First real good week of outside riding

Sunday I did a ride on the Mountain Bay Trail, out/back with about 1hr out and a bit over that back.  Ended up at about 33ish miles on the caadx.  I love the new bars.

Last night I went mountain biking at Reforestation Camp, set a new PR for the green loop on the yampa which I was pretty excited about.  That bike is fun but it beats me up a lot.  I've gotta get the Scalpel all tuned up and ready to go for a bit more speed/comfort.  It looks like my work over winter has paid off a lot.

New bars for the caadx and Gravel River Road Ride Report

First off, I have been wanting to try some different bars on my caadx.  It's not that the ones on there are a problem, it's just they're the stock ones, don't seem to be exactly what I want, and I never use the drops because of the position they put me in.  I am still new to a road bike and not really sure I'm doing any of this right anyway, but I want to be comfortable on the bike and have as many hand positions as possible.

Enter the Salsa Woodchipper - I saw these on a few bikes here and there and thought about them.  Took the plunge last week and ordered a set of the widest ones (46cm).  Got them mounted up Thursday night in anticipation of a group ride Sat (more on that in a sec).

Figuring out exactly where to mount the levers was a bit of a guessing game but I ended up OK, and this is my first time doing tape.  George had some of this tape around in red which is the color I'd wanted anyway - it's Zipp CX something and I really like it.  A bit more all weather than other tapes I've seen and nice and grippy and comfy.  After only one ride I recommend it.

I got a chance to try the setup out on the Gravel River Road Ride Saturday.  This was an informal, free ride put on by a local rider.  I think this is the 2nd year and I would say there were somewhere like 30-40 people.  Weather was a bit cool at 35ish degrees and it turned out pretty windy later in the day.  We rode out of a park and ride near Manitowoc, then north to Denmark through a few different roads, then back on the Gravel River Trail (old rail trail).  That part was the best, just cruising along.

I have never ridden in a big group ride like this before, I was surprised at how much different it was riding in a pack for overall speed and efficiency.  I do not really love it, I prefer long, solo or small groups to big groups still but it is nice to have company.  Obviously there are all different speed/capability levels in a group this size so it was pretty spread out by the end.

The ride was a blast, Eric did an awesome job of setting it up and keeping it low key, friendly.  I will look to do this type of ride again in the future for sure.  Idealy it'll be gravel though for most of it.  People say I should try to do the Bear 100 as it's kind of like that but all gravel and nice and low key.  I'm going to have to see if I can stretch family schedules to allow for that.

I was pretty happy with the bars on their maiden voyage.  I was able to use more different hand positions, still prefering to be on the hoods mostly, but the drop portion of the bars are way more usable for me and much more comfortable.  I'd worked on the truck Friday and had bruised my palms a bit (long story), so my hands were hurting by the end of the ride but not terrible.  I think the combo of extra hand positions and new bar tape helped a lot.

Hoping to get out on singletrack soon...

More Frame Bag work

So, in keeping up with updating I'm done with one side panel of the frame bag.  I did this the other night.  I'm trying to roughly keep track of how long this takes me to see what I think about time invested for future projects.  I've had several friends ask me to make them one when I'm done and I want to see how much time this really takes.  When I make the project for myself it's because I want to try to do it and make something that's exactly what I want, how I want, and have the learning.  Anyhow, so far I'd say 1-2hrs getting materials figured out and planning, then after doing this probably 1.5hrs of actual "work" on the bag so far.  Lots of figuring out with this first one though so I think next time could go a lot faster.  For example, I spent 20min just laying out zippers where I thought I'd want them, measuring, etc.

This is the drive side of the bike's panel, finished.  I'll be doing the non-drive in a similar way with a single zipper along the top.  I plan to do just a map pocket on the non-drive side.  Internal there will be dividers inside the bag to keep things organized and some mesh pocketing on the inside as well.  I'll be sure to snap pictures as I go.

On the ride side, this week has been trainer rides Mon then again Wednesday.  It is nice having the caadx to ride on the trainer vs. the mountain bike I used to use (with hometrainer tire).  I haven't put the trainer tire onto the caadx yet as I'm still hopeful to get some road time in.  I don't love it but it did give me a chance to watch some more Sons of Anarchy.  I'm kind of over it but invested to all but 2-3 episodes left that are on netflix then I'll watch what I've DVR'ed.  I liked the early seasons a lot but will have to see how the end goes.

Miles

Saturday I did some miles on the cx bike.  I decided I'm going to try to finish out 500mi on the caadx for the year.  I'm at about 460 now after Saturday's ride so not too far off.  I find myself wanting to ride the Yampa though so we'll see how the weather holds up and how important miles on a bike are vs. riding what I want.

Commuting and rainouts

So, I finally rode my bike to work this week for the first time of the year.  Wow, embarrasing.  My issue is I need to be semi-presentable for work and there isn't a good shower at the plant so I'm somewhat holding out for weather to cooperate and let me ride in at a "normal" pace without getting too dirty/sweaty.

I like riding to work, it's fun.  Need to do that more, it helps me get some precious bike time in which I have not had much of lately since Evan was born.  3 kids is crazy compared to 2, but I know it'll get easier.  I've been trying to sneak rides in in the morning here and there but I'll be damned if every time I've got my gear all set isn't a trigger of some sort for the kids to all sleep horribly, giving me 3-4 hours of sleep.  At that point it's pretty tough to get up at 5am to ride singletrack in the dark.  Riding to work helps that out as I can still sleep a bit later but get some time in.  I'm only about 7.5mi from work and it takes <30min.  The caadx is a perfect commute bike, comfortable but fast and efficient.  I've got road tires on it for now so it's pretty noticeably faster than it was on the semi-slicks.

This weekend was supposed to be a Marquette trip with some buds, like head up Friday, camp, then ride Sat and come home.  THis was the rain date from last weekend, but now it's rained out as well.  That means we're stuck coming up with plan B which is way less appealing and isn't jiving with the work conference call I have to be on Friday morning (this was going to be during the drive up to Marquette).  I think I'm going to have to miss it.  I think I'll try to squeeze in some riding though one way or another - either a 1/2 day Friday or do the WEMS race Saturday.  The Fatbike state champs is 6hrs, I don't think I've been training enough to be anything but DFL but I may do the race anyway just to be around the scene and get time on the bike.  The yampa is fantastic and I want to ride it more than my scalpel lately.

Bike storage in the basement

It's been a slow riding week, not much to talk about.  Evan is 4 weeks old now and doing fine, but he's sure switched our schedules on their heads.

I've been working a bit on my bike shop, thought I'd snap a picture of how far I got the bike storage over the weekend.  It took a trip to Home Depot with Noah and some putzing, but I've got something usable.  What I did was buy some cheap bullhorn bars from ebay, about $13/ea, and some really cheap stems, $3/ea.  Put them together and I had something that can hold the bikes by the frames.  Sure, I could've gone with a pre-made stand but not as fun and not as cool.

My only mistake so far is using pvc for the vertical - I need to replace that with some better pipe/tube that is more sturdy.  That will be easy though and will make the whole stand pretty legit.  Here's my man Noah with his measuring tape.