For Glen

This chestnut popped up on Pandora for me today. Glen, watch it. Dig the manual-fest starting at 2:10.

Dang this is a great video. And song.

Pat tracks

Damn

Lunch time 1/2-Fat bike ride

There's finally a bit of snow here. A quick 5-miler on the half-fat bike shows more promise than I'd expected, frankly.

The front wheel sort of plows through everything and the bike's whacked slacked (then uber-slacked by the giant fork), forces me to sit down. Seriously. When I get off my butt to stand the weird geometry is like an invisible bully just shoving me back down. Luckily, the bike is geared for super fast, low-gear spinning.

Yes. I'm actually riding a bike here. Crazy, right?

I've got the paddle WTB tread on the back under all my weight. As a result, I sort of "plane" in that boat way of planing, not bike way, over the snow.

This might just work. The real test comes when this nice, cold, powdery snow melts a bit, then refreezes into deadly frozen slush ruts.

Some pictures from the last year or so



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Maddie's mountain bike - Kona Smoke

Last year, Maddie and I did a tiny bit of trail riding on the HD trails, lots of dirt-road riding up at the river, and a lot of neighborhood errands where we sought out the dirt-way-there.

Maddie's Elephant is a capable bike for the kind of trail and dirt and lite-rough-housing that she does, but we're (ok, I'm) hoping to do more proper mountain bike this year. I think it would be cool to go out to the air strip area out at Riverside State Park and get Maddie in the woods on the flat and non-technical single track.

For that, she should have a mountain bike. Glen and I scoped out this bike and the parts. Glen built it up.

Kid bikes are hugely heavy always. And if you check out kid mountain bikes, they're even worse -- with the suspension bits and clumpy, low-quality components. So the goal from the start was to find a good-enough rigid frame that we could lighten up with nice old light stuff.

The frame here is a Kona Smoke. It's Steph's old commuter frame. It's pretty perfect for what we're looking for: steel, rigid, sloping top tube, and cheap. Maddie should be able to get at least 3-4 years out of this bike.

Dig the wheels, with the Mavic hubs. I bought the wheelset at P2P along with a styling MB-Zip frameset (which will likely be Maddie's commuter when she's older, or if Liza gets a hankering for mountain biking, she'll get it).

Gearing is 1x7. Paul Comp chain catcher. Redline 3-piece short cranks. Purple pedals and anodized bling on the rear brake. The purple grips smell like grape gum, which will make Maddie go faster. Carbon bars. Purple anno BMX stem. Suntour Pro shifter. Basic Shimano v-brakes. High zoot super light Maxxis 310 racing tires.

Bike comes in right at 23lbs. Maddie weighs 60lbs, so it's still a lot of bike, but I think it will work out well for her.

There's rules now in the garage.
Pay heed.

Bill

Bill, Tony, and I took a hearty cold ride today.

I think the high was about 28F. Bill's beard was nice and frozen.

Reason enough, right there, for a beard.