Doh! Just messed up my blog

Well it's not too bad. But now when you click on other blog links to the right, they don't come up in new tabs, which I like. What do you guys think, being that I have a whole 3 or 4 people that read this thing?

Shabbos + 1 is gravy

So after some late Saturday night rescheduling, (sorry Peter, but I had to be somewhere at noon and really wanted more than 2.5 hrs) Bryan, Matt, and I met up at the coffee joint to fuel up on super juice.

We rolled North up towards Ponca area and hit this wicked downhill on the way. That's the sweet part about riding with different people is you get to find new routes that you'd never know about otherwise. We crawled up L' Alpe d' Hummel then shortly after, I introduced the guys to the nice climb on North 47th st. This climb is fun since it has a few turns so you feel like it's never going to end. We then headed toward the airport. We took the trail along the muddy Mo to get there. This trail is not quite like others in Omaha. Just a little more ghetto.

Here's the trail:




And here's something you'll find along the trail:




Crack anyone?

So Matt had never been around the airport road and he fell victim to that roads' spell. For some reason, that road makes you want to sprint or ride fast. I guess it makes sense when you think about it; it's pan flat, it's a long stretch of road with not much traffic, and there's a headwind no matter which way you ride. We're just riding along the road when Matt gets into the big ring and just takes off. He has a pretty good sprint, although there was no way I was gonna challenge him after my 4 hr mtb enduro race the day before. Bryan thought about it, but didn't jump quick enough. Sprints are that way, you got at most 2 seconds to go with them if you want a fighting chance.

So we finish up by pounding over the cobbles of downtown since the farts festival was going on. The last few hills were tough for all of us, so we got a good ride in. If you've been reading the mtbomaha blog, you'd find this ride was EPIC.

Shabbos +1

If all goes well, it'll be our second straight week without gunplay! Don't stop believing, guys!

The plan -- now in red, and now edited

Meet: 8 a.m., Caribou Coffee on 72nd and Pacific
Leave: 8:15ish
Route: Probably the original Shabbos +1 ride, or some variant thereof.
Wind: From the south around 10, allegedly. I hereby give Mike permission to sit in, given the strenuous activities he's currently undertaking.
Length: Oh, you mean the ride length ... sorry ... (zip) ... 3-4 hours?

Be there.

What's the feeling

on Shabbos +1? I'm up for a ride of about 4 hours before it gets hot as balls. Mike, I know you're racing on Shabbos, so 4 might be too long.

What say you, constituents of Lebowskiville?

My Weirdnesday night ride

So since I'm rolling on Shabbos up in Ponca for 4 hours on my fat tired bike, I decided to hit the hills of Jewell on Wednesday night. I rode from work, and coincidentally, met up with Steve Jarrett along the way. Our routes aligned on 13th and that road that comes up from the riverside trail, Springlake Park. That was almost a mile away from Rosenblatt and people were parking all over the place. It was nuts!!!

Jarrett and I got to Jewell and did the first lap at a slower pace. He waited up for me a couple times since I think he was worried if I was gonna make it or not. I guess I've never really ridden with him on the mtb before. I was on my single speed which is not quite optimal for that park. Ok, it hurt bad after the first lap. My core got roxxored. We decided to go out for just one more lap and Jarrett said he was gonna hit it hard, but we'd meet up at the end to ride back home for a while. Well, after the first couple of climbs, he was just gone. That park zig-zags quite a bit so I saw him a couple times, but there was no way I was catching him. That trail is fun, but crazy technical, at least for this roadie. The trail is narrow, mostly off camber, and has ninja trees that jump out at you. I'd have to ride it consistently for a couple weeks to get comfy on it.

The main weirdness happened on our ride down Bellevue blvd heading home. We ran into Ryan Feagan, on his ROAD BIKE. So there I am, a roadie riding fat tires, and there he is, a mtber riding skinnies. Twilight zone indeed.

Get ready to say, "Aaaawwwwe...."

So after riding from my house, putting in a few laps at Swanson (I forgot how much fun mtb was...), and riding home, I was about to turn off Keystone onto Grover. I see a family, father daughter and son, off their bikes and looking at a small tree. Well, dangling from the tree was this young raccoon. I think the dad put him up there just to mess with him, but then he took the raccoon by the tail and put him on the ground. This raccoon apparently had no problem with humans, because he soon wanted to claim the dad as his own. He'd follow the kids running around and just wanted to play.


Soon the family wanted to get going, so I lured the little coon away from them so they could take off. Well then I became the parent. Here he is checking out my mtb tire.


I first thought that he was just lost from his parents, but he was just too used to humans for this to be true. He pretty much just wanted to stick around me. I later read on the net that some people find infant coons, try to raise them, then find out they don't work well as pets. There's a website that give 20 good reasons not to raise a raccoon. Main ones were diseases (rabies actually a rare one), messiness, reverting to more wild nature as maturing goes along, legal issues, and providing correct diet.



He was a cute bugger, but just in case his parents were around, I broke up a Nutrigrain bar and gave it to him in the bushes so hopefully either his real parents find him, or he figures out a way to live on his own. Honestly, how can you not miss a face like this, beady brown eyes, tongue sticking out:

Shabbos +1

Pretty lame that only two showed up
Excuses will probably fly
Too bad, because it was a good day to ride
Even though it was windy
Really, though, we knew it was all just talk.

I rode 90.75 miles today. Mike did probably 80. What'd you do?

The man with the plan

Shabbos: 7 am starting at Aksarben. If it's just Freddy and I, we could even start at 6am since that's what he was originally planning and will get us more time in before having to be places. Post a comment if you plan on showing up at 7am, otherwise we'll switch it to 6am. I imagine we'll be done by 10am or so. 4 hrs if starting by 6am, 3 hrs starting at 7am.

Shabbos + 1: 7am at Carribou coffee (72nd and Pacific). Sorry Peter, old guys(most of us) over-rule young guys (you). If you want to join us later, we can try for a rendezvous place and time to meet up later in our ride so you can disrupt your normal waking up schedule by sleeping in. Sorry dude, but we got places to do and things to be, so early start it is. This one we'll shoot for 4-5 hours. Chime in if you need to be somewhere at a certain time and maybe we can figure out a route to end up there.

I've heard from Brian and Fred. Peter you talked, but I didn't listen, so show up anyway. Anyone else???

Rollcall!!

Who has either Shabbos or/and Shabbos + 1 mornings available? The earlier we leave, the less bad heat we have to deal with. I know that's an issue for Bryan who works late, or rather, early (gets off at 4 am?) on Saturday so a 7am ride may be asking much. Maybe Sunday though???

I know you almost hit the back button when you saw 7am, but if we start then, we can do as much as 5 hours before nooner. That's some good gravy. A century would be nice, but we'd most definitely need to leave early then. Start at 7am and finish sometime around 1 or 2? Makes for an easy pace and lotsa miles.

So post a response with times you're available and DON'T BE AFRAID OF EARLY MORNINGS!!! Unless you really have a viable excuse like Bryan.

Pimpin

Yes it's a Trek. But what is so amazing about this bike is, aside from it looking just insanely fast, the technology that went into it is hopefully entirely industry design changing. The 2 main parts that have large bearings, the headset and bottom bracket, have always had some sort of pressing or threading to fix the bearings. Trek bypassed this by forming the BB shell and headtube/fork interface to be the actual bearing holders.

So normally, you'd have a headset (such as Chris King) which has all these parts; bearing, cups, crownrace, that all have to be press fitted or hammered on to allow the fork to pivot inside the headtube. The headtube of these new Treks are the cups and crownrace so all you need is 2 sealed bearings, your fork, and frame. That's it. You pop on bearing on the fork, slide the fork into the frame, plop the other bearing down the stem, put the bearing cover on, install however many spacers you want then add the stem. That's all it takes. One 5mm allen wrench does it all. No huge torture device looking headset press, no hammering of crown races. It's amazing.

The bottom bracket is pretty much the same idea, but you'll need a 2 piece crank like all the new ones out. You install 2 bearings on either side of the BB shell, slide in your crank of choice, tighten correctly and that's it. So basically, this whole bike can be put together with a few allen wrenches. The seatpost design is also a great idea. Instead of hacksawing your frame like on Looks or Giants, you have a mast that 2 different sized seatposts fit over, tall or short. So this gives you as much adjustment room as a standard 250mm seatpost. This also gets rid of the possibility for water to wash down into your bottom bracket area. It's a capped mast so the seat tube us just one long closed tube from BB to the top.

Ok, I'm done being all hyped up about this bike. I can't help it though. This is basically what I've been waiting for. I've never wanted to commit to a carbon frame since I never saw an advantage of it aside from weight and looks. But now that Trek has done this, I sure hope everyone else in the industry follows suit. Man, it would be so nice if headset and bottom bracket installation would be a thing of the past. Like I said before, anyone with a few allen wrenches could almost completely build up their own bike.

Anyone got a few extra thousand dollars they wanna donate to poor little old me??

This just in:

Mike's kinda fast again.

Uh huh, Shabbos - 2.

Being that I had this week off of work, I got a chance to put in some long days. And since I hadn't really done any long days this winter, eh-hem, eh-hem, it was welcome, but tough. Today I started the ride out with some cats from the Trek Store. I met Dan the pic-man at Carribou coffee on Pacific, rode N on the Keystone to Western Rd then added Paul and Brian to the mix. We headed N to the end of the trail, up Wenninhoff rd then turned on State Street East. We headed toward Hummel and rode up the area West of the difficult steep section. Paul and Dan knew some of the Camp leaders at the Hummel Day Camp and we all got to hear the story that resulted in no more use of golf carts. Great going Paul.

Paul and Brian had to head into their perspective works by noon so we just headed back at that point. Dan had an interesting hand fracturing accident a couple days ago so his ride was pretty much over too. You'll have to ask Dan about that one. So Dan headed straight S to his home and I followed Brian and Paul West back out to Keystone and Western Rd. After saying, "Tah, tah" to them (whatever that means), I ventured down Cass st to meet up with the Union Pacific guys going out for their Noon lunch ride.

I had been told by Fred Hinsle that a couple new guys needed to be taught a lesson in pain. So we promptly turned the screws on this pretty good rider, Reed. He's new and has lost about 20 lbs due to riding. He plans on losing more and once he does, he could be a real threat. Hopefully he'll take up racing! The route we took was the basic ride South from downtown. 7th St to Bancroft, over to 10th, down by Rosenblatt/the zoo, down 13th to Mandan, South on Bellevue blvd to the turnaround point, Fontanelle Forest. There was a couple attacks and I Johann Museuwed it on the cobbles. After returning to UP, I again said, "Tah, tah" and made the slog home up those hills of downtown into the Western wind. Started riding at 8:45 and ended at 1:20, so that's 4 and a halfish? Good times.

I felt really good so hopefully with an easy spin tomorrow, I'll be ready for this weekends events up in Norfolk. Even if there aren't too many competitors, I'm still working on getting in fighting shape, so I'm not expecting too much. I think by Babcook race, I should be golden. If I rode with you today, thanks for the ride and hopefully we can do it again sometime.

To Danny-O

Here's that stem I was talking about. I have it dropped down as low as it can go, but I think it can be raised a 2-3 inches. Let me know if you're interested.