Good Ride and Close Call

Had a great ride out of Rosemount Starbucks today. Temperature and wind were ideal. Got in 100 miles. A bit of a scary encounter though. The group of us (14) riding along in nowhereville on roads with no shoulder but very little traffic. I had noticed on the side of the road instead of the typical rock debris that there was corn. That makes sense with fall harvesting that there would be plenty of corn falling out of the trucks. I also noticed with the minimal traffic we were getting that a high proportion of the traffic was these large semi-trucks hauling corn. Coming up the hill towards us was one of these large trucks full of corn, as it was nearing us I noticed a car pull out from behind it as the car was going to make a pass. One problem though we were a large group spread two maybe three abreast and this car was now going to be in our lane to make the pass. Just as the car was beginning to come out from behind the truck I saw black smoke which I was assuming was the tires. In a split second I'm thinking is this guy going to make the pass in time?, is this car out of control because of a blown tire?, do I need to jump into the ditch right now taking out the rider next to me? At the last minute the car pulled back into the lane behind the semi. In the frenzy one rider locked the brakes and went over the bars in a somewhat uneventful manner, another rider went into the ditch successfully, and the rest maintained position bringing it to a controlled stop. Upon inspection the black smoke was the skid marks the car left. I'm assuming it was deceleration, but it was a Black Porsche so it could have been acceleration?

crit map

Map to Water Tower Crit

Every Cross Bike Should Have One

If you have experienced front wheel chatter on your cross bike you will be able to appreciate this photo.  Erik Noreen of Peacock Groove has fabricated one of the coolest most functional cross bike necessities I have seen.  I got lucky on my first two cross bikes and did not have a problem with wheel chatter.  The first bike had a steel fork with a headset mounted cable stop.  My second bike had an Alpha Q carbon with a headset mounted cable stop.  Neither had a problem.  My third bike had this problem with wheel shudder and it only appeared at the precise moment when you didn't need to deal with an out of control front wheel.  I was surprised that this was happening on an updated (supposedly better) Alpha Q fork.  Again the same type of headset mounted cable stop.  I tried numerous experiments to rid myself of this problem.  I won't detail the number of brakes, different headsets, numerous brake pads or the stem that was drilled out to create a cable housing stop.  Some of these experiments helped a bit but none got rid of the problem entirely. Until I replaced the fork with a cheap carbon fork that has a hole in the fork crown where a cable stop can be mounted.  Some manufacturers have adopted this style of fork which is a necessity in my opinion.  Erik's approach on his Peacock Groove is stylish and critical all at the same time.  Nice work Erik.  Whoa hold the bus.  How'd I miss the down tube cable stop.  Another huge deal if your looking for some versatility.  Photo credit goes to Jeff at Bike Jerks.