“Are those painted on?”

“They’ve gotta be.”

Cinder Bloch and I are eating fine meat burgers at Shipwreck in Shippensburg. The waitress is wearing the tightest pair of black tights I’ve ever seen.

“So should we camp, or stay with JPok? He said that there’s one bed, and no floor space, but we could probably make it work,” Cinder Bloch says.

“There’s no way I’m sleeping in a crusty one-bed motel room with JPok. Let’s take our chances camping. Maybe it won’t rain,” I say.

We finish our meat burgers, then wait for the waitress to take our money. And wait. And wait. So much for setting up tents in the daylight. Finally pay our bills, drive out of the town, out of the ticky-tacky development, and into the big empty forest. Motor around on dark back roads for a while, and thanks to Cinder Bloch’s magic phone, we don’t get lost.

There’s fire at the edge of the big big grassy parking lot. An electric hoola-hoop is flashing around in the dark.

We walk over to the fire. Topher is wiggling around with one of the hoola-hoops. His Osama beard is dancing under his chin.

“Get it up on your belly! Use it like a shelf!” somebody yells. A blonde girl is giving him instructions. The hoola-hoop passes to another crusty stoned dude. She yells at him for his incorrect hooping technique. Buck is talking about his moon mat. It’s made out of sheets of leftover ear plug material.

“No! You’re doing it all wrong!” the girl yells at somebody else. Cool. That’s enough of that. I walk into the dark field. Lay down in my tent.

I wake up. Hit the glow button on my watch. 2:30. Dammit. I’m freezing. I wrap my pillow around my face and slide deeper into the sleeping bag.

Crawl out of the tent at seven. Pretty chilly, but the sun is out and it’s starting to look like a good day. I eat a couple pickles, then smear peanut butter on an expired pop-tart.

By start time, it’s beautiful. Perfect blue sky, and warm enough to ditch my arm warmers. This is gonna be sweet. We line up on the gravel road. The Open Men’s class is released. The single speeders shuffle forward. This is a long race, don’t burn up in the first few miles like last year.

Go. A guy in a skid lid and Dickies shorts gets out front. That’s fine. I sit on Skid Lid’s wheel. We make a right turn. The single track is coming up. I spin fast and shoot around Skid Lid, slid into the turn and start climbing the first hill.

The double track is covered in sharp rock. It looks like somebody shattered a huge limestone window and scattered the pieces through the woods.

Pass some of the guys in Open. Riding well, just stay smooth. I hit a short steep piece of trail. There’s some grinding, and a guy on a single speed shoots around me. Fine fine. Just stay with him. He’s going hard over the rocks, and climbing well. We cruise through some tight single track that’s barely wide enough for my handle bars. Mountain laurel scrapes at my face.

We start a descent. There’s some rattling. Then a thud. I look down. Shit. Bottle ejected again. I stop, grab the bottle, and bend my cage back. The guy is gone. Gotta chase him down now. I get a few glimpses of him  through the trees. Then we hit a gravel road. I pedal hard. Almost got him.

Swing around a gate on the road, and scrape into a stick. I take another pedal stroke, and lunge towards my stem. Chain dropped. Goddammit. I get the chain back on. The guy is way up the climb now. Settle into this climb, and go get him. You’re fine.

I start cruising up the hill. I feel strong. I pass a couple guys, then a couple more, then the guy on the single. Sweet. Keep it rolling.

The climb goes on forever. Up and up and up. Finally hit the top, then start winding through some super rocky single track. I’m riding smooth, and I think I’m opening up the gap a little. I don’t see or hear anyone around me. Just rocks and red arrows on the trees.

I pick my way down one of the descents. Big rock drop after rock drop. You have the lead, just ride smart. No reason to risk a flat.

Through a switchback section. They’re 180 degrees, with a big rock drop in the middle, and barely long enough to get a bike turned around. Back up to the top of the ridge, over some huge boulders. I dab a foot, stop, then clip back in. I’m half way through a pedal stroke, and flying over the bars. Shit. My front tire was butted right up against a little stump. I push my bike off me, then roll over in the soft dirt.

Flowing down a smoother section of trail. Making good time. I’ve got this. I’m finally gonna have a good race in Michaux. I roll over a rock. There’s hissing.

Stan’s is spraying all over the trail. Fuck no. I get off my bike, and shake the tire. Not sealing. I look at it closer. Just a little puncture. I spin the wheel. And an inch-long sidewall cut. Fucking shit. Another sidewall cut. That’s the third time this month.

It’s fine. Don’t panic. Just get it fixed. I undo my stuff strap. JPok rides past towing a single speeder. I get the tube in. The single speeder I was chasing before rides past. Screw in the CO2. Two more guys and TJ on a single speed rip past. I put a Cliff Bar wrapper against the cut, blow up the tube, put the wheel on, set my bike down, and take a pee break.

You’ve got some work to do, but you can still win this. I get back on my bike and start hammering. I catch TJ at a stream crossing. Then ride a hill that the a few other guys are walking. Keep it going. I’m winding through a pine section, roots going every direction. I see JPok and the other guy up ahead. It looks like I’m closing the gap.

Out onto a steep 4×4 road. JPok is farther up, but I can see the other single speed. Get him on the hill. I spin up until I’m right on his wheel, then give it everything to accelerate past. It hurts, but I keep it going until I have a big gap. Gunnar and the Pflug always drop me like that.

The gaps open. Awesome. It worked. I keep going hard through the single track. I see JPok up ahead occasionally. I stop at the third aid.

“How far to the finish?” I say.

“2.5 miles,” he says. He’s filling one of my bottles.

“That’s it? Just 2.5 miles?” I grab the bottle. This thing’s almost over. I grind up the last climb, turn onto another road. There’s the finish. Damn. Already. I sprint down the road, and under some red streamers.

“Where’s the finish?” I yell to some spectators. They point back to the streamers. That was supposed to be a turn. You dumbass. I sprint back, make the turn, and cross the line.

Won it. I’m stoked. It wasn’t a perfect race, but I kept it together.

This Soma Smoothie was built for riding around the back roads of PA. Ryan wanted a road bike that would comfortably handle the not so smooth roads around here and the Soma Smoothie frame provided our solution. The bike rides on Vittoria Rubino 700 x 25 tires on Velocity A23 rims laced to Shimano Ultegra hubs.

Ritchey WCS Logic II bars with orange Lizard Skin DSP 2.5 bar tape and a Ritchey “Classic” stem comprise the cockpit.

Cycle Symphony is proud to announce that we are including Turbospoke on all custom builds and team bikes. Our independent lab tests showed a dramatic increase in power output when Turbospoke was installed. Not only does it increase power, but in real world race testing the Turbospoke alerts all other racers of when you’ll be leaving them in your dust.

Don’t get left in the dust, order your Cycle Symphony custom bike with Turbospoke today! Comes with 15 custom stickers!

Despite feeling terrible from the resilient 19th-century respiratory illness that I contracted in Ohio last month, yesterday my friend Ole Cinder Bloch Lochner and I went riding at Roaring Run in Apollo. It was a beautiful day, and I needed to test the new race machine. I’ve had it put together for a few days, but I didn’t want to say anything on here until I was sure it wasn’t going to fall apart.

It didn’t fall apart.

It’s awesome. I wasn’t riding well yesterday but I was still dropping Ole Cinder Bloch, who was on a rigid SIR9. The bike makes everything so easy. I can stuff it into jagged rocks, and it goes forward. Into big logs, and it goes forward. Over the end of a very low park bench, and it goes forward (with it’s dizzy and disoriented rider only half attached.)

I’m used to bouncing around on a hardtail, and compared to that the Rip is totally undramatic. It just smooths everything out and goes. Since the loop at Apollo is so twisty, I was expecting the bike to be a little to big for the trail. But I was wrong. It feels quick and handles tight stuff as well as my One9 did with a 120mm fork.

It’s geared at 36×19, and I had no problem standing and mashing up the steep hills. Even in such a big gear, the suspension didn’t squish too much.

I finished the loop feeling as fresh as when I started it (which wasn’t actually very fresh. But I did finish the loop with consumption, cholera or diphtheria. That has to say something.) My back didn’t hurt and my hands weren’t sore. This bike is going to make a huge difference in the last 20 miles of a 100 miler, when every bump on the trail feels like falling ass first onto a giant hedgehog.

I’m excited about the Rip. It’s fast, it’s fun, and it runs real good.

I’m using a Paul Melvin to tension the chain, which is basically a short cage derailleur with an extra strong spring. It’s quiet, and there’s very little chainslap:

I couldn’t get an 8 or 9 speed chain to work without skipping (I think my cog was too worn), so I ended up with a KMC single speed chain:

Some mud, no skipping. Bueno.

The I9 guys rebuilt my wheels again, this time with Stan’s Flows. So I’m running a full Enduro wheelset. I still have an Ultralite back wheel that I’ll throw on for some races.

I can’t wait to race this thing. It’s gonna be fast.

Here’s the full build list:

Frame: Niner RIP9
Wheels: Industry 9 Enduro 29er
Grips: Ergon GX2 Carbon
Fork: Rockshox Reba RLT Ti with 20mm thru axle
Brakes: Formula RX
Rotors: Formula R1
Crank: Raceface Turbine
Bars: Raceface Atlas
Stem: Thomson 50mm
Seatpost: The one that was on closeout

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!