It's Alive

After two sessions in the basement, my new bike is alive. Mixing a new frame, fork, wheel set and brakes with old parts off of two other existing bikes my new single speed is now ready to ride. As the pictures show, the bike is a 2008 Salsa El Mariachi with 29" DT Swiss rims and 240 hubs, old Race Face Turbine cranks, Thomson stem and post, King headset, 160mm Avid BB7 mechanical brakes, Jagwire Ripcord cables, and XT levers on a Salsa pro moto 11 degree bar. For those or you who name your bikes and want know the name of my new steel steed; Sorry I don't name me bikes.

Now playing: NoFX - Gonoherpasyphililaids
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Hold your Horses...

it ain't spring yet. But this weekend it sure felt like it. Both Saturday and Sunday were in the mid 30's and the sun was shining. It is on days like these when I start dreaming of warm weather, then someone like my next door neighbor has to remind me March is typically the snowiest month of the year. What a buzz kill. Anyway, I took full advantage of the sunny weather on Sunday and took the cross bike out for a ride.

Picture from our ride of Lake Minnetonka.

Joe and I took the bikes west towards Wayzata where we ended up getting turned around near Orano and Medina. After finding our way out of cougar country, we head back towards our safe haven in Murderapolis, finishing our ride at CRC coffee. All in all we rode for about 3 and a half hours. The ride felt great and now I can't wait for spring to ride dirt again. To make things worse, I started putting together a new bike tonight but I more than likely wont be able to ride it for while. For those of you who care, there will be pictures coming soon.


Now playing: Buju Banton - Untold Stories
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Uncle Sam let me down...

But Mother Nature sure did not. Last night the US Navy launched a big-ass SM-3 missile (reaching speeds of 17,000 mph) from the USS Lake Erie in an attempt to blow up some sort satellite roughly 133 miles over the Pacific Ocean. Coincidentally at 8:45pm last night, astronomers were forecasting a lunar eclipse.


In an attempt to see some sort of explosion and watch the moon go dark all at the same time, Katie, Frank, Merckx the super pooch, and I went out on Lake Hiawatha to view all of the action and drink a few beers. Unfortunately we didn't see any sort of explosion. I guess the missile wasn't big enough to create any visible carnage thousands of miles away . We did however get to watch the eclipse and were able to see the moon change colors as Earth's shadow passed in front of it. Pretty Cool.


Now playing: The White Stripes - This Protector
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Super Bummer

No posts lately, I am really busy getting ready for Frostbike. For those of you who are unaware, Frostbike is an annual bike trade show QBP hosts every February. It is my job to coordinate this massive undertaking. I like the work, but lately it has been sucking the life out of me.

So here is a quick update with me. My frostbite is better. It kinda acted like a sun burn; stung for awhile, looked kinda bad, dried up, and peeled away. I have been Commuting a lot and enjoying the mild weather, but haven't skied in awhile. Thinking about Sea Otter but for now I am looking forward to Snow Balls Chance in Hell. Someone reminded me yesterday it was Super Tuesday, I went to Best Buy to get a smoking deal on flat screen but no one in the store knew of any deals going on. Isn't that what Super Tuesday is all about, getting up really early and getting sick deals on electronics and shit?

Thats all for now, good night everyone.


Now playing: Bright Eyes - Method Acting
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My pride got in the way

This Wednesday I thought it would be OK to ride home in the frigid sub zero cold. Scott Thayer and I were going to tough out the ride home together, using one another as a human shield from the freezing wind.
The temp leaving work that night were roughly 6 below with winds around 20mph .
The ride didn't seem too bad. In fact, both Scott and I commented on how toasty our feet were with new toe warmers in our boots. Honestly I wasn't that cold except for one little bit of exposed skin. Then we turned north and the crisp wind slapped us right in the face.
I bet you can all guess where this story is going.Yeah, frostbite.

See the nice patch of white skin under my goggles? That is what a minor case of frostbite looks like. I should have known better than leave skin exposed to the elements for over an hour when it is as cold as it was, but my pride got in the way. I just wanted to make it home. Bummer for me, because now I am going to have to deal with this for the rest of the winter.


Now playing: Patsy Cline - Today, Tomorrow And Forever
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Date Night

Last night Katie and I finally went to see Into the Wild at the cheap theater. I had been wanting to see the move for some time now and at $3 a ticket, I couldn't pass it up.
Sean Penn directed this flick and did a great job of following the book. If you haven't seen the movie or read the book, I would recommend doing either or both.

Now playing: The Ditty Bops - Wishful Thinking
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Too Cold for this Candy-Ass

This morning I woke up, grabbed a cup of coffee and turned on the local news just like I always do. The first thing I saw when the TV flashed on was the local temp, -4 degrees. Yeah I woke up like normal planning on riding, but screw that, 4 below was just too cold.

As I drove to work I thought that maybe I was getting soft with my new GQ lifestyle. At the end of the day I was asked by 3 other people (regular riders whose names I will not mention so they can still keep their "badassness") for a ride home. I know no one likes a candy-ass, but at least there were 3 other candy-asses in the car with me when I left work, and that made me feel better.

Now playing: Social Distortion - Live Before You Die
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