I'll now be posting information about my training for the Journey of Hope on this blog.

Good Morning!

The first of the year has come and gone, and now as February approaches, fundraising and training are now in full swing. I’ve been preparing for a half marathon that is scheduled for the weekend of March 21st-22nd. I’m very excited for the run, I’ve been spending many hours on the treadmill, too afraid to brave the cold of Blacksburg winter. I must admit watching sports center twice in a row on my long run days isn’t exactly my ideal run, but its much better then running around in circles at the McComas indoor track.
I sent out a second batch of letters to potential sponsor hoping to reach my minimum of $5000.00 to ride early, so that I can strive to reach my goal, and help others reach the minimum as well.
I’ve been tossing around some idea’s of possible fundraising opportunities including temporary tattoo’s of soroities on campus who would pay for me to wear their letter certain days and take photos with the tattoo. I’ve also begun speaking with local businesses about fundraising opportunites; Moe’s, Jimmy Jons, and TCBY will all donate 10% of there proceeds in a certain night to my journey, the difficulty is scheduling the event to be successful avoiding the spring game, and other popular spring events.

Sunday was the first extended duration on the bike since this past summer, although the ride was only 22 miles, and relatively flat with some rolling hills, the subfreezing temperature for the entire ride made it less then enjoyable; however it was great to see everyone out and on bike together, really making the Journey seem real and close!

Stay tuned for more training and fundraising details as I’ll be trying to stay more up to date with my blog and website, doing a few exclusives on the gear I’ll be using and my training regimen.

Lots of stuff going on!!!

I've gotten alot accomplished in the past few days.

The first set of fenders that came off of my jig were quite nice looking, however they were about an inch small in the radius. I Wound up building a whole new jig, which I believe will be getting some serious modifications here soon.

Below is a shot of the fenders in the new jig.


Here's the first fender I pulled off the new jig, and a few shots of the laminations. They came out pretty nice, fit and have enough clearance. I put the first coat of polyurethane on it tonight.



Here are the panes that I was talking about. I'm going to suspend them within the triangle.





The frame has really been an adventure, but it's coming along nicely.

Here's a shot of the bottom brackets that I curved to look as if they were molded.





and here is a shot of the extended heat tube.



Thats it for now.

Cheers!!!
Brett

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Fresh off the press!!!

First set of fenders came off the jig today.

It's been awhile

I started my summer industrial design class with the hopes of finishing my tall bike frame I started last fall. It's been coming along quite nicely. Below is a shot of the frame in it's current state.


Below is a picture of a fender bender I built, it's still in progress, but then again everything is in progress at this point.

New River Route

My first morning back I decided to visit an old friend, the New River Loop. This was my first time doing the loop in reverse, saving the large climb(McCoy rd) for last. It took me about half the ride to warm up enough to be comfortable on the bike given the cold temperatures. My lungs ached with pain from the cold air, gasping for each breath climbing the hills. Once I had reached the Luck Run rd. section I finally had some sun on my back and had a chance to warm up. The river is always a bonus on this route, seeming somewhat memorizing as you ride past it. I'm always tempted to ride down to the river but whenever I do I seem to lose track of time and wind up letting my legs cool down too much. The climb home from the river was fun, and shorter then I had remembered. A group certainly makes this ride more enjoyable, but I've generally found thats the case for all riding I do.

I'm still very pleased with the performance of the Madone, and look forward to many more miles on the bike.

Maiden Voyage of the 5.2 Madone

Today's record high temperatures persuaded me to take the new Madone on its maiden voyage. It was my first ride in nearly two months and signs were apparent that any endurance and strength that I had gained from riding this summer was gone. I would consider the ride a moderate intensity ride with a few rolling hills and one or two "steep" climbs. The first 20 miles were fine, but around mile 35 I completely bonked, and the remaining 5 grueling miles were taken much slower then the average pace.

The bike rode smooth and climbed extremely well. Being my first extended ride on carbon I was impressed with how compliant the carbon was and how bumps large and small were absorbed well.

Overall I'm very happy with the bike, now I need to improve on my fitness level before the season starts to gear up.

... Happy New Year!!!

As for New Years resolutions, I have no desire to make one that I won't keep. Woke up after 4 hours of sleep to go for my first ride on the fixie this morning. Great ride, might be changing the current gear ratio however as 73 chain inches seem to be a bit too much for me right now. Went out for about half an hour and just tooled around trying to gain a feel for the bike and how it responds.

Still working on figuring out the brake setup, as I'm grabbing only tire, and no rim. Will hopefully apply some more bondo to the Sprite frame today, and I'm considering the idea of smoothing out all of the lugs.

The tall bike frame has been on the back burner for the past couple days, as working at the shop and tooling with other bikes have taken priority.

To all those who made a new years resolution I hope you keep it, and by the way ... lose some weight