Wednesday Stuff

Before I get into my bike stuff, I want to say thanks to all the folks who posted or e mailed encouragement about my future plans with my job and the probable leaving there of. It was all much appreciated. I've made my decision, but now am just waiting to get the ball rolling. Planning it all out to make sure things my ass is covered in a variety of ways. Nothing will be official until March. I also have to say special thanks to Wifey. She's been after me to do this for a long while, and now I can make this leap with not only her support, but with little financial worry for close to a year. I guess that's what you get when you marry a laid back brainiac. Thanks babe!

In other good news we found out today that B-Man got into a local charter shool today. SWEET! They have a LOT of really cool programs for the kids and a healthy dose of music, art, and physical activities. Karate for kindergartners, I LOVE IT! Also a lot of great programs for parents too, like after school day care programs, for houses where BOTH parents might be working. ;) Anyway, we're stoked that he'll have this opportunity.

Now enough of all this shit and on to our regularly scheduled bike blog...

Have you checked out the Egon blog? Go ahead, do it now I'll wait. Scroll down a bit..... Yeah, right there! Ergon has announced that it will be the title sponsor of the W.V.M.B.A. Ultra Endurance Series. Woot! Woot! This is super cool. J.R. must be stoked to have Ergon on board and Ergon must be stoked to have their name associated with one of the best race series on the east coast if not the country. And to be the title sponsor of the Ultra Series is even cooler.

I'm glad to be associated with both. Oh yeah, BTW I'm "Mr. WVMBA #212" in 2009. I'll probably only make 4 or 5 of the XC events and most likely none of the Ultra events due to schedule conflicts and recovery time with some Solos and hundies, but I am looking forward to futzing around the Sport Vet XC scene and trying to make the change from my "long and slow" pace to my "short and slow" pace. 100 miles or 15 miles, time is the saddle is all good no matter what the pace.

In addition to Ergon, I also have to say thanks to my friends at Twin-Six for becoming part of the W.V.M.B.A. sponsor family in 2009. I can guarantee that their shit will be some of the first to get snatched up on the prize tables in 2009. Big thanks to Ryan and Brent for helping out. SOMEBODY has to help get race geeks out of their (our) sponsor logo-ed duds ONCE in a while! Hey lucky for me T6 IS one of my sponsors! :)

Lastly I got some Big Mama parts in the mail today. I had found a deal on some Avid Juicy Ultimates just a few days before I found out I would be getting some assistance from SRAM this year and they came today. No matter how I got them, the Juicy Ultimates will be the brakes on the Big Mama in 2009.

Why make the switch from the already light and well made Hope Mono Minis to the Avid Juicy Ultimates? Well I have a few reasons: I will be running a Fox (at some point I hope) on the Big Mama and Fox Forks use post mounts. On the Dos Niner I have to use an adapter and a larger sized rotor to make the I.S. brakes work. I don't want to do that with the Big Mama.

The Big Mama also has REAR post mounts. Again, I want to avoid adapters and big ass rotors (truthfully I'm not sure they even MAKE an adapter for rear post mounts?). Then you have the fact that SRAM/AVID are one of the biggest component manufacturers in the world. I like that if I f*ck up a brake while at a race my chance of finding an replacement part at the venue or from a local bike shop just went up about 95%!! I LOVE that.

Salsa Big Mama Rear Post Mounts
(as photographed by twentynineinches.com)

Lastly on top of ALL that, I think the Ultimates are just damn cool looking!

That's it. Time for some Wii soccer. I continue to get my ass kicked. Why is West Ham United so good? They KICK my ass EVERY time!

Later.