I ended up replacing the cardboard surface on our bike workbench with sheet PVC (shower stall liner).  It isn’t very thick, so I doubled it up and duct taped it down.  I also bought a set of bin organizers on a track.  It allowed me to get some more stuff off the workbench.   I left it as a big pile of tools (we will sort them into tool boxes soon).  As much as I would like to hang up everything, we need to pack up many of them for race or riding weekends away from home.  (Which if you keep up is most weekends for us).

New work surface

All the random stuff I moved to resurface the bench.

More or less the finished product.  Need to do some more sorting/putting up yet.

I would like to say that I keep the work area 5-S squared away.  In reality, it is a hobby and Andrea and I often have to make a repair in a hurry.  We both have different ideas about where each tool should go or don’t always put it up to even that place.  Since that is a big fail, I at least like to keep the floor clean, I use a shop vac.  Very often a small part will leap out of your hands and it will hard to find if there are bunch of cable ends and dirt clods all over.  With mountain bikes and CX bikes involved, that can be harder than it sounds.  (Also space is tight since, at this point, we do keep both our cars in the garage and fit bikes, wheels, and the work area around them.)

So, it is time to pull back to start the ramp up to cyclocross.  The week started out by not doing anything… I took a day off on Monday to recover from the weekend.  Tuesday evening, I planned an hour run while Andrea had an hour moderate/easy mtb ride.  So we hit the Farms and both did our own thing.  I ended up getting about 6.5 miles running most of the way.  I had a feeling that I would pay for that later…  I would (I haven’t run > 5 miles in more than a year, maybe 2?).

Wednesday, we took the dogs to Shelby Farms for a little running around time (there is an off-leash area at the park).  Thursday, I went out for a little run with our Belgian Malinois.  It was a short run indeed, about 1.5 miles out, my knee started to hurt, so I walked and ran back towards the house.  About a mile out, I took off my shoes and ran back barefoot the rest of the way (mostly smooth sidewalk and not-as-smooth asphalt is around our house).  That ended up working better.

Tonight, I joined a local health club to start the other prong of my off-season assault… weight training.  This is something else that I have foregone since the winter before last, so my first session this evening was high rep and low weight.  I plan to go in pretty often for short sessions at first to get back in the swing of  things.  The gym is only a 1/2 mile from the house, so I can run (or walk) to/from.  Unfortunately the route there is sort of busy road/ no-shoulder.  It’s Memphis, so what else do you expect?

At this point, I haven’t ridden a bike since the road race on Sunday.  I may join Andrea and ride out moderately at Trinity tomorrow AM.  I did that last Saturday (morning before my race), the group was pretty feisty.  The group ride riders have hit peak form at the end of the season.  It always happens as we are ripping down Lenow Rd at 25+ mph.

I plan to keep incorporating running and weight training as I start to do some CX play riding / slow speed barrier drills (technique focused).  My 2010 road season was underperform (compared to 2009), I plan to make 2010-11 CX better than my 2009-10 CX season.

Andrea rewrapped the handlebars on my Ridley CrossBow (my “B” bike).  Now I have blue tape on my blue bike and red tape on my red bike (Ridley X-Fire).

On other notes, I am playing around trying to get Google AdSense to work on the sidebar.  It may not last long, but I am curious about it.  I plan to keep it out of the way and may take it out completely if it is too intrusive.

I also re-upped with AT&T and got an iPhone 4.  It doesn’t work well in my house, but neither did my iPhone 3G.  I have to put it by certain windows to get a good signal (and we live in a pretty built up / dense population area).  At work (in NE Memphis), I have no problems whatsoever even in metal buildings, etc.

The part arrived today and I installed it.  The window regulator (as it is called) operates a bit differently than I would have guessed.  It uses a steel cable, not unlike a brake cable on a bike.  The OEM part failed after 7 years…  it frayed where it connects with the window shuttle on the track.  Here are a few pics of the swap out.   If you do this, get out a phillips screw driver, a flathead, and a 10mm combination wrench (2003 Ford Escape XLT)

Here are a couple more from the ‘stache series….

I get back late on Thursday which should set me up nicely for Marx – Bensdorf team camp (note the change, I guess it is now M-B, not M&B).  It will be down in Oxford next weekend.  I probably will be a wreck, but I’ll get it done.

Last night, Andrea and I ventured out to Flying Saucer where we couldn’t get anyone to join us (what’s a little ice?).  We joined the U.F.O. beer club.  All it will take is 197 more beers (each) to get our plates on the wall.  (It’ll probably take us a while to get that:  with 3 beers / night max and considering we only go 2-3 x’s /month…  Sounds a lot like 2 years.)

The party was good, fueled by good food and two 5 gallon kegs from Bosco’s (Flaming Stone and Ghost River Wee Heavy). The Wee Heavy proved the most popular and it nearly ran out (got two glasses from it the next day).

On Sunday, we packed up the dogs, the mountain bikes, and remaining Flaming Stone and headed west to Mountain View, Arkansas to spend a few days at her dad’s cabin and enjoy the country and a bit of mountain biking at Syllamo trails.

We didn’t leave for Mountain View until the afternoon on Sunday (rode on the road in Memphis and then packed up), so we didn’t get there until after dark. On Monday, we drove down to the middle Green Mountain road trail head and started out on the yellow trail (Jack’s Branch) and diverted to the red trail (Bad Branch) before finishing out the yellow trail at the far trail head. For me it the second time I had ridden both trails, for Andrea, it was only the first time for the yellow trail for her. The red trail is pretty moderate compared to the rest of the system and the second time down the yellow meant I started to get more comfortable with it. The big thing is the amount of climbing on the yellow trail. We got back to the parking lot pretty tired and ready to eat.

Today, we decided to tackle two different trails, the orange (Bad Scrappy) and the green (White River Bluff). The ride would a shorter ride, but more technical. The weather also played a factor, since it was much colder today (40′s compared to 60′s on Monday). Like the yellow, trail it was the second time I have ridden the orange, so I started to get better on some of the tougher sections of this trail. After completing the orange trail, we started on the green. We had walked this trail together back on Thanksgiving weekend, so we knew it, but not really… This trail is a blast with some pretty ridable section that challenge me, but not so difficult that I feel outclassed.

About half the way through the trail, we were clipping along, when I felt something snag… like Andrea a few weeks ago, a stick lodged in my rear cassette and tore off my rear derailleur at the hanger. Unlike Andrea I had a replacement hanger and more importantly, I had it with me.

From stop to back rolling, it probably was only 10 minutes. The chain had somehow looped, but I managed to figure out how to get it unlooped without breaking it (Shimano chain with one-time pin that I just installed that morning). The rear derailleur was just fine, and in fact it seem like the shifting improved a little bit (probably had a bent hanger before I broke it).

The worst thing is that my 9-speed cassette is pretty worn. I need to use the biggest two sprockets, the next two are flaky, the next 3 are okay and the smallest two are unusable under load. I have been working around it using the front chainrings. It is sort of a pain, but I am making it work (changing the chain didn’t help the situation). I guess those bad sprockets are just wore out. Two more days of riding, then I will get the parts I need back in Memphis. (I have one more hanger to carry with me…, guess I need to order more.)

The wedding itself will be pretty basic (Germantown mayor going to help us out there). The feature event will be the party afterwords. My family is down from Michigan/Wisconsin, her family, and friends from this area. I picked up two 5 gallon kegs of Bosco’s beer (Flaming Stone and Wee Heavy) and Andrea’s parents are preparing some food (and hosting our party). Should be a good time and should fit in with our way of being.

Our plans are to head west again for the honeymoon and mountain bike and relax near the Syllamo trails again. We have the spare parts to keep the bikes going and should have a good several days of riding before heading back to work reality. The main reason I have not posted since 12/1 is that I have been pretty busy with work and stuff after work, posting just got dropped.

As for cyclocross, I hope to get back into it in January some, I need to work myself back into shape (although I didn’t fall far). Plan to race some at Columbia (Tenn) and do the Tennessee state championship race if work will allow. Southern X is also a race I would love to do, but I thing work will prevent this from happening.