Sorry for the lack of posts recently. The camera died after a brief swim in the Little River the other day....

I've been pretty busy lately too, getting back to teaching and all. Last Sunday Lisa and I made it up to Mount Rogers NRA in Virginia for about a 12 mile hike. We hiked Lewis Fork, Cliffside, and the AT up towards Rhododendron Gap and picked some amazing blackberries! I've got some pictures I'll post up when I get the camera back.

Today, I headed out to Wilkesboro to do some trailwork on the new Warrior Creek trail system at Kerr Scott Reservoir. The plan is to have miles upon miles of trail in an area already saturated with amazing trails...This area will soon be a destination spot if the BMCC has it their way! If you head out to Dark Mountain or to the OVT, check out the new sections of trail out at Warrior Creek, help get them pounded down for the 6 hour race in April!

With all the talk of seeing bears everywhere in Pisgah recently, I expect to see these two sometime on Heartbreak Ridge;

First Ride

I took the new Soma (it needs a nickname) out to Kerr Scott to hit Dark Mountain and the OVT early this morning. I ended up riding for a little over 4 hours and racking up over 30 miles of singletrack. Not a bad showing for being off the bike for 3 weeks, due, undoubtedly, mostly to the bike. The 34-18 gearing was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, I was only forced to walk a few of the tight steep switchbacks on the dark mountain side. After spending a few hours on this gear, I am confident that I could spend a few more hours on a 32-30 gearing that I had planned on with this bike! Anyways, the bike handles beautifully, just enough flex to take some serious edge off of high speed chatter, but still stiff enough that I don't notice any real flex when I am manhandling the bike trying to climb. To those of you that read this blog (both of you) I would highly recommend checking out Soma frames whenever you purchase your next bike, they're amazing!

Soma Completed (for now)

Well, I got the Juice all put together. Steve was kind enough to let me use his ENO cranks that were sitting around until he can get his frame built up. We threw on a cheapy shimano square taper bottom bracket until I can scrounge up the money for a Phil Wood Ti BB. I'm really happy with the build and the way it feels just riding around the parking lot. Steel feels so much better than aluminum, if you've never ridden steel (or haven't in a long time) you are missing out!

Full Build Specs:

Bars: Seven Cycles Ti 15 degree sweep

Stem: Thomson X4 90mm 6 degree

Seatpost: Thomson masterpiece 27.2X330

Seat Clamp: Salsa LipLock

Grips: Oury

Brakes: Avid Juicy Ultimate 160s (Stan's aluminum rotors in the near future)

Fork: Bontrager Switchblade Carbon

Wheels: American Classic SS Disc Hubs laced to Stan's 355's

Tires: Kenda Small Block 8's with stan's

Cranks: White Industries 34T 175mm (for now, waiting on 32T)

Cog: American Classic 18T (waiting on new 20T Endless Kickass Cog)

Chain: Cheapy BMX/Singlespeed (to be replaced with KMC)

Saddle: Selle Italia SLR Troy Lee Design

Pedals: Crank Bros Smarties

The weight as it sits is 21 lbs even. I'm pretty pleased. I am going to head out to Dark Mountain tomorrow and get some laps in on it, I'll take some pics and get a write up done tomorrow evening!

Drinking the Juice

So the super secret build that I have been hinting at over the last few entries is finally nearing completion. It is a Soma Juice made from Tange Prestige steel. The frame is incredibly light for steel; it weighs 5.05 pounds...not shabby for an XL. The ride should be uber smooth, and if my estimates are correct, the build will likely be a hair under 20lbs when it is finished up. As you can tell by the pictures, I am still waiting on cranks and brakes. I've got a set of White Industries ENO cranks. The jury is still out on what brakes I will run, I might just scavenge the juicy fives off of the paragon and make do with those for now. As for the wheels, they are Stan's 355s laced to American Classic disc/singlespeed hubs. I'm still having issues getting the SMB8s to seal up well as tubeless, so I may swap over to something else here in the near future. Anyways, Thomson masterpiece cockpit, seven bars scavenged off of the paragon, bontrager switchblade carbon, and of course oury grips! I'll post some more pics when it is completed, hopefully by Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm planning on going up and doing the long loop of Curtis Creek/Heartbreak/Kitsuma/Star Gap/Jarret Creek on Tuesday. Write ups to follow this week!

Dark Mountain

Well, I got in a short ride this morning at Dark Mountain, nothing too terribly eventful, just a handful of elderly hikers out. Kind of an odd experience. I come around some corners climbing thinking I'm all tough and cool out in the woods riding these awesome trails, and around the bend comes some old dude walking with a cane. Demoralizing. It was the first time I've been out riding since I rode with my brother in Asheville a few weeks ago. My knee has been feeling better so I decided to get back on the bike, and man alive, I had been missing it! It was the perfect morning too.

New Projects

Well, we've both been off the bike for a little while and are feeling slightly tubby. Steve has been working on building up a frame and working alot, while I (Barry) have been resting the knee, planning a couple new projects, working a bit at the bike shop and getting ready for school to start back up. We've both also been doing plenty of fishing as of late!

Anyways, Steve has been working on a steel framed road bike. It's coming along nicely it sounds like. We've recieved our frame materials to build up our 29er singlespeeds along with the paragon dropouts for my frame. We'll be measuring and starting on those here in the next week or so hopefully. The going will be slow since I am heading back to school and coaching soccer this fall, so I opted to order a frame to build up as a singlespeed while we are working on our own frames. I got a great deal from Soma Fabrications based out of California on a steel 29er frame. Should be at the shop tomorrow, along with most of the parts with which to build it up. I'll post up some pictures when I get it together over the next few days.