Deep South Velo-porn

The Giro de Rankin (Rankin County, Mississippi) is a two day, three event race put on by Gary at Pro Bike here in Brandon, MS. It is an individual time trial, a road race, and a crit race for Cat 1-5 racers. I am no where near racing form, I have never raced a Crit, and I'm not on team. Therefore, I did the next best thing. I volunteered to work a turn of the road race and took some pictures.

This year's Giro was May 12th and 13th, and here are some views from turn four of the 20 mile loop. The racers went anywhere between two and four laps.





And, for a quick bike build update:



Here's the newly painted frame just chilling on the workstand. The camera hogging Trek had to flash a little leg (or a Bontrager carbon fork). The parts are in, and all I've got to do now is put this thing together. I'll have the pics of that later.




And for good measure, since I have a triathlon coming up this weekend, here is the Masi hanging in wait in the transition area at the Soak up the Sun Triathlon in Madison, MS.




The answer is yes. The cages are empty because I freaking forgot my water bottles. Luckily this was a very, very short sprint tri. The bike was only eight miles and it wasn't that warm. Still, it was pretty miserable. The one this weekend has a 24 mile bike leg, and if I forget my water bottles again, well... I think I'd be screwed.

My Rides

The two pictures on the left are the stock photos from the Masi and Trek websites. Here are the two actual road bikes I currently own. I don't need two, I just wanted two. First of all because it's fun. Second of all, I can mess around working on the Trek in order to learn how to build a bike (a from scratch build is something I really want to do). A lastly, with another bike around to tool on, I can reserve the Masi for professional hands so I don't screw it up.


Here is my Masi Gran Corsa:

I love this bike. Carbon fork and stays, bladed spokes, 105/Ultegra mix, and sweet paint job flashing a little Italiano. I got Gary at Pro Bike to add on some aero bars and a computer (real basic one with speed, avg speed, distance, and cadence). The seat was moved pretty far forward as well, bascially setting this puppy up at sort of a tri/road hybrid type thing. So, I use it when training solo for triathlons or on rides approaching metric century distance. When in a pace line I just stay off the aero bars, which do flip up so I can use the whole handlebar (they are zip tied down in the picture and ready to race). It's light, fast, forgiving, and I love riding it. It also has a home inside my house. No garage accomodations for the Masi, just the good life in the dining room. Ofcourse, this is mainly because I haven't put up racks in my garage. Without storage shelves and hangers, it's hard to find room for four bikes (these two, my room mate's though it will be gone in a month, and the one I'm working on), a lawn mower, a weed eater, a leaf blower, a garbage can, an electric edger, my tools, and my Honda.


My Trek 1000:

The first road bike I owned. It is a very reliable and overall a very quality ride. It's got a carbon fork, and I forget what mix it has on it. It's become my "practice working on it" bike as well as a great set up for short group rides. I use the Masi on longer rides because there is a much better chance I'll find myself riding solo and I need those aero bars to catch up to a pace line. It's also fun to hop on this bike and do some climbing on hills in some old neighborhoods. There's nothing fancy about this bike. Just pedals and gears, and in a way, that's why I like it so much. Anyway, when I was coming off of knee surgery, the doc suggested biking. I started looking around, and found this at a good entry level price at the time. I didn't feel like diving straight into the deep end because what if I didn't like riding. Seems like a foolish question at the time.

The Bike Build continued....

Time for some paint. Enough of that pee yellow/gold/rust tone. Now, I don't really know what I'm doing, so odds are it turns out pretty hideous. However, hideous would be an improvement, so here goes.


Step one: Primer

I just used plain ol' Rustoleum gray primer. I even painted right over the old paint after smoothing it out with some sand paper. Like I said, the bike was a piece of junk, so anything I do will make it better. Just leaving it a nice primer tone would have been an improvement, but I kept going.


Step two: Base coat

Nothing spectacular here. I just put a white base coat on the frame so the blue paint would show up and look better. The prettiest things in those to pics are the front end of my Trek 1000 and the back end of my friend's (who is crashing at my house for a month) mountain bike. He's got a pretty sweet ride for a mountain bike, though I'm partial to road. Speed is so much more fun than branches in your face and mud. Anyway, I flipped the stem down and really tilted the handle bars down on that trek. I feel like Dave Stoller with a lot more gears. It's great for hitting the drop bars and outrunning really fast dogs. But back to the painting.


Step three: Color

Basic Rustoleum Metallic Blue. The can said is was good for bike frames, so who was I to argue. Now you may notice the crank and pedals are still on the bike (and wrapped in electrical tape). Well, I broke a socket wrench and a socket trying to loosen the screws into the crank, plus until recently I didn't have a crank puller tool or whatever it's called. Basically, I couldn't get the crank out, so I covered it up. The pedals and crank still turned really well, so I figured I'd just leave them alone. This bike is being re-done to simply go 5-10 miles per ride on a very flat beach front rode with a bike lane. So no reason to get fancy.


That's all for now. Waiting for all the new parts to get here, then it should be some serious fun or frustration. Probably both.


Anyway, being Sunday, the Versus network showed today's Giro stage and it was amazing. Two Saunier-Duval riders finished one/two and Mazzoleni (sp) had a hell of a stage. He was in postion to take the Maglia Rosa from DiLuca, but Killer stepped it up and held on. Cunego (my pre-race pick) is hanging with DiLuca, but at this point in time it doesn't look like Killer wants to let go of that jersey without a huge fight. Good times in Italy, which is good to see considering all the doping stuff that's going on right now. It's gotten pretty bad, and Masiguy (see the link) has been posting some good opinions on the whole deal. Plus, he knows more than I do a million times over about all this stuff. I'm still a noob. (But I'm a noob with a sweet ass Masi.)

The Friday Brew

For the very first Friday brew, I'm going with my personal favorite that carries the coolest name. Turbodog by Abita Brewing. Dark but not heavy. A nice rich, roasty sort of flavor with almost a choclatey-ish finish. Hard to explain any other way than just damn delicious. Goes absolutely perfect with a typical New Orleans jambalaya, gumbo, red beans and rice, etoufee, etc. It also goes well with a few more Turbodogs.


Abita Brewing is located 30 miles north of New Orleans and makes five beers year round.

Purple Haze - a rasberry wheat
Amber - self explanatory
Light - also self explanatory
Golden - The perfect cap to a long ride or run
and of course, the magnificient Turbodog.

You'll be seeing Amber and Golden on here later, as they are also two of my favorite brews out there. Below is the link to their website. Check out their beer glasses, they make some cool ones and I've bought a set of four (Light, Turbodog, Purple Haze, and the regular Abita glass).

http://www.abita.com/

Top of the Giro

A view fromt the summit courtesy of Velonews.

Bike Build: What I started with

There was a cheap, rusty, pee yellow Schwinn ATB at my parent's house. I think it was my sister's bike, but it had been sitting outside, in the back yard, for around two years. I told them I wanted a bike to mess around with and work on, and they were more than happy to get rid of it. So, here's what I started with (after breaking the thing down).



That's the frame hanging on my work stand, and that's the fork, stem, and headset laying on my garage floor. That pole in the picture on the right is the handlebars and I think the kickstand is laying next to it. So, inventory needed as of now:

Primer, Base Coat (White), and Blue Metallic Paint
New Handlebars (got some funky ones coming in. You'll see.)
New Kickstand (Why the hell not, I'm giving it to my mom and she might want one.)


The wheels. They were very salvageable. So were the tires, but I've ordered some cheapies with less tread so the mom can ride it up and down the road along the beach. All I've done with the wheels so far is take out the hubs and clean them. I've managed to lose one ball bearing for the front wheel, though. I'll be heading to the local bike store (Pro Bike in Brandon, MS) to see if Gary will give me one bearing. I may haul my Masi up there to remind him that three weeks ago I spent a few dollars in his store. I even volunteered and worked the corner of a race he puts on (there's some good velo porn from that I'll show later). He owes me at least one bearing.


Saddle, seat post, derailleurs, v-brakes, etc. I'm replacing the chain (junked the old one since it was nearly rusted stiff), cables (see the problem with the chain), The shifters and derailleurs were in pretty good (meaning no rust and they worked) shape.

Well, there's the "bike" I found. I'm hoping it looks nothing like that when I'm done. It's my first experience doing any significant work on a bike (as in more than cleaning and greasing), so this may get ugly.

And yes. In the last picture that is a Christmas Wreath laying in my garage in May.

Had to throw this pic out there

This is Damiano Cunego. I can't remember what race this was, but I found it on the Lampre website. This is some serious lean.

The very first (test) post

This is strictly to help me see if the layout is somewhat decent. I am repainting and adding some new stuff to rusty Schwinn piece of junk ATB. That will be what goes on here first, with pics of the whole clusterf*** that the project has become.