Confession time: I've been running.

So I have a confession to make: I've been running. Not terribly often, and not terribly seriously mind you, but I have begun running again. It has been easily 5 years since I ran more than a few miles or a couple times a year. In high school I ran cross country fairly well, and ran periodically in college to stay fit, and ran often enough playing intramural sports.

I'm not 100% why I started running again. I guess part of it is that I can get a bit of a work out in before work with running, and that's tricky with cycling, especially with my general distaste for the pre-noon hours. Part of my recent return to running is I work almost every day with several pretty serious triathletes, both as coworkers and customers. I am mildly jealous of their fitness and lean physical appearance. I've finally gotten rid of my old warn out running shoes and gotten a fancy new pair of Zoots.


New shoes are awesome, light, comfortable, a little squishy, but I think I'm just used to my crummy pair that was falling apart around my feet.

I'll keep running, if for no other reason than it is a quick work out and a little cross training never hurt anyone. But aside from the workout, I'm starting to get a little form and fitness back, and I'm starting to enjoy it again, at least a little.

That was this morning. This night was about gin, Rogue's Spruce Gin to be specific.

If you can get your hands on this fantastic beverage, try it. There's more going on than just a spruce flavor, but it is certainly the dominant one in there.

Good ride, new beers

Managed to convince myself to get out before work at ride. For some reason this is a trick thing. No matter when work starts, it still feels like morning, and all I should do before is watch tv and drink coffee. On Sundays we're only open 1-4, and with the loud thunderstorm last night, I slept a bit later than usual and got out of bed around 9. A quick couple bowls of cereal and cup of coffee, and I found the energy to go for a ride. Definitely glad I did. I just rode the nearest paved rails to trails bike trail we've got, the High Trestle Trail. Round trip I went about 30 miles, and enjoyed some pretty nice weather:

Check out that weather. 75F or so too.

Sadly, I couldn't mountain bike because of the aforementioned thunderstorm. Everywhere was (and still is) pretty damp.

That's supposed to be corn.

After a quick shower and four incredibly busy hours at work I returned to my place, and promptly cracked open a beer.
O'Fallon Hemp Hop Rye. Seems it is brewed with hemp seeds, which is probably what accounts for the earthy smoothness that under tones the fairly spicy rye flavors. Interesting style, not something I'd want to drink super often, but it sure hit the spot after a day of work, and commute home in the heat and humidity. Later tonight I had some of Rogue's Grow Your Own Series.

Dirtoir Black Lager

It was quite good, malty, bitter, all locally grown, local to Rogue and their Oregon based brewery at least. Interesting experiment for a brewer to try. Also a pretty good beer for me (or you) to try.

No ride but brewed

Saturdays are of course a busy day for us at the shop, thankfully we're open 10-5, not 10-7 like weekdays. This means I arrived home around 5:45 or so. After a phone conversation with my wife, who broke a spoke this morning, and satiating my hunger, I was in no mood to ride, and was rapidly running out of daylight for anything more than a quick ride. Sure I have lights, and a great path to ride on, but alas it was not charged. So instead of wallowing in my lonely sadness (all my friends were out of town or otherwise busy), I got off my duff and brewed a batch of beer.
I didn't get any photos of the boil, but here's my awesome homemade wort chiller cooling my still very hot wort down to an acceptable temperature for the yeast.

It's a big coil of copper tubing. Works great.

This is a golden ale, should take 4-5 weeks to complete, hopefully I can send some on RAGBRAI with my friends who actually get to go the whole week. Another hazard of bike shop employment in Iowa, little to zero RAGBRAI. Once cooled, with yeast added, I dumped it in a bucket and stuck in in a closet.

The golden ale is in the bucket, a double IPA is in the carboy, started that
one nearly 5 weeks ago, it is getting close to being ready to bottle.

To celebrate all my hard work, I cracked open the last of my remaining homebrewed wheat beer.

It's got extra hops in it for extra goodness.
The CITA/Rasmussen pint glass was a door prize at some race.

Planning on waking up at a normal time on Sunday and getting some riding done then. Wish me luck.

Finally got some

Mountain biking, that is. With my usual Thursday off, and finally some dry weather, I loaded up the new fancy bike and drove up to Seven Oaks near Boone to check out the course for the upcoming 3/6 hour race, that I won't get be a part of due to work. I did however need to try out my new mountain bike and get in my second off road ride of the calendar year. That's how wet the weather's been and how busy we've been at the shop. Brutal. The course itself was a bit damp, a bit slick in corners and on most climbs but it should dry a bit and be in really really good shape on Saturday. If you've ridden here, you know how steep everything is and how mind stabbingly hot it can get in the woods with no wind, a billion percent humidity, and an air temp around 9oF, this made the ride a bit tougher than I would have liked, but whatever, I was finally riding in the woods period. The ride itself went pretty well, but a) i know what I'm doing and b) riding on ice and snow all winter kept my skills in decent shape. But enough about me and my lies about my skills...on to what you really care about, how the bike worked.

New bike for this year (full disclosure: I paid nothing for this bike, and I'll make nothing when it is sold this fall, it is a demo bike, one of the best perks of being a bike shop employee) is a 2010 Jamis Dakota D29 Team. I have been sold on 29ers since I first rode one. Being 6'4, the big wheels make it feel like I thought a bike should feel. I guess all you shorter folks have been riding bikes that feel "right" since day one. Jerks. This would be my first ever ride aboard a carbon mountain bike, and I was quite curious to see how it would go.

Aww, all nice and clean and new.
Not so much.

So, first of all this bike is stiff, fast, light, etc etc, everything you'd expect from a carbon fiber wunderbike. Overall the ride quality was better than my Salsa El Mariachi, much stiffer, and pretty much as comfortable. I say pretty much because the Jamis has a Fox fork on it, but terrible grips, and the Salsa has a rigid steel fork, but Ergons. Once I switch to Ergons on the Jamis and spend a bit more time getting my position dialed, it will definitely be one of the more comfortable bikes I've ever been on. The Elixir brakes were awesome, strong, responsive, good modulation, couldn't be happier with them. The SRAM XO drive train also worked great, but that's no surprise. The tires were 100% wrong for greasy, slippery, barely muddy singletrack. I've read they're awesome in the hardpack, and I'd believe it, but for general use I'd recommend something with a bit more knob and maybe a bit larger volume. 2.0 is not big enough nor are the knobs on these Geax Barro Race tires. Probably swap on some 2.2 WTB or Specialized tires. I was running these with tubes at about 32 psi, only because I didn't have time to switch valve stems and set them up tubeless. It should be a snap with the Mavic rims being very tubeless friendly and the Geax tires being reportedly super easy to get sealed up. Aside from the tires my only complaint that's not easily remedied (those silly thin, foam Ritchie grips have got to go) is the crankset and frame clearance. Just reading that probably made some of you cringe, knowing what you know about carbon and spinning metal bits. Read on, but be warned, there are semi-graphic images below. Long story short, I had some wicked chain suck. Like, gently grinding up a hill in my lowest or second lowest gear and *clunk* i can no longer pedal, that bad of chain suck. It happened 4 or 5 times, and as you can tell from the photo below, it did a bit of damage.

Ouch.

Seriously, everything is so tight in there, there's no margin of error should anything go the slightest bit wrong, which I don't know if Jamis knows this, but that tends to happen sometimes when mountain biking. One more thing I don't fully understand about this bike; it's pretty high end, very race oriented, but they run a 2x9 set up rather than a 2x10, and spec an FSA crankset when the could have probably bumped the price very slightly and gone with SRAM XX. I'm not sure that would have fixed this issue, but if not, how about a bit more clearance down there for things? Check out the chainstay/front derailleur area. Just about no clearance. I'm pretty sure i couldn't fit a business card in there. I'm 100% sure I couldn't fit two business cards under the derailleur.

Overall I'm pleased as punch with how this bike rides, I need to make some minor fit adjustments, and tune the drive train back in(it got a little worse as the ride went on, damn cable stretch), and try to figure out how to stop such massive chain suck. I can't wait to ride it again, I'm actually a little upset I can't go hurt myself at the 6 hour race tomorrow.

One more quick thing before I go, since I can't post without talking about beer and/or booze, I have to share this. I went to a bar in Ames last night and was annoyed that they were no longer serving Goose Island's Matilda, but replaced it with Sofie. Sofie is very good. Different flavors than Matilda but in the same vein, and very very solid. Yay beer!

Weak ride + amazing beer

So, a bit of background: Wednesdays are my boss's routine day off, a clear necessity when you own/run a bike shop that is open seven days a week. We're a small shop with really two full time employees and several part time employees. This means when he or I are off, the other is basically running the place solo with an assortment of helpers. Most of these helpers are pretty good some facet of bike shop work, either sales, repairs, etc. Sadly most are not so hot at running the quickbooks POS software we use, or answering nonstandard questions. That's not really their fault, they're all friends of my boss who are helping out moreso than seriously working, though we do pay them. Probably not an unusual arrangement for a smaller shop, but it can lead to a certain amount of chaos and headaches that having even one more quality full time person would eliminate.

Okay. Wow. That wasn't supposed to be that long nor that whiny. Anyway, due to me getting busy, and not getting a chance to grab lunch until 2:30 or so I was still kinda hungry and not feeling a lot like riding when I left around 7:30. So, no time nor energy for a ride (totally weak I know) I went to the local food jobber to get something for dinner. The side trip to the grocery store adds all of a mile and a half on to my fairly short four mile commute. Food procured (pork chop, mixed veggies, rice) , then consumed, I spoke with my wife on the phone about the assorted trials she's experiencing early in her tour, then I cracked open this beer:

Two Jokers Double Wit from Boulevard's consistently outstanding Smokestack Series. I'd link to some info from Boulevard themselves, but this isn't one of the four "all the time" beers in this series, so I can't find any direct info. Click this for a Beer Advocate page with reviews and such.
The color is actually a bit lighter, but cell phone cameras aren't exactly known for amazing image quality. The flavor is outstanding, complex, spicy, tangy, super great overall. The label states that this beer is a combination of a traditional Belgian wit with lactic fermentation, and an American spiced wheat. The resulting flavors are incredible. If you can get your hands on this beer, give it a shot. One more plus, it's only going to be about $8, instead of the $12.50 I've gotten accustomed to paying for a limited release from the Smokestack Series. It sure made the end of my day a helluva lot better.

Busy Weekend + my wife leaves for a tour

This past weekend was a few days of work and preparing. I worked at the shop as per usual, and my wife got ready/packed for a 3-ish week bike tour. I spent about 10 hours in a car today dropped her off in Scandia, Minnesota. She's riding with a friend and following a route from Adventure Cycling that goes across Wisconsin, across the lake into Michigan, and down the coast to Indiana.
Photos:

So ready to go she's shaking her fist at meFull view.

She's rolling on a Jamis Aurora touring bike, with Axiom rear rack, Jandd front rack, and four Axiom panniers.

Commuting this weekend was pretty good, dodged the rain, had some sun, no problems. Nearly got wet several times though:

Weather like this is also why I haven't been able to mountain bike at all this spring/summer. Everything has stayed wet and nasty, at least when I've had any kind of chance to get out.

After work beer Saturday. Pretty solid. Not amazing, but smooth and refreshing after a warm/humid ride home. If you can't read it, the label states it is the Prairie Path Golden Ale from Two Brothers Brewing.

Hello world, etc.

Hi. I'm Mark, I'm 29, I work in a bike shop in central Iowa. I unsurprisingly love to ride bikes. I don't do it as much as I could/should, so I started this to embarrass myself into riding more. I figure if I put this out there, and at least have my friends hassle me about my lack of riding, I'll do it more. About all I do other than ride bikes/work with bikes, is drink beer, and gin, and whiskey, and whatever else I think sounds good and/or interesting. This blog will be mostly about bikes with a booze chaser.

Cheers