New Bike Stuff

I have added a few new upgrades to my bike and also just finished building my first ever set of wheels.
I put a new carbon fiber fork on my road bike to drop the weight and to make the ride quality better.

Also, here are some pictures of the wheels. I laced the front one radial, and the rear radial non-drive side and 3x drive side. I think that I have gotten them trued up pretty well, the real quesion is about the tension on the spokes. It feels like all the spokes are roughly the same tension, but I will have to take them to a bike shop to get them to check the tension.


I built them with the hubs that I won on ebay before and on some old Araya tubular rims that I had lying around, also I used double-butted Sapim spokes. Building wheels is something that I had always wanted to try, and it seemed to go a lot easier than I thought that it would, so either I got the knack of it early on, or these wheels will just explode when I put them on my bike and try to ride them.

I will keep you posted.

I saw this bike the other night and it reminded me of the good old days of mountain bikes.

Back on the River

These are just two quick pics from a 6 mile ride today, yes all of 6 miles (though I did spend 45 minutes on the trainer later -- you know, got races coming up).
But these are some of the usual Utica scenes. Got the river barges going by and the rock face of the old quarry here in town.

Heres Benny

Ben wanted everyone to see his Jonny Carson imdogisation

Michigan Winter

Kate and I went up to Cadillac for a few days this weekend as we wanted to experience some real winter again It seems that winter has rediscovered Cadillac after being absent for several years In the end we had to leave early as the weather was going to turn nasty But we got a go for at least one ski at the nature area on a beautiful winter day And we had fun watching the dogs go tearing through the snow

It was great to be back in Cadillac for a few days and it is always interesting to see how much it has changed since I moved away permanently nearly a decade ago Britta came up from GVSU and it was good to see her

My Return to Form? ...Hardly

I'm a wuss, I know. Don't bother commenting on that. I got on my bike today, on my road bike, for the first time this year and I was off again within half an hour. The winter wind just kicked my ass. In my defense it was actually dangerous for me to be riding, since the wind was blowing me off course and the roads around here are pretty narrow. The sky was beautiful, with big fluffy clouds soaring by against a sea of blue, but it's much better to enjoy a day like today from the warmth of one's own home. (Having said that I'm going out again in a second to get on my Bianchi and go a few kilometers to our favorite hamburger shop...)

Here's a shot from one of the more pleasant moments of my (mis)adventure.

Just a couple more photos

Here are a couple of other photos from the hike