Picking My Hub, Spokes, and Rim.

So what parts do you need when building a wheel? The answer seems simple, right? You need a hub, a rim with the same number of holes as the hub, and spokes. How hard is that? Well, I later found that when actually making the purchase it wasn't that easy...

The Goal:
To build my first durable, but light weight, cross country bicycle wheel.

The Challenge:
Trying to build a wheel that balances my biggest concerns and likely the concerns of most people building their own wheel:

1) Durability
2) Weight
3) Price Point

The Hub:
The hub is likely where the biggest balance of the three points needs to happen. There are hubs on the market that are extremely light weight, such as American Classic, but their durability is a bit questionable (according to reviews I've read). Another option is to go with a high end hub like Chris King. I've heard great things about the durability of this hub, but their price will hit the checkbook hard. The other option is to go with the middle of the road such as a Shimano XT, which is a pretty durable hub that you can afford, but you pay for it in the weight.

There was one more variable I had to keep in mind. This is my first wheel build. I didn't want to buy a cheap hub that I wouldn't train or race on, but I didn't want to break the bank buying a hub knowing that I'm still learning how to build wheels.

So ultimately I ended up purchasing the Shimano XT hub with large flange. From experience I know this to be a durable hub that is cheap. I'd later use some of the money I saved on this hub to purchase a better rim, which will offset some of the weight concern.

The Spokes:
Spokes come in an array of lengths, sizes, and colors. Plus, you can get bladed, double butted, triple butted, or straight gauge. Going strictly from what I've read in books and online I decided the only types I'd be interested in are the double butted or the straight gauge.

A straight gauge is thought to help eliminate spoke twist while building your wheel. For those who don't know what spoke twist is; I plan to write something about it soon. Although straight gauge spokes are said to help eliminate spoke twist, they tend to be a bit more difficult when it comes to tensioning the wheel. This is based of what I've heard and read and I'm not speaking from experience on this topic.

Given my knowledge base I opted for a double butted spoke. A double butted spoke starts wide at the hub, gets thin in the middle, and then gets wide again at the rim. Double butted spokes do come with different buttes with the main difference being weight. Basically the difference is where the butte starts on the spoke. The more light weight spokes accomplish this by having a shorter butte. The weight difference is nominal when compared to the price difference and I opted for the larger buttes on my double butted spokes.

The Rim:
I'm still a bit old school when it comes to wheels and I'm still riding tubes even though the market trend is to ride tubeless. I had taken a hit to the weight when I opted to build to a Shimano XT hub. However, I saved a bundle of money which I was prepared to spend on a nicer, light weight rim. I wanted something that would have eyelets, which produce a nominal weight addition, but make it easier for beginner wheel builders like me to set the spokes angles, while offering a bit stronger spoke hole.

I selected the Mavic XC 717 DISC rim. This is a light weight rim weighing in at 395 grams and is said to be a great sturdy rim for amateur racers and cross country riders a like. The price is a bit higher than I wanted to spend, but I've been riding Mavic rims for years and know them to be strong, durable rims, which ultimately pay for themselves over time.

The Conclusion:
I've picked the parts I needed to build my bicycle wheel. In all the price was below what I would have paid for a pre-built wheel, the durability should allow for years of riding, and the weight should come in at a healthy 830 grams. This isn't the lightest wheel on the market, but it isn't a tank either.

The Bicycle Wheel by Jobst Brandt

I've been wrenching on bikes as long as I've been riding and the only part that I never touched was the bicycle wheel.

The bicycle wheel is a truly magnificent piece of equipment that happens to be a black hole of mystery for me and many others cyclists. This mystery seems to be getting more and more mysterious as the trend is to buy pre-built wheels, which are strong and often times cheaper. The down side is you are confined to the trends of the market with pre-built wheels and don't get the satisfaction, pride, and personalization that building your own wheels give you.

Determined to shed light on the black hole of wheel building mystery I decided to learn how to build my own wheel, even if it cost me twice as much as a pre-built wheel. To do this I turned to the web to find a good (highly recommended) book. All reviews pointed me to a book called The Bicycle Wheel by Jobst Brandt.

I spent a week reading this book before starting my quest for parts. Just reading this book shed a ton of light on the subject. It is amazing how misunderstood the bicycle wheel really is. In his book, Jobst Brandt, does a great job of debunking a lot of the bicycle wheel lore. He does this by clearly explaining the Theory of the Spoked Wheel with words and picture diagrams. After explaining the wheel he then goes into detail on how to build and repair bicycle wheels, which was clear enough to actually guide me through building my first wheel. Later in the book he gives examples of equations to prove his wheel theory.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in building their first wheel. This is becoming a big interest of mine and you can expect a lot of posts about this in the future.

Hike Jargon: Post Hole

It is always fun to learn new terms. It is always a lot more fun when you are able to demonstrate those terms so others who are unfamiliar with it are able to understand.

During a recent hike was able to start without snowshoes because the previous night was cold enough to freeze the top layer of snow, making it strong enough to support my weight. However, there were spots that were unable to support my weight and as I stepped on the snow I sunk several feet into the snow like an anchor in water.

When it got to a point when each step I took had a better chance of falling through rather than staying on top of the snow I stopped to put my snowshoes on. As I did this another pair of hikers came up. As we chatted I explained how I had been falling through a lot and it was time for my snowshoes. The guy responded, "Yeah, I saw a lot of post holes back there and figured you would need them soon."

At first I thought, "Is he a fence builder? Why does he care about post holes?" Then I realized he meant the holes I had left behind while falling through the snow. Each time my foot fell through I left a perfectly circular hole about three feet deep. It all made sense to me... a post hole.

And to demonstrate this point I was able to capture a couple pictures of my buddy Dwight in the act of creating a post hole.

Notice how he is standing on the snow? Dwight isn't a short guy. He has about three feet of leg above the snow at this point.

Post Hole! His entire right leg has sunk into the snow. You can see the tread on his left shoe. This isn't comfortable to experience and it can quickly sap your motivation, energy, and easily injure your ankle, knee, or both.

Pearl Izumi One Day Sale

I heard through the grapevine that Pearl Izumi was having a one day "friends and family" sale that started at 9 a.m. yesterday. My friend said he was going to be there at exactly 9 a.m. and he'd see me there.

I got there at 9:05 a.m. and parking was already limited. As I made my way to the entrance I was greeted with a line that stretched four a breast and wrapped around two sides of the Pearl Izumi warehouse. I thought to myself, Peral Izumi sure has a lot of friends and family. I suppose when you make high end athletic clothing near Boulder, CO you are bound to make a lot of friends.

While I walked with the line towards the entrance I tried to think of things I would need. I already have a couple racing kits, which work well for my training. With an empty mind I rounded the corner and walked through the door where I was greeted by a beehive of activity as people picked, prodded, and hustled trying to find the best of the deals. As I looked among the hundreds of people already in the warehouse I knew it wasn't going to be easy to find my friend.

As I looked around there was certainly deals to be had. Most of the items were extras, production mistakes, samples, stuff like that, which is why they were selling them so cheap. For instance, bib shorts were selling for $20. Any bib short in the bike shop with Pearl Izumi on the tag would be over $100. I had to buy a pair of those. Next I went to the accessory area where I was able to find gloves, arm warmers, and socks. Honestly, I think a cyclist can never have enough gloves or socks and the deals were smoking so I bought a bunch of each.

After about an hour of looking I was satisfied with what I had and tried to pay. I wish I had a picture of the line. The check out line snaked through the warehouse for a good quarter mile. As I got in line I noticed that the friend I was suppose to meet was next in line. We chatted for a bit, but we couldn't help but notice that for the full half hour we had been in line we hadn't moved. At this rate it looked like it might be a couple hours before checkout.

Luckily for my friend his brother was there. He gave his brother his stuff to pay so he could leave and get some other stuff done. I too had a lot of stuff to do and I couldn't stand in line for hours to check out. My solution was pretty simple. I got out of line, squirreled my bag in a corner of the warehouse, then left. The sale was from 9 a.m to 2 p.m. so I figured I'd come back when the line had worked itself down. It would be great if the bag was still there when I returned. If not, no big deal. I returned to the warehouse around 1:30 p.m. and without a problem I was able to grab my bag and walk right up to the checkout.

Mount Elbert Trip Report : 4.19.2008

On April 19th, 2008 my buddy, Dwight, and I try to ascend the highest peak in Colorado while it is still covered in snow. This will be the second snow covered ascent of this mountain in two years. We failed to summit last year and hope this year will bring better luck. This picture is taken from highway 24, south of Leadville, as we approach the trailhead.

Blue sky and temperatures in the low thirties greet us at the trailhead. We arrive at the trailhead around 7 AM. This year we decide to hike the east ridge to the summit. Last year we hiked the southern face and it proved to be a bit too much with the snow. This year's route looked longer, but has a much more gradual pitch.

Spirits are high as we we prepare to begin our hike. Mount Elbert can be seen directly behind us.

The first portion of the trail walks through aspen groves.

At this point in the hike we are walking on unimproved dirt road. The temperatures will be so warm today that when we return from our hike this same section of trail will only have a small section of road covered in snow. Making for a beautiful hike up through the aspen and a very wet descent down through the mud.

Having hiked Mt. Bierstadt only a month before and knowing how cold it was when we started hiking that mountain we prepared ourselves for the cold. However, the day proved to be so nice that we had to stop soon after our start to shed a few layers.

The scenery was amazing.

We had an early start and the top layer of snow was still frozen, which allowed us to walk on top of the snow without snow shoes. I was walking on three feet of snow as I traveled across this meadow. I know that because on the way down this meadow had melted and we sunk deep into the snow on several occasions; even while wearing our snow shoes.

Morning sun penetrates the trees.

Dwight in high spirits with Mount Elbert seen as the right most peak in the distance. Only a mile into our hike; we still have a lot of hiking before we get to the summit.

We got off course and ended up on part of the Colorado Trail, which intersects with the Mount Elbert trail. This old bridge on the Colorado Trail had seen better days. If the angle of the bridge didn't keep you off; the nine inch rusty nails that stuck out of it would. I walked around, but I dared Dwight to cross it.

I'm all smiles in this photo, but five minutes earlier I was turning the sky blue with profanities. Up to this point I hadn't been wearing snow shoes and as we got deeper into the trees the snow got less stable and I started to fall through the snow a lot. But after I put on my snow shoes all was good.

The plan was to hike through this last bit of snow and then we would be able to hike the ridge which as you can see in this picture didn't have any snow. We would then take off our snow shoes in hope that it would save us some time.

At this point we are around 12,500 feet and the wind is whistling. Plus, the clock tells us it is already noon. There is still a lot of mountain between us and the summit and we have a turn around time of 1 PM.

Windy, Cold, Tired, and two hundred vertical feet from the summit we call it a day. We turn around at 14,200 feet and forty minutes past our turn around time. Knowing the mountain will be here to hike another day we decided to take a few photos and head back to the car, which is over six miles away.

Dwight and I reflect on our decision to turn around as we take a short break and get some food in our stomach before we make the final push back to the car. With a shortage of food and water, and an equipment failure still to come I'm certain we made a good choice to turn around when we did.

Dispatches From The Ditch

My long time friend and co-founder of TrailCentral.com, Dwight (pictured to the left), started blogging a couple weeks ago. After much hemming and hawing about what to name it he decided on "Dispatches From The Ditch." I believe this is the perfect name!

This is what it is about:
"I grew up in the Colorado foothills, near an area we called the Ditch. As kids, we would build forts, dam the stream, shoot bb guns, and just have fun. This blog is about my goal to keep living a life full of activity, fun and adventure."

I highly recommend adding it to your reader.

Sometimes 14,200' Isn't High Enough...

Mount Elbert
14, 440'



04.19.2008

If you are keeping score:
Mount Elbert: 2
Me: 0

1040 Blues

It is tax day and there is nobody on the planet that sums this day up better than Robert Cray's 1040 Blues on his album Shame + a Sin.

Lyrics:

Worried, you betcha
Discouraged, I don't know
Every time I see a 1040
Out of my pocket it goes

Ow, I hate taxes

I work hard for my money
Every April you take it all away
Don't you know I work hard for my money
Every day, people
You take it all away from me

Ow, ow, I hate taxes

Taxes gonna break my back I swear
Don't you know I pay a lot more than my share?
I hate taxes

Can't have any fun anymore
Gotta make plans for everything now
gotta plan for every thing I do, people
Can't go out and have a real good time
Now I've gotta worry about everything
That my little money can buy

oh, ow, I hate taxes

Taxes gonna break my back, I swear
Don't you know I paid a lot more than my share?
I hate taxes

You know I'm thinkin' about movin' somewhere else
But I can't because I love America too much
Especially California, yeah
I guess I'm gonna have to pay these taxes
If I'm gonna live here, oh

Cyclists Consume Lots of Bananas...

Did you watch the show on National Geographic last night called Human Footprint? If not, let me catch you up a bit. It was a two hour show that unloaded statistic after statistic about consumption of a typical person from infancy to old age. For the sake of the show the life expectancy of a typical person is 77 years 9 months.

We Americans have a BIG footprint on the world. The show did a good job of getting that point stuck firmly in my head. However, the good news is that while I was watching the show I couldn't help but be relieved by how often I'm on the lower end of the average scale when it comes to consumption. For instance: in a lifetime one can expect to drink 3,796 pints of milk. Not me, I have an allergy to it... The average New York Times reader will dispose of 40,040 lbs of newsprint. Thanks God I gave up reading years ago! I'm kidding, however, I don't subscribe to newspapers. I much prefer the Internet for my news. Although, I'm quite certain I raised the average of the number of bananas and eggs the typical person consumes. The number may seem large to others at 5,067 bananas and 19,826 eggs. But to me, that seems light! Hell, I must of put that amount down in the last couple years...

It was an eye opener and those little factoids stuck in my head. So much so that I woke up this morning craving banana bread. How did I make that connection? bananas and eggs, throw in some flower and sugar and presto; you go from factoids to craving banana bread! I've been sick and running a pretty bad fever the last couple days so give me some room for non-sensible blabber.

This afternoon my fever broke and when that happens I need to do one of two things.

1) Clean and disinfect anything I may have touched.

2) Make comfort food.

I opted for number two.

I've been eager to try a recipes I found in MountainFlyer Magazine (Yes, I too contribute to the human footprint), which by the way is an awesome magazine to read! The recipe is called Better Banana Bread by Christina Buchanan

Ingredients

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (I used high altitude flour)

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

4 tablespoons (unsalted butter)

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

4-5 mashed bananas (I only used 3)

Directions

In a medium bowl I mixed the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. In a separate bowl I softened the butter and mixed with the sugar. I then mixed the butter/sugar mixture into the flour mixture. I then added the two large eggs. I mixed for a couple minutes. At this point the batter was pretty dry. I then added 3 bananas, but you can add up to 5 according to the recipe. I then put the batter in a 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 greased bread pan and placed it in the oven at 350 degrees.

Total prep time was about 30 min.

Total cook time was 60 min.

Total cool off time was 15 min.

I compared this recipe to a similar one by my lady, Betty Crocker. How did it add up? Well, Betty uses nearly twice the sugar, twice the flour, and buttermilk. Three ingredients that don't do us cyclists any favors. Plus, it requires more ingredients, which just makes our footprint even bigger.

So you may be thinking that there are fewer ingredients in Christina's recipe and it helps me decrease my footprint, but how does it taste? Well, I cut a slice and gave it to my son and the first words out of his mouth (and I'm not making this up) was, "This is delicious." I tried a slice myself and I couldn't have agreed more.

The Colorado Race Season Is Officially Underway...

Today at 8:30 a.m. the first rider leaves the starting line and with it kicks off the racing season for hundreds of mountain bikers in Colorado and many riders who travel from out of state to the premier events hosted by Mountain States Cup.

This year the Mountain States Cup plays host at 10 venues across Colorado and New Mexico where both cross-country and gravity riders will give it all they got.

This morning is the first race of the series; Rabbit Valley Rally is located near Fruita Colorado and warms the racers up into the season with a time trial on Saturday and cross-country on Sunday. Good Luck Racers!

For those who love Fruita, but don't race; you may be thinking to yourself, "So much for the ribbon thin singletrack I love. Once a race tracks on those trails they will get wider." I'm glad to say that this has been considered by the MSC promoters and before the race each rider must sign a Code of Conduct derived by COPMOBA. If this will detour riders from destructive trail riding while racing is unknown, but at least it is putting trail etiquette in the front of their mind when they sign the Code of Conduct.

Tuesday Night Rides. Will You Be There?

It is Spring and if you are anything like me, it hasn't come a moment too soon. I stopped enjoying my workouts on the indoor training sometime in mid-December. Since then I've noticed my workout habits and appearance resemble that of Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Obsessed with "My precious" bike as I dwell in a dark basement; my skin becoming a pasty white from a lack of sun...

The trails are starting to dry out and more importantly the group rides are starting to roll. Now is the time to adjust your eyes to the sunny Colorado skies and join a group ride. It will allow you to get some sun on your skin, enjoy the company of others, and start the year of right by getting into the pack and improving with them instead of trying to catch up later on.

This year I'm riding with a team called Feedback Sports and Every Tuesday at 5:30 the team will be riding trails in the Golden area. The starting location will be at Big Ring Bike Shop in Golden, which means there will be some pavement to ride before hitting the dirt. It is important to note that the ride pace will be based on who shows up. If enough people show up I'm sure the pack could easily be broken into two groups (fast/slow).

I know it can be very intimidating when trying to join a new cycling group. I'm afraid cycling packs can be very clique-ish. I want to assure you that the Feedback team does have fast riders, but everyone of them are nice, patient riders, who are willing to ride with all types. I'm hoping by writing this I'll encourage some of the beginner/intermediate riders to show up.

If you are fast or slow, I hope you will join the team as we ride into shape together and hopefully make a few friends along the way.

I'm On A Roll... Actually, A Mountain...

I'm on a roll. Actually, A mountain, but you'll get my point when I take the time to explain.

I've just posted the second Trail of the Month for 2008, which given my record over the past year is an amazing accomplishment. For some reason in 2007 I only posted one Trail of the Month. So I believe that makes it a "Trail of the Year," but lets not get caught up in semantics.

I have a New Years resolution to write one more write-up than last year. I'm not the type to set myself up for failure by expecting myself to write twelve even though that would make it a true "Trail of the Month."

Well, I've officially met my goal and the pressure is off. Anything posted beyond this is icing on the cake. Having met this goal and not having anything more to prove to myself makes it more likely that I'll continue to post future Trail of the Months. I don't know if you are anything like me, but I tend to perform better when there are no expectations to live up to.

Having said that, the roll will continue from here. But before I get ahead of myself I think it is important to bask in the glory of my accomplishment by letting you know what I wrote about this month.

A couple weeks ago I stood on the top of Mt Bierstadt with my buddy, Dwight. This 14er is located in Clear Creek County and is the subject of the March 2008, Trail of the Month.

As I said, by standing on top of the mountain I'm able to say I'm on a roll. A roll I hope will continue. Time will tell.

Happy Easter!

I Can Ride My Bike With No Handle Bars...

Over the past several weeks I've gotten in the habit of letting you know what song or album is getting a lot of play time on my player. I don't plan on breaking the habit this week.

This week a Denver band called Flobots is spinning, er... humming?... buzzing?... What in the hell does a song being played on a flash memory stick do?! I easily get off track...

Back to my point; I recently downloaded the Flobots song, Handlebars. When I played it for my wife she laughed and said, "You just like it because it has a bicycle reference in it." I shook my head and said, "That is what makes the song great, but even without the bicycle reference this song has strong lyrics and rhythm. I like it."

If you were listening to CAKE a decade ago, like I was, you'll notice that the first half of this song has a sound very similar to CAKE, which is probably a lot of the reason I like it as much as I do.

I've attached a video of the song if you haven't heard it yet. Enjoy!

Mt. Bierstadt - Slideshow and Map...

On March 09, 2008 my buddy, Dwight and I hiked our first winter 14er, which was Mount Bierstadt. Honestly, by the end of the hike I was thinking this would be my first and only winter ascent. However, a few days of rest later and I'm excited to make winter ascents next year.

I'll be writing about this trail in detail for the TrailCentral Trail of the Month, but until then I wanted to share some of the pictures and the map.

Slideshow:

Map:

View Larger Map

Winter 14er - Success!

Mount Bierstadt
14,060'

03.09.2008

How To Join a Ride Proposal...

Yesterday I documented how to create a ride using the new ride proposal functionality on the TrailCentral.com trail pages. Yesterday I walked through the flow of creating a ride proposal from beginning to end. Today I'm going to pick up where I left off and document how easy it is to join a ride that has already been proposed.
Assuming a rider has previously submitted a ride proposal for Hall Ranch, a link labeled 'View Rides (x)' is displayed with 'x' representing the number of ride proposals currently active for this trail. By clicking on this link you will be anchored to the Ride Proposals section of the trail page, where ride details including the date, time, number of riders, and ride notes are displayed for each active ride. In addition, two new links appear for the ride and they are labeled 'Join This Ride' and 'View Rider List.'

If you choose to click 'View Rider List' link the page will expand and a list of all riders currently on the ride roster are displayed.

Ride roster includes the riders names, experience level, where they will be commuting from, the date they joined, and contact information. When you are done reviewing the roster, simply leave the page expanded or choose to hide it by clicking 'Hide Rider List.' The page then contracts and leaves only the ride details displayed. If you would like to join the ride, click 'Join This Ride.'

One of the benefits of being registered with TrailCentral and being logged in when joining a ride is that you are able to eliminate a step in the process, which collects the joining rider's information. Since you are registered with TrailCentral your information will be accessed and you will be quickly and painlessly added to the ride roster.

If you are not registered when clicking 'Join This Ride' the page will expand and you will see a form asking for necessary information before being added to the ride roster.

Non registered members will be required to add their name, experience, and email address. If they choose to 'Cancel', the form collapses from view and the roster is not updated. However, if the required fields are entered and 'Join This Ride' is selected, the form collapses and the rider is added to the ride roster.

When the rider is added to the list the leader of the ride will be notified by email if they chose to be notified when creating the ride proposal.

That is all there is to it. This functionality is extremely simple and whatever mystery their may have been I hope the previous documents have cleared it up. I hope the popularity of this feature increases with the new ability for non registered users to create and join rides. More importantly, I hope this functionality makes it easier for you to hook up with other riders who want to ride a trail with you.

How To Create A Ride Proposal...

Creating a ride proposal is now easier than ever and the intention of this document is to outline the process in which a non-registered user of TrailCentral is able to create a ride proposal. It is important to note that both registered and non-registered users of TrailCentral are able to create these and although some benefits are offered by being registered it isn't necessary. When differences do occur between registered and non-registered users I will note these differences.

The first major change is that the ride proposal functionality has moved to the trail pages. So, visit a trail page (Hall Ranch). If no rides have been submitted the top navigation will look like the image below where a link labeled 'Propose Ride' is available. If rides have been previously added, the link will be labeled 'View Rides (x)', with 'x' denoting the number of active ride proposals for this trail.


By clicking the highlighted link above labeled 'Propose Ride' the page will anchor to the Ride Proposals section of the trail page as seen below.

Click 'Submit Ride Proposal." The page will expand and a form will be displayed. This form automatically populates the ride date with the current date and the rest of the form fields will be blank. However, if you are logged in, your name, experience, location, and email will be pre-populated. Even though fields may be pre-populated it is understood that privacy may be a concern, which is why all fields are editable.

When creating a ride you have an option to be notified by email whenever a person joins your ride. This is defaults to 'No', but for those who are not interested in checking the website for their roster status should set this option to 'Yes.'

If clicking 'Cancel' the form will collapse and no saves will be saved. If 'Submit Ride Proposal' is selected the appropriate processing will be done and assuming all checks pass the ride will be added to the database. You will see a 'Congratulations!' message in place of the form

At this point your ride has been successfully added to TrailCentral and it will be visible to all those who visit this trail or subscribe to the RSS feed. If you wish to see your ride; simply refresh the page.

After refreshing your screen you will notice that your ride details will be displayed on the screen. In addition to the 'Submit Ride Proposal' link you will now see the option of two new links labeled 'Join This Ride' and 'View Rider List', which will be covered in a different post.

You can add as many ride proposals as you wish to a trail. If you wish to add more ride proposals to other trails; simply navigate to the trail you wish to add a ride proposal to and follow the same steps outlined in this post.

If you do not see a trail that you want to create a ride proposal for you simply need to add the trail to the directory by uploading the GPS data to TrailCentral and creating a trail page.

Next, I'll document how to join a ride.

Stay tuned...

New Ride Proposal Functionality On Trail Pages...

For the past week this blog has been rather quiet, which can mean one of two things. I've been abducted by the cute, but sometimes scary gnomes that live in my garden -or- I've been nose deep in my code inspired to make TrailCentral a better place to surf. Lucky for me (Those gnomes can bite, you know?), I've been inspired to code.

I've been busy making improvements to the section of the trail pages that allow you to submit ride proposals. What is a ride proposal? Well, it was my attempt at making TrailCentral a bit more Web 2.0 before it was cool to say "Web 2.0." Truly, I had the idea of ride proposals years ago and it was simply a method to allow members of my site to propose a time and a place to meet for a ride. Other members would then be allowed to add themselves to the ride roster. Really, it is a simple way to organize a ride with others riders who may be friends or future friends that want to ride with you.

I always thought it was a cool idea, but I never truly implemented it correctly, which in turn never gave it a fair shake at being successful. Let me explain why.

First off, I use to only allow members of my site to create and join ride proposals. In hindsight, this was a big mistake and vastly limited the usefulness of the feature. I've changed that and I now let anyone create and join rides.

Plus, I upgraded the method in which a rider joins. It was once a clunky series of screens and drop down that you would have to navigate. Now, thanks to AJAX, I do everything on the fly and it doesn't require a single page refresh, which makes creating and adding rides a more efficient process.

Finally, ride proposals are available in a feed, allowing you to know whenever a trail on TrailCentral has a ride proposal submitted. I updated the code today and for some reason I was limiting the ride notes to 250 characters, which was nothing sort of a dumb thing to do. What was I thinking? The web is meant to be free and if you want the information, you should get all of it, right? Well, I fixed that and now when you subscribe to the feed, which I encourage you to do, you will be notified in your reader within hours of the ride proposal being submitted on TrailCentral.com.

So, this is actually just me writing for the sake of writing. I plan to write several more posts about the new functionality as a means of documentation. I hope you will take the time to read them because although the functionality is incredibly simple to use it is also nice to know exactly what it does.

Stay tuned...

Oh Yeah, It's Winter...

Last Friday I had the absolute joy of riding my bike during lunch. The weather was in the mid 60s, there was no wind, and there was no excuse for not riding.

I hopped on my bike to say hello to my old friend, The Dirty Bismark. As I rode I soaked up the sun and enjoyed the hard packed trails and dirt roads that would give me an hour of peace during the middle of my day.

As my route headed on the dirt road (a.k.a Coalton Trail) I assumed the most likely places for wet and snow were behind me. I was wrong. This trail must get a lot of drifting snow. This section, which I thought was going to be extremely fast and dry, turned into the slowest part of my ride.

The pace didn't bother me, but the snow drifts did snap me out of my thinking that spring had sprung. It is still winter until March 20th, 2008. And to drive that point deep into my head, Mother Nature gave me one more day of record breaking temperatures (70+) on Saturday and slapped me in the face with a winter warning that brought cold temperatures, snow and wind on Sunday (less than 12 hours later.)

Crazy Colorado weather... Gotta love it!