Ohhhhhhhh Boy!

This is the BMX track in Blue Springs. First off you will notice the first straight is pave. Kinda takes the "D"(Dirt) out of B.M.X. . . . but I guess Dirt (D.) isn't in B.M.X. so maybe they can pave it. Some tracks also pave the turns now. Just call me Old School I guess.

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This is the first turn. Like I've said before. I think it would be fun to make a dirt velodrome. This turn we give you the sensation of speed.

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Am I learning, or relearning skills? . . . This is the first jump coming out of the first turn. I think they are 28 feet apart. They are too tall to speed jump, so you just gotta sail as far as you can. If you can land on the backside of them and get a crank or two in this will set up up nice for the next set. But nevermind that, you have to get the first set down first. A couple of times I about cleared the backside . . . Can you say ouch!. I mean you would think the problem would be going far enough.

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2nd Straight

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2nd turn

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3rd and 4th Straight.

It certainly has been a challenge relearning some of my old skill and learning some new ones. Hopefully this week I'll get to order my tube set for the BMX frame I'm going to build. I'll have to dust the cobwebs off with a few practice pieces first. Well if anything will test the integrity of your frame building skill, it will be the BMX track test. Especially someone like me who is not smooth at all right now.

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See Ya Next week.

What's New

It's been a while since my last post, So what's new? . . . Not much. Just doing what I was doing. Riding and training. One day I'll race again. Got a lot of outdoor house work to do before winter. So when it rains 15 of the last 20 days sometimes the weekends have to be given up.
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It's not all bad. It good just to get out and enjoy to fall colors

But in the mean time here are some picture from a bike ride I did to Freeman, MO.
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Went to Freeman, MO not too long ago. It's a city that looks like it hasn't changed in 100 years.

. . . I've also got something cook'n in the shop. Hmmmmmmmmm.

The Great Power Outage of 2009

So I made it out to Raytown BMX . Here are some picture of the first straight. There are more on the Raytown BMX site.


The gate. Nice hydraulic lift. Back in my day we had to have some guy lift the gate back up. I mean we thought it was cool when we had an electronic latch.

Here's a good view of the first straight away. Here we go . . . "Back in my day" . . . Well it's true back in my day a first straight away usually had jumps you could not pedal over. The trick is now to be flexable enough to perform this act. Now I know why eveybody hase their seats down really low. I took mine in the chest a couple times on some of the jumps.

This is the first turn. It's almost exactly like the other two. I've ask people what they thought about making a dirt velodrome. I either get no answer or the "What! . . . I didn't order a pizza." look.

Here is proof it would not be that hard to build an oval with banked turns.

AND! it was coming out of that turn I suffer a power outage.

This happened before I could get any pictures of myself riding on the track. Well My better luck later this week.

Another Post

Not much to say. Had to miss last week's race because I'm running out of good days to work on the outside of my house. 87 degrees is not exactly Cyclo Cross weather anyway. . . . Oh I did manage to beat my best time ever on my morning 17.3 mile route by over 45 seconds. It doesn't mean I'm in the best shape ever, considering a week before I rode a lot harder according to my heartrate monitor, and it took me about 2 minutes longer. The course is not a straight point to point, it's more of a C shape and comes 5 mile from being a complete circle. So the wind can still effect your results a bit. Well it's encouraging anyway.

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So what's on tap? Raytown BMX This should be a real hoot. I've got a GT cruiser, but I would exactly call it a cruiser. I'd call it a BMX bike with 24" wheels. It's really hard to make the distinction between the two these days because they make the frames so compact. I'll post picture and be more illistrative later.

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I think I'm going to skip the numbers. I think you all get the point, or got an Idea about what I do. It's just more of the same.

Week 9, First Race

In short. The weather was good, The course was good . . . I think it even benefitted my riding style. It just didn't benefit my bicycle setup. Of the 38 starters I took 8th place. Not bad I guess considering I dropped the chain no less than 5 times. I tried using the 1x10 setup. I was using a chain guard on the outside, and a Deda Chaindog/3rd Eye on the inside. Seems to work for everbody else. I suspect the flaw comes in when you combine this setup with a long cage rear deraileur. Look the the picture below.

Look at the slack in my chain . . . (Yes I took as many links as I could out of the chain before the race) . . . the chain came off three time at the barriers. This might be why.

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The course was not kind to those left behind. A lot of the course was narrow, tight, and twisty. It's hard to pass people when it's like this. I didn't mind so much because it was fun. . . . I mean it's a race . . . After the start I was within eye-sight of the leaders. I was working my way up front, but when you drop your chain and have to stop to fix it, you have to let everybody you just past, pass you, then you have to repass those people again . . . x5 . . . you tend to loose sight of the front. I stuck with it anyway, I figured out where I was dropping my chain and took caution. I passed 5 people on my last lap and that was good, keeps me optimistic.

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Well I have to start someplace. It's not a bad place to start because if I get my chain issue figured out I should finish higher. I'm also going to start working on speed and repeated accelerations.

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Next Race

http://www.kansascitycross.com/images/stories/2009DBCCFlyer.pdf

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Week 9's numbers

Week 8

The Cycloscross season opens up this weekend with Swope Cross in swope park. The Cat-4 Race is 30 minutes. I should be able to keep the hammer down for that long. It's just a matter of how fast the hammer will go once put down.
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If nothing else, I'll have more than spreadsheets to post next week.

Week 7 and the Inner Tube Contraption

This is the Inner tube contraption under construction. Once this gets painted up you will see it at Benetti's Coffee shop in Raytown. It will contain Inner tubes, some basic tools, and a pump. Thanks to the Raytown Post who donated this broken paper box that we are going to recondition. We're not sure exactly how it's all going to work. Since there is no bike shop within miles of Raytown, we've decided it's a good idea to have some simple stuff on hand incase of a break down.

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Week 7 in the books. Nothing reallt to note. Saturdays have been simple rides a couple hours long with no real direction other than to just get out and enjoy riding. If you don't get out every once in a while and look around, and enjoy the ride, then what's the point? I'm going to start doing the Lee's Summit Tuesday Night ride. It goes a little long than the 75th street Brewery ride, and with a lot less stop lights. Last week was a good test, a coouple more of these and I might be ready for the first race.