Delivery Day!

Checked Brown first thing this morning and Brown says Out for Delivery! Delivered to the distribution center in the next town. Now, its just a question on when they are coming here.
Checked at 9:30 AM, no box.
Checked at 10:30 AM, no box.
Checked at 11:30 AM, no box.

Probably going to be an afternoon delivery.

Brown says ...

That delivery is scheduled for 8/9!

Hopefully, I will have the garage ready to receive my new baby! Of course, I still can't ride.

I've become a 29er Junkie ...

... and I don't even have my bike yet. I can't wait, although, I am still recouperating from my surgery and the doc says no riding for at least three weeks. Grrrrrrrr. I am just really excited. Of course from what I have read so far, going rigid and single speed is a completely different platform and there will be big changes to my riding style, XGruntry. Oh, and don't forget I am going clipless, too. While I am waiting, I have been reading all there is to read on MTBR.com on 29ers.

Yesterday, I went to my LBS and ordered a pair of Louis Garneau shoes and Shimano PM-545. Still not sure about the bar ends, though. The ones they had a the shop didn't jazz me so I am going to continue looking around.

I did ride around my drive way the other day on my AC by lowering the seat post way down and that was pretty comfortable but the reason for the check out was to see how its running and it was terrible. I had tried adjusting the front deraileur but I think I screwed it up because it stopped working all together. And the rear deraileur wasn't so hot either but I have learned not to touch that. I think once I get bike holder set up in the garage I might take another shot at bike maintenance.

Brown says that the boxes were picked up at 8 PM in Lansing, MI and arrived 2 hours later in Livonia. Then they were put on a truck for the east coast and Brown says they are still in transit. Well, the garage is not ready for the Q Ball anyway, in fact both SUVs aren't parking in the garage anymore because I've torn it all assunder to in my effort to finally organize it. I went through 10 boxes from the move and chucked about 65% of the contents.

This all started out because I had to find the key to my table saw that I still hadn't found since we moved from Ridgefield. I went through 20 boxes and guess which one I found it in? The twentieth. Then I find out that the table saw wasn't going to work, so I had to go back to the mitre saw but I still needed find a component to make that work. That was in the same box. I was able to cut up the 4x4 I bought at Lowes in order to fix the stairs leading up to my deck.

Lowes just opened up in Danbury. Shiny new store and aisles but unlike HomeDepot, there is no one to help you find anything or have any expertise on any of the products that you are looking at. Selection seems to be more limited as well. Probably go back to HomeDepot. OK, enough rambling.

Here comes my Q Ball!

Got an email from Scott today, my Q Ball is done!

Hi Mark, I have your Q Ball built. It looks great and the parts build is something the will last to the abuse too. It is about 25 lbs w/o pedals. I took a few pictures of it (sorry I know they are kind of crappy photos) and installed some pedals and took it for a few spins around the parking lot. I wanted to tell you a few things about the build. I added a few extra spacer on the steerer so that you could adjust the stem higher or lower if you want. Also I moved the grips in for your bar ends. Third, I left a little extra rear brake cable housing so that if you have to move something around ever (i.e. when changing gears) you'll have extra cable to play with. Also I am suppose to by law supply reflector kits for your bike so you don't get run over in total darkness by a car. How about I just throw the reflectors in the box 'cause I know you'll just take 'em off anyway before hitting the trails? Lastly, I did put the flat bars on. I think they are worth a try but they are not very wide for most hardcore SS'ers (sorry). I am wondering you may want to try some wider bars or rizers in the future? I will try to get it bubble wrapped and boxed to ship to you for UPS pickup today.

Some pics:

XGruntry, now that's a new one!

I came across an interesting Ride Recap (or Recrap) on Bikerag.com that I thought was really fitting to the way I ride right now with my 40 pounder (Giant AC) in which the rider describes his style of riding with a heavier bike as XGruntry. Feel free to read the whole recrap but simply stated:

XGruntry riding (XG is when you have an XStuntry bike but you suck at riding it and don't have the quads yet for real XC on a flearide 40 lb. bike, so it's XGruntry)

I think the describes exactly the way I ride with my bike. I am no hammer god, more like an XCountry wannabe and every once-in-while, I will willing fling myself off some sort of natural stunt. So, I am changing my own vernacular from XStuntry to XGruntry.

Thanks Mr. Pink!