Not everyone is a jerk

I was talking to someone today, and they commented on getting a flat and not having levers, but luckily someone stopped and gave them a ride back to town.

Then I thought myself, of all the times I've ever been on the side of the road working on my bike and cars passed, I don't think I've ever not had someone ask if I needed assistance. Even the other day when my chain broke on the group ride, someone offered help.

Cyclists bitch all the time about cars, as if they themselves don't drive, but I seldom see them comment about motorists offering a hand or even a ride.

Snow Biking at Night

Papa Dave keeps ramblin' on about how cool it is to ride in the snow, and how cool it is to MTB in at night. Well, put those 2 together, and you get one sweet resistance training and handling training, plus if you're lucky the snow will clean the dirt off your bike from last race season.

We hit up White Park for about an hour last week after the meeting, and again tonight for around 2.5 hours. Including my commute, which sucked it was over 3 hours. I got enough salt in my mouth on the way to and fro; my muscles should have plenty of electrolytes.

Conditions were awesome for almost 2hours, then the snow turned to rain/sleet. We stayed warm, plowing through the snow as the layer of ice formed on top of the snow and crunched beneath us. The snow reflected enough of the surrounding street lights that head lamps weren't even necessary.

Yeah...It's REALLY not cold out.

Today was... in one word... perfect. Temp stayed around 55 degrees with slight cloud cover but sunny most of the time. Brock and I set out from the 'lair to put in about two hours of good riding. The plan was Railtrail to Dug Hill to Cheat Lake to Pt Marion to Bakers, with playtime on the unfinished highway.

Well, rail trail didn't work out since it's still a slush covered mess, so we sat off through South Park and descended the backside of Marilla park to Dug Hill. Everything was uneventful until we got to the abandoned interstate. Once we headed up the path to the unfinished interstate from Fairchance Rd I think Brock was convinced I was crazy, but once we got onto it all was well. It's REALLY slushy right now, but still such an awesome road to ride. I think everyone should try to ride it before they open it, because you'll never be able to ride something like that again.


Soo we headed straight on that for about 5 miles until we got to the Pt. Marion exit and crossed the median onto the oncoming exit ramp. The plan was originally to drop down to the dam but the road leading down had...no exaggeration... an inch of salt and cinders covering it, so scratch that. We headed on 43 to 119 to Pt. Marion which was an awesome ride, and 119 wasn't nearly as heavily trafficked as I thought it would be. We took a breif break at the Pt. Marion Subway to fill bottles and eat a Cliff bar then headed up to Stewardstown (sp?). From there it was the usual Stewardstown to Bakers and back past the hospital.

Awesome ride, almost 40 miles and 4,500ft of climbing. We railed pretty hard for most of it, especially on 43 and 119. Hope everyone enjoyed the awesome weather today and I wish we could have ridden at a better time for those who had class. Once the days get longer things will definitely be easier.

GPS: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.do?episodePk.pkValue=7501029

-Chad

It snot cold out

Last night we had a post meeting MTB ride at Bakers. That was a lot of fun, sliding all around on the very cold snow. It was 18 degrees, but I was far warmer last night on the MTB than I was last week when it was in 20s on the road bike. Riding in snow definitely tests your handling skills.
I told Liew I was retiring the road bike while it was cold out, and he said today it wouldn't be cold. A balmy 39 degrees. Maybe it was at noon, but didn't seem it at 4:30 when we started our adventure. Rail-trails with half melted snow and ice on road bikes is a bad idea.
I noticed my chain was making noise each rotation while climbing Dug Hill, so we stopped and checked, and sure enough, I had broken another chain, this time a Wipperman. I'm getting a SRAM and never going back. I had my trusty multi-tool with me and fixed that chain nearly like new and we ventured on. Jake decided kayak rolling in the pool would be more fun, and turned around.
Liew and I decided to go up to the new UHS and check out the course. We did a few laps in the dark, and found that its pretty well lit except for the back stretch. It was also very well paved, and almost totally dry. The stadium course was in just about as good of shape. I feel really confident in these courses, unless it snows the day before the race.

Clean bikes are happy bikes!

Well, after yesterdays ride I think it's pretty safe to say that everyone who went on the ride had a filthy bike to show for it. I didn't realize how bad mine was until I got home and really started looking at things closer. My rear derailleur pulleys and cage was so full of coal cinders/sand/salt from the roads that the pulleys would barely turn.







I spent about an hour cleaning my bike, and I'm happy with the results. Someone had mentioned to me earlier in the year about using cooking spray or rain-x on your frame in the winter so road crap doesn't stick as bad... and that is definitely true. It took almost no effort to get all the stuff off the frame that used to take a lot of work and some scrubbing/wiping. After 1 go over with my awesome park tool cleaning brushes the frame was good to go. Threw on another layer of cooking spray and that's taken care of.



The drivetrain took a lot more work since surface rust had already started forming on the chain. The park tool chain scrubber made things a lot easier and cleaned up the chain and cassette very well. Got everything nice and lubed up and that task was done too. Definitely an hour or so well spent to keep things in shape and working properly.






I'll definitely be doing a complete tear down and clean at the end of winter when it looks like the road salting is done for the year. Everyone knows chicks dig super clean bikes.

-Chad

Back to School Wisp Trip!

I noticed that no one commented about the last trip we took to Wisp. We must have been too excited about the snow, because no one took pictures. The only image we have from that night is Balaji's "super sweet jump" on Main Street, but I don't have that because someone "borrowed" my memory card and never gave it back.

Anyways.... Jake, Lemma, Ryan, Zerbe, Steve, Jimmy, Bala, Liew, Liew's friend Izzat? and myself hit the slopes last Tuesday night with the student discount. It was quite snowy on the ride there....and a lot more snowy on the way back. Bala's car got stuck in Wisp's parking lot, & I think top speed on 68 on the way home was around 30mph in near white-out conditions. Liew rode the rumble strips the whole way back to Morgantown---and Steve just put his hazzards on and went like hell...

With all that snow and no crowd, conditions at Wisp were suprisingly good. After a few warmup runs, I think most of us did Main Street about 7 or 8 times--while the boys all played around on the variety of jumps, and Lemma and I "went fast." The group reunited when we finally caught up with Liew and Sponge on a blue diamond later in the night (and Liew says he can't ski!).

All in all, I think everyone had a good time. We have to do it again soon--perhaps with a larger group and some pictures!?!

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday...continued.

Sooooo, unlike the tough guys who wanted to put a few more miles in, the miserable crowd (Me, Jimmy, Janel, Chad, Brandon, James, and Evan) finished out the short loop and headed home via 100. Despite our frozen toes, we stopped to take some pictures on the way back. The group got split up piece by piece on the way back. Apparently I'd been riding with a slow leak in my front tire the entire day...and it waited til I was like 3 miles from home to give up on me. Not wanting to change my tube in the cold and wet nasty-ness. I stopped 3 times to pump it up, but each time it got worse. Since I'm a wimp, Bala came to the rescue (since he's a wimp and didn't ride). ;)

-Amber

Sunday sunday sunday.......

Hello readers,
The team have an awesome Sunday road ride today. It was the first group ride of the year and it's also the biggest turn out of the year (so far). We thought it's gonna be a bailfest 2009 because it's so shitty outdside, but we are wrong. We have a total of 10 cyclists showed up, Liew, Steve, Jimmy, Jake, Chad, James, Evans, Brandon, Amber.s, and Janel. We started out with a nice pancake breakfast, prepared and served by Steve Nutt. Thank you Steve.

Around noon, everybody get ready to bundle up for the first winter ride of the year, we rolled out with a nice day of 33F with light snow. The caravan are plan to head out towards star city bridge, RT100, Ft.Martin, and Home/Alps de Huez. After we hit first climb at Ft Martin not long, James the Bianchi guy has a front wheel flat, Steve stopped and help him. Thanks again Steve, you such a nice guy. Then, business resume as usual. After we hit Taylortown, there is a split between home and Alps de Huez, some of our teammates are getting cold after an hour in, they decided to take the majority vote of going home. So, they gone home, not sure what's their situation after the split. However, some of us still feel like want to put some mileage in, therefore Liew, Steve, and Jake took the right turn towards Alps de Huez. The road along Alps de Huez was nice, but wet. Along the road, we chat and deciding where to go after Alps de Huez, we made a decision to mile climb then home. Sounds like a great idea for a Sunday ride. So, we hit Mt. Morris then to Big Shanon rd, the road is still clear but wet again. Not far after few miles in on Big Shanon. A big snow storm were hitting on the road and it was crazy(a video was taken during the scene). We decided to turn around, on the way out, the road are totally white out which it's not like that when we are on the way in. It just ridiculous, insane, and crazy. But anyway, we rolled out slowly towards Morgantown. Everybody got cold, hungry and exhausted. But we still pedal! Finally, it was a 3 hrs ride with 40 miles in and averaging 13mph. It was an awesome ride, looks like a "Gef's ride". And here is the spilted team's ride info: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.do?episodePk.pkValue=7474863

FYI: Video is uploaded on Liew's facebook account or YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZhF0m5jNC4

Sneak Preview

Here is the sneak preview of what the team has been investing recently.

Happy New Year from WVU Cycling!

Happy 2009 to all! A new year- a stronger legs.
Although holiday break is in progress but some of our cycling folks were still in Morgantown to celebrate new year! The initial plan was actually hosting a party at Steve's house but unfortunately Steve bailed on us without telling us. Therefore, we pull up our backup plan to get things going. The party was hosted at Liew's apartment, it was an awesome party, Liew, Juliana, Balaji, Jake, Lemma, Ryan, and Zerbe were there. We had some good beers as starter, some alcohol shots as warm up and champagne toast as new year celebration! Alcohol shots were pretty sick, we have no shot glass in house, as an alternative, we used measurement cup as replacement. Also everybody had at least one shot except Ryan Post, he avoided drinking due to his current intensive work. Liew was excited too for his very first shot of his life, Zerbe did some crazy stuff like hoola hoop with a tube, Balaji happy that Amber.S called him after missing 4 missed call, Lemma were excited on her sexy road wheels, Jake is happy that he is a driver of the night and took 2 shots, couple beers and some champagne, Ryan were happy of just drinking non-caffeine 2 liters 7UP with pomegranate flavor for the whole night.Happy new year to all again, don't forget team gears are in town, will be on sale on first meeting, all team orders are processing now. See you guys at first meeting!

New Year champagne toast	Shots-Must Watch!

Zerbe on Hoola Hoop