tales from the "it's life Jim, but not..." dept.

ooh today I had some actual forest time on the Scandal. Zomg, have I beat myself up or what? I can’t feel my legs o0

highlights: sessioning some cool trails in the rain, seeing a deer (a deer! (ok and a rabbit too) but a deer! that slotted right in at a shared number 1 spot with the fox I saw recently)

after that I was home, ate, had a shower, decided my legs were fucked up and went to Bo’s birthday. as he lives like five flights of stairs up getting to his house was somewhat interesting heh. afterwards I went to Hotel Bosch and had a few beers with Maks, Jacq, Patrick, Joost, Erwin and ofc Bo. As it was raining I only briefly kept the smokers company before retiring inside and then home.

I’m just having a quick drink before bed, and tomorrow I hope I can walk haha :D

Tears drown in the wake of delight. ~Interpol

Posted by TdC at 3:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

t’was yesterday. I left at 22:15, first 20km through a forest, with just the lights of my bike to guide me. man it was dark, for sure o0 I am slightly night blind, so contrast dropped away until everything was a wash of pale grey except the bit that my headlight illuminated. I couldn’t see much of anything, just the light grey ribbon of the path, with darker grey around it and pale grey trees -like columns made of mist- and so and went off the road twice where the bike path veered away from where I thought the road was (the road was still there, just a sandy path for horse riding where the hard bike path turned away - not good for a racing bike hehe).

Also, I have a VERY active imagination. VERY active. There were all kinds of scary monsters in the forest, I kid you not. Luckily I could psych myself away from thinking about them because I could “see” them quite well, and as I can see mostly jack shit in the dark I could tell the monsters weren’t real. Until I came apon a man standing by the side of the bike path. I thought he was a tall, pale spindly monster and ignored him until he scared the shit out of me by suddenly moving and speaking. Turned out he was on a bike with no lights (the fool), and had kindly pulled off the path when he saw me coming in the distance. Ofc he nearly gave me a fucking heart attack, but there you go. On the whole, the ride on the path through the dark forest was completely awesome. I had to focus my full attention on staying on the path, and had no time to think about anything but that. Just what I wanted, but even so I don’t think I’ll be doing it again until I get an extra headlight.

Posted by TdC at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, I can hardly feel my bum right now, but it was well worth it! Just been for a night ride on the road bike. Night ride, rain ride, bum destroyer, no matter. It was great, and very needed. I found a gear that held me back enough that I stayed at about 25 kph so my heart rate was a bit more proper, the air was very clean thanks to the rain, and I saw a fox!

The little animal was absolutely soaked from the rain, and scared the hell out of me when it shot across the cycle path directly through the beam of my headlamp. Even so, I saw that it had it’s ears up, eyes forward and it’s tail was bushy as it ran. Very inspiring.

46km in exactly two hours.

Posted by TdC at 12:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yay! Well, some pleasing things have happened to me. I realize I’ve not blogged for over a week, though I suppose you could say I’m living rather than writing life. Or at least doing things outside the house.

The new bike is in! The local courier who’d been fucking around with my parcels finally came through, after they’d made me angry enough to actually send them a letter of complaint. Not really hard though, I’m an angry enough bloke as it is currently, but they really managed to get my blood boiling (see other blog posts). Anyway, that’s all in the past now: the bike is here and that’s what counts. It needs tweaking though, for one thing I’ve been overenthusiastic in my choice of stem length. The 100mm one is really too long, though I chose it because I have the small size frame and I was scared it would be too small. Nothing of the kind, it is a perfect size frame for me at 5’8”, so once the shorter stem is here, which should be mmm friday I think, it will be all right. It’s making all kinds of new bike noises though, as all the kit on it gets used for the first time. There’s some strange scraping going on from the bottom bracket which I’m not pleased with, and there is the general being amazed at rim brakes and how long it takes them to break (or brake haha) in. I’ll see if i can take some pictures of it soonish.

I’ve already given it a shakedown ride on sunday, where I biked to Apeldoorn, some 60km. It held together and I didn’t die so all seems well enough. Roll on the shorter stem and I’ll be well pleased! 80mm should be enough.

I went to Luxor Theater on thursday last thanks to my friend Dennis. It was a thing for the 10 year anniversary of 3voor12, there were 4 bands, there was beer, I was on the guest list, all was good. I hadn’t been in Luxor since it was closed in 1997, and I certainly had some good memories there. They’ve done quite a lot of work cleaning the place up and I was very pleased to see the result. The sound in the main area was a bit poop at times, but I suppose that’s mostly due to nerves and people getting used to the kit that was installed rather than actual acoustics. It was great to be there again, and I was especially impressed with the last band, De Staat. Not bad. Though there was a lot of beer in me by that time. Even so, it was music that appealed to me. Making faces-rocking out music. Very nice.

Ok, now I have to go work again. Maybe more later. Bye kiddies.

Posted by TdC at 7:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hmm in reverse order, the bloody courier GLS has fucked up again: I bought a CX bike from PlanetX, and they sent it to me really quickly, but the idiot deliveryman at GLS failed to put a note through my letterbox, and now the bike has been sitting in a GLS depot somewhere while I waited for it to arrive! Idiots! This is the second time they’ve done this to me, ie no note, making me wait, etc. And today being a holiday in Holland I can’t call them ofc, which also sucks :/
My energy supplier is also messing up bigtime. It seems they’re willing to sell me electricity, but now they deny the ability to sell me gas, which means that either they’ve screwed up (again), or they really can’t, in which case I must wonder where the gas is coming from :/ Anyway, they now won’t let me log in to the online thing, because they deny me taking services from them. Well, I’ll see what happens. I’m about to go biking though, so I expect it will do me some good. I’m kinda hoping for a beer later on, but I’m not sure if the cafes will be open because everything seems closed.

Yesterday I was mostly trying to recover from the furious biking on saturday, and I spent the afternoon and evening at my friend Robert’s place helping him to fiddle with a mountain bike he was trying to salvage, then dinner and nice long chats with him and his wife, the cat lady. Then I went to my mum’s, as it was mother’s day so I sponged coffee off her and we had nice conversation, until I went home, played some X3 and crashed in bed.

Saturday I went to Brussels with my friend Easy Erwin, because we were going to be all nerdy and stuff by going to a Star Wars exposition. Very cool, some original props from the old movies, new movies, concept art (brilliant!). So we drove there, quite fun, felt like a little road trip kind of thing, and we were laughing and joking and the drive there was fine, weather great ofc. Expo was pretty big too, quite busy as well. There were actually girls there! By themselves! Amazing! Though most of them had their “I’m doing this for my boyfriend but I’ll make him pay later” faces on, some actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. Average public was pale long haired men wearing nu-metal or nu-goth band tshirts though hehe.
We decided to not go into Brussels proper and just drive back, as the idea was to go lie in the park with some wine. That changed to go out for beer later, so I went biking as I’d started to feel a little depressed again and needed to get rid of the cloud. So biking it was, and I hammered myself into a pulp by doing 55km in under 2 hours: 27.6km/h average. Quite fast on a mountainbike, in the woods. I somewhat frightened myself, as at one point I was rocketing down a forest trail at about 45km/h, but I have slicks on the bike as it’s supposed to stay on the road, but I didn’t care and just wanted to faster and faster and faster. Anyway I made it home and was completely wrecked mentally and physically, so I had a shower and went to bed. No going out tonight, oh no. It was nice to feed all the anger and hurt into the bike. At least that way I can be relaxed again once it’s gone. Just empty, no bad things, nothing.

Hmm my memory is failing, but I had another bbq night with Jacqueline, Patrick, Maks and his friend (but I forget her name oh dear oh dear) and it was really nice. Lots of music, beer and burnt food thanks to darling Maks, who forgets to turn things over fast enough hehe.

All in all a pretty decent couple of days, though I want my bike and I want time to go really fasssst because I still feel like shit on a daily basis thank you very much.

Posted by TdC at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Strange how I am writing the past. I seem to remember not too long ago I would usually be writing the future -I am going to do this and that- whereas now I am writing about things I have done.

I’ve just started work again after a week off. A much needed week off I must add, even though I’ve been ill twice and spend a cumulative two and a half weeks at home in bed :/ Anyway, I did work a saturday and monday evening so I made about 30hrs overtime, all nicely put into the holidays+buy-nice-things fund not bad for a week where I was actually off free heh.

I’d invited a bunch of friends over for Queensday with the promise of a barbecue on my roof terrace if the weather was nice enough, though I was slightly worried that it would rain as the weather people were displaying a distinct lack of enthusiasm in the long term plans: it was supposed to rain and maybe even some scattered thunderstorms, but I decided to have a party regardless of what the weathergods had in store for me, so being me, I was out buying a bbq and beer and meats after inviting people like, 2 days in advance hehe. Lots of stress and running about spending money, but I now own a Weber barby, and it works a charm.

So after all the running about and before the bbq party I went to Utrecht to go out with my friends Anita and Jeff, and I took Easy and his gf with me in the car. I was late ofc, so we left about the time we were supposed to arrive, but there was lots of laughing in the car and once in A&J’s house we had a drink and then all left to go to EKKO and the party there. A lack of drunk queensnight idiots, (almost) nobody wearing orange and really really really great music had us all in good moods and after a few beers we were all dancing to the smashing music. Even me! :-) The next day after we’d all woken up again we had lunch and then all five of us piled into my little car and we drove to Arnhem and to start up my bbq party! As people began to arrive, Easy E and I made the fire (raah! I made fire!!1 etc) and once that was going we had a few more drinks and conversation with all the people there. And there were quite a few, and even two dogs! Yes, I let dogs in my house, what is the world coming to. They were well behaved though, so I didn’t have to use my patented “setting dogs on fire is ok” idea. People started leaving later in the evening, and my last guests left at about 3am. Quite happy about the whole thing: there was about 15 people there, there was food and laughter and the total cost was about 10e per person not counting my new barby, as that’s mine hehe.

The rest of the week was spent recovering, and on friday I biked to my mother’s house to spend some time with her and have dinner. She was glad to see me and glad to put me to work setting up her new answermachine hehe, as most older people go, she’s hopeless at any form of technology made after 1950 so I gladly sort all of that, and she made dinner and talked to me and I went home at about 21:00 only to detour to my mate Max’s place where we had some whiskey and I totally owned him at a rally game on his PS/2 heheh.

Saturday I didn’t do much of anything except the washing and then I went biking, some 30odd km, but I didn’t really have a particular goal, so ofc after about 20km I started to fade badly and just couldn’t make my legs go round in any way shape or form so I biked up the Schelmseweg and stopped at the Shell there to get some chocolate and a sultana and then briefly stopped at Robert’s house to see if they were all ok and then home and I really tried to go to bed early but I watched Constantine on tv and then some internet and it was 04:30 before I hit the hay. My sleep cycles are shot all to heck heh. Sunday I spent in a vague blur between my bed, my roof terrace in the sun, and the park with Easy E, his gf and Max. A bottle or two of rosé and some munchies rounded it all off and at about 19:00 I went home to get some biking in. In a fit of masochism I decided to bike to the Posbank to destroy myself on the climbs, and there were climbs of the drop back to very low gears and crawl up the hill variety though ofc I can’t climb for shit (even though I didn’t die climbing this time) and on the way back down again I got up to a blistering 57km/h which lasted quite some time. Don’t think I’ve ever gone that fast for so long. It was very fast tbh, and I felt very good and alive doing it. Ofc in a hidden bend in the bike path I had to brake pretty damn hard to not shoot off the path and into the scrub, and there must have been some sand on the path or something because first my rear wheel and then front wheel skidded and I have a pants-filling moment of am I about to leave lots of skin on the road here or will I just make it? Anyway I let go of the brakes and made it home again to the sound of another 25 successful km’s being eaten by my legs and bike.

Also the Veluwe landscape is amazing, and I saw some of the horses they let roam free there, and once back on the woodland path I heard a strange noise and saw two wild boars rooting about between the trees. Damn those things are big o0

Posted by TdC at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

woo I biked to Ede and back today, just a little over 40km making it just under double the distance I’ve been doing lately! Wow! I was somewhat impressed with myself, mostly because it didn’t hurt. Well, not as much as I thought it would anyway.

I managed 26.5km/h average speed (impressively fast imo, for a first try by an unfit biker heh), meaning I rode there and back in about an hour and a half, and the total ride was about an hour and three quarters, as I sat in the sun at Ede train station and drank some water while calling a couple of mates. This is good, because with the light being what it is now, I can go home from work, change into bike kit, ride 40km, and be home again before it gets dark. Good stuff, now I only have to go do it :)

Another thing I have to do is get a bell, because once again I am impressed by the idiocy of people: the fact that they can see me apparently means nothing, and me riding towards them at 35km/h also means nothing, they’re just going to stand in the middle of the cycle path and have a chat. When I am king they will be first against the wall.

Oh, and I’ve fired off an email to Planet X about a tourer bike. It’s going to either look a little like this, or a bit like this. Depending on what they tell me. Pleased tbh, though now I have to sell the Bitch, which is a bit of a shame, but I don’t really see myself bouncing down mountains (yet).

Posted by TdC at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

yesterday I got over 50kph on the brick road sloping down in Duno zomg. 52.8 km to be precise. And I’m not even really trying, as I’m dead scared most of the time because the road is like the letter M inclined down a hill’s slope. Ie there are some points where you can’t see what lies ahead, and this being Holland there is a good chance that some old lady will be smack bang in the middle of the road walking her dog, or better, her great-grandchild, which you will promptly hit, split in half, then veer off the road, careen down the slope and impale yourself through the family jewels on some handily out thrust branch.

And it will be your fault ofc, because clearly mountain bikers are the spawn of satan, even when they’re on a road, whereas pedestrians (aka les morons avec les death-wishes) are allowed to go anywhere.

Mind you, I don’t particularly hate peds, as my most virulent emotions are reserved for women on so-called preggo-bikes, which are bikes with eeeextra wide handle bars and low gears, mirrors, bags, kids, day-glo flags and all kinds of other things attached. For some reason the people riding these kinds of bikes seem to think they are allowed to veer all over the road without cause, or ride in the exact middle of a narrow bike path, where their ultra wide handlebars and fat arses make it impossible for others to pass. And when I did scoot past yesterday, I got the feminine annoyance noise] made at me, the click they make with their tongues against the front teeth/roof of mouth, which means that whatever you did no matter the reason, you are wrong in all ways and suck at life.

Posted by TdC at 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’m working too much again, I guess. My weeks are 10 days long, my weekends one day, or none at all. Today I am tired, and so I can not take much I guess. Today I miss her more than usual. My former girlfriend is everywhere. And nowhere. I haven’t seen or heard from her (good), but she is still everywhere. She is in a long blonde hair I found in my clothes yesterday, she is there when good meaning people ask me how I am, and I feel her when other good willing people ask me if my life is back on track yet. She is there when I don’t know what to get in the supermarket, because my food tastes like ashes anyway. She is there when I go to bed at night, because I can hear her when my eyes close, only I can not feel her because the bed is cold, and there is nobody there but me. She is in my dreams, because I have horrible horrible dreams about leaving the house like I did that monday. She is even in my mothers house now, until my mother throws away the card she sent. She is everywhere, she is nowhere.

So there are times that I wonder if she really knows why I want her gone. If she understood me when I told her to never contact me again, or knows the reasons of my anger to her. I wonder if she cares. I wonder if she’s already fucked some guy to try to feel better. I wonder if it worked. I think so many thoughts that I am so tired at night but I sometimes can’t sleep from the nightmares I have that she is in, and it all just gets me so tired and depressed that I am glad I have a mountain bike because I find that biking can make the thoughts stop and there is just the wind in my face and the feeling that if I can go fast enough I may outrun the little cloud of despair that has been following me for the past two months and it won’t be able to find me again. But I haven’t been fast enough yet.

So I have been biking. I was going to today as well because the weather was nice, but work kept me a little longer than planned. I went on friday too, and the wednesday before. Friday was nicest, and I went up to Duno on the road and my new slicks just amaze me with how fast I can go, even on bricks. I hope I can go tomorrow before I have dinner with Max because I need it.

Today I got a washing machine after work and before I went to have dinner at my mother’s place. I texted my mate Easy and he met me at the mediamarkt and we had a few laughs looking over the rows and rows of machines before I settled on one and haggled with the salesman trying to get him to admit that they would actually deliver the machine. Thing is, I live three flights of spiral stairs up, in the penthouse of an old warehouse, and so delivery people tend to be a bit hesitant, although I can’t really say I blame them heh. However I did lug a 42” LCD tv up here all by myself and the bloody thing did weigh 40kg or so. So hopefully they will make it happen on friday because I am sick of relying on charity to wash my clothes heh.

Yesterday my friend Max had his birthday, so I went out to have a few beers with him, and then dinner with him and our friend Babette, which was surprisingly fun and also very yummy at the Arnhems’ Proeflokaal and then to the Moortgat for more beer and some friends who’d come down to help Max get used to being yet another year older, though he doesn’t look it ofc. Sadly I had to leave early, because of today’s work commitment, but I had a lot of fun regardless.

The Great Destroyer // She passes through you like a knife - Low

Posted by TdC at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

not really boiled, but I’ve made good with the start of my quest to get fit in two months and have been out on the bike. I got scared on a 50kph down slope stretch, was amazed by how much faster slicks are than knobbeh tyres, even if they are 1.6” sized ones, and didn’t die. Slicks are really fast though, holy shit. Though I do need to get my head around keeping the bike at 20kph and not going faster just because I’m so inclined if I’m going to survive the summer’s planned bike rides.

Also I accidentally went through the woods on the way back, which is….somewhat surprising when you’re on 60psi (they’re wide ones) slicks and it is wet and muddy on the trails hehe. Distance was only 15km or so. Proper distances and speeds are in the computer but I forgot to take it off the bike, sorry. I sadly ran out of light as I only got back from work at about half past seven. Some things were not quite right with the bike: there is some strange chain skipping when I coast in the bigger gears, and there’s a tiny bit of noise here and there. Nothing a quick tune-up won’t fix though. Next ride’s planned for friday.

also I wore my stretchy pants o0

In an aside, Deebs of the FreddysHouse forums has been heckling me on image creation. I’m back making content again, which is good, as the past month or so hasn’t been, shall we say, an ideal creative period for me. It’s so much work that he’s asking others to help me out, so there will be some kind of creative (sic) management of content going on if anyone’s up for the job.

no songs today. I’ve got some new cd’s I bought in Edinburgh to listen to. to go with the other things I already purchased earlier: Low, Kings of Convenience, Tenatious D, along with the Interpol and The National disks I bought in NL. So once I get through that I’ll see about listening to words and fitting them into my mind eh.

Posted by TdC at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This weekend should have been a smashing weekend of biking: on friday, I went our with my gf for our customary loop. Both bikes and ourselves performed well, in fact, we’re performing better and better. The loop gets completed in under an hour, and my beautiful gf recently (claimed she) did it in 45 mins! Ofc, her bike is slightly more suited to the road than mine, but there you go hehe ;-)
If I complete the loop in 45 mins I will certainly kick arse in the speed dept.

On Saturday, my mate Michiel came over for some fun and games in the woods. He’s a very fit person who does a lot of road biking and skating, so his level of fitness is well exceeding mine (but then that’s not hard heh). Anyway, I was of a mind to push a little bit faster than I usually do, but not having been on the woodland trails for a while certainly made me work hard! At the end of our ride, I’d lost all feeling in my legs (though that may have been the beer haha). Anyway, we had a lot of fun and took it pretty easy, stopping a couple of times to chat, drink some water and eat some food while on the way to Duno. Once there, we took it easy down the paths that snake down the small valley, with the idea of going back up to do it all again at warp speed ofc!

It was not to be though, because we’d somewhat lost track of time and had to hasten back to the pub as we’d arranged to meet my mate Max for a couple of after-biking pints. So, our bike time was about just over two hours I guess. On the way back, Michiel and I swapped bikes and he got to try out my Scandal while I have his Trek a go. The Trek was quite comfortable (but a shade heavy) compared to the Scandal, given ofc that the Scandal is rigid and had a somewhat shorter wheelbase.

Anyway, we had a few beers, then went back to my place for dinner, and then went to a party in the park, and that’s where Max’ and Michiel’s bikes got stolen by some thieving cunt who will most assuredly be going to the slow cooker chamber of hades. Everything locked, covered by other bikes, etc. Still gone though. We assume some pro’s were scoping the Theater Avenue events in the park, where most everyone goes to by bike, and just picking off some of them, cutting the locks and tossing them in the back of a van. Why they picked M&M’s I cannot begin to imagine really.

Max’s bike is a fairly well worn JanJanssen Syntax that is three or four years old now, dark blue grey and silver with full LX kit, and due to Max being a lazy bugger it was looking it’s age. Michiel’s bike was a fairly new Trek 6500 SLR in dark aluminium colour with Deore level kit on. Both bikes have vbrakes.

I know Max’s bikes pretty well, and Michiel’s to a lesser extent. Ofc I shall prolly be able to recognize them if I ever see them again, however due to the sheer volume of bikes in Holland stolen every day and the thieves moving them about to limit the chances of previous owners running in to their bikes again the chance of it is slim, sadly.

Posted by TdC at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

)Once again, mad bike props, this time to my North Shore Extreme Bitch, a bike that I use mostly for posing, just like my old StreetLegal though this time I actually take it out into the parks and urbanity that is Arnhem. (like I did yesterday btw. that was sweet. more about it later!

I built this frame up with a much more non-urban flavour in mind. Therefor it has big knobby tyres, gears, a chain device, and a massive 160mm fork on the front end to save me for ifwhen I screw up. Surprisingly for such a big bike, it rides very well and it doesn’t feel heavy as long as you keep it moving heh. Yesterday I had it out on dry mud/sand and it just skitters across the surface and flies off jumps like it’s 5kg lighter than it really is. Very nice indeed :-) This bike, I can see myself getting serious with!

The actual build was a sheer pain in the arse: amongst other things, I have every hayes brake adapter there is, except the one I needed! The rear brake has new pads, and for the life of me, I can’t get the caliper to fit the rotor properly: it drags. It’s not an alignment question, there is no room to align the caliper because the pads are too thick! (it’s starting to work now btw.) The only thing I could come up with is that the 160mm Hayes disk is thinner than the 200mm disk, and that’s why it doesn’t fit, even though the pads are original Hayes parts! Bah! Most irritatingly, to fit the SRS I need two spacers on the drive-side bottom bracket bearings to get the chain to clear most of the chaindevice. Now, if I do that, the non-driveside crank has play in in because it’s not fitting fully onto the available length of axle showing. So to fix this, I have hand filed the steel (@%@#%) spacer down to about half it’s thickness so there’s about 1.5mm more axle available which should just be enough. Now, it fits and there is no play if I tighten the crankbolts really really tight, but on top of all the other problems, the Truvative Holzfeller crankbolts keep coming loose even though I glue them into the axle with an epoxy agent! RAAR! Even so, now that there is no play the bolts will stand up to an hour of rough fooling around before they start to come loose (which it seems is a known problem with Holzfellers according to the internet), whereas before I’d filed the spacer down they were coming loose withing minutes of me starting biking. So, I’m getting there.

(right-click, view image, to see larger pics)

TdC frame rating: 9/10 points
TdC build rating: 7.5/10 points (note I deduct one whole point due to the cranks)

• NorthShore Extreme Bitch ‘07 frame Black finish, gold decals mmmm
• NSX Moto 50mm stem
• NSX Xup bars (I really should cut a couple of cm’s off these cos they’re wiiiide)
• Odi yeti hardcore grips
• RockShox Domain 302 fork ‘07 model 160/115mm U-Turn
• Truvative Holzfeller crankset with a howitzer BB. 36t Truvative chainring. (not pleased with these cranks tbh, sorry Truvative)
• e13 SRS with bash
• NSX “leg eater” pedals (yes, they are aptly named)
• front wheel: PlanetX LMF rim on PX 20mm hub
• rear wheel atomlab GI rim on atomlab GI hub
• Shimano LX rear mech and LX 9spd cassette
• YabanMK9S2 Chain (I have to mention this because it’s hot, and nobody ever talks about their chains heh)
• Maxxis Minion 26” 2.5”width
• Hayes 9 disk brakes, 200mm rotor front and rear
• Thomson elite seatpost
• Deity saddle

Posted by TdC at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My bicycle, you dirty buggers!

I took the NSX Bitch out into the woods (my gf says “park” but it has lots of trees and trees are made of wood so it’s a wood ok? it also has mud and stuff) for the first time yesterday. After a week or two of, well, not biking, I’d expected to die horribly given me being out of shape and the Bitch being a heavy bike, 2.5” downhill tyres and mud and whatnot.

Well, it certainly is somewhat of a chore keeping the bike moving, but I must say that I was surprised at how easy it was overall. The 9 gears the bike now has do indeed make it much easier to get up slopes despite the 5” of Domain fork at the front and the somewhat relaxed geometry. I go up, not fast, but I get there. In fact, I did hammer it a few times to see what happened, and much panting ensued, though at no time did I feel completely wrecked and I usually had my breath back in a minute or so.

Going down slopes was much faster, though at no time did I ever go really fast. My original plan was to go to Duno and take the trail down the valley, but I reckoned that I didn’t have enough daylight (I left at 20:00 or so) to make it there and do the trail while I could still see, so I changed plan and went to Mariendal. Anyway, even on longer paths, I’d run out of down sloping path well before I felt I was going quickly. It’s much more suited here to XC and the like, where short downslopes are interchanged with brief climbs and overall mostly flat country, or the paths intersect with others often bringing the fear of pranging some walker who you didn’t see heh :-/

So here’s the plan: I require lots of vertical meters to check out the Bitch and to see if I really do enjoy gravity assisted biking, so this means Germany or Luxembourg. Prolly Germany, as Winterberg is close by, relatively speaking, so I’m thinking it’s time to go there and check it out maybe?

Anyway, in conclusion: dutch slopes are too short. there are too many walkers on them, of which there are too many kids and ESPECIALLY too many dogs :-(

Posted by TdC at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

no longer are any of my bikes a singlespeed! The NS-Extreme Bitch is now gifted with a 9 speed hub. As usual the bike is fighting me and being a severe pain in the arse, meaning that while everything fit together perfectly fine yesterday I did manage to make a n00besque mistake with the chain and also I have yet to tune the rear derailer to actually shift :)

I was extremely frustrated with the fitting together of the bits yesterday tbh. As I am now living with my lovely gf, I am more conscious of making a mess or leaving tools about etc. As our shed is tiny and already filled with bikes, I lugged the Bitch up to the flat so I could quickly give it a go. Well, we have a cream coloured carpet, just had to mention that. Ahem. So I put down some old newspapers and stuff and went to it. Anyway, as the quick refit didn’t go well and I was in frustration mode, not being able to find my proper tools, missing a bit of cable, you know, generally flustered while my gf was telling me that she didn’t mind at all that the bike was in bits all over the livingroom (I doubted her but she swore it was true). As a result I was rushing to get the bike together again and out of the house for no other reason than that I felt I was dirtying up the place.It dawned on me that I need a proper shed. With a proper worktable. With one of those multiplex boards with a mass of tools hung on it, you know, with the tools outlined in permanent marker and stuff. ;-)

Posted by TdC at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Norco should be proud of their young sponsoree imo. He, and the camera crew, have done a good job creating the dvd.

Not only does Ryan Leech know exactly what he is talking about, he also manages to explain the finer points of a move clearly to the viewer while demonstrating the move several times and the dvd shows it from multiple angles. Ryan also explains his personal mind-set for trialling, and stresses that he feels people should have fun on the bikes and be responsible.

The tricks and moves on the dvd are broken down into beginner/intermediate/expert segments, and is also split into a trials specific and a general freeride section so Ryan demos that he can use both a trials bike and a burly Norco freeride bike with equal ease. You get a lot of footage for the price, Ryan explains everything in great detail and he even manages to come across as a really nice bloke to boot.

If you want pumping sounds and people jumping off big things then look elsewhere: this video is a serious educational aid and I recommend it to anyone from any mountain biking background if they want to further their skills. TdC says 10/10!

I didn’t want to mention it (because I feel it’s not worth it tbh) but I also have Tricktionary vol. 1 featuring Aaron Chase and Jeff Lenosky. Sadly those guys come across as camera-shy wooden puppets, and the dvd runs through the tricks so quickly that there is only 20odd minutes of footage. Get it if you’re a fan but otherwise avoid imo.

Posted by TdC at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

forgive the low quality of the pic. It’s the initial mock up of the new bike I’m building. As to now, there is a severe lack of shims (why am I always lacking shims?) and the rear brake drags for some odd reason. no front brake as I lack an adapter for the Hayes 9 DH caliper to make it fit the 8” rotor via the RockShox Domain 302 fork.

It’s a North Shore Extreme Bitch built up with some NSX parts (legeater pedals, moto stem, x-up bars), a RockShox Domain 302 150mm fork. PlanetX LMF rims with PlanetX hubs, Hayes 9 DH 200mm disk brakes and Maxxis Minion tyres.

This build has been fighting me me every step of the way, with little niggles cropping up here and there, like my rear brake dragging for no reason at all, and major niggles manifesting themselves in the form of my front brake needing an adapter from Hayes which is the only one that I don’t have. The chainline is also slightly off, resulting in a creaky chain under load, and I lack the proper spacer to get it right (friday I will should have it). Other than that, it’s going swimmingly: I’ve ridden it and it rocks. The fork is slightly on the bouncy side, but I can fix that soon enough, and the bike is actually lighter than the SL despite the heavy tyres!

Posted by TdC at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

and we’re happy together! So happy together pa par ram pam pam *does boogie dance*

No, really, we are! I must admit I was somewhat afraid of the whole thing, but now I am pleased. Squeezing into her house is fun, wondering where things will go is fun, looking forward to cleaning up and then selling my former house is fun. It all seems to be good. The gf seems to be pleased, so all must be well.

Ofc, we did have the usual discussions about how big my loudspeakers are, why my TV is so large, and if my dolby hifi set really is better than her ickle stereo, but besides that my stuff seems to be integrating into her household nicely. Let alone the future plans of getting a nice house together where we can both live in comfort. Wierdly, I am feeling pleased with myself as I puttle about the house fixing this and that, putting up a new light in the kitchen, installing a wireless network so we can do away with some unsightly cables, et all. Now I only have to do some maintennance to my old place and it will sell. Hopefully soon :)

On the mountainbike front, my bikemate and I have upped the weekly biking days to twice weekly trips. So yeah, we now do it wednesdays and sundays. All for the better, though I must say that due to dieting I do not feel as strong on the bike as I possibly should, though that may just be some psycological thing where I think I am not strong just because I happen to be hungry. Though I did nearly prang horribly last time we went out :/

I’ve sold my beloved North Shore Extreme Street Legal playbike to my mate Will, resulting in him now owning it, and I’ve gone and ordered a North Shore Extreme Bitch for some extra freeriding fun. Once built it’s going to rock awfully hard :D

Posted by TdC at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A -brief- spot of ye olde mountainbike wednesday (and the wednesday before that too), which by the way, I also report about in the On One forums to a bloke called Ditch with a dodgy leg so we can keep each other motivated regarding getting out on the bike.

Ooh arr Brant wasn’t kidding about when he said that you’d feel that you’d been for a ride after getting off a ScandAL. Very nice bike still, and I’m utterly pleased with it, but a toughish ride leaves me feeling like I’ve been beat with big sticks. Certainly, I ride a rigid bike, but I’m somewhat hoping that it will wear off a tiny bit in time!

Speaking of fitness, I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve started doing some press-ups again. Angled ones, where I press against a sloping up angle, and then reverse. It is hard on me, especially when I reverse and my feet are above my head when I press up. I had instant muscle protests all over my body heehee, though it certainly didn’t last as long as I thought it would. (the muscle protests that is)

Posted by TdC at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

EDIT: now sold to my mate Will!

More bike props, this time to my North Shore Extreme Streetlegal, a dirt/street/park bike that I use mostly for posing, though I can trackstand (ooh) and drop off things on it with no problems at all (aah). This is arguably the single most stable bike that I have ever ridden, with no fear at all of it doing something unexpected both on the ground and in the sky.

Given it is a somewhat heavy bike (I believe my build weighs in at a healthy 18 kilos) but it can get off the ground (even with me on it) and takes to the skies as if on rails. I run mine in a dirt-esque setup with disks front and rear and the massive Marz DJ-1 fork to cushion falling off things wrongly heh. If I had a rigid fork I’d take off the front brake and be a hardcore street poser.

Recently I’ve had a fad of going XC with it (which my mate Will did when he came over last year). It can be done, but it’s hugely heavy and the current 38x19 gearing doesn’t lend itself well to going up hills, though it does like to play amongst the roots and rocks just as much as it likes the streets. Well done North Shore Extreme!

TdC frame rating: 9/10 points
TdC build rating: 8.5/10 points

• NorthShore Extreme Streetlegal Raw finish, yummy.
• NSX Moto 50mm stem
• NSX Xup bars
• Odi yeti hardcore grips
• PlanetX 3pc cranks, 22mm spindle, 38t brave machine chainring
• NSX “leg eater” pedals (yes, they are aptly named)
• PlanetX LMF rims on PX hubs
• Maxxis Holyrollers 26” (and Hookworms and Minions god I’m such a hoarder)
• endless bikes kick-ass cog 19t
• Hayes 9 disk brakes, 200mm rotor front, 160mm rear
• shadow conspiracy interlink2 chain
• Thomson elite seatpost
• SDG kevlar-clad saddle

Posted by TdC at 7:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just wanted to give some props to On-One for the ScandAL I got from them. Now that I am biking XC again, the ScandAL is a very good and not too pricey bike to do it on. Also the 16” size is an almost perfect fit for me at 5’8” / 32” inside leg. In fact, I’d not even mind it being an inch or even a half inch smaller, which would make it perfect tbh, though my taste does run to smaller bikes a bit heh.

TdC frame rating: 9/10 points
TdC build rating: 9/10 points

Current ScandAL

• On One Scandal 16” (for 26” wheels)
  
• On One Superlicht Carbon fork
  
• On One Reet’ard / Shimano XT Disk wheels
  
• Maxxis ADvantage XC 2.1 front, Ritchey ZRace 1.8 rear
  
• Shimano XT disks, shifters, derailers, cranks, cassette etc.
  
• Easton Monkeylite SL CNT carbon riser
  
• On One 80mm stem
  
• ODI yeti lock-on grips
  
• Xlite uber-bling bar ends ooooo :-)
  
• On One “Twelfty” seatpost
  
• On One “Oy Bignose!” saddle (comfy!)
  

In all honesty I must say that I did smack my wrists up exactly once: hitting a largish root on the very first time out, riding as I used to on my previous mtb. Lessons learned, I can float over choppy stuff, and the general lightness of the bike and fork combined with the efficiency of being rigid outweighs the hassle. Besides if you ride a little smarter and pick your lines better the lack of a soft front end is not particularly felt. There were times that I was somewhat worried that the fork wouldn’t take much bashing, but after some use I know for a fact that if I manage to break it I will have had to do something spectacular.

Posted by TdC at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Started off with some bf2142 on friday. I was a bit tired, and I certainly had some problems starting up again after not having played the game for a week or two. So after dying horribly a couple hundred times, I finally got back in gear and had some fun.

Sadly my team mate Smeagol was having issues of his own as he couldn’t see me online and after a successful start suddenly dropped out of teamspeak (even though he was still listed as “online” by the server he couldn’t hear me nor vice versa). After a while I wondered why he’d stopped talking and discovered that he was still there but just unresponsive, and as I couldn’t join his server (later he tells me that he got d/c’d from teh one we were playing on originally) as it was full I decided to go play some Oblivion until I tired of that and went to bed.

My gf, who had been going out with friends of hers arrived at about 4, and snuggled up to sleeping me to breathe beer-fumes in my face until I managed to fall asleep again ;-)

Saturday we lazed about until the fine weather drove me outside so we went to the Moortgat and had a few beers before going for some tapas at La Luna. The team there were pleased to see us again, and claimed to have missed our visits. We had a nice meal as usual (their ham is quite good, not the pata negra (which is also good ofc) but the regular one is very nice imo) before my gf’s friend Bianca met up with us and then we went back to the Moortgat for beers and to hook up with Jeff, Anita, Erwin, Sophie, Andre and Martijn and see what we would do with the rest of the evening. We ended up just being boring and staying at the MG, though Erwin and Sophie did go to the Move briefly to see if it was any fun there, but came back quickly claiming it was very full but not much fun.

Sunday we biked up to see a house on the St. Antonielaan that we thought may be a good place to live. We’d first seen it on Funda the broker’s website and it looked pretty cool, though the real thing was somewhat disappointing. As that street connects to the St. Paul street which leads directly to the Sonsbeek park main entrance, we biked it and then had some fun biking around on the dirtbikes even though it was very busy and there were loads of people there out enjoying the sun. Very much enjoying the sun tbh, because the weather was great and I only had a tshirt on. Biking was good until my gf hurt her back (prolly a pulled muscle) and so we went down into the city and got ourselves some ice-cream before going back to my place.

Posted by TdC at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As proof, I enclose a pic of the crap that came off my Scandal. That’s a little pile of mud about a centimeter deep that I dislodged when I took the rear wheel out to true it. Meaning, really, that I have to clean the house because I cleaned my bike. As it should be, tbh :)

Most importantly, my mother celebrated her 70th yesterday, which was a nice and pleasant way to spend the day, though (as only cranky old ladies can (just kidding mum!)) she did nix all my cool plans to have a giant party of the year thing where I would get everything organized. So, no organization, but my mum got what she wanted and was pleased. We had yummy lasagna for dinner and then my gf and I left for some much needed sleep.

Second most importantly, my gf and I have booked our “going to Australia” plane tickets for the end of the year. Total coolness, we will be spending some 8 weeks in Oz, where we will be driving up the Coral coast amongst other things. I really can’t begin to describe how much I am looking forward to this trip :-)

Right now I’m sitting about the house waiting for some mountain bike parts that I ordered aaages ago but never received due to them not being sent. According to the parcelforce website, they are now “out for delivery” and have been so since 08:18 this morning. Well, it’s now 14:52 and I have yet to see the parts. In fact, I actually rue getting the parts now, because Australia will cost a lot of money and Murphy’s law is starting to kick in inasmuch as my washing machine is breaking and tbh I am having my doubts about my camera as well. Ofc I won’t be taking my washer with me, but it is kind of handy to have clean clothes and I will be taking my camera with me and thus it is a bit naff that I’m thinking it’s not focusing as well as it should be.

In the course of waiting for the package, I have seen a lorry nearly crush a car, my neighbor on a bike and a girl with nothing on under her jacket, amongst other things. I have not yet seen a courier rushing to deliver something to my address. Murphy, the evil bugger mentioned above, will make the courier ring the very second I do something that will prohibit me from answering the door quickly, like having a bath, a long and relaxing poo, or leave to quickly get some stuff from the supermarket and take the dvd’s back to the rental place. They are also the “one shot” type couriers, so if I fail to make myself available to them, they will leave a sarcastic note and I will have to call them to arrange a new drop-off date meaning that even though the package is close to me, I won’t have it in my hands until friday a week from now :-/

(Btw, I just heard the doorbell ring in my imagination. Must get out of the house more.)

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you guys why I was hurt. Well, my ribs have been fucking aching since sunday two (or was it three) weeks ago, because I was out mountain biking and the woodland trails were all torn up due to the woodsmen having taken their tractors and 4x4’s out to clean up after a recent storm. Anyway, right at a crucial moment, ie crossing a muddy pool in the trail, my chain somehow jammed and my bike slid to a standstill. I managed to keep my balance for all of three seconds before toppling over to my right. Then I did a really stupid thing which was “try to not fall in the muddy puddle” so I stuck out my hand and tried to, erm, not fall in the muddy puddle. Which failed, and not only failed but also failed in such a manner that I elbowed myself viciously in the right ribs. And then fell in the puddle. So as a result of my own stupidity I had aching ribs for twoandahalfweeks, not nice, especially when trying to get out of bed :(
Check out the photo for a better idea of why the woodsmen were out in force. We counted around 12 trail blockages while we were out, and those were only where we were biking. Some of those trees were hella big too.

Posted by TdC at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

but not too badly.

Last week I spent sunday to friday in bed, as I had a cold since thursday. I skived off work friday to be “fit” on saturday as I had an inescapable work commitment. After that had ran it’s course, I went home and right to bed. On sunday I was forced out of bed again because my lovely mother and a friend came over to help me “celebrate” my birthday. I love people coming over and hanging out with me, but seriously folks, not when I feel ill. When I have a cold, even a minor one, I just want to be left alone. No phone calls, no visits, just curtains drawn, lemsips, and bed. Especially the latter.

My girlfriend wondered out loud how amazing it was that I actually went to bed when I was feeling poorly. True that. When I feel bad, I don’t do anything at all. All household work grinds to a halt, all efforts at personal hygiene stop. I lie in bed and shiver and cough and sleep until I feel better again. Usually ‘feeling better” signals itself by my sudden desire to have a shower. Ofc, my lover doesn’t consider having a cold actually being “ill”, more a minor inconvienience to be endured while getting on with work or social events. Little does she know that all joy fails me when I have a cold and work or social stuff is furthest from my mind ;-( Only with colds though. I like doing stuff tbh. I’ve broken bones and things and still gone down the pub. Only thing I once hated was when we went to Konijn2000 with me in a wheelchair and my leg in plaster. That did piss me off; all those happy dancing people around me while I just sat there feeling sorry for myself. Bah, humbug ;-)

My actual birthday date I spent with my lovely gf and later my mate Max came round to share in some chinese food that I treated them to. We had a good time and I felt really good as clearly lots of hot chinese food and beer and good company will beat any cold if you put a mind to it. Max gave me a new coffee machine, since he was forever griping about my old one which I’ve had since my student daze, my lovely gf gave me books I and II of George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, my mum gave me a paper shredder (yes ladies, I asked for this) and my mate Easy gave me a flu-virus plushie (hur hur).

Posted by TdC at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Firstly, a very merry Noob Jeer to all of you on the interwebnet! I wish you all well, and hope that nasty things will pass you all by this year.

My NYE/NYD was spent largely in bed with my lovely GF and a bottle of champagne, very nice indeed! We’d gone away for the weekend together, to a little hotel in Edam (where the cheese (yes that cheese) gets made). Edam’s picturesque and quiet enough, and we chilled out and celebrated the coming of the new year together in a romantic fashion :)

teb mtb!!
I’m back on it! ofc, at the time of this writing, I have’t been on it for two weeks, but that’s the holiday season for you heh.

teh battlefield!!
been playing lots of bf2142. there is still a lot of stuff wrong with it, for example the disconnection from the master server thing still occurs (though much less than before) but now the game also crashed to the desktop at random times

noo poota parts!!
I got a gForce 7950GX2! hubba bubba!, though it’s not as fast as I thought it would be, it does allow me to play bf2142 at 1920x1200x32 with AA and AF maxed out and all detail settings on full. ahem :)

hmm I’ll update when I think of more stuffs to write :)

Posted by TdC at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

and some other sutff too! Going out in a second to get some passport photocopies done. methinks I’ll also do a little bit of biking around the park to see what I can see. The weather’s gorgeous (as allways: I’m about to leave the country, so the weather gods deliver great weather to Holland. It’s cloudy in Venezuela ofc, but that will soon change once I get there :-))

Well, that’s just a quicky for now. Oh yeah, my shadow conspiracy chain has now been broken in, so it’s stretched a little bit and I now have to tune it to tightness again. I’m slightly hoping that I can take out one entire link, but we’ll see.

Posted by TdC at 3:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off road too! Woot! So yesterday we were feeling a bit bleh and decided to take my gimp and her P2 offroad and go down by the river to see what we could see. So we did :-)
I was scared that the gimp would be too heavy, that I’d be too out of shape, she’d decide that biking wasn’t fun, that cows and things would attack us, or that she’d shoot off into the bushes and hurt herself (or all at once) but ofc I shouldn’t have been worried. All was cool, nothing bad happened and we burnt off our bleh-ness and had beers afterwards.

Going “offroad” is a bit of a large claim though: we were in the (dry) mud for all of 10 minutes or so I guess, rocketing down a little bit of singletrack between fields and a lake about half a mile from the river. It was dry and fast, though bike-rattleingly rough where the cows had churned the mud up before it set. We got to see cows (big and huge) and horses (big and little). Down on the riverbank it was pretty in the light of the early evening, but ofc I forgot to bring my camera so there are no pics sadly. The area around the brick factory was densely overgrown with weeds/shrubs/whatever it was, which was a bit strange because the last time I was there it was a bit desert-ish, with lots of sand and mud but not too much greenery. The old WWII bunkers there were densely overgrown, with only the odd bit of weathered grey concrete poking through here and there reminding me that at some point people had been doing other things there than biking and herding cows.

After our beers we got severely and utterly rained on and also had thunder cracking right overhead. I’d rate it a 10 second rain because it only took about 10 seconds for me to get completely soaked right through. As we were already wet right through it wasn’t too much bother to bike off to get DVDs and something to eat, but once we were on the way home we’d started to get cold and cranky, and the water sloshing about in my shoes wasn’t as much fun any more, so after we’d dumped our wet things in the washing machine we installed ourselves on the couch to eat chinese duck and watch Walk the Line, a dramatization of the life of Johnny Cash in which Reese Witherspoon especially shines imo. Nice ending to a good day.

Technical notes: the Maxxis Holy Rollers that I talked about a couple of days ago are holding up well. They rock on the hard and dry (at ~40psi) but aren’t so good on sandy paths (could have been me though hehe) and I have been working on bunny-hopping (which leaves me with aches and pains all over but especially in my arms, which is wrong as I shouldn’t be jerking the bike up but letting it pivot around the rear axle but I’m too scared atm heheheh) so I’ve been jumping on and off stuff and the tyres are holding up great tbh. Sweet :-)

Posted by TdC at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The sc chains are short. My rear wheel’s all the way forwards against the stops and with perhaps a mm or so to wiggle it about in with the chain almost bar-tight. The new tyres clear the stays with about 5mm to spare.

Been out for a wee test run to see if it all held together. The gimp feels very light, agile and agressive. The holy rollers are ofc new, and they squeek hehe, and are pumped to 50psi, so that’s prolly where lots of the lightness and agressiveness come from.

It was murder getting the hookworms off: I was tired, it was late, I hadn’t eaten, my tyre levers kept slipping, etc but I stuck at it and got the both of them done in about an hour.

The chain though. boy, that chain is hot! It’s not a chain it’s a work of art! it’s so cool I almost didn’t want to put it on the bike! shadow conspiracy pwns!

see updated pics here

Posted by TdC at 1:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

erm. I bought a pair of Maxxis Holy Rollers in my quest to make my Gimp lighter than Max’s spesh P1, but now that i’ve had them in my hands I’m scared: they’re so thin! (or perhaps I should say that the Hookworms are so thick!) It looks like you can make three Holy Rollers from the rubber it takes to make one ‘worm!

They are indeed lighter though, as per the Maxxis webby. 865g as opposed to the 26” hookworm weighing 1250g so I stand to lose ~800g off the Gimp. Ooh lots ;-) That should bring it down to oh, 18kg or so heh. Getting back to my bitching though, I am now scared of snakebite again. We’ll see what the performance is.

Posted by TdC at 5:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know this, because my Shadow Conspiracy chain that I got from HubJub arrived either today or yesterday! Why the “or” do you ask? Well, when I got up this morning the package containing the chain was lying neatly on my bed by the window. As I was asleep, I can only hazard a guess that someone else let the delivery postie into the apartment block and he chucked it in through the open window, but I prefer to think that Shadow Conspiracy ninjas inflitrated the building in the dark watches of the night to deliver my interlock chain right into my sleeping hands!

Yesterday evening I went to see X3 -The Last Stand. Pretty decent, as far as comic to film action conversion movies go. I was pleased with certain things and less pleased with others, for example Xavier laying on the uber morality and ethics while Wolverine, Storm and Beast get to lay the smack down on their fellow (but misguided) mutants.

Thursday I’m picking up the package that the evil posties will finally release to me (though tbh I am a bit scared because the tracking website tells me that it’s already been released o_0)

Now the important news: my lovely girlfriend and I celebrate our three years of being together! yay! go US!! <3

Posted by TdC at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a fit of intense madness and vanity I bought a chain-cleaning device. Woo, go me. Well, yesterday I ran the chain from my XC bike through it and lo! Shimano LX chains are aparantly a light titanium-esque grey when they’re clean!
Haha, and clean it was. In fact, a large portion of my living room floor is now also very clean, degreased and lightly lemon sented because I dropped the bloody thing and it opened, spilling soiled chain degreaser everywhere :-/

Strangely (but normal, you know how it is) after the chain had dried the first thing I did was oil it again. Now to get out on the bike! I love my bergwerk and almost feel a sense of loss that I want to sell it because of my ordering the scandal. Why should I sell it? Perhaps I can keep it! Yesssss my pressssious, keeps it I will!

Ps. tonight I’m cleaning the gimp’s chain :-D

On the subject of chains, I bought a shadow conspiracy chain fully made up of half-links for the gimp yesterday. This should allow me to position the rear wheel at the minimum possible chainstay length, which should help a bit with popping the front end up. We’ll see, but possibly I shall end up with two surly tugnuts that I’ll no longer be using. They’re pretty though :-)

Posted by TdC at 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

is my new word of choice :-) Now, as much as I hate websites with lists of things on them, here’s a parts list update of the On-One Scandal I have on pre-order:

• On-One Scandal 16”
• On-One Superlight Carbon fork
• Shimano XT Crankset (have this)
• Shimano XT front and rear deraileurs (have this)
• Shimano XT shifters (have this)
• Race Face Deus XC headset
• Thomson Elite X2 Stem 70mm odeg rise
• FSA K-Force riser bar
• ODI Ruffian grips (have this)
• the magura Julie little disk brakes I currently have
• On-One seatpost clamp (have this)
• On-One Twelfety seatpost
• On-One branded saddle (which is a PlanetX uranus really iirc) (have this)
• My current XC wheels which are some Mavics on Shimano Deore hubs with Ritchey ZMax and Zrace rubber on the front and rear respectively

Posted by TdC at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Um, lemmesee….

Firstly: let me say that Hitachi Deskstars are wank. Ofc, they used to be better known as IBM Deathstars, but I try not to believe hype too much. Anyway, I had a 250GB SATAII disk and it started to fail. Now I have a yummy Westeren Digital. Woo.

Secondly: in a scandalous move to get back on something resembling an XC bike I’ve ordered an On-One Scandal! Scandalishious!! I’ve gone for the 16”x26” model, as I aer teh shortish at 5’8” for an 18”er. Ooh I’m now tempting myself with pretty carbon parts as Brant of On-One, a master of amazing deals, has allowed me (and everyone else who wants one ofc) to also order a rigid carbon fork at an amazing price :)

Thirdly: the sharper eyed amongst you will have noticed the new link in the sidebar ;-)

Posted by TdC at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)