Vacation and new parts

Well, I'm headed to Florida for a while to hang out with my parents and get fat on the beach...should be good times.

I have put in an order for some new parts for my paragon. They'll be here for me when I return and I'll install them and put some pics up. It involves me going single again! It also involves some parts from a local company based out of Western North Carolina Endless Cogs I'll be buying some white industries cranks ENO Cranks and basically selling off all of my drivetrain....hooray for once, I'll MAKE money while lightening my bike!
I may have been saying, "HOORAY BIKES!" in this picture

I Really Am Lazy

Well I am not so computer savy and I just wrote a big blog entry for Northstar under the blog my wife created along time ago and never used. I am feeling to lazy to redo it and I dont know how or even if it is possible to copy it. So go to this link for a Cowbell update! http://www.hollingsworths.blogspot.com/
It really is a Cowbell update, nothing naughty.
Really, I promise.

Horizons Park Night Ride

Last night I headed over to Horizons park for some riding in circles. For the first time ever, I saw someone else riding out there, so I latched onto his wheel and we started talking. We realized we had some mutual acquaintances and got to talking. He knows of a secret stash of trails in the area that are supposedly amazing...look for pics and a write up to come. The trails start not far from my house (maybe an 8 mile road ride) with about 30-40 of one way trails...could be an epic 100 miler in my backyard! anyways here are some pictures from last night

Dark Mountain ride

Well, the blog has taken a back seat for the last week or so because of family visits and doing the Cowbell. Steve and I headed out last tuesday for a good ride at Dark mountain, we were both experimenting with rigid singlespeed, trying to figure out gearing and whatnot. We wanted to work out some kinks in the system and this ride proved to be effective at clearing up any problems. Steve had some EBB issues and I had to shorten my chain a bit because it was skipping over the top of the chainring. Nothing too terribly eventful on this ride, just good fun. It got cut a little shorter than we would have liked because steve's chain skipped and he slammed his knee into the bar pretty hard.

Steve on one of the new rock gardens



Me coming off of one of the bermed turns


Overmountain Victory Trail

Wheelset for sale!

Stan's 355 29er rims laced to Pewter Chris King ISO hubs with Wheelsmith double butted spokes/alloy nipples. $700 or best offer...handmade by Steve here at Northstar....he's a stud!


The wheels must go, ive decided to go with another option...either american classics, or eno hubs laced to delgados.

Productive Day

Yesterday was a fairly productive day out on the Little River. Myself along with two other guys that I coach with decided to take a day and go fly-fishing. We went to a few stretches that were harder to access, and thusly less likely to be infested with hillbillies using powerbait on spinning rods. The hiking in/exploring paid off as we caught 18 trout in just a few hours. Here is dinner for a few nights....the one fish seems to be saying, "Don't eat me, mister."


It's time to start gearing up a bit more and getting in the mindset for the Cowbell Challenge next week. Dicky put some pics up on his blog that make the course look pretty technical. Should be fun!

Steve and I are planning a hefty ride on tuesday, so a write up with pictures should follow.

Morning Westwood Ride

Westwood, in Mount Airy, is one of my favorite local places to ride. It reminds me alot of Pisgah in the fact that it has many steep sections with some pretty techy roots involved. It's probably the most tech place within an hour or so of Winston, but it seems to seldom get ridden. It is an incredibly rare sight to see anyone else out there riding, which is a shame because the trails really are a blast to ride!

I decided to take out the Redline singlespeed because as of late, the Fisher and I have not been working well together. Tubeless issues, drivetrain issues, brake issues...it is making me lean more and more towards simplicity....perhaps by the end of the season I will be riding singlespeed exclusively. Perhaps even rigid as well. I'm trying to stay motivated to try to prepare for the coming up in about a week and a half. I've been riding road bikes quite a bit as of late, which is not like me. The past few rides on my mountain bike have been frustrating just trying to work kinks out of the Paragon. Also, living in a city with limited MTB riding opportunities and gas being $4 a gallon, the road bike seems to make more sense....that's hard to say....

I've been working on getting the self timer mode on my camera figured out, which can lead to some bizarre pictures like;

legs only


or, as I am getting ready to put it back into the camelbak...

What the monstrosity.....?

I am not entirely sure what this thing is, but it is kind of fun to propel. Quadzilla a.k.a. Curtis from the shop was out of town this week, so I took it upon myself to borrow the bike he has been riding from the shop. I took it out on the monday night ride and got in about 30 miles in. Then I took it out tonight just to kind of spin around for a while and got in about 25 miles riding through Bethania, Pfafftown, and Winston. Tomorrow and Friday I am going to save myself about 10 dollars in gas by commuting to work. Now that the kids had their last day today, I can feel ok about riding in in my creepy man clothes

I gave the other teachers fair warning about my entrance into the school tomorrow...fear the lycra-clad lanky doofus. The commute in will be about 18 miles, then depending on what I want to do on the way home and how reeeediculously hot it is I am going to shoot for 40-50 miles on the way home circa Pilot Mountain, Sauratown Mountain, or Hanging Rock...we'll see how it goes....


Oh, yeah, I took this picture of my dog, Arwen, the other day and thought it was hilarious...

Cleaning Up

I am cleaning out my garage of some bike parts, check out the auctions on ebay of my scalpel frame and lefty fork...

Frame

Carbon Lefty

SI Stem