Kit Order 4.0

Okay. So it looks like Option 2 was the most popular of the bunch. Whoever wants a kit please text me your size both top(race or club cut) and bottom. Instead of texting me you also have the option of posting in the comments section.

Thanks.

4 Designs to choose from

My schedule has been a little hectic lately and we are obviously not going to get them ordered by Friday so I am shooting for next Friday the 17th as the new cut off.  In the meantime I need everyone to vote on which is their favorite.  You can either text me if you don't want your vote to be known or just put it in the comments.

And again.  Duane's website address will be on the back of the bibs close to where the cityloopmafia address was last year.

1 vote for me.  I like Option #2.  Blue, black and white.

Check out doubleshot on the webs...

http://carolinacyclingnews.com/

Front page.  Nice job Erich and Barry.  I have signed up for the race.

There is a shop competition, but let's see if there are enough people from the Mafia that we can give them a run for their money.  Even though we are not a shop we can still see if we can beat them on paper, but it's gonna take more than just me.

Kit order

Even though we have yet to decide on a final kit color combo from the previous post I need to start getting an idea of how many we need to order. If we meet the minimum of 10 then the cost will be about $150. If we don't get 10 then it will probably jump up to $25-$35, but I will need to confirm this.
Assuming I get them ordered by the end of next week (2-10) that would put them here mid April.

Kit 4.0

Alright everybody, after some redesign and final patchwork take a look and see what you think of this latest one.

I know this one is different from the last go around.  I wasn't crazy about the back being the same as last year.  If you will notice on the middle rear pocket is Henderson Custom Homes.  I am going to put his web address on the top of the back bib panel as well.

The color scheme has changed a bit from the last.  Let me know what everyone thinks.

UPDATE: 9:50  I added some more options based on feedback.  I am not trying to match my bike by the way, it just seems to have turned out that way based on some feedback for colors.  Honest.  Let me know a color combo if you want me to try it out.

Doubleshot Ride Postponed!

Well, it looks like rain and you know what that can do to new mtb trails.  Not good.  We're moving the ride back to next weekend, the 28th.  Same time, 10am.  Hope to see you there!

Double Shot Pre-Ride

Some of you may or may not know. This Saturday Erich and Barry are hosting a Doubleshot pre-ride opportunity of their race on March 10th.

The start time is 10 this Saturday and don't forget you will need your mountain bike AND road bike.

Scotty Party

Come one and all! Kiddos are welcome!

We'll gather at 7 and roll for as long as anyone's listening to the Sage of Spain -- word is he has an amazing slide show -- so bring your popcorn!

Bring some drink if you want it -- or some desserty stuff if you want to -- but don't let bringing something stop you from coming -- just come -- we'll have some foodstuffs.

Address is:

462 Lockland Avenue 27103

See you there!

Scott comes back in town

As most of you know by now our old buddy Scott is coming back to town to take care of some business. In between business dealings we are going to have a get together at Robs house on Friday. We still don't have a firm time or plans, but once those are solidified I will post it up for the world to see.

Hauser Road Time Trial - Winter Benchmark

Wow,  that's about all I can say after today's effort at the TT.  I didn't set out on today's ride to go do Hauser Road, but it just ended up that way.  I left around noon today from the house bound to take advantage of the day's weather.  As nice as it was I was still having trouble getting motivated.  Like what normally happens once I started riding I was glad to be out rolling on two wheels.  I headed out towards Lewisville via Meadowlark and meandered around for a while and decided to get a benchmark time on Hauser.  We all know the drill for the TT.  This is just too embarrassing not to tell everybody.  My time........6:55.  Ouch. 0:58 worse than my time in October.

On a side note.  I learned an important lesson today in bicycle maintenance.  Among all the bikes that I go through and switching out components, changing out new cables, wheels, tires, etc  the one important thing that I hardly ever change is the chain and cassette.  My drivetrain has been making an annoying tick, tick, tick noise no matter how much I adjust it.  It shifts just like it's supposed to however the ticking was driving me crazy because I could not figure it out.  On my way back home from the ride today I stopped at Cycletherapy and had Mike give me a quick diagnosis.  My diagnosis?  My chain was stretched something awful and the cassette needed to be changed as well since they basically wear at the same rate.  Before he installed the new chain he put the new chain next to the old chain and showed me how much the chain had stretched.  It had stretched almost a full half link.  I'll put this in the memory bank for routine maintenance from now on.

Trivia Contest

Anybody recognize these brakes? They were having a flashback in the latest Switchback magazine and I got a little sentimental when I saw them. I had a set of them back in the day. The picture is from 1995.

Polar Bear Ride

Anyone going to do the Polar Bear Ride tomorrow? Leaves at 9 from "Our House" on Country Club.

Shimano XTR 2 x 10 test and review

This is the new to me XTR Crank.  40-28 - 170mm

Today I am going to give a test review of my new 2 x 10 setup. Coming from a mix of Sram X0, X9, X7 3x9 this was to say the least a major upgrade for me.  I went to Cycletherapy asking how much an XT 2x10 sans disc brakes was going to cost me.  Mike looked it up and said that his source had everything but the XT shifters and then he said hold on a minute. He had a magical box in the back with some XTR takeoff's from a bike that he bought for a customer.  Long story short I ended up riding out of there with the following:
XTR cranks, shifters, brakes, shadow plus rear derailleur, XT chain, front derailleur and cassette.  Whoops, but I have to say after a few rides I have no regrets in the additional cost.
I guess that I will start with the crank.  Not much to say about it really other than it seems to shift really smooth, road bike like.  Mike told me that the guys at Shimano finally wised up and went ahead and took the finish off the crank arms.  Instead of your ankle rubbing the finish off over time they went ahead and did it for you. Mike went to a Shimano meeting / testing session close to Asheville recently and it was pretty interesting to hear the technology behind the chainrings.

The new shifters and brake levers attached
to their aluminum buddy.

To the left is the new Trail disc brake version of the XTR line.  What makes it a trail version as opposed to the race version is the adjustability.  With the trail version you can simply twist a knob at the end of the brake levers adjust the levers in and out.  The knob is actually useful compared to other adjustable levers I have used.  I think you can still adjust the levers with the race, but the knob is not there.  To be honest I'm not quite sure of the main difference is between the two.

The new trail disc caliper has "finned" pads
that help keep the temperature at bay.

I am going to talk about the disc brakes a bit here.  Over my mountain biking career since 1991 I have rarely used hydraulic brakes.  I had a 1999 Cannondale with some Coda hydraulics that were absolutely awful. I didn't hold on to that bike for too long.  Around that time Avid had come out with their BB line of mechanical disc brakes and me being a person who doesn't like things to have things break down all the time I opted for the simplicity of the mechanicals.  I rode those happily for a long time and then the road bike bug bit me and I faded away from the MTB scene for quite some time.  Maybe 3 years ago I started to dabble in mountain bikes again and bought a set of Hayes stroker disc brakes.  Those were good brakes, but I just didn't ride them enough to get a good feel.  I will say that I was not too impressed overall so much so that when I sold the bike I opted to keep my mechanicals from another bike that I bought just to keep things simple.  The XTR's are absolutely incredible, not only in power, but in control as well.  No longer are two fingers required for braking control.  One finger is all that I need.  To me the levers of the brakes are perfectly shaped and also a perfect length.  My fingers are small so they work great for me, but I can not comment on somebody who has catcher's mitt size hands.  To be fair if someone has hands that size they are probably riding a bike without a motor.  So far I have yet to lockup either the front wheel or rear wheel around any high speed switchbacks on the trail.  In a nutshell, I will not be going back to mechanicals.

Another view of the Shifter and Brake caliper.
You have the option to either attach the shifter directly
to the brake lever(my preference) or to mount using
a standard bar clamp.

I'm not crazy about the chrome finish of the new XTR.  I would prefer that it be black, but I will take the performance over color I guess.  That is a nice feature of the new XT is that you have the choice between black or silver.

A shot of the front caliper

The 36 tooth cog is the size of a small pizza pie.

Now let's talk about the gearing.  I am running a            

40-28 with an 11-36 cassette in the back.  While this is a good setup around here with the type of riding that I do I have yet to really test it on any really steep climbs.  I wish that I had this when I did the Dark Mountain Point to Point race in October. I 

have a feeling that when I head towards Asheville

that I am going to be missing my granny gear on 

my 3x9......a 22-33 low gear.  While technically the

ratio is not that much different than the 28-36 the 

granny will be missed when bonk time rolls around.

I will not go into detail about the Shadow Plus rear

derailleur since I already did a post about it's performance.  Just in case you don't want to read that post suffice it to say that I would gladly have paid the extra $$ to have the Plus feature.  It makes riding so much quieter.

To finish things up here I'll talk briefly about the overall shifting performance of 2x10 vs 3x9.  While it's nice to have the small ring option for major climbing I very rarely used it on 99% of my riding.  The front shifting is lightning quick and accurate and take a lot of the guesswork out of what gear you are in.  While the rear shifting is great I could not tell a great deal of difference from the Sram setup to the XTR setup.  That's not a knock on the rear shifting at all because I was running the X0 grip shift and it was nice to be able to dump multiple gears either way.  Having said that I would not go back to the Sram.

My overall rating....

9.5 out of 10

-1.0 for the color and +0.5 for the Shadow Plus feature

X Mas

Merry Christmas CLM peeps!!!!

Merry Crossmas - Race 1 Re-cap

I decided to race this race about 9:20 this morning once I got out of bed for the second time.  With the rain yesterday it undoubtedly would be an interesting course and conditions might be suitable for the MTB.  The decision to ride the mountain bike was an easy one since I don't own a cross bike.  With the soggy conditions it was going to be a good test for the new 2x10 as well.  I got out to Washington Park about 10:15 and with my race going off at 11 that was plenty of time for warmup and registration. I haven't really ridden hard this month at all. With my riding being limited to 1 road ride and some weekend Hobby Park rides this month it was time for my first hard physical test of the month.  One thing about not riding much this time of year is that your legs never quite have that "heavy" feeling that you get during the season.

Before the my race started there was some unhappiness among the dog owners that were coming to the dog park to have their furry friends frolic in the mud.  You see, they closed the greenway and the dog park for today and tomorrow and there was one particular gentleman who was none too happy.  Just ask Jim Smalley.

Race time.  I decided to race the old man's fred category.  CX4 (35+).  I think there were 20 people in my category at the start line.  Right before the race I saw a couple of friendly faces......Bicycle Spaniard (aka Kristin) and his offspring. It was nice to have people ready to shout for you when you pass by them.  Plus a little insider information didn't hurt either.  I didn't pre-ride the course, but there was quite a bridge that was setup and Kristin said the run up to the bridge was pretty tough, he had only seen a couple of people be able to ride it.  The start of the race went off without a hitch and it was time to evaluate the fitness.  The start was on a paved section of the greenway.  After maybe 150 yards of asphalt and a slight turn to the right it was time for some grass action.  There were plenty of quick turns at the start of the grass section with soggy corners that added to the fun.  Once around the corner it was time for a quick steep hill......got it.  At that point I had made it to 2nd place.  Around the next corner I was able to overtake 1st place, but not for long. Soon after this my lungs started to ache because of the cold weather I was guessing. I thought I could ride out of it, but boy was I wrong. At this point I had started to fade a little while trying to figure what was going on. What was going on was that my chest was going in full lockdown with authority. My chest was killing me and after 1 lap I had to stop. I went and laid down in the grass to wait out the pain. After about 10 minutes of wondering if I was having a heart attack, I was back to normal. Quite honestly, it scared me because that has never happened, but it appears to have turned into a chest cold so that's good with me.
The course was long and absolutely awesome with a little bit of everything thrown in. The runup to the man made bridge made for some exciting spectating and watching the pros practice on it and make it up was cool.
Until next time.