Recent Fun

Recent Fun Catch-Up

We have been busy lately and I have not had much time to get stuff posted up on here.  So I thought that I would just do a quick update with what we had going on.

Over the Fourth of July Kyleen and I headed to the cabin for some riding at Cuyuna.  The weather was great and the riding was awesome.  We love to get out and ride up there, so much so that we headed back up the next weekend and rode again.  This time it was a family outing, we were joined by Troy, Terry, Kat and Paul.  It is always a blast.

Hopper Hill Overlook, I think that every Cuyuna rider has this picture.

We earned some good beer!

Kinley was enjoying the deck and keeping a watch eye on the yard.

We closed out the 4th with a nice fire and some fireworks across the lake.

I really wanted to get out on my 9ZERO7, I really have not rode it since I finished building it.  It was a blast to ride.  I took it over to Elm Creek and ride the single track on the fatty was a lot of fun.  There are few things that I’m going to change on the bike, but I really like the way it rides.

Kyleen competed in the Annandale Tri, this was her second race of the year.  She did awesome!  She finished 2^nd in her age group and this was her first podium finish.  I’m very proud of her and happy to see that all of her hard work is paying off.  This was here first race on her QR Tri bike, she was really excited to see what improvements she made over last year. 

Up next for me is the 2013 Rusty Ride 50 miler.  This will be my first long distance mountain bike race, I was going to do the Cheq metric 100, but that was a rain out.  Kyleen is going to be doing the YWCA Women's Tri, she did this one last year and it is a great race.

Building a Fatty...

My Fat Bike Build.

With the popularity of fat biking over the last couple of years the thought of getting on has been on my mind.  Then in December I borrowed Troy’s Surly pugsley for a couple of days, that was a mistake!  I took his bike on a couple of trail rides down our local snowmobile trails and it was a blast.  I was amazed on how well the bike floated over the snow packed trail.  I enjoyed the bike and thought that I would like to get one at some point, but I had just got a full suspension 29er last September and another new bike was not in the cards. 

One night Kyleen mentioned to me that she was surprised that I did not want a fat bike right away.  Well, that started my planning on how I could get one sooner than later.  Before I bought my 29er I was planning on building one, so I had a bunch of parts that I had gathered, most of which I could use on a fat bike.  So I made a list of components and I got an idea of what the cost would be.  I thought that I could build one up for a reasonable amount using eBay and some used parts.  So I started selling some stuff to fund my bike build.  I sold some archery stuff that I have not used in years along with some bike parts.  I sold my old Rockhopper to a co-worker and some other stuff just in time for the Twin Cities bike swap.  At the swap I picked up a Salsa enabler fat fork and some Avid BB7 brakes for my build.  The rest of the parts I found on eBay or from Fatbikes.com.  Kyleen even chipped in and funded the remainder of my frame as my birthday gift, Thank You!!

I ended up going with a 2012 9zero7, Fatbikes.com had a great price on the frame so that was the deciding factor on my selection.  After a few months of buying and selling I had everything I need to start the build.  With the busy spring that I had planned I did not think that I would get the build completed until the late summer, but with all the snow and cold weather I had some spare time and I completed the build in early May.





This showed up at the door one day!





 I pressed in the headset, this is my first complete bike build so I was unsure of how the headset was going to go.  I installed the Salsa fork that I got at the bike swap along with a Raceface stem that I had.





Raceface DH bottom bracket and SLX derailleur installed. 



Installed the handlebars, brakes, brake levers, shifters, cables and housing.  It just needs some wheels and tires now.



I looked around for a good deal on wheels for a long time, in the end I decided to order a wheelset from Fatbikes.com.  Surly Rolling Darryl's with 9zero7 hubs.  I am planning on drilling out the rims at some point this summer.

I looked at my different tire options.  I was unsure of what would be a good all around tire for the riding that I had planned.  I ended up getting a set of On-One Floaters, they are from the UK.  I'm looking forward to getting some miles on these.  The price of the tires shipped was about $128, which for a pair of 120 tpi tires is a great deal.

Everything mounted and ready to go on the bike.

Once the wheels were ready I installed the chain and I was ready to ride.  I think that overall the build went as planned and I would do it again.  The bike ended up weighing about 32lbs, I hope to get it down to about 30lbs after drilling the rims and maybe a few lighter components, until then I'm just going to ride it.

Sunset test ride!

Build Specs.

Frame - 2012 9zero7 170mm medium

Fork - Salsa Enabler

Bottom Bracket - Raceface DH 100mm

Crankset - Raceface Ride Fatbike

Front Derailleur - Shimano SLX e-type

Rear Derailleur - Shimano XT M772

Cassette - Shimano Deore 11-36 10 speed

Chain - Shimano 10 speed

Shifters - Shimano SLX 10 speed

Brakes - Avid BB7 w/160mm rotors

Brake Levers - Avid FR-5

Seatpost - Easton EA30 30.9 X 350mm

Seat - WTB Volt

Handle Bars - Stylo T20 Riser Bar

Stem - Raceface Evolve XC 90mm

Grips - Lizzardskin

Cables - Jagwire Teflon coated

Wheelset - Suryl Rolling Darryls w/ 9zero7 hubs

Tires - On-One Floaters

No Almanzo 100 for me.

So last year I completed my first Almanzo 100, it was a very hot and windy ride.  My time was not what I had hoped for but I did finish so that was a huge for me.  A few days after that race I knew that I wanted to ride in the 2013 race.  I had been training as much as I could this spring and I was feeling OK, with all the rain it was hard to get out and ride.  The week before Almanzo I was on a MTB ride and crashed hard.  I ended up with a separated shoulder.  No Almanzo for me!

Since Troy, Brett and Jose were riding and I already paid for a camp site Kyleen and I headed down to do some cheering and provide some support if needed.  It was a great day to be on the bike, I'll be back next year!

This was the largest starting field for an Almanzo, it is a great race and Chris and the Almanzo crew do an awesome job with getting everything in order.

Troy and Brett getting ready to roll out.

Due to some road work the riders had to do a couple of water crossings.  This was the one outside of Preston.  The second water crossing was too dangerous so the course was rerouted.

The last climb of the race, Kyleen and I stood at the top and cheered the riders on.  Troy, Brett and Jose all finished and it was a great day for riding!

The Dickie Scramble..

This last Sunday, May 5^th, Troy and I headed down to Elgin, Minnesota to ride the Dickie Scramble.  The Dickie Scramble is a gravel road race with either 85 or 120 mile courses.  We decided that since the race was on a Sunday and we drove down the morning that we would stick to the short course.  Also with the way the spring weather has been I do not have the miles on for the year, I felt a bit under prepared.

The area was hit with a May snow storm that dropped around 13” of heavy wet snow just days before the ride.  Drew did a great job of sending out updates on the area conditions and we never thought about backing out.  I assume that a bunch of people thought that it would be a muddy mess and backed out as the starting field was only about 45 people.

At about 8:15 we rolled out of the Huddle in Elgin, the group did a slow roll out for the first few miles and then the group broke up in to smaller groups and some took off.  I felt that we were doing a good pace, but we were toward the back, which was fine.  We were treating this ride as training for the Almanzo 100.  The ride was going well and no real issues other than a wrong turn which we quickly realized and corrected and Troy flatted at about mile 40. The course was full of hard pack gravel, tar roads and a few minimum maintenance roads.  At about 1:15 we rolled in the check point at about mile 60.  The MMR that we rode just before the check point was not much fun.  It was snow covered and soft.  My bike was spinning out and I ended up walk some of the climb.  The real fun was after the check point, there was some climbing to do!  There were a total of 7 category 4 climbs on the short route; I think that is the most climbing I have ever done.

We returned to the Huddle at about 3:25.  It was a good day on the bike.  We ended up with about 79 miles and about 3300 feet of climbing in 6 hours and 11 minutes of moving time.   Not too bad for me. 

The 2013 Dickie Scramble was in the books!  It sound like there will be some course changes for next year and I’m going to change out my gearing to make the climbing a bit easier.

The Felt all ready to go.

The line up outside the Huddle



The weather was great, sunny skies!

 

The MMR before the check point, it doesn't look too bad here, it was snow covered at the top.

Time to start a blog...

I realized that I don't take enough pictures of the things that we do.  So, I thought that if I start a blog that may motivate me to take more.  I'm thinking that this blog will be about the random stuff that we do.  I'll talk about our travels, our biking adventures and our racing.

I was trying to come up with a clever name for this and the best thing that I came up with was Cranky Scott, not that I'm crabby, but I do spend a lot of time on my bikes.

-Scott