Spring is here. Get out and ride.

TK Lawless Fabulous50

I have just wrapped up a week of honeydew work at our house in Edwardsburg, MI. E'Burg is a small, rural village located in the SW corner of Michigan and offers plenty of open roads which are best suited for road riding. I did, however, map out a great gravel road ride for the MTB that takes me to TK Lawless County Park for some excellent training miles with a little bit of singletrack tossed in. No driving is necessary as this ride takes me from my door 20 miles to the trailhead. TK Lawless is a tight 10 mile trail that offers a variety of features with very little traffic. I am usually alone out there during the week. During this time of year, the leaves cover the trail and without much activity the trail is often obscured. Riding the singletrack after a long winter took some adjustment but it was a thrill to get up to race pace and I only bit it twice (my front wheel kept washing out). It sure beats riding in a straight line. It's all good and I was still able to get my choirs completed.
ROUTE

Greyhound Team Time Trial - Part 2

Well, the results are being tabulated and it was an awesome day for our kick-off event. The first event always reminds me of the first day of school. You see old friends and meet new ones as well. The turnout was good but we still had a few key players missing in action. The weather conditions were ideal although the head winds heading back to the finish made it hurt. A lot. My legs felt strong but I noticed my difficulty maintaining the level of intensity without wanting to puke. With all the training miles I have so far this year I still lack the intensity found in most competitive events. A HUGE thank you goes out to Kevin and the volunteers and also to Jenni and Dan for the Buddy's Pizza Party. What a great group of people. Go Greyhounds!
Ritzy sporting his Mello Johnny:

Mike Woods and his spanking brand new BMC:

Orange Peel briefing the riders:


Afterwards @ Buddy's Pizza:

Racing Greyhounds Team Time Trial

From our team Forum:
"It's that time of year, Ladies and Gents, for you to break out your road bikes (or any bike you wish) and join your fellow Greyhounds for the first Greyhound event of the year. This Greyhound sponsored event will be a Time Trial run on March 22nd, and start at 5 PM, this doesn't mean show up at 5 PM, it means the first bike off the line will be at 5 PM. The course will start at Helms Haven and will go to Nankin Mills, turn around, and back. This is your chance to get a taste of what it's like to get ready and preped for a racing event. Basically this is a race against time, also known as the Race of Truth. It's just you and the clock. Do you have what it takes to go all out from start to finish? Come on out and see. There will be a pizza party afterwards for all participants at Benny's located at Merriman and Joy".
MAP
Here is the starting order based off last year's power rankings. I'm just glad the only people who start after me are easily the fastest so I won't mind getting passed by those few. I have a lot of riders to reel in though. Although I'm riding a loaner bike with fenders and blinky lights it should still be a good time.

Justin Clark 5:00:00
Mike Adams 5:00:30
Al Lauland 5:01:00
Chris Pratt 5:01:30
Marian Davidson 5:02:00
Mike Pominville 5:02:30
Charles Russo 5:03:00
Sunshine Gramer 5:03:30
Tricia Shipp 5:04:00
Toni Roginski 5:04:30
Danielle Jankowski 5:05:00
Scott Krahn 5:05:30
Jennifer Sterling 5:06:00
Chris Russo 5:06:30
Dave Krenk 5:07:00
Jim Lovett 5:07:30
Tom Olszewski 5:08:00
Timothy Wayne Simms 5:08:30
Lynne Sienkiewicz 5:09:00
Brian Roginski 5:09:30
Sabinel Deacu 5:10:00
Chris Roper 5:10:30
Jon Ruud 5:11:00
Chad Aiello 5:11:30
Kimm Bender 5:12:00
Phil Utley 5:12:30
Wendell DelValle 5:13:00
Jason Sparks 5:13:30
Rob Ritzenhein 5:14:00
Scott Jankowski 5:14:30
Aaron Reider 5:15:00
Rick Bowling 5:15:30
Ted Welsh 5:16:00
Mark Bugnell 5:16:30
Mike Woods 5:17:00
Earl Hillaker 5:17:30
Gary Winkel 5:18:00
Jeff Jorge 5:18:30
Craig Morris 5:19:00
Kevin Dittmer 5:19:30
Brian Jankowski 5:20:00
Adam Sulkes 5:20:30
Jeff Wittbrodt 5:21:00
Mark Carroll / Jennifer Chinn (Tandem) 5:21:30

First day of Spring

Yea! Yesterday was the first day of Spring and I celebrated with a ride. It was sunny and the temperature was 37-40 degrees. Cool but nice. I rode out to Dexter, Michigan and back before work. The road crews have been out grading the dirt roads. This is fine for cars but it makes for difficult riding with the soft surface. I came across this converted barn:

Gurgling water along Gale Road:

The frogs are croaking and the wildlife is getting wild. Great ride today!

Danny and the Demoncycle

In 1972 the Highway Safety Division of Virginia published a comic book for kids about bike safety called Danny and the Demoncycle . It stars a young sociopath named Danny who enjoys riding his bike in such as way as to cause the death of innocent people. He changes his ways after having a dream involving Satan, a.k.a. Santa, and a "demoncycle" that takes him on a ride so wild that even Danny can't handle it. After that, Danny becomes an exemplary lad, following bicycle safety rules to the letter and admonishing anyone who doesn't.

This is the latest addition to the "Comics with Problems" library, curated by Ethan Persoff. This is a great site that takes me back to my youth and the paranoia that was purvasive in media at the time.

Natural Beauty Roads

Gale Road:

Tubbs Road:

As I have spent more time lately on the back roads north of Ann Arbor, Michigan, I have begun to notice these signs more frequently. I have seen them in Oakland County, Michigan and decided to check out what they were all about. Aside from the obvious message of the sign it appears as if there is a laborious process to get a road designated with this idyllic sign. I found the Washtenaw County website offered some good information of the subject (complete with map) and now I can start planning my next route to include more of these roads. I'm happy to see these roads out there for me and my friends to ride on.
Tubbs Road:

Death/re-birth of my Tiagra shifter

UPDATE 4-5-09
I have finally replace my shifter and I really dig the new bar tape.



UPDATE 3-28-09:
I received my replacement shifter from Shimano in a timely manner. The new shifter has what appears to be a slightly different port for the cable end to rest in. It actually looks improved to prevent the barrel from falling inside which is what happend to me. Check it out. Great job Shimano!
UPDATE 3-29-09
I went to install the shifter and realized I was sent a left shifter and it is the right hand (9 speed) shifter that was to have been replaced. Upon closer inspection, the photo below is a left shifter. KA-RAP!


3-13-09
I was recently enjoying a training ride on the back roads north of Ypsilante, Mi. when I started my ride back home I felt something give in the right shifter of my CX bike. This is my first experience with integrated shifters and I have a lot of experience with MTB shifters wearing out. I pulled off the road and noticed the slack in the shift cable to the rear derailleur. When this occurs the derailleur will move to the smallest cog on the back and turn your bike into an instant track bike. One speed. The following day I went to replace the cable and discovered that the cable had broke where it exits the shifter and the nub on the end of the cable had fallen down inside the gear mechanism of the shifter. The piece of cable was inhibiting the shifter from working properly. I took it to the shop and came to a decision. If the shifter is broken then why not take it apart and try to fix it. BUT, if I take it apart, will I be able to get it back together in working order? I think I would be better off building a Swiss watch from scratch. I stripped the shifter down about as far as I could and still could not dislodge the cable from within.

I stopped, slept on it and considered the cost of a new shifter. A new Tiagra shifter was around $100.00 more than I wanted to spend. I called Shimano and the tech promptly advised me to print out the warranty return form from the Shimano website and FedEx the shifter to them for a "goodwill" replacement. The tech mentioned that these shifters are not meant to be taken apart (duh) and are best if replaced versus repaired. With this in mind I quickly reassembled the shifter and sent it off to Shimano. So far, the customer experience has been fantastic. I will update when and if the replacement arrives.

Ann Arbor/Ypsilante back roads

The weather has been progressively warming up and the riding more consistent. Having recently moved to the A2/Ypsi area I have been exploring the back roads North of town. Each ride I come across a new road and route. The roads are mainly packed gravel with a great mix of hills and terrain that are perfect for the Cross bike. I'm enjoying the new surroundings.

Sample Route

Area 51 at the top of Dixboro Road:

2008 Hardware

I stopped by the shop yesterday (my happy place) and Daniel had a few things he had been holding for me. The first was the 2008 CPS (Championship Points Series) trophy which was a departure from the behemoth trophy of years past. I'm OK with it and it represents a great deal of effort to hang near the top in this class.

This trophy was a Greyhound's team trophy for riders who logged 4000+ miles. It represents a great deal of memorable training miles. It was a good season for me.

March 2, 2009

Two days into March and it still doesn't feel a bit like Spring. Although it is sunny the mercury is at 11 degrees with a 13 mph wind chill. I have a handful of outdoor rides under my belt with the majority of my time spent on the trainer and lifting light weights. I am bored out of my skin! Tonight is the Iceman Cometh registration at 1900. It was re-scheduled after the Friday night website meltdown forced the change of date. The days are getting longer and warmer and I am so ready to check out the countryside North of town. Cheers.

UPDATE:
Thank you for your efforts to get registered for this year's Iceman Cometh Challenge. I know that last Friday and tonight were both very frustrating and disappointing.
We appreciate your efforts to participate and your passion for the event!

Dear Craig,
We have suspended the online registrations for the moment due to unprecented activity on the SBO site.

Now we have to step back and will be spend quite a bit of time in the next few days scrubbing the registrations that were sucessful tonight. Those sucessful entries are 100% valid.

However, there are still quite a number of corrections that need to be made in order to have a good solid list of particpants. Once the database is in order, we'll post a list of the riders that are currently registered.

Regardless, of the method we use to move forward from here, it will be some time before we'll be able to announce just what that method will be.

Honestly, right now, I am leaning towards going back to the "Old School" method of paper entries for the remainder of the field.
Thank you again for your patience!

I know you have a choice about which events you attend throughout the year and I can only say that the 2009 Iceman will rise above this registration disaster!

Now go ride and work your frustrations out!

Steve Brown