A whole lotta nothin'

Yeah, I can say that and spell every word wrong because I can, and because I am a horrible speeler. On top of that, the title is true, there is a whole lotta nothing going on right now biking related. The holiday parties have calmed down as it is close to xmas, and me and the burrower are staying here for the holiday. Anybody in town that needs some psuedo family let me know, I am more than happy to bring the spiked egg nog and end up like Uncle Eddy.


Yeah, it has been a little chilly and wet around here to go riding the trails, and just to windy to want to try and brave the road. I did manage to get out on Sunday for a few miles on the road bike though, I only could stay out long enough to not feel some parts of my shins, mostly because I refuse to wear leggings.

I was able to pick up a good deal on a limited edition, long sleeve, south park cycles jacket. They are limited edition Bart has decided to move the location and change the name, so look for that coming up. Anyway he has a heck of a lot of deals on everything, mostly because why move stuff when you can sell it? Here is said jacket.

With under Armour, jersey, and that jacket my core was toasty in the 40 degree weather and blocked the wind pretty well.

In other news me, the burrower, and Erin and Angus went to the Lowes Motor Speedway Christmas lights spectacular. I really didnt care about the lights, but as soon as I found out I could drive on the track it brightened by day. I only hit 70mph the first time, but 80mph the second time we went through. Not bad for 1.8 liters of fury with 4 adults in the car. Here is the video.



If I am to lazy to write before X-mas, have a good one, and hope all of your bike part dreams come true.

Patrick

Ugly Sweater Time

Oh yes, with me being the scrooge I am (and I really am, not just playing around, Christmas is a lot of extra work in which I really don' care to put into my free time) I did take part in our 3rd annual ugly sweater Christmas party. Mostly because I enjoy getting a little tipsy.

There were the usual suspects there, The Burrower, J and A, Cashley, Erin,B-lee and Allison even some guest appearances by Benji (who is a roadie but I still talk with him), so former co-workers and new friends.

After getting rowdy and loud it was time for the White elephant exchange. This is where you see who your real friends are by who steals what. We were blessed with a lot of alcohol that got stolen, but the real gem of the exchange was this...


Thats right, the holiday gift everyone wants to give but no one wants to receive, the shake weight. Why did this get stolen multiple times? I have no clue, but pretty sure Frued knows.


After multiple fights over the shake weight, beer, and board games the night continues on down in the basement....

The burrowers gingerbread house.


The foosball table o' death

And the winners of the contest. He won because he had the ugliest pair of pants.

Other than that, I need to get back on the bike, like everyone around here, but it has just been so windy that it is not even fun to walk around, much less bike. And with 4 weeks till the winter series, I might be in the Clydesdale class with how much I have been "enjoying" the holiday. Until next time, keep watching the shake weight video.

Finally, the Reveal

I know last weeks suspense was just to much for many of you, and a few lucky souls had the opportunity to see what was in the works, they just were lucky enough to show up at our 3rd annual ugly sweater contest. Those post and pictures might just show up later this week if I get enough reader response, or just any proof someone reads this thing.

This year I am going to try and race 2 bikes. I am going for a short track/less than 20 mile 26inch hardtail, and a full suspension for anything longer than that or endurance races. I will make exceptions for the full squish when I race Beaty though. I hate that place.

Also I am going to try changing up the drivetrains, as I hinted last week. 2x9 here I come. Going with a 27/40 FSA afterburner.


I should be ok to handle anything in which Charlotte trails throw my way on a hard tail. I still do need to set build the thing. Another cool feature about new stuff is the SRAM cassette.



This will look pretty sweet as I was able to color match with my mavic wheels.

Style points count for the final standings right?


I asked the Mutt for some help over the weekend, but after I was speaking with Little Miss Sunshine on the F-Book she stated they had a holiday party in which they were in charge of making 17 trays of jello shots. I really can't blame him for putting his priorities in correct order. I did the same thing and wasn't in a whole lot of motivation to move off the couch due to my own previous nights activities.

Also this past weekend me and the burrower had a "required" church function for our marriage thingy coming up next year. Good news is that the weather was pretty crappy during it so I didn't feel like I missed anything. Bad news is that the weather was crappier on Sunday so couldn't ride at all this weekend. I am going a little stir crazy as I haven't been on the mountain bike since following the MaddSS and Mrs. MaddSS around Fisher farms for about 18 miles or so. It also has been bitterly windy so I haven't even had the motivation to ride the roadie to work in the morning. Hopefully I can get a few rides in before the winter series coming up in a month.

Also the Maxxis Southern Classic Series released their 2011 schedule, good news is that I should be able to hit most of those next year. Maybe between the extra road miles and not being as bad of shape as last year I can get some top 10 results when there is more than 10 people racing. It is a stretch goal, but one in which I have.

If I get the motivation, and have all of the participants in the ugly sweater participants sign releases I might just get back on the blog this week. And hopefully some more biking somehow. Good news though, the shortest day of the year is coming up, and that only means the days get longer, and more biking to be done!

Time for a Change

So comes the time of year where new parts for the ride are in order. I carefully (by guessing) calculated every mile spent on every bike so far this year and for the life of the bike.

I do this on the little guestimate tool on Bicycling dot com site. So far just short of 1000 miles for the year on all my bikes (a large push at the end playing roadie might make me get 1000 for the year)



It also tracks the miles on the individual bikes themselves. I have almost 1000 for the Culprit over the life of the bike. That is a lot of miles on a drivetrain. Sure I changed tires, wheels, brakes, but I haven't changed the drivetrain (does this give you a hint yet at the change?) What is it going to be? Doing the single speed thing? 2x10, 3x10? 3x9? There are just so many different options now a days it almost works to peoples advantage to have the different types.

The local UPS website says the man in brown daisy dukes is bringing me a package later today. Hopefully it will show up.

And hopefully I will be around to sign for the delivery.

Now the issue is how do I put said unnamed but hinted at parts on the bike? I might have to ask my neighbor as he enjoys putting together parts and then taking them off again. Or I might as The Mutt if I can borrow R2D2 for a few hours and pay him in adult beverages.

With the Short Track Series coming up in a month I should be good to go by putting it together then.

In other news, this Thursday is the Southpark Cycles annual holiday party. I am pretty sure all are invited as Bart posted on the THTB forum. Just bring some canned goods so that he can donate to charity. He also says that there is a major announcement. I could drop clues about what it is, but I honestly don't know. I am not one much for the Christmas time so waiting for presents and waiting for fun or good news really doesn't bother me.

Me and him get along great.

I also don't turn on the Christmas tree lights or the outside lights in which I put up. The burrower does enough of that for both of us spreading the holiday cheer and what-not. I just drink the holiday beer.

Final side note, ugly sweater x-mas party, my place, Dec 11 around 7. Let me know if you want to come. This is about as much holiday I can tolerate, an abscure amount of xmas lights on a sweatshirt plus being tipsy, knocking on neighbors doors singing carols, and even doing bad things to a reindeer. Those pictures are not allowed to be shown by court order.

Once I get everything figured out on how to work new stuff, I will post up pics and let you know, until then...Ralphie, don't shoot your eye out.

How to Stay warm in winter, and other musings

In English class I was always told to start a story with an attention getter to grab the audiences attention. I never was very good at English though. But how about a picture? Those are supposed to be worth 1,000 words right?

What do you think of? Maybe cleaning up after puddles and puddles jr?

Trust me, they are not as innocent as they seem in this picture.

No actually I am using the poop bags for help with staying in cold weather riding. When I woke up this morning and made the usual bad decision to ride to work it was a balmy 34 degrees. Since I don't really want to go dropping over 100 George Washingtons on a new pair of shoes I did the next best thing. Put the doggy poopy bags over my feet and slide them into my shoes. Not only does it block the wind from getting through those pesky foot vents in the shoe, it also acts as a sort of a sauna to help keep them warm. Oh, and the bags are also good for picking up poop.

The other piece of cold weather gear in which I would recommend would be the Gore Windstopper gloves.

With a coupon and a gift certificate from my birthday the total for these quality gloves came out to $20. Not to shabby for a $50 pair of gloves. So far they work as advertised. Wind does not get into them leaving my hands warm. I have yet to try them in sub-freezing tempertures so I guess that will leave a review for when I do the short track series updates.

On the riding front I did have the pleasure of going with the MaddSS and the Mrs. MaddSS for a easy (to them) ride at Fisher Farms up in Davidson. I am sorry I left the camera at home as the new portion of the trail has some great photo ops of riding some boulders. I also spend some time bailing out on those said boulders trying a new line. I went 0-5 with it, but I will definalty try it again. If your not falling off the bike, then you probably shouldn't be riding it as you don't challenge yourself.

And in other news the Charlotte Auto Show came to town so me and the guys went down there to check it out.
Before we were even able to get our admission tickets, an attractive female (I think they hired her to do that for a reason) approached us and asked if we wanted to drive some cars. Heck yeah. After crossing my fingers that I passed the breathalizer test we got into our respected vehicles.

I ended up in a 64k Yukon Denali Hybrid and GMC Terrain as my choices. Nice rides, both of them.


B Lee and his truck.


Casey in his Camero. He actually couldn't come out of the car for a few minutes after driving it if you know what I mean...


Look at that smile.

And just because I can, here is some guest appearances by local celebraties taking time out of their busy day to take a picture with me.

Fall is in the air

You know how I know? Because the calendar said so. Oh, and the reason I bought the house, the trees.



Had to have some fun with the camera settings with all of the colors


The weather has been so great here. After the morning chill is done it has been some of the best riding weather all year. I think the 3 weeks I have been playing roadie during lunch and going to and from work have been paying off on the trails. My cadence has gone up, although I think I have lost some of my leg strength. I am looking forward to trying in staying in shape during the winter and hopefully it wont be so wet like last year. I went crazy not being able to ride for 2 months.

I did get an email from Bart at Southpark Cycles with some good news. Winter short track series has been set up!


I have been looking forward to this since last year. Last year I did the beginner class (still came in almost dead last every race) but that was the last time I did the beginner. I figured I enjoy riding so much the more time and more miles on the bike the better so I moved up a class after that (and still had my ass handed to me). I am determined to be in shape for this series.

In other news, the burrower had a goal for this year in which we just did. The Turkey Trot. She had 2 goals, one. Enter a 5k run in which she gets a t-shirt. 2. Beat her time last year of 57 minutes. 3. Goal of 45 minutes.

Congrats, she did all 3 and just completely smashed her record and beat her goal. Time was 39 minutes 27 seconds. I am not sure if she is hooked on this running thing fun time, but it is great seeing her meet her goal.

Weekly Update

It has been probably the best riding weather this year so far, but due to the time change it has been hard to take advantage of it. I guess the good news is that I have been trying to get my cardio fix in at lunchtime on the roadie bike. The mallard creek greenway is actually pretty busy around lunch time in the university area. A lot of runners, hikers, and even roadies taking a extended break from work I am guessing.

The highlight of last weeks "training" rides was going on the greenway and passing a group of roadies. While that in itself isn't funny, the look they gave me riding with baggy shorts, t shirt, and helmet with visor passing them was. Needless to say I didn't look back and they didn't catch me. Score one for a mountain biker. I don't think they knew who they were dealing with.

It has been almost three weeks since I got to ride The Culprit on actual trails, and I was jonesing for a real bike ride. Yesterday I attempted to go ride the local trail at Fisher Farms up in Davidson, there was a few miles of added singletrack up there that I wanted to check out, unfortunitly I wasn't able to do so. Due to an accident on I-85 I was stuck for 20 minutes going 2 miles. I got off on the exit, a little frusterated but still willing to ride, when I hit another traffic jam.

Due to people wanting to see this bozo I couldn't get past anybody on a two lane road. Stupid Renaissance Festival

I ended up not even getting close to the trail and turned around and went home and decided to drown my sorrows for missing out on a perfectly good day of riding. This is what I should have looked like, all happy and intoxicated (from riding).


But this is what I ended up looking like.


Since Saturday was a waste of a good day to ride I was determined to ride Sunday, and I woke up early and hit up my favorite local trail (mostly because they sell beer there) at the Whitewater Center. I did take some pictures of the new bridges on the figure 8 loop, but I formated my computer last week and some reason my SD card reader isn't working. (EDIT, found the driver I needed, here are the pics)


I don't feel like messing around with it right now so just believe me that the bridges are there and they defiantly help with the water run off problem.

I think that about wraps it up for rides this week, only 10 miles on the trail, but about 30 on the road. Not to shabby, but looking forward to staying in shape for the winter short track series in 2 months. Maybe I won't come in last place in the races this year.

Stupid Rain

Yeah, I took today off. In retrospect I should have taken some more days off in the summer, but I was looking at my calandar and haven't taken a day off since August. My sanity at work has about had it and I could use a 3 day weekend, just like most folks.

I took it off with the intetntions of going riding today but with the rain the past couple of days the trails arnt going to be open today but hopefully tomorrow. Oh well I am sure I can find something to do today. But probably not.

I ended up going with a roadie friend of mine last night to the Race Across the Sky movie. How much fun can a normal person have watching a mountain bike race movie? A lot actually. The race was more of the side-plot with who wins and what time and all of that competitive stuff. What a normal person would get out of it is that like most events like this, it is a competition of the human spirit against themselves, to push themselves to limits in which they normally wouldn't have.

People were riding for a purpose, to support their friends and family in their fight against cancer, to show themselves that even though they have MS they can still ride this brutal race for 7 years in a row, to do it while being blind, and even the people who just want to expand their horizons and push their own limits.

Oh and movie spoiler, Levi won, but you probably knew that. It made me want to go out and ride, but it doesn't really take much to make me want to ride so that might be an over statement. But it does really make me want to do this next year.
Burn 24. Thats right, a 24 hour race. It should be a good time, at least thats what people who suffered through it before tell me.

I think I have spent to much time on this post on my day off, so we will see what this weekend brings. Hopefully the trails dry up to have some riding fun. Enjoy this weekend. Bye everybody

Don't Call me a Sell Out

Yeah, I finally took the plunge....and got me a road bike. (Thought you were going to say 29er huh?) I am not going to drink that Kool-aid. I ended up getting one online at Bikesdirect.com. Although I am on the Southpark Cycles team the quality of bikes there is just a little bit out of my budget for a road/commuter bike. I spend my money there on mountain bike parts.

It didn't take long to put it together, just as advertised.


Put a few more pieces in the right place..


And here it goes. Nothing was tightend yet, just wanted to see how it would look in the back of the garage.


And the final photo after everything was put together


I had an extra set of crankskins

You can never have to much camo on a bike. And thanks to The Mutt for an extra set of SPD's to put on it

I took it for a spin around Ikea and didn't have any problems.
And then today started my "training" for the winter short track series. Not that I really expect to win, but not to come in last every race would be a nice change of pace. Any races under the 2 hr mark I just cant seem to get going fast enough fast enough (say that 3 times fast) to come close to the top of the ranks.

Today I rode to work, a nice casual 3 mile ride. I then took a few hours off the bike to help some customers, and then decided to run some hills in the business park. A 45 minute 9 mile ride at lunch and then back to work.

The part that sucks about riding to work, is always riding home, and after the hill sprints in which I did my legs were burning for the ride home.

Well that was all biking related that happened this weekend. But I do have some good pictures from Halloween, maybe that will be tomorrow.

Last Post of the Season (very picture friendly)

What is the end of the blogging season? I honestly don't know. I know that with the time change coming up, the summer series completed, most of the endurance races done for the year and cyclocross season coming up, riding time will be at a premium so the blog will updated less frequently. I will try to do it more than once a month though so keep checking back.

The reason in which I there was such a lull in the blogging was I had to send my wheels back to Mavic. Between shipping them there for warrenty work and interbike going on, The Culprit was out of commission for over a month due to this:


Ok, it wasn't just a broken spoke. Southpark cycles got that part taken care of within a day or so. It was there was some debris in the hoop of my front wheel and had to send it back to the manufacturer. That is what took so long. I missed some good riding time during the early stages of fall but did have some fun not being on the bike.

There was a wedding I went to for the burrower's co-worker down in S.C. (those pictures might show up later) My birthday party.

A lot of beer was consumed that night.

The beer olympics

I was the Candian team. Go Mounties!

Yeah, that hat is made out of a Bud Light box. I took 2nd place, but I really wished I wouldnt have. I was in bed in the fetal position till about 3 pm.

I got the burrower (left) on the bike, and she confirmed, she does not like it at all, at least off road. I am still trying to convince her that she is a roadie. She enjoys smooth roads, repetition, and no excitement, go figure.


I was able to log some miles in the TIAA-CREF charity trike race.


And the Junior Achievement owl

Go Charity!!!

My parents stopped to visit for the first time. Spent some time with them picking out some pumpkins.


Yup, I am a little kid and want to be carted around


Any Business Majors read "Atlas Shrugged"?


So yeah, thast why I haven't been on the bike a lot. Been busy weekends living life.
My new goal is update only 2x a week, but to make this quality post, like this, but maybe a few less pictures. Enjoy them

Looking at you till next time!