Whee!

Got out for a good ride this AM on the new bike after our Starbucks date. Surprisingly the dog park was mostly snow free and not too muddy so I did laps for a couple hours and took it up and down a couple other hills around my house. No pictures but I'll post some more when I get outside on nicer trails. The Mountain King impressed today, it's not a 2.4 (or a 2.2 really) but it does bite really well in the corners which is what I want out of an all purpose front tire. No major downsides noticed yet but it does take a little more english on the bars to change directions on fast singletrack turns. Still going through the annoying new bike tweaks like brake and bar positioning but so far I'm really happy. More to come...

This afternoon I spent some more time studying for my Praxis II test. This time I missed 3 questions with only 1 that I was clueless on and I timed 20 questions in about 55 minutes. Still need to get faster and work on those triangle rules but I'm getting better.

January is over tomorrow and I'm dangerously close to breaking my mileage record. Baring any major catastrophe I think I'll take down the January 2007 record of 1007 miles.

New Bike Porn

The Vassago lives! After an initial build to get a few dimensions, subsequent ordering of more parts and then patiently waiting for Mr.Brown Truck to show up, the Jabberwocky is finally ready to ride for real. I'm not sure if it's quite done yet but it needs some pedal strokes of anger before I can know any more.

Big thanks to Marni and Mr.Nice for the frame, Brady for help with the wheel build and sweet parts I would not have been otherwise able to afford and Dad for the seat, pedals and crankset.

First impressions? It feels light at under 22lbs and there are still plenty of places to trim if I really wanted to spend the money to go sub 20lbs. For a frame that weighs almost 5.5lbs in a size 20" and fork that's not really *that* light by weight weenie standards, it's a pretty good start.

-The brakes are really nice and purdy, I hope they work well as I've been on Hayes for the past few years with zero issues.
-The ESI grips seem interesting, we'll see if they can displace the Titec Pork Rinds I've been using.
-The Thomson Masterpiece is just as nice as my last one and the saddle is the old standby SLR. Salsa bar is the same as the Monocog has and I've got Syntace F99 stems in 90mm and 105mm to try out. I've been using the F99 stem for a few years now and they have held up fine.
-Wheelset is 1650g, Notubes 355's on WTB Laser Disc Lites, set up with yellow tape and will be tubeless once I try out some tires first.
-The fork is the On One Superlight Carbon, should be interesting. Rotor clearance is tight but works fine so far. Weight is 910g with currently some extra steerer tube.
-Headset is a King, cog is a Surly for now, chainring a Salsa, spacers PVC and the chaintug is a Redline cheapo. I tried the built in screws yesterday a bit and let's just say I'm not using them since one is already bent.
-Skewers are Bonti's from the parts bin. Anyone have any recommendations for lightish but nice and strong clamping skewers? XTR? other? No tiny WW skewers please, they won't work out back, I've tried on the Monocog.
-The front 2.4 Conti Mtn King is no bigger than the 2.1 Bonti XDX, hopefully it corners well or it's gone. Other tires I am going to try include the Kenda Small Block 8 (rear), the WTB Nanoraptor (front and rear), Maxxis Crossmark (front and rear) and also maybe the Maxxis Ardent (front). I've also got a 2.2 Kenda Nevegal that I'm going to strip off the back of Marni's bike that I suppose I can try up front too. The XDX looks really nice out back and other than being a little porky, it may very well be my go to rear tire if it rides well and is durable. Boy I can't wait to settle on tires a bit and seal everything up with Stans, I hate tubes.

Without further ado, here are the pictures :D
I don't know if there is any dry dirt around but I'm going to go see if I can find any!