Well its been awhile since my last post. A bunch has been going on and I have had my hands in a few too many projects. Here it goes.
-One of my cycling buddies crashed it up pretty good at a crit a couple weeks ago... Long story short, the handle bars swung around in the crash (20ish mph probably) and cracked the Top tube pretty good. Fixed it up for him and his Specialized Tarmac SL3 is on the road again.
Ready for compression
A fancy package from SRAM came today. Nice.
At only 8 ozs heavier than my steel rigid fork, I
think the Reba will stay on for awhile.
Standard Byke Co. knocked out another killer custom DJ frame. This one is for my brother. Pretty crazy how things work out in life. My brother bought me my first Standard for Christmas, and now I was involved in designing this custom frame for him!>
-Got my Moped running pretty good. Now has a ridiculous expansion chamber pipe on it. 34 MPH. It will soon have a 70 kit on it and it should cruise at 45 all day.
Moped stripped down for some cleaning.
My buddy Jason is a Professor at ISU and his students built a "Cyclodrome" for a class project. This is actually "Unofficially" the worlds smallest Velodrome. At only 25 meters around, its even smaller than the Red Bull mini-drome.
I brought four bikes with me. My Custom Standard 250-S Cruiser, Bamboo bike, Ibis Tandem and my cross bike for some friends to borrow. I took a lap on each and it was a blast. The surface was EXTREMELY slippery and finally decided I would race my 250-S.... and the Tandem!!! People thought I was nuts and riding the tandem wouldnt be possible because of how tight the turns were. Well I proved everybody wrong and rocked it on the tandem with my friend Kim stoking on the back.
-The race worked like this. You had two time trials and your fastest time over 6 laps seeded you into a bracket. Once you were in the bracket, we raced Pursuit style (two people racing against each other). First person to catch the other rider won, or the first person to finish 6 laps.
First heat, I started off fast, got one lap in, and on the leading turn, washed out terribly. My bike flew off the track, hit the wall and bounced back into the velodrome. Lowered my tire pressure, and knocked out the fastest 6 laps on my first go. 19.68 seconds.
Second Heat, I was still figuring out the track, but with no falls and trying to stay on the red line, I came in at a blistering 18.28 seconds. Over a full second faster than my first lap.
Run number one. If you want to see how slippery it is, watch my foot slip and slide around before I start. Those were skate shoes with plenty of rummer on the bottom too.
Tandem run. So fun. In the turns I could literally feel the fork flex from so much torque on the bars through the tight turn.
Pursuing Kim Topp. The Womens World Champ, and Tandem World Champ!
The last race came down to me and a guy named Chris. We started and Chris wiped out on the 3rd turn. Bummer. I gave him another shot because I really didnt want to win that way. Second race, same thing. wiped out on turn 3. The third race was the final, it took a couple laps but I finally caught him and they called the race. I won! I am the World Champion of the worlds smallest velodrome! And I won coolest bike with my Ibis tandem!
Because this was the World Championship of Cyclodrome racing, the Men's and Women's winner both get a trophy and a World Champ Cyclodrome tattoo from the one and only Dan from Yankee Doodle Dandy Tattoo in DSM and the owner of ICHI Bike. Awesome!!!! Me and Kim will be getting out matching tattoo's on Tuesday!
Here is the tire mark I placed on the wall when I washed out. Pretty insane. Thats about 7' high!
Jason shot this picture after the cyclodrome was taken down. He didnt wash the mark off the wall and it will most likely stay there. Located at the King Pavillion in the College of Design building at ISU, its likely going to get some interesting looks. Kind of like this one.
