I-Pod mania

Crystal and I have been working out like crazy people lately and we thought that maybe adding music to our workouts would help. So we began to covet those people who had MP3 players and wanted one.

Well we looked around for about a week and decided that iPods were the best, or best for US. It seems that there are other more durable units out there as the iPods are designed to fail so that they sell more updated versions year after year. I guess that's why there are 5 generations of iPod. Anyway, the Creative Labs stuff looks good, but at 8 GB for $200 it's just not as economical as the 30 GB iPod for $300. Crystal really liked the Sony Bean, too, but again, not much capacity for too much money. Overall, the iPods really are the best deal.

We got them at Circuit City and they were "open box" items, so we saved about $20-$50 per item. I got the 30 GB video iPod and Crystal got the 2 GB Nano. We're actually thinking about getting a Shuffle too, just for riding and working out. The compact profile of that player is ideal, though I don't find the others to be bulky or not useable - especially the Nano, which is so light and small that it's barely perceptible in a pocket or armband.

We went to Mike's to upload some tunes (which takes longer than you'd expect) and we were in business! There's still a learning curve there, but I think MP3 is the way to go. I'm thinking of selling all my CDs and just arranging my life around MP3 - home, car, mobile. It's great! I totally recommend it.

It's May

I was thinking last night about the month of May. May in Colorado is different than May in Michigan. Last night the temp. was around 40-50 degrees and I was reminded of cool fall days and high school football games. In the day, it will be 70 and sunny, with an occasional rain shower that will last 5 minutes. More typical spring weather reminiscent of April in Michigan...life at 5000' is different indeed.

There's May Day, the international day of the worker (and Immigrant Boycott Day in America) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day, Cinco de Mayo (not a holiday for Mexican Independence. You should read the history . It relates very much to our own history): http://www.vivacincodemayo.org/history.htm. May 14th is Mother's Day (quite an ancient holiday, actually). And of course, the official start of the American summer, Memorial Day, which has it's very own website: http://www.usmemorialday.org/. Astrologically, if you're born in May you either a Taurus (5/1-5/20 http://astrologyzone.com/forecasts/monthly/taurus.php) or a Gemini (5/21-5/31 http://astrologyzone.com/forecasts/monthly/gemini.php)

The entire city of Memphis celebrates the month with "Memphis in May", begining with the Beale Street music festival. We almost went this year, as Cake is playing (their famous lyric..."I don't know much about Cinco de May, I'm never sure what it's all about...I was bound for Mexico"). Early in our relationship, Crystal and I went to this Festival and had a great time...Check out this lineup: http://www.memphisinmay.org/site.asp?cid=113.

Near and dear to my heart, May is National Bike Month. What more needs to be said about that??? Oh, May 19th is Bike to Work Day, so get the rig out and ready to ride! Bike Month in Colorado is held in June, though, because the higher elevations are still snowed in - they'll be skiing until July 4th!

In May we have the height of NHL (and NBA)playoffs, but I don't want to talk about that this year (except the Pistons)...it's also Clean Air Month (not if your President is "still looking into the science" and your EPA is eliminating the need to supply gasoline with clean-air additives), National Salsa Month, National Barbeque Month and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (I guess that's why May first is Lei Day in Hawaii).

The origins of May are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May. Enjoy - it's finally Spring!!!

The Demise of the Red Wings

Well, four years in a row now the Wings have bowed out of the playoffs in the earliest of rounds...four years in a row. Despite a fabulous season, they couldn't get past Edmonton...sad. The real sad part is, will this be Steve Yzerman's last season? How could anyone want to go out like that... ?




Go Pistons!

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...

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.

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.

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

Here's a totally addictive game

Escapa anyone? Try to keep the red block from the blue block. Just click and hold.

Again, the link is the name of the post.

The Surrealist

This website is fun. You can put in some lame info or words and it will spit out some fun slogans, alter pictures, "sex" up a dossier of boring intelligence :) and other things...The title of the post is linked.

My name, sloganized:

Kills All Known Chad - Dead.

or

Got Chad?

Well, do ya?

Sunset

Crystal thought this turned out good, so I thought I'd post it: From our deck at the new apartment.

Party at Mike's!

So, a few weeks ago we had a party at Mike's. I think it was like a "divorce" Party or something. Whatever. We invited a lot of people, bought a lot of food and drinks, decorated (mildly), but alas, as party's go, it was not well attended. Who cares, we still had fun. Here's Mike:



Pimped out in the basement:



Crystal's new best friend, Mike (or as some call him, "Mickey"):



Mike's brother John and sister-in-law, Holli:



Playing darts. When Mike's wife left the house, she took the dart board. I had to have another one! One can only play so much pool...



Me and my dart "skills":



Who's Superman? Me:



Get down, get down...

Good times were had by all:








The significance of this party was small, but it started a revolution. On the walls, you can see that we chalked it up good with drawings and signatures and such. This got Mike to thinking that he needed to build a bar. Then, Crystal wanted to paint. In a future post, I'll show the results of this amazing transformation. Gone are the grey walls and cold floor. Mike now has the best club in town!

Tubeless Update

It took about two weeks or so, but the tires sealed up and have been holding air now for two weeks. As I understand it, other tires are easier to work with (I used Kenda Nevegal 2.35 Dual Tread Compound). I'm thinking of converting Crystal's bike this Spring as well. Worrying about flats is such a pain...

Horsetooth Ride

Finally got out to Horsetooth for a ride on the new bike. I tried to get out last weekend and though it was sunny and warm, there was too much mud.

We climbed for about an hour or so to the Spring Creek/Mill Creek junction. We ended up going down Spring Creek on the way down...a very fun ride, not much pedalling down!



It was a sunny day (warmer than I expected, too) and I was eager to test out the new bike on the big trails at HT Mountain Park. The bike climbed much better than I expected, actually, though they've done some grading to the service road that makes it a bit slower than in the past. With better knowledge of the trail and few bike tweaks, it'll be riding perfect.



I was able to get some good pics of Dave riding:





It's funny, when you ride, you really have to make a conscious effort to get off the bike and take pictures. So much of your time is spent focused on the trail, the riding and the other trail users. These all could have been better...

This is one place where I can go on the front range to get some trees and a different perspective than the low, open desert areas of Devil's Backbone and Coyote Ridge.





It was a good ride. I think riding some of the roads near my house has helped my fitness this year. We'll see, but usually I'm whipped after a ride at HTMP. This day, I felt good.

Tubeless tires and the dilemma

So last weekend, I did a full conversion of my wheels to a tubeless system. Find more info here:http://www.notubes.com/

I have to admit, it wasn't very difficult to do. The tires I'm using are Kenda Nevegal 2.35 DTCs. I've read that they're some of the hardest to seal. It was a day long process, but I was able to ride on Sunday. The performance gain was instantly evident, but I could not get past the fact that they might leak on me or something. They had been slowly leaking air all day Sat. but seemed all sealed up. Either way, the ride was good and the tires were doing thier job.

Well, come Monday, I find the front tire flat, leaking sealant. I went through the steps to reseal it and on Tuesday, it had lost some air but was doing ok. I rode Tuesday afternoon (just ahead of the snowstorm, I might add. Temps close to 60 degrees) and they held up pretty good. The rear has a wobble in it that's a bit annoying (I've noticed this on new Nevegal tires before) but on the trail it's not noticeable.

Come Wednesday, the rear tire was flat overnight! I pumped it up before work to 40psi and it was holding air, so that's not the issue. It seems that maybe it's not sealing or that during riding, the seal is breaking. I can't figure it out. I'm not giving up yet, but it seems that tubes are much easier to deal with. I just love the faster rolling wheels that tubeless provides. And with all the thorns around, the flat resistance is a must. But how resistant is it?

To be continued...

Winter blahs?

Well, I haven't had them! We've had days of 70 degrees this winter and I've been able to ride at least twice a week. It finally snowed last Wednesday, but it melted by Friday. It's snowing now again, but I'm confident that it will be gone soon enough. I'm glad for it too...who likes dealing with all the snow and ice? The mountains, however have been utterly blanketed with snow this year. Steamboat Springs reports that the champagne powder is "epic". Vail has had record crowds. Denver Int'l Airport is setting records for the number of travelers moving through. That means that spring will be green on the plains! The reservoirs are predicted to overflow for the first time since the late '90s when the state officially went into drought. For a while, things are getting back to normal around here. But I suppose that's only true in our microcosm of the world - in Seattle they've had record rains. California, too. Wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma in January! The NE is saturated. Killer hurricanes, increased glacial melt in places like Alaska and Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa where they predict there will be no more glacial ice in ten years at 19,340'! Read more about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilimanjaro.

I feel like I'm outside the storm, but the evidence is there that things are heating up. And I'm not sure that people really mind. Still, it can't be good in the long run. For now, I'll be content with my 70 degree days in February and maybe I'll start driving less. Maybe it would be a good time to begin recycling - $35/lb for aluminum. If only bikes were that cheap! I figure my aluminum bike is about $700/lb! I'd better start recycling to help bring down the cost of Al for my OWN good!