Shop Days

Almost immediately after attending the Fox Racing Shox tech seminar, a Fox 32 finds its way into the shop. A few warning signs immediately go off - The bike is completely crusted with mud and after further questioning, the fork has not been serviced in its ~5 years of use...

So we check it in for a tuneup....

Removing the lowers

Uhhh, that liquid is supposed to be clear..

So that's pretty much pure sediment inside the suspension. All the seals are shot and even the bushings are done for. Finally - the stanchions are rubbed right through the protective coating (= leakages until they're replaced)

Here's a more fun one - Customer has a Trek Remedy 9 with the new XTR plus derailleur. Anyways the derailleur became really stiff whenever they tried to shift up - Clearly an issue with the tension in the derailleur clutch! So first things first!

Remove the clutch casing

Select the integrated wrench inside the casing and dial down that tension!

All I can say after this is thank god for Pink Bike's Tech Tuesday, otherwise I would have had no idea how to do this.

POST SCRIPT TRAINING UPDATE
As the weather rebounds from hitting almost 30 degrees and then back to flurries my training goes outside and in. The previous week has seen a couple of road rides (the longest being ~90km) As it got colder I found solace in the trainer. Last night was 6 reps of 30 seconds 110% followed by 4 minutes off. Probably the only time I'll willingly listen to dubstep is when I'm grinding it out on the trainer and need the loudest, most obscene amount of racket possible. My theory is that the "music" overloads my auditory senses thus deafening the pain in my legs...

Plan for the coming week is to continue with the volume with a couple of quick intervals somewhere in between. Good Friday and Sunday is coming up so hopefully I'll be able to get in some nice long rides. Also my new road bike is said to be arriving within a week or so, fingers crossed...

Bike Stable Part 2

2011 Kona Kula Watt

This kind of bike is a rarity these days - very few bike companies are making 26er hardtails like they used to. The setup has fallen so far out of favour that this bike wasn't even offered in the States, you would go on their website and it wouldn't even be listed. Fortunately we're in Canada so the bike is readily available.

Now when you think of xc racing, Kona isn't a name that pops up very often. It's name is tied up with the gravity and dj side of the sport. However, a full carbon hardtail with a 2x10 drivetrain was hard to say no to. Especially one this sexy...

I absolutely love the naked carbon look of the frame and the matching white highlights. The ball-burnished crank is a favourite as well.

This bike is for when I need to go fast. Simple as that - this thing will accelerate like a bat outta hell and climbs better than my road bike. It has a remote lockout to improve its climbing but I don't think I ever use it because there's too many thumb switches when it's coupled with Sram shifters.The travel is short enough that there's barely a difference anyway. The flat carbon bar and frame geo puts you in the ideal position for aggressive racing - it has become my favourite for short OCup and UCup races.

 

Rear Suspension Overhaul - Complete!

Finally after so many months I've complete the rear suspension overhaul on my Hei-Hei.
I think I got the bushing and bearing kit for the biker back in October, but I just haven't had the motivation to get this thing done. (I blame winter and the fact that I have a second mtn bike)

 Here is my starting point, the rear triangle is completely removed along with the pivots and rear shock. The rear shock was also overhauled but since the seals on it were in fine shape this pretty much accounted to re-applying the proper amount of shock oil.

The hardest part about this project was the lack of a proper bearing press. I basically made one up by taking a huge vice and various sizes of sockets to push the bearings in and out. The bearing case right above the bottom bracket was crazy difficult to work with. The bearings inside were crazy tight and it took me forever to find a good way to hold the vice and two sockets while simultaneously cranking really hard to remove the bearings. Once everything was off, I was ready for assembly.

Even if I hadn't been the one who took the bike apart, the reassembly would still have been pretty straightforward. All of the parts have an obvious spot to go to so there was no guessing required. Naturally I started in the exact opposite order of when I took it apart

 Pressing in the bearings this time was a cinch as it only required one socket - Pushing in the bushings on the pivot bodies was the same story.

Here's the bike with the rear triangle installed...

And now with the rear shock installed...

 Last step was to reinstall the rest of the drivetrain components. Unfortunately I lost the bolt that holds on the front derailleur. Once I get a replacement at work I'll be able to add it along with the chain and finally connect all the cables. She lives again! Now to overhaul the road bike - after 20,000km pretty much everything on that bike is shot to hell

So dirt, we meet again.

Soaring temps across the country means trails are drying up quicker than ever. I headed out to the Don Valley for some singletrack re-education. The trails, however familiar to me, were a nice change to all the road and trainer riding I've been doing - It also marks the first time I've done a trail ride since I got contacts in December. In the past I've ridden without my glasses, my eyesight isn't so poor that I can't ride but all the details are blurred. I feel like I've been hindered in past races due to my poor eyesight but even from this first outing I feel faster.

Back to the ride - Parked at the Pottery Road entrance and there was already three cars and five riders. Headed up the first climb and immediately felt winded, just something about being back on the mountain bike made my heart race a little faster. Once I settled in at the top it was all business as usual. I laughed when I saw the trail closed due to construction signs that had been torn down, neatly rolled up and placed at the side of the trail. More cyclists were staging at the Loblaws parking area so I quickly chose the downhill so I wouldn't get caught up.

My biggest weakness has always been downhills and I've always attributed this to my eyesight. I don't see obstacles until they're right in front of me so when I'm traveling downhill at high velocity I tend to shy away from the quicker lines until I can see everything. However this time with my contacts in with 20-15 vision I felt I had never gone quicker. With this new found velocity I almost had an over-the-bar moment when I hit a crest with my weight too far forward. The front fork absorbed most of that mistake but there was definitely a moment of "oh shit."

The rest of the ride was pretty drama free, the bike felt great and in perfect tune. As I was leaving even more people were pulling into the parking lots. I ended the ride with just over 30km ridden at a moderate pace.

This Sunday marks 5 weeks until the opening race of the OCup series at Mansfield. Training will steadily increase in terms of workload over the next four weeks.I will be training through Mansfield so there won't be a real serious taper, just a slight decrease in intensity so I'm not completely gassed before the race.

Off to complete a suspension overhaul...

Fox tech seminar

Nothing like a six am wake-up time to start the day. Yeah right, mornings are the bane of my existence and I am forever grateful that the expert cat races are 1:30 start time rather than the 11:30 I had to do in sport class, that was seriously terrible having to wake up that early to get to the race course on time.

ANYWAYS the early start was so I could make it to Fox Racing Shox's tech seminar at 8:30. The fog was as thick as soup all day today so that didn't help driving all to the way to Markham's Joyride 150, the venue for said seminar.

I'd always wanted to go to Joyride in the winter but never found the chance. Our "swag" for attending the seminar was a free day pass and rental if need be to the park. 2 hours of learning about the latest and greatest forks and shocks on the market followed by free entry into the best bike park around? I'll wake up whenever you want me to.

So I arrive at Joyride, chat with the other mechanics and then we get down to business.

ok that's like 10 grand worth of merchandise on the table

All the 2012 lineup for Fox Shox was present. Working on a 32, we learned how to take the fork apart, what to look for in terms of wear, fix what needs fixin', and finally put it all back together. We also saw a fork that was unsalvageable and its reasons why. Apparently the previous owner cleaned his bike all the time, but he did it with a pressure washer and ended up destroying the seals over the fork stanchions. All kinds of crap got through the seals and destroyed the lowers.

The most interesting thing I learned was the difference in the low friction seals that are new to Fox. Everyone know about the Kashima coating, but they also put a lot of R&D into these seals. One 40 that was shown to us had the new seals on one stanchion with the old seals on the other. As we were able to manipulate each stanchion independently of the other, it was easy to see how much of a difference they make. The new coating and seals make the whole package so smooth and easy, that many pro riders have had to add a few more psi into their setups to get the same feeling out of their suspension. The decreased friction makes it seem like there's less air in the fork.

All the new seals and rebuild kits for 2012

We covered the maintenance for the float rear shocks as well. I've done it once before but I had forgotten how easy it is. I remember Pink Bike did a Tech Tuesday on it once and once you get the Float Rebuild kit it's all downhill from there, it's absurdly easy - Unless the internals are messed, then you need to send it back to Fox. (You don't want to be cracking the 350psi chamber on your own)

After the seminar we were free to roam. As it was approaching 30 degrees outside, you can assume that no one wanted to come in and ride inside. As such we had the whole place to ourselves

I'd never been dirt jumping before, so I was hoping I wasn't go to go home on a stretcher. Fortunately Joyride has a very progressive difficulty curve. I started off on the pump track before moving on to the easy jumps. As I became more and more comfortable with riding a bike whilst airborne, I moved on to the intermediates. It's so freaking addicting to be airborne, I was absolutely loving the feeling.

I also did the foam pit a couple of times just for the hell of it, not trying to pull anything.

It is stupid difficult to get out of the foam pit once you're in there. 

After I left Joyride, I headed home still wanting to do some more riding. I wasn't in the mood for more driving so I just tooted around town practicing trial type stuff. As I was going along the waterfront I came across a piece of concrete that jutted far out into the water. Normally you can pretty much see across Lake Ontario to Niagara - Today, not so much...

Rattlesnake Point

Right so I've mentioned this a couple of times. Before I continue any further, a disclaimer. No it does not compete with what the pros go through in say, the TdF. While the climb does have a steeper average grade, it's only a kilometre long whereas the Pyrenees are climbs at around 10% but for 20km. Training on this hill is ideal for me though because racing mountain bikes in Ontario means a lot of short, punchy climbs where you don't have to sustain your effort for that long. The longest climb in OCup racing that I can think of is the one at Kelso (which is also off the calender for the 2012 year). Once that climb is done, the rest of the course is relatively flat. The Green Monster at Albion is another steep one but it's over very quickly. 

As for the workout, I just climb it at a steady pace until I can't do it again. It's geared more towards improving leg strength than cardio fitness due to the incline. In some places the grade is so steep it becomes challenging just to keep the bike moving even in the lowest gear. 

Traffic is pretty common on the road but everyone I've encountered is very courteous, always waiting to make sure no traffic is coming before overtaking. Going the opposite direction, I'm actually much faster than cars but you'll never see me trying to overtake on the narrow road and blind corners.

3/4's of the way up is a pretty wicked switchback. One truck that passed me actually spun his tires as he attempted the corner, so he left me with a nice haze of burnt rubber to ride through as I was sucking wind as hard as I could. The outside of the switchback is about as steep as the rest of the hill - however if you take the inside line prepare to fall backwards, I've seen cars bottom out as they made their descent. 

My road bike right now is in such bad shape, the crank arm on the non-drive side has about 2 inches of play, the chain and cassette are worn and the tires are so used that they're squared off. I have the means to fix it but I haven't wanted to put the money into it because I have my new road bike coming (but apparently it's still on backorder...) 

I've been putting off trail riding because in the past I've always made the mistake of jumping the gun and hitting the trails too early and just making a mess of things. From what the forums are telling though is that the trails in the GTA are prime for riding so I'll be sure to hit them up this week. 

To do list for this week:

1) Finish rear suspension rebuild on my Hei-Hei

2) Fox racing shox tech clinic to attend

3) Put together tool list for order (like $350 dollars worth of new tools)

4) Get out for some plain ol' trail rides

Shifting is really hard

I wonder why?

Bring on the Hills

Anytime I don't want to go for a long ride but I still want to get a good workout in, I head for the hills. High Park is very close and it has a nice little route to do some repeats on. I didn't get away until after dinner so the ride was from 10pm to midnight. No one was around but the mercury dropped substantially.

Starting at the Queensway and heading North on Ellis brings you to the first climb. Starts out very gradual, steepens in the last half and levels out just before the turn. Then it's a very fast, sweeping downhill curve that bring you to the base of the next climb.

This climb is very short but super steep. There's also a switch back halfway up that brings you to the steepest part of the interval. The interval ends when you crest the final bump and get back up to speed on Bloor St. The "off" section of the interval follows the ring road in the park and all the way back down to the starting point. The "on" portion is only 2km long so it's a hard effort, around 80-90%. My HR max is 200 so the first climb I'm around 180 bpm and close to 190 on the second. The last 3.2km of the route are very easy. Workout was 2 sets of 3 reps each.

The elevation profile of the final climb. Maxes out at a 20% grade. Mercifully, it's very short.

Rattlesnake point is still the king of hills around here.

Bike Stable Part 1

Throughout the coming posts I will be sharing my repertoire of bicycles. I currently have four in total with a fifth on its way (apparently it's on backorder).

First up is my 2008 Kona Hei-Hei. My first mountain bike I ever purchased. I got a Kona because the first bike I competed on was a hand-me-down from my dad. I liked it so figured why not try another.

Up until last summer, I rode almost exclusively on this bike. It was my primary bike in all of my 24 hour races and go-to bike for any O-Cups or U-Cups. I also brought it on a training trip to Sun Valley, Idaho and used it for some serious climbing and descending.

SIDE STORY ALERT
Sun Valley is more of a ski place than bike place. On the day I arrived the stores ad already closed so I couldn't ask where the trails are. I decided to climb the cat tracks to the top of the nearby mountain. The base is around 5000ft. The top is just under 10,000ft. Either way I was huffing and puffing like crazy as my normal altitude is just 250ft.

ANYWAYS this is almost at the top but even in June, the top was still covered in snow. The ascent was 1hr 45min of pure agony. The descent was like nothing I had ever done before, the rotors were glowing hot and I was getting a lot of brake fade. I tried to cool them off with snow on the side of the trail but they manged to burn all the way through a hunk of ice and imprint my glove. As the trip went on I got the ascent down to 40 minutes and a lot more comfortable on high speed downhills. It only took me twelve days to go through a brand new set of brake pads.
END SIDE STORY



I'm pretty sure the only original part of this bike is the frame and fork. Everything else has been replaced due to preference or wear and tear. The original wheels were FSA XC300's - they looked sick and weighed nothing but the rims got bent all the time - I was preriding the Canada Cup at Hardwood the day before the race. As I was coming down boneshaker the front rim collapsed. I bought Deore XT wheels almost immediately and have been very satisfied, they are bomb proof. I also discovered the magic of tubeless tires to go along with it!

The bike has more than enough travel for anything in Ontario and does a decent job climbing the really tough stuff. Now with the addition of my hard-tail, I only use it when doing 24 hour races or the really bumpy or wet courses.

On the road again

15 degrees and sunny in the middle of March means everyone is outside today. Did a short training ride from Port Credit to Britannia and 6th Line. Total distance around 65km. Saw probably over 40 other cyclists out and about. Headwind on the way out was brutal, everyone I passed had pain written all over their faces and I can't say I wasn't hurting too.

This next week is supposed to be really warm  - I might head up to Rattlesnake point for some hill workouts and if it dries up enough, (please please please) I'll try and hit some of the brown pow.

My bike is making crunchy sounds

I wonder why?

ABS V-Brakes? Yes

If you were asked how you could improve on bicycles today, what would you do? It's not like making changes to a car where you could alter the powerplant or add on extra safety features like more airbags or ABS standard.

Well SABS decided that V-brakes on a bike were not... safe enough? Cool enough? I don't know, but one day in the shop one of our techs brought in ABS V-brakes for us to try out.

They install like any other brake pad (minus maneuvering the massive cylinders around the frame) and they work with a pre-existing V-brake. Once they're installed they're good to go, so how do they work?

Magic. Actually from what I can get off the side of the package is that at different speeds they generate a frequency of braking and releasing several times a second automatically. In practical terms, this means that in a panic or emergency stop type situation, you can just give her on the brake lever (bringing the lever all the way to the bars) and the system will bring you to a controlled stop without any wheel skid.

   We only had a rear set, so we threw them on and had a go in the parking lot. At a standstill there is no difference to the lever pull, even pulling as hard as we could the lever could not go any closer than half an inch to the bar. However once we got moving (even at walking pace) the lever would sink all the way to the bar and bring you to a pretty quick stop (for just using the rear wheel that is) and all without any wheel skid.

So it works as advertised but are they really necessary? For someone like myself - no. For someone who doesn't think they'd be able to come to a controlled stop in a panic situation - I suppose so. Having said that they retail for like a hundred bucks. I'll stick to the classics. 

The Misery Machine AKA The Trainer

Any cyclist from a colder climate knows the misery of the bike trainer. For those of you who don't know, take all the things that are fun about about cycling, such as speed, sunshine, wind through your hair and flowy roads or singletrack. Now take all of those away and keep all the bad ones. The seclusion, the heat, the monotony and the agony. Add in a double dose of agony and you've got your typical bike trainer workout.

I'd love to ride outside, but when the mecury drops and you can't see the road you're left with the choice of couch or trainer.

This winter has been really warm though and so I've managed 300km on the road through January and February. There was 20km on the mountain bike in there somewhere but that was a mistake, I'm still cleaning the mud off..

 And so this is where I've spent my time on the trainer. I ride my '93 Kona Explosif with trainer tire on a Blackburn fluid. Best part about this is the videos I can watch while spinning. One DVD is the Amstel Gold Race in the Netherlands. Essentially I have a camera view of the lead car in front of the peloton. Couple that with some really loud music and it almost becomes bearable

I've got another one where I follow behind team Lampre as they go on a training ride somewhere in Italy. I typically eschew following along with the course profile and instead just do intervals.

Last ride was 3 sets of 3 reps, 4 minutes on 4 minutes off. I'm able to get right into the intervals this time of year since I had winter training camp and other practices with the UofT nordic team to act as my base.

Temps are supposed to be up the next week, perfect opportunity to get back outside.

Bike Show 2012

Something of an official start to the season for many, The Toronto Spring Bike Show is all new to me. Even before working as a mechanic, I had never attended. This year I was there helping out with sales, tunes and tech questions.

Impressions!

1) OMG so much bike porn! I wish I had had more chances to walk around. It was probably for the best though otherwise I'd be drooling over the displays.

McLaren Venge? Holy smokes that's a beautiful bike. Makes the waiting for my own Venge Expert all the more difficult. And the the Shiv on the bottom you may notice it's lacking in bottle cage mounts. That's because there's a reservoir in the down tube (so freaking cool)

2) So many different groups coming through. First one was a wee kid with his dad looking for a new bike to race OCups in. Had another who was fully clad in spandex, road shoes and cycling cap just looking for a saddle. He found his favourite Selle Italia and I'm pretty sure he rode it home

3) It's so freaking hot in there. See the black bar n the ceiling? That's a heater, directly above the cash and I'm pretty sure they never turned it off. Add in a few thousand people and things become... sticky.

Best remedy after pulling a 12 hour shift? Cold beer, but you already knew that.

Kick off

And so begins my blog of cycling, one that will chronicle my adventures in wrenching and racing bikes.

A little about me -

I've been racing bikes for just under five years. I started when I was 17 and lied about my age to sign the waiver necessary to race (It was a spur of the moment thing for me so the parents weren't around.) Lo and behold I won the first race I entered, consider me hooked. Racing for the University of Toronto mountain bike team convinced me to try the OCup circuit and maybe a 24 hour race. Long story short, I'm coming off a HAN Solo victory and entering a second OCup season at the expert level.

Racing and training has always necessitated a basic knowledge of bikes, and how to pull off minor repairs if need be. I figured I might as well take it a step further and fix other peoples' bikes. I've been working in a shop for less than a year but I'm fairly confident in my abilities. Anytime I'm stumped though I have the senior techs to fall back on.

This upcoming season I will be racing again at the expert level, and on a team this time for the 24 hours race. I'm going to try and throw in a training trip out west if I find the time (and money)

I've never been more pumped for a bike season to start, I'm anticipating many kilometres and hopefully only a few bonks.