The Salsa

Hell with it, here's a picture of the Salsa taken with the cruddy old camera. Taken at Sunset yesterday, out at southfarm.

The Specs:
Frame: 2006 Salsa Ala Carte, 21", Tange Prestige Steel
Fork: 2006 Marzocchi MX Comp, 85mm travel. I don't like long travel forks on XC bikes...
Headset: Chris King NoThreadSet, was on the trials bike, bought used from Taber years ago
Wheelset: Bontrager Superstock Disc, A steal at $65 for the pair.
Tires: Bontrager Jones XR, come on $400 Gary Fishers, they'll work fine for now.
Stem: Ritchey Pro, 135mm. From the old bike
Bar: Salsa Pro Moto, 660mm wide, flat, 5 degree bend. From the old bike.
Brake Levers: Shimano XTR. From the trials bike.
Shifters: Shimano Dura-Ace Bar-end 9spd shifters, mounted on Paul Thumbies.
Crankset: XT square taper arms, XTR rings. Got from Teal a long time ago...
BB: Shimano UN52 (LX level), square taper.
Rear derailleur: XTR, from the old bike.
Front derailleur: XT.
Brakes: Avid BB7 Mechanical discs. Front is old, from trials bike. Rear is new. Magura rotors.
Seatpost: Thomson Elite, 27.2x410mm.
Saddle: WTB SST K. Bought new in 1998, but I think it's a 1997. How I love thee.
Pedals: Some cheap Shimano SPDs...
Extras: Bontrager braided carbon shifter housing, Avid FlakJacket Brake housing (left over from trials bike), Dura-Ace inline gear indicator (for the thumbies), Salsa Liplock seat collar, 2 cheapo bottle cages, SRAM Bassworm (used on rear brake, I think it feels better), SRAM nightcrawler (on rear shift cable), Lizard Skins chainstay guard, Planet Bike rear blinky light (Thanks Teal!), Night-Rider Evolution Headlight (10W).
I think that's about it. How do I like it you ask? Well...
I love it. It's definitely heavier than the old S-Works (about 27.5lbs with lights), but it fits me much better and rides smoother. The fork is great. I've never been one to mess around much with my forks, and all I can do with this one (without getting into internal stuff) is change the air pressure. I put on the thumb-shifters after my XT brake/shifter combos fell apart. I'm liking them quite a bit. They're not quite as easy to get at as trigger shifters, but they shift more solidly, and I love the friction shifting on the front. I hate having my chain rub the derailleur. Other than that, nothing too special. The steel rides nicer than the S-Works did, for sure. I think the main improvement in comfort is due to the bike actually fitting me though.
So I like it a lot and I plan on putting many many miles on it. I'm eager to try out a 29er, but that'll have to wait. Can't afford it now anyway. Let me know what you guys think of it. I'll try to show you the road bike with gears too. I'm planning on setting it back up as a singlespeed and putting cross tires on it. :) Whee... I love bikes.

Tandem

Yo Ford,
got the old camera out of retirement and took some pictures of that tandem. Mike says he'll sell it for $800. It's really quite nice. Old (but new condition) XT brakes (cantilever), hubs, derailleurs, headset (threaded). Ultegra/Dura Ace 8spd (I think) bar end shifters, not sure on the cranks, but nice Shimano, road triple. Dia-Compe brake levers, stoker hoods. Avocet O2 saddle up front, Selle Italia Turbo in the back...
I hopped on it for a sec and the front position felt alright, besides the fact that the hoods from the stoker bar hit me in the back of the thigh. You'd probably need a longer stoker stem anyway, which would probably solve that problem, especially if you used a flat bar instead of drops. Didn't try the rear, but it's not much shorter vertically, but quite a bit shorter horizontally. Anywho, one of these days I'll try to get Kristen on the back of it and see how she fits.
On to the pictures...

Out behind the shop, 21" Salsa MTB for scale. First pics you guys have seen of my new MTB!

Cockpits...

Front view, note the shifters on my bike. :)

Rear end. Braze-ons for racks and fenders, front and back.

Frame is steel, nicely welded. Whatever the tube is called that connects the two BB's is massive and ovalized. Must be stiff in a good way. I haven't put it on the stand or worked on it, but everything seems in really nice condition. I'm pretty sure Mike/John only rode it a handful of times. I'd definitely put some bigger tires on it, I think these are 700x23. It's got clearance for pretty big tires...
What do you all think of my bike back there? Once I get my camera back, I'll take some better pictures. IF I ever get it back...

Loser...

I was riding yesterday, on my way out the first part of southfarm, and an SUV was approaching. I moved over to let it pass, and as it goes by, I notice the two girls in it were flashing me the "loser" sign. What the hell... Kinda sucks that one of the things I like doing the most is seen as a loser thing to do by most people. Kinda of a downer, but it's not going to make me ride any less.
Also wore through my tires, down to the threads (and beyond). I've been getting a lot of flats lately, and I've noticed some gashes in my rear tire, which I tried to boot. Yesterday though, I stopped in time to notice a bubble of tube protruding through what remains of a tread. Guess it's time for some new tires...
Don't know if I mentioned it or not, but I bought a light for the bike (that LED you got me Teal just isn't quite enough for riding with no streetlights) and I've been doing laps at night, since the daylight is running out. One night just for the hell of it, I decided to see how quick I could do a lap (6 miles). I managed it in about 20 minutes, in the big ring the entire time. I could probably do it faster during the day, and if the gravel were a bit smoother, but it was still pretty good. That's about 18 miles per hour, which is alright on a mountain bike, right? I bet I could do sub-20 minutes if I put on my cross tires or the ol' Specialized Mt. Baldys (like a ritchey speedmax, but even less agressive). But for now, I'm just trying to get some miles in. Seems to be going well too. I'm still losing weight, and I'm down to below what I was when I started the A.T. Definitely never going to be 170 again, but that was gross.
I've got the old camera working, so maybe I'll take some pictures with that this weekend. I need to contact PENTAX and find out what is up with the other one... I really want it back!
We've got fall break coming up soon, and Kristen's going to go to Philadelphia to visit an old friend. I don't plan on going anywhere, but maybe I'll finally make it over to Oak Mountain or something. It'd be fun to do a little camping. Just have to bring Zephyr along with me, which may or may not be a problem... hmm...
Anywho, not a lot going on otherwise...

The Pipeline, A Cropduster, and Hidden Treasure!

So instead of my normal Sunday 3 hours of southfarm or so, I decided I'd mix it up a little and do some exploring around here. Started off out at southfarm, checking out a few older, less-used roads that go off into the woods. I knew the roads dead-ended in a couple of giant fields used for hay, but I wanted to see if there was any way to connect them. Turns out there isn't... Oh well. Then I decided I'd check out a road I'd ridden past countless times. On the way to skunk hill, you cross a bridge, make a sharp right, then a 90-degree left, then you begin the skunk hill climb. Well, just past that bridge, an old roadbed (can't see gravel anymore) goes off straight towards some woods. I'd seen cars parked at the end of it, so I went to go check it out. Turns out it's an access point to the new MSU cross-country course. The old XC course over by the research park is gone since they put the 82 bypass through there, and this is aparently where they built the new one. I rode around on it for a bit. Not sure what loop they use, but there's probably a couple miles of it. Really quite nice... nice short-mowed grass, thoughfully, the course runs along groves of trees for a lot of it. There's also some decent hills on it. Pretty cool find I thought. Not that I do much running, but it might be good for Kristen... Anywho, continued on around southfarm a couple more times and a cropduster shows up. You know, one of those little planes that sprays all sorts of lovely chemicals. At first it just seemed like he was messing around, flying really low and taking really tight turns. Then he does two spray runs. Kinda weird, spraying a grassy field at southfarm, which is an animal research facility. I thought maybe he was just spraying water for practice or something, since he only did it twice, then took off in the direction of Columbus. Continued on around some more and he shows up again, only this time he is definitely spraying something, over and over. It was awesome to watch. Flying maybe 20' off the ground and pulling up and over power lines and stuff. Looked like a blast. But, I didn't know what he was spraying, so I didn't want to get dusted by it... So off I went towards the pipeline. I hadn't been out there since being back here, so figure I might as well since I was exploring. It's still pretty much the same I guess. Looks like only 4-wheelers use it these days. It's quite overgrown in places, and was probably tick-city, but I made it through without any on me. Eventually (not as far out as I remember), the pipeline intersects a golf course! I was riding along on all that white dirt that's filled with fossils they have out there, and all of a sudden, I'm on a golf cart track. Woops. Instead of riding back along the pipeline, I followed the cart track back out to the highway and rode home from there.
Pretty neat stuff. Not the usual Sunday ride, but still 3 hours in the saddle and it was neat to see something new and something sorta new...
STILL no camera...

Good news!

From geology.com

6 laps of southfarm...

Upped the ante a little bit and did 6 laps around Southfarm. Didn't take a break until the 5th lap. I was feeling good, but it was getting hot, and I was starting to fade a bit. Thought about doing two more, but only did one more after that. Still though, in the saddle for 3 hours, maybe 41 miles or so. Not too bad I thought. Still waiting on the camera...

Where we live and how we get to school.

Made a little map of campus etc, where we live and how we get to school. Enjoy. It looks way better as a .pdf, but I can only upload pictures.

Christmas?

Well, I've sorta got a dilema.
I really want to go to Washington this Christmas, but I've got a free trip to the Bahamas I could go on also. And this will most likely be my last free trip, so it'd kinda suck to pass it up. But, it is to San Salvador (for the third time) and for 10 days or so again. I could probably collect some more data and have a good time as well.
But like I said, I really want to go out west. Break is shorter this year, down to 4 weeks instead of five, so it'd be really hard to do both, especially if I drive up there. If I do go, I was thinking of all sorts of fun things we could do... multi-day sailing trip, hike Shi Shi beach or whatever it's called, maybe go to Lasqueti, skiing, etc.
So I don't know... I really don't know what I'm going to do. If there wasn't a free trip to the Bahamas involved, I'd be there. But the Bahamas are awesome that time of year, and it'd be the last time I'd get to go. And, I'd be able to do my own thing without a constant Mylroie prescence, since he'll be teaching his course...
What do you guys think?
By the way, my camera is still being repaired. Sorry for the lack of pictures lately. I miss taking them as well.
Oh yeah, went mountain bike yesterday for 2 hours or so. On actual trails! Not southfarm. There's a nice trail system in Tombigbee National Forest about half an hour south on Hwy. 25 that Mike and other people built the years we've been gone. There's about 26 miles of trails total. This was only the second time I've had a chance to ride them. Lots of fun, even though it was like Shelob's lair with all the spiderwebs...