Steeply banked wooden freedom

You know what's cool? I'll tell ya what's cool: 250meters of 45deg banked siberian pine. That's what.

What's even cooler? Riding on said expanse of unfinished wood.

So, a bit of history: From late 2003 to just last summer (June 2006) I was living in the vast, manicured souless wasteland just north of San Diego County that is Orance County (AKA The OC) and pretty much hated ever minute of it.

The one upside to that Godforsaken place (that is populated by convenient christians, ironically) is that it's about equidistant between the SD and LA Velodromes. So that meant that it was a wash on which track was closer. That meant I spent a lot of time on the road with a track bike atop my Audi. That was the price I paid for riding on an indoor, wooden 250m track. A price I gladly paid.

If you haven't had the opportunity to ride at such a venue, I highly suggest it.

ANYway, the thing is that when I moved to SD, it made the LA Track WAAAAAY too far away to do on a regular basis, so I haven't been to that track since last last summer.

Alison, was denied racing at the first SoCal Track cup in SD but is bound and determined to make the rest of the series. This includes the next installment at ADT (LA Velodrome). Trick is, racing on that velodrome requires certification since it's so freakin' steep that you can easily get yourself in trouble.

So, we ventured up to LA and did the Accelerated class. This involved about 20-30 minutes of Roger Young lecturing on how to ride the track without screwing it up and and a basic test of getting to on the track, riding the pole lane, riding on the blue line, coming down to the pole again and on to the apron. Basic stuff.

I sat through the lecture, anxious to get suited up and turn some laps on the wood. We got to the riding part and I bet you no has seen anyone change into a skinsuit so fast. I was on the track way before anyone. Happy, happy, joy, joy! I'm on wood! Oh boy!

Alison spent the required minimum time on the track to get the nod that she wouldn't be a hazard to herself, other riders or the wood and I just went around in circles going on about how it had been too long since I was on this track.

I educate her on how to do exchanges on the track and somewhere in there, Roger pretty much told everyone that "it's time to go home" while we were still riding around. He even told us "Go ahead and ride around some more, if you want".

So, we did a bunch of mellow 20mph laps taking half lap pulls for the practice. She needed it to be allowed to race on the May 12th and I needed it for my peace of mind.



Golly that track is steep!


Turn and burn.

Masochistic Madison of Mayhem and Misery

Tuesday night track racing has stared and it's not 4 weeks into the program. Last night was particularly painful night.

Part of what is making the recent track races so hurtful is that I am forcing myself to use a pretty tiny gear: 88.6 or a 49x15 (comparable to a 53x17) as opposed to a standard 90 (comparable to a 53x16). This tiny gear for races that hit 35 mph.

This Tuesday was special in that we had one of our first Madisons of the year. It was totally thrown together but we still got 7 teams!!!! That's pretty damn good for a random Tuesday night Madison.

So Iggy Silva III (little Iggy that use to be that one random Jr desperately hanging on the SDBC ride) asks if I would be his partner. I say "uh sure...you know I'm kinda slow compared to you. You sure you want to ride with me?"

He says he doesn't care, so I shrug and tell him I'll do my best.

We line up on the fence and the reality of how in over my friggin' head I am becomes very apparent. We have Kevin Shiller: cat 1 trackie possibly going to the Olympics, Shaun Wallace: former pro trackie who has held many national and world titles, Adam Smith renowned sprinter, John Arnold: possessor of a 1500W sprint, Chris Bennet: Local cat 2 road and trackie, Dr Alan Richburg: Cat 2 track/road, former Master's Nat'l champion......Oh, did I mention that Iggy is a Jr National Champion?
Yeah, I was in the DEEEEEEEEEEEP end. In fact, I am pretty sure that end wasn't just deep but bottomless.

I knew there was no quitting in this race. I would not do that to Iggy and I would never hear the end of that.

So we start off and things are fine and things are ticking along. Iggy and I exchange a few times and get the feel for each other throwing style.

It was a pretty short race at 35laps (Thank God!) and the first sprint was at 20 laps so things stayed mellow for the first 12 laps.

Somewhere at 21-22 laps to go the pace went from manageable to just plain old painful. I was able to time it right to throw in Iggy at a little less than a lap to go for the sprint with fresh legs: classic Madison move.

Now, notice I said "somewhere at 21-22"? I am vague on that point because the pain of the next 20 laps has somehow degraded my memory of the events that transpired after that.

We were supposed to have a mellow Madison to warm the crowd up for the big one coming in a couple of weeks.

Mellow-schmellow! After that first sprint it was just on! Kevin, Iggy and Shaun were going at it like a bunch of greyhounds going after the last mechanical bunny on the planet. I was just trying to not throw Iggy in with a huge gap to close....and keep enough oxygen in my brain so as not to run into anyone.

I missed one throw because Iggy was coming a lot hotter than I thought. I got used to those (somehow!!!!) and I tell you it's damn fun being accelerated from 15mph to 30mph+ in about 2 secs!!!

Somehow I managed not to get dropped (don't ask me how! I don't think I was actually conscious) and got to about 4 laps to go when Iggy Sr asked if I wanted Iggy to be thrown at 1 or 2 laps to go.

The question I was asking was "Why do you think I can do math now!?!??!! There is no oxygen in my math centers of my brain!!!"
I didn't say that out loud...all I could manage was a "mumble-mumble-Wha?-mumble mumble"
Yeah, no oxygen to the speech centers either.

I stick it and get ready to throw Iggy in for the last sprint and things got really fuzzy as Kevin and Shaun started to wind it up. I just remember desperately trying to discern Iggy's black jersey from the other colors. This was hard as my vision was narrowing. I'm not sure if this was a because we were approaching the speed of light or was my brain shutting down to oxygen-debt.

I think I threw him in, I just don't remember.

You know what they say about track racing: Turn and Burn.
Yep, I turned and I buuuuuuuuuurned.

FFF final assembly

So, after a lot of parts gathering and spending a fair amount of time at both Performance and Adam's Ave bike shops, I had all the parts (almost) to finish the FFF (Fat Fetish Fixie). I spent 90% of Saturday doing the assembly and doing last minute trips to the shops.

Since the Fetish is a MTB fame, the chainstays are set pretty far apart and the crankset I am using is an old school road Sugino, I had to find a really FRIGGIN' wide BB to get everthing to clear. But I got it all done and it looks nice.

Since the cranset was set out so far, I had to pay a lot of attention to the chainline. I have a track hub that I converted to MTB spacing and I had to space it all the way over to the right to get the chain line right.
This was going to make for an interesting back wheel with dishing and the offset rim.

I laced the wheel up and had to do two pretty weird things to make it work right: I had to put a reverse dish and lace up the rim backwards (withe the rim offset to right). It looks pretty weird and I am still waiting for someone to go "Hey, that wheel isn't built right!"

This looks all sorts of wrong to me, too.
Yep, that's no illusion. It's dished the "wrong" way: to the right. But the offset in the rim made it work out fine.

Here it is as about 90% complete. I just needed a seat post collar, a chain and some chainring bolts. Off to Performance I went.

Funny thing is that the most difficulty I had with the entire build was getting a tire on the front wheel. What a friggin' pain in the ass that was!!!! Holy hell! I pinched at least 2 tube as I had to use some super heavy duty tire irons to get some of the tires on. Total waste of time.

But I got it done, finishing the assembly with that hard as a rock S-works saddle off my new Specialized.She looks a little funky with the skinny tires, but I got some major fatties on their way. I even rode the thing to Adam's Ave to change out the 130mm stem that was making me about 2" taller.

I got some lights, a shorter stem and some bar ends with LEDs in them. I just need some handlebar tape and to put on the fat tires and she'll be done!!!! Stay tuned.

You know what's cool about San Diego?

Adam's Ave Bike shop on a Friday night. That's what.

I headed out of work on a Friday to meet a most frustrating and soul-robbing commute. I could feel the life being sucked out of me. My beloved Audi (yes, I do have a car and I do love it), and KPBS barely kept me from loosing my mind as I exited at Adams Ave off the 805 and I headed to Adam's Ave bike shop to go hunt down some parts for the FFF (Fat tire Fetish Fixie).

I think I knew things were looking up when I got the coveted Rock-star parking: a parking spot RIGHT in front of where you are going. That's right, I was parked pretty much right in front the of the front door.

I walked in and saw at least 6 people I knew in the shop. People who were just hanging out and tossing back a few brews, shooting the shit about bikes, racing and racers.

Andrew (owner of Adam's Ave) helped me find some parts for the FFF and offered me a beer.

I'm telling you, that beer was tasty and magically, all the parts (used and new) became all of a sudden shiny and new!

It was a good night. I went home and started to work on the FFF and made some pretty good progress.
I'm hoping that I can get it done this weekend. Wish me luck.

Memories

As of late my inbox is filled with e-mails from my new bike buddy, Alison and I can tell you that is a good thing. I have already blogged about how she has brightened my life with renewed bike-love and today she did it again. Probably without realizing it.

She was telling me about how her Sutter (commuter bike) was being worked on at one of her local bike shops and she was going on about how the mechanics were excited to work on it.

Now realize that the Sutter (this link is to a Sutter I found online, not Ali's) isn't just any old beater commuter. She is clad in Campy Nouvo Record and I would have been proud to ride her back in the day.

I think I replied to the e-mail telling Ali something like "Duh! They work on boring cheap uninspiring bikes all day. Working on something cool and old school is a treat!"

That made me think of my days as bike mechanic and how the soul numbing stream of cheap ass POS bikes were punctuated by some savory morsels of bike nirvana. Not the bling-bling fancy-schmancy bikes but the old school ones.
The Old Masters:
Gueciotti
Ciocc
Battaglins
3Rensho
Zeus
Gitane
Botecchia
Pinarello
Colnago


All the ones we used to see in the bike magazines in our youth but never actually saw in real life. Some of them came and went long ago.

It didn't matter what we had to do to them, they just brightened out day with their old school jeweled articulations of Campy, Roto, Simplex, Modolo and Suntour.

I sat there composing my e-mail to Ali about the joys of working on the old bikes and my mind started to go back in time, beyond my starving student bike mechanic days, beyond my Navy days. I took an express trip to the early 80's and the beginning of my love affair with bikes and the start of my life as a cyclist.

This life started in the most unlikely of places: central Florida were cyclists were more rare than snow flakes. There were only a couple of shops that were notable. The one that has stuck in my mind the most was a place called University Bicycle Center. It was the coolest bike shop within 30 miles. The guy who ran it was named Manny and he was just cool.
One of his mechanics helped me set up my first set of Jr gears. Gear restrictions limited our gears to 92 inches. He found me a 51 tooth chainring and built me a 15-21 freewheel (remember, this is the 80's: 6 speeds was IT!!!). That 51-15 gave me a 91.8.

Besides all the helpful people there was the real thing that makes me wax nostalgic: the pro room.
Back in the is little room past all the schlock bikes, the balloon tires and the kids bikes with tassels was this full on sensory assault of bicycle goodness.


There was at least 12-15 high end bikes. cabinets of bike components and all the racing accessories. As with all good racing bikes, they had sewups and leather saddles and sometimes leather handlebar tape. In this room they stored all the sewup tires and the leather hairnets, good quality cycling shorts with real leather chamois, and all the other stuff that goes with that: saddle soap, chamois cream, sewup glue, campy bike grease.

I bought all my sewup tires from that room and my first leather "hairnet helmet". A really nice Cinelli one with yellow sides.

All those things along with the Campy grease and the aging natural rubber tires created this aroma that was almost overwhelming. They say that smell is the sense that has the strongest link with memory and I can attest to that.

I have this thing about leather and the way it smells and I really think this mystical pro room has something to do with it. It had burned itself into my consciousness in a most indelible way and I have yet to come across anything on par.

I have been working in and shopping in bike shops most of my life and bikes just don't smell like that anymore. They just don't.

The closest thing is the actual mechanics area. The smell of bike grease and WD40 hints at this, but not quite.

So, while I sat there and reminisced about this magical place, it brought a smile to my face as I just savored the memory.

The Fetish Arrives

So, over the last two or three weeks I have been helping Ali with her project fixie. We have gathered parts and e-mailed back and forth with ideas for the ultimate, bitchin' girly fixie. She came over a couple of times to disassemble the freebie Norco and then to file off the rear brack braze-ons. Determined to do it all herself, she has been adamant that she be involved in every step. She has just dropped off the Norco for powder coating. Most of the parts are here and there are a few that are on their way.

All the while I have had bin full parts that will be the FFF (Fat Fetish Fixie) but alas, I have been beset with set backs in acquiring the frame.

But after a particularly uneventful and boring day followed by a most infuriating commute, complete with silly rubber necking for an accident that didn't even had any injuries or even engrossing auto-carnage that stretched my trip home by a good 20 min, I came home to a nice big box right outside my door.

My Fetish had finally arrived. :)

So, now I can start hanging parts. The only major job is building the rear wheel. I have to determine the spoke length and acquire spokes of said length and once said spokes of said length are acquired, I have only a couple of hours of wheel building to before I have my rear fixed gear mtb wheel. The rest should be fairly trivial. I might have to futz with the spacing of the rear wheel and the chain line but that's all in a days work.

I might even be able to beat Ali to completion, but that's not really the point.

Burning Ring of Fire

Today, I read on CNN that the Mansion of Johnny and June Cash burnt down. My immediate reaction was sadness, but after reading the article and then pondering the history of the mansion and the people who called it home, my sadness turned into tranquility.

John had purchased the house while it was still under construction from Braxton Dixon who was considered the South's own Frank Lloyd Wright. The Cashs lived in that house from before the were married till their deaths. They didn't house hop till they lived on some sprawling tract of land that would make Louis XIV feel inadequate. They had a house that became their home and that was just that.

My affinity for Johnny Cash and his music is a very recent thing and it really didn't occur till Johnny released a very large body of work just after the death of June Carter. I honestly believe that work, a lot of which were covers of other songs, is probably some of his best work.

He covered such modern stuff as Nine Inch Nails, Hurt in a way that Trent just couldn't do despite the fact that Trent wrote the freakin' song. I remember listening to an interview with Trent on the death of Johnny Cash and he talked about how awestruck he was by the surgical accuracy that John captured the essense of "Hurt". He mentioned how his friends said to him "THAT'S what you meant in that song". John simply had more "mileage" than Trent.

I also watched an interview with Johnny on either Charley Rose or one of his contemporaries and John mentioned how after the death of his beloved June, he told his agent to inundate him with work. Any work, just so he could keep himself going.
The convergence of tragic elements probably created one of the greatest bodies of music that the world has ever heard. Yes, almost all the songs were covers, but they were done by a man who was one of the greatest singer/songwriters this country has ever seen, it was done with millions upon millions of notes under his fingers and it was done with the motivation of all motivations: the loss of not just a loved one, but THE loved one. Mother of his children, owner of his heart and the inspiration behind most of his work.

When you listen to his last work, you can feel that these songs were the last firey, glorious show of the man who was arguably the father of rock and roll and all it's derivatives. Rock, Rock'a'billy, punk, and a thousand other genres. But the songs made you feel every bit of his pain and loss. His voice is cracked and broken by the weight of the decades, but as with all truly good things, the flaws only add to the character and it only gets better.

So, it seems only fitting that the home of the Cash's would go in such a manner. A burning ring of fire.

So, if you read this and even if Johnny Cash wasn't really your taste, take a moment and thank him (and his wife) because chances are that some piece of music you listen to now that makes you happy most likely owes itself to Johnny.

Bike parts

The Fat tire Fetish Fixie is yet another step closer to reality. Yesterday at the bike swap, I picked up about 80% of the parts I need for my new Fixie.

The only things I didn't find were tired, chain, saddle, headset and brakes. I found a whole slew of cool parts including a rear fixie hub for a whopping $1.00. I was hoping I would find a dope fixed gear rear mtb wheel, I but I think I was dreaming so I just picked up the parts to build my own: Rim and Hub. Just have to pop on down the Performance store and show them how to use their Sutherland's book to calculate spoke lengths to get my spokes.

Now I just need to wait for my Fetish frame to show and start hanging parts.

My buddy Alison was going to go shopping with me, but somehow she lost her sparkly gold wallet....along with all her cash. Really killed her day especially with a hideious Saturday night and a crappy Saturday on the bike.

I always say that trouble comes in threes (I don't know if that's true, I but I head it somewhere and thought it was cool) and conveyed that to her.

Sure enough, she scored a free frame, some pink cranks and a pink chain all for grabbing the fixed gear boys some grub. Oh and she got some ice cold Tecate. Amazing how some cool bike parts and some brew makes all things better.