The past couple weeks in photos

I've been lazy on posting recently, been riding, just not motivated enough to post some of the ride pics.  So because I don't want what is probably my one sole reader out there to think I forgot about you here are some pics from recent rides I like alot.

Hastie with Mr. Savage

So fast my rotors are burning...

Ride with Ethan...we went from towsend, cades cove, over rich mountain and back to cars...30ish miles where oddly enough there was less snow than Knoxville had...

Another justification for my Breed

Another great night/south knox ride.  Rode from the shop out to Iams, through some random single track and back to the shop with a quick run through downtown/campus.

Finally got to try out my new White Industries hub and freewheel as well since my stock alex branded hub kept craping out on me.  Thanks to Felt I am getting a good chunk of the hubs cost credited back because of the multiple failures on the stock freehubs...Gotta love a company who stands behind what they sell.

Also, even though she will hate seeing her pic up on the interwebz Jessica is starting to show quite a bit.  This is her at just a bit over 11 weeks.

There is a purdy new hub in dem dare spokes

Dirty South Ride

Finally posting pics from our ride from the shop through south knox a few days back.  What I was guessing would be a 2ish hour ride turned into a 4 1/2 hr adventure all through south knox.  We rode from the shop to some trails that will remain unmentioned, through Hastie and where it really got good was from the top of Red Bud Rd their is this "trail" Jon had ridden a while back that was a screaming fast and slightly sketchy decent that me and him tried to follow which soon disappeared after dropping down a ass in the rear tire kinda steep decent that we didn't want to push back up.  We ended up bushwhacking maybe a mile basically pointing towards a street light we saw in the distance, popped out at some peoples back yards and found Jonathan and Contador waiting patiently with beer in hand at the BP station.

After that it was a chill cruise to the hippies place for some pizza, beer, and nerf gun battles.  From there on the pace quickly turned to seeing stars with random attacks and what not all the way back to the shop.  Good times were had by all...including Jonathan

Jonathan feeling a little sketched out on the mix of snow and ice we found near Iams

I promise Jonathan isn't checking out the Venezuelan sensation's ass.....

Me and Jon trying to find our way back to civilization

First real snow ride in Knoxville!!!

Finally, I can't believe it has finally happened but we got enough snow in Knoxville for it to have some "decent" accumulation.  So after work I decided to hop on the Gunnar and ride from basically Harpers to Hastie Park and back for a little mixed terrain action.  The ride was great, the snow reflected so much light that on the greenways I just shut off my lights entirely and only turned them on for road sections to avoid becoming a hood ornament.  There was maybe 1 1/2" of snow most places on the greenway and singletrack.

Highlight of the day was ridding up a hill on sevierville pike that a truck accompanied by the expected rednecks were having a hard time getting up....when I asked if they needed some help the responded with a short and quick "NO"  Ahh, I can't wait for the day the masses realize using a 4000lb vehicle to move 200lbs of human makes no sense at all when all you really need is a sub 30lb bicycle to handle the vast majority of peoples trips.  Anyways here some pics from the ride as pictures are always more exciting than me going on and on about daily nothings....

When the Inevitable Happens

Hope you have a company like SRAM willing to go over the top to keep their customers happy.

We went on a pretty cold ride today at the ridge, good times despite the 20deg. temps.  All was well, felt surprisingly good bike handling wise considering I have ridden nothing but CX bikes for about 3 months until this ride until my ride was cut short by a good sized stick that managed to find its way into my spokes.  Somehow it not only trashed my derailer hanger, but also the cage on my derailer was bent badly, the chain had a few bent links and also (this is what blows my mind) the derailer was pushed so hard into the cassette that it broke a tooth of my 11 tooth cog and bent my 34.

I was pissed and swearing off geared bikes and finally calmed myself down and thinking logically.  Realized I could just order a new cage and not entire derailer and that tooth wasn't important anyways and I was also able to straighten the 34.  I checked quality the next day and they don't stock the x-9 derailer cage I need to fix my derailer so I call SRAM to see if I can buy one from them and they were out of stock but offered to send me an X-O cage for free.  Now I am realizing why I sold all my shimano for SRAM a while back.  A few day pass and finally a package from SRAM shows up at the shop and those bastards sent me a brand new X-O derailer for free, this is after I told the guy on the phone a stick is what trashed my derailer in the first place...nothing warranty at all.  Go, run to your LBS and buy everything labeled SRAM because those guys rock.

My Skutt for the last 3-4 miles

Waiting to re-group

ahhh Rollers...

Yep,. as exciting as it is my first post about a training ride is gonna be about me on rollers.  Fun I know but I should have something better for you in a couple days.  Just bored and want to play with my new camera some.

How I ride indoors is by no means scientific but since I have a short attention span the longest I have lasted on rollers so far is about 40 mins so to make the most of it I will basically push as big of a gear at a decent cadence until I start to blow (3-4 mins) recover a bit and do it again.  It typically leaves me feeling it the next day and I don't have to stay on the damn things all day.

Key points from todays roller session...

• A properly adjusted saddle angle will make me a MUCH happier person
• Finally mastering getting to your bottles while riding also makes things much more enjoyable...damn near died once though...
• Riding indoors will never be exciting but it does provide one hell of a workout
• Keep kittehs and girlfriends away from you while riding rollers...they tend to look at you like "WTF Mate"

My "pain cave"  exciting isn't it...

Never thought I'd start a blog...

Yep, never expected to give in but here I am typing my first ever blog post.  Lots of things went into the inspiration in convincing myself others want to read about my day to day adventures, advise, rants, etc...

The main motivator is without a doubt me deciding to finally attempt the Tour Divide this year.  Not only am I hoping it helps keep my motivated knowing the whole internetz knows I am being lazy.

Another big motivator is in my search for info on training, gear choices, general prep for the race I have noticed it can be pretty difficult finding anything on the topic so I plan on posting up what I am doing for training, gear choices, and since my advise is based on nothing but assumptions as I have never done a ride close to this magnitude I am also planning on sharing every link I find helpful in my quest for knowledge.

Well, now that you know what I am about and what this blog is about, I hope that you find it mildly amusing, and maybe even a little helpful.  Try not to take any of my advise as fact as on paper I have no business doing this ride this year as I am broke, out of shape, and have a baby due middle of August, as just a few examples, one thing I do have is youth and enthusiasm so at the very least we will see how far that can get a person.  I know at the very least it gives me another thing to amuse myself with when I am not doing something bike related or bugging the hell out of my WONDERFULL girlfriend Jessica (make sure to read that last part twice babe...)

For now I leave you with the coolest x-mas gift I have gotten in a while...