the spring training road trip started on
friday,
february 27
th. after a morning meeting at work i was on the road by 1:30 - 11 1/2 hours later i was in
madison wisconsin.
what it looked like when i left
after a short 5 hours of sleep i was back on the road, making my way to
indianapolis to take in the 2009 north
american handmade bike show.
the show was very cool with a ton of amazing bikes. it was pretty crowded, but if you were patient you could talk to the various frame builders who were more than happy to chat. in addition to the bike builders there were also reps from components such as:
paul,
velo orange,
chris king, white industries, etc.
following a quick lunch i was back on the road.
durham was still 10 hours away, which meant it was going to be a long day of driving.
finally, no snow
the end of snow - well did not really end. somewhere in west virginia the snow started to fall as i gained altitude in the mountains. at times it got pretty heavy but since the ground was still warm it did not freeze.
driving through a tunnel in west
virginiaarrived in durham sometime around 1:00 in the morning. the next morning it was raining pretty steady and temperature was hovering around zero. chris and i went for a quick ride in the morning and soon found ourselves inside continuing our spring training
interval training
the next morning we woke up to this. snow in north carolina is not that unusual, but in march it is not that common. schools were closed (as soon as there is any snow on ground they usually close the schools - even if the streets are drivable).
jonah was more than happy to go for a ride in the snow
on
monday chris and i headed out for a little 'spring classics' style riding,
durham has plenty of paths to cycle on and we tooled around on these for a few hours. the other thing
durham has is hills and i quickly discovered that riding around
winnipeg in winter does not prepare one well for riding hills
day two of riding - cool, but not as wet as day one
the next day we headed out to
pisgah national forest for three days of riding. along the way we stopped at
first flight bike shop in
statesville. this a very cool shop that collects vintage bikes as well as being a
great all round shop.
almost as cool as the handmade bike show
we arrived in
pisgah shortly after lunch and started on the first ride. the way it works here is you climb for 40 - 60 minutes and then spend the next 20 bombing down single track.
our first climb was all on pavement
although you can't really see it in the picture this shows where we started
our next ride for the day started with a climb on fire road. it was 9 miles of climbing (higher altitude and steeper roads than our first ride). by mile 3 i was gassed, chris and i on our singlespeeds soon found it to steep to pedal and we began our death march to the top. because of the altitude, and the way the slope faced we soon found our selves pushing our bikes through the snow. as this took quite a bit of time, more than we expected, all we could do when we reached the top was to turn around and bomb down the same road it had taken us 2 hours to climb. taken the trail was not going to be an option as the snow would have been too deep and we would have lost light by the time we were half way down.
pedaling uphill while we still could
we pushed through the white stuff for about 5km
the next day alex had selected a longer ride along a ridge run called turkey pen(???). again, the ride started with a big climb with the trails starting off dry and gradually filling with snow as we climbed higher. during this climb i tweaked my hamstring as i was pedaling through some snow. rather than risk a full pulling of the hamstring we decided to cut this ride short and try another ride which would not be as epic in length (this gave us time to get into town so i could get a tensor bandage and heat balm for the hammy). during the downhill i put a small gash in sidewall of the racing ralph and had slap an tube in the tire (the racing ralph is perhaps a little to thin for riding on the rocks).
chris climbing
starting the downhill
one of many stream crossings on this trail
day three we picked a couple of new trails and continued the
modus operandi of riding fire roads up and bombing down technical single track for the descents. the arms were getting quite the workout as i rode
rigid for the entire 3 days
checking routes
riding through a rhododendron tunnel
a rare photo of us going downhill
it was a great trip and many thanks to
chris and
alex for taking time off so they could show this
flatlander around the great trails of the
pisgah national forest.
what it looked like when i left
finally, no snow
driving through a tunnel in west virginia
interval training
jonah was more than happy to go for a ride in the snow
day two of riding - cool, but not as wet as day one
almost as cool as the handmade bike show
our first climb was all on pavement
although you can't really see it in the picture this shows where we started
pedaling uphill while we still could
we pushed through the white stuff for about 5km
chris climbing
starting the downhill
one of many stream crossings on this trail
checking routes
riding through a rhododendron tunnel
a rare photo of us going downhill
a lot of wood on this bike: rims, seat post, grips, inserts (pedals and pivot covers)
great lug work and paint job. liam at the shoppe is getting a trials frame made by this guy
very cool dropouts for chain tension
the most phallic award winner - great imagination on the design of this handlebar
detail of how the handle bar pivots
street bike?
interesting brake detail
okay, your dad is a frame builder and he builds this bike for you, do you take this to school?
once you get this up to speed...
nice downtube detail
i thought the aesthetics of this brake mount was very interesting
36 inch wheels - the builder said it is not practical for off-road
29er by the same builder of the 36er
steel/carbon 29er
an internal two speed crank system
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