Tuesday, December 30, 2008

F29er 1 super rad 23.1 pounds racing bike since i'm so fast...

perhaps the worst picture of the coolest bike ever:


and one from our nightride around the park:

Sunday, December 28, 2008

09 cannondale caad9 + DURA-ACE 7900 review

here you will find a review of my 09 cannondale caad9 featuring the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain... okay, so i have sram rival otherwise but the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain is pretty awesome. i also really really really really really really really like being on the road bike again with sram rival. i like the new lever shape a lot. it reminds me of the sram red that i had on my supersix last year but well, actually i think its the exact same but it cost a lot less. so basically the bike is:



2009 cannondale caad9 56cm frame
sram rival shifters
sram rival front derailleur
sram rival rear derailleur
fsa slk light 34/50 crank
shimano 105 11-25 cassette
shimano NEW DURA ACE 7900 chain
tektro junk brakes
c3 junk handlebars and c4 stem. the stem is actually okay, but the bars will be replaced soon
thomson masterpiece post
bontrager inform rl saddle
king cages
conti grand prix 4SEASON 700x25 tyres
chris king/mavic open pro wheels (custom built by me) with spoke washers. yes, spoke washers. if you haven't heard of them, you're probably not classy enough to have them. so thats it. oh, and no you can't put spoke washers on your mavic ksyrium. good try though

so, the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain is pretty awesome and well, it only took 10 minutes to put the chain together using a sm-cn79 quick link. i've gotten two rides in so far totaling about 45 miles and i'm really enjoying the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain. i love love love my sram shifters and stuff and while i really really like sram's pc-991 hollow chain on my mountain bikes, i found that their pc-1090 chain wasn't so good. it seemed to work about as good as a shimano 7speed chain on a 9speed drivetrain. with the chain cut too short. and rusted fraying shift cables. however the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain seemed to work super wicked super awesome good on the 105 11-25 cassette. it silently glides from cog to cog and chainring to chainring without effort. i think shimano does a good job of making chains and cassettes. however, their new DURA-ACE 7900 shifters are well, about as exciting as sram's pc-1090 chain... and their new derailleurs look, well, like XTR. boring. oh well. thankfully we have both sram and SHIMANO to choose our parts from. so my bike is really awesome and weighs 17.1 pounds which isn't so bad for a alloy bike with junk heavy brakes, alloy bar, and heavy winter 700x25 tyres. i think it will be 16.5 pounds with some nice sram rival brakes, bontrager xxx lite bars, and conti gp4000s tyres. alright, i'm off to work on reading jacob florence's blog. it is the most boringest blog in all the internets you know??

Saturday, December 13, 2008

saturday morning ride. commute

mid-day edit: you must click this. yes, you have to.

after sleeping in until 7am i woke and realized i would not be riding my planned route over rich mtn and down the front side but rather using an old friend, much shorter route up jordan v cook and throwing in a snowy lap on rocky creek before stopping at stick boy. i was out the door at 8am and crossed 105 at 9:06am. by then it had warmed considerably to 31deg F from the 20deg F when i started. okie dokie, here's the proof:



comments are welcome by the way. feel free to tell me i'm wasting my time. or that stopping at stick boy won't help me win the biggest loser v2.0 contest. or that i'm awesome. really, write whatever you want. unless you're J-Flo

Thursday, December 11, 2008

trainer riding. checklists. noah.

to start things off:

way to go noah. first loser at cyclocross nationals!!! woooo hooooo.

results here

moving on...

since noah sailed away on his boat, boone continued getting rain. about 178" of rain fell in the last 24 hours. well sam and i decided to ride trainers after work. sam managed to get everything on his trainer riding checklist

[ ] bike
[ ] shoes
[ ] heart rate monitor
[ ] base layer
[ ] post-ride snack
[ ] helmet

but like this guy:



he forgot his bib shorts. i told him if he didn't want to ride the trainer he could have just said so. dragging his trainer, shoes, helmet, bike, etc to boone JUST to intentionally 'forget' his bibs because he didn't want to ride with me wasn't necessary.

anyways i rode the trainer on my own even though its about as fun as a root canal. i went with max's suggestion of a 10 minute warmup, 10 minutes around 168-170 bpm, 5 minutes around 120bpm, then 3x 3minutes at 170+ doing the hardest work i could sustain for three minutes. it was quite difficult. i haven't done much interval type stuff this year although i can tell i need to. i hope to race the charlotte short track series (at least three of four events) so i think this interval sillyness may be a good idea.

welp, gray's anatomy was a re-run so i had some time to blog tonight in between conti tire researching and cooking veggie stir-fry. whew, busy schedule. thanks for reading. oh, i should be blogging again next week with a report from the megan carmody cocktail party. oh, you didn't hear about it?? yep, you're not invited

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

blogging off season. entering base 1

okay. if you haven't noticed. i haven't been blogging lately. and for good reason...

after a long hard season of racing, i mean blogging, i knew i needed a break. i've needed to put my feet up

give my legs and typing fingers a break from all the work. long hours on the saddle, and blogging take a toll on us all. and so i entered my off season back around september. i also stopped bike racing around october. i got into a race with no results (IRON MTN BIKE RACE)and finished fourth overall, and a cx race at hawksnest (scroll down, i promise its there!!!) and finished one spot behind victory. i mean one spot behind megan. oh well. at least i beat sam hutchens:



CONGRATS GOES OUT TO SHAW BROWN



for winning the NC CYCLOCROSS CX4 CHAMPIONSHIP.

you may better recognize him with his STATE CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY:






anyways, realizing i didn't have any state championships coming up for my own, i moved deeper into my off season. riding some. no heart rate monitor. no gps. no data. it was quite difficult, but even more though, i had to take a break from my blogging!!! so after a quick teambuilding training camp this november

i've gotten back into the swing of things. i've even begun planning my 2009 season and started planning which events i plan to 'peak' around and how to structure my blog posts for the coming year:
April 5th - Dragon's Back XXC??
April 19th - GSC #2 Columbus??
April 25th - Cohutta 100
May 3rd - SERC #4 Ducktown, TN
May 10th - Stumpjump Spartanburg
May 23/24th - BURN 24hr SOLO??
June 7th - SERC #6 Clemson
June 14th - SERC #7 Athens
August 1st - Wilderness 101
September 6th - Shenandoah 100
September 19th - 12 Hours of Dauset

my goals for the year are to have at least 189 blog posts, 276 pictures posted from races, average 378 words per post, top 5 at the BURN 24hr SOLO, get on the podium at least three times (XC races), upgrade to cat 1 (expert), and win a sport xc race.

lastly, i need to wish my boys good luck (they are headed to the usa cycling cyclocross national championships in kansas city):
NOAH

J-FLO

RYAN FAWLEY


blogging will continue rather slowly for the next few months as i progress through BASE 1, before moving into BUILD 1. so thanks for reading, and knowing i won't post again for a month or two, happy new year