Enjoying Errands

My normal gearing combined with the big wheels has me pushing harder than normal on my commute rides. At first I thought about changing it. In fact, most hills have me thinking I should drop it down a tooth or two. Then the little voice yells "shut up and just pedal!"

Another voice said I was weak and a third told me it had to pee. Then the first voice came back and yelled "shut up and pedal!" again, then shared a secret. "Pain just hurts. Shut up and Pedal."

Truth. And I still had to pee.

Custom Awesome

Friday night when we arrived at the Dicky compound campsite, Dicky and I swapped packages... of sorts. I had a custom test pair of Swiftwick ultra thin, linked toe, zero socks and some stickers for The Dickster and he handed me an already been open and peered into bag of custom Awesome straps.

He admitted not being able to wait to see what I was getting and posed a question along the lines of "I don't understand, why would anyone get a custom product from someone that no one else could get?" to which I answered with "what about that brontoawesomeness frame of yours?" Duh, winning.

I'm not sure if I'm good for sponsors. I tend to stick with what I find that works and don't really upgrade for upgrade sake. Take my 26" rigid singlespeed for instance. 26" wheels, rigid fork, mechanical disc brakes. A classic take on classic technology. Same goes for my Awesome straps. I'd gotten some of the newer stock and they worked awesomely, but I just stuck with the older model because it was on the bike and working. Backcountry Research, being the benevolent company they are, created me an old school Awesome strap out of the latest and greatest hypalon awesomeness.

The straps are a little shorter length than my near and dear Envy Green straps, but since I only carry tubes in mine, they fit snugger in my two favorite positions: behind the seatpost under the wishbone and on the stem. It seems Backcountry Research was paying attention to my details. Thanks BR!

If you gravel grind, explore the paved roads, or play in the woods, grab ya a strap or two. There's not a simpler, securer, or handier solution out there. Why bulk up your bags and pockets with tubes when they can be awesomely strapped out of the way to your rig? Plus in a pinch they can be used to secure extra water bottles to your frame or fork, and work well for keeping your pant legs outta the chain.

Also,  for the record Mr. Dicky, this isn't the first one-off custom prize from Backcountry Research for the Marsupial, I've gotten a couple tool pouches in the past that trump any Tülbag. Bags are for girls.

Lately I've been working off of a new plan of "going further with less." Less mileage, less time, less time in the saddle, less stuff, less gear, less ability to eat and drink, less opportunity, less desire, less, less, less. Life has changed pretty drastically the past 3 years, as it does/has for most people. The days of being able to log long hours in the saddle or take off for the weekend are gone for me at the moment. I could sacrifice sleep, home, and family time for some extra hours, but gone is the willingness to sacrifice such happiness for the sake of racking up mileage. Hence the Tibrid. The 700x32c wheel setup allows me to get some commuting and pavement miles in without the wear and tear on my tubeless Aspen setup (or having to much around swapping tubeless tires around - still my #1 annoyance with tubeless, however the ride is sublime).While not ideal, it does offer opportunity I'd been passing on solely due to lack of convenience.

Knobbies were swapped back on for some puppy/dirt time today. I was going to do my normal Friday road ride then hour trail run with the pup, but it wasn't a normal Friday. This month my busy schedule (still trying to catch up from March) has been amplified by babysitting duties. It takes a village as they say and thankfully we live in our little commune as sacrificing for and leaning on one another helps us all get through our days. The only negative besides trying to keep your schedule in sync with someone else's, is the ability of morning/night rides with the pup or even just to and from work diminishes for the month. Every opportunity to get out is now studied and scheduled, weather pulls the kibosh occasionally, but when you have a pup designed to go all day you have to make time to run him else prepare yourself for the wrath of a pup scorned. So I sacrificed the road ride (not really a sacrifice in my current mental state) and just added an extra hour and a half and a taller gear to eek as much as I could out of my ride time. It was a great ironic time in the woods. Why ironic? Because I'm kinda over hamster cage racing and infatuated with longer exploratory adventure ones like PMBAR, Sub9 DeathMarch, and Kanza, yet my current favorite riding is in the back doing loop after loop after loop.

Tomorrow is back to Tibrid mode for some long road riding with a friend before and after work, then more dirt hopefully Sunday night when I get home from delivery driver/babysitter duties in Kentucky. Again going further with less. We'll see how it pans out for Kanza.

Speaking of going further, infamous announcer, Mouth of the South, and proprietor of the "Bruce Dickman Hall of Fame" at Mulberry Gap Bruce Dickman stopped in and visited for a while earlier this week. He gave me and the boys a free sample bottle of Progold's (I've been using their Prolink lube since Ernesto Lube has become scarce) new long distance formula lube. I just put it on today. I'll have several creek crossings, gritty roads, single track, and road miles of test scenarios this weekend. We'll see if it prevents the re-lubification requirements of everything I've tried of late. Thanks Bruce!

The rest are just a couple of cool old bike parts that came across my world this week. This old Wicked Fat Chance rolled in with this sweet looking Tange Prestige rigid fork of doom. Looks like a vampire killer to me. Or at least something wickedly Misfit-able.

This shot is for Mr. Boucher. Old school Salsa bar ends.

Going Farther with Less: The Hybrid Life

In an effort to re-balance the daily grind to go farther with less and allow more than 2 days a week to get in some good riding the Rigormootis recently got an X injection. Since swapping to tubeless my riding has dropped. Although I am loving riding a tubeless setup, it's a major pain in the butt to swap tires around from a road/commute friendly set to a knobby meat. And at $63 bucks a tire, wearing knobbies down on pavement isn't a frugal friendly maneuver.

Solution: Add some 700c wheels from gRant with some $17.99  32c tires and turn the singletrack shredding machine into a tar-n-chip eating Ti-brid. I got it out for it's inaugural ride last night after work with Adam on a completely new to me loop that included a lake I'd never seen before right here in Davidson county. It is an ear-to-ear grin inspiring beast. This is the start of a S240 adventure riding rig. As soon as I get some brake shims, it'll just be a wheel swap to go from dirt to pave.

The big wheels fit with room to spare and the only negative is a massively tall bottom bracket. Though the tall BB will come in super handy for the MOAB fat tire crit coming up at the end of May. I'll be able to lay it over and pedal through every turn. Talk about some curb clearance.

Worthless as a Wooden Nickel

Not sure I like the way he's looking at my package. photo cred: Eric Wever.

The 2011 edition of PMBAR just elevated PMBAR from one of the best races ever to the best race ever and it has nowhere to go but up. Evil Mastermind Eric Wever really changed things up for the better this year and the race was blown wide open right from the start.

Showing up to what we thought was on time for the riders' meeting, we found ourselves mid-pack and unable to hear above the chatty kathy's behind us. We asked a few folks "what'd he just say about the passport?" and they'd turn to us with dumbfounded faces and shake their heads in a sign of non-comprehension.

Where's the hat? Zac? ZAC!??

Once the meeting was over, Emily headed over to pick up our packets and soon Eric yelled go. We found some room to move and started reading the map and passport. Well reading being more like looking at the pictures.

Map reading success. 

Our map reading skills garnered us an A in class. We were able to discern open trails from off-limit trails and made note of how to avoid the no-no trails.

Route planning success. 

Another A for navigational planning. Emily cooked up an awesomely challenging and fun route to hit our checkpoints and get us home.

Reading and comprehension Fail. photo/image cred: Brad O.

A big fat U (unsatisfactory) for reading and comprehension. Rule #13 bit us in the rear as did the Pilot/Laurel CP "must continue in the same direction" rule. We didn't read the details closely enough. Time penalties pushing us towards out of time. The best part was these rules also bit most of the other racers at some point and kept the podium chances wide open. Even the swap up of not being able to shoot straight up Black Mountain from the start bit some. It'll be a while before racers recover mentally from this one.

Panic Dance or chicken strut?

All day we were running into teams coming from every which way. Leaders coming from behind us way after the start, typical top finishers passing us bonked and out of the event, others giving up and just going out for a ride. And some still racing but completely unaware that normally off-limit routes were now on-limit and when we told them we really really made them happy.

Team Kish My Moots. photo cred: Eric Wever.

 Despite being struck down again by my mysterious stomach problem, team Kish My Moots finished having fulfilled most of our goals:

1. Return Thad in a non-fetal, wretching, death wallowing condition.
2. Not to walk in water above our knees.
3. Have a fun day in the woods above all else.
4. Get our 4 checkpoints, while having fun in the woods above all else. (if this were Kanza, we'd have won the painting)
5. Return Thad to TN without loss of pet, life, car, gear, bike.

Thanks to Eric and Erinna and all of the Pisgah Productions crew for putting on such amazing and challenging events and letting us idiots play along. Thanks to Brad O. for being out taking photos, it was great running into him all around the trails. Thanks to the bacon and donut checkpoint crew. Thanks to H. for making her first trip out to PMBAR and being the best crew ever. And thanks to Emily for being the perfect partner. When does registration open for 2012?

Why do I have to check the trailer?

I thought it a bit odd that H. kept sending texts from work asking if I'd gotten the blanket out of the trailer. Our normal warm camping blanket had suffered from the recent floodings and she had texted that she'd found a suitable replacement in the horse trailer. When I got home from work I decided to start a load of blanket laundry and see if I could salvage some warmth for the weekend.  I texted back that the blanket situation was remedied. Around midnight-thirty she responded with "did you wash the one in the trailer too?"

Why is she trying to get me to go out in the cold darkness to fetch a blanket out of the trailer? I'll just get it in the morning.

Morning came, as did the punch line. Funny girl. Thanks for my number blanket.

Preparing For PMBAR

This cog gets put on for two races a year, PMBAR and DSG. Hopefully it serves me well this year. It did pretty good for me last year despite my stomach issues, flooding, and general black cloud luck. 

My gearing might have gone up in size, but my packing has sure trimmed down a lot. Besides the required gear, some food, a multi-tool, and pump, this is what I've pared the rest down too. There are two other small items I still pack that I won't share. Wouldn't want to give away all my secrets now, would I?


The pre-race crazy dreams began last night. I dreamed it was 9:00am Saturday and I was still putting together my pack in a house where water was raining down from the ceilings. It was dark and I couldn't find anything in a house full of people not interested at all with helping me or even getting out of the way. All I could scrounge up to pack for food was some pink butter on soggy moldy bread. I couldn't find my glasses because I didn't put anything back in it's normal place and everything was a strewn about in a flooded, messy house. Dicky, Emily, and everyone were outside having fun participating in the pre-race bacon and whisky grassy knoll ride and I was stuck in the house with soggy moldy bread, nothing packed, and a room full of people oblivious to my distress. When I finally got out to race, everyone was halfway up a long climb disappearing rapidly into the distance. As I crossed a creek that ran at the base of the climb, Eric handed me this hand-sewn blanket with a number on it we were supposed to wear on our chests as a number plate. It was huge. I tried to pin it so the number was visible on my chest and stuff the rest into my pack. It didn't fit in my pack. So there I stood in the creek with a big, bulky, heavy, soggy blanket and a pocket full of moldy soggy pink buttered bread.

Must mean I'm not feeling particularly prepared, eh my internet Freuds?

I  sure hope we don't have to wear numbered blankets.

March of Times

It feels like I'm still in March, but time has moved on with out me. Here we are beginning May already. I've got a lot of catching up to do. I feel like the little kid hollering for mom in the mall because I stopped to look around and everyone else kept right on walking. Soon enough I'll catch back up, but it's a little unnerving at present.

This week's been pretty good. Despite setbacks of the recent re-flooding, I've kept up pretty well with the chores. Even got to see several friends in at the shop this week, which is always a great surprise.

PMBAR is coming up next week. I'm 70% of where I should be fitness-wise and only 63% of where I need to be. Luckily I've got 262.7% of can-do adventurous attitude bottled up and 3 wells worth of demons, so the pain cave will have plenty of ammunition.

Plus this year I'll have H., Dish, and JD waiting for me at the finish line. It'll be the first year I'll have someone to drive my broken arse home after the race. Plus I'm not sure H. has really gotten to experience Pisgah outside of an ORAMM or two.

I'm partnering up with the infamous HoneyBadger this year. Team Kish My Moots is gonna rock. It's been foretold via photo prophecy (they were booth neighbors at this years handbuild bike show). No more "final countdown" sung over and over whilst rehashing the same Ghostbusters quote or having to be the pack mule schlepping all of Mr. Dicky's hand sanitizer, mustard, fig newtons, and quilted northern around.

Though I can't believe he broke up the band. Like his new little buddy is going to offer him enough blog fodder to spawn a separate article for Dirt Rag? I hope he remembers to pack his big hat.

In other news, JD and I met a new friend out on our Friday morning ride. The little fella was out back in our woods romping around in the lake. He decided to join JD and I on our ride. He opted not to come back to the house, but if he's still there when we ride tomorrow he'll be moving in for a while. JD will be thrilled. Dish will hate it.

Saturday's commute was one of road closures that made for heavier than normal traffic, but didn't really affect me too much otherwise. The Country Music Marathon (and half marathon) was today and much of downtown Nashville was closed off to vehicles. In Franklin was the Main Street Festival which had traffic re-routed around town. Adam and I headed out for a short ride after work then headed over to the Festival to check it out. Actually we were in search of two specific things: Gyros and Funnel Cakes.

Mission accomplished.