Crazy Bike...

Is crazy.



I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching him ride.

Two-wheeled Crazy

Danny in a beautifully post-apocalyptic landscape.

Imaginate

I know I've mentioned it before, but I always love watching Danny MacAskill ride.

Time

Went on my Fourth(?) Annual "Holy-$&@% am I out of shape" ride today.  This typically involves a loop or two of my favorite chunk of single track down the river a bit.

Things have changed in the last couple years...

I haven't really rode the Island for well over a year.  Not too long before the deployment I dumped my park bike pretty hard and bruised/broke a rib (never bothered getting it checked, just sucked it up... not the best option...) so I didn't get out much before leaving last summer.

The Island is constantly evolving.  I don't think it's an "official" trail of any sort, simply a few miles of track cut into a publicly owned island on the river.  There's a core of riders that keep it clean, and have been slowly building up log stacks and now lengths of boardwalk over some of the wetter places (both better for the environment and a new challenge, notice the narrow width and general unevenness.)  The one pictured above was not the biggest, or longest, or steepest, but you don't see it until you're pretty much on it.

My shoulders still hate me, but I'm just taking that as a sign I need to ride more.

Advice from the trail...

Best way to get these bastards off? If you're unfamiliar, they even stick to skin.

And of course, I just took the socks out of the packaging just before the ride... oops.

Temptation Has Two Wheels

And it's name is apparently CrossRip Elite...

With the ol' Autobot gone and an F150 looming on the horizon, I find myself contemplating a "serious" commuter bike... with gears and mounts for racks and fenders.  Of course I'm a fat-tire rider at heart, so the disc brakes and hint of knobs on the tires also attract me quite a bit.

Having cross levers on the flats seems like a wonderful idea for a commuter as well, since I like to be up and scanning at intersections, and hovering over the brakes; something that plain doesn't work if you've only got levers on the drops like the Red Beast has.  That's one of the handful of complaints I have about that bike.

Oh well, plenty of time to think and see how the reviews turn out as this one has some time on the streets (and trails.)  It's probably a good thing I'm not too keen on the color, otherwise I'd be awful tempted to tell Manda to go down to the LBS and order me one...

Two-wheeled Awesome

Rideable Penny Farthing replicas... want.

Ow

Biking back from the coffee house and my chain popped off.  Couple nice patches of road rash, a few cuts, possibly bruised rib, and trashed one of my new Fivefingers.  Worst spill I've had in a long while.  Thankfully I managed to land on my non-carry side, so the gun's ok, and the OtterBox once again saved the phone.  Gonna curl up for a while in the AC now...

Drool Worthy

Paging through the newest issue of Bicycle Times while my shift winds down.  There's a bunch of photos from the 2012 North American Handmade Bicycle Show, and most of it's simply rolling art.  I'd hate to own some of those, I'd never want to ride them for fear of scratching it....

Last Minute Decisions...

...like riding your bike to work right now mean you forget things like normal, non-biking type underwear, and undershirts.  Oops.

New Bike in the House!

MandaFern upgraded her commuter rig.

Trek Neko SL with dealer installed rack and fenders.  Should help a lot with her goal of biking to work more than driving this summer.  I'm just jealous of the nice hydraulic disc brakes myself.

"Somebody Else Will Call"

“Bike Thief” is a social experiment in which filmmaker Casey Neistat repeatedly stole his own bike in locations around New York City, including in front of a police station. He gets away with it in (almost) every instance.

This really highlights both an immense lack of situational awareness in most people and the reason why I have good bike locks.

Muscle Memory

Winter can be a bitch.  The temptation to stay on the couch covered in furry space heaters can really put a damper on your skills.  Muscles have memory, and like most memories, sometimes they're about as effective as a sieve.

Yesterday was the first solid "Spring is... well... mostly here.  It is Wisconsin dude" day of the year, with record setting high temperatures well into the 70s.  This of course led to the motivation to put on silly looking biking clothes and break out the XC bike.  The one with the clipless pedals.

For those of you not up on your bicycle lingo, "clipless" pedals are the sort that, despite the name, have a mechanism that a cleat on your shoe clips into (the term "clipless" comes from the older style that have straps that your foot slides into, and those straps have been known as "toe-clips" for decades.  The new mechanical ones give you the same advantages (your foot's locked into the pedal) without the toe-clips, so they're "clipless.")

This winter MandaFern and I started up gym memberships at a local gym, and due to Uncle Sam's insistence, throughout the winter, we did many miles on the treadmill.  I never once swapped out the knobby on the back of my bike and put it up on the trainer, meaning I never strapped on my biking shoes and clipped in to my pedals since some point in October.

Clipless pedals have a certain amount of "float" built in to them (about 7 degrees the way I have mine set up) that you can pivot your foot left or right before they release.  This keeps your ankle from getting jacked up and stiff without constantly releasing your cleat and letting your foot come off the pedal.  Yesterday, I must have only gotten the front of my cleat in the pedal, and suddenly felt that I was lacking in this float after about a block.  Right as I started to really hammer on my pedals.  No float = very early release, which leads to my ankle bouncing off the pedal.  Much to my surprise, I don't have a giant purple bruise (sure feels like it though) but it is rather stiff.

Earlier in the day, Cro and I hit up the range (benefits of having your "weekend" in the middle of the week) and spent a good amount of time working on rifle marksmanship.  I had the Anshutz, and Cro was rocking his CZ-452, and we were mainly working on prone and sitting at 100 yards (yes, .22lr open sight, bolt action rifles at 100. It's a challenge, and a fun one.)  

Shooting prone and bike riding suffer the same issue in Wisconsin during the winter, nobody wants to do it.  Proning out in the snow on the frozen ground sucks.  Thankfully bulk 22 is cheap, and my Anshutz works "good enough" with Federal bulk packs (apparently at 100 yards it yields 4-5" groups for the crappy ones.)  It probably took the better part of 100 rounds to actually warm the muscles back up to remembering what they need to do to make a sling loop work right.  By the end I was back to cursing my heartbeat for messing with my sight picture, but there were quite a few called flyers leading up to that (not to mention how small a 600 yard reduced target looks through peeps at 100...)

Thankfully, I'm not planning on racing or going to Camp Perry this year, so I'm not behind the curve.  I'm heading to Afghanistan towards the end of the year, so I've been working on other skills this winter.  Prioritizing is pretty important too.

(To end on a good note, it was a beautiful day, and the route back from the range goes right past the cheese factory... so the grill came out, and the burgers had slices of the freshest Co-jack melted to perfection on top. Those were served up with some of the great offerings from New Glarus to wash them down.)

Nice Rack!

While I was off being an Army dude all weekend, MandaFern made a rack to keep the bikes from falling over onto each other on the porch (and did a really good job of it.)  PVC is a wonderful DIY material.

Know Your Roots

Dirt Rag magazine posted this video from the early days of "klunkin," which would evolve into mountain biking (you may recognize the name Gary Fisher among the guys in the clip.)

Second Wind...

The downside of random overnight shifts is that while I'm crashing all night, once I get out and stumble my way home at 7am, I usually feel pretty awake yet.

I think it'll lead to a relaxing roll down to the coffee house on the park bike to enjoy some coffee, some reading, and some light blogging.  The ol' Specialized P.1 really doesn't get enough use.

Industrial Flow

I've posted some of Danny Macaskill's videos before, but it's always a treat to watch him play on his bike.  He's got a new one out now.



Would love to be able to ride like that...

New Wheels

And a whole bike to go with them.

$220 from roadbikeoutlet.com... what could go wrong?  (Well, needs better pedals and the seatpost leaves something to be desired...)

Anyway, we'll see how this one holds up.  The previous single speed road bike made it through about five seasons, including a few tough Wisconsin winters.  The drop bars are an interesting sensation, never rode with them before.  May add some top bar inline brake levers eventually though, either that or get used to braking while riding the drops...

New SOF Bike

And it's two-wheel drive (you can see the drive shaft running down the right side slider on the fork.)  Cool.

I've seen two-wheel drive bicycles and motorcycles before, but it always seemed to be a bit of a novelty.  Too much added complexity for too little of an advantage.

Apparently Christini has gotten it down to a simple system that works.

The AWD system makes the motorcycle noticeably easier to ride and substantially reduces rider fatigue, allowing you to ride faster for longer periods of time. The AWD system can be turned on and off with a simple flip of the engagement switch. The mechanical Christini AWD system provides distinct advantages without compromising the performance of the motorcycle. Power that would otherwise be lost due to wheel spin is transferred immediately to the front wheel. The system adds just 15 lbs additional weight and has a power loss of less than 1/10th hp. 

Quiet Around Here...

Decided to catch up on some reading and go for a bike ride today, and will be heading to the range momentarily (the girl's been dropping hints that she wants to go again... hooray!)  Hopefully I'll be back in earnest tomorrow.