I landed a day early in SF and got to play tourist, then Josh and Pete picked me up at the hotel and gave me the West Coast education on the way to Sea Otter… Someday I’ll get those boys down South where snakes, gators and swamps have a whole new meaning.

The event was rain free, so I can’t call it the Sea Water this year. But the wind…

It was good to see our newly sponsored CRC/Intense and Team America teams in action. During the weekend, we were busy getting the teams familiar with the Double Barrel. It’s a great information feast. Each rider brings a different twist to how they want their own shock set up. It’s really different what the World Cup riders want a shock to do compared to what I want out of the shock. In simple terms, I don’t and won’t ever reach their level of speed and sheer aggression they put the shock through.

Also got to see the dual slalom practice and finals… where I got the What The Flip Am I Doing Here? award for standing on a hillside while being wind- and sand-blasted into a sand sculpture. (Note: Above photo not actually from Sea Otter, but it might as well be.)

If you made it by the Cane Creek tent you would have seen the Gold sprints going off. Basically pedal ’till you puke against your rival. Murphy and Ian had those poor souls in the palm of their hands. Oh, and thanks to Chuey for the hats.

Pete and Paul installed plenty of 110 headset upgrades during the 3 days. It was good to see the riders turn out for that one.

Congrats to Chris Herndon for taking care of business down South, with a win in Clemson!

Congrats to Julien Camellini for taking care of business down South as well… the South of France that is. Julien won the opening round of the French South East regional championship. Riding the CRC sponsored M6 with his new gold Double Barrel.

It’s wide open on the Cane Creek home front. Warm weather will do that… Warm weather also means urban Motard time. Ahh yes, wheelies and drifts on the way to work. Sketchy motorists beware…

It seemed like ages since I really rode.

Sure I had been on a bike; I’d thrown a leg over a few rigs for parking lot spins, ran up to the store on my commuter, but as far as really riding… it had been a long while. Last weekend though, after putting my 6 month old daughter down for her morning nap, I dusted off my trusty old Tuscany for a couple hours in the saddle.

At first it hurt as my heart rate jumped up close to my max BPM and my body struggled to keep up with my contorted sense of “easy spinning”. The problem is, I still think I’m fast. What was a leisurely big ring climb only months ago is now a paced breathing effort. As I huffed and puffed along to my secret entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway I was surprised at how quick my fitness had gone and the real climbing hadn’t even started. As the road steepened, it was slow going at first, even for me. I could barely turn over my 39×27 (I used to spin a 39×23 up this thing!).

After about 10 minutes of this, my heart rate settled down, I started pedaling circles, and a smile started slowly emerging from my grimaced face. It felt great, really breathing hard, controlling the effort but getting that connection with the bike back, ticking off the elevation, turning over the cranks, letting the shoulders down.

After about an hour of this I turned around and headed back to relive my wife from her solo mission at home. Soon thereafter a twosome passed me, just flying. Instinctively I punched it to catch on. They were hammering, but it was easy to suck wheel, and when we had to part ways, they smiled and waved as I thanked them for the pull.

Being back on two wheels, feeling the intensity of a steep climb, the rush of screaming downhill, and taking advantage of the orchestrated chemistry of two guys in a hurry… it was a great ride.

Just need it more often…

Last weekend some of us at Cane Creek headed up to Frostbike 2008 to talk shop with dealers nationwide. As much as I like to think I’m on top of things, it’s always eye-opening to get feedback from other parts of the country.

For example, at Cane Creek World HQ in Fletcher NC, I would never think to build a single speed disk braked cross bike, much less design components with this build in mind. Just wouldn’t happen…

But several shops that do unique custom builds in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa assure me that this kind of craziness goes off in “elevationally challenged” areas. While this might not be for everyone, these fringe type concepts can really inspire and motivate innovation. As an engineer it’s great fun to discuss such concepts as they become intertwined with more “standard” needs during the design process, and the resulting products can often serve the niche needs in subtle but functional ways. Thanks for the ideas!

A few weeks back Josh C. and I headed over to Ohlins to give a Double Barrel a beating on the shaker rig. This is great stuff! You take the info from a data acquisition system mounted on the bike, and download that into a computer. The computer tells the shaker rig to, well, “shake”. So you get to see the Downhill run or runs you did live on the shaker rig. The shaker rig mimics every bump, jump and drift you did on the trail. It’s crazy because you can see your run being played out in front of you. All kinds of hydraulic lines leading to the shaker move around and you watch your Double Barrel getting what you gave it on the trail.

More on the shaker rig…

I get questions on how we use the information we gather from these tests. Here’s the short version: We gather all of a rider’s data from a downhill run and load it into the computer. The computer then tells the shaker to mimic the run on the shock. This gets noisy with all of the hydraulics running the shaker, very fun to watch. I still flinch…. when the shock starts taking big hits. You can also see when a rider slacks off or the trail smoothes out. The short of it is, we can tell if a test rider is using the Double Barrel to it’s full potential.

Heads up,

For all of you in need of a 10” x 3.5” size shock upgrade. “A big ole shock.” We will have the ability to build this length shock sometime in January. I have been on a Session 10 — yes a Session 10 — with this length shock and it completely transforms the bike.