post two from sea otter

the salsa mamasita. you can't have one yet, but i got to touch one today.



the salsa caserol - very nice do everything kind of bike. reminds me a lot of my old panasonic road frame.



mark hendershot is forced to work on his own bike to earn his keep. watch out for the syndicate and their super kewl new bikes this year.



they are sporting some awesome paint jobs. there are 40 frames out there this year with this paint job.



mark said they took about 4 hours each to paint the detail on and they look super sharp. also, watch out for his "rider card" put out by santa cruz - great photo.



upclose of the new ergon pack - the swivel on top keeps everything centered and off the back. very unique design that seems to make "light" of carrying heavy packs.

i should of been a comedian.



pic 2 of the ergon. watch out for this bad boy in ergon green.



justin is the rep for princeton tec back east - had the full line up to check out at sea otter. watch out for him and their lights coming to a race near you.



on a quest to find something stupid light, i can up with this. the newest stork carbon frame that utilizies some new technology to sqeeze out all the extra glue on the carbon frames when these bad boys are put together.

stupid light weight: 850 grams for the frame. oh my.



prototype of the stork mountain frame. they use some crazy kind of technology to get a super sweet weeve going on the frame. this frame was built beefy and came in around a very heavy 1300 grams.

the production version...

stupid light weight: 1000 grams. oh my. again.

issue with this frame: it is not running 29 inch wheels.



kish ti frames. nice line up, all custom, super clean welds, great paint.

nice, simple, clean looking ti. very impressive work.



the dirt jump area. super high winds sent one rider a flyin' to the hospital.



the down hill for the kids - there were tons of little ones bombing down this.



when i'm not riding enduro, i like to practice back flips. hells ya.



the new litespeed. more of a moots guy myself, but they got this top tube to increase stiffness and a flattened stay like the mamasita so that the rear end is a little more compliant.

that's it - gotta run. next post will probably be late tomorrow, early monday.

got some good pics from the solo 24 showing - stay tuned!

sologoat out

post one from sea otter

just a few updates before i head out to the 24 solo premiere.

weather is a non-horrible sunny 60 degree day in monterey. pre-rode the long 19 mile'ish course. very open, with some single track. although it does not have any long sustained climbs, as soon as you go up....

you must come down. pics of the course up in the next few days.

got to walk around the venue today - pretty much an interbike for the consumer. the downhill kids were all out in mass today, which kind of got annoying after you watched the 100th kid ride a wheelie past you through the vendor tents acting as if you had never seen a wheelie before.

ergon, princeton tec, tifosi are out here. justin from princeton tec took me out on a night ride last night that included maurice from dirt rag, an editor from bike magazine and two editors from velonews. very kewl. also got to check out the switchback 1. nice.



got some new pink tifosi's from shannon over at the tifosi tent. nice to run into her again - she handles all my tifosi relations and is one of their reps.

and, ran into mr mark hendershot. he's got this kewl rider card and a super sweet paint job to match. santa cruz has been nice to him and has let them crash out in california for awhile. he'll be at the premiere tonight.

with that, gots to run. much more to post, including some great pics of the new products out there including some stupid light frames from stork. we're talking 850 gram 57cm frames. prototype 1000 gram 18 inch mountain frames (running 26 inch wheels) with stupid kewl carbon weaves to match the stupid light frame it is.

sologoat out

off to sea some otters

more updates on the 24 solo premiere - the premiere party bash starts on friday at around 6pm, chris makes his red carpet appearance around 6:30'ish. chris, poz and i will be singning autographs and sipping martini's before the start of the film at 8pm.

hendershot is also in town for all the festivities, but i am not 100% sure if he's at the premiere.



finally getting my new stuff dialed in - most noteably, my new northwaves. pretty sweet carbon soles, new buckle system, adjustable velcro straps. very nice.



asylums are almost complete now, still waiting on those dt 190's. i could do dt 240's, but at this point, it would totally kill me to know that i could have a lighter wheelset.



ah, and jim b has now hooked a brother up with another wobblenaught fit. this time through, we concentrated on getting one bike really dialed in before we start working on the other bike. we are hoping for better fits for both bikes.

also, this gave me a little time to work with jim on some pedaling tricks to eek out some additional power.

a friend once told me that you can learn how to cast a fly rod in a few hours. but to master it, it takes years.

same could be said about pedaling a bike.

hoping to get some pics up on the blog from sea otter, but don't know how much time i'll get inbetween having fun and having fun. i'll post when i can.

with that, gotta run - good-bye thy damned cold rain!

sologoat out

Gripped Films Announcement

For Immediate Release

Gripped Films Announces 24 Solo World Premiere

Arlington, VA, April 9, 2007 — Gripped Films is pleased to announce the World Premiere of their newest film, 24 Solo Friday, April 13th at 8pm. at the historic Golden State Theatre in downtown Monterey, CA .The Friday show will have cast and crew available for autographs and will be followed by additional screenings both Saturday and Sunday nights (7pm. & 9pm. each night). Tickets and pre-orders for the DVD (due out immediately after the premiere) are available at www.24-solo.com. While visiting the site be sure to watch the new trailer.

Presented by TREK Bicycles and VW, 24 Solo, follows 24 Hour Solo World Champion Chris Eatough on his quest to a 7th consecutive title. The film balances action and emotion with commentary from the biggest names in mountain biking including Gary Fisher, John Stamstad, Alison Dunlap, Ned Overend and others cut to a powerful soundtrack crafted by the award-winning Off Road to Athens composer Haik Naltchayan. From resounding victories in China and Wisconsin to his intense training that leads to the final race, viewers will have an unprecedented glimpse into the intense machine that is Eatough and his support crew. For the championship race 5 high def. cameras were rolling for 24 hours to capture what VeloNews called “The most epic race of 2006”. From the first lap Eatough and Australian Craig Gordon push each other into a state of life threatening exhaustion. Viewers hear each rider narrate the chain of events that ended with one racer hospitalized with severe blood poisoning.

More information, photos and production notes are posted on the movie website, www.24-solo.com

Film maker’s bios:
Jason Berry has produced multiple features for broadcast as well as 2 sports documentaries. His first feature-length production, Off Road to Athens, has won multiple awards and was nominated for Best Documentary in 6 international film festivals. Jason manages our Arlington editing studio when he’s not kayaking, cycling and surfing.

Managing Gripped Films and a successful exhibit production company, Ken Bell operates our Harrisonburg office. When not cycling and researching new gear, Ken splits time between running Trade Show Direct, Gripped Films and chasing after his 3 active sons. 24 Solo is his second film and he looks forward to new projects.

Contact info:
Jason Berry, Director
jason@grippedfilms.com

Ken Bell, Producer
ken@grippedfilms.com

cold day in ohio

yet again. short post, gotta sneak in a ride before heading north for some dinner with the family.

wobblenaught fit now complete, will be tweaked a little more before my next races - then that fit info will be carried over to asylum #2. no sense in having two bikes slightly off, better to get one perfect first, then carry that info over to the next bike.

pedal stroke is still getting dialed in, makes a HUGE difference in wattage and heart rate. but, easily said, it is not something that comes without practice.

sea otter is next week, looking forward to warmer weather though it is only supposed to be in the mid 50'ish the last time i looked. hell, at this point, 50'ish is a ton better then 20'ish.

with that, gotta roll. stay tuned for some pics from my wobblenaught fitting and some princeton tec switchback 2 and 3 photo's.

sologoat out

ergon and princeton tec updates

speedgoat has some new links and blog post up.

check out their site HERE to check out all the lights in the switchback series.

and, a SPEEDGOAT BLOG ENTRY inspired by my recent swithcback 3 review - this time, the blog entry is from a customer.

also, check out booth 151 if you happen to be at sea otter - you can check out their entire line up.


and, thinking of cool new products out there, have to check out jeff kerkove's blog to check out a picture of the new ergon seatpost. carbon suspension. that's all i am going to say - check it out for yourself.

ergon will also be out at sea otter (which from the looks of it, is basically an outdoor Interbike) at booth 234. check it out - they will have their new packs there and more then likely, some of the new carbon grips. jeff will be handing out free stuff, so go check them out. (just kidding, but go see jeff anyway)

that's it other then wobblenaught fit on the new bikes will commence tomorrow. lowering of bars, adjusting for new stem and grips, setup of new northwave shoes - all in the quest for more power.

sologoat out

mother nature is playing tricks

today hit in the high 70's - tomorrow's high is going to be 44.

i need to move south.

initial rides on the new asylums are complete and once again, dan has worked his magic building up two very solid machines. without the new stupid light wheels, the new build ups are around a 1/2 pound lighter then last years version.

biggest change in overall feel of the bike is going from running a riser to straight bars and running the ergon grips. switched them due to two factors - one being that the bend of risers tend to put my wrists at odd angle and that itself seems to cause more fatigue (at least it does in my head), and the second is because of my new obsession on overall weight. straight bars tend to be lighter then risers - less material, less weight. 'nuff said.

and the ergons seem to be helping out as well with the whole hand fatigue thing as well as i can now rest my hands a little more and have a little bit more to grip onto. i swear every time i ride with them i get this thought in my head, "why didn't these come out years ago?"...

anyhoo, gots to run. early am ride hopefully before the weather goes south.

sologoat out

pic post

why am i so happy?



100 miles in, 2 hours to go and not a drop of rain the entire day. sweet.



the tifosi optics pave - proving to be a very nice optic choice so far. very wide field of vision (no frame blocking side view) and the lens itself sits off your face so it doesn't fog up or collects sweat dripping off your face. comes with 3 lens options.



and a little better pic of the el mariachi. paint is incredible, and i am digging the matching stem and blue ano salsa seat collar and skewers. a lot of bike for not that much money. only thing i am going to switch out is the saddle as it is a ton wider then the concor's i have been running for the past 3 years.

and - another bonus is the fact that the MAXXIS tires comes stock.

stay tuned for updates on the bike, literally only rode it 5 minutes today as i just couldn't take an uncomfortable saddle - also, i was tempted to stop riding there was a hot pizza sitting in my kitchen and i rode all day.

that's it, gotta roll.

sologoat out

asylums now in my hands

random updates for ya. meet the new team vehicle. this is speedgoat owner chris's own personal ride that is being converted to use vegetable oil for gas. interestingly enough, the EPA says that using this type of fuel may do harm to the environment. hmmm...



akron is the home some tire company that i am not sponsored by that has a blimp. it was out for a joy ride in akron last night....



ah, and the asylum are now back in my hands - minus the ergon grips, new wheels, and seat/post. (better pic's up later!)



and, the el mariachi is finally in and converted to single speed use. was going to try and run it with the 1x9 setup, but going single seemed to be the thing to do. will be mostly using this bike for easy training days and for bonus hour rides on the weekends when i need to get some additional hours in.



and, just got in the super hot pink hammer nutrition arm warmers. they will totally clash against everything, so i am pretty stoked about that.

gotta run - work to do.

sologoat out.

recovery day ride

when you do a bunch of tempo work, sometimes two hours of easy riding is a lot harder then 6 hours at a hard pace.



so, one passes the time taking a ton of pictures.



new bikes will be in my hands tomorrow, hopefully fitted up soon.

sea otter is now all offically planned out. got a good deal on a car rental and it's looking to be a good trip. not racing out there as my race is later in the day on sunday and i would have to take another day of vacation for monday. no worries though as the main reason i am out there is for the 24 solo premier and to check out some west coast riding.

sologoat out

from bad to good

saturdays ride was a wet one - 55 degrees and rain for about 80% of my ride. a friend of a friend once said that bad weather riding either makes you or breaks you. i believe it.



ah, but with the bad comes the good. today warmed up to the high 60's with bright sunshine. half way through i hooked up with an old roommate of mine, tris h.

awhile back, we were neighbors with wobblenaught guru jim b. soon after riding and training a ton with jim, tris upgraded to cat 2 on the road. i upgraded to cat 2 on the road as well (cat 1/elite in cross) as two upgrades in mountain biking. first to semi-pro then to pro.

jim tends to bring out the best in us - check out his link/email on the wobblenaught site.

in bike news, my moots sl cross frame is in the works, and my salsa el mariachi is waiting at speedgoat along with my asylums.

ah, gotta love this addiction we call cycling.

sologoat out.

rainy weekend in ohio

rain and 55'ish degrees here in ohio this lovely spring morning.

not mucho to report on other then the 2007 asylums are near completion and will be picked up later on next week, minus the stupid light wheelsets. those will be built up and on the bikes by the end of april.

fitness is coming around, weight is going down, and i'll be getting re-wobblenaughted fitted once i get the bikes in. i sat a little more upright before, so now we are going to lower it to a more of an aggressive race position as we hope to tweak out a little more wattage.

more watts, lower weight for bikes and body - should equal out to a higher strength to weight ratio.

with that, gotta roll out for a rainy day saturday ride.

sologoat out

get yer moots today

just wanted to give a heads up to any fellow moots freaks out there - if you want to get an SL (super light) from moots, as of april 1 (no joke!) they will no longer offer sl tuubing.

the work thing has been keeping me super busy as of late, when i am not working, i am either sleeping or riding my bike.

not mucho going on right now, other then getting things ready for this year and trying to sneak in some more base miles. road racing should start up pretty soon, sea otter is coming up which should be super cool.

the 24 solo project from the gripped film guys is in the final stages of production. it will premier at sea otter on friday night, then have showings every night after. there is a handful of other venues showing the film after that, hopefully one of them being up in the cleveland area. CAMBA and gripped films are working out the details, so keep a look out for that.

that's it for tonight - meeting with my boss tomorrow so i gots to review a ton of stuff that i have been putting off for way too long.

hopefully we will be negotiating me working less and getting paid more....

ya, right.

sologoat out

windy days in ohio

the wind has been hellish the last few days in ohio, but at least it's starting to warm up a little. hit a high of around 42'ish today. i swear this weather is driving me nutz.

asylums are getting rebuilt so i am giving a shout out to all those who have stepped up and have helped getting things together:

dan the man
pretty much is the only person who has ever worked on my bikes and they have worked flawlessly throughout my 24 hour racing career with speedgoat. mucho thanko.

genuine george
has built all of wheels for the past 7 seasons - cross, road and mountain. he's currently in process working up some magic with some dt 190 hubs and stans rims for the 2007 bikes.

jeremy
has super rad tat's, mad skillz on a bike and a wealth of knowledge about the industry. he's also helped tracked down parts that were out of stock everywhere that we needed for the current builds, got my clothing in line and helped with sponsors for the past two seasons. he's pretty much the team director for the one man team of asylum cycles.



one of the new tifosi optics glasses i will trying out this year with be the
TIFOSOI KILO's. so far, they are working out great - removable lenses, nice wide glass with interchangeable lenses. retail price is 50 dollars which comes with 3 lenses and a case. sweet.

i'll be using the kilo's this year along with the quam 1.5's and my all time favorite the Q3's.

in training tools, i am debating on picking up a GARMIN EDGE 305. i'm hearing good stuff about it and i figure that it may be a good tool to use during my business travels - i can download training routes off the web making it a little easier to get a good ride in.

with that, gotta run.

sologoat out.

a day in the life of sologoat

6am
wake up in a holiday inn express in columbus ohio. eat some yummy cinnamon rolls, pack up and head out to a client office.

8am
for the next 8 hours, i teach 6 service tech administrators how to setup and workflow of their great plains wennsoft field service accounting system. what they will learn in the next two days will give the basics of what they will need to know to run their 100+ man service divsion.

4pm
start the drive home, planning out my route in my head.

6pm
arrive home. check emails, change into riding clothes, grab a little to eat, mix up some bottles.

6:45pm
i start my ride. thunderstorms are hitting north, i decide to chance it. it looks bad, so i turn around only to realize the storm is now blowing to the east and has missed me. i turn back north and wrap up my 3 hour ride.

9:45pm
at a time when most people are going to bed, i am just eating dinner.



11pm
after checking emails, checking out way too many blogs, cycling websites and ebay auctions, i head to bed.

just another day in the life.

sologoat out

greetings from columbus

probably one of the hardest things in my training schedule to figure out is trying to fit it in with a 40 hour week.

columbus ohio has been a common workplace for me for years and today i found a new training area - sunburry. nice rural area out of the city and i can ride out of the hotel.


got an ergon grip question the other day - his keen eye caught the fact that i am running the trigger styled grips with twist shifters. note, this is not by choice as they are setup on my winter training bike and that is the only type of shifter i have. and, the super light weight carbon grips are on their way -- i do believe mr. kerkove has got one pair of the new ones in his mits.

also in ergon news, keep an eye out for their new backpacks that has a pretty unique design that allows full access to your back jersey pockets.


that's it for tonight, tired beyond belief tonight.

sologoat out

weekend wrap up

was a hectic weekend last week - lots of miles and a trip out to the goat. very nice day out there on saturday, but my favorite climb had about 2 inches of ice on it half way up.

el mariachi comes in today, asylums are now in the hands of dan the man. we are swtiching some things up as far as the bikes go, most noteably is that i am going back to 3 rings up front. we were originally going to maybe switch out the middle ring with a slightly smaller ring depending on the course, but we decided against it to save the hassle of having to switch things around for each race.

and my wobblenaught fit will get slightly tweaked - we had my position dialed in, but i was sitting a tab more upright. we're hoping to get me down a little more to what my position is on my cross bikes - which, seeing as i had some good results last year during cross season is not a hard decision to make.

that's it - gotta run.

stay tuned this week - princeton tec and ergon updates are coming at ya.

sologoat out

it's friday night

and i am loving the 45 degree weather in ohio.

local yocal hike/bike trails somehow still have 2-3 inches of ice on them despite the warm weather, so i have said the hell with getting trashed this week and i rigged up the ultra night road riding rig. if you don't see the flashing lights from my bike a mile away, you have to be blind.

bikes and i are departing to speedgoat to meet up with dan the man. he'll strip down the bikes and all the new stuff is going on. should be interesting to run a full xtr group - haven't done that since about 8 or 9 years ago. gasp.

in single speed news, the el mariachi is on it's way. going to actually run the stock 1x9 setup for awhile - salsa has done a very good job setting up stock kick butt kind of bikes, so i am interested to checkout the overall setup before going single speed.

that's it - gotta run. early departure tomorrow to try and beat the rain.

sologoat out.

a cold ride and the handmade bike show

sundays adventure in 20 degree weather was quite a treat - 2 flats at the turn around point of 3 hours put me directly in the middle of nowhere. oh, the fun we have trying to change a flat in the middle of winter.

got home and checked out the homemade bike show pics from MTBR. honestly, i'm not really into a lot of what is out there in this area of the industry as i tend to look at a bike as to wether or not it functions in a race situation. but guys around like indy fab, castellano, vanilla - you are sure to see some really cool stuff.

here's my favorites... (all pics can be seen at FLICKR)



this is a shot of the vanilla stem that is actually the top cap for a king headset as well. saw a few of their frames out at cross nats - very pretty classic looking steel bikes. these guys do some nice work



wolfhound caught my eye with two crazy 29er designs - this is the first of them. note the internal cable routing on the top tube (reminds me of my old panasonic road frame from back in the days) and check out the crazy seat tube that splits into a "y" near the bottom bracket.



and this is off another rockhound. you heard of eccentric bottom brackets, right? well, how about an eccentric rear dropout?



then to top off rockhound's zaniness, check out this 29er frame. more curves then you know what to do with.



indy fab showed up with a 26 inch hardtail with a carbon lefty. too bad the wheels are the wrong size, or i would guess this one would be going to harlan.



and.... ah, the bow ti is back.



the bow ti in it's original design was built by ibis - now by castellano who also makes a 69er..

this frame is way cool, but i dig the old frame design better.


that's it - gotta get some asylums cleaned up to get ready to a speedgoat visit so dan the man can work some magic.

sologoat out

winter riding 101

yesterdays ride was a question of how much sliding around on ice covered bike trails i could take. the answer was about 2 1/2 hours, with another couple of hours on top of that.

not much to report on, other then my new ergon grips have found their way onto my soma juice winter bike. very nice grips, curves where they 'ought to be, soft material compared to some of the other lock on grip brands - sort of feels like the grip is really shaped to the palm of your hand. i have a tendency to just rest my hands on the bars without my thumb locked underneath when i don't need to (going up climbs, mostly - to save my hands over the next 24 hours), so these grips are working out really nice. and when you do stand up, it feels like the grips give you a little bit of extra leverage on the bars.

i am running the mens model, but i have heard from others that they are using the womens version as it is a little thinner/softer grip overall.

the maxxis ignitors are on the way and the maxxis crossmark's are not out yet, though i heard a rumor of availability some time this month.

thoughts of the salsa el mariachi are dancing in my head, but i don't know what gearing to run. any suggestions would be appreciated. offhand, was thinking of running something like a 32x18/19 and then having a 16 or 17 tooth cog for when i am riding the flatish paved hike/bike paths here in kent/cleveland area.

with that, gotta roll.

sologoat out