. Sub-30 PSI both; felt the front wheel bottom out on a rooty section at one point but no burps and no pinches. Both days coming into the finish line I got the chance to sprint against some geared dudes (they combine SS and B's here) while heckling them about being outsprinted by a guy on a singlespeed :D all in good fun of course since we're sprinting for pride, not placing. Now my cross season is over since I'm not racing nationals but I still got the competitive spirit running hardcore in my veins. Oh welll... time to start feigning an interest in spring road racing and get to pumping the iron in the mean time. Oh, and looking forward to increased boozin'. For the record, the winner of the race (Louie Fountain, decade+ pro snowboarder) was also running Stan's 355's to Mud 2's. Gotta be saying something as far as tubeless goes. You guys on clinchers would be fools not to try it out, except for the fact that conversions are wack. Joker, you picked the right day. Day 1 SUCKED. Way harder conditions on account of sticky peanut butter mud that dried to your skin instantly upon contact. The running section after the motocross track was far worse and I endo'd twice, once while riding into it and the second time after a remount. Crashed in a few other areas as well, mostly on account of getting my tires swallowed up in the quick sand. To make up for the increasing dry conditions of today, they added a lot more of that twisty turny stuff that we didn't have yesterday.

Yo Soup, I liked the roads out there a lot. It's hard to compare for sure because I've done most of the climbs above West Portland a million times and the Bay Area thing was a novelty for me... I'd say both have their pros and cons, really. So Skyline Rd. in Portland is about equivalent to what you guys got above Oakland, in that it's a pretty easily accessible area from the city and features lots of climbs, rollers, off road stuff in Forest Park, all that. Oakland hills have a better view since it's the Bay and all, but Skyline climbs in Portland have more chance for elevation gain/loss in a shorter amount of distance just because of the way Skyline, HWY30 and all the up/down roads are organized. I'd say Logie Trail Rd. in Portland would be our equivalent to Pinehurst descending... but Logie is longer and wider, whereas Pinehurst is some of the most narrow shit I've ridden. Multnomah Falls would probably be our analogous road to Redwood, in that it's a pretty constant, winding 5% grade, but you have to ride a good 25-30 miles out of the city just to get there. So yeah, I can draw tons of parallels... the weather and novelty of the Bay Area may just be enough for me to eventually move there, and plus I've heard the racing scene is just fast and competitive as fuck. Do you guys have any gravel rides in the Bay Area? Now that's some of my favorite shit... I've only ventured out to the gravel in the guidance of guys who know the area where better than me, but I gotta say, it's some of my favorite road terrain bar none. Gives an epic Paris-Roubaix feel (while in reality being about 1/10 as gnarly), and lets the CX skills shine. I'd probably venture a guess that although I didn't ride it, the off road stuff on Redwood is a lot better than the (legal) stuff on Skyline in Portland (just because of the bullshit politics that prevent us from being able to ride all the available trails that runners refuse to share). If you're ever around in Portland when I'm there I'm down to showing you around.

8000 ft. is serious as fuck, and fit for climbing-types only unless you have a triple and want to do it slow as fuck. Soup, stoked that I know the area you're riding in. So you did all the off road shit in that area? Nice. 50 and raining sounds perfecto. Regarding brakes, you can always go with TRP's Mini V brakes if maximum stopping power is your thing, although they're a little short on modulation without a travel agent. For fuck around with the canti straddle cable height up front if fork shutter isn't an issue.