singlespeeding in December

nothing quite like a greenbelt singlespeed ride in 70 degree December weather. Although I have commuted several times on my SS, I have not done a greenbelt ride since James and Chris crashed into each other last month. Trails were virtually empty, I came across one group of riders heading back as I was heading out. I had a little trouble on mini Moab and some of the ledges, but I retried and got them. I have to get more time on this Fox fork and tune it in properly -- I think there was too much air/not enough sag and too little rebound damping, causing me to bounce out. I felt slow, but I expected that.

biking goals for next year

looking at how out of shape I have gotten this year, due to hamstring injury, work,friends all getting injured,etc., I need to come up with a plan for getting in shape for next year -- the first race goal is Terilingua, which is 2 months away. I may resort to spin classes for the winter, as it is very difficult to get the biking hours in during the week. Rollers are okay, but they are very monotonous. NIght riding is difficult, since I dont like soloing it, and the usual suspects to ride with me have broken limbs. So the winter plan is roughly -
-Progress Coffee ride or long greenbelt ride every Sunday (50 miles)
-Monday "off" or light commute
-Tuesday - singlespeed ride early morning, yoga evening
-Wed - spin class or rollers
-Thursday - morning /midday ride, yoga evening
-Friday - post work ride
-Saturday- ATC ride or some hill route.

whoa

looking at my last post two days after my playing spree. Totally dorked out there.

BR

situational awareness helps to smack these kids around. My favorite weapon combo is BR+ shotgun or mauler and throw grenades liberally. Battle Rifle for medium to long distance, shotgun for close range. I have yet to get decent with the energy sword or spartan laser. New heroic map pack is fun, except for Foundry as it is currently offered only as a 6 vs 6 map on matchmaking, which is far too many for such a tiny map. Rat's Nest is the best of the bunch -- it turns into a massive urban vehicle battle. Standoff is great for capture the flag or bomb games. If someone competent grabs the laser and camps on top of their base, it can get quite nasty - clear line-of-site virtually anywhere on the map.

shopgirl

finally got around to seeing this movie on DVD, what a poor move. The only redeeming value to it was Mark Kozelik's(Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon) guest appearance as the leader of the fictional band in the movie, and the usage of the song "Carry Me Ohio". Otherwise, the music usage in the movie alone drove me batty -- how often did they have to play that same sequence of string notes? Over and over and over.

soon,very soon!

TA P 2.JPG
Originally uploaded by tylernol

my bike came back from paint on monday, I got some photos of it sent to me yesterday, it looks pretty darn nice. Sacha says the green is far more vibrant in person, the pictures dont do it justice. I am pretty excited. No more new bikes fore a while though, this broke the piggy bank!!

3

first triple in a team game. happened right when I turned 33. weird.

3 x 3 = 9

the nines.

gizmo happy as a clam

gizmo happy as a clam
Originally uploaded by tylernol

I am slowly figuring this camera out. It takes great shots in well-lit situations. The flash and low-light performance are lame. I would probably figure it out faster if I RTFM.

new (sortof) music

I snagged the MMJ EP "Chocolate and Ice" on colored vinyl at Waterloo this weekend. Sounds great! The phone conversation on it is a bit weird, but gives a window into their lives a few years back. I downloaded the new Radiohead a few weeks ago, it has been slowly growing on me -- "All I Need" is a favorite. And I stumbled across an obscure band in my friend Sean's iTunes folder --
Joy Zipper, which is a small band from Long Island, which does the psychedelic /Elephant Six style rock I enjoy so much quite well. "Dosed and Became Invisible" has been on repeat for the last 2 days.

halo 3 - crack!

I have been feeling a need to play a first-person shooter for a couple of years and I finally succumbed when Halo 3 came out. It looks fantastic on my flatscreen TV and online is fun, I am trying not to get frustrated by getting fragged by 6 year olds. The XBox360 is insanely loud though -- I though Microsoft had fixed the thing with 65 nm chips, but it sounds like a vacuum cleaner the whole time. Architecturally , Microsoft did the right thing with the XBox360 -- supposedly it is easy to program for, and it has plenty of power. Proof of that is games that look great and have been released relatively on time.. Halo 3, Bioshock, Gears of War, Mass Effect, all look great. They just blew it with the cooling design with their rush to market, hence the bad rep the console has now.

patagonia footprints

it's nice to see patagonia showing their entire supply chain and sourcing philosophy. Even when they outsource oversees, they ensure that their contractors are audited for build quality and builder quality of life.

vanilla frame

frame unpainted
Originally uploaded by tylernol

here is a photo of my brazed vanilla frame at the workshop. It looks darned nice even unpainted. Nice simple elegant lugs, lovely polished dropout detail. sweet!

bad refs

how much are the colts paying these dirty fucking refs to call against the patriots???

vanilla eta: December

Sacha has built my frame and fork, and it is now queued up for paint at #7, which means roughly 6 weeks. So hopefully I will get it on or around my birthday! I ended up having him build a rally-style road frame with clearance for cross tires , long read road caliper brakes, S & S couplings for travel, carbon fenders for crap weather.
The frame is a lugged frame, compact geometry, based on his measurements of me in may and the IF crown jewel measurements from last year. I am leaving the paint up to him,he likes painting his frames a certain way, and I am fine with that. I will leave my loud color schemes for my IF and Vicious stable.
My singlespeed is due for some dent repair and a repaint, I think I will paint it an old school "kandy wild cherry", which will be fun.

polycorpse

what's this? Polycom's margins are getting squeezed? "If sales will increase 37% this quarter, even as the more forgiving "pro forma" flavor of earnings increases only about 26%, I'd say that suggests some margin compression. Such a squeeze would seem to conflict Polycom's assertion that its strongest growth is coming in its most profitable business line"
 -- http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/10/08/paltry-prediction-pummels-polycom.aspx

huh.

gizmo in action

gizmo in action
Originally uploaded by tylernol

nice thing about my new camera is that it has a faster "shutter" speed/ integration time compared to my older cameras, so now it is easier to take action shots like this!

fox f29

speedgoat shipped my fox f29 yesterday, I am pretty excited about it. The Reba has been decent, but it never really matched up with the quality of the fox I had on my old racer-x. What I may do is keep the Reba at 100m and then run the f29 at 80mm and swap between them, since both require being opened up and rebuilt in order to modify the travel. 80 mm = race, WC, 100 mm = greenbelt, CP.

new family member member coming soon?

ETA 63 days..?

canon G9

first replacement in my burglery recovery is a new camera -- I went with the Canon G9. Not as portable as the SD650 I had before, but it has a lot more control in it and better sensors and processing capabilities, so it's one step closer to  a DSLR. I love the feel of it and the old-school buttons and looks. It has a nice weight to it. Do I need 12.1 Mpixels? No. But larger prints are a possibility, which will be nice, since my sister's wedding is 3 weeks away.