Wheel Bearings

This is just so I don't forget. Shimano rear hubs take 1/4 in loose balls, 9 per side for 18 total. Shimano fronts are 3/16, 11 per side for 22 total. I'll have to look and see what size bearings and if they are cartridge or loose ball. I know everyone is all hepped up about ceramic bearings right now, but holy cow, they are pricy. For $20 I can do one side of a hub with ceramic (10 balls) or I can get enough grade 25 steel bearings to replace both sides for 5 times (100 balls).

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I sometimes suffer a little bike lust...

One of the designers of Cervelo bikes (Gerard Vroomen) with Andy Kessler designed a pretty hot looking 29er hardtail (Open Cycles O-1.0). Now I've got a case of bike lust. I mean the bike looks extremely well thought out, as well as being light (850 grams for a large frame). Bike Rumor has a built up bike weighing in at 19.5 lbs, without pedals. Below are some photos to drool over, taken from the Open Cycles website. Visit the site for videos of Gerard discussing highlights of the frame design. http://www.opencycle.com/

In this shot you can see how thin the seatstays are.

Seatstays up close.

One thing to note on sizing is that they use reach and stack instead of top tube and seat tube measurements. Minor, I think I'd still take a large. That is if I actually had the extra $3400 to buy one of these bad boys.

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Cycling is awesome! Infographic.

Many of you reading already know how awesome cycling is. But it's nice of the people at Nashbar to put out a nice infographic.

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Nashbar cycling is awesome poster

Seat Binder (seat post clamp) pops off the Paragon

2011 Trek Paragon Hello mountain bike racing fans.

So I've had this happen a couple times and am wondering if it's an issue I should bring up with the dealer. Somehow as I'm riding, the seat post binder will pop off the seat tube as I'm riding. I noticed it's on really rough sections of trail. I'll notice that the seat is loose, pull off the side of the trail and the clamp is off.

I question if the binder design or the 3 slit seat tube top is to blame. I use a torque wrench and wrench it to the specced 46 in*lbs and check it about every 2 to 3 (maybe 4) weeks. The seat post is greased, as is the binder. It's happened 3x in the past year I've owned the bike (under 100 hrs of riding time), so it's not often, but enough times that I'm concerned it could happen in a competitive situation.

Seat clamp is 31.8.

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2011 Trek Paragon Hello mountain bike racing fans.

Races to think about - Minnesota24

The Minnesota24 is a 6, 12 or 24 hour mountain bike race at Memorial Park in Red Wing, MN. Link: http://www.24minnesota.com/ It's a long race, it's close to home. They have free camping and a kids race. But I don't think I'll do it this year. It's the same weekend as someone specials birthday. Maybe it'll be during a different weekend next year and I can do it.

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This video had me tearing up at my desk

There is a video embedded in this post that you may not be able to view. Click through to the blog to watch it. Not a Justin Bieber video.

Very touching and moving video. So simple, and so emotional. What do you think?

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Made up some Invalid Soup

khao tom moo sub. kao tum. Khaw tom Kraeng. Thai breakfast soup. Thai comfort soup. Thai rice soup. Recipe

My wife wasn't feel well today and I thought I'd take care of dinner. She enjoys a soup that I make. It's a Thai rice soup known as Khao Tom Moo, or Invalid Soup. It's great when you're sick cause it's easy to digest, filling and delicious. It has carbs and protein to fuel you up. For our family it's very much like a comfort food. Seriously it is very good.

Recipe: Khao Tom Moo (Thai rice pork soup, AKA Invalid soup)

3 cups cooked white rice (preferably 1hour to 1 day old)
1 32oz Trader Joes organic chicken broth
2 tablespoons Bragg liquid amino (or just use 4 tbs tamari or soy sauce)
2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
4 tablespoons fish sauce
32oz water
teaspoon black or white pepper
1 lb ground pork
3-5 cloves garlic

If you haven't already done so, cook up your 3 cup pot of rice. It's better if the rice can sit a while, I say at least an hour, but day old is even better.

Now take a big pot and place the first four liquid items in it and heat it up to almost a boil. Then add the rest of the water and pepper. Turn the heat down to a medium or low-medium setting.

Take the pork and crumble with your fingers (or use a fork) into the soup base. The heat of the soup will cook the pork. The smaller crumbles will cook immediately, the larger ones take a second or so more.

Once you have all the pork in the soup, let it simmer for a minute or so.

You can chop up to almost a mince the garlic, then fry it up in a little oil, till it's just golden. Make sure it's just crispy, but not burnt. Put that off to the side to top your soup when serving.

Now add the rice into your soup. You can turn the heat back up a little if you need to, or leave it on the medium setting. The rice will thicken the soup.

Ladle it into a bowl and top with the fried garlic. Hmmm, yummy.

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Rochester (high school) Mountain Bike Team, rider and parent info meeting

If you are or have a child finishing 8th - 12th grade and are interested in mountain biking, this is a great opportunity. Plan on attending this information meeting, April 25, 7pm at Lourdes High School cafeteria.

UPDATE: If you have someplace you want to post this poster, feel free to download this version and print it out. It's sized for 11x17 paper so you may want to "Shrink to fit." http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11253654/2012-RMBT-infoposter.pdf

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Current training load/ramp rate

First things first, I must have caught a bug and am feeling under the weather. Yesterday I thought it might be allergies (not that I ever really had issues with allergies) but seems like today it's a real cold. Don't think it's flu tho, so that's good. I got a flu shot so I hope I'm safe from it. Of course I had wanted to do some harder and longer rides this week, especially if I get a day or 2 off work. But no riding yesterday or today.

I'm kinda bummed too because I'm gonna have to miss another trailwork day at Eastwood. I guess there's next week.

So training load is slowly climbing up. And by slowly I mean really slow. Like a 10 point jump in CTL since the first of the year. I only have 1 ride in that span that was about 3 hours. Nothing longer. And that's why I want to ramp up the load a bit.

But even though it's been a bit slow, I do have consistently more total hours riding per month then in the last couple years. Well maybe not so much higher for March, but for sure January and February.

Year to date hours, I'm currently at about the same amount of hours as I had by the end of July last year, and at the end of April in 2010.

I know for some of you, the 20 or so hours I can get in during a month, is your weekly hours. That's sometimes frustrating. But in the end, even if we're in the same race toeing the line together, I'm really just racing myself to see what the best I can do is. And I have to remind myself of that.

I'll leave you with a quote that I came across today. I may not surf, and I'm not the best swimmer, but growing up where I did, there is a connection I have to the ocean. And I think this quote kinda sums it up great:

“Things all around us change from day to day. New hotels, new roads, but look out to sea. It’s constant, changeless like our Creator. The ocean points us to the Ocean of God’s love.” - Bear Woznick

Mahalo and Aloha.

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