Driving

I've been driving for about 9 years. I consider myself to be a pretty good driver, very responsible. I use my turn signals, come to complete stops at stop signs, never speed within city limits, and always observe the right of way. That being said, I drive really fast on the freeway on my way to work. I go about 65-70 mph until I hit Terra Linda, then it's 75+ mph all the way to Petaluma. This morning I was weaving in and out of traffic in an effort to stay ahead.

It's fun though, y'know? Like I feel like I'm finally one of those drivers who is good enough to safely change lanes at high speeds in order to get ahead of the flow of traffic. Yes, I realize how stupid that sounds.

My only gripe is that my truck doesn't really accelerate fast enough to really be able to merge right, speed up, and merge back left in front of a slower vehicle, especially at 70+ mph. I'm thinking of installing a supercharger, or perhaps a turbocharger.

Bikes

Inventive title, no?

So I wanted to talk about my future bike projects for a little bit.

Right now I have a 2004 or 2005 Santa Cruz Blur 4X built up with X.0, XT, XTR, , Chris King, and Rock Shox components. It's a fucking fun bike, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I wish I had a little bit more travel. I'm considering getting either a 2009/10 Santa Cruz Bullit frame with a DHX Air 5.0 and 36 Float RC2, or a 2010 Specialized Enduro SL frame. Either way I'll be mostly just swapping my parts over from the Blur, so the end result should be pretty light. The Blur weighs about 28 lbs right now (thanks to the stupid Pike), so I project that the Bullit would weigh about 30 lbs (with the 36 Float RC2), and the Enduro would weigh about 28-29 lbs (maybe less with a 2010 Rock Shox Revelation Team Dual Air).

For the road bike category I have a 2003 Specialized S-Works E5 road bike frame, painted in that sweet Mario Cipollini zebra-striped team paintjob. I had a smattering of Dura Ace and Ultegra 9-speed components on it as well as some Ksyrium SL wheels, but I loaned all of the parts to a young co-worker of mine so that he could have a nice road bike for once. Aren't I nice? Anyway, the main line is that I have a really nice frame sitting in my house, looking forlorn. It makes me feel guilty every time I come into my house, it's just sitting there, staring at me. So I was thinking about getting this and putting all the parts (except for the wheels) on my S-Works frame. Or I could just buy a full SRAM Rival group from QBP and a pair of DT Swiss RR1450 Mon Chasseral wheels and build it up. I'm sort of on the fence with this. In one hand, I didn't ride the S-Works when I had it built up, it just sat around and gathered dust (but it looked pretty); on the other hand, the shop at which I work sells mostly road bikes, so it would be nice to be able to say "Yes, I have one of these and it is nice..." to customers in order to let them know that I'm not just some sheep in wolf's clothing.

Ah decisions decisions.

Weather

Ok so it was about 95 degrees here today with 13% humidity and overcast. That means that if it weren't overcast, we all might have died. Like seriously. The heat was heavy, and the greenhouse effect wasn't helping. Thank the gods I have a fan back here in the service department.

We got 12 boxes in our UPS shipment today; 2 from QBP, 1 from SE Racing, and the rest from Trek. The highlights include a container of colored anodized cable tips (red, black, blue, green, violet), brass 4 and 5mm cable housing ferrules, and a smorgasbord of WTB tires that were on sale for like $13 each. HELLO sales margin.

Tomorrow I will build what came in the SE Racing box.

Music

I'm a big fan of music that evokes emotion in me. Recently I've uncovered the third album from a band called Haste the Day known as "When Everything Falls." Now HtD is a Christian band, like As I Lay Dying, and I have learned to not hold that fact against any musician because they make some damn good music. I'm convinced that "Walls and Fear" and "Long Way Down" are the best songs on the album, as they are the precursor to a large grin on my face whenever I hear them.

You can find the website for the band here and you can purchase the album here.

Naked Bikes

This morning I was browsing the front page of Pinkbike.com (like I always do) and I came across an article about a little company known as "Naked Bikes." Hand-crafted frames blah blah blah, but what really sets this company apart is their full suspension project. I won't go into detail as I don't really know much about it, but here's an image that I think does it justice.

2010 Trek Bikes

While most companies have lowered their prices and increased the value and quality for their bikes for 2010, it seems that Trek has done the opposite, at least for their mountain offerings. Their new freeride/light dh/slopestyle rig, named the "Scratch", frame-only retails for almost $2500, when you can easily get a Santa Cruz Nomad frame for less than $2000 with a DHX Coil. The list goes on, but the highlights are the Fuel EX 9.9 OCLV and the Remedy 9.9 OCLV at $2999 each.

I guess I'll probably end up getting a Specialized for 2010 instead...