Hill Billy Roubaix

(See attached file: tires.jpg)
(See attached file: HBR.jpg)
First thing first I'm getting the same question asked over and over again from lots of different people "How was the Hill Billy Roubaix?" My answer it was hard but fun worth the price of admission. So here's my best description it's a dirt and gravel road race. It's 70 miles long has about 30-40 miles of dirt and gravel roads about 5-6 miles of quad trails and the rest is pavement. The next question is what's the best bike setup? That's easy a CX bike with at least 30C tire. I took the hard route and used my road bike cause my CX bike is setup for commuting and was to lazy to make the necessary changes. I did get lucky and was able to squeeze a set of 28C on which are still on 4 weeks later. The fast started pretty fast and there seemed to be a pretty group of like 10 people that formed pretty early and got smaller quick do to flats. After we got through the first rocky downhill and some quad trails it was group of 4 Gunnar, Gerry, Andy and me. Then it went to 3 people and finally Andy and Gerry dropped on a descent. From that point on I past Andy and the only other people I seen was Ryan and Ben on the motto. I was feeling good and still trying to chase Gerry down but around hour 3 I started cramping. That's when I went from chasing to worrying about be getting caught. Somehow I finished and managed not to get caught and was second overall. So yes it was hard and fun all at the same time and worth checking out. Thanks to JR and his crew for the fun. I got some moonshine and I'm pretty that this time next year I'll still have some moonshine.

J

Lumberjack

So I went to the Lumberjack 100 the third stop in the NUE series. The trip was OK, driving in Michigan is awesome the roads are in great condition and not much traffic. But no matter how good the roads are 9 hours of driving is allot of driving. Ruth and me got to the course around 1:00 on Friday and did some pre ride. The course was and trails were pretty sweet no big long climbs but a few short kickers. It seemed like it was going to be a fast race on Saturday. We met up with some other Burgh people and had dinner and then off to bed.
We got to the start nice and early and started getting ready and got our transition pit setup. Everything was going great but I still had a strange feeling that something wasn't quite right. I got dressed and went to turn on my Garmin and nothing WTF. Now I'm pissed and just waiting for something else to fucking break just like everything I've bought this year. Seriously is there anything made anymore that doesn't fail to disappoint and break? After scrambling around for a watch or something to keep track of time with Ruth said I could borrow her Garmin cause she had a watch. So I headed over to the start still feeling like it was just a matter of time until something else would go wrong. The start went good and with in the first 20 minutes I worked my way though the field and got in a fast group of about 7 racers. It was nice at this point cause I was on a single speed and got pulled though one of the maintenance road sections. Then back into the singletrack I decided to push the pace and went out in front Gerry came with me. The two of us rode together for a while I just couldn't be how fast, fun, and easy the course seemed. It was all singletrack but not like the singletrack I'm used too. It was super smooth and no rocks or logs but super flowing and I was having a blast. I told Gerry it was like cheating cuase it was so much fun. Then we popped out onto another maintenance road some fast geared guy that had flatted earlier came flying by and we jumped on his wheel. I was the last one and was following them and somehow picked a crappy line though the sand and fell off. Later in the woods I tried to catch back on but wasn't able too. Everything was going great there was about 4 miles left in the first lap and I got to where I pre rode the day before. That's when it started my Alum Specialized single speed Stumpjumper rides and handles great but creaks, rattles and makes a new noise every time I ride it. But this noise sounded familiar it sounded just the noise when the brake caliper came loose at DSG. So I slowed down just a hair and tired not using the rear brake but the noise was still there. I figured it'd be faster just to ride it out until I got to the transition area and take a look at it there. I get there and grab a three-way and start checking both brakes are tight, the rotors feel tight, bottle cages are tight, stem, seatpost, bars everything's tight WTF? So I grab my food and bottles and head back out the for the second lap thinking this is why I like SS nice and quite less shit to break. Great news is about 3 miles into the lap I finally found the problem. Bad news what the problem was and how I found this out. My cranks just locked up WTF? I jump off and start looking to try and find the problem. The fucking lockring on my White Industries BB come loose and the BB bearing backed out and got wedged the lockring between the crankarm and BB bearing housing. You gotta be fucking kidding me so how does shit like this fucking happen? So after using some mad mechanic skills I got my cranks to turn. They wobbled a little but figured that it'd be OK. The next couple of miles seemed OK maybe it was the hate I was experiencing. But after that went away the creeking got worse, then the thought of the Seven I ordered that still isn't in was in the back of my head. I just kept thinking how nice it will be to ride a bike that's not a creeking piece of shit. Then shortly after that all the fun was gone and the reality set in that I have to ride this creeeking POS another 50 miles. That's when two things happened first I decided that I will never ever ride this bike again and second when I get to the start I'm not going back out.
So after I got back I waited about 30 minutes just to make sure that I really wanted to DNF and it sucks not finishing but mentally I was wrecked and couldn't take the mental abuse anymore. Ruth had a good race and finished 9th and in under 10 hours that was cool. I guess sometimes it's best live to fight another day.

J