Single speeds may truly be dead!

Recently in order to fund my 2016 race campaign I decided I was going to sell off some stuff. First on the block is my 29er specialized carbon single speed frame. I started this auction on eBay with a very low price of $450. The frame is in great shape. It's got a few hours to go and has no bids. Carbon single speeds are truly rare anymore, due to the fact that the bike industry just wasn't selling enough of them. They couldn't continue to manufacture these frames just to have them sit on the warehouse shelf. Now if you want to single speed you only have a couple choices or custom. 

So it seems I have the 1982 Camaro of bikes in my possession. Not old enough to be cool but not cool enough to be current. Guess I maybe making custom mailbox posts out of old frames or just leave expensive frames in the basement to collect dust. I hate you bike industry. For changing something that is basically unchanged for a 120 years, every two years or so.  

The problem lies in nobody seems to be interested in anything but a fat bike recently. So a small niche of riders that were single speeders are now fat bikers. Leaving the small amount of single speeders that there originally were even more emaciated then we are. So in conclusion, the bike industry would have you believe that the 1x11 has killed the single speed (I've read) but in fact it's the fat bike that seems to be the single speeds demise. 

What's next? Boost 148 making everything else obsolete? You bet your sweet ass. And how are they going to get you to buy it? They're  going to tell you it's lighter and stiffer, like everything else they've sold us.  We're going to eat it up because we're a bunch of idiots looking to reinvent the wheel. On something as simple as a bicycle. 

-M

Into week 3 of the whole30

Whole 30 2 weeks down. 

This has been the toughest week. I'm moody and cranky. Workouts are going really crappy. Cravings really aren't there but I've considered sneaking a muffin or two. I've lost zero weight since the first week. I know you're not supposed to weigh yourself on this program but as a cyclist I can't help it. Although I'm not eating much different than I normally do, I'm bored out of my mind with the food I've been consuming. Seems the odd sweet here and there makes eating healthy all that much easier. Not only that but my workouts have taken a turn for the worse mostly because my diet is so perfect. It's the nothing to work off theory. Eat crappy, drink, work your ass off to pay for it. That's how it usually goes. Now it's eat healthy and ah what's the point? 

I'm still committed but I'm not gonna lie, things need to get better, soon. 

-M

Sketchy shit!!

Well we took that tree down. The one that was gonna fall on the house. My buddy Dave came over and immediately declared "I don't feel comfortable cutting that" Thanks to the whole 30's  deep long sleep, I dreamed the night before about how to winch it back away from the house then roping it off so it would fall any other way. After much discussion about deductibles vs cost of tree service, planning of escape routes and backyard physics, we decided to give it a go. The hardest/scariest part for me was climbing up 25' or so to get the rigging on the dead tree. I was shaking in fear while holding the ladder. Lol. He did the climbing. Seems someone else being up in the air elicits the same fear of heights response in me as if I were up there. Once the rigging was up, the chain block made short work of this leaning 60 foot oak, pulling it straight in no time. I knew at that point it wasn't going toward the house. From there we tied it off to the side and he set out to notching it. We had a short discussion about the way it would react with three different pulling forces on it. The way it wants to fall, the rigging pulling it up and the rope I'm going to be pulling on. Escape routes were planned, the saw starts and in no time he yells "PULL". I can tell you that standing under a falling oak is way less scary than climbing it. As the tree began to fall I stepped to the side and it slammed to the ground not 10' from where I was standing. Exhilarating!!! 

I'm so glad it's down, the worst thoughts I had, were interestingly enough, that I was gonna have to waste the entire weekend making phone calls and waiting for tree service guys. Being held hostage made me actually consider just letting it fall on the house. I hate that shit!! 

Thanks to my friend Dave for his backwoods experience and daring. 

I owe you one. 

Now we can go ride bikes. -M