OLD MOTHER REAGAN

is no more...

I pounded out the last interval with that playlist today, on the revived Giant. As per the photographic evidence my wife thought would be great to capture I put some Tektro 720s on the Giant. Cheap, and not so bad. Cost me less than a set of front and rear Eagle Claw salmon pads. I was never going to use the wicked wide profile ones on the back of the Blue but had thought maybe about putting it up front for both bikes. Well they are both on the Giant now. And when the der hanger shows up I'll be back up to three out of three. Croll has been decom'd, Paramount is sitting with Clip-ons hanging w/o wheels, or rear shifter never having been resurrected for the TT this summer.

So about that rear der failure. Shit happens, and apparently I'm a f'n idiot and a really bad mechanic. Because if I was a GOOD mechanic #1: i would have had the Giant working as a pit bike for Sucker Brook (i should know better than to go there w/o one) #2: the Blue would still be ride-able and I wouldn't be waiting on a rapid shipment of a new Hanger (not here yet BTW), oh and #3: K's bike's pins wouldn't have bounced out allowing the pads to eject. (yes I know - i probably screwed up the use of the colon - so what, not getting much else right why bother with worrying about the writing). Honestly, and truthfully I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed, lots of doubting, fretting and anxiety, stuff I don't deal well with. Yeah Lego_lord, way too much mental baggage, but at least it all goes away when I'm racing. Lately that's about the only time it has gone away. well that and when i was doing the intervals on the trainer this morning, in the dark, with tunes.

So about that #2 failure as a bad mechanic. Yes. I screwed up. When the wheel slipped in the drop outs doing the start practice/microbursts and buzzed the chainstay and I found the QR to be loose. Yes, I should have noticed that the der hanger moves a hell of a lot when you clamp the skewer down.

But honestly I'm pretty fucking new to this whole replaceable drop out gig. The Croll has the Ritchey rear dropouts (stable and strong), the Kleins (all of them) have bomb proof dropouts. The P-mount has some nice strong horizontal ones. The Giant was the first replaceable one. I've got an extra for it. And changing wheels today I noticed how much it moves in when the QR is clamped down tight. Yeah, I shouldn't have overlooked that little bit there, eh?

So with the new skewer tension the rear der limit screw position that was set no longer meant anything and the der was a millimeter closer to the spokes and when I shifted into the big cog on that 180 uphill before the barriers, well... you know the rest of the story. No one to blame but myself. Oh well. Moving on. Despite not wanting to rush to build that Blue, I still wound up rushing to build it. That whole day before Sucker Brook was non-stop from 5:30am until 10:30pm, or so it felt. I'm sure there was a few minutes of sitting on my fat ass. Maybe.

Well nice little hiatus.

There are 94! NINETY FOUR cat 3/4 women signed up. Holy Hell batman. If that isn't the litmus for something, well - forget that metaphor. Results boy's servers will be melted this week with all the people hitting the race predictor and tabulating 1646 (as of right now) racers (divide by two roughly to figure out how many people are going to be racing). Parking? Yeah, that's going to be interesting, CARPOOL PEOPLE (except me, I have somewhere to go and have to drive alone, sorry).

Even Club ROW has sold out. $50 per tent spot. Crazy. Some teams have two tents, just because they are like loaded and have like lots of people racing i guess.

What hasn't sold out? The fast races (I'm calling the 3/4 women as sold out because it might as well be), 35+ 1/2/3, and Elite Men and Women.

Nuts. Look at the top 10 for the 35+ on the predictor:
Jonny Bold
Roger Asphlom
Kevin Hines
Matt Kraus
Kurt Perham
Curtis Boivin
Peter Mogg
Bill Shattuck
Steve Proulx
Rob Hult

this race is going to be capital F fast. Just watch out for the mini-wrecking ball in the Seven kit with the string of profanities coming out of his mouth. There ain't gonna be no party in the back of this field. Gonna be ride for your life. Don't screw up. Hope for a long lap and a tough Tom Stevens course that challenges everyone. Seems the only thing that I've seen that can slow Roger down is ice. And I don't think we're going to be racing on a sheet of ice like he did at nationals, oh well. Hold on, New Jersey coming through.

Anyway - shit's gotta sort it self out one of these days. Just gotta keep moving forward, focus on the positive, try not to let everything else drag ya down. Keep moving forward...

heddwch
G