The open road with Kels and Ady

These two (well 4 actually) are the folks that I really like to live vicariously through. They are living the dream in a RV as Adam travels the midsouth running a construction crew. There is never any telling what is gonna happen between them and the bird dogs.
Got me to thinking about how we lived after we got married......And I dug through some data CD's from bygone computers and this was what I found.

Western Alberta looking at the Plain of 7 Glaciers

Lookout Mtn.......hhmmhh time for a musical break



This was in Mid Oct!

Not too many other folks about

The opposite side of Lookout Mtn

Six weeks later....pimpin Christmas trees in Maryland (you cant see the glorious RV that we got to live in, it was a heap)

Sometimes you forget that he is always there....watchin you....with his pipe...and bright blue eyes

The glory of a Winter day on Grandfather Mountain.
Long live, life in the open Road.

Things that make me smile

Been thinking seriously about what gonna happen in the next few months. Trying figure out where I am gonna go. Whose gonna pay my bills? How much longer do I have to make this thesis? Can I totally avoid using regression for analysis? all that serious thinking can get one down.


Floppy eared dogs

I really have no idea but this always makes me laugh

Bob and Betty Lake.


The fact that I never have to do ammonia emissions work again......at least not on grad student pay.

No Swope but lots of gravel

I woke up this morning just not feeling like driving to KC to participate in the festivities. It one thing for the KC crowd to have to drive 20 minutes for a 40 minute race, but driving at least 4 hours round trip for a short race is a whole nother story.
So her Al-ness and I decided to bust out 50 miles of flint hills gravel goodness on the mighty tandem.

What?


Al was like"there gnar in them thar hills!"
We did manage to have a "coming to Jesus" moment, as we had a tire get cut as we were coming down a big hill at about 30 mph. Mtn Kings are not really the gravel tire of choice out here. Gonna have to do some more research to find a burly 2.1-2.3 tire for the rear. The 2.6 ardent on the front really is the cats pajamas!


Kind of like 7-11, not always doing business, but they are always open. Name that Movie!


The best seat in the house.
Good times!

Slow getting around

Been slack getting this up, got the new CX bike, 2009 Redline Conquest Pro. I really liked the specs of the 09's over the 2010's. Big Poppi's has me and Aaron rollin on these for the Bad Goat CX season! The saddle is a little too white but that will change after this weeekend (the oem saddle did not show my bottom much love). I am also really digging the Ritchey wheels. They set up tubeless very easily (more on that later).
I will say that I really like Rival, it is just more intuitive to me than STI. meh. gears.



Ethiopian gorging at the blue nile just before the TOM start. Who said they are all skinny?


Ladies, He is single.


Tomorrow its off to Fancy creek to help with trail work, then maybe on Sunday I will get out to KC for the first CX race of the season.

The passing of a giant who bred dwarfs

Norman Borlaug pioneered wheat breeding and the use of dwarf varieties of wheat. This meant that the wheat plants were able to put more of the energy into producing grain and less into producing stalks. The proportion of grain to stalks and leaves is known as "harvest index"
The lower you harvest index the greater amount of grain was produced in relation to the amount of biomass (stalk and leaves) the plant produced. He won a Nobel prize for his work on lowering the Harvest index in wheat. He was strong advocate for technology and taking new ideas to common people, and letting them see how it would impact their lives. He was also a anomoly in the fact that he knew that for scientific success to be attained he also had to be a diplomat and a bit of a politician. He is considered the father of the "Green Revolution". He died on Sunday at the age of 95.

Patching non UST tires for tubeless use and ergons

Woah! there Killer, you did what?
Early this spring (March) I got some new wheels built up for me just in time to race at Ouachita. I also ordered some sweet new tires, Maxxis Ardent on the front and a Maxxis Crossmark on the rear. Well, about 3 weeks after I first raced on the tires I was out riding at Perry when I hear the familiar hissing of a puncture, keep riding waiting for it to seal, but it never seals. Stop, see that I have a abrasion and slight cut in the sidewall of the Crossmark. I pick up the bike hold it so the sidewall gets a good stans-ing, hit it with the CO2, and ride that puppy home.

However, over the next week I would occasionally hear the sputtering of the leak opening up again. So I decided that I was gonna try something experimental, cuz I am a SCIENTIST!
I used a Genuine Innovations Glue Gatch Kit on the inside of the tire sidewall to seal the cut.

That was in Early April. Its now early September, that like 5 months (50% tire wear) of wear out of a .35 cent ghetto fix. I think its money well spent. It also survived 4 races and one stupid descent of Greenslick with no problems.
Would I have tried it on a front tire? Meh? Who knows.

In other news I haver been tweaking the fit of the Mountainous Tandem. I had been using the stock grips that came with my SRAM X9 grip shifts but the length of the cockpit was putting a lot of pressure on my palms and causing some pain. As i was lamenting this I though back to the conversation that his Duckman-ness and I had in Bent Creek regarding grips. Brian raved about Ergons, owns like three sets. So I thought, what the hump have I got to loose?
I gave Big Poppi's a shout, and 3 days later I had me some brand new set of GC2's
I cut them down, so that they would play nicely with the grip shift and my crowded cockpit.

Dang! talk about comfort. They made a huge difference. I had tried Ergons once before in 07, but had not really learned how to orient and adjust them and did not find them very comfortable, so i got rid of them after a week.
If you want something to help spread out the pressure on your hands, and give you multiple hand positions for those long rides, give those ergons a spin.

Just in case you are wondering, the current maximum velocity that we have attained on the tandem is 42 mph.

the conspiracy in 2010

What everyone is whispering about

The new Cross bike arrives tomorrow......gasp...shudder ...shudder....it has gears.