A Different Kind of Beer Bike

I saw this fine specimen of frame building creativity over the weekend. Complete with a rear disc brake no less!

We are going to have a good time

Just a quick note about this weeks festivities.

Wednesday's practice is a go at GP Betz starting at 6pm.

Sunday's practice will also be at GP Betz starting at 830am. There will be no railroad tracks or goatheads this time around.

Your new tour guide will be Dash Riprock for the week. Both Brian and I are heading out on holiday for the last time before cross season starts. Brian is out to Flagstaff and I am heading to the Pacific NW cross motherland.

Just an FYI - Littleton Cyclery is also using GP Betz on Tuesday nights for practice if you cant make a Wednesday night gig.

Dead legs this week

Ever had one of those races where you feel good after your warm up but after about 20 minutes you feel like your legs are made of concrete/wood/iron or your heavy object of choice?

I was lucky to make it 20 minutes tonight in the last CSP race in Golden. After back to back top 20 finishes just by sitting in, tonight was a whole different story. It was no quicker than any other training race. I just had no legs tonight.

With the first night of an organized cross practice in the books, we can look forward to having many more in the coming weeks before the season finally get's kicked off.

The course that Lee and the Green Mountain Velo guys have put together is all Colorado Cross. Dirty, bumpy, up and down and long. Your lungs will be done by the end of the race day. With laps that are going to average about 9 minutes and a nasty uphill sprint start, all of your training will be in use. It is only the 3rd race on the schedule but you will need the "A" form for this race.

Brian, Kevin and I rolled around the course for about 90 minutes working on lines, skills and some "secret squirell" stuff for the race. RRV and GMSports were also out working the course and turning some speedy laps.

For Sunday, Brian will be the point man for practice. It will be over at GP Betz in Englewood. The park is located next to Pirates Cove on Bellview. They will be meeting at the small picnic pavillion with the red roof close to the creek. Map is here. Start time is 0830 since this park get's used by lot's of people. There are multiple places to practice with lot's of stairs, grass, stairs, singletrack, stairs, hills, more stairs and pavement. Please be respective of others when riding through the park.

Wed practice is set

Ok, race fans. Wednesday night practice is all set.

But first a couple of ground rules have to be set.
1. We can only be there on designated nights. If you ride there any other time, my understanding is Golden PD will offer you a ride to their place for coffee and a court date.
2. The course has been marked with flags by the fella's from Green Mountain Sports. Lee Waldman has taken all summer to dig up cacti and clear out goatheads for our riding enjoyment. Please respect his work and thank him if you see him.

Now...where is said course at? The address is 2901 N Ford St, Golden, CO 80401. The entrance is off of Johnson Road and Old Golden Road, across the way from the Taco Bell. You turn into the kiddie prison and then take your first left up a dirt service road to the ball fields. Please keep the flags to your right when riding.

Most of the Frites guys will be there around 615pm. We gotsta come from the tech center. Lee and others from GMSports and RRV will be out 515ish or so. We can be there until sunset so if you are running behind..leave earlier from work.

Thanks and see you out there.

Practice this Sunday

wanted to let everyone know that this sunday we will be doing cx practice at 0830am at the children's museum, close to downtown and then move over to commons park for some running and more grass drills.

the childrens museum has grass, 2 run ups, a sand volleyball court to utilize. laps are short but do enough of them in the grass you can get a great workout.

commons park is across the street from the REI downtown. stairs and more grass run ups for everyone.

there will also be an update about the wed night cross practice later this week. trying to finalize the places and get the specifics on when we can be there and when we cant.

Bam Ba Lam!!!!!

For those of us who have the luxury to live and race CX in Colorado, we are familiar with Primus Mootry bikes and the legend of how Joe DePaemelaere once built two frames for Katie “10 bikes” Compton over a weekend. Over the years, Joe D. has been building a reputation as one of the finest one-man-with-a-torch-and-mad-skilz custom frame builders in the country. Joe builds bikes for all cycling disciplines, but his real specialty is CX frames.

At the end of last season, I decided that the Kona needed to be fired. I know, I know, a good carpenter never blames his tools.... but let’s face it, the Kona and I were always heading in different directions. It may still be kept on as a pit bike.... but that is it.

The Process -

So, right before Xmas last year, I dropped Joe and email telling him that I was interested in a PM frame. Joe immediately came back with a series of questions surrounding topics like riding style, injuries (I decided that for a cyclist, a separated shoulder does not really count as an injury since nearly half of us have one), frame materials, and others.

I had the distinct advantage of already doing a road frame design with one of Colorado’s fit gurus and could send those numbers to Joe for him to start with.

Shortly a return email with an initial frame design came my way. Along with it came a whole bevy of details on Primus Mootry CX frame philosophy. He covered topics from bottom bracket heights, to stem lengths for different size frames, to lateral stiffness of different materials, to whether a carbon rear is really worth it or not (hint: in CX you don’t choose a carbon rear thinking you need a more comfortable ride). We even got into the weight difference between an Aluminum and Steel and the fact that while it was relatively small (1.5lbs) it would make about a 8-10% difference when the bike was shouldered and ran with. The more I asked questions, the more Joe answered. Trust me, I asked a shit-load of questions. At one point we were down to what saddle I would be using and how the frame size would be effected.

I finally pulled the trigger and told Joe to build it. The wait time for a PM frame is currently running around 6-7 months. 6 months later, an email comes asking for paint decisions. I again started with the questions..... What can I get? Joes’s reply = Anything you want. I decided that in today’s world of bikes have some many decals that they look like a European hockey team, less is better. I told him to paint it black and just put a hot pink PM headbadge on it.

The Build -

I built it up with combination of SRAM, Easton and TRP components. The bike just naturally set up to be 1cm shorter in saddle tip to handlebar distance and 1cm higher in ground to handlebar height compared to my road bike. Damn! Dead nuts on what Joe said it would be!

How did we do?

Today was the first day of CX drills and Rich and I rolled down to the GP Betz course to start to knock off the off-season rust. But, before we started any dismount/re-mount drills, I had to throw the new bike through some tests to see if it was going to be all I had hoped. Test #1.... a steep uphill (20% grade) sprint. My thought being to put the frame under maximum torque to see how much it flexes. I once rode a GT mountain bike that I could torque enough to get it to shift three gears. However, not this Primus Mootry. Instead of frame flex, this bike simply climbed like a striped-ass ape.

So far, so good.... now for test #2.... how will it corner? For those of you who have followed this blog, you know my history with cornering the Kona and why it ended up getting fired. With that in mind, I took off across the grass field, built up some speed, unclipped the left foot (just in case, right?) and slammed it hard to the left. Holy Crap!!! Now that is how a bike should handle!

The 2009 CX season is rapidly approaching. I got the weight down to Clydesdale lite (Tom and I put a Clydesdale class in our races so all you little skinny bastards can kiss our butts, we are racin' Clydesdale!!!), I got the Lars Boom Experience Mullet started, and I got a new bike to race! Bring it on!

So, without further ado, I present....... Betty.

Counting down the days - 35 and dwindling

So a quick check of the ACA site today and there are now flyers up for the upcoming cross races. Here and Here.

The new ride is almost ready, just need to hook up the front brakes. The biggest issue right now seems to be availability of tires. Stellina Sport might not be getting any Challenge tires this year. I have also read that there are very little Conti cross tubulars also.

But we wont let little things like that get us down right? I have a full quiver of wheels this year. I have been a good ebayer, CL'er and all around cheapskate looking for deals all summer. Race wheels will be a set of Ksyrium SL's with Grifo 34's. Pit wheels will be a set of Ksyriums with Grifo 32's. Mud wheels will be a set of Cosmic's with Fango 32's. Training wheels will be a set of Classic Elites with Grifo 32's.

The season is quicking approaching now. Been running 3 days a week for 25-30 minutes to get ready to open my account at the Bank of Pain. I made the decision back in June that getting a coach would be money well spent. I contacted Ben Turner from Cycle-Sport and he worked up a sweet program that will run through mid November. Ben was able to help me when I was racing marathon mtb races a couple of years ago. I highly recommend any of the coaches from Cycle-Sport. They have an extensive knowledge base of articles, blogs and forums that will answer every question that you might have.

Hup, Hup, Hup....the time has come