what?

Been a year and a day. 

I'm still among the living.

More content to come, but in a new format?

runnin'

Haven't been out for a bike ride besides commuting (although I've been driving to work a few days also) or running errands for 5 weeks now.  I went out for a ride, thought the deadness in my legs would come around, they didn't - 27 miles of just horribleness.  There was also some feeling of blah being on the bike also, so I stopped riding my longer distances, and started running more earnestly.

Been trying to run 5 or so days a week, sometimes less, but being smart about it, taking a few days off here and there, not running too fast or trying to bump up my miles too quickly,  and running mostly on unpaved surfaces.  Been doing the "minimalist" or "barefoot" style of running - like here or here.  Its been working for me - a little sore but nothing horrible - and except for my pulled butt muscle from a night at the karate studio - no injuries.  The barefoot running style is working for me, I'm not going to preach to anyone (not that I would do that anyways), but I'll let others make their own decisions.

Here are my Minimus 10 Trail (MT10) shoes.  Have a bunch of miles on them - if I had to guess, about 200 miles or so.  They are working really well for me, looking at getting another pair of these for the trails, a pair for the roads and a pair of the Minimus 1010 Trails for more technical running on more aggressive trails - like mountain biking trails.  Why?

Here is a picture of the 6 miles I ran at the Royalview Mountain Bike trails.  Although the trail was in beautiful condition, some of the other trails in the area don't shed the water very well, or have some looser dirt that the MT10s won't handle very well.  Running here is just as much fun as riding here, just slower.

Also on the radar (aka shipping today) is my new Unshoes huarache style sandals.  I'll post about those when I get them and get some miles in on them.

Thats it for right now, more to come (and maybe some  bike content)....

neil armstrong

"I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges, it's by the nature of his deep inner soul ... We're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream."

Growing up I was a huge space freak, I never met Neil Armstrong, but he was one person I think you could learn a lot about by sitting on the porch drinking tea saying nothing.  The world lost a great man yesterday, and a hero in every sense of the word.

mc changes

Been riding more than blogging.  Oh well, things aren't so exciting around here.  I'm up to 50 mile or so rides, but haven't ridden more than 10 miles at time in the last week or so.  Wife went back to work and my early in the morning rides have to be eliminated so she can go to work, should only be another couple of weeks and things will switch around again.

I ended up switching the crank on the mc, went back to the Bontrager (Sram) crank I was originally going to put on the bike.  Why?  Well I couldn't keep the damn left crank arm from backing off.  I did everything correctly, and I would have to tighten it up twice a week.  Maybe it was the cheap ass bottom bracket, maybe I was just missing something, don't know.  We'll see how this goes.

 Chainring mounted to the outside of the crank, lost the bashguard, but it shouldn't matter.

External bottom bracket, I haven't had any issues with these, including 6,000+ miles on the Hunter FixieMonsterCross.  Time will tell.

Perfect chainline.

The other main thing is that I got the repair kit off the back of the seat.  I went with the Tallac Design Behold cage.  Originally designed to go under a waterbottle cage on the down tube, I have an extra set of bottle cage bolts on the underside of the down tube, so there it is.

The bag slides out and holds everything but the pump.

Again, time will tell on how I like the design and placement.  It is low and out of the way, don't miss it under the seat, and except for how damp it gets after a rain, I don't see any issues on where it is at.  Unless I forget to check the zipper and that opens up and drops everything on the road.....

My goal is to get a century in this month (in celebration of my 41st birthday), but I don't know with my limited time frame, my body will be up to that.  A few overnighters are in the plans for September/October, with the possibility of a 3-4 day trip in late October - but that might get switched to a backpacking trip depending on the weather.

More someday hopefully soon....... 

introducing the mc

Cruddy pictures, but here it is.  The matt chester custom flared dropbar mixed surface fixed gear adventure bike.  Or the mcti.  All 22 pounds of her.  Been riding this a lot - commutes and morning rides around 25-30 miles in length.  Freakin' awesome.  By far my most fun, comfortable bike.  Well worth the wait.

Here are some highlights.

On-One Midges, definitely the bars for this bike.  I tried the Woodchippers, didn't like.  Still need to add some padding to the drops to make a little more comfy, but I think I have them dialed in pretty close to the position they need to be in.  The brake lever is the Cane Creek SCR-5C lever on the right and an Ergo Stoker on the left.  They are set up low on the bars for the right to be at a comfortable reach to brake, and the left for symmetry.  They also aid as another hand position on out of the saddle climbing.

 Steering duties are spun on a Chris King NoThreadSet, black with mango.  The purplish colored spacers are supposed to be black, but when they came in, I snagged them up.

Butt is taken care of by a Henge Comp saddle from Specialized.  Nice and supportive, keeps the nethers happy, especially because I don't wear cycling chamois.  Tool roll coming off in a few days when my new fixit carrying pouch comes in.

Custom built Hunter Cycles fork for the holding of the front wheel and brake.  Fork is built to be the same as a Salsa Cycles Casserole fork.  This allows me in an emergency use one of the Salsa forks, I have one in the road brake style and in the cantilever brake style.  Brake is a Paul Component Racer Medium.  It stops very well.

Front triangle with frame pump and water bottle cages.  The cages will probably be switched out when the new tool pouch comes.

Spinning the pedals and the chain, Sugino RD2 crank, 170mm with a 39t Surly ring and a BBG bashguard.  Chain is a Wipperman 8 speed model.  Always run 3/32" chains on my fixies, the last a good amount of time, are relatively cheap, and the masterlinks are easy to come by.

       
Rear track end with fender mount.  Phil Wood Track hubs laced 3 cross to DT Swiss RR465 rims.  Heavy, but durable, that is what I was looking for.
                                                                      

That's a fast overview of the bike.  More to come, maybe tomorrow or the next day with some more details and a longer ride report,