1^st place Vultures Knob Groovy Series #2

I have always been carless about having bar plugs on my bike, but I am now converted. My front wheel became stuck in a rut and I crashed at my max speed for the course, 31.5 mph. In the fray, the bar punched me right in the throat. Thankfully, it just hurt. I can only imagine the gore of being core sampled like a potato when it’s been stabbed with a straw.

This also makes me think that I will try holding on to the bars for a little longer the next time that I have a big crash. In the past, I have always let go early to try escaping the fray. Depending on the situation, it might be a good idea to try riding out the crash. By hanging on to it a little better, I could probably put the bike between the ground and myself. This is something to consider if the bike is going down sideways, but I am still going to bail out in a front-end collision.

In other news, while at the race I won a pair of custom carbon fiber insoles that are supposed to increase my power transfer. I will let you know how they work when they arrive.

The race was about 26 miles long and I had not seen anyone for the last 8 miles. When at the top of a short climb, I looked back and saw the second place rider coming through the trees only 15 seconds behind me. Panicking a bit, I immediately started riding harder and planning the rest of the race. My computer said we were 5 miles from the finish. This is the first time that I have raced the person in second place, but he already came with a reputation and a resume including one of the hardest races in PA.

At this point in the race, I had just finished consuming the last of my food and water making this the perfect time to take the pace to the next level. It was really the only option, because I sure as hell didn’t want to loose a sprint to the finish against a strong roadie. I started to ride as hard as I could from that point on. If I could at least keep the 15 second lead, that might be enough for me to win the sprint at the end. All of my gauges and sensors were firmly pegged in the red zone and my jaw ached a bit, which only happens when I ride hard.

At the end of the race, I watched my back as I climbed the final hill and covered the remaining yards to the finish line.  I thought for sure that he had been working just as hard as I had and that this was going to be an all out battle, but he wasn’t there. All of the paranoid scenarios that had played out in my head during the last miles could now go back into hiding. From that point in the race 5 miles earlier where I had seen him to the finish, I was able to put a 2-minute lead on him. What a relief.

I thought that this might happen, but I was interested in seeing how long it would take. Honestly, I hoped it would last a month or two. I didn’t think that it could be such a failure.

In the initial test, I tried a few 20 mph stops. The grip increased with each stop until #5. During which, a lump began to form in the break feel. Soon after a hunk of brake surface tore away from the disk. When I looked half of the surface was just hanging.

I think the problem was heat building up in the disk during the hard stops. It’s my guess that the heat combined with the high torsional load caused the epoxy to weaken. In other experiments I have done heat has played a role in failures. The question moving forward is how close to the heat can this epoxy be before it is affected. For now though, my carbon fiber doesn’t really have any place as the actually braking surface, but it could be used to support a brake surface. 

The Factory Riders website is now open. If you haven’t taken a look at it head over now. It’s growing by the minute. The imagineers at Ray’s have been hard at work developing it for more than a year and the first rollout is running.

I will be riding for GT in 2009. It is an opportunity that will take me farther than any I have had in the past. In addition, my role will change slightly. With GT I will act as more of a company man, doing more promotion, events, and demos. The change comes at a perfect point, giving me more time to develop as a pro level racer. This approach will also help GT remind the racing public that they can still make a super bike.

The situation is puzzling. It has been 5 years since I have seen a GT under a privateer racer and 8 years since anyone I know (Todd) has purchased one. I have had the chance to ride a few over the years and they have always been impressive. In fact, I once owned a full XTR Team LTS, which was the most amazing bike I had ever ridden. I bought the bike second hand from Alex for $600 and raced it many times. No bike before or since has climbed as well and this might seem strange, but none have looked as good.

If you haven’t seen them, this years bikes look hot, something I worry about. They offered me the choice of a carbon Zaskar or Marathon. Each is amazingly well built and stunning to look at. I had to consider the evolution of my riding style in the choice. Over the years, things have changed making the clear choice for me the Marathon. Getting power to the ground has been an issue with my current strategy, so that puts the Zaskar out of the question. I have talked to the engineers at GT and they back up my thoughts making this the clear choice for me.

More to come on this topic…

of the Manitou Minute MRD Absolute

3.2 pounds, 100mm of travel, 32mm stanchions

The following is a review of this fork from my point of view. This is the final review for the first Manitou that I have ridden since swearing never to ride one again about five years ago. I have owned three Manitou forks prior to this one, and all have broken. First, the crown on my EFC cracked on either side of the steer tube. Then, I had two Manitou Mach 5 SX forks break. Number 1 snapped jumping down some stairs and the stanchion tubes on number 2 broke off just below the crown while trail riding.

I could tell immediately upon seeing the new fork that this wasn’t going to be the issue. Manitou is hardly the same company that it used to be. Gone are the soft CNC’d crowns, the plastic preload adjusters, and the squirmy dropouts. First, this fork is built on 32mm stanchions, which sets it apart from the 28mm crowd. It’s an entire order of magnitude stiffer than a 28mm fork.

 Ideally, this thing should work all year without maintenance, have 100+mm of smooth travel, and be light. The reality wasn’t far off the mark.

I have put about four thousand miles on this fork in a mix of XC racing, 24 Hour endurance, trials, and jumping at Ray’s. The bike frame supporting this fork broke twice; all the while, this thing continued unfazed. In fact, it works so well that I never think of it. That’s not something that I can say about others that I’ve ridden. The construction of the fork is incredible.

The tag line of this fork should be “Set it and forget it”. Give the rebound knob at the bottom a couple clicks and you’re done. I’m not a fan of lock outs, platform, or compression dampening but this fork does have a very nice platform system.  It sounds very mechanical when it’s working and seems like it does the trick. I’ve found that I only fiddle with the lockout knob when I’m riding for fun. I doubt anyone switches this thing on in the middle of an endurance race.

It is smoother and stiffer than the 2006 Fox F100 RL, and after four thousand miles, it’s just starting to break-in. It is without question the best fork that Manitou has ever made.

At work I have been building an industry desk. I’m working with middle market manufacturers that have revenues between 50 and 200 million dollars per year. This size company can support the technology that I focus on and pay the fee that we charge for our services. I spend a lot of time looking for IBM AS/400  (iSeries) mini mainframe instillations running JD Edwards enterprise resource planning software or the programmer analysts that works on the systems. The AS/400 is or was the backbone for most manufacturers. Many companies are moving to network based data systems, but the 400 still holds a strong market share in the slower to change manufacturing environment. They are also popular in the insurance industry. The AS/400’s ability to crunch enormous amounts of data makes it perfect for referencing data points in a huge national directory for every transaction made.

I spend a lot of time looking for clues that a company will have an AS/400. A clue may come in the form of a software package, style of programming code (RPG 3, 4, and COBOL) or industry. Clues like these lead to finding hiring managers and employees that have specific needs or the right professional background. From this point, I market candidates to the hiring managers with the intent of landing a job order. Adversely, I can recruit employees from the company to export to other companies.

Moving employees from one company to another or marketing one exceptional employee to several companies is the name of the game. In doing this, it is hard to avoid learning all of the latest technology, news, and rumors within the market segment.  All of the industry data comes in handy when convincing someone to make a major change in career paths. This is all the more important in a shrinking industry segment filled with an older population of programmers, more than 80% of which have 10+ years of experience. However, for as large a decision as this seems to be, I am regularly surprised at how freely people with great jobs jump in with both feet. My developing ability to create the perception of greener pastures is becoming an increasingly important skill.