Smells Like a Carburetor

Pictures are more exciting than just a description of vehicle problems and their symptoms . . . this is what the Carter YFA Feedback Carburetor looks like sitting on a Ford 300 cubic inch displacement inline six.


All the wires and vacuum lines are special to the feedback system which is basically the auto industry giving the Feds the proverbial middle finger regarding emissions control. The loose translation is "oh we'll do it, but nobody is going to like it, not you, not us, not the consumer . . ."


Yup, that squid/octopus looking thing is the main wire harness for the truck and the tangle of vacuum lines that do stuff and things we think.


At the end of the day, having a pick up truck is about drinking beer out of a can, listening to country music on the radio, kicking back and living the good life . . . if this truck ever leads to that, you'll be the first to know. We did eat some pizza sitting in the bed of the truck though after the successful test drive the other night.

You know what else stinks . . . going to the DMV on the last day of the month, especially the day after a holiday. It would have been nice if somebody tried to talk me out of that one. After some waiting and some more waiting, I finally got a 45-day tag so we can drive the truck around before fail- I mean, going back for an emissions retest. We need to hook up a test light to some stuff and drive around to see if having the engine running and transmission engaged make the EGR solenoid do its thing. Any questions?

You Are What You Drink

I was forwarded an article from the New York Times health section about caffeine as a legal performance enhancer. This was not news to me or many other cyclists. I have traveled with my own coffee pot to races where our suspect hotel might not have appropriate caffeination equipment. Mike has been known to travel with his espresso maker. On cold and wet days prior to the Cherry Creek Time Trial, I have been known to have multiple shots of espresso as my pre-race warm up since there is no sense in trying to get warm in the cold and damp. One inaccuracy in the article is that caffeine is limited by the UCI since it is a stimulant although I haven't heard of anybody getting popped for it lately. More on caffeine and the cyclist here . . .

With Passover coming up shortly, I have to figure out how to maintain my alcohol intake since grain based beverages are out of the picture for the holiday. Thank goodness there is tequila now to break up the monotony of wine, rum, and potato vodka. It isn't really news that there is kosher tequila, these guys beat them to the punch (pun entirely intended) but variety and choice is good . . . look how far we have come from drinking Manischewiz. Of course, if you are in the Bohemian know and a bit old school, you've been drinking slivovitz for years . . . mmmm, slivovitz.

Wait, What's This?

Last night, Matt and I spent some time in the garage playing with the truck some more to see what we could come up with on the idling problems. We disconnected everything that could possibly be controlled by the computer on Saturday afternoon and still the truck would die out on its own when coming back down to idle. With no outside influence, the only conclusion we came to was that the carburetor wasn't rebuilt properly and something in the idle "loop" wasn't functioning correctly.

Matt had been questioning the rebuild originally because of the high pain in the ass levels involved in rebuilding a carburetor and the potential for something small and stupid to be out of place, ruining the whole operation. The rebuild by others prior fell under greater scrutiny when I figured out that the EGR valve certainly wasn't getting any vacuum to open it because there was a ball bearing shoved into the vacuum tube coming from the EGR on/off solenoid . . . that of course brings up more questions, but . . .

After a bit more poking and conjecturing, we were pretty much resigned to the fact that the next best step (other than selling the truck to the next unsuspecting clowns) would be to get a professionally rebuilt and bench tested carb which would include a number of the sensors we'd already replaced, bonus. We pulled off all of the sensors and connections to the carb and removed it from the manifold, making sure not to drop anything in the hole. Once out of the truck, further examination was very easy. We looked at where the idle "loop" is and that told us nothing. We checked the stamp on it and it is likely the original Carter YFA from the factory.

Removing the carburetor gave us a view of somethings we didn't have before. One of them was the vacuum tree on the intake manifold. There is a big vacuum line going to the PCV valve, a medium one going to the brake booster, some small ones going here and there and wait, what's that . . . a barb with a piece of broken hose or cap or something . . . We couldn't find any vacuum leaks in the lines, but this certainly counted as a leak. We put a tube on it, capped it and put everything back in place, learning in the process that it would be about a 30 minute job to replace the carburetor with a new one. Fired the engine back up with a little work since the carb was completely empty of fuel at this point and let it come up to operating temperature. Surprise, surprise . . . the engine held idle at 750 RPM, even coming down from higher speed!

One problem seems to be solved, there is still the matter of passing an emissions test so we can get the thing registered. We also took a stab at some of the other smaller tasks like installing the tach and freeing up the parking brake cable. I am going to look into a temporary tag so we can drive around on the up and up. Driving around for a bit to make sure this wasn't a carbon monoxide induced dream seems like a good idea, no need to rush back to fail, er test emissions.

The End

The end of the week at least, the end of winter? Maybe . . . only next week will tell. As of right now, Koppenberg is a go, but they will tell us more by 2:00 PM tomorrow afternoon. They (the Christians) have canceled their race for the weekend, but maybe Sunday will be an open date and they can reschedule.

Took the truck back in for an emissions retest and probably introduced a variable or two too many. We replaced the EGR valve, the Throttle Position Sensor, the Idle Control Motor, the fuel filter, and a couple other things. The last test showed high levels of NOx emissions which is indicative of EGR problems (and possibly timing issues, but that doesn't seem to be a factor). Instead of just running back through with all the new parts, we decided to bypass the EGR solenoid which is how the computer tells the system what it should be doing with the though being open EGR = cooler combustion temp = lower NOx. Yeah, that part worked, but the truck failed for hydrocarbon emissions being too high.

I did some fiddling this afternoon, shook some chicken bones over the engine and didn't come up with much except that we need to check the operation of the EGR solenoid to see if it is doing anything. It didn't seem like there was any vacuum at the EGR valve. If anything can be determined, we might go for a re-test in the near future or we might put the truck in more capable hands that have ways . . .

Still Dumping, For Real Now

Now we're getting blizzard like weather in town. I just ran across the lot to the warehouse and the snow is coming down and drifting pretty nicely now. I'd post a picture but standing outside to measure or capture the moment just isn't in the cards. I'll leave you with this for the day:

Help people reach their full potential. Catch them doing something right.

That was my fortune cookie fortune from lunch today. You could be waiting a while . . .

Dumping

I was going to measure on the hourly interval but there really isn't enough to make it relevant. Streets are wet, snow is starting to stick to cars and grass.


For the sake of interest I broke out the scale to do my measuring. If the world were 1/4" to 1' like the job I am currently working on, we'd have 2' of snow on the ground.


I hear the foothills are getting pounded though, I wonder if Koppenberg will be happening this weekend . . .

From Dusk til Dawn

I took a look out the window early this morning not only to check on the snowfall, fully expecting 4-8" but also to admire the function of my finally installed motion sensor for the garage exterior lights. I have had the motion sensor sitting in the house for days but haven't had the desire to fight with the Hardi-siding since cutting through cementitious siding is no fun. On Tuesday, I drilled a hole, did some cutting and fed the wires into the garage. I still have to figure out how to best secure the sensor since the threaded part isn't long enough to go through the siding and sheathing.


This is the pre-dawn view. The sensor has a dual brightness function so from dusk it will keep the lights on, but dimmed (for 3 hours, 6 hours, or until dawn) until it senses motion and the lights come on full strength. It casts a nice glow over the garage door area.

As for the snow on the ground, I'll be taking measurements every hour on the hour and posting results. At 7:00 it looked like this:


I didn't have the measuring stick in hand for this picture, but I'd put this at about 1/16" . . . it might be 1/8" if a couple snowflakes had fallen on each other, but that doesn't appear to be the case, or the pressure of one on the other melted some of it. Some storm!

Testing, Testing . . .

The tabs above this box tell me there is a scheduled outage . . . is this thing on? Can anybody hear me? Anyone?

Pinkerton and I were riding around the park the other night on one of our usual Monday evening recovery rides. The weather was warm (pretty sure there was a chance of snow though), the sun was shining, and the park was packed. There were people walking dogs, people jogging, people playing tennis, people riding bikes like us and people riding bikes like idiots. I hold a special place for the hipster crowd and their image conscious sensibilities. These fine youths were out riding their fixies, comparing their deep V rims, practicing their skids . . . there was some mocking going on and no attempt to cover it up, in fact we were trying to make sure we were heard in this instance. Said hipsters heard our comments and saw our head shaking and confronted us, asking if we always made fun of random people we didn't know and why.

I had to pause and think for a moment, does it still count as random if you make fun of everybody? We were commenting and being critical of just about everybody in the park that day, I don't think even young, old, or weak were spared. As for the why, it isn't as much us as it is them . . . does a t-ball ask why it is getting hit? I guess they don't read BikeSnobNYC at all, no refuge for fixters there . . .

In my attempts to maintain my image as a bike racer, I'll be riding the trainer tonight. I'd go outside, but with the weather possibilities . . . probably better not. That's ok, as long as I am listening to the right music and my friends think I am doing the right workout, I'll be good to go for the race on Sunday. Oh yeah . . . Koppenberg, hopefully not a repeat of last year.

Exploring the Blogosphere

It is always amusing stumbling into new territory by accident. Made it over to TasteSpotting today and now have to clean the drool off the papers I was working on. It is kind of like browsing through a picture book cookbook where your eyes get to do the tasting before you click on the link to see what the nitty gritty of the recipe is. Very bad if you are sitting at work slightly bored and very hungry.

It might just be state of mind or physical condition following a weekend of copious amounts of riding, but my thoughts are leading to fried. I have only made use of the fryer once so far, but I have fried food on the brain. The mental palate is covering everything from tempura battered veggies to corn dogs to sweet, sweet fritters. Is there anything hot oil can't do? One of these days I'm going to wise up, quit the bike racing foolishness and eat, just eat.

The weather forecasters got out the 64-sided dice again this week and did some "forecasting".


Take your pick of sources, there's a 62% chance they have no idea what they are talking about and an 85% chance they are full of it anyways.

Epic

Went for an epic ride on Saturday, truely epic totally!!!!! We left the house, rode over to the park and got in a couple laps at tempo . . . epic . . . ok, that's enough of that. It was a big ride though. A few of us opted out of racing the Leaving 99 Crit to get in a long day in the hills.


I had to trick some of the teammates into the death march, telling them it wouldn't be much more than about five hours of riding. It wasn't really, I swear, depending on how you count. Everybody met at my house and in an attempt to show them that riding with me wasn't all about punishment and suffering, I fed everybody some buttermilk and cracked pepper biscuits that I made special for the morning. We ate a little, drank some espresso and headed out.

The general plan was Denver -> Morrison -> Lookout frontage -> Evergreen Parkway -> Squaw -> Idaho Springs -> Casino Parkway -> Peak to Peak -> Golden Gate -> Golden -> Denver . . . or something like that. I wasn't out to set any records, just wanted a long day in the hills and that's what I got. I was impressed with both Randy and Chip for hanging in there over the course of the day. There are times along that route where the fun of riding disappears and you start to question just about everything. Once you get to Idaho Springs, there is no getting home without some tough climbs. We opted for the long route through Blackhawk and fortunately the weather held despite threatening a couple times.


Despite the snow piled up at the side of the road, it was quite warm out on Saturday. Even the descent down Squaw into Idaho Springs was quite pleasant. Saturday was also a good day to test out some of the new equipment and I have to say, I am quite impressed with the Edge Composites fork. It dampens enough to keep the ride comfortable, but you can feel the road much better than you can with most of the other forks I have ridden. It felt nice and snappy on the curves and what not. It was also the first day on the Speedplay Zero pedals which took very little time to adjust to. My teammates were nice enough to make fun of me struggling to get into the pedals at the first few lights out of town . . . they got what they had coming to them.

Sunday's ride was much shorter with the goal of just opening up and getting off the bike shortly thereafter. Nothing like following Mike Carter up High Grade while he's toodling along in the 53x17 . . . after about 25 minutes of that, I felt "open" and rode home with Pinkerton and called it a weekend. This week should be decent for getting some rest and recovery since the weather forecast is calling for nothing good.

Coffee Emergency!

Don't worry, it isn't my emergency, but I was happy enough to get involved and help out. I got a call from Joey this morning that went a little something like "Uh, help . . . where do you get your espresso parts?" His boiler anti-depression valve quit on him and wasn't allowing the boiler to heat properly which in turn prevented him from making espresso, truly an emergency. So I passed along the info for Cafe Parts and before the middle of the afternoon, I had a replacement valve in hand.

The second part of the emergency does pertain to me I suppose, I'm fresh out of beans! I have more on the way from Jittery Joes, thanks to their sponsorship of the team, we have a wholesale account set up. The only problem is if I don't plan properly, I can run out of beans prior to a fresh batch showing up. This time around, I'm trying out a new blend in addition to the Espresso.


A few of us are heading out tomorrow for a nice, long, slow ride in the hills. I feel like I need the volume right now since the majority of my "off season" rides were not much more than an hour on the trainer. Last night, I headed down to Meridian and noticed again that the first hour of motoring down there against the headwind left me a bit drained. Fighting the wind some more and trying not to get dropped out of the break made for a tougher workout than on the schedule, but I'm not too worried about it. The first of the real races is coming up in a week, unless winter comes back . . .

Down Goes Nosh

I noticed on this morning's walk that there was a for rent sign on the gate at Nosh on Pearl St. and the courtyard was not looking as festive as it usually does. In fact, the courtyard has been stripped of all furniture, decoration, and signs of life. I haven't heard any details on what happened or if John is doing something else from another location, but it is a bummer. I was looking forward to bouncing between Pajama Baking Company and Nosh for my summertime iced treat needs (come midsummer, it is no longer a matter of want). There will be a good number of opportunities to jump on the townie bike and go on the prowl for ice cream. I still haven't been to Red Trolley up in the Highlands, but one of these days, I'll make it to root beer float happy hour.

The NCAA tournament is in full swing now. I didn't take part in any office "bracketology" or really any discussions regarding who'd win what. Just put Carolina going to the Final Four if Ty Lawson is healthy. I have to revise my statement about Duke, they will make it out of the first round, but I don't think they will make it to the Sweet 16. My prediction is they will get out athleticized (just made that word up for my own purposes) by Texas in the 2nd round. There was an interesting read in the WSJ about the UNC-Duke rivalry and its overall impact on the college hoops scene. Time to watch all the games on all of my TVs.

Let's Ride!

After a few weeks of waiting the bike is finally completely built and ready to roll. I'm not going to lie, it is nothing less than incredible. A picture is worth at least a word or two . . .


I would have liked to have found a better backdrop, but late at night, the options were limited so the kitchen won out. First off, thanks to Brian Hutchison for taking care of most of the build . . . also time to thank the sponsors yet again. In order of appearance or something like that . . . thanks to TRP for the brakes, Shimano for the wheels, Continental and Highway Two for the tires, Ibis for the frames and other bits.


Aerus for the stems, bars and seatposts, SRAM for the components, Edge Composites for the forks.


Speedplay for the pedals, SRAM again . . . looking forward to riding the new Red gruppo.


Last, but not least, Cateye for the computers. It has been a while since I have had any clue what my actual speed, distance, cadence, time elapsed were.


The part that everybody always cares about, beyond bike handling and ride characteristics . . . 15.6 lbs . . . not bad for a 61 cm frame with 50mm wheels, water bottle cages, and a computer.

You Faaaaiiiilll!

Feeling emboldened by the successes of diagnosing vehicle problems, I decided to take the truck to the emissions testing center to see what would happen. We had a new oxygen sensor, a new throttle position sensor, additional knowledge of what was supposed to be what on the truck, what could go wrong?

First off, they did a lot of looking under the hood trying to figure out what they were looking at and to see if the emissions equipment had been tampered with. Some Father Time looking tech pulled the truck onto the dyno to do the rolling test, promptly stalled the truck and then couldn't start it again. They pushed it off the dyno and said they couldn't get it started again. Uh . . . it is a carbureted vehicle, you have to hit the gas to start it again. We don't have that fancy fuel injection. I walked to where they pushed it, hopped in and started it right up. They said I could go back through the line and try again . . . thanks.


After going back through the line and reminding a different tech that it was a carbureted vehicle, the truck was off and testing! Hydrocarbons-check, CO-check, Gas Cap-Check, NOx-FAAAAAAAAAAIIIIILLLLLL!!! It tested at 9.8776 GPM with a limit of 6.000 GPM allowable. What does this mean? A little research shows tells me that the temperature and/or pressure in the combustion chamber is high creating oxides of nitrogen. This can be caused by timing issues or the EGR valve not operating properly. The EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) valve puts exhaust back into the system basically as a space filler. Exhaust is relatively inert so less oxygen translates to cooler combustion chamber and in turn, less NOx output.

We have some parts on the way already. The replacement idle control motor should show up by the end of the week. After a little searching, the EGR valve is cheapest locally which is a plus. We have 10 days to go retest for free. Between now and then, we should be able to clear all fault codes with our replacement parts and hopefully get the timing checked by somebody who knows what they are doing. Once we obtain a passing grade on emissions, we can take the next 1 year and 11 months to fix the issues deemed "optional" . . . things like a missing tailgate clip, no horn, and a fuel gauge that goes from F to 1/2 pretty well and then drops to E. Good times . . .

Weeeeeee

First, the last parts for my bike showed up today, that's good. Second, I'm going to Meridian tonight, that's going to be funny. It's like a race, but not really because it doesn't count for anything . . . shhhhh, don't tell anybody else that. There are some guys who take it very, very seriously.

I'll have the full report tomorrow and who took maximum points.

One Down . . .

. . . rest of the season's races to go. I got the first real effort of the season out of the way on Sunday, hitting up the Promontory Park Crit up in scenic Greeley, CO. Nothing like jumping in with both feet for the first race of the year. The field was pretty stacked with nothing going on really on the national calendar, so all of the Boulder pros were in town with nothing better to do besides ride out, race, and then ride back to Boulder. I'll be the first to admit that crits aren't always my favorite and this one has four roundabouts on the course to keep it exciting.

I put in some efforts early on to chase things down and to try to get in the mix. After the first 20 minutes, I wasn't sure I was going to last the whole race, but eventually I relaxed into it a bit and didn't have the feeling I was going to implode. Chuck and I were representing the team for Sunday's race. Knowing who was there and who to watch, we decided to go for some man to man coverage on who we though would be the primary instigators. Unfortunately we got signals crossed and doubled up on subject A and subject B got into the break of the day. In the end, Chuck found the right wheel in the pack and took the field sprint for 8th place. I slotted myself somewhere in the top 20 I think, but honestly for the first effort of the season, I was just happy to finish in the pack.

On Saturday, I got a mini-leg speed trial, doing the Chatfield Worlds ride. With most people racing in circles in Boulder or in a church parking lot in Denver, the group was somewhat small, but with Mike Carter, Joey Brenner, and others, we split the group pretty quickly and went into quasi team time trial mode, but not the friendly kind. It was more the kind of effort where you hoped you didn't blow up on your pull because you sure weren't recovering sitting in behind anybody else. We headed up the hill after the sprint to the guard shack again, just hanging on for deal life riding behind Mike hammering away in the 53x17. It was nice to get out of the training rut of the past few months and really hit it hard, dust off the cobwebs, blah, blah, blah. This month will mark the end of grinding away at threshold and I'll be introducing the legs to more speed.

Last night, after the race, Pinkerton, Matt and I made the most of my trashy back yard, doing some work on the truck and dining al fresco, sitting on recycling bins and buckets, enjoying delicacies from Hebrew National and Ore-Ida. Once again, grilled Tater Tots rule! They are even better when served as a condiment on a hot dog . . . dog in bun, kraut on one side, tots on the other, mustard on the kraut, ketchup on the tots . . . delicious! We ran the truck through phase two of testing, sort of. We decided not to check the timing since it has to be done from the underside of the vehicle, so far as we could determine. We skipped to the KOER test and only a few codes came up surprisingly. I'll be buying an oxygen sensor today and then we'll retest. Emissions testing is coming up soon . . .

Dope!

From the news headlines . . .

Phish Resumes Touring, Drug Bust Ensues

Phish is back on the road after a five year hiatus and surprise, surprise, Phish fans do drugs . . . and get busted for it.

The narcotics arrests include charges related to marijuana, cocaine, heroin , Ecstasy and various prescription drugs, Quiñones said. Police seized more than $1.2 million worth of drugs and more than $68,000 in cash during the arrests.

According to reports, the city had an extra 200 police officers on hand for the concerts and the band picked up the cost. I'd say it paid for itself based on the numbers above.

Madoff to Pay for Crime with Time He Does Not Have

Bernard Madoff was apologetic in court when pleading guilty to stealing from the rich and keeping for himself.

"As the years went by, I realized that my arrest and this day would inevitably come," said the 70-year-old Mr. Madoff, dressed in a crisp white shirt and charcoal-gray suit. "I am painfully aware that I have deeply hurt many, many people, including the members of my family, my closest friends, business associates and the thousands of clients who gave me their money. I cannot adequately express how sorry I am for what I have done."

For the 11 criminal counts he pleaded guilty to, he could be sentenced to 150 years in prison. If the terms start concurrently, he'll likely see 20 years of jail time. The system is too complicated for any outsider to fully comprehend, just trust me on this. Let's say you were getting a 5 year prison sentence for 15 people of 32 different ages and from 23 separate states, if you divide the term by the number of cells it takes to jail the 47 cousins who were involved in 3 unrelated accidents on 5 major airlines . . . well, you do the math. In the end it just makes sense right? You'd be a fool not to get in!

If anybody needs me, I'll be watching college basketball for the next few weeks, go Tarheels!

Passed!

Yes, I passed my fitness test. A failure indication would have been Mike telling me that maybe I should give up on this whole bike racing thing. I will continue riding and racing . . .



Music please . . .

Vehicle diagnostics took a step in the direction of higher technology last night. The '85 F-150 actually has a "computer" which "controls" the fuel/air mix at the carburetor through a mixture control solenoid. In theory when this system is working, the computer sends varying voltage to the solenoid, resembling a square wave to maintain the proper fuel/air mix. When any single component sends signals outside the range the computer knows what to do with, it goes into "limp home mode" essentially dumping ridiculous amounts of fuel into the system so that it will run and make it home. We have graduated from simply whacking things with a hammer . . .


The automotive world has moved onto OBD (on board diagnostic) II, this here is an OBD I scan tool for Ford vehicles from 1981-1995. There are a few scan functions you can go through on the truck. The first is the Key On Engine Off (KOEO) . . . it is supposed to pull codes on problems current at the time of the test. We sacrificed a live chicken and continued with the rest of the instructions to perform the test. That gave us code 23 - Throttle Position Sensor signal out of range . . . uh, ok . . . we can replace that.


Done and done. A quick trip to Checker Auto and a couple screw later, we were ready to retest. This time, the test spit out the code 11 - system OK. The TPS was one of the items we thought could be suspect based on our driving around and other testing. With the KOEO test passed we can move onto the next test which is to check the ignition timing to make sure it is set properly and that it is advancing as it should. This little gem off of eBay should help a big . . .


So far, I have learned a fair bit about the truck and vehicles in general. I still wouldn't say I have a great understanding at least when it comes to fine detail, but I have moved beyond, "The truck's broke." Once we have verified that timing is what it should be, we can do the Key On Engine Running (KOER) test which will let us know everything else that is going on in the eyes of the computer. We'll find out how many of the sensors and additional emissions goodies are shot. At this point, we could go for emissions testing, but there's a decent chance we have faults in the system which cause the computer to dump in way more fuel than normal. Under said condition, we'd fail miserably.


Kind of sad that there is an entire volume dedicated to Electrical and Vacuum troubleshooting, but I think were gonna need it . . .

Oh No! I'm a Redneck!

Have you ever found yourself researching your Ford 300, six cylinder engine? Ever cursed emissions requirements for what they've done to your pickup truck? What about shopping for an airhorn that plays Dixie?

I can now answer yes to all three of the above, I'm pretty sure I'm turning into a hick . . . plus, have you seen my backyard? Matt and I took on some more diagnostic work to try and figure out where our issues are coming from and what would likely need to be fixed. Some more research uncovered some useful information:

Feedback carbs were the worst system known to man; they have all the drawbacks of both carbs and EFI with none of the advantages.

We have a piece of classic American automotive engineering. There are approximately 4.37 miles of extra wiring and vacuum hoses going in and out of the carburetor. We have an O2 sensor, EGR valve, a throttle position sensor, an idle air control valve, and a few other things that feed into a computer and then back out to the carburetor feedback solenoid to adjust the mixture. I hear it works when it all works (thank you captain obvious), but when something goes wrong it is a nightmare to try to troubleshoot.

The first guess we have is that the EGR valve isn't doing what it is supposed to which is . . . uh, yeah . . . and maybe the TPS or the feedback solenoid are malfunctioning. Who knows if the O2 sensor is working? That just about covers the system. Plan B is to eliminate the stalling issue and go in for testing to see what happens. With any luck we'll pass as is and have time to diagnose further and repair and/or eliminate the feedback system and go to a vintage 1978 system, back in the good ol' days, I tell you what!

Testing . . . Testing . . .

It is time again for the monthly fitness test down at the Echelon Sports Performance lab. I derive pleasure in a sick and twisted way from getting the monthly numbers to see how things are looking coming into the early season. One thing is for sure, I am getting tired of the endless training. I mean, how many times can I ride over to the park, do a lap and come home? Kidding, I really never leave the basement and the safety of the trainer.

With the change in daylight hours, a time honored event that happens twice a week at the south end of Denver resumes, a little thing we like to call "Meridiots" . . . It is a training ride that has a certain ebb and flow of sketchiness through the years and the seasons. There is guaranteed to be a crash or two during the season due to somebody being well, an idiot. There is potential for some worthwhile training out there, but it is all what you put into it. If you go out there and just sit in, it is a very silly effort.

In the words of Warren Buffet, "You only learn who's been swimming naked when the tide goes out." Only slightly less applicable but highly entertaining is the wisdom passed along by Dave Chappelle, "So? Some people say the cucumbers taste better pickled. What? Huh? What? Huh?"

Pickem Up Truck!

Picture if you will, a day showing promise, promise of inclement weather . . . never to materialize. With the espresso machine fired up and little desire to go outside, Matt and I hit the internet to try and find ourselves a deal on a pickup truck. What do we need a truck for you ask? In the words of a friend of mine who bought a golf cart, "I bought it because I didn't have one." We do actually have more purpose and use for a truck than that, but that is the basic gist, neither of us had one.

After a few hours of searching listings, researching trucks and general parts availability and cost, making calls, laughing at some of the flotsam and jetsam, we started to lose hope. We thought it would be much easier to find a truck in reasonable condition on the cheap. There were a couple older listings that were promising, but by the time we got to them, they had been picked up by somebody or there was already a bidding war. Some of the things on Craigslist are downright hilarious . . . ever searched for a dump truck or a fire truck or maybe an ambulance. Odds are you will find one for sale.

We started calling people back, the ones who hadn't returned our calls yet, just because we didn't have anything else to do. One vehicle was gone, but the guy couldn't find his email from CL to take the listing down. The listing below hadn't been home but was getting ready to call Matt back when I called.


This truck met our requirements, cheap and reasonably clean oh yeah, running and still available. We headed over to the address which was conveniently close to my neighborhood, kicked the tires and took the truck out for a quick spin. Despite sitting for a few years, it started reasonably well and ran fairly smoothly. We kicked the tires some more and then got down to negotiating. We wanted a truck and the owner wanted it gone which made it pretty easy for everybody, cash talks and for $850, we drove away with a new, old truck.


It is a full sized piece of America, crazy to think about how much of it there is and how little it is worth in the grand scheme of things. What it lacks in value, it makes up in potential. Potential of not only what can be accomplished with such a vehicle, but also potential of what it might cost us to keep it running.


The good news is that it fits in the garage. That is potentially very good news in light of the fact that there may be some bad news. If the thing doesn't pass an emissions inspection, it can't be registered . . . without current tags, it can be ticketed while parked on the street.

This here truck will be a learning experience for me. I have never worked on vehicles, but Matt has. Right now, he's looking at the thing with the thing that when you move the lever and push the pedal, it does stuff.


Trucks like this are great for learning. They are very simple (only complicated by some stupid emissions junk put on after a recall) and there is plenty to just jump in and get to work.


There was at least one occasion when Matt complained about something being too far away while standing in the engine compartment. There are spaces that look like giant voids, especially compared to a modern car with everything they have jammed under the hood.

That there's a single barrel Holley carburetor . . . we have no idea if it was rebuilt correctly, but we did manage to disassemble and reassemble the linkage that was messed up, prohibiting the choke from operating properly.


We have no idea if this thing will pass emissions due to some equipment that doesn't appear to be functioning properly, stupid EGR valve . . . but at this point, the vehicle is insured and ready to head to the testing center to see what happens. If it passes, we'll have the next one year and eleven months to troubleshoot.

For now the only other functional issue is the occasional stalling the engine seems to want to do when coming from high RPMs to idle. To avoid this in the mean time, we set the idle a bit higher. I forgot the joys of a huge engine with manual transmission. You can pop start it in just about any gear without any trouble. The truck also doesn't have a horn which is actually very convenient because now I can get that horn that plays dixie that I have always wanted . . . yup, pickem up truck.

Weather = FAIL

Yeah, it totally snowed in Denver this weekend. I saw the one flake around 3:30 on Saturday afternoon. I have decided from here on out (as I should have anyways) not to put any stock in the weather forecast. I bet if they had "predicted" the time change, it wouldn't have happened either . . . jerks.

Taking my "chances" on Friday night, I rode my townie bike downtown for an evening at the symphony. I'm going to have to say, I am not a big fan of Bruckner. Symphony No. 7 is a sweeping work and heavy handed, making it a full swing slap to the face. Fortunately there was some good people watching at Boetcher Hall on Friday night.

I'll get to Saturday's "ride" in a few minutes, but I did get out in the perfect weather on Sunday for a nice long 75 mile jaunt. I rode from home to Chatfield to meet some of the guys on the team. We headed up Deer Creek and Highgrade, the standard route until Brenner and I turned off onto a road I always wondered about. It goes up and then up some more switching back and forth between paved and not, but everything was in good condition all the way up. The critical bits of the ride are below, but it was right around 5000' of climbing on the day in just over four hours or riding.


I finally got the chance Sunday evening to break out the fryer to see how it works. My only complaint is that the magnetic power cord is a little bit finicky and seemed to want to disconnect itself at the beginning. Once it got up to temperature, I got my fry on! On the menu last night was an impromptu variation on a combination eggplant parm and tomato, basil, mozzarella salad. I cut the eggplant into sticks, then breaded and fried them. I laid the sticks out in a sheet pan and started layering tomato, cheese, and more sticks, tossing the occasional bits of basil in. The concoction baked while the broccoli steamed and the steak cooked. All in all, it was pretty darn good. I will be making use of the fryer a little more often. It is nice having a great degree of control on oil temperature while making food crispy and golden brown.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent in the garage with the occasional trip around the neighborhood for a little activity I like to call "diagnostics" . . .

Retail Sales Show Signs of Life

I don't think the examples below were the signs of life the author was referring to in the WSJ article about retail sales. It is possible that the inner cynic in me is being over critical, but the article doesn't really say much of anything about trends in sales as the numbers are not only representing a short period of time but are also fairly abstract.


"One month doesn't make a trend, and the economic news remains gloomy." A quote directly from the article suggests that maybe the media is trying a little too hard to sway public opinion of the state of the economy. I think this is true for both good and bad news. The disadvantage of the speed at which information travels in this day and age is that we have plenty of incomplete data to analyze and report on. Is it possible that we are simply seeing a shift from "higher lower end" retail to Wal-mart level simply because people are looking to scrimp and save wherever they can?

It would seem to me that there is a large range of consumer spending that can shift towards what I will call bottom of the barrel consumerism. There is a small segment of shoppers who will maintain beliefs about where their goods come from and will continue to pay higher prices, but there is a giant group who will buy as cheap as possible no matter what the overall cost is due to unintended consequences. Where do inexpensive goods come from and what does it really mean to get what you pay for/pay for what you get?*

It is Friday and I can do what I please given that this is my blog, so I will go on a tangent now. The major American home builders have long built as inexpensively as possible, creating vast stretches of suburban vomit which isn't conducive to development of neighborly relationships, eliminates any chance of planning meaningful transit service, and carries great susceptibility to devaluation.


They have often made the argument that "the American home buyer has spoken and this is what they want" but the fact of the matter is that as long as there is a buyer for something, somebody who stands to profit will provide it. Sizable suburban swaths on the verge of blight are the unintended consequence along with the one in nine mortgage holders likely to receive assistance for a home that is no longer worth anywhere near the loan they hold. The American home buyer has never been offered much of an alternative. I feel bad for the people who thought it was time to buy and own property in places like the wastelands around Phoenix, AZ. Look at what affordability got them . . . current values well below $100,000 for 3 bed, 2 bath single family houses, with such great supply that even at the price, it really isn't a good investment and likely never will be.

I recommend watching the above videos again. As retail growth occurs at Wal-mart, being able to hide might be a useful skill. Big box budget retail stores can be dangerous places. People get trampled, people get shot . . . this summer, I for one will be seeking relief from the heat in the cool of high end retail establishments. They should be as lonely as a suburban development in current economic times.

*The sub $1000 truck is a luxury purchase, not a necessity. When it ceases to operate, I won't be in dire straits.

Stimulants

Ever wonder how your state is proposing to spend funding from the Federal Stimulant Package? Thanks to the WSJ, you can find out. Nice to see that Colorado took second place to Nevada in least spending per capita for education. We're already smrt enough I guess.

Thanks to a deteriorating weather forecast for the weekend, I'll be skipping the aptly named Frostbite Time Trial. I don't see much point in driving up to just about Wyoming to do a pretty uninteresting TT in relatively horrid conditions. I have ridden when it is cold and wet out and the result was a high level of misery combined with an overall drained feeling. If the weather holds, I can go race at City Park to get in the first race pace effort of the season. If the weather is bad, I will keep working on special project Xr753. Part of this project is purchasing a truck for the purpose of vehicle sharing. Right now the front runner is a 1979 Dodge D-100 Truck with all the needed accessories.


Is this a good idea? Well, that depends on how you look at it. With the ongoing home improvement projects it would be very useful to have quick access to a truck for things like hauling dirt, picking up nine sheets of drywall at the home improvement store, driving through the drive through and not having to reach up to get my superbiggiebonus size drink. Additionally, it is just plain funny to think that with 2-3 of your friends, you can spend $150 each and get yourself a function piece of soon to be American history. You know what Dodge stands for . . . D.ead O.r D.ying G.radually E.very D.ay . . .

There will be the learning aspects of truck ownership as well. Matt has automotive experience and knowledge to pass along and unlike his Volvo, if you drop tools into something like this you can either wait a second for them to fall out or you can climb in after them since there is enough room to live in the engine compartment. When worse comes to worse, we can either donate the vehicle to charity for a write off or we can scratch off the VIN and deposit it in the local reservoir to keep water levels up during the drought season.

At the Track

For the first time ever, the 2009 Subaru-Vista Auto Group was in the same place, at the same time. It was a magical experience for some, shocking to many. Zac Davies seemed very focused on pondering the possibilities, despite the din created by the riders on the track in the background.


You have to love it when a teammate tries on a helmet for sizing and said, "I'm going to cut this mop before the season starts. Living in Leadville is weird . . . better go with a medium." He didn't really say that, but it would have been awesome.


The track is small, no joke small . . . there is enough room for a few people, but I could see it getting messy in a hurry. Given the tough times in the economy, now seems like a good time to establish an underground gambling ring for local track cycling. It could catch on like wildfire, I know a few people who might be up for fixing some races.

One of the most important accomplishments of the evening was getting bike parts into Hutchison's capable hands. Oooooh, shiny . . .


I'll wait for the full ride report to appear on his blog. The changes for 2009 are obviously color, but we've gone to the Edge Composites forks, the SRAM Red gruppo, and added a Cateye computer for data collection purposes. I can't wait to get my new bicycle . . .

Pulling it All Together

It is all starting to come together. We have frames, we have forks, we have most of the SRAM goodies, we have wheels with tires glued on them, we have seat posts, we have stems, we have bars . . . as soon as the last few pieces come in, we'll have complete bikes ready to ride.

The Elite Team is meeting up in Boulder tonight at the velodrome to go over the season ahead of us and spend some time with Dirk Friel from Training Peaks to find out more about the program and how we can make the most of our precious training time. Unfortunately prior, I have to ride in the basement. Fortunately it is dry down there now.

I will have a few pictures from the meeting to post tomorrow.

Don't Run . . .

. . . unless you stole something or somebody is chasing you. That's my usual policy on running. A policy which I blatantly and egregiously violated on Saturday by participating in the Chilly Cheeks Duathalon. I guess if you are following the letter of the law, I was being chased . . . by a lot of people. I started in the seventh wave of 10 participants each and passed 58 of 60 riders in front of me and the guy who finished just in front of me ran a lot faster than me, passing me in the last half mile to erase a five minute deficit created on the bike.

It would have been nice to have somebody near me on the run so I could have paced myself a little quicker. Having run an 18:30 5k when following somebody else, I'm pretty sure I could have done quite a bit better than the 6:55 mile pace I ran. I'm not going to lie, my legs felt nothing less than "silly" just after getting my shoes on and heading out on the run from the transition area. I felt like I was running through peanut butter or so I imagine (chunky for sure, not smooth . . . peanut butter that is).

All in all, I'd chalk the experience up as an amusing one. The crowd at a multi-sport event is pretty funny. Cool that they are all generally nicer, more supportive, etc., but the dork factor, especially among the males is huge! It is worse than your average 35+ Cat 3 field. The women are far less horrifying than your average gaggle of female cyclists and many seemed down right polite, if not pleasant. I didn't hear any of them yelling at each other, using four-letter expletives that even I could never get away with using in any sort of company, even on a construction site! Oh yeah, and just to reiterate, running is dumb.

In an effort to try and regain normal sensations in the legs after my four mile run, I got out and about on the town on the ridin' around town bicycle to meet friends out for the evening. That was probably the best decision of the weekend. It was a nice evening for a ride and it did loosen things up nicely. I waited around forever on Sunday morning for the temperature to creep above 40 degrees so I could get out for a cruiser with the Pinkertons and others. The legs felt about as I expected, but I was able to ride up Lookout a little harder than I expected.

Hopefully by this point in your reading adventure, the song below has loaded sufficiently, go ahead and press play . . .



On the way back to my house, we spotted this fine vehicle parked on the street with a for sale sign. Sign of the times I suppose, but they for sale sign said "house for sale" as opposed to car/vehicle/van. It is what it is, but if you are looking to downsize, this might be the vehi . . . er, house for you.



Let me know if you want the number, I can send it along.

The Sounds Your House Makes

How well do you know the sounds your house makes? Can you identify all the creaks and pops, the phases of the furnace coming to life, the squeak of hinges on different doors? Do you know the sound your house makes when water is running through the pipes? I do. During the spring, summer, and fall, I usually wake to the sound of water moving through the plumbing as the sprinkler runs through the morning cycle. Since I'm not the deepest sleeper in the world, I usually take note of the rush of water and the plumbing as the systems shifts to a new balance.

Fortunately, I am not the deepest sleeper in the world and I know that my sprinkler system is not active right now. Knowing that, the sound of water running through the pipes is not a good thing to hear at 3:45 in the morning because that means it is coming out somewhere. That somewhere happened to be the basement. The point of failure was where poly tubing connects to copper piping for the supply line to the espresso machine. The best guess I have on this one is operator error and failure on my part to tighten the compression fitting sufficiently. I could have had similar results on the supply line to the ice make in the freezer.

Given that I was just wasting my time simply sleeping, I got up, headed down to the basement, shut off the water as quickly as I could, wading through the 1-4" of water on the basement floor. What better place to keep buckets than the basement? I had a couple handy and started bailing water. Approximately 50 gallons later, I had puddles of reasonable, manageable size and decided I could stop the one man bucket brigade. I made the necessary plumbing repairs and turned the water back on, knowing I'd probably be interested in taking a shower when it was time to wake up for real.

The good news is that I caught on pretty quickly. The other good news is that I now know where all the low and high spots are in my basement. Some more good news is that the stuff down there that got exposed to moisture (i.e. sitting in said 1-4" of water) was either plastic containers or things that I would classify as unneeded. Nothing like a little soggy motivation to do some early spring cleaning.

As long as I'm awake . . . might as well have an espresso.