V18: Riding With (a) Purpose

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I've been tending shop at Volker on 18th St. while Britton is busy with other things. It feels great to be commuting to work again! Road training gets stale quickly and it's hard to get motivated, but having a goal, a pursose, a mission, a destiny(!) keeps it intersting. Depending on my route, it's between 17 and 20 miles down there, so I'm getting almost 40 miles a day. Sometimes I take it easy, sometimes I go hard. No worries, just good fun miles- all on the old winter SS.
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We got some brand new Velocity Blunt SL 29 rims in and I built them up around C-4 hubs. Wow, are these things light! I have Blunts on my 650B and I was curious how the SL version would look. They are a bit narrower than the regular Blunt but are still wider than most XC rims. Also the rim is flattened in profile at the nipple holes instead of having a shallow point- it looks much more finished and solid. If you have a disc-specific cross frame, these would be da bomb.
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How great is wool? Seriously. I'm not one of those weirdo Wazis. I wear plastic clothes quite alot, but yesterday it was 33 when I left in the morning and 60 when I returned home. I wore Swrve knicks and a bamboo t-shirt with a wool Volker jersey- same thing, both rides- and was perfectly comfy. Awesome! If you don't have any Swrve clothing, you're life is missing something.

SL-M732

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This Shimano shifter is the first piece of my new bike. It's the only thing left of one of the first mountain bikes I ever owned- a sparkly purple Specialized Rockhopper bought at a pawn shop in Manhattan, KS in 1995. It will come back to life soon. I haven't got much nailed down yet but I'm thinking 4-5" travel frame with 120mm up front. I want XC handling and lightness. The XT thumbie will be the centerpeice of a 1X8 drivetrain featuring a shortcage (Dura Ace maybe?) deraileur. With a 13-23 or 26 cassette, it's high and tight gearing but after riding SS for the last 10 years, 8 speeds should be more than sufficient.
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Rode WYCO Lake yesterday and picked my way through some of the new trails. Those trails are coming together nicely. Just need about double the milage and WYCO will be fantastic. Speaking of fantastic trails...
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I met Tom Park at Swope this morning and we had a great ride. He was on his 29er SS and I was on my 650 SS. Speeds seemed to match up nicely between us and Tom is a great bike handler so it's a breeze to ride with him. I gotta get out there waaay more than a couple of times a year.
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I pulled my foot out on a tech section and tweaked the back of my leg on something- I guess I whacked it on the empty pedal. It's tightened up quite a bit since I got home. I'll see if I can keep it loose for tomorrow's race. If it's too tight, I won't race. In years past I wouldn't even give it a thought, but with money being tight, I don't want to throw away 35 bucks on a show-n-go. It sucks, but that's the reality of the situation.

Boss Cross Day 2

More fun times.
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4th in Masters and 5th in SS today. I was tired after yesterday's effort and there were some fresh guys that showed up. Went hard all the way through the Masters race and then wasn't feeling real great about another round of pain after that. I lined up and decided I'd do what I could in the SS- my fourth race of the weekend. I went hard all the way through, so I'm happy with my weekend.
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It was a hard shock to the system. A good one.

Boss Cross Day 1

Fun course. Spectrum of variety. Great to be on the bike going hard and racing again.
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Got 5th in Masters. Those old dudes are fast! WTF??
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2nd behind Kent W. in the SS. TCPC went 1-2-3-4 with Britton finishing in 3rd and Lyles in 4th. Rad! Britton and I rode together most of the race. I gassed out and had to take it down with 2 laps to go but Britton stayed with me and made me earn it at the finish. That dude is a good team mate.
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More racing tomorrow. I feel good tonight but I know 4 hard races with all that sand running is going to have me on the floor Monday or Tuesday. Oh well-oh well-oh well...