Friday News And Views

Details On The Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational: Here are the pertinent details for anyone wanting to come and ride Saturday on the annual GTDRI event. It is a self supported, no sag, gravel road ride of approximately 100 miles, give or take. Also, this is a chill paced, no rider left behind event. Racers take note...

Beautiful Iowan Landscape On The Route

Ride Time: 6:00am. Meet at the Park Ranger's building in Hickory Hills County Park north of Dysart, IA. Come to this point ready to ride.

Parking: Those not planning on camping can drive in to Hickory Hills park. Go past the Park Ranger's building which will be on your right. Do not turn at this point to the left. Go down a hill a bit, and take the very next left. This will take you to a clearing. You can park to your immediate right, down near the water, or go forward and park in the boat landing area just past the gazebo on your right.

Camping: Those coming to camp tonight, or staying Saturday night can make an immediate left at the Park Ranger's building on to a little boulevard. Then just follow the one way road around to the left until you see a gravel road going up the hill marked "Cabins, Shower House". (There is some construction work going on right here.) Follow this to the top where you can park your car. The top of the hill is all for tent campers and I will be in this area camping. There is a fee to camp in Hickory Hills, and I ask that you please pay accordingly.

Cue Sheets: Print your own off the link here.

2008 GTDRI Also Rode Out From Hickory Hills

Schedule Of Events: Friday night I should arrive to set up camp around 6-7pm. I plan on hitting the sack early and getting up by 5am. Then we will ride at 6am until whenever we get finished. I am thinking that we should be back not much later than 6pm, depending on how many times we decide to, or have to stop. (It has taken us longer to finish this off in years past on different courses. Last time we rolled out of Hickory Hills we got back just after 6pm )

After The Ride: Generally, the drinking and frivolity happened the night before past GTDRI's, but I'm not doing that again! This time, I plan on having some "adult beverages" afterward. We could go to LaPorte City, about 8 miles away, for some grub if we wanted to as well. At any rate, I will be camping whether anyone else does or not. So, it is up to you. Sunday in the morning I will pull up stakes and bug out, as I need to be back in town by 10AM.

For Everyone Else: Obviously, most folks reading this will not be in attendance, but I do plan on posting about it, and perhaps an audio-blog or two might pop up here Saturday. Might be worth listening to......might not!

Twin Six Collaborates With Raleigh: Raleigh U.S.A. does a lot of cool little projects using cyclo-cross bikes, (in general), for their platforms to do some graphic fun stuff. You might remember a few years ago how they did the Rainier Beer themed aluminum cross bike? Well, take a look at this...

The Twin Six Single Speed Cross Bike

I saw our Raleigh 2012 catalog the other day and this "Twin Six" frame was in there. I shot the T-6 guys an e-mail and asked if this was for real, to which the reply was, "Yep...."

The frame is done in flat black with gloss black and silver graphics. Some of the details on the graphics are pretty subtle, but very cool. Other features include Canti bosses and track ends with stainless steel inserts inside and out to protect the aluminum drop outs from being gouged up. Water bottle bosses, seat collar, head set, and hangar for the front brake is included.

I won't spill all the beans on exactly what everything looks like and what the arrangements for selling these will be. I'll let the respective marketing departments make their own "official" announcements here. Just consider this a "sneak peek", and look for more soon from your Raleigh dealer and Twin Six. 

So, this looks to be an aluminum framed, single speed cross bike with what looks like a carbon fiber fork. The frame is a dead ringer for the old Rainier Beer frame and fork I had a while back and gave to a certain 29"er freak out East to have and to hold. If so, don't expect to slam anything bigger than a 38mm tire in this one. Cool stuff....

Reviving The Old, Only With Bigger Wheels This Time: I've written about this before. Old models or companies bringing back familiar names from the past only shod with 29 inch wheels. Well, I saw something that took me waaaay back yesterday.

In the early 90's, GT Bicycles did a titanium framed XC race machine called the Xixang which was a bike you could buy. There were never many produced, but when you saw the mags every month, there would be Rishi Grewal pounding out some climb on one of these rigs. Now GT brings it back with 29"er wheels.

I must say, the Triple Triangle deal never really set my heart a flutter, but the new rig, with the cool curved and tapered titanium head tube looks boss. I sure hope to catch site of one of these sometime just to see if they trip my trigger or not now. At any rate, it is a cool thing to see retro and modern mixed up in a new bike.

Have a great weekend! I'll be outta here and going on the Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational this weekend. Maybe I'll post an audio-blog from the field.......