2014 Race Bike Prep: X-Fusion Slide RL2+

OMG It's March.

Spring just became a bit more real and I also just got really worried about my body still not working with the first summer series races coming down the pipe in 2 months time.  Before we get into race bikes I'll give a quick rundown / update on my current health (bullshit) profile:

I've had all kinds of weird issues going on a year now.  I was actually tested for all kinds of stuff (mostly in the rheumatoid family as well as lyme)  this past summer due to all kinds of joint issues/pain and other random weirdness.  Basically I went from being a picture of health to a picture of epic dysfunction in a short period of time.  I battled through much of last year and I was able to get clear of some stuff but other issues have persisted through the winter and I'm still feeling 'off'.  To date my biggest two issues are my #shittywrists which are probably some combination of ulnar nerve issues (impingement along Guyon's Canal is my best guess) and maybe some chronic bursitis thrown in for good measure.  As well as a sweet Morton's neuroma in my left foot, most likely due to having to walk on my forefoot for a few weeks due to urchin spines in my heel from my gnar surfing incident.

I used to heal somewhat decently but that has been out the window recently and it seems like any little issue I run into turns into something much worse that seemingly never heals.  Just recently I've gotten myself a bunch of referrals and I'm headed to all kinds of specialists to get all this crap figured out.  Podiatrist, Orthopedic, gonna get tested for Lyme again because early tests are very typically negative even if you do have it.  Then if western medicine fails I'm going to stick myself with needles (acupuncture not heroin) and get hooked up with some Voodoo priests through Jomo.

Ok enough of my boo-hoo whining...to the race whip!

Due to my continued wrist issues I decided this off season I had to get suspension.  No way around it.  So the research began.  I had somewhat resigned myself to having to spend a bunch of money to get something worthy of the amount I ride and the demands I was going to put on it even though I don't really like dropping ridiculous $$ on things like a fork.  But as I poked around I kept hearing little rumors about this 'up and comer' and the farther I dug the more good things I heard.

In fact I had a hard time finding one bad word about what these guys were up to.  And not only that, their models were priced more like budget stuff but by all forum and shop talk accounts the value was more in line with some of the best stuff out there.  Built simple and tough.  All metal internals, no plastic.  Good customer service.  Only thing they are missing is a name that everyone knows.  I'm thinking that might change in the not too distant future.

X-Fusion. (you heard it here probably 4th or 5th by this point I'm guessing)

I think this is one of those scenarios where a few of the top engineers from one of the big companies (Fox in this case, I think) left and joined a smaller company with less of an 'overlord' presence.  I'm hoping the forums don't lie and its as good as everyone is saying.  I'm liking what I see so far anyway but ride time will be the true test.

Front end in wuss mode.

The action is real smooth.  According to their chart I should run it at 70psi at my weight.  I'm gonna try that but it wouldn't surprise me if I ride it a tad stiffer for steering accuracy.  Lots of fine tune rebound adjustment.  The knob has 38 total clicks, I went with the halfway point for now because I have no frame of reference really for what kind of rebound speed I would prefer.  Its got a simple cable actuated remote lockout.  Came with an inline barrel adjuster which I thought was a nice touch.  The actual remote seems a bit on the chinsy side and I'm questioning its durability but we'll see how it goes.

The additional clutter on the bars kind of annoys me, but I can think of just a few too many times this will come in handy so I'm gonna deal with it.

I wasn't a huge fan of their decals. I can't really put my finger on exactly what it was that I didn't like.  I guess they were just kind of bland(?).  I pulled them off and I much prefer the fully clean look, I think it complements the frame better.  We really need to come up with a white equivalent term for 'murdered out' though.  That's gonna bother me a bit until I can get that figured out.  Fresh and Clean'd? Whiteout?  I'll keep thinking...

Squishy Spot

Macho Man Disc

Oooooooooo Yeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Snap into a slim jim etc.

At long last my new road/gravel/CX racer is complete. And I'm DIGGING it. At least the look of it anyway, haven't ridden it yet on account of ice world.  This build started with the new disc edition of the All-City Macho Man.  This was one of those impulse buys towards the end of last year.  I had taco'd the wheels on the roadie and as I thought about their replacement my mind drifted to wanting to build up a more versatile road bike seeing as I live on a dirt road and have access to all kinds of great class VI and dirt roads around the house. I've also been interested in trying some cross racing so I wanted something that could shape shift a bit with minimal parts swaps.

I think this is going to be perfect for that goal.  Initial build has it in 'road mode' with a compact road crank and 25c tires.  Switching to CX mode will be as easy as swapping out the tires and the chain rings.  Its a bit on the heavy side for a roadie, haven't weighed it yet but its probably a bit over 20lbs, which isn't horrible but my previous road bike was probably 17-18lbs so that will hurt a bit at first on the climbs.  But thats fine, I ride road to train for MTB primarily anyway.  This will be a much comfier ride which will allow me to ride longer which is what I like doing nowadays anyway.  Long and slow.

full run cable housing to avoid the grime and the what not

This should allow me to go on more local training rides as well right from the house which will be nice. I'm interested to see how the disc brakes perform on the road.  Setting them up was interesting, eliminating rub but making sure you still have enough braking power is a bit trickier with the short pull stuff.  I think I got it though, feels good on the stand anyway.  I'll have to be sure to remember to do a short shake down ride so as not to die.

serious head badge

I got to do my first go at internal cable routing.  The front derailleur cable is routed internally so you don't have to worry about it while shouldering/carrying the bike during a CX race.  I was all ready with a home made little hook device to try and snag the cable as I fed it through but I got insanely lucky and it just found the hole on its own without any intervention from me.

Everything else came together great and I am very pleased with the look of this ride.  I love the traditional skinny steel tubes and the understated paint job.  Its very likely that if we get any kind of thaw in the next few weeks that I will be trying to get this thing out for a spin.  Many miles will be racked up on this baby. In the immortal words of Shaun Pinney...We have to explore, we have to go this way.

Oh yeah who wants to buy my old road frame?? MandieLaLa looking at you...:)

Hall Hall Hauler

I'm just now realizing this has been a really light year on posts...like almost half the usual.  How did this happen?  I'm gonna blame my wrist and recommit myself for a better 2014.  Also trying to decide if I should do more with this thang.  Now that I'm directing NEMBA Racing I'm thinking about maybe sharing more of the trials and tribulations of that or maybe getting into more in depth gear reviews maybe?  Who knows, hopefully I'll put my money where my mouth is.

But for now A PROJECT BIKE!  It's been for-EEEVER since I've done a restoration build. Maybe I should get back into dumpster diving as well?  Although I've heard most dumps aren't really cool with just anybody crawling around in their metal piles anymore.  LAME.

Before.

Ok. Back story. This ones got a good one. Many moons ago while still slinging cable in the telecom game I stumbled upon this ride resting on its kickstand in the middle of a large attic space in Samuel Reed Hall Hall at PSU.  Seemed like it was in decent shape and at the time I was worried it possibly belonged to one of the Res Life staffers in the building so I left it be.  Then less moons ago I was back in the attic assisting with the re-purposing of the campus webcam and low and behold it was still just sitting there.  Res Life staff rolls over pretty frequently so I was fairly certain that at this point it was not owned by anyone still around.  I wasn't in a place to take it right then so I left it and made a deal with the Telecom guys to let me know next time they were headed up there and I would tag along and snag it.

That time came not all that long after that day and of course we get there and its gone.  I had missed my opportunity...or had I? Yes I had. At least for awhile. On the way out we noticed that it had been moved down into the lobby of the building. I was ok with taking an obviously abandoned bike from an attic but I wasn't comfortable with taking it from the lobby when best guess is one of the current Res Life staff at the time had gone up there and found it and decided it was sweet and took it down to try and revive it.

There it sat for probably months? and every now and then the guys in Telecom would swing through and tell me that it was still just siting there.  Hall Hall was actually up for renovation and being repurposed for academic space and in its final days as a Res Hall the Telecom guys were over there going over specs with contractors and finally got the bike and the RD in the same room at the same time.  RD finally confirmed that no one was laying claim to it and BOOM...mine.

Now that we've got that out of the way lets get to some deets.  What we have here is your standard issue Columbia 3 speed straight out of Westfield, MA.  If I had to guess probably from the 60's right before the 10 speed boom in the 70's.  It wasn't in horrible shape but the front brake was broken and the rear hub had basically been reduced to a singlespeed thanks to years of gummed up grease.  I was hoping to just swap out the broken brake and front wheel with stuff from the parts bin, maybe some new/used rubber and some new cables.

Unfortunately I didn't have any brakes that were going to work which kind of derailed the whole project, you can get away with just one brake if its the front one but I didn't want to only have a rear brake.  It occurred to me that I had plenty of old V-brakes so I started scouring the interwebs for an old 1in threaded fork for 26in wheels that had canti studs and found a brand new one on ebay for about $40.  Seemed like a reasonable investment into this ride so I went for it.

posting this to make shop owners cringe.

wicked grips. dyude. guy.

Trimmed the fork to fit and it installed real nice.  Put some new levers and grips on and now it just needs some new cables and the rear wheel true'd up.  Also thinking about trying to install a huge wire basket that I have but I'm not sure if its going to fit yet.

Almost After.

Should hopefully have this thing completed soon and I'll post an official after pic once its ready to shred.

Singletrack Everywhere!

Last weekends romp around Saratoga kinda got me in the mood for more big XC rides.  Didn't have anything pressing at the house to take care of and I don't want to start raking the yard yet because there are still a decent amount of leaves still on the trees.  Soooo I got to trying to figure out some sort of linked epic I could check off my list.

I had several ideas but the temps stayed pretty cold today and there was a 40% chance of rain in some forecasts so being isolated a long way from home didn't seem like the smartest thing.  Originally I was thinking about trying to link Franklin Falls to Page Hill.  Which is totally doable, 8mi of pavement or there is even a dirt / class VI route that is possible but I haven't done it yet and cold weather isn't the best for constant navigation stops.  That one will happen next year for sure.

I've also been dying to check out Spaulding Woods, the new chunk of land that we are helping the Spaulding Youth Center develop into a riding destination.  They had already had some double track and had been slowly working on some singletrack.  We had a trail day there this Fall to build another new trail and do some cleanup and refinement of the other existing stuff.

My plans for a linked ride were foiled...but not if I linked them via car!  Plan was to check out SW first then drive over to FFD and then around to Page Hill.  20-25mi depending on what you ride at each spot, not that much driving and protected in case the weather turned on me, perfecto!

Spaulding Woods was as good as some of the rumors I had been hearing.  Not a lot of mileage yet but great terrain and some really fun trails that are easy to lap.  Most of the place is built into a hill so you can get a decent workout heading back up again and again to take a few more stabs at the down mountain trails.  Already some great berms and other features in place as well.  The trails need some wheels to buff out some of the chatter but once they ride in its going to be a really great spot in a great location.

Riding Franklin was nice, folks have been staying on top of leaf blowing and things were riding great.  Even scored a KOM and missed another by 1 sec.  Page Hill on the other hand was covered in about a foot of leaves.  Felt like riding through 6in of snow.  Getting really hard to navigate there unless you have either built the trails or ride them frequently, luckily I have done both.

I kind of like the linked by car format.  Lets you take breathers, warm up (if its cold), get some calories.  I'm thinking a full Central NH Tour de Force might be in order, although it would be a pretty big undertaking to do all the more well established ride spots.  A clockwise loop would be pretty reasonable as far as driving goes.  You'd need a full day, starting early.  Mid summer max daylight would help.

Ride Ahern first - 6-8mi
Then Ramblin Vewe Farm - 6-8mi
Then Spaulding Woods - 5mi
Then Highland XC Loops - 6-8mi
Then Franklin Falls - 8-10mi
Then Page Hill - 8mi

Solid 40(ish) miles of basically all singletrack.  Actually, as I'm writing this I'm thinking ending at Page Hill might be a bit brutal...counter-clockwise might be smarter then you could end the ride with a swim in Winnisquam at Ahern.  Hmmmm...Who wants in?

2013. Shoulders and Wrists Maximus...Shoulders and Wrists!

We mortals are but shoulders and wrists.

I usually do one of these season recaps every year so here we go....2013.  Dominated by nagging shoulder and wrist issues but I still managed to have a decent year racing my bike.  Things went sideways back in late April / early May.  I was having a great run up getting more miles in March / April than I have in a long time.  At some point in April, not really all that sure when, something happened with the shoulder.  Not sure if it was rotator cuff or a minor AC separation but it had me laid up off and on for much of the early season.  As I dealt with the shoulder an old wrist injury cropped back up as well which my best guess is a damaged sheath that keeps the Ulnar nerve where it is supposed to be.

I then did my best to not let either of those injuries heal all year.

This made my riding patterns very sporadic and ended with the norm becoming long rides followed by down time trying to get pain under wraps and then once it was bearable back on the bike for a long ride.  Whatever I could manage really with races taking priority.  Fun fact: over half (55%) of my miles on dirt this year were race miles, almost 300mi of racing on dirt.  Luckily that pattern worked fairly well for my race plans for this year.  I decided to take another stab at more endurance formats.  I had tried this once before back in '08 or '09 but I don't think I was quite ready back then and returned to the XC summer series races the following years.  As I've made incremental gains over the years I have noticed that my endurance is right up there with really fast guys and my ability to suffer through long hours in the saddle is top tier as well but when it came to those really sharp VO2max, anaerobic type efforts I wasn't on the same level.

Even with all of my health issues this year I managed to surprise myself a few times at my longer races this year.  My win in the 100K at the Wildcat was a pleasant surprise and my finishing time was also a PR for me at that distance (although that was a fast course) and that was with early season fitness.  A podium at Carrabassett was also unexpected and again my time was the same as my Wildcat time on a much harder course.  Top 5 at NH100 with an all time personal best on that course and my fastest ever 100K time.  Not too shabby.  My luck ran out after that though and my last two endurance go-rounds saw me beat to a pulp with some of my wrist issues really catching up to me.

With my results this year I am fairly certain that I am an endurance type rider and I will continue to work on that type of fitness and that type of racing going forward.  100K and 100mi races are becoming more and more popular and we are getting more options in New England every year.  I think I need one more year racing these distances consistently before I jump into a 100 miler but that is probably the eventual goal here.  I'm certain I could probably finish one but I think with a bit more work I could be fairly competitive, not with the top SS guys they are beyond ridiculous, but I think I could be one of the better regional riders for sure.

First things first though; I need to get healthy.  I'm getting there.  I think I'm clear of the shoulder.  Pain is minimal and when it crops up from time to time the recovery is faster and faster and I think I can focus on strengthening it again now.  The wrist is still nagging but two weeks off the bike recently got me over a hump of sorts and I think I'm much closer to being back on track.  Much of my early work in the gym this Fall will probably be PT in nature.  I have gotten away with being hard on my body in the past but I think those days are over.  Gotta smarten up a bit or I will crumble to bits in no time I'm sure.

Next step will be to stay healthy next year.  Starting that quest with beating myself up less.  Yes, its (pretty much) official.  My days of riding fully rigid have come to an end.  There are things I really like about riding rigid and a part of me has liked the added challenge (in a way) as well as the respect you get for being silly enough to actually do it.  But the beating is no longer worth it to me and I've got nothing to prove.  I have really enjoyed my time on the party bike so far this Fall and it has also reminded me that I am a pretty damn good technical rider and descender when I'm not getting rattled into oblivion.

More than likely I will be getting some sort of fork for the Spot and possibly even going back to running the Thudbuster full time.  Even with the added weight and slight loss of efficiency I'm guess I'm going to be going real fast next year.  The drive is already there even now.  I'm excited for a healthy go at some long races.