Happy New Year!

I hope 2010 is great for everyone! Off to santos tomorrow for a nice ride. I promise to take some pics. I hope.

Shopping blows..

Especially when nothing you are buying is for you... Mr. Stingy here..

One thing is evident.. It really is a recession.







The mall. She is empty. The weather. It sucks. Another day off from work spent doing things I have no desire to do. Anyway, i'm writing this between stores. Have an excellent weekend!! I have this outfit to purchase.. Must go!

I hate stationary bikes.

With all of the rain over the last week or two (may I remind you - the rain coincided with my vacation) I have not been able to get out on the bike as much as I would like.  Last night I headed over to the gym to get a workout in on a stationary bike.  I have not been on a stationary bike in about 2 months and figured it would be a good way to get an hour or so worth of exercise in.

I chose 'alpine pass' as the workout.  Instead of mountains, the only scenery was the back of some sweaty dude and a TV that had the volume down. The stationary bike had an enormous seat. When I say enormous, I mean it.  When will these designers realize that bigger is not always better? It was absolutely not comfortable. I adjusted the 'seat post' so that I would have decent leg extension, and began peddling. Within 2 minutes my knees and ass started to hurt. In all, I managed a miserable 40 minutes and 13 miles worth of 'riding'.

This time of year sucks too. Bah.  There aren't enough hours in the day to get riding in, and the days I have time to ride its been raining!  I am absolutely not riding at night on the road bike.  Even during the summer on the after-work rides I would sometimes get caught with the sun going down - and I dont like riding on the sidewalk with 23mm tires. So.. I may bite the bullet and put some lights on the Fantom, pick up some slicks and start riding after work on that... If only I had my old work schedule.. 11 to 8. sigh.

Happy Shopping Day.

Here's to a day of spending far too much money on those you love. By the way, its friggin cold outside for Florida - a low low 55 degrees! Hey, it feels cold. The lowest it has been during the day since LAST 'winter' has been around 70. You people from up north probably want to punch me in the face. Hey, whatever, I am wearing long sleeves today. At least it is sunny, clear and beautiful outside. It rained for a couple of days straight and I have been unable to get out for a bike ride this week at all - and today I am sitting at work. Boo-urns! Well, there is the three day weekend to look forward to - lets hope it doesnt snow! ha.

I am keeping this short and sweet since I am at work and all.  It is, however, a very empty office today. The closer to the end of the year it gets, the fewer people roam these halls. There is a lot of work to do, but after yesterday's food-binge, work is the very last thing on my mind. 

Enjoy your shopping, and don't fight with the teens over the last sparkly Edward 'Twilight' doll at Walmart today.

Got a response from Bikes Direct

As you know my bike was inadvertently named a 'Motobceane' instead of a Motobecane. I finally sent bikesdirect a message through mtbr.com after not hearing from them through their normal email address and got a response within a couple of hours. I sent them some photos of the botched decal and Mike over at Bikes Direct is going to forward those on to the factory. He mentioned something about a discount or an exchange. Im sort of torn between the two. He said he would get back to me after hearing something from the factory.

Do I go for an exchange? Does this mean I tear this bike down and send the whole thing back, and recieve a new one in the box? OR does this mean they mail me a new frame with proper stickers? To be honest, Im not so keen on ripping the bike completely apart and installing to a new frame. I think I would be okay with getting a whole new bike and packing this one up and sending it to them - at their expense. There is also the possibility of having them ship a new bike to Cycle Spectrum, and I drop this one off there. We shall see.

Back into MTB

Ok, so I live in Orlando, Florida - territory not renown for its mountains, rolling hills, or 'wickid singletrack'. There are, however, quite a few good trails in the central florida area: In Ocala, the Tampa area, and out off of Little Big Econ state park. It has been about 6 years since I was on a mountain bike. I bought a GT Avalanche brand new back in 1999, and before that I had a GT Tequesta fully rigid bike. The Tequesta got stolen, the Avalanche got broken. I may share the story of the Avalanche some day. Today is not that day. However, after the Avalanche went away in 2004 I never bought a new trail bike. My concentration since then has been purely road riding.

In 2002 I bought a barely used 2001 Giant TCR Zero. I rode purely on the road for about a year - and then *gasp* got into triathlons. I must say, triathlons are the geekiest, and most difficult thing to train for. It included an absolute insane amount of working out. I did a couple sprint distance, did a marathon, and proceeded to get burned out. Needless to say, the Avalanche set idle for alot of this time - but not idle enough to prevent it from getting broken. I quit the triathlon thing a couple of years ago and took a break from heavy cycling for about a year. Unable to be satisfied with only a couple of rides a month - I started up again a couple of months ago with lots of road riding. I average about 100 or more miles a week, depending on whether or not I can get out during the weekdays. (this is becoming harder to do since the days are becoming shorter) With all of the road riding, I started to get that craving to ride in the dirt. Im sure everyone who rides knows that feeling. I wanted a mountain bike.

Things have changed in the last, what, 10 years? Bikes are ludicrously priced. I love giant, so I road a giant trance x3. It road nicely - but had mostly LX and deore for over 2 grand. Yes, Two thousand dollars for a lower level dual suspended bike. My limit was a grand. A grand doesnt go far when looking for mountain bikes. Ive read alot about 29er bikes, so I went and rode a specialized rockhopper comp - it was 800 bucks for low level components. I rode a gary fisher cobia 29er.. it was 1300 bucks, for a bike with sram x5! I thought to myself that there is no way I am spending 1000+ grand for lower level components on a bike.

I was over at waterford lakes a few weeks back and walked into a cycle spectrum. I had always turned my nose up at it because it carried some brand called 'motobecane'. What I considered to be generic crap. I went in, and they had a 29er sitting there. It was a fantom29. Surprisingly, the components were pretty good - XT rear derailler, avid disk brakes, LX shifters, dart fork. It was 599. It actually had better shifters than the specialized for 200 bucks less. So I rode it, and it felt pretty good.. albeit felt a bit heavy. This was due to the fact that it has generic stem, seatpost, handlebars, etc.

Needless to say, I did some more research on motobecane. Turns out you can buy them online and put them together yourself. After much debating, I purchased a fantom 29er pro SL. The inner bike-snob was really wrenched at spending a grand on the internet for a bike model that alot of people scoff at. But you know, Ive never ridden to impress people with the bike Im on. I guess, if that were the case, I wouldnt have aero bars on a TCR zero. The fantom 29er pro SL's components alone cost about 1200 bucks. If I want to get a botique frame later, I can swap everything over. It doesnt have any generic parts on it at all. Anyway - bike will be here on thursday. I will document putting it together here. I also picked up some Time Atac aluim pedals - I havent ridden without clipless since the late 90s. haha