Brew'n up a Belgian Tripel

Motivation

This is the time of year to set your goals for the cycling season. It's been something I've been thinking about. What exactly is my goal. Well I have two. 1. I need to loose some weight, below 180 by the end of Feb and 2. I am going to score enough points to upgrade in cyclocross. I haven't had any goals for the road or mountain seasons.

Recently a teammate and friend told me he wanted to get upgraded on the road. Which has me very excited! For one thing he's strong enough to do it. He'll have to learn a few things about getting around in the peloton and staying in a good position on the road. I know I can help. If he's motivated and we can ride together.... that has me really looking forward to the road season.

Dave... lets rock it!

The HT 29er

29er on the way.

I've narrowed it down to the Cannondale. Great reviews, good ride, team deal and sweet looks have me sold. Not to mention that the Lefty fork is a full pound lighter than anything else on the market. The component group is solid and the brakes are good. Wheels are solid. Cannondale's been making aluminum hard tails for ... a few years. I've wanted to be a Cannondale owner and now I've reached my goal. What could go wrong.

The question.. do I get the Flash 1 or

the Flash 2

For that, I went to the specs

Frame, is the same.

The Fork, the Flash 1 has a carbon fork and the Flash 2 is aluminum. The weight difference.... wait for it.... 40 grams. 40g = nothing

Rims, Stan's Arch vs DT Swiss. Both weight 470g even if Stan's has that nice rim hook, both will go tubeless.

Hubs are the same

Both have BB30 cranksets.

The big difference are the XT shifters and derailleurs vs SRAM X-7. Cost difference $250

The differences are minor so I saved a few bucks ($800) and went with the Flash 29er 2.

Got a bike fit.. looks like I'm on the XL.

Photos and details when it arrives.

Can't wait till the weather warms up.

Kailee's Family B'day Cake

Nice Cake! Can you name everyone on the cake? Kailee can, I can't.

5 Years!?

Wow. It seams like it was so long ago but so much has happened in that short time.

To my precious baby girl, Happy 5th Birthday.

The Hunt for the Hard Tail 29er

As I posted a few days ago, I sold my old squishy full suspension mountain. I bought this bike a few years back as an upgrade to an old hard tale I was riding (it was pretty worn out). The Santa Cruz Blur LT was always a little to ... squishy for me. I tried dialing in the suspension and I believe I got it right but it still was never perfect. When I road that bike XC style, I always felt like the harder I road the more I was fighting the bike and not the trail. I didn't have or it didn't give me the confidence to lay it all out on the descends and it was a fight going back up hill. To clarify, it would climb anything but it was like a 2 year old.... the more you hurry it a long, the harder everything was. In the end, it made me not want to mountain bike. That would simply not do!

A friend let me borrow his hard tail 29er at a race last year and it was phenomenal. Every hill that we had previously raced, felt shorter. Anything that was flat, the bike just rolled through. I didn't get too crazy on the descents because.... well... it wasn't my bike. After that experience, I put my Santa Cruz up for sale. I was going to make the switch. Time to re-find my love for mountain biking again.

Now I have to figure out what to get. I was thinking about building up a bike but by the time I get all the parts, it costs more than just getting a completed bike. So, I'm going the complete bike route even though I know it wont be everything I want. As for the frame material I'm just doing aluminum. Carbon is too costly and it's particularly costly if you crash or rub a rock or hit a tree. So now it's time to find something reasonably priced that maximizes my return on investment.

So what am I looking at, basically the high end aluminum 29er from the major manufactures.

The Specialized Stumpjumper Comp 29er

The Gary Fisher Paragon

The Giant XTC 29er 1

and the Cannondale Flash 29er 1

As I begin to look over the build specs for each of the bikes, all of them look pretty good. As to the general aesthetics, I like them a lot. As for what is the right price to pay for those components, we'll see. First thing first, think I'll try and track down some of these bikes and ride them.

Daddy is the Mommy

This past Sunday, "Daddy was the Mommy", as Nate described it. Melissa went to help my sister and her family get ready to sell their house. I had a day of activities planned for us to help us get through.

The morning started out with breakfast "birthday cake" waffles. Not as big of a hit as the first time. They did eat so I am saying I won. Sadly both kids had a runny nose today and Nate had a rather nasty cough. You know the kind, it kind of hurts their throat so they whine at you and cough in your face at every opportunity to make sure you understand how they feel.

After breakfast I finally got them dressed and got snacks, drinks, lunch, diapers, jackets, backpacks, shoes and car seats set up and we were off for our adventure (once Nate was done with his 8th time out of the morning for hitting). To dinosaur ridge and red rocks.

Look at all those dino footprints! Kailee really enjoyed it and wanted to hike to all the sites.

"Daddy that 3 toed dinosaur must have been big!" At Red Rocks, I even parked at the top so they wouldn't have to climb the stairs after they hiked all of dinosaur ridge.

But that didn't matter, they immediately climbed down to the stage to check out all the action. You can see in the photo they were very interested in the show. Kailee decided she needed to workout and got her Yoga on in the first row. Then they ran the stairs back to the car while I chased. Nate crashed hard for a nap and Kailee went to play with the neighbors when we got home. I am still trying to recover.

Sold!

Finally. It only took 5 months. 29er land here I come.

The Ride

Wow we had good weather Saturday. Funny how 50's is great weather but the sun was out and it was nice to get out of the house. I'd been looking forward to this all week. For some reason I had also been a little worried about it but there really wasn't any reason.

The route we took had a few too many stops and starts at lights and other street crossings. Those always make for challenging group dynamics within the ride. I stuck to the plan. When the pace jumped, I just stayed were I wanted to be. I got dropped a few times but was always able to catch back up at the next light or when the road flattened back out. It was even easier when we went down a hill, I would keep peddling to keep the HR and power up and everyone else would coast.

In the end, I got in almost 3 hours (~2:45) and 47 miles, that's about 17 mph average. More importantly I felt pretty good. I spent a lot of time looking at my power and heart rate but I wasn't cooked at the end of the ride. I didn't have to come home and take a nap, like I have so many times in the past.

After looking at the HR data I would say it was a success. The goal was stay below level 3 and try to get as much level 2 as possible. Well, I was successful to the point were I had too much level 1 and wish I would have been able to make it a little harder. Still, the ride was great and the training appropriate. Next time my ability to get the training right should be better.

The Group Ride

During the winter months it's always a great boost, both mentally and physically, to get outdoors for a long ride. For most of the winter days it's simply not possible, too cold, snowy or dark. However when you have a quite weekend coming up and the weather is going to be nice and there's no snow on the ground, your mind starts to dream. A nice long ride.. and what could be better than riding with your friends.

So what is the problem? I haven't ridden more than a couple of hours (almost 2hrs) at a time in a few months, they have. Hell, I've only ridden outside once in the past month in a half. Sad

What I need is just saddle time. I need a good long ride to build up the aerobic base. The training issue is my competitive nature. There's no race this weekend (well there is but I only have Saturday to ride and the race is Sunday. I have the kids Sunday... would be fun to race but slow). So the question is, can a go to a team ride and get the aerobic ride I need or will I let the moment overrule my brain and mess it up?

I want to stick to the training plan... but can I? We'll see. Maybe I should just plan on getting dropped, then I wont push too hard trying to hold on to something that's not there.

As the new president, maybe I should talk with everyone and get to know them. I hope they ride slow enough..... wait a minute... I hope they ride fast enough to keep up with my minimal HR and power requirements. I don't want to have to ride too slow!

This is complicated.