The Rock Lobsters are ready. The Dugasts are still stretching and I'll get them all glued up in a few weeks time but the bikes are all purdy and ready to go. Now, is the body ready? Getting there. That is for damn sure. Flag/Mag/Sunshine today. The goal was to feel as good as possible on teh last one. Maintain watts, all that jazz. Flag: Awesome. Mag: Awesome. Sunshine...Awesome and then like a cliff dive at about 30 minutes, I could barley turn them over. 3 hours and change and 4.5K of vertical today. 7 pounds (yup) 7 pounds in body weight gone. All water. I feel sick but smiling.

Rock lobsters below. Mmm.

Capt Swiggco (Paul Sadoff) of Rock Lobster Cycles who has made my CX bikes for time ad infinitum got himself interviewed on Plus One Lap, another great 'cross focused blog. Paul has been building bikes longer than some of you who read this have been alive....and CX bikes for most of that time. He tells us 'back in the day' stories of Santa Cruz when Keith Bontrager and others woudl commune on bike building, rides, etc and you can see how the influence has permeated all of their collective designs. Have a read.

Thanks folks! The feedback is killer. Mike also sent me this picture of the new Yeti's pulley system (Jon from Moots, check this out):

The yoke looks interesting too. Not sure if it will be a mud trap or not. My Rock Lobsters are all super stiff without the yoke and no build up of mud:Thanks again for the comments on the last post!

The non-racing weekend for me ended up being great. 3 1/2 hours on the 1 x 1 looping Hall was absolutely what the body needed. OK, maybe not needed but the grins were there while turning the 32 x 16...sort of like Chris Horner grins in a poker face sort of way no matter if he's soft pedaling or winning stages in the T d Suisse.

Sunday my wife and I rolled for 3. She is a capital 'A' animal. The gears she turns are stupid. Retarded big. "Honey, you're in the 53 14. Knock it back." Wife: "Oh, shoot, sorry."

Lunchtime ride today with my office mate down in Littleton on the paths. Brought out the new Rock Lobster and it is so dialed. When's cross. Where's Mol?

Horner pic courtesy of Roadcycling.com

I had lots to do today. Heavy duty spin and then weights for 3 hours in the AM, kid play all afternoon then unpacking all the boxes from Verge and re-packing into individual bags for all the team-mates today. Thanks to our Devo team for assisting! They basically ran the show! One other thing was to visit BCS and pick up my new Rock Lobster for next season. (Don't ask me why i had it built up. It's sort of like having a bad case of blue balls I suspect. I needed to 'release' and see the thing built up).

It came out sweet. With Mavic Open Pro/Hugi's, a bunch of Ritchey WCS (although I'll have other wheels this coming season to race on) and the Alpha Q, this Easton Ultra Light is 18lbs. Not stupid light (my Scandium RL with the FSA's is 17.3 pounds) but light enough. I am 6'2 and about 180 when I race so I figure I can skip a couple-a Newcastles before I get stupid light equipment.

An interesting twist was related to the Alpha Q. I had this fork on my Scott Team CX this season and while on ,it had a significantly longer steerer. Problem: When you buy and install Alpha Q's, they are essentially on THAT bike for life. Why? You cut the carbon steerer, then permanently glue in this Aluminum shim which holds the star nut in place with the same shit they bond rotor blades of Apache's with. So, I'm thinking I am humped and have to buy a new fork. D-Wayne (THE MAN) at BCS called True Temper directly and got the green light to cut RIGHT through that shit! Good as gold. He cut through the carbon and on through the aluminum shim, pushed down the star nut and voila, correct steerer length for this bike.

I blinged out this bike with some carbon fiber love. Some FSA CX carbon cranks (175 x 110BCD) and a 42t FSA ring. Note the carbon chain guides. Hand made by Joe De Paemelaere of Primus Mootry here in town. Dope. Super stiff.

Lastly, Brandon waranteed a few Fizik Arione saddles for me. The guys at Fizik were cool and swapped out the seats I broke this CX season (2 of 'em). Apparently there was some flaw that cracked right at the flex points directly through the middle of the underside of the saddle....obviously exacerbated by 'cross regardless of how smooth your remounts are. I run 'em on my road bikes and love 'em so I wanted to try for 'cross. C'est la vie. I'm going with 'em again this season.

Finally, to my earlier point, the 07 uni's are in and they are sick. Verge nailed the design spot on.

...by now have invariably seen Ben Atkin's report on the bikes of the 'cross Worlds on cyclingnews and popped wood. I quickly got passed Sven's C50's and all of Wellen's Taiwanese Ridley's and shed a tear when I saw Christine V's Rock Lobsters all nice an mounted on the roof rack of a car:

Photo ©: Ben Atkins CyclingNews.com

If you haven't checked out the World's vids yet circulating, you're lame. Un-frickin-believable. Un-FRICKING-believable. I can not believe:

a) How Sven cracked...and when he cracked game over.
b) How Wellen's fought. Man, this kid is hard. Yeah yeah yeah, I've seen the threads around other blogs on how much of a p.o.s. he's being made out to be for suing and what not, but at face value in the race: sick.
c) Erwin is retardedly strong. WTF. That guy bridged gaps amazingly even after some just sweet crashes. That face digger was priceless. But his ability to bury himself, bridge, sit in, then get it on and up the tempo was crazy.
d) Van den Bergh: Love that Dutchman. Flipping the bird on the first lap to all the piss-faced Belgies yelling at him. He's my man as that tank of a human wins like every hole shot in every race I see and then blows up 2 laps in, in such spectacular fashion I just have to smile. I love that boy's style. Hole shot hero like moi.
e) Enrico F looked pretty motivated. I'd say he was a fairly worth podium finisher.
f) Gadret: HA! Amazing 'crosser but is such a fly weight he could produce zero watts through that sand or mud. Dude: EAT SOME MEAT fer chrissakes. Gain some mass. This is cross, not the Giro where I'll give you some props for your exploits last year.
g) Page was a definite worthy podium finisher and then some. I think he made the race personally and made it so compelling to completely throw a hand grenade on the Belgie party that it was a crack up to watch him lay wood. Shit, I was literally standing in front of my PC watching this choppy vid with my hands on top of my head. My wife thinks I am a total geek when she swung into my office standing in front of my PC with my hands on my head. But...hon...this is SICK!

Christine Vardaros' Rock Lob-stah getting some love in Germany. Nice. And she took 2nd!

OK, it's late in the season I realize, but my new custom frame Paul is building is done! I've been riding and racing (and testing!) Rock Lobsters in various connotations for years and I can not believe how beautiful these frames feel. For this season I order from Paul who still has my measurements a new Scandium beauty to have identical dimensional steeds with the same parts groups, gearing etc. First time I have ever been 'blessed' with this in my cross life. Together, the wonder twins looked like this when they were a happy family:

Once I dialed it with some FSA bling, the Scandium one, my primary looks like this:

So the old blue frame I cherished, raced on the West Coast, won Surf City races on etc etc met a horrible death: The low hanging garage at Vail Ski resort (which has seen a zillion bike collisions apparently). Brand new mini van, 4 brand new Rocky Mounts lariats and a Rock Lobster, Dean and Santa Cruz on top. Kids going OFF in teh back seat after a 2 hours in the car hingry for food. "Look! A parking garage!" I bang the left and errrrrrrrrr (metal scraping noise...). Done. The effect:

Anyhoo, the new one Paul worked his ass off on while finishing other frame jobs...oh and TAKING A 9TH PLACE AT THE USGP's in his age group! (SICK!!) he somehow found time to jam out my frame for me. A photo negative image of my black one...whote frame with black stickers. Boing! Thanks Paul!