Rain Rain Go Away Already

What the heck is up with the weather here in New England this spring/summer. Rain, Rain and more rain. Driving me nuts!

Why oh Why?

Why is it that I can't seem to get a Full Suspension mountain bike off my mind as of late??

I sure wish I could somehow find a barely used Balfa Belair floating about somewhere. This time I'd get it in the Long frame size with the 23.5" effective Top Tube - but they are few and far between these days.

Saw one recently on the Boston craigslist - followed up but the seller didn't respond and then "poof" the ad had vanished. He even spelled Balfa wrong - but some lucky duck in Mass is probably riding and smiling on a nice white Belair. Lucky person.

Maybe I'll fine one or a 2Step FR one of these days.

Add another one to the long list

Yep - built up another bike. This time, I opted to try out an inexpensive frame from Performance Bike. I picked up one of their house-brand ACCESS 29er frames and built her up with a mix of new and old and borrowed and bartered parts. It took me a good long while to get used to the massively oversized AL tubing on this frame, but when all was said and done, it ain't half bad and it fits me better than the small Karate Monkey I tried to make fit (2nd try) earlier this year.



Now - to actually get out and get some trail miles on it!

Testing Testing.......is this thing on?

Man it has been ages since I posted anything.......maybe I need to get back into the swing of it again.

Working on building up a new bike.........should be done real soon...stay tuned.

DIY LED Lights - Makes Night Riding a Blast for little $$

So last Friday I went on a really great 2.5 hourish Halloween Ride and I was sporting my Splatolite LED helmet light. My friend John (you may know him as splat from the mtb forums) made it in his workshop. The light rocks! It is nice and light, runs on rechargeable NIMH AA batteries and mounts nicely atop my Bell Influx. Total cost to me was under $35.00!!! Can't beat that now can ya?

The light was nice and bright and it was a nice clean white light too. I'd guess it was close to 140 Lumens if not more. Plenty bright enough for our trails here in CT. I'm going to ask splat to make me another one (maybe bar mount) once he gets more LEDs and supplies in.

I'll throw up some photos soon.

If you haven't yet, get a relatively cheap LED set up and give night riding a go. It is a total blast!

Don't Forget.......................

To Vote Today. It is so important to excercise your right to vote. So go out and vote and then go out and excercise with a nice road or mtb ride if you can. Me, I'll get some skating in at the rink tonight and wish that I were out riding instead.

Cheers,

Mark

Some of the Coolest Bikes at Interbike East Were Not Booth Bikes!

When you go to a bicycle trade show, chances are you are bound to see a ton of new and exciting bikes, but at the same time chances are highly likely you'll see some killer bikes that are rider-owned and not actually part of actual company tents/trailers.

Here's a few that I saw last Tuesday in Providence:

First off the OS Bikes Black Buck - this is the frame/bike company from Mark Slate of WTB fame. Really cool 29er - and he's also going to offer this in 650b guise as well! Sweet.


Next we happened upon this gorgeous Titanium Eastern Woods Research E-Motion locked up just outside the expo area. I believe it may be the only Ti E-Motion every made by EWR - or at least one of a special few. It was decked out with all sorts of great Syncros bits as well. Awesome!


On the other side we found a new Eastern Woods Research Original Woods Bike in a nice orange paint color. The old and the new side by side. Nice bikes to happen upon as we were on our way out.


Want Tang? Want Carbon? This Niner offered both! Beautiful Tang One 9 with slick Reynolds Carbon fiber wheels. This thing was someone's personal race bike and it was also set up as a dinglespeed. So the rider had a gear ratio for riding to the trails and then a second setup for actual trail riding/racing. The bike was ridonculously light. Mighty nice!


I also spotted this really sharp looking Soma Juice at one of the component company booths. Those red Somas are might sharp looking in my opinion!