Smithers MINNEAPOLIS

I raced MTB!

So I raced the new mountain bike at Buck Hill tonight.

Those that know me well know me pretty well. They also know that I used to talk all kinds of smack about MTB and cyclocross. That was back in the day when I raced on the velodrome on Thursday nights. I have not raced on the velodrome in about a year and a half and really don’t miss it.

Funny enough, there are those that used to race MTB all the time, especially Thursday nights at Buck Hill. Some of them now race at the velodrome on Thursday nights instead.

Rollz be reversing yo.

So anyway, lots of things happened and I will try and remember some of those things.

First off, I had my MTB assembled by a competent mechanic. It’s getting to the point where I can barely put a new road bike together because component manufacturers insist on making things so complicated that the average former bike shop employee from 20 years ago can no longer figure out how to work on their own bike. I need help getting the cranks installed but for the most part I can still get a road frame built up. But an MTB? No f-ing way. Three reasons:

1. Disc brakes
2. Suspension forks
3. Torx head bolts

Disc brakes are actuated by goo and the last thing I want is to spill that goo all over the place. Plus the last time I had to work with disc brakes was back in the year 2000 (or whenever) when that junk was first coming out and there was all kinds of black magic involved in getting those things to work correctly. I assume it’s still the case today.

Suspension forks…yeah I know you really don’t need to do anything magical to get the fork on the frame but all those seals and stanchions and shit scare me.

Torx head bolts, WTF!? Who the hell ever thought that was a good idea? So now when I take a bike out for the first time and the headset loosens up, like they always do, I need to have a Torx head wrench in order to fix this problem? DUMBO.

And I am not even mentioning the fact that the rear derailleur looks totally f-ed up and the bike has not even been ridden a single kilometer, the front derailler looks like it got pre-run over by a truck, the stem looks way too short and the seatpost looks way too long. The only thing I recognize is the saddle and the pedals so I sit on me bike and I pedal pedal pedal with all me strengths.

Before my competent mechanic could assemble the bike he needed me to bring it on over, so I did that along with all the parts that I ordered to build it up with. Them partz were in a sweet box! Then my competent mechanic ordered the correct parts since the ones I ordered were totally wrong. Front derailler was supposed to be top swing or bottom pull or whatever the hell, WHY THE F DOES IT NEED TO BE SO GOD DAMN COMPLICATED? Then the rear disc brake mountain bracket was wrong so he needed to order that too. JUST MAKE BIKE WORK.

Finally, four days later, I’m told to come by and pick up the bike as my competent mechanic says he will be finishing it up that afternoon. Four days later is today by the way, the day of the race I wanted to make competition in. Nothing like taking your first test ride on a bike during a race right?

So I walk into the shop and find my competent mechanic sitting on a stool next to my bike crying. Turns out that I ordered a 9 speed shifter set, a 9 speed rear cassette cog set but a 10 speed rear derailleur. Sometimes you can turn a screw and magically make shit work. Not this time apparently. I told him to just throw on any 9 speed derailler and MAKE BIKE WORK but no dice, the shop was out of stock. My chances as making the bike race at the bike race were swirling the toilet. But I never give up even and especially when it looks totally and completely hopeless! That’s when I excel.

I ended up making a 30 mile round trip drive in order to get the correct rear derailler and my competent mechanic took a break from the tears and got that thing singing in two shakes of a lambs tail. Awesomeness could now commence, just as soon as he cut down the steerer and zip tied some cables down.

I was not running too late but I still needed to stop by the house and grab my bike racing costume before I drove out to Buck Hillz. It was at this point that I realized that I did not have a functioning pair of MTB shoes. I mean, I had a few pair of shoes around but none of them had cleats mounted or adjusted. So I grabbed a pair of banana shoes and some cleats, the rest of my race costume and busted some moovz.

In my panic to get to the race on time I ended up being the first person to arrive in the parking lot at Buck Hill. Fine, since I had work to do anyway. Got the cleats mounted and then had to adjust the saddle height on the MTB before I could fine tune the cleat position. It was at this point that I realized the seatpost I had was about three inches too short…WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME!?!?

Ped pulled his car into the parking lot next to me at that very moment just in time to laugh at my misfortune. Then he was kind enough to switch seatposts with me in order to MAKE BIKE WORK. Done. Victory was in the bag.

Now I could fine tune the cleat set up on the new shoes. I like to spend some time dialing in the cleat position to make sure that I am delivering the perfect amount of watts to the pedals and also to avoid any knee pains, issues and shit like that. So you can imagine how shocked I was when I clipped into the pedals and the setup felt perfect after basically just throwing the cleats onto the bottom of the shoes.

Should I tweak with them anyway? Why? They feel perfect. But how can they feel perfect if I just WHATEVER, BIKE IS WORKING JUST GO WITH IT.

I asked Ped if I needed pins for the race number and he just rolled his eyez at me. Apparently the race number in an MTB race goes on the bike not the rider. Not sure what happens when you take a pit bike, but I did not have one so I did not pursue it. Ped then showed me how to attach the number to the bike so as to keep in correctly in place and not look like a gomer. Mission accomplished.

Then we took some lapz.

I practiced getting rad.

Due to my MTB inexperience Ped gave me some advice. He said I should think about one thing during the race. Always make sure my front wheel was pointed in the direction that I wanted the bike to travel. The missing puzzle piece was now in place. Time to dominate.

It was time to line up for the race and we lined up at the back of the field. OK, so this was a mistake as I spent the first whole lap of the race waiting in line at any technical section. But you live and learn right? Next time I will be farther up front.

Before the end of the first lap my rear derailler cable had stretched out and my rear shifting was for crap. Someone said to me, “Hey bro, that don’t sound so good.” So I said, “Don’t worry, she’ll hold together.” Then, under my breath I said, “Hear me baby? Hold together…”

I did four laps with no difficulties. I wished the race was five laps because that last lap was the most awesome. I really felt like I was getting into the groove with the exception of my rear shifting was was not really interested in finding any groove of any kind. I witnessed some crashing, I over ran one turn but was able to keep shit together.

It was very strange having brakes that actually worked. Like they really stopped the wheels when you pulled the lever. I wonder if this will take some getting used to when I go back to the canti brakes on the cross bike. But I still don’t think I would want brakes like these discs on the cross bike. Maybe I won’t be havin no choicez in teh futurez.

I probably finished in the top 50. Seriously.