Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Big Oil Rules!

I don't want my blog to get too preachy about politics and such, but this post was pretty good. Read it if you will. No pressure! Really! No, seriously!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/george-bush-foreign-poli_b_19791.html

"And what did they get for their largess? According to Public Citizen, the top five oil companies have pocketed over a quarter of trillion (that’s with a “T”) in profits since Bush took office. Talk about a return on investment. That’s a gusher!

Little new news

Not much has been happening in the bike world, but a few events I can report on...

We just got back from Vegas last week. We met my parents out there for four fun-filled days. We went to a show called "Mama Mia" at Mandalay Bay. It's based on ABBA songs:



Yeah...it's like that!

We stayed at NYNY. It's nice, a lot smaller than most places, like MGM, where we usually go, so it's easier to get around. They have lots of different varieties of food - much of it simple and cheap, where you don't have to sit down. Perfect for late night snacking or a quick meal on-the-go. You don't see that at a lot of other casinos. Il Fornaio was one of my favorite places to eat. Check it out if you're in Vegas.

And for the fifth time in Vegas in the recent year or so, we didn't take any pics of us. Only camera phone stuff...! Pics never do justice anyway...

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Greeley

The best place to view the mountains is in Greeley. Primarily, because it's 30 miles away you get the most expansive view. Alas, we moved out of Greeley three years ago because it smells like cows and, well, it's 30 miles from the mountains.


Winter pics

Winter is over for us (it will be 70's up to 80F today, 4/5), but as it transitioned, I got some shots of this phenomenon they call "frozen fog".




Further the Pink Passion

Got some new bits on the bike...

New Thomson X4 Elite stem, 90mm and zero degrees of rise. It's the new 31.8mm standard diameter which is supposed to be stiffer for the same weight. Either way, it looks great.

Also added the pink Chris King spacers. Proceeds from the sale of the "pink stuff" go to Kommen Breast Cancer foundation.

http://www.chrisking.com/prettyandstrong/index.html



Race Face Dues XC bars, low rise, silver. This is about the only silver bar I could find. It is marginally wide enough with the grip shifters on. I had to trim the grips just a tad. Sweep and rise feel great.



All matched up to the pink hubs:

Trail Day

Did some trail building on Sat. We're finishing up a 7mi connector from Devil's Backbone (my favorite trail) to Coyote Ridge. Here you can see the backside of CR, where the trail will join in. The new trail is called "Blue Sky".



Not on this day however...it was overcast, a rarity for Colorado, but warm enough anyway.

Smooth and wide...the soil on this trail is so much different than any other trail in the area. It will be a great, fast ride when done.

Ron Saito, a founding member of Mountain High Trail Association. We started this group over trail closure issues associated with the opening of this new trail. The more exposure we have now, the more influence we'll have later. I hope!

There's Dave in the red shirt, black hat. He's always up for volunteering on trail days. We had about 34 people total and worked about 1/2 mile of trail.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

I'm packin' up my bags and gonna move out West

'Cause I wanna be a cowboy, babee!

Disassembling the AM 1

So my fork needed it's first oil change, as all forks do during their break in period. The ETA function has never worked and I felt that it had some performance issues that hopefully an oil change would cure.

I looked through several sources of info on oil types and viscocities for Marzocchi forks. I know they use Golden Spectro 7.5wt, but I couldn't find any of it locally and I didn't want to order it. But, I found this on MTBR posted by DGC:

product cSt@40c cSt@100c
Torco RFF 5 wt. 10.75 4.00
Silkolene Pro RSF 2.5 wt. 13.60 5.83
Torco RSF light 14.50 4.70
Racetech (motorex) light US 1 (Manitou??) 15.20 4.40
Maxima fork fluid 5 wt. 15.90 3.51
Torco RFF 7 wt. (Rock Shox) 16.10 5.05
Golden Spectro 85/150 2.5 wt. 16.90 3.82
Honda Pro HP fork oil 5 wt. 17.00 3.80
Bel Ray fork oil 5 wt. 17.10 4.10
Elf syn moto fork oil 2.5 wt. 18.00 4.00
Redline light 18.40 7.10
Torco RFF 10 wt. 19.90 5.70
Spectro fork oil 5 wt. 21.60 4.40
PJ1 fork tuner 2.5 wt. 26.10 4.90
Golden Spectro 125/150 7.5 wt. (Marzocchi) 26.10 5.25
Silkolene pro RSF 5 wt. 26.70 9.46

Maxima fork fluid 7 wt. 26.70 5.36
PJ1 fork tuner 7.5 wt. 27.50 5.10
Bel Ray fork oil 7 wt. 29.00 5.20
Redline medium 30.40 10.80
PJ1 fork tuner 5 wt. 31.20 5.40
Fox fluid and Torco RSF medium 31.82 9.57
Maxima fork fluid 10 wt. 32.00 6.28
Torco RFF 15 wt. 33.00 8.40
Redline D4 ATF/Mobil 1 ATF 34.00 7.50/7.60
Castrol synthetic fork oil 10 wt. 42.00 7.50
Torco RFF 20 wt. 42.80 10.40
Maxima fork fluid 15 wt. 46.00 8.48
Motorex semi bath-Manitou 5w40 90.90 Syrup..!! 14.60
PJ1 fork tuner 30 wt. 116.90 gooo..!! 15.00


Also, this is a great website with some really good info on forks, springs and other bike and motorcycle stuff:

http://www.peterverdonedesigns.com/bikesuspension.htm

Not to get too winded, I chose Silkolen since it was close in viscocity to Golden Spectro. It was cheap, too.

The disassembly went fine, no problems. When all was said and done though, the ETA wasn't fixed, but the fork action is much smoother than before. I will have to send it in to Marzocchi to have that tweaked. All in all, after having been disappointed with this fork initially, I'm liking it more. It does need a 20mm thru axle upgrade, though and now that I'm comfortable taking it apart, that shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.







Monday, April 03, 2006

GM nonsense

Check out this article then peruse through some of the commercials that people have created. They're hillarious! Hopefully, Chevy doesn't find out about them before you get to see them!

Too funny...

Here's mine:

http://www.chevyapprentice.com/view.php?country=us&uniqueid=873f178c-14a3-1029-98eb-0013724ff5a7

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