Livin' it up in Ben Franklin's town. Riding a bike in the city; damn! watch out for those trolley tracks (slippery when wet!) Whoa, that's what a hoochie mama looks like! I don't think I'm in Delaware anymore.....

Monday, August 13, 2007

Feeding my wheel fetish

5 weeks, 3 rear wheels. Philly knows how to eat them, that's for sure.

It all started when my beloved red/black CXP33 wheelset busted a spoke in the rear. Normally this wouldn't be bad, as it's a 36 spoke wheel. I bought it for $150 from Nashbar back in 2003 and since then the nipples have corroded to the point where if when I try to true the wheel, the nipples strip, one of the downfalls of lighter alloy nipples. Also this is the 3rd spoke I've busted on the wheel since I moved to Philly, so I shelved the wheel and went to wheel #2.

Wheel #2 is one of those dope Mavic Ksyrium SL, black with the shaved rims. It's my race wheel. I was like, I'm not racing, so I might as well ride a dope wheel. Well, that was all fine and dandy for 3 weeks, really it kicked ass for 3 weeks, but after one ride I noticed when I spun the wheel (while in a stand) the crank moved. Not a good sign! So I took the wheel off and noticed one side of the hub had become loose. I decided to loosen it further and before I knew it the freehub was coming off and a sooooper doooper small spring sprang free in my basement. Looked for 30 minutes and haven't found it since. This led to wheel # 3, the ex's wheelset.

The ex's wheelset I acquired when I gave her my Ksyrium Elites when I broke my hand. They are the bottom of the barrell, shimano 500 wheelset. Since over a year ago they've been collecting dust in my basement, so I figured, might as well check 'em out. Well the rear lasted 2 rides (really only 4 hours) before it got uber wobbly on me, when I got home, 3 non-drive spokes were looser than could be believed without the wheel collapsing. I was really lucky I didn't take any sharp turns on these as they went loose on the Saturday World Championships ride.

So Saturday I threw on a rear Mavic Ksyrium Equipe, which had come with my Scott CR1 back in the day (2004). These wheels I've ridden off and on, but thought they'd be my spare "race" wheel if I ever did race again. Well, within a few minutes of a 6 hour ride on Sunday they started talking to me and never shut up the whole ride. It drove me nuts as I'm paranoid as all can be now when it concerns a noise coming from the rear wheel, so today I sucked it up and ordered a new custom built wheelset from Excel Sports built up with DT 340 hubs and 1.2 rims.

Should be a dope set and I'll definitely take a pic of 'em. It blows my mind how hard it is now to find a handbuilt wheelset with normal components these days, it wasn't that long ago you could go to any bike shop (local or online) and find a few different levels of handbuilt road wheels. Now it's freaking hard to find with all those pre-built, hard to service wheels out there. None of those wheels can last more than a few months around Philly.

Hope everyone is out there living the dream!
and riding it too,

-BC

Thursday, August 02, 2007

It's been a long, long time

I wish I had something magnificent to report, sort of like my friend Pamela: http://pamlandtravels.blogspot.com/ , but just living each day by itself can have it's own joys. I really can't believe it's been so long since I've written anything. Probably b/c I haven't done much other than:
M-F work, workout and try to ride 1-3x for about 2hrs.
F-S rock out in the city, ride bike, then repeat.

But each day has been special. I've met some cool people the last few months. Some through cycling, some through rocking out, others through work and working out at the gym. Finally during the past 2 days I took some time off from work to get my driver's license, clean my house and ride my bike (of course!).
I'm really pumped about getting my driver's license again, as I let it lapse 5 months ago. To be honest I was definitely more excited today when I renewed it, then I was 14 years ago when I first go my driver's license. Back then I was more apprehensive to receiving it, while today I understand the freedom it can bring into your life.

See I missed a really good buddy's wedding a few weeks back b/c I had to negotiate a ride up to Vermont, and if I had my license, it would have been a no-brainer to either rent a car, or borrow a family member's car. My kick-ass friends offered me various car-pooling options to get up there, but regardless, if I had my own car, I would have been up there, and I wasn't, so I was on a mission the last week to get my shit in order so I could renew the license.
Philly doesn't mess around and for a new resident like me, I had to bring:
My old DE license
My SSN card
An original birth cert
A utility bill
A mortgage doc on it
Plus I had to remember my checkbook, which I had totally missplaced, as who uses a check book anymore?
Luckily for me, the DMV (unlike most of the muni-gvt. operations) was quite organized and even though there were a ton of people, I was in and out in about 45 mins with a new kick ass license.
I'm so stoked now and am at the moment waiting for a friend to refer me to Philly Car share (http://www.phillycarshare.org/) so I can load up one of their hybrids with about 9 months worth of recycling.


So the past 2 months I've been road riding a ton. Probably 8-10hrs just on Sat and Sunday. I so want to race, but everytime my buddies and I start talking about which race to do from the races coming up, we hear of another buddy going down hard in a race and ending up in the ER. So right now we are all talking ourselves up for a big cross campaign, time will tell if I actually toe a start line this year. At least I do have a valid USCF license wasting away in my wallet.

Oh, I did one wicked fun thing last month when I checked out the West Chester Twilight crit. It was like old days seeing all my DE posse chilling watching the race. Mr. Smith, aka http://www.dennisbike.com/, has some badass shots of that race. Dude, I have never seen a pro-crit before and after that day I will never be the same. Those pros are HARD CORE, I've never seen dudes rub shoulders doing 30+ through a 90 degree banked turn. It was nuts!!! Also wicked cool to see a few peeps I know in the race, including a few of the dudes I train with in Philly. Man I wish I had raced the 3/4 race earlier in the day there, as while I've landed on my arse many a times, I absolutely love crit racing.

Looking forward to another First Friday/Art Loop tomorrow. I try my best to take some pictures and give y'all non-Phillians an idea of how wild it actually is down there in Olde City.

Oh yes, if someone needs some fine, fine muzic to listen to, I have a ton of Ronski Speed live shows. They are purely sweet! Also ETN.fm should open back up their BitTorrent stream sooner than later. That internet station is one of the best for live DJ (trance/dance) shows.

Ride on,

-BC