Before we get on with my race report, I’d like to give you some background on how I got into this mess. You see a few months ago I started doing really well at XC. Allot of it had to do with the fact that I was riding a really fast bike, the Airborne Goblin 29er. With my new found confidence on two wheels I some how convinced myself that I should give XC racing a try. My racing background has primarily been in DH and I figured racing XC would take me out of my comfort zone as well as make it a challenge. Good attitude to have, right?
Fast forward to 02/23/2013, I somehow convinced team racer, Art Aguilar to join me on the condition MtnBikeRiders.com sponsors his race fee. He was riding LadyP’s Airborne Hobgoblin for the event.
Oh and guess who else I was able to convince to race with us. Our very own Albacore!
I almost forgot, Super Dan was there too! But he was going to tackle the Super D event. Don’t you just love how he color coordinate’s his jersey with everything on his bike…and his cell phone case!
Now I don’t have any actual race photos of any of us since we were…racing. But I managed to snap a picture of my results as well as Art’s. By the way we both entered as Beginners.
Low and behold we got medals! I took 4th in my category and Art took 3rd!
Did you all notice that Art and I matched our outfits! We certainly got compliments from people who could appreciate a sweet looking jersey.
Here’s our rigs that we used to get to our medals. The Airborne Goblin and the Airborne Hobgoblin.
While we were waiting for the awards ceremony, we met up with Olympic BMXer and Airborne Bicycles Racer, Barry Nobles. He was on the new Airborne Toxin 7″ bike.
Barry was kind enough to let Art check it out.
Here’s a shot of the rear linkage. I probably should taken it from the other side to get a better view.
So there you have it my XC ride report. I guess you can say it was my idea to do it. As tough as it was, both Art and I agreed it was pretty rewarding to race. We felt great after and heck you never know, this XC racing thing could grow on me. As I headed home, Art was pulling double duty and went out to go practice the DH course on his Taka.
The “Who’s idea was this” Race Report
Something bugging me…
One of my pet peeves in life is lack of effort. I can’t stand it when people see an opportunity or challenge and don’t even bother trying. I’ll give you a bike related scenario, I was just at 2 different bicycle shops in my immediate area and I walked in looking for a frame within a certain budget. Shop #1 told me with an arrogant tone that there’s no way I can get frame for that price and recommended that I just save up my money and put it towards a new bike. I explained to the guy that this was not the direction I wanted to go. So I asked, “are you guys a Santa Cruz dealer?” He hesitantly says yes and follows it up with, “ya we really don’t do too much with them but if we HAVE to, we can order something.” So I tell them that I know for a fact (because another shop quoted me a price, but they are a bit further away) that the SC Superlight was around my budget. He then says, “Ya that’s cool…but we don’t have anything in stock that would be in the same price range. You’re better off going to Jenson USA or something like that.” WHOA whoa WHOA! Did I just hear an LBS tell me to go ONLINE to find what I’m looking for? Don’t LBS people complain all the time how people SHOULD buy from their LBS to help support them? At that point, I just said my goodbyes and was super disappointed with the lack of effort the kid made.
So I drive off to shop #2 and I ask them the same question. The sales rep gave me the reaction that Don would have had from Napoleon Dynamite…
Then he goes on to tell me that Trek carbon XC frames start at over $2k…annoyed I walked away. Like I said, lack of effort is something that REALLY bugs me. I’ll be honest, I shouldn’t be too surprised because I’ve been to these shops before and have had the same experience. What am I going to do now? I mentioned earlier that another shop, though further, has offered me a SC Superlight within my budget. Unfortunately, that one in particular just got sold. But here’s where EFFORT comes in, the gentleman who I am dealing with put in a call with SC to see if they have any other frames available and he’s checking their inventory for another frame that would suit my needs. See…that’s what I’m talking about, EFFORT!
Stretching?
If we went back 10 years you’d see that I NEVER stretched before riding. I always thought that I needed my legs fresh for the ride and all stretching ever did was make my legs tired. I heard it from Lady P and other folks that stretching will help prevent injuries and yada yada yada. Did I listen? Nope. In fact when I started DH racing, I never would stretch and would always poke fun of my team mate, Dan Burdett because I’d often see the dude in fancy Yoga poses where the bottom of his feet would be touching his head. Heck I’ve even seen his wife take his foot, pull it behind him and then she’d grab his arms and put her foot into his back just to “stretch” out his quads and pecs…
But now that I’m a bit older, 35. I’m starting to notice that my muscles aren’t as strong or quick to move as they used to be. I’ve found that I often will need to stretch before and after ride. Man what sucks about this whole business of getting older is that I developed Tennis Elbow just from doing bunny hops and that if I don’t stretch my calves out, they’ll ache like crazy!
So if any of you readers are around 25, start stretching now because you’ll end up like me at 35, all messed up because I didn’t stretch and because of it, I’ve got some messed up muscles…
One from the weekend
Just in time for Father’s Day.
Just in time for Father’s Day, Adam Spik talks about a Manatee, a spineless creature and manipulation/mind-control. He also encourages our readers to procreate. It’s a real good read and makes you grateful to be a dad. Great job Adam!
Father’s Day is this Sunday. I know many who read this are fathers to little princesses like RL and I are (we have our own daughters with our own respective spouses. This ain’t My Two Dads).
Becoming the proud father to a daddy’s girl happened without me knowing it and certainly with me intending for it to happen. This parasitic creature that turned my wife into an emotional, cheesecake craving, manatee would turn me into a spineless pushover. Relax, my wife knows she was a manatee. The word to focus on here is was, not manatee. I think it was my daughter’s 2nd birthday when my spine ceased to exist and I became wrapped around her finger.
Long before we had kids my wife and I discussed what kind of parents we would be. We knew we wanted two. We knew we wanted to expose them to as much as we could and provide them with all we could while still keeping them grounded, respectful, and honorable. Like many men I had hoped our first would be a boy. I imagined him growing up as I would teach him to ride a bike, throw a spiral, explore nature, and fix anything. You can imagine my pleasure when we were told our 1st born would be a boy. Then along our 2nd — a girl. I was pleased. I had my boy and I figured my wife would now have a girl to buy pretty dresses, braid her hair, and paint her nails.
From the start my son and I bonded. Our daughter; not so much. One of my favorite things when our son was a baby was to have him sleep on my chest. Every time I put our daughter on my chest she would squirm and fight to get back to mommy. I was convinced that for her first 2 years of life the umbilical cord was still attached. After her 2nd birthday she came to me more and more. We always said we would not spoil our kids. However, I think it is ingrained in the female psyche to butter-up men to get what they want. She would preface her requests with, “Daddy, I love you. . .” For example, “Daddy, I love you. Can I have a string cheese?” Of course she would pair her question with the cutest face she could make. She is currently 4 so she is not yet in school. When I get home from work in the morning and walk through the door she runs full bore and jumps into my arms. No matter how bad or tiring work was I instantly feel like it is now the best day ever. I want to hold her forever. I am certainly not going to let her date. At the very least she can’t date before she turns 25.
Dad Against Daughter Dating.
Just as we put our son in soccer, and baseball, and tae-kwon-do, and everything else under the sun; we keep ourselves busy (and broke) driving our daughter around to various activities too. Currently she is ballet and hula dance lessons. I think it is just and excuse for my wife to buy her more clothes. She has a recital coming up next week. Part of the recital is a Daddy-Daughter Dance. We went to our practice last Friday. The dance instructor was carrying on about how it is a crowd favorite. She said we were going to walk through the steps first before we learned the music as the music makes hers cry. C’mon I thought. It is a short little number danced to Steven Curtis Chapman’s Cinderella. Well, after practicing it several times, looking into my daughter’s sweet face I felt my lip quiver and my eyes water slightly. I thought to myself, “When my princess here grows up and is ready to get married I am going to lose it.” We left the studio excited to go home and show mom what we had learned. I told my wife how the instructor always cries when watching this dance. I said I thought that was ridiculous until we started dancing and I nearly cried. My wife grabs the video camera, I cue up the music, and my precious angel and I dance for mom and brother. Of course, being the 7 year old boy he is, my son starts to laugh and rolls around on the sofa. Then I notice my wife is crying. She says it is her allergies. My ass it is. Becoming a daddy’s girl just happened. I love my family more than anything on earth. That love will make you do a wide spectrum of things. It will make you do things you never thought you were capable of — like dancing with little ballerinas and crying and sharing it on world renowned bike site. Hug your kids this Father Day. If you don’t have kids then go out and make some. Part of the fun of being a dad is the legwork in becoming a dad.
Leverage is your friend!
The other day I was working on a bike that needed to have the crank set removed. After taking off the arms, I needed to take off the cups. Problem was, it was on there tight!
The cup was in there good! I tried both sides to see if I can break it loose from it’s grip, it just wouldn’t budge. So I grabbed the lever from my hydraulic floor jack and slipped it over the 8mm allen to extend my leverage and with one try, the bottom bracket came loose!
Memorial Day Weekend
I hope you all had a great weekend. I know we did. But before we go on with our ride report, I would like to take the time to thank all the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in serving our country to protect our freedom. All of us at MtnBikeRiders.com thank you for everything you have done.
If I may, I’d like to WARN everyone that this following article is rich in photo content. So if you’ve got dial up…not sure why you would since WiFi is readily available through your neighbors…then you better grab a sandwich and a cold beer because it will take some time to load up all the pics from this weekend.
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Happy Birthday to The Moe
Well its another year and it’s The Moe’s Bday. We organized a short ride with the usual suspects at the World Famous Fullerton Loop.
Here’s a photo of Moe during one of our rest stops. He was explaining the finer points of taking Glamour Shots at the local mall. He said that if you place your hands underneath your jaw line, it gets rid of the double chins! Already he looks skinnier, what a great tip!
Note to self: Drinking beer before a ride is not a good idea…
This is my best “Asian” impression….”Herroo!” (disclaimer-its ok, I’m Asian)
The fun didn’t really start until we got to our Fish Taco place. In this photo, I want to see if you can find the letter “Q.” Email me if you find it and I’ll send you a shirt or hat for your prize.
After dinner, Priscilla busted out the birthday cupcakes. Moe and I do this every year. Let’s just say its a tradition we’ve been doing for the last 10 or so years.
Doc Thunda felt left out so he wanted to try it by himself. He said to us, ” I always take great pictures, there’s never been one of me that is bad…” I think he’s absolutely right!
In this photo, we were laughing because Khoa (not pictured) was talking about how great iPhones are. Both Moe and I have Andriod based phones and couldn’t help but burst out laughing because how much Siri sucks. In our opinions, Siri is like the Jar Jar Binks of the Smart Phone world….haha.
Anyhow, we had a great time hanging out with the birthday boy. The Moe even agreed with my sentiments by saying, “This is the best birthday I’ve had this whole year!”
I’m sexy and I know it….I work out.
Before you start thinking this is another “I love ME (RL)” article, let me reassure you its not. Check out this photo. What’s the first thing you see? I would imagine it’s the Pink Tuxedo jersey right? Well that was the plan for me wearing it at the California Golden State Championships. I wanted to draw some attention to it and have people ask me about the shirt and in turn I can talk about MtnBikeRiders.com. Basically its a marketing tool for the site.
However, I was completely over shadowed by our friend Albert, I call him “The buffest Filipino you’ll ever meet.” Yes that’s him shirtless in the background.
Funny thing about this, he yelled to remind me to stay left on a certain spot I had trouble with. I said thanks to him as I rode away, but still managed to go to the right…the problem side, but i was able to muscle through it and have a clean run.
What a busy weekend!
Wow, talk about being busy riding. Over the weekend the MtnBikeRiders.com Crew were hard at work riding bikes. Yeah we were testing products and all that jazz. So here’s a recap.
Early Saturday morning I met up with one of our readers who only goes by the name of “Dial Tone.” He never did explain what his moniker meant, all he said was, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you…” I took his word for it. Anyhow, DT and I were talking the night before and he mentioned how he was mis-shifting badly. I directed him to watch a video I made a while back on how to tune a rear derailleur. Though he followed the steps, he still had issues. At that time, I offered to check out his bike the following morning. Since I was meeting Cousin Joe at a trail head near DT’s home, we scheduled to meet at 6:20am.
After messing with the adjuster barrels, I noticed that his derailleur hanger was bent. Lucky for DT I carry my Park Derailleur Hanger Alignment Tool in my car, why? Cuz’ you never know if you’ll need it.
Mind you, while I’m doing all this so-called work, Priscilla is at the Fullerton Loop, picking on some guys wearing spandex…Here’s what her FB status said…
Fully loop is in great condition. Thanx to the guy in spandex who kept me on my toes…too bad for him I caught up to him on the last 3 mile stretch. His flat tire = fail! HEHEHE! SUCKA! ;D
But I digress, once DT was all “DIALED” in..get it, Dial Tone…Dialed in…eh nevermind, it was funnier in my head. Back to my story. Cousin Joe shows up so we can do some field testing on a few products. Check out our new “practice” jerseys, we call it the Kung Fu Panda. It has the MtnBikeRiders.com logo on the left shoulder.
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