I have raced the innaugural Yankee TT three years in a row now, and the first two years had nearly perfect weather for April in Michigan.  I guess we were due for a less than perfect day.  Conditions were on the cool side at about 50 degrees, low wind, and very light rain all day.  This wasn’t really a bad thing, the trail is very sandy and the rain helps solidify it quite a bit making for easier trips through the many sand pits.  The main downsides being all the sand sticking to you and your bike, and the slippery tree roots and rocks along the way.

This is my first year racing sport, and I was ready for a rude awakening.  I ended up with a time of 1:05:54 which was good for 20th out of 30 starters.  Course length was 11.4 miles by my computer, my ave speed was 10.3 with a max of 21.9  I felt pretty lousy about this result, but then I looked at my 2007 and 2008 times on the same course: 1:16:22 and 1:11:22 dropping roughly 5 minutes a year, I guess it looks better from that perspective.

Still, I had hoped for better after training a lot more for this year than in the past, dropped a fair amount of weight too.  This is a good wake-up call to start training with more intensity if I want to really improve.

Needs improvement/negatives: didn’t warm up properly due to time, that was just dumb.  My bike was not shifting properly in the low gears which was a bit of a problem on the uphill sections and had me preoccupied constantly looking down to make sure I wasn’t in the problem gear.  I also had a bit of a sore throat/congested feeling possibly from spring allergies.

Positives: carefully preplanned all foods and drinks for raceday by the hour, energy level felt good.  Bike otherwise performed perfectly, the handling was razor sharp and never let me down.

I might bite the bullet and take the bike to the shop, I can’t race again with it shifting so poorly.  Training wise I need to do some hard intervals on the mountain bike, going to stay as far from the road bike as possible.

Right now, a lot of people are rightfully freaked out about the economy.  Mainly, they are confused because they don’t really understand why things are happening or what to do about it.  If you are the type given to believing in conspiracy theories, you think this ignorance is intentional.  Intentional or not, it is the case that almost no one you know, and no one you see on the news has any idea what they are talking about.  In particular this includes anyone holding a Phd in economics from any American university.

(effectively) Every single college and university in this country teaches an incorrect theory of economics that asserts that the only solution to recession/depression is increased government regulation and market interference, inflation in the money supply, and manipulation of interest rates.  There is no diversity of thought (excepting Ron Paul) within the government, no matter how much “diversity” is celebrated.  Obama himself has stated he doesn’t know much about economics, and he will not get the correct answers from the people who advise him.  These are the people running the economy now, you are right to be worried.

There is one, and only one, school of economic thought which correctly predicted and explains the current economic recession.  None of the people in the government follow this theory, and no one is teaching it in an economics class anywhere in this country.  I will let you wonder to yourself why this is.  This alternative economic theory is known as Austrian Economics, or The Austrian School.  You can learn all about it for free at the Ludwig von Mises Institute website.

A good starting point is the Bailout Reader page.  The essential component of the Austrian School is the alternative explanation of the business cycle, nicely summarized here by Lew Rockwell.

Some other good sites, most of which are on my daily must read list:

• Safe Haven – an aggregation of investing articles
• The 5 Minute Forecast – a daily summary of the investing world
• Lew Rockwell – essays on economics, investing, and random conspiracy theories
• The Mogambo Guru – the most hilarious economic commentator out there

There you go, ignorance is no longer an excuse.

I just recently finished building my winter project bike: a Sette Reken aluminum hardtail.  While my full suspension bike was certainly plush by comparison, I never got used to the tail bobbing of the rear suspension.  Plus the bike had some issues I could just never quite solve, so I decided to go back to a hardtail.  Aside from being a good learning experience, it would also be cheaper to salvage as many parts from the old bike as possible.

The frame was surprisingly cheap, it is a “house brand” frame from Pricepoint and only ran $90 on sale.  Its basic, but solid, and quite light at around 4.5 lbs.  I had hoped to salvage the wheels, fork, drivetrain, and headset.  I intended from the start to replace the brakes on the advice of a local bike mechanic.  Also planned to replace the usual wear parts such as stem, handlebar, and seatpost – they were getting old and it is recommended such parts be replace every few years at least – especially if used heavily.

After tearing the old bike down I found a few problems with that plan.  The headset was actually the wrong size, not to mention the bearings were trashed – gotta replace it.  The bottom bracket – looked questionable and considering its age, definitely due for replacement.  Finally the front and rear derailers had to go – the rear turned out to be bent and the front was the wrong size.  Technically I could have shimmed it to work but I didn’t want to half-ass it.

Aside from those mishaps which only required a few extra trips to the bike shop, the process went pretty well.  Its really not as dificult as you might think.  Only a few specialized tools were required for installing the bottom bracket and cranks.  Otherwise its mainly allen wrenches, screwdrivers, and wire cutters.  I still have trouble perfecting the rear derailer adjustment, which is quite frustrating.

Well here’s my component list:

• Sette Reken frame – 6061 aluminum
• Fox F100X Fork – 100mm travel with inertial lockout
• Easton EA50 aluminum bar and stem
• Avid Juicy 5 hydraulic brakes
• Shimano XTR rapidfire shifters with XT front and rear derailers
• Specilaized ergonomic grips
• Race Face Evolve XC Crank
• Mavic X223 wheels with Shimano XT hubs