South East Cyclist

this years icycle was fun… not a lot to say about it, except snow got us there saturday rather than friday night, i forgot my cassette wrench so i had to run a 34 x 15 gear in mud up hills, and some how the results say i won the hard ass cat DH race? i diddnt get my loaner lights due to said loaner not making the icy trip furthermore i was registered for sport cat DH so that aint me.

i have been talking about my shit to do before i am 30 list and i am slow comming with it but i’ll have it hashed out soon enough. 

you see my problem is that i always miss my mark because i am afraid that a decision i will make might be the wrong one. i will give you all an example.

when i was in the seventh grade, i went to the hospital i wont tell you what for and my father out of pitty told me he would buy me a gift… WHAT EVER I WANTED! so i chose this:

as you can now probably understand i am TERRIFIED that i will make the wrong decision, and my shit to do before i am 30 list is nothing to be taken lightly.

love your life, eat well, be scared of tyranosaurus rexes
~Drew

i have had a project in mind for a while… since i used to spend my days high on SPARKS fixing people’s bikes at Lucky Cycles. mmmmm pizza…. oops i got distracted.

over the past year and one month i have discussed and brain stormed with old friends, new friends met new people that have had good input about this idea and it has turned into something very positive and i think it will be a great thing for cycling in the south east region. 

this idea at first started as a selfish way to fund a racing habit, via some sort of a team of misfit cyclists. the idea now is to exist as a group of mostly non-traditional cyclists that like the camaraderie of racing  BUT to help bridge the gap between those that sponsor cycling (events and athletes) and the return on their investment… to increase attendance at cycling events and SAVE cycling as a spectator sport in the USA.

i know this all seems random and vague, but i am closing in some of the detail still. for the sake of accountability i am here to tell you all that by the time March is “OUT LIKE A LION”  we will be in like a tyrannosaurus.

out like this lion:

what better time than Classics Season?!

the theme for the weekend i just had… there were just enough uncertainties to keep things feeling alive all weekend.

lets start with friday, Rachel and i decided to hit the road friday night and get a nights rest at her folks house which is well on our way to the piedmont part of the state that was our destination. Her folks are also our pet sitters so it made sense, we just diddnt decide that until we were about to go.

that night we got a few hours of sleep between her pops snoring upstairs and our dogs fighting in their basement but as soon as seven a.m. rolled in we were to be on the road towards Salisbury NC so that i could once again subject myself to a 20 degree and windy cross race in hopes that the upgrade points fairy would ride with me to help me escape cat 4 land. the fairy was smart, and stayed warm. with a damn good turn out for the conditions being what they were (cold windy and before noon) we had 39 starters and 35 of us finished. i was number 15 of the 35. not much more to say about it, the course was great and very smooth with a couple of good single track woodie areas + necessary  40cm x 4m barrier set up and up hill run up. it was a big ring course for power riders all in all with little recovery.

Glad it was through but happy i followed through it was time to focus on the REAL event of the day. it was my mom’s birthday. she turned 51…ooops i mean 29 AGAIN. Rachel and i stopped for some damn fine mexican cuisine in concord’s “Andele” authentic mexican raestaurante then headed to Mom’s house for some shower + nap time. Rest and warmth were good… we diddnt really know that there were plans for the evening that involved going out for dinner with my parents social circle followed by a party at ones house but hey!

Dinner was a good chance to hang out with my little brother who drives now and has a girlfriend (i. am. fucking. old.) but two beers into mom’s party and Rachel and i were zombified. who would have thought that a couple of newly-weds under 30 would be the party poopers at a 51 year old’s birthday party? hahaha thats what life on the NCCX circuit will do. it will crush you (if you are a weakling cat 4 like i am)

Well of course there was to be a second race this weekend and this one was to be in an obscure park on the Iredell County side of Lake Norman in “Race City USA” Mooresville. it was about 5 degrees warmer this day and no wind but it was still full length wool tights weather with a more diverse course and and old friend to spectate it made for a more pleasurable face smashing experiance.

I had a much better start on this race and a better flow to my laps due to knowing where i would blow up and where i would recover. the course diddnt have as smooth grass sections as the day before but it had a nice tech section after a steep off camber down hill that was proper for a guy like me who’s technical skills out weigh his brute. i figured this would be a 3-4 lap race and my warm up laps made this course seem real long but it went for 5 at race pace!

my decline was a poor choice of a wheel to hold on my second lap. i had been moving up and pacing very well and making good choices so far but a wheel i had been holding on a flat fast section went down on a slight corner leaving me no where to go but right over the seat mast of his Scott and the guy behind me the middle of my back. the next half of a lap HURT bad untill i came to the spectating area of the course and my wife is there and my previous roommate from charlotte “Map Quest Mike” the next few laps went by in no time and i crossed the line at # 15 after a failed sprint attempt for #14.

two days x (Thirty five finishers + fifteenth place) = what XY ?

here is a picture my wife took while i am looking contemplative:

and here is a picture of me admiring a fine young latino mike while proudly holding my celebrex mug

and we finished it off with an opportunistic 4 hour shopping and eating session at IKEA since we were in the area before heading home (its a whole ‘nother blog post on its own)

its said that pre registration is worth many miles of training… i pre registered for a couple of cross races on monday for this coming weekend and i dont feel like it was worth any miles at all, i however did wake up tuesday with a noteworthy cold.
oh well, i will still be in Salisbury on saturday AM and then Mooresville on sunday AM to get my soo icey and cold cross on as long as i can keep this crud from migrating into my chest.
i will try to snap some lively pictures to brighten this glum page with.

oh and if you like bike racers that arent too super serious and you like blatant shameless shit talking and you like belgium (if you don’t you might be french) be sure to check out www.ritteracing.com

im refraining from making the post of goals and resolutions at the moment (although one of them is to do *more* with this blog.com account)… that post will come around the end of the month when i turn 29 and need to make my list of shit to do before i turn 30.

i am not party Drew anymore and i proudly spent my day at home with my wife doing house work along the lines of mounting brackets and staining wood to make shelving in the office for rachel to store her work things on. i have different priorities these days and cant just think of my self like i have spent my 20’s doing… its been fun and Rachel and i still like fun so let this be known that i here by am accepting ideas for my things to do before i am 30 list.

in the meantime i will be so narcissistic as to let you all get more aquatinted with my ‘cross bike. i have constantly been dialing in my set up this fall / winter mostly due to parts acquisitions and here is the latest incarnation:

my drive train is made up of Campy Record 10, long cage in the rear, and record front deraileur… with a Ritchey WCS compact crank. the cranks hosts two cheap as ass vuelta rings in my chosen cross gearing of 36/ 46. the small ring has been hand chamfered bead blasted and hard re-hardcoat anodized for durability

while the drive train parts are Campagnolo’s higher-end Record parts, the shifters are cheapo Veloce 9 speeders due to that being what i aquired first (i had shimano dura ace 9 speed bar end shifters set to friction shifting a 10 speed campy cassette for the first 4 cross races i did)

the next image is a slick mod i noticed on some of the pro’s bikes at the NCGP back in november, but theirs were done with zip ties, i cleaned it up with some nice stainless steel bits made for running full housing through cable stops. this mod keeps the rear section of shift cable mud free.

i ran a set of Stans Notubes.com CX tires on my Industry Nine Ego wheels to race on this fall. these tires seem to hold air at a lower PSI than the hutchinson tires do but probably arent as good in muddy and mixed conditions as the hutchinsons are… either or 20 psi is nice and soft and WAY cheaper than Dugast rhino’s or challenge Grifos glued on to tubular rims and a lot easier to switch between the two depending on conditions.

and the rest of the bike is pretty much made up of eastons’ more affordable EA70 parts and a bonty race xxx lite stem. for my cat4 tooth cutting cross rig i cant complain a bit! she tips the scales (clean) at 17.6 lbs and a lot more than that when she is dirty! it turns out a table spoon of dried mud weighs almost one ounce.

Oh winter vacation… i know we have made many many plans of which what to do with our time off together. DAMN this bitter cold for robbing me of motivation to get work done building my workshop, painting Rachel’s office, epic gravel road riding, hiking with the dogs etc…
Atleast i was able to spend lots of money making my truck road legal again and did rounds of bike maintenance on mine and Rachel’s CX bikes.

i am somewhat prone to tinkering and modifying things… i am also prone to make do with the things i have.
right now i have a project predicament and i pose the question What Would Sheldon Brown Do?
you see the drive train on my ‘cross bike is made of campy 10 speed deraileurs and campy 9 speed shifters.
i have aquired a 9 speed set of shifters and an 9 speed ergo brain computer. i have options with these shifters… i can get the parts to rebuild these shifters as 10 speeders and use my already owned 10 speed cassettes for about 40$, but not be able to use the ERGO BRAIN
*OR* keep these 9 speed and purchase a set of spacers (7 of them at .35$ each) to make my 10 speed cassettes 9 speed and USE the ergo brain computer…. im leaning towards that route but i would like input.

also let it be known that i am interested in your used campy parts, cassettes chainrings, shifters etc if you have un wanted used stuff laying around to keep my options open.

Blast off… Re-blast ok? Is any one even still interested in this page of mine? I’m going to. Try to revive it. Details later