Flashback: Summer Vacation 2014

In the chaos that is maximal fun interspersed with maximal work, I find myself looking through pictures taken not all that long ago and remembering what it was like not to be in a period of maximal work.  It was awesome I tell you.  I managed three or so weeks of a summer vacation this summer between odd jobs and various never ending bike projects, shop upgrades, machine acquisitions and general busyness.  In my three weeks off from the busy life I do believe I logged 6300 driving miles on the old space cruiser.  Tired she is, though far from actually being what she looks like: space junk.

The trip was first destined for the northernmost point in Michigan that isn't an island to do some riding.  Yeah, it was a work trip.  Our chosen route found us with the difficult decisions of where to stop along the way for team training with my fellow Flagstaff Goats.  Colorado was the obvious choice, but leaves for so many choices.  We departed with a loose plan that time and daylight would ultimately decide and being unable to turn up any last minute riding buddies in Durango, we opted for Phil's World outside of Cortez.  Maximal fun!

The sun set.  The night brought furious milage.  We stopped and slept.  I forgot a sleeping bag. 9000 feet.  The tarp will have to do.  In the morning we found ourselves at the top or Monarch Pass and headed east.  "Now THIS is Colorado!"  became the saying of the day after reading it on a road sign.  Where and how the emphasis is placed no one may ever really know.  Now the Monarch Crest is a shuttler's ride and forget ye not this fact.  There are also motorcycles, and hikers aggravated by your presence and everybody else's.  Now this IS Colorado!  Beyond this are the pictures that follow, an amazing ride, creeks to put your head in, rock screes to float over at speed, meadows, mountains, marmots.....maximalism, with beer and pizza at the end of the road.  NOW this is Colorado!

 

The plains of West Kansas, and Nebraska past in the dark hours until a camp was found by careful choice from the map.  The sleep was minimal and well earned.  The morning drear of the plains cast its shadow upon us with a check engine light before coffee.  This is not an option.  The modern world of those with smart phones left us able to interpret diagnose the code, and it passed as insignificant.  Roll on.  The evening found us in the company of one weary traveler's family, wealthy with accommodations, and joined now by those Shindaggers.  That's right, Flagstaff brought the band.  We would travel the rest of the way to Michigan as a space posse, complete with radio comm links.....

To be continued....

Receiving Department

I get to wear many hats and do many jobs in this venture.  Aside from being the fabricator, one of my favorite jobs around here is the receiving department.  I'm always stoked to get a package of stuff on the doorstep.  Here's a few of late:

Paragon Machine Works:  Nuff said.

L.H. Thomson:  a full stock of stem and seatpost offerings from my favorite aerospace rednecks.  I've been running the 27.2 dropper post for the past month with good result so far.  It is the only dropper post to live up the the testing standards of a bicycles seatpost.  Though having that nifty little switch to lock S-foils in attack position did distract me enough to crash out hard.  User error. 

And my latest:  A full stock of "unfinished custom golf shafts"...as stated on the packing slip.

The "Golf Shafts" are actually polished out custom drawn 7/8" True Temper straight gauge chromoly.  They really do put the "chrome" (chromium) in chromoly.  I expect this tubing to be a fair bit harder than what is available at retail from the aircraft suppliers.  This order comprised of two different gauges of 7/8" tubing totaling over 400'....its pretty much a minimum order.  Should be about enough for 60 bikes worth of both handlebars and chainstays.  Now onto re-tooling the forms....

The Red One...

Goes to the owner of Flagstaff's oldest bike shop: Cosmic Cycles.  If you wanted to buy a Ritchey mountain bike in 1984 this was the place.  All sorts of delicious bicycles have floated through this shop and pictures throughout the generations support that claim.  If you wanted to see a Mantis on the floor in person, this shop had one circa 1993.  A fat chance, yeah that too.  There are still some old relics to be found in there, and maybe the red one will be among them one day.  For now though it'll get ridden down Arizona's worst single track, floating over what all those guys breaking all those bikes of yester year never thought possible.  We took a preliminary ride down Private Reserve, one of the nastiest, and I never saw the red one nor its pilot.  Not surprising exactly.

The build is 1x11 with a 142x12 thru axle in the rear, Race Face Next 30mm cranks, A 140mm Revelation on Protection 2.4x650B Trail Kings mounted on a nice set of DT 30mm wide downhill rims.  Thomson Dropper post cause I just had to.  The geometry is pretty modest and modern.  Not too low not too slack, but none of that NORBA either.  Pure Flagstaff evolution.

Handlebar and headset spacer....possibly the most carbon to ever adorn one of my bikes.  There have been a few with cabon bars, and a few with carbon spacers, this is the first to have both.  The spacer matches color so closely to the King pewter anodizing I had to do a double take when we built it up.  Funny thing about the little details.  If you ever want a guy that isn't me (or you) to part up one of your frames, Scott is your man.  

The cables stay outside the frame because I worked on Kleins in the 90s and it wasn't as fun as you wanted it to be.  They were good looking bikes, but that's a rant for another time.  

Enjoy the Red Sled Scott, and may there be many rides to come!

Here's a Flyer

It pretty much has it all.  I'm there.  Sounds like Planet Sandwich is there, too.  Come see the latest crop of Moustache Rides and Troy's new REAL drum set.  I promise to wear him out during the set.

Hope to see you there!

The Widest Drop Bars Ever Made

I really don't know if there's any accuracy to that claim, but I do believe it to be true.  At 30.75" tip to tip I don't think anyone in the spandex community ever came up with anything that wide.  I usually try to talk people out of their existing dirt drops.  In Arizona they don't offer much to most.  Dirt roads turn quickly into the need for a real mountain bike....and most of us just aren't up to the skill that Johnny T had back in '88, nor do we have a Tioga disc drive sponsorship.  But Taylor came up with an idea that made a lot more sense and it kept his posture where it would be comfortable for days on end, and allowed for good descending on real dirt so I accepted the project.  

The idea was to maintain the bar angle of his Salsa dirt drops, raise the braking position 1", maintain multiple hand positions and allow for all day comfort and leverage of a 6'4" clydesdale.  The Shifters and brake levers are provided by Paul; it takes mountain bike parts and every inch of standard length cables.  His initial reaction to the finished product was much stoke, and he said they fit....both his hands and his vision.  Thanks for the cool project Taylor.  Ride far!

Re-Entry

Hacksaws and grinders; hand files, some emory, and a little one at a time at the vise.  One of these days I'll figure out how to set up the lathe for mitering.

Its a breather hole that is not drilled into the stay

The duck understands the concepts of "float" and "flight".....important when one's duty is regulating the back wheel of a hard tail that'll see many many miles.

I got to lace up some of the new WTB KOM rims...very nice.

Singles Speed Flagstaff style....don't let the parts you don't have keep you from riding your new bike...

....and an hour later....

The paint scheme is supposed to represent re-entering the atmosphere....The rider has been out in space for a while enjoying some future bikes.  Hopefully his return to earth has let him realize the advancements of the '90s.  Enjoy your new bike, Blair!

5th Annual Baah....

....My apologies to all for not putting out flyers for this year's event.  It warranted the smallest turnout to date for this Beaster Sunday celebration of all things feral on Mount Elden, though the spirit of past rides was loyally carried by eight returning goats.  Our annual tradition was overshadowed by an event much grander in scale and planning--The Big Zona Burlesque's Big Show.  It rightly robbed our ride of regulars who triumphed in a night of risque stage performance last Saturday night, showing off over a year of hard work by the many and diverse dedicated talents of our fine town.  Only one stage performer dared show her face on Sunday's heated bike battle, and both stage hands I might add, but all who did the ride were in attendance of both the Big Show and the after party.  The night's reigns were felt on the climb up Mount Elden by many if not all in attendance.  We set off without much a plan for the top of the mountain and a familiar starting point for the last five years.  There would be racing and a traditional start, Shotgun LeMans, but what?, leading to where?, we could not answer.  It was the year of the people's choice, and Blair's Birthday Baah.

The cake that emerged from Judy's pack at the top of the hill managed to pull peoples' eyeballs from the depths of their skulls.  The sugar seemed to stave off the general feelings of nausea.  Packs were heavily packed, and the load began to lighten as eerie spring rains encircled the mountain we sat atop.  It was warm and calm, atypical of this time of year, the familiar cold spring wind absent from our day.  We decided on a course...new to this event...it would take us all the way to the lookout tower for the start.  As you can see in the photos the course starts in a steep dirt road downhill that quickly turns uphill and then onto an extended section of trail known as the catwalk.  We decided to race the catwalk to Sunset trail down to the meadow and intersection with Red Onion.  

Typically the Baah is won and lost in the shotgun, and it has been those able to put this opening beer down, keep the burps down, and get down to riding that have won.  The (theoretical) trophy bears only two names from four years past, thrice of Mr. Heinchez, once of myself. But...there has been a challenger on the rise, putting up a big money run for the last two years....Austin, AKA, ????....wait this dude certainly needs a cooler name for this blog than his real name.  A close-up zoom of the above photo would reveal the positions for the hole-shot.  I pulled off an early gap in the guzzle and turned downhill.  It would not hold.  By the time the road bottomed out Austin, Heinchez, and Reverend Sham-pain would throw an attack into the climb that I could not answer.

A close look into the faces of the riders at this point would reveal no smiles.  A strange lull in speed of the lead group led Reverend Sham-Pain to capitalize on the hesitation as the others paused to hold back the heaves.  The reverend took charge into the very rough singletrack downhill.  It was his to lose, but none of the group had been up here this year, and the spring blow-down would inevitably turn the race in favor of the challenger as he followed the reverend down the catwalk.  A downed tree looked deceptively impassible.  The Reverend opted to go around but this was the deception, as it did not pass and left the Reverend hiking back to the route.  Austin opted for the direct line, and though admittedly sloppy, the log was hopped with a clear passage, allowing him to put on a lead that would hold for the rest of the race even while crashing near the finish.  In his third attempt at the Baah, we have a new champion!

The remaining riders, realizing that the race was over long before they arrived anywhere resembling halfway down the hill set back to enjoy the atypical spring day.  Positions were jostled without care.  Stoke for the day was exceptionally high.  And a new bike saw her first ride down the challenging terrain on Mount Elden met with grand encouraging smiles by her rider.  

There was talk of making it a stage race, all stages featuring the signature start.  But by the time we had all finished the stage that talk had ceased and the remaining weight of the pack was whittled down stop by stop through the rest of the ride.  We had quite a bit of downhill still ahead, but the difficult parts were now behind.  It was a perfect day, and all there was left to do was ride.  And tired though we were, none of us wanted to stop.