A couple of months ago, after I first built up my 'cross bike (Cannondale Cyclocross Disc!) I wanted to take it on a ride that would showcase its qualities: a light, fast, efficient road bike that's not afraid to get dirty. Unfortunately, on that ride, while heading out Axtell-Anceny Road to ultimately come out on Norris Road I ran into deep snow. Upon climbing by foot I got to a vantage point that revealed only many more miles of the same, so it was time to turn around.

Today, with the balmy temperature, clear sky, and minimal wind, I decided to tackle this ride again. Last week I had unceremoniously removed (and dismembered) my rear derailleur from the Cannondale, an event I believed had been hastened by my use of a too-short chain. With a brand-new (as in installed last night) 105 derailleur and a freshly-tensioned and trued rear wheel I shoved off.
The ride could be described as "blissful" up to about mile 24. Sun, warmth, a perfectly-functioning bike, feeling strong...this was shaping up to be an all-time best ride for me (not to be confused with that awful concept of a "personal best").
Mile 24, about the same point that I hit impenetrable snow last time, I encountered streams of water running down truck tire tracks in the road. And mud. Thick, sticky mud. Mud that continued up above the surface of the road, where grass helped to bind it to normally free-rotating bike parts, like wheels. I was forced to walk for a bit, until the grade lessened, but until I got to the very top it was still an exercise in slow-motion solitary cyclocross racing, just without the crowds, competitors, and gin.

The top made it all worthwhile. Fantastic views, few man-made structures (except for "no trespassing" signs on fences) and what looked like a fun downhill.
After a few bites of my favorite long-ride endurance fuel, I attacked the downhill. The twin tire tracks made it something like parallel singletracks, except without things like trees or rocks. The 'clean' line alternated between the two, occasionally traversing the ever-present stream of runoff down one of the many ruts following the road.
For about a half mile this continued,, until the road took an abrupt turn to the left (west) presenting to me:

Miles of straight, mildly rolling...

mud.

I briefly entertained a thought to turn around. I had no real idea how much further it was to Norris road, and I especially didn't know how long the road stayed as muddy as it was.
Hurriedly, I shoved these thoughts aside and continued. Well, for about another half mile, at least.
While crossing yet another pit of thick, icy, gritty mud I shifted into my lowest gear and while wheelieing up onto the grass a familiar sound revisited me:
"blingblingScKrublingSChRUNCHKDKDKD!!!"

F*%$!

Another muddy ride, another 105 derailleur, I suppose.

While organizing my stuff for this ride this morning, I decided against bottles and for my Camelbak. Iwas planning on a long ride where there was questionable cell-phone service, very little car traffic, and no place to get food. Lying in one of the pockets in the Camelbak was my Surly Singleator , removed during a recent Mountain Bike ride at Pipestone.
"Hmm, I think I'll leave this home" thought I.
"No, remember what happened last time?!"
"Yeah, but I got a new derailleur, and I know I have it adjusted right...I won't need it"
"Jackass, leave the ounce of aluminum in your bag! It'll suck to walk 30 miles back!"

For once in the tragicomedy that is my life, a good decision was made.

Before removing the distended drivetrain bits, I looked west, then east...briefly considering continuing. Clearly, better judgment was on a winning streak since I quickly nixed the idea of heading west.

At this point I was faced with about a mile of fairly steep climbing followed by mostly downhill, then fairly flat, then slightly rolling terrain. I chose a gear suitable, if a bit on the high-side: 50x19.
Climbing anything steeper than a few percent was clearly out of the question, so I started walking east (and up). Mud, snow, water, mud, snow, mud, grass, pick muddy grass out of everything. That's pretty much how it went for the next 45 minutes. Oh, and looking at the ranch hand ride away on the ATV who conveniently turned around when he saw me walking. Yep, good old-fashioned "western values" there.

Finally, the top! Back on the bike, and down a lot of the stuff that I had to walk up. Exceedingly sloppy and fun!

At the bottom of the road I was actually feeling pretty damn good. 20ish MPH was no problem on the hard-packed dirt and the chain was staying on, so instead of retracing my ride back to Bozeman on Cottonwood Road I hopped on River road before getting back into Gateway.
This road was thick, wet clay a week ago, when I took my fixed-gear on it (much of which is still on that bike) but today it might as well be hard, fast, undulating bumpy pavement. Awesome. That road is one of my new favorites. It's just up above the Gallatin River and it meanders enough to keep things interesting.

Well, since that went so well, by the time I got to Norris road west of Four Corners there was no way I was going to end my ride by riding on the four-lanes-of-unpleasantness called Huffine Lane. Nope, I continued down River Road, on the section that is a showcase of how beautiful asphalt can be when it's not chip-sealed after installation. Glassy smooth, fast, and ever-so-slightly downhill. I was able to maintain 18-22 MPH until I got to Cameron Bridge road and turned east to get back to Bozeman. After a quick food break on the river (Ham, cheddar, and tot burrito with BBQ sauce) I completed the last few miles home. The dreaded bonk set in with only about four miles to go, but I had *just* snough in me to stop at the Holiday gas station for a can of Sparks* for a recovery drink.

*It's good with ice, honest!

Here's a map of the ride.

Here's some more pics.

Disclaimer:
The following post might be somewhat hard to understand, due to the excessive level of beer provided.
It's 9ish PM, do you know where your pint is?
[his ha bees a public ervice announce.ent from the Bozeman Fix.
Thanky ou

Just a quick reminder of upcoming events. We're having a pubride this Saturday (4/12). Meet at Spectators at 9:30, prepared to drink n drink n ride.




And Monday (4/14) RockySprints returns to 317 to punish your asses. Sign up starts at 9:00pm and racing starts 'promptly' at 9:45...




Keep it safe and keep it sexy.

C-note.

Tonight Sethanol, C-Note, and I went for a quick evening fixie ride. Whilst savoring the smooth, car-free road, C-Note took a couple of pics. Here's one:

Which Immediately reminded me of this classic :
Namely, uber-cool guys who merely masquerade as total and complete nerds. Yep, that's us.
Are we not Men?

-Mr. DNA

Ok, I know. I live in Montana. It gets snowy here. Sometimes for half the year. We frequently get snow in May. And all this snow is exactly what we need to keep fires from ravaging our forests (provided all the snow doesn't melt at once).

But damn, this cycle of "a few nice days/lots of snow one day" is really starting to bring me down. Stay snowy, or stay sunny, that's all I ask.

At least it keeps the neighborhood cats from pissing on my deck. Oh yeah, I'm getting a Super Soaker. Bastards.

Ok, that's it. Infantile rant over.

-DNA

No RockySprints tonight. The NCAA Finals are on, and will be done much too late for us to set up and run some races. Sorry for the short notice, and we'll see you next week.

-DNA

My perception of what constitutes a nice bike or a nice ride has changed much in the last couple of years. I've been a 'cyclist' for somewhere around seventeen years and before that found the most happiness astride a bike. In the early 90's I considered myself a Mountain Biker (an untfortunately awkward term) but I'd dabble in a bit of road riding occasionally. In the late 90's I built my first fixed-gear on a whim, subconsciously searching for The Meaning Of Riding.

In 2001 I moved to Bozeman and found a thriving, if disjointed cycling community. Lots of people riding trails, lots of people riding roads, but there was still something missing.
Last year Captain E. handed me a copy of The Bicycle Quarterly, a rag dedicated to classic cycle touring, racing, and the history of classic bikes and bike design.

This event forever changed my perception of what "Cycling" is.
The cover has a Frank Patterson illustration depicting a British gent pausing at the side of a road, taking in the countryside while enjoying a pipe. His bike, likely a Raleigh or Dunelt or Rudge with a Sturmey-Archer hub rests on its stand next to him. The bike appears to have a largish bag, perhaps a Brooks Millbrook. It's probably the same bike that takes the guy to work at a steel factory. He might also use it for time-trialing on race day, with fenders and bags removed, of course.

My point (as much as there is one), is that many cyclists tend to think of themselves as specific kinds of riders. Mountain Bikers, Road Racers, Tourers, DHers; Singlespeeders, Fixed-gear riders; and they willingly exclude themselves from not just another kind of riding but an expanded way to view life. Sounds grandiose, I know. But try it! Get an old three-speed at a garage sale and take the scenic route to work. Wear regular clothes and take an hour to go eight miles. Ride a road bike on a dirt road (trust me, the bike can handle it). There's a world of experiences bikes can help take you to, once you stop thinking about needing the "right" equipment for exactly the "right" type of riding.

With this in mind, yesterday I went for a solitary ride, in the English tradition. I packed my bag (a Crumpler messenger bag-not the best choice, but it's all I had) with a sandwich, some peanuts, a camera, and a bottle of water (my bike doesn't yet have a bottle cage).

I hopped on my KHS Winner, recently acquired from Sethanol and converted to a fixed-gear. I rode at a leisurely pace, maybe 15 mph on a combination of dirt and paved roads. My route took me along the Gallatin River, where I stopped for lunch. I saw tons of cows, had robins fly alongside me, heard woodpeckers, and saw some ospreys. All this, even if I had noticed, would be diminished had I been on my road bike, or even if I had been riding with another person.

I've been in the process of Anglicizing my bike, with its 32mm tires, 3-speed-esque handlebars, and full fenders. Its current gearing (42x17) allows me to climb pretty much all hills around here but does not hold my top speed down too much; nice on long gradual downhills.
The ride ended up being about 38 miles, and it took me about four hours. It's something that I'll be doing more in the future, and I heartily recommend that you try it. Even if you don't have the 'right' bike.
-DNA

Whilst riding home from
RockySprints with a couple of the lads the other night, the topic of how nice it was to ride in a group taking up a lane on main street came up. This, in turn, got me to thinking that it might be time for a good old fashioned pubride. And this time I think it imperative that Dirty Pete wear a helmet.

I think this coming Saturday (April 12th) should do nicely. Say, 9:30 at Spectators. Why Specs? Because it's a pub RIDE and should therefore involve some riding (impromptu racing?). So come one, come all. Bring your friends and your bikes and lets usher in spring and all the bicycleness that that entails.

NOTE: I changed the date from the 11th b/c of Das Beeeeeeerfest ja

Oh and don't miss Capt E's post about finding a location for polo, which is something we can discuss over pints on the ride this Friday, I mean Saturday.


C-Note

"Man, we ain't found shit." The search continues for a viable location for polo playing.... Remember the qualifications are extremely stringent.
The location must have at least two of the following.

+ Lights

+ Pavement


With these limiting criteria we are obviously handicapped from the start so we must keep a eye open and explore all options. I want you to comb the town for locations. We have decided that tennis courts are a no go, the chain-link fences are problematic for both the balls and the handlebars. If a abandoned court were found where we could quasi permanently install boards that would be acceptable. Many of you liked the Bogart pavilion when we played there but we would have to construct boards for half court play and play at predetermined times (like not after dark). Anyway, post a comment if you think you found a good locality and we will check it out.

Polo to the people!

E

Another Monday night, another night of great racing. Despite a few technical issues, limited mainly to magnets/projectiles, we had around 25 to 30 people step on up and race! Last week in a "networking" session at the 317 I finally figured out how to work the music player and make a good playlist.
Select members of Team Delphine showed up and presented a formidable challenge, throwing down times equal to many of the fastest men's times.

Thanks to: Specialized Bikes for providing one of the Langsters; Wiley at Practical Pedal for providing the computer, projector, and lots of code labor; Adam and Paul for more computer geekery, Bangtail Bikes for letting me use the store van to bring everything down (and for listening me yammering about this for the last six months), Steve for the fork mounts and one set of rollers, Casey for lots of grunt work in getting this thing set up and going, and Ryan at the 317 for letting us play our bikey games at the bar.

So enough with the words, here's a little video.

...And a tribute to the women who showed up and kicked ass:

This was brought up in conversation recently, so I had to repost. Tough.

"The details of my life are quite inconsequential.... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize; he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament... My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon... luge lessons... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets... When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds-pretty standard really. At the age of 12, I received my first scribe. At the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Wilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum-it's quite breathtaking... I suggest you try it."

C'mon down, have some fun. There's no place else in 500 miles where you con have this kind of fun. Honest.
See you Monday night. Signups start at 9pm, racing starts around 9:45ish. No entry fee. We'll be doing a bracket-style elimination starting this coming Monday the 31st.

-DNA

Back at Charlie's we figure a half-hour of drinking is not enough, so after schlepping everything quietly up the staircase of amazing resonance Casey busts out a few discreetly hidden cans of Molson. Or Ranier. Really, they could have been Natty Ice, for all I know. Anyway, we continue drinking while getting the basic lowdown of the apartment rules ("the bathroom is through the single bedroom, so take care of whatever you need to do now"), the local scene, anything to know for the race (no secrets divulged), and bike polo.
Now it's about 3am, and we retire. I wake up at about 4:30 to take a leak, so I (thought I) sneaked outside quietly to water the bushes. Back to the couch, and I awake a few hours later as Charlie walks into the living room.
"Um, so I'm in a bit of trouble, I guess." He says to me.
"Were we too loud or something?"
"No, I told you to go outside to pee..."
"Yeah, I'm cool with that,"
"Well, because of that I'm in trouble with Megan. So tonight just walk through the bedroom, OK?"
Leaving the apartment we first cruised over to the Hammer Coffee where Megan works to get a little jump-start on the day (reallyreallyreally good coffee, by the way).
Megan seemed to be more embarrassed than anything else as to our use of the yard as a toilet. Using one set of words, she managed to apologize to us and reprimand Charlie in the way that only a wife can do. Leaving the coffee shop, we agreed to use the bathroom.
Breakfast left me wondering why it's so hard to get really, genuinely good food at a good price in Bozeman. For less than what one would spend for warmed-over mediocrity at IHOP I got the biggest and tastiest breakfast burrito I've ever had. C-note got the Huevos Rancheros which, as was described to us, "Made him feel like Luke Skywalker finding Han Solo." Seriously good food.
So, we've got about six or so hours before the 4:30pm manifest handout time. We're in a city, we've got bikes, what is there to do? Well, we ride! I think we put on somewhere around twenty miles that morning and afternoon. We did manage to get a rough idea of the layout of town and we even managed to get some Thai food. Excellent Thai food. A mountain of pad thai with fried rice and a bowl of egg drop soup for $6.25. I couldn't finish it.
Note to Bozeman restaurateurs: A person should be able to buy a tasty and filling lunch for less than $7.
Finally, it's time to get to the race. We roll up right about at 4:30 and start milling about. Some Warlocks pull up and start taking money and handing out manifests and spoke cards. We've got an hour and a half? There's only nine stops? This is gonna be cake!
Eventually almost 80 racers show up. All types, too.
Drunk guy keeps asking C-note to borrow his map while a couple of transients stand aside with their brown bags in hand. Being the out-of-towners we get a bit of assistance from Megan and a few others, but the map C-note got turned out to be excellent, with numbered blocks and everything!
GO!
We take off, 80 bikes in different directions yet towards a common goal. The start is really my favorite part of an alleycat. It's so chaotic, so nerve-wracking yet it seems to work out smoothly. Except for the dolt that managed to right-hook Casey. No, not a guy in a car, a guy on a bike. Lucky for the Bianchi there was no damage.
First stop comes quickly, with about 90 percent of the racers descending on a bar in the space of six or seven minutes. The pack splits up pretty quickly after that. Having to down a cup of beer will do that.
My second stop is about six miles away, and I've got a good route there. In city you don't know anything about, you don't try to take shortcuts. I head south on a selection of two-and four-lane roads, settling into a nice rhythm. A few red lights popped up at inconvenient times but were disregarded as the road was clear.
Second stop, the Little Dutch Goose, a very..."interesting" bar. Situated squarely in the middle of a residential area with schools and few businesses there's a bar with a muddy parking lot, lots of old American Iron parked there, and people (median age: 50) packing all 500 square feet of this place. I run in, much to the delight of some onlookers and look frantically for 'Kyle'. The bartender notices me and asks,
"Can i get you something?"
"Uhh, I'mlookingforKyle..."
And right then a late-20's guy with a messenger bag leans back from the bar, with an expression that very succinctly said,
"WTF?"
Manifest gets signed, then it's on to stop three, another four miles away.

So, we had RockySprints this Monday and we had, yet again, a solid turnout.



Now, it was nice to see the regular crowd bring it strong. I do have to say, however, this girl frikken threw down HARD, and she was just someone that happened to be in the bar. She raced four times and beat a few dudes (including her boyfriend). I don't think any guys raced that much.







So what's up Bozeman? We're throwing the gauntlet down...so to speak.





Mondays...317...DO YOU HAS?

With apologies to DNA for interrupting the Liverdance thread. I thought I would mention that RockySprints are ON for tomorrow, Monday 3/24!! You ready?

If you haven't read Part One yet, go here.



When I picked C-Note up, he had a couple of snide remarks about our method of transportation to Boise.
"I thought your Subaru was a little rough around the edges, but this, THIS.....is it gonna make it?"
That was comment one about Captain E's 1984 Toyota Camry. Rough is an understatement, admittedly. The windshield really does need to be replaced, but most of the cracks are on the passenger side. We have to be careful when loading the trunk, avoiding the hole on the side. That hole is comparable in size and shape to the hole in the muffler, giving the car a "throaty growl". Oh, and it's got over 300,000 miles.
His concerns were unfounded. The car ran great, delivering around 30 miles per gallon for the duration of the trip. It was no problem to maintain 75-80 miles an hour.
The second snarky comment was in reference to the studded snow tires. Now, one of the reasons we headed SOUTH was to get a brief respite from our 5-month winter, if only for a day. That seemed to be a good plan, and I was almost giddy anticipating sun, 50 degree temps, and maybe even see a little green grass.
Twenty miles from Boise we hit snow. Wait, snow is usually light, airy, fluffy- even when it's a bit wet. This was borderline freezing rain, and a lot of it. Within seconds visibility dropped to about a hundred feet and what we could see of the road was glossy, shiny ice. Trying to pass a semi led the car into two inches of cake frosting. As good as the tires are, they were just not big enough and the car just not heavy enough to keep headed in a straight line. With mere miles to go, and text messages from Charlie telling us to hurry or we'll miss last call, we struggled through cascading ice from truck tires and rapidly diminishing visibility to make it in town at 1:35 AM.
Rounding the corner, we see a shadowy figure standing next to a shiny fixed gear. Three items stand out: Tall cans of Budweiser. Yep, this is the right spot.
A quick illegal u-turn followed by terse greetings and opening cans of beer lead to bikes quickly getting assembled to make last call.
At the Neurolux we finally get a chance to talk (yell), C-Note gets to formally meet Charlie and we take advantage of the remaining twenty minutes to pound a couple shots of Maker's Mark and drink a pitcher of PBR. Ah....now I'm relaxed!
The bar closes, and we head back to the apartment.

Later, Race Day!

I'm going to try something here. This story will be broken up into three or four segments, hopefully to work with my pitifully short attention span. We'll see how it goes.

L3.

Photo courtesy of Warlocks Boise

As some of you know, C-Note and I cruised down to Boise this past weekend for a little bit of alleycattin' (and a lot of driving and drinking, although not necessarily together). The Warlocks put on the third edition of their annual St. Patty's day Alleycat, Liverdance on Saturday evening.
The adventure did not start there, though. We had our first-ever introductions with the Yellowstone Park Police at about hour 1.5 of our eight hour drive. Being followed for twenty minutes, I kept staying legal..I had my headlights on, went the speed limit, slowed down for snow and ice, didn't drink any beer.
And then I saw the lights. We figured something was up, since we had passed about four other cars pulled over in those twenty minutes. I calmly pulled over, waited for the office to get out, and tried to stifle a laugh as the second cop has his Mag-lite on (it was about 6:30pm...still light).
A very nervous officer asks for my ID and other stuff. He asks if we have any drugs (no), weapons(no), or alcohol(one growler of Bozone for a certain Ninja).
"Can I see that bottle?" says the cop.
"Sure, here ya go," says me
"WE GOT A BOTTLE OF ALCOHOL!!! WE GOT A BOTTLE OF ALCOHOL!!!!" not so calmly and very nervously says the cop.
At this point I see six Park Police doors open (evidently we were pulled over by two cars) with five officers and one dog getting out.
Calm cop asks, "You been drinking this beer?"
"Um, no...you can open it up and see that it's full if you want." I respond calmly.
Nervous cop (cop #1) says that he pulled us over because "even though you were driving completely legally, and your lights were on, your license plate lights were out. And they have to be on."
"Well, this is my friend's car. I'll tell him to fix that."
"And your windshield is severely cracked as well,"
"OK, I'll tell him that too."
"Would you mind stepping outside?"
"Uhhh...sure.?"
We get out and stand shivering in the windy cold as calm cop explains that they've got a real problem with that road being a major drug corridor, "and your car looks a bit suspect."
(An '84 Camry with no exhaust, 311k miles, ripped seats, and more cracks than windshield?)
The response in my mind was, "Hm. I though Drug Dealers went into that particular profession so they can have nice things, like cars,"
But my spoken response was, "Yeah, I don't blame ya. I'd pull that thing over."
That seemed to take the edge off while the Drug Dog In Training went through the car and found only an open bag of Chex Mix.
A few more minutes of us shivering while Calm Cop talked to us about triathlons and we were allowed to go.
Until we got within 20 minutes of Boise, that was the only excitement.

Tomorrow, meeting the Ninja.

I just got back from a 'networking' session at the 317 and while there I was informed that they have a band scheduled for this coming Monday, so there will be no RockySprints.
Sorry.
See you on the 24th!

-DNA

Do you has?





Some racer girls throwing down.



The bartender race



It's all up on's!!

If you're more into still pictures you can find some here.

Yes, it's happening. What is it?
Well, it's a little of this:

With some of this:
And mix in a little (or a lot):
..and that's about it. Curious? Come on by the 317 on Monday the 10th. 9pm.

Damn.
Last night we had the first real night of RockySprints. And like Rocky Balboa defeating Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, and Ivan Drago the bikes kept dishing out punishment to anyone foolhardy enough to ride them. About 20 people stepped up to the stage at 317 to get another dose of ass-kicking, including some random people at the bar. Glitches were mercifully minimal and everything seemed to work pretty well together.
There's a few mods to be made, a few refinements and such, and we'll be back at 317 next Monday the 10th.

Big thanks to Wiley, Adam, C-Note, Paul, Steve, and Faunce. This wouldn't have gotten off the ground without ya's (as well as anyone my still-recovering brain has forgotten).

See you there!

Here's some pictures.

Sunday night, after hours of working around ever-increasing piles of empty PBR cans we finally have Rockysprints up and running. Adam, Seth M, and Wiley came by last night and helped get the last few details hammered out before running some full-speed tests. To be sure, there are some details to work out, and some issues we will have to work around but as things are right now it frikkin' works! And don't worry, both bikes will be identical fixed-gears.

I'll see you tonight at 317. 9pm.
Tonight's races will be limited to one-on-one sprints, without much record-keeping. We'll keep track enough so that someone's got bragging rights, but I've got no prizes yet. Winners get to bask in the satisfaction of being the first Rockysprints champions.
There's no cover. Sweet, huh?

Some of you regular readers know Maya.

Unfortunately, she passed on early Friday morning.

Maya was one that helped to reinforce my propensity to trust and like dogs more than most people. In the six years we shared together we had traveled to hot springs, breweries, mountain bike trails, mountain peaks, lakes from Washington to Vermont, ski trips, and countless everyday mini adventures. I have not known a dog that conveyed more intelligence and feeling than her.

I have more to write but I can't seem to get the words through my fingers, so here's a few pictures.New World Gulch

North Cottonwood Trail

With Ursula, tired of posing for the camera.

This thing, this Goldsprints, (or Rockysprints, as it may be here) is eating up Nerd-Hours faster than a hipster fixie rider goes through rear tires after watching MASH SF for the eighth time.
The usual crew came by my place tonight; Wiley, Adam , and now Paul to stay in the basement to play with code; Sethanol to talk music and help drink beer (and pedal the bike when needed); and Captain Entropy himself to eat, drink, and make things fall apart.
This time, 'the usual crew' does not imply 'the usual results'. Oh no, we've got ourselves a veritable roller-racing extrapolanza one tiny step shy of being ready to drag on downtown. We rebuilt the second sensor board. We made lengthy twisted wire leads (with a drill...fun!). We even got the computer to work properly, mostly. All we need to do now is to find out why the computer is getting noisy results from one board, then we're on to mounting the stuff on the rollers. Done.

Tomorrow........

After extensive breadboard testing, the first actual sensor board is complete. One more to do, then Adam gets the computer and boards for final testing. Friday night we try everything out at my place, then itls on to the 317 on Monday!

OK, here it is folks, there are some minor details to work out, but the gist of it goes like this.

The code monkeys seem to have the software/hardware interface...ahem bitwacking. I think the problem had something to do with the Flux Box. Frankly, all this business about 'open source' is great and all, but it took not one, but two of the most savvy computer geeks I know to get all this to work...not exactly plug and play, more like plug, eff with it a bunch, swear a lot, drink some PBR, discuss, rewrite the code, play.



Geekery, Bikes, and PBR...somehow it just works.

I think bit whacking the flux box became less of an issue when they double teamed it.



Anyway the long and the short of it is we have the computer side of it 99% up and running.

As for the bike interface...

Steve's got the fork mounts welded up, to which we have affixed some bike tights.




and fabricated-ish with some rollers to mount the bikes to. It ain't pretty, but it does work.



So for now, the tentative plan (as opposed to the firm plans we've had thus far) is to meet Tuesday night (Mañana) at 317 at nine PM for some real world testing of our handy work. There very well may be some bugs to work out, but the question remains...Do you has?!?!



Any questions? Leave comments, or get ahold of DNA.

Cheers,
Crystal

Goldsprints Status:
The software is on my computer and seems to work
The hardware is assembled (on breadboard), firmware updated and seems to work.
Computer and Bitwacker seem to talk
I can't get the software to work right, I think it's just a setting thing in a conf.yml file but I'm lost.
Fork mounts are welded.
If we can get this stuff to work today we can race tonight.

Here's where we're at:
Electronic components are ordered and should be here by Friday, when Wiley and I will solder everything together. Once I have the BitWacker I can download and install the software.
Saturday night (hopefully) will be testing night. Sunday night (hopefully) we can Steve's rollers and try everything out at my place. Monday we race!

Or something along those lines.

So here we are:
Steve said he was going to make the fork mounts.
Casey and I have bikes
Steve and I have rollers
I am ordering the hardware for the computer interface today
We've got a lot of people really anxious to get this going.

My projected date for the first race is Feb 25th, assuming that I can get the hardware talking to the computer and that I can successfully solder stuff without letting the magic smoke out. There's no way I can get it going this coming Monday. Sorry.

In other news, I FINALLY BUILT MY CROSS BIKE!
Sorry for the shouting, but I'm pretty damn excited. Here's a pic:
It's an '05 Cannondale cyclocross disc built with Tiagra. My favorite part about it is the Captain America theme. I swear I can hear the "Star Spangled Banner" while coasting.

How about Tuesday night (tomorrow) at 8pm we meet at 317 to figure out who's doing what, who can help how, who has parts they'll donate.........and maybe we'll drink some beer.
Good? Ok. See you tomorrow. 317.

Cycling has lost an icon, a leader, a friend. Sheldon Brown helped countless cyclists become true bike geeks with his voluminous stores of knowledge and a gift for sharing that with others. He knew about bike minutiae without coming off as cocky and had an infectious passion that kept our bikes rolling.
Have a good ride, Sheldon. We'll miss you.

Here's a link