Dirty Kanza preparations are in full effect

Quiring - epic setup side view
Originally uploaded by Chewieez

I've been working on my setup for Dirty Kanza for a while but now it's time to collect everything and put it all together. I got my frame back and built back up Monday right, after driving back from Dallas all day. Started gathering all the bits I'm borrowing and last minute items I needed to buy. I did a short shakedown ride last night to test out the handlebar setup with bags and bartape. The bike is riding great with the extra load. I thin because so much of it is on the front, the bike really doesn't ride like it's heavy at all.


I'm still waiting on one more bottle mount to put on the downtube. This will give me 4 total bottle placements and with my new sexy red bottle and full 93 ounces of fluid on the bike, and not on me. Only being able to have two mounts in the frame (and no frame bag) is one drawback of the design I went with on my Quiring, but it also means I have a lot of seatpost to utilize. I borrowed some clamps and a bottle cage from Dan and got it tucked in under the saddle bag. There wasn't quite as much room as I thought there would be so I tried mounting it on the front of the seatpost. I rode around the yard with it and quickly realized it wasn't going to work. My thighs were rubbing the bottle... nope, can't have that! So back it went to the backside of the seatpost. With 1" of tire clearance the bottle is tucked in right up under the saddlebag. The bag is actually touching the bottle but it should help hold the bottle in on the choppy gravel roads.

I also borrowed a Jandd handlebar/seat bag from Dan and got it mounted up. It's relatively small but holds more than you think. I have a tube, chammy cream, drink mix, tools and a vest in it for now. I taped up the exposed areas of my handlebars to give me full use of all the grip options. I scored some great red and black left over tape from Eastside Cycles and did my first wrap job. It's not overly professional looking but it should do the job. One full wrap of red tape and then I added a little bit of black to cover the brake lever mounts.

My food is going in the Epic Designs Gas tank (on the top tube) and my Epic Ride Research Feed bag. This will give me total access to all the food and places to put my extra light battery and some odds and ends like sport leg pills and chapstick. (I'm borrowing the gas tank from Thad, who is using a custom Epic Designs frame bag on his new RigorMoooootis)

I'm running my normal slim saddle bag. I like that it doesn't rub my legs anywhere and (generally) stays put nicely. In it is one tube, multi-tool, 3 Co2 cartridges, Co2 blaster and a patch kit.


For lights I'm running a Cateye Commuter 3 LED light that runs on 2 AAs and has a super long run time and a flashing feature. I'm also going to use my new Niterider MiNewt USB light with an extra battery for a 6 hr run time. I'm planning on using the Cateye when I can and only turning on the MiNewt when I need more light and more light throw.

The main goal of this setup it to keep all the stuff off of me. This is something both Dan and Thad stressed as essential for long rides. Let the bike carry the weight, you just pedal. I've really enjoyed working through all the different choices of gear and setups and being creative with the tools I have at my disposal, and donated from nice friends.

weekend trip to Nashville

Things have finally settled down a tiny bit for me wife and I and this was my first weekend to stay town and not have real plans in months. I was real excited to get back on the mountain bike and put in some miles. Since the rush of the holiday season was over, there was some time to get back to the things I love.

There was a lot of discussion on possible rides but as usual for this time of year, the weather played a big part in the final decisions. The idea of a mountain bike ride for Saturday got canceled due to threats of freeze/thaw trail conditions so Johnny5 and I opted for a late morning road ride around his new block. We had some setbacks as my flat-tire-luck is still in the dumpster with my road bike. I did however learn that you can pinch flat a tire when installing it. The ride was a tough one for me. Having it be the first time back on the bike since before Xmas, my body had some funk to work through. I should of seen the foreshadowing on my drive to Thad's. I was passed in a no-pass zone, while going 7 mph over the speed limit, by a white haired old grannie. Yep, that's a confidence boost! hah The super dry, cold air wreaked havoc on my lungs during the ride and the wind tried it's best to blow us both off the road. Thad took us on a great route through the wooded areas in Mt Juliet but unfortunately we had to cut the ride a bit short due to the cold and my lack of fitness. I still drove home thinking how great it felt to have gotten outside and exercised.

The plan for Sunday involved a trip to Land Between the Lakes to ride the North/South trail. We again worried about the freeze/thaw with the warmer temperature but got feedback from Keith that the trail should be in ok shape. Dan, Keith, Doug, Thad and I drove up and set out to brave the cold again, but this time on the trail. The temperature was noticeably warmer than the day before so I already had high hopes. This was also my first trip to ride the North/South trail so I was excited about that as well, not to mention another opportunity to ride my new bike. (just the 3rd opportunity)

We dropped right into the trail and it was awesome from the get go. I can't really describe the feeling I had other than just pure happiness. I had the conscious thought of "wow, I'm really having fun." Good friends together riding bikes in the woods, in good (enough) weather with no injuries. A very successful day in the woods.

The ride turned into quite a different ride than I'm sure we all expected. Doug was having frustrating issues with his chain dropping off over and over again. It made him very apprehensive to attack any of the climbs and almost really hurt him when it dropped as he was climbing a hill and through his body forward into his stem. After about 8 miles he decided to call it a day and make his way back to the cars. Thad had the tools and equipment needed to possibly fix his issues so we all decided to head back to the cars and fix his bike and then head back into the woods. This is where the ride totally changed. We hit the gravel road and tried to follow our intuition back to the main road. There were many intersections for us to guess our route, and guess wrong. Our trail ride had turned into a very cool gravel grinder on roads that varied from very rough gravel with water drainage ditches to hop over to very steep paved roads.

After another 8 miles of gravel grinding we finally made it to the road, much more north than we had expected. So this started our trek back to the parking lot on the main road. We guesstimated a 10 mile ride based on where we popped out on the road, but thankfully it ended up being more like 6-7 miles. The road was rolling without any big climbs which meant we could have some fun since we couldn't actually ride that fast, all being on singlespeeds with our trail gearing. I was quite ready to be done by the time we rolled back to the parking lot. No riding for almost a month and then a 50 mile weekend was catching up.

I really felt great on the ride which was a bit of a surprise after my road ride Saturday. I'm learning more about the new bike and am really really enjoying riding it. Beth and I will continue to be in town for the next couple weekends so I'm hoping to continue to put more miles on the Quiring and get my body ready for the Feb Snake Creek Gap.

trail options are slim nowadays

It's that time of year again. It's either raining and 60 degrees or 15 degrees overnight and 40 during the day. The sun pokes out enough to thaw the ground from the overnight freeze and the trails just get muddier and muddier. Montgomery Bell is the one trail that remains in great shape during this time of year.

Jamie (Lynskey celeb) and Jut were in town for the holidays last week so they got the Yazoo Brew Crew together for a big ride at Montgomery Bell. Many people wanted to ride Hammy and I also would of loved to, but not right now. I haven't been there in months but I can only imagine what it's like right now with all the rain we've had this past month.

A group of 12 or so all met up at Monty Bell on a dreary afternoon. It misted slightly as we all got our stuff together and headed into the woods, but never full-on rained. We had about 9 singlespeeders and 3 geared riders... bikes ranged the full spectrum from 5" travel all mountain Ellsworths to Surly singlespeeds and a few Ti 29ers in there as well. We started together but the front few quickly pushed the pace and everyone found their place. Thad suffered a flat early on and told the group to continue on. (his first of 2 flats, Mr. I rarely flat and carry tubes for a year, that go flat in my fanny pack) I waited with him to provide conversation but not much other help. I did figure it'd be more enjoyable for him to catch up with the group with a partner, especially if it took a while to find the other riders (and of course it did.) We ended up skipping out to the road and swinging back by the parking lot since one of Thad's spare tubes also had a hole. (the one he's been carrying for a year) So the two of us went back into the woods and tried a more direct route to where we thought the group would be heading.

We rode many sections of the trail backwards in our trek back to the group. Monty Bell is a great trail to change up the direction. Most of the sections flow great anyway you go and it places the challenging sections in different spots than you're used to. We rode a lot of the Yellow trail that I hadn't ridden since the race loop was marked. The race loop really takes you on some of the more flowy sections of the yellow trail. The yellow is a tough trail and most of the hardest parts aren't on the race loop. We were riding most of it backwards so there were a few hills that were just straight up, though thankfully really short. Thad got to witness some (better than 26er) 29er traction on one climb where he spun out. I only made it about 15 feet farther than he did, but it wasn't really from a lack of traction, but more of a lack of leg strength and fatigue from keeping the bike pointed uphill and not sideways off the trail.

After seeing the group on a distant trail and thinking they would cross our path and being wrong, we finally caught up with them. There aren't many leaves left on the trees so you can see riders as they zig zag through the trail, but you can't tell if they are truly that close to you or just on a trail that weaves close by. The group continued riding as before with a few motivated folks off the front and everyone else falling into their own rhythm.



I had made a couple minor changes to the cockpit of my new Quiring. Pushed my seat a bit farther back on the rails and lowered my stem 10mm. Both changes made the bike fit better. Last time I rode I had some knee pain. I never found out if it was from the cold weather and my lack of knee protection or from a poorly placed saddle. This time I rode with knee warmers even though the temperature was at least 15 degrees warmer and I had no knee pain at all. My saddle was a little to far forward before so I'm sure that helped. The new lower bar height felt better and the bike rode great this time out! I also ran lower tire pressure which I also liked. I was more comfortable on the bike, it handled better and I bounced around less with the lower tire pressure
and I enjoyed the rigid fork more. My hands were quite sore last ride where this time I barely noticed any soreness. My Oury grips finally settled in and the adhesive (hair spray) dried so they weren't spinning on me like my last ride. I think this helped a lot with my hand fatigue since it let me use a looser grip on the bars.

So far after two rides I am loving this new bike! It fits me like a glove and handles like I want a bike to handle. Thad (29er wanna be) keeps asking detailed questions about how it rides and how the geometry feels in different trail sections. So far I haven't had any great answers other than..."handles great! I love it!" The bike feels stable which is one of the few words I've come up with that describe it. It has a 71.5 head angle with a 475mm rigid fork and a 46mm fork offset so I think this leads to a very stable handling on the flats and downhills. It probably makes the bike a bit hard to steer on the steep uphills but all my past bikes have had a tendency to wander on the really tough climbs. The Quiring wanders less than my Soma though. I really got used to a kind of slack head angle from riding my Ventana which had a 70 degree head angle and I always loved the confidence it gave me on the downhills. This bike is crazy light too. I've never had a bike this light before. The gearing feels easier than it should. I have it geared 32x20 right now which should equate to 32x18 on a 26" bike. I've been riding that gearing for the past 6 months on my Soma so I'm pretty used to it and it feels noticably easier on the Quiring. No complaints here, but it does have me wanting to pick up a 19t cog for trails like Lock4.

After we all had our fill of the trail we made our way over to the Yazoo tap room to rehydrate. Unfortunately Jut was feeling sick so he had to miss the ride but he met up later for a few beers. It was a lot of fun hanging with the guys on the team that I don't see much. All in all, another great day of biking and hanging with friends on another dreary Nashville day.

Thad's second flat right at the end of the trail. Who's nailing something on a bike trail anyways?

My journey to a custom bike

Ok, it's here, it's built up and it's been ridden...... and it's awesome!!

For some back story: In late April I got fed up with riding bikes with full suspension and gears, and started considering selling my Ventana and upgrading my singlespeed to a better frame. After a ton of research and contemplation I settled on having Scott Quiring build me a custom titanium bike. After talking with Scott and looking at his customer gallery I realized that he makes 95% 29ers and 5% 26ers. hmmm ok this got me thinking that it would be a good idea to test ride some 29ers and see if I'd like one.

After test riding jjscarff's Redline Flight and MeanJoe's Karate Monkey I decided it was time to try something completely new and go big. I liked the way their bikes rode at Hammy and Lock4, even rigid so I just decided to go for it. I put in my order in at the beginning of July. Scott Quiring mentioned an 8 week wait and having read up on a lot of custom builds online (from all kinds of builders), I figured 10-12 weeks was a more fair estimate of the time.

After ordering up the frame I went down to Harpeth Cycles to have Fred (Soul69) give me the full Serotta Fit system. After a lot of poking, prodding, stretch tests and some miles chasing an imaginary road racer, Fred had me all setup with what bike would fit ME.

I sent these fit numbers on to Scott Quiring, along with a list of questions he had me answer. Half the questions were about my old bike and how it fit, the other half were body measurements that were similar to those Fred got during the Serotta Fit. This was when the waiting started. This was about the 20th of July. Scott and I emailed back a bunch about head angles and fork offsets and axle to crown measurements and then he got started on designing the frame.

Around the middle of August I got a frame drawing from Scott emailed to me. I mulled over it and forwarded it on to Fred and Thad (Johnny5) and got their opinion. Fred and I compared the frame drawing with the info we got from the Serotta fit. This was one step that I stalled a week on, thinking a lot about the numbers and comparing them to my Serotta fit. A week later I made a few tweaks to the top tube measurements and decided on having Scott also make me a custom steel fork for the bike that shared the offset of the 2009 Reba and the sagged axle to crown height. At the end of August I received the updated 2nd frame drawing with the changes and again I took a week or so to mull over it. At the beginning of Sept I OKed the 2nd drawing and the waiting began again.

At this point I just waited. I tried not to think too much about the bike and tried not to pester Scott about when he thought it would be ready. I had hopes that I would have it in time to race the Swank65 in the first week of November but it didn't happen. I just kept riding my Soma and enjoying life. Oh during this time I also decided to buy a house, searched for houses, bought a house and started moving and also my brother-in-law passed away so I had a lot on my plate and many things to keep me occupied.

Nov 24th I receive an email from Scott saying my frame and fork were finished and ready to ship that week. Problem is this was Thanksgiving week and I was leaving town Tuesday. So I had to wait til the next week to have him ship it so I could make sure I was home. After a few FedEx snafus, I finally picked up my frame and fork and brought it home. I believe it was 18 weeks from order to delivery with some stalling by me because of my indecisiveness.

In the time I was waiting I was able to pick up the parts I'd need one by one which was nice. I used some parts off my Soma like cranks. chain and saddle and bought some parts online, from Dan Hensley and from Harpeth Cycles. I used my Chris King rear hub from my 26er wheel and bought a new Hope Pro II to have Rick Harmon at Harpeth Cycles build my 29er wheels. I kept the Juicy7 brakes from my Ventana and bought some aftermarket levers for them. Fred and Rick were awesome and got me all setup with parts and wheels and Rick expertly installed my bottom bracket (no small feat) and my headset. I installed most of the rest at home and then had Kelly Benward (FullSquishy) help me cut the steerer tube and install the star nut. It was a team effort and it all came together perfectly! Thanks to everyone to helped with this build, whether with parts, labor, or moral support!!!

So without further ado I present my new titanium custom Quiring.



Chris Cooper polished my White Industries cranks for me. He did an awesome job on them!!


You can see the rest of the pics here:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Build kit is as follow:

Frame: Quiring Custom Titanium 29er
Fork: Quiring Custom Steel
Stem/Seatpost: Thomson
BB: Phil Wood SS square taper
Cranks: White Industries ENO
Pedals: Time ATAC composite
Font Tire: Panaracer Rampage 2.35
Rear Tire: Kenda Karma 2.2
Rims: Stan's Flow 29er
Front Hub: Hope Pro II
Rear Hub: Chris King SS
Brakes: Avid Juicy7
Brake levers: Twenty6
Saddle: WTB Rocket Race
Handlebar: Salsa Promoto 17deg sweep
Grips: Oury
Chain: SRAM 850
Cog: Endless Kickass Cog 20t

Edit: I also purchased a killer red Chris King headset from Jeff S. (BikeMe) and another set of Time ATAC pedals from Tryon (TryFour).

Sir, They've delivered a healthy Quiring

Sir, They've delivered a healthy Quiring
Originally uploaded by Chewieez

After quite the run-around, I have taken ownership of a very light bike box filled with a frame and fork. I snapped some quick photos to appease the masses, and add to my smugness.

The frame looks awesome! If it hasn't been obvious yet, it's a Quiring titanium 29er with hooded Paragon sliding dropouts and a steel rigid fork. The fork was intended to be painted to match the finish of the raw titanium. It turned out more on the glossy/tan color side but I think it looks good. (Edit: I've been told by my art-major wife that the color is more 'warm silver'.) It will be much more clear once the parts get put on.

it exists

I should start by welcoming myself back to my blog. Life is super busy right now, though I don't think I've been this productive for such a long period in my life. The house renovations are coming along and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, or at least we can envision ourselves moving very soon...Tonight we got all the appliances back in their homes minus the dishwasher and have started putting the new cabinet hardware on our nicely painted-over X-shellacked cabinets. Of course we are heading right back out of town again this weekend so next week if our goal to start the real moving-in.

On a equally (maybe not quite) exciting note... my new bike exists. Unfortunately it's still in Michigan firmly attached to a rigid jig but don't it look pretty?! Beth says: What are those green things? I say, who cares about the green things, this bike looks hawt! I'm still slowly collecting parts for the build. I've stalled with most of my money going into the house and also because the landing date of my new Quiring is in such flux.

Looks like I'll be entering the Swank 65 race on my trusty Soma. It's gotten me through 3 Snake Creek Gap's so I have confidence it won't let me down. I tried planning ahead this time in my granny-gear cog acquisition. Then I left the job of installing the cog until the last minute, only to find it may be defective and need to be returned. The search is on now for a 20t cog for the weekend so I have some ounce of enjoying my 6+ hours in the woods at Swank. This is when it's great to know we have such a generous riding community here. I quickly thought of a list of friends I could ask a favor of (not something I love doing) and within 5 minutes had one offer. Unfortunately it will mean I'd be taking away this person opportunity to ride their bike over the weekend so I'm holding out for another helpful soul with a 20t cog. I'm feeling lucky though.

Bike built for me, but what do I want?

Today I spent the entire afternoon at Harpeth Bike with Fred going through the Serotta Fit System. Fred has been asking me to come for a few months but now I had a great reason to get fit as I had a lot of measurements to turn into Quiring for the new frame. I also wanted to see if I could find ways to improve my fit on my Surly Crosscheck.

We started with the mountain fit since that was the most important to me at this moment. Many of the questions Scott Quiring sent me overlapped with things in the Serotta fit so we just started in with the Serotta fit. After some general questions we took some body measurements like inseam and feet length/width, checked overall flexibility and then moved on to the size cycle. The size cycle is this small looking half-bicycle where every tube is adjustable so you can try an infinite possibility of frame sizes and angles.

Fred worked from my feet up and got my cleats aligned first and then worked on my knee alignment while pedaling. After more pedaling, Fred checked angles of my knees and hips and got my saddle height and position relative to the cranks dialed in. Next we moved on to the cockpit and worked on reach and stem height. This is where it was hard for me to really decide on what I liked. We tried a lot of different setups and many of them felt just fine. I was having trouble finding what I felt like was the 'best position' versus a 'good enough' position. I also had trouble imagining I was riding my mountain bike opposed to just sitting in a bike shop pedaling. The size cycle doesn't move at all so you can't tell how the setup feels leaning into a turn or standing and climbing. We settled on a few setups that I liked and had Chris and Henry help.

After finally getting the cockpit area setup to my liking we recorded all the numbers and angles we'd established. I will send these on to Quiring to help him get my bike sized perfectly for me. A few of the numbers were very close to how my current bike was setup, mainly saddle height. Turns out my legs are not exactly the same length so I have a certain 'sweet spot' where I like the saddle to be that is a bit in between my different leg lengths.

The road bike fit went a lot faster since we could build off most of the things we'd already setup with the mountain bike. I was mainly concerned with cockpit fit so we concentrated there. I was faster with finding a setup I liked and we compared it to my crosscheck to see what it will take to get that bike fitting better. Basically a higher stem is all. My reach is real close, but the bar needs to come up.

Overall the process was very interesting and informative. It takes a while, but you really dial in every aspect of your bike fit. Fred really knew his stuff and was a real pleasure to work with. All the guys in the shop are great to hang with. I would recommend anyone get a fit who in seriously into riding, whether you think your current set up is perfect or not. I now have exact numbers of all the components of a bike that will fit me so it takes out a lot of guesswork when your shopping for new frames or new parts.

I wanted to get some new bar tape too and was thinking of going with raw cork. Well, Chris came and showed me the honey leather Brooks tape and I just had to have it! It looks so great with the leather saddle and it feels like it's going to be comfy on the hands. Gotta love the trick cork bar plugs too!!

Thanks Fred! I had fun hanging with you today and you do great work!

Our trip to Philly last weekend turned out to be a really fun trip. We flew in on the 4th and go to town in time to hang and walk to the edge of our friend's township for some fireworks. The show was awesome as we were right up on the fireworks and they were going off right above our heads.

Saturday we headed into downtown Philly and checked out the outdoor Italian market and got an authentic Philly cheesesteak at Gino's. We bought a collection of fresh, homemade pastas and made a great dinner back at Amy and Dean's house.


We decided that we should hit up Six Flags Great Adventure Sunday. This turned out to be a great idea. I haven't had that much fun at an amusement park in years! We rode every coaster they had and rode a couple twice. We rode Superman, where you hand upside down, Batman and The Dark Knight which is a carnival style, indoor coaster. The high light rides were Nitro and Kingda Ka. Nitro was just a blast... pure fun. No loops or even corscrews, just a fun, fast roller coaster where you could ride with you hand up the entire time since there wasn't an over the shoulder restraint. Kingda Ka is the highest, fastest rollercoaster in the world. It launches you from 0-128 mph in 3.5 seconds and then sends you straight up 456 feet. With the overcast weather the top of the ride was almost in the clouds. This ride is just pure speed. That is the only sensation you really feel. You get jammed in the back of your seat and are stuck there for the 30 seconds until you arrive back in the station. You can barely keep your eyes open you are traveling so fast. Unfortunately we were only able to ride this once after waiting for a while once only to be told to get off the ride due to a weather delay. Apparently you don't want to be riding at 128 mph while it raining.... it kinda hurts they told us.

Back in Nashville things are slow this week. I had a tracking session tues and wed that was not the usual deal but ended up turning out well. I had a lot of stress going into it because we weren't able to get in the studio to setup until 5pm and the musicians were booked for 6pm. Setup's generally take 3-4 hours on the fast side of things so having an hour was just rediculous. We made it work but didn't start actually recording until around 8pm. It was a xmas record so once again it was Christmas in July. I think I've done at least 1 xmas record every year in July. They are fun and just a little strange with the temps in the high 90s. Thank fully the rest of the sessions went great the second day after the dust settled.
Last night was another team night at the tap room. We had a light turnout but still have fun. I was able to try a new-to-me Yazoo brew called Silky's Red which was yummy. I rode in from my house and really enjoyed the ride. I haven't been able to ride much these past couple months with all the Freshie and Zero traveling we've been doing so now every ride seems to mean more. I just took my time and enjoyed being outside. We rode to Red Door East after Yazoo and met up with Sharpie and Dunn and enjoyed some Yazoo ESB and sandwhiches. The Red Door East still won't let bikes on the patio, FYI. After pleading out case to the manager we surrended and locked the bikes by the street. We got a pretty cold greeting at first by the manager but there was word that Dan may be hooking him up with a bike rack in the future. Be careful when you're eating on the patio though... don't trip over any bikes and sue the place.

I just got off the phone with Scott Quiring of Quiring Cycles in Michigan. I gave him my credit card info for a new Ti frame. We ended up chatting for a while about all kinds of random stuff. Seems he is right in the middle of being screwed by Microsoft with some update-gone-bad. Apparently some recent Microsoft update has messed computer's internet connection up across the country. Poor Scott is knee deep in diagnosing computer issues and not able to use the torch on some frames. I'm hoping to get down to Harpeth Bikes soon and get a fit done and pass along all the info to Scott to start the frame building process. I'm really excited to have a custom frame done. I've never done anything like this and am anxious to learn all about the process. So far Scott seems like a great, down to earth guy. It's going to be a treat to work with him.

I finally got some of the organic super lube Thad's been raving about for months. I've been lazy and put off cleaning the chain on my SS and road bike to have good switch over of lubes. With Beth out of town for a few days on business, time I had, things to do I needed, so I go to it. I rushed the process and didn't completely clean the chain thoroughly but I thought it wouldn't be a big deal. I put the Ernesto Lube on the Soma and put it back in the stand, too wet to ride that bike anywhere. I decided to get it on the Crosscheck before the tap room ride so I could test it out and have it ready for our road ride this saturday morning. Between the chain lube and lowering the psi in my tires, this was the smoothest ride I'd had in forever. There is absolutely no drive train noise while pedaling. I'm coming from using Prolink which I've been happy with (I thought) but was used to hearing the chain some while pedaling I image it's just the noise of the chain bending around the front chainring with some grit but it was silent with this new corn-oil lube. I'm actually excited to see how it ride saturday and see how the SS ride next. So far I'm sold on the super lube.