Well, I'm back to work. Blech!!!!!! Other than that things are going well. I'm off today so it's a "big" ride day. I think I'm gonna hit up part of the ORAMM route. Kitsuma is always fun and I'm really wanting to lay into that long ass dirt road climb on the new bike.

In other news I hit up the used bookstore again and got stocked up for summer. I picked up Tom Clancy's "Red Rabbit" for cheap. Now I only need "The Hunt for Red October" to complete the collection. I don't really agree with the mans politics but I do like a good political/military thriller and he is pretty much the best (in my humble opinion) at that. Plus, Amandas mom has somehow found every Hiasen book but one in hardcover and I'm planning on raiding those and rereading them.

Hope everybody had a good weekend. Later folks.

Cowbell Challenge

Did the 6 hour option this year. First I want to say thanks to Taylor and the gang for a well run, really fun race. Plus, when I got there to sign in they had put cookies in everybody's goody bag. COOKIES. Pair that with not making us run to start the race off and I'm ready to declare these people saints.

I went into this race with 2 goals.

1. Go out at a pretty hard pace push it for as long as I could

2.DON'T QUIT!!!!!!! I was determined to beat the demons back and shut them up.

3.Ok. This one got added during the race. Clean that freakin uphill logpile.

I can sort of happily report that I accomplished all 3.

I pushed it(for me) the whole race, when my nagging, wussy voice started telling me I was never going to win one of these and that I should just drop out and take up model airplane building I tied it to my seatpost and drug it into submission. I cleared the uphill logpile twice. Of course neither time was when Bruce was there with his bullhorn.

I finished with 5 laps. Would've been more but I flatted the last lap and made it back after the 3 p.m. cutoff. I'm still slow but I'm faster than I was last year.

Hope everybody had a good weekend. Yall come back now.

Due to the insane number of people(ok 1) asking me to post ride impressions of the Bandersnatch I'm doing 1 more Vassago love fest. Here we go. I'm going to try and break it down into a few different categories.

Climbing-Does very well. I got rid of the spacers and got the front end a bit lower and it does much better now. The front end stays down on the shorter steeper stuff. On longer climbs it seems to do better with seated climbing. That might just be my impression though.

Descending-Excellent. Basically just point and shoot. Really stable and fast as hell.

Handling-Great. Handles the tight, twisty stuff like a champ.

Overall I can't say enough about it.I think it's an awesome bike. The frames is plenty stiff but doesn't beat the hell out of you the way an aluminum frame might. I also use a Reba fork which from what I've read is the worst fork geometry wise for the frame. Can't wait to see how it does with a Fox.

Hells to the yeah!!!!!!!!!!

As of 4p.m. today I am on vacation. 9 glorious days off!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't even begin to figure out where to ride first. Decisions,decisions.

OK. This will be my last post gushing over the new bike. Well, probably not, but I'll try anyway. The more I ride it the more I like it. In fact, I like it so much it's got me considering picking up a SS Jabberwocky this winter. I'm not sure I'm ready for that brand of Kool_ade yet but..why the hell not?

In other news. Things are going better on the home front. My head seems to be clearing up and I'm not sliding into the deep funks that I'm capable of. Work still blows, but hell..that's why they call it work I guess. In other words....things are going pretty damn well these days. For the first time in a while I don't feel like I'm taking aim at my foot and pulling the trigger.

*WARNING* Age alert here. Seems as though Motley Crue has put together a "hair metal" version of Lollapalooza for the summer. Crue Fest. I realize the Crue doesn't have the alternative cool aura of some bands but I don't care. They provided the soundtrack for my high school years(GnR didn't come out til after I graduated..yes I'm that old..and they promptly teamed up with Motley to get me through my military years) and I still enjoy the discs. Anyway, the big festival is coming to Charlotte and has me jonesing to go. I doubt I do..it's hard for me to justify $95 for a ticket to sit all day in the Charlotte sun in July, but I can dream. HA!!!! ah well....rant over.

Hope everybody has a good day. Later folks.

Random stuff

Resting and getting ready for tomorrow.

Ok. A quick ride report on the new bike. It rocks!!!! When I first got the frame I would stick it up next to my old frame just to compare how it looks. I was always wondering about the geometry. Vassago uses what they call "Wet Cat" geometry and it's a tad different than most of what you see out there. To make a short story shorter..they seem to have nailed it. It climbs as well as can be expected with me doing the pedaling....it's stable as hell when descending and corners awesome. It handles switchbacks with ease. The only thing I still need to tinker with is the height of the front end. It get's sorta light and comes up a bit on the short really steep climbs. Flipping my stem and tossing all the spacers should handle that.








June is here and the next race is a little less than 3 weeks away. The Cowbell Challenge. I'll be doing the 6 hour this year. After that it's 5 short weeks til ORAMM. This has always been the race I thought of every year when the words "bike race" were mentioned. Not anymore. This year it's a way to help prepare for the new monster that haunts my dreams....Fools Gold..aka the race that handed my ass to me on a platter last year..aka the most fun time ever. After that I'm hoping to do my initail attempt at the SM 100 and then the schedule is pretty open. We'll just have to see what happens.





Later folks.

Finally.....

.....proof that it does exist. Hands down the best bike I've ever had.