beer brake

The 18th edition of the halloween alleycat was a great excuse to visit Berlin again. It was also supposed to be the 2year reunion of team beer break which came together spontaneously at the prenzopoly alleycat. Unfortunately however, although all 5 members from around the world made plans to be there, when it came down to it only Morgan and I made it, while I guess the others had spent their monthly travel budget on, well, beer... I'm so proud. This is Morgan's unimpressed face at the slackness exhibited by team beer break. It was soon replaced by that happy face we know and love after one of the many different vegi burgers we sampled along the way. The food in berlin rocks...



Sober October came to an abrupt end on the 29th. I can't decide which was more stupid, not drinking for a month, or ever starting again... I was gonna try blame this somehow on the guys from ESK (a berlin cycling club, something to do with steel pigs, but thats all that i can remember about them) who organised an epic night time cyclocross dual slalom race in a park, 1 euro entry fee, including a beer... but yeah, that wouldnt work, good times

October was however a relatively cheap month, well, no that's not exactly true, what I didn't spend on beer I spent on bikes, the cheapness was just a matter of perception. I've been trying to make small incremental improvements on the cx bike each week, last week was new cleats and studs in the shoes (which attach to the bike). This week some tubular cx tires will see action for the first time. Thanks to the guys at cicli berlinetta for a sweet set of Hutchinson shark 32c tires.

cx race #3 (actually #4 of the series) - honselersdijk

now its starting to get really interesting. rain, cold, mud... almost all the ingredients are present :-P a friend on mine here told me that when he used to play football at school, they used to dread going out into the westland because the wind was always howling, and the kids they played against were always twice his size. well the wind was howling, it was raining, and cold, but it was still a good race out in honselersdijk



being just 15km from home, it was a rare opportunity to ride to the race, that is without wearing down the precious tread on my only set of cyclocross tires, but the weather kept the support crew to a minimum. im still not sure what inspired willem jan to come along for the ride, but it sure was good to have someone to laugh while i inhaled multiple snickers bars after the race.



staying up late the night before the race to disinfect my aging drivetrain and replace gear cables seemed to pay off as the bike worked almost perfectly. had a little trouble clipping in, but yeah worn cleats in the mud, its not suprising really. anyway, my 10th place finish out of 29 starters moved me up from 13th place overall (i think) into a 3 way tie for 9th place overall out of 43 competitors so far in category A. missing 1 of the 4 races so far doesnt help when it comes to accumulating points, but its early days with still around 9 races to go. next race november 6th in numansdorp, looks sandy...



i finally got some club kit so now i get to look all serious like the rest of the guys there while playing in the mud. thanks again to foto koos for the photos, and yeah if you think i look silly, there are more photos here :-P

polomotion bonus

321polo they shout. team super comes back from obscurity to represent one more time at bikemotion/polomotion 2010 in Utrecht. we only played two games tonight/Friday night, one we lost 5-0 and the other we got a walk over, so far I'm liking our average...



as a bonus however I managed to find a 68x103mm BSA jis bottom bracket for my new oldschool dura ace 7410 cranks :-) thanks to the guys at pristine, and ofcourse the guys at sugino for being one of the only bigger manufacturers to make this obscure size, and yes that is a 750ml chocolate milkshake in the background, dinner of champs

as most of my bike fixing time has been spent getting the polo bike ready this week, I guess some late night tinkering is in order on the cyclocross bike, and then a little rain dance before bed :-P

160km that was actually 172km

but who is complaining..? the weather was amazing, i even took my leg warmers off for the last 40km to see if i could catch some of that sunshine. so the first part of the vacansoleil4challange started and finished on the scheveningen boulevard not far from our house and it went just fine. i only managed to ride the first 30km or so with the people i planned to ride with but for one reason or another i ended up riding with a group of 6 guys who seemed to be in quite a rush to get it over with. we did the 172km in 5hr22mins including 2 short breaks for bananas and krentebollen and all my equipment went just fine. including my tubular tires for which i had no spare :-P i have ordered another tire which i will put on the back wheel and take the ever so slightly worn back tire along as a spare from now on. oh and i even spotted the boogie man at the finish

cx race #2 - zoetermeer

breakfast part 1

breakfast part 2

i already knew that cyclocross was a stupid sport, but i discovered this week its also an expensive sport... i expected to go through plenty of brake pads and at least the current rims im using, and well, the drivetrain im using is a bit worn already, so riding in the mud is a good excuse to wear it out. but rear derailleurs? i didnt plan to go through too many of them.

about halfway

i guess neither did all the other guys and girls i saw pushing their bikes back to the start during the course of the days racing. the mud on the zoetermeer course was pretty special. it really stuck to everything. it was wet on while it was on the ground and then it dried and accumulated when it touched a bike.

bye bye 105 derailleur

so broken derailleurs were the order of the day, and i got a nice one on the second last lap... at that point i was in 5th place of 26 starters battling it out with the 6th place rider and occasionally spotting the guy in 4th ahead of us. last week, in gouda, i finished 8th out of 15, and the guys who finished 6th and 7th there, ended up in 8th and 9th at this race. so yeah, i was feeling pretty good and happy with my race, and im over it now, but at the time i was pretty bummed to have to pull out. the thought did cross my mind to pick my bike up and run the rest of the race, which i started doing even though i was probably carrying more mud than bike, until i had been passed by 4 or 5 guys and i couldnt be bothered any more.

the canadian avenger spotted

anyway, next week there is a 160km road race/tour starting here in scheveningen, so getting muddy (in a race) again will have to wait until honselersdijk on the 23rd. i have a stand-in old skool shimano 600 rear derailleur (thanks willem-jan!) but i am seriously considering doing the next mud bath singlespeed. any ideas on a good ratio?

scuffed saddles and scratched brake hoods

is what u get from doing criterium races in the wet. well i guess that only applies if you're like me and go from telling yourself to take it easy (and just finish somewhere in the middle of the bunch), to being pretty much at the front of the bunch going into a slippery hairpin, and realise that you had a little too much faith in those new tires of yours...



well,i wasnt alone as at least 5 other people went down in the same corner, and im not sure exactly how much i had to do with that, at least as far as i remember, i didnt touch or get touched by anyone as we did a little tarmac surfing together. anyway everyone got up and continued the race after straightening their bikes out so no major harm done. my ridiculously light saddle got a few grams lighter, the comfort level unaffected, for better or for worse



the races happened at the local den haag bike club HSK Trias at their closed course. but this is the tail end of the road season, and the calm before what promises to be a storm of a cyclocross season!!

pyjamas and wheelbuilding

so i find myself with some time on my hands. time to think about just how perfect pyjamas are for building wheels in, and put it to the test. this mornings wheel brings the total in the house to 12. i have a very tolerant girlfriend, only 2 of them are hers :-) but as any bike nerd knows, each one is special for its own reasons. and yes im talking about bike wheels here. this mornings wheel is a rigida dp18 built on a white industries eccentric eno with dt swiss competition spokes, to be used on my cyclocross bike. if all goes according to plan in races, either fixed or singlespeed, i havent decided.



i also finally got round to making a base for the wheeltrueing stand, which is important as its gonna get even more use over the coming days. last saturday night saw a sneaky conversion of a donated shimano 105 road hub from 7 to 9 speed freehub body, and a shimano deore lx mtb hub from 9 to 7 speed. the lx hub is only being used as a singlespeed anyway, and this means i have a set of road hubs to discover is there really is anything to the idea that tubular tires are the better

bed time reading

lots of nice shiny wheels are being built in the living room of the beach house these days. i even built one for money. kind of the opposite of normal. being paid to build a wheel rather than paying to build a wheel. but without getting to ride it, so kinda like being given a bar of chocolate for free and not being able to eat it i guess... anyway it was fun fantasizing with the idea of writing 'wheel builder' in the profession section of visa forms or questionnaires.



i feel like a bike nerd for thinking this, but this book is bloody marvelous!

no more piece of wood and hammer

what can i say, im a sucker for that new tool smell. now its not that my trusty block of wood and nice big hammer havent served me well over the years, in fact many a chris king headset has been put into a custom built frame using this method, to the horror of any onlookers. but when a good deal comes a long, its hard to pass the opportunity by to expand my tool collection



so the sycip starts its 3rd incarnation with new powdercoat and reinforced disc mount. jay and jeremy did a wonderful job as usual. great to have another excuse to buy new bike bits again. this time around the sycip will have less gears, but i doubt thats gonna leave any money over for me to have more beers. see you at sswc10 in rotorua?

old and new toys

got the snowboard out on a swiss hill a week ago. first time cartwheeling down the slopes in about 5 years! i gotta say that switzerland is a(n expensive,) well organised country. catch the tram to bern central station, put your credit card in the ticket machine and next thing you know you have a train/bus/ski lift ticket and youre ready to go. faster, cheaper and easier than going by car



and to reward myself for making it up and down the hill so many times without serious injury, i bought some new bike parts. been wanting to try this little innovation for a while now. supposedly lighter and stronger than conventional rails. actually way lighter than a thomson seatpost and a slr saddle. doesnt seem to have taken off tho, so theyre nice and cheap on crc. time will tell if theyre as comfortable and durable i suppose. so far so good tho