Carver Fat bike with carbon fork

Image and info taken from davelees1 on the mtbr fatbike forum

Carver Ti Frame + carbon fork = 4 lbs. 10oz. for a size 19".

Carver Ti - Complete Build on BFL's = 30 lbs. 10oz.

Complete write-up and spec's can be found here: snowbikes.wordpress.com

The Iditarod Tail Invitational started on Sunday 2-26-12 at about 5:30pm MPLS time.  These are the early leaders and one of them will likely be the winner.


It is snowing a bunch meaning anything can happen.  None of the following will likely happen but a minor variation of all likely will.  A leader may get in  front of the snow storms and cruise on good trial to the finish.  The leaders may get caught in the deep new snow and then get caught by the others.  Everyone may push their bike 350 miles or camp out until spring.  Fat bikes are not snow shoes and you need a surface about as firm as it would take to walk without punching through.  The majority of the trail is much more thin than these early pics show.  If you happen to steer off of the narrow poorly defined path that has been packed by snow machines and bikes you will plummet waist deep in snow and have to crawl back out and up onto the trail to start again.  This is easy when minds and bodies are fresh and it is daytime.  They call it auguring in when you fall off the trail and find yourself laying on your side half buried in the soft edge snow.  Surprisingly hard to get out of this position.

Iditatrod Trail Invitational

Starts this weekend Feb 26 2pm Alaska time.  Some good links here to see the roster of racers, see better maps and photos of the course and learn about the rules.  I am pretty sure this will be the link when it starts to follow the race.  Basically you can just follow when people reach each checkpoint.


People I will follow in addition to whoever is in the lead include Jeff Oatey, Peter Basinger, Jeff and Peter are two of the best ever.  Louise Kobin is the female record holder to McGrath (the 350 mile race), Tim Hewitt broke the record walking to Nome (1100 miles) last year in 20 days.  Just 3 days short of the bikes, Geoff Roes foot racer (Jill Homers old boyfriend), Beat Jegerlehner foot racer (Jill Homers current boyfriend)  ooooo! imagine the tension.  Ok they are likely friends but still its an angle on the race.   





Some people walk or ski the 350/1100 miles

Lot's of snow this year is the report.  

Best coffee I have roasted in about a year.

Honduras Cup of Excellence -Finca Ovidio
With only 15 hours of rest this is already proving to be a fantastic roast.  Sadly I was keeping it for a special event since it is a cup of excellence winner and a little pricey.  Now I know I love it and it is all gone.  A special event in this case turned out to be no more other coffee to roast. 
The first crack was so quiet I was into a rolling second crack before I  figured out what was going on.  I couldn't figure out why first crack was so late and sounded just like second crack.  Looking back I actually had a pretty good roast and hit most time/temp marks as I would have wanted.  Ideally I would have pulled this roast just before second.  The beans are just a tiny bit darker on the front end of the taste in the cup than I would like.  Otherwise this roast turned out great.  I love this coffee.  
  

Tom's cupping wheel tells the tale with high numbers in all areas.  Balanced but not boring.  



For Tom's write up go here

Hike on Bluff Creek

My favorite grocery getter

Silver and Blue

Last weekend Ella, me, a bunch of locals and our Sponge Bob fishing rod competed in the Chanhassen Feb Fest fishing contest.  We didn't catch any fish but did set some deserving minnows free, ate good food, went on a sleigh ride, found out that I can throw Ella about 30 feet over the ice and enjoyed a bonfire out on the ice.  That last one weirds me out every year.

Ella using my two legged chair like a boss.

Ice seemed about 8 inches thick.  

Ella preparing to be ice tossed for a new record.

I sure love my little Ella.  

Bear?

Mazy and I followed Bluff creek into an area rarely visited by people and found lots of animal tracks.

 Deer, turkey, coyotes and raccoons were pretty easy to identify but not these.   

   

I think the big ones may be a black bear.

Thunder

 This is David "Thunder" Smith.  He is the person that gave me the idea that I could roast my own coffee.  He spends some time in Negril Jamaica and I got to know him on our honeymoon in 2000.  These are recent pic's I got after I friended him on Facebook.  How I face book friended David who I think spends his time in the Red Ground area without electricity or plumbing or WiFi I don't exactly know.  I am just glad I some how did.  (Thanks Marty)

 What I do know is that last time I was with him he climbed a Mango tree next to another friends land, Rasta Pete, and made the best juice I can remember drinking.  He also roasted some coffee from the Blue Mountains of Jamaica over a fire like the above pic's show.   A short time later at home I found green coffee at Bill's imported foods and copied what I saw.  I moved on to old air popcorn poppers to roast and now to a steel drum on a rotisserie in a gas BBQ grill to allow for larger batches.  

 I see David did the same.  Kind of.

 Rasta's I have had the pleasure to know have not only been great people but also great capitalists.  But don't tell them that.

Thanks again Thunder.  

Nice night ride

I would like to do some camping along this trail.  Lots of good spots.  

New phone love

I have been enjoying my new phone.   Samsung Galaxy Nexus
I love the ice cream sandwich software, big screen and Roboto font.

Chinese New Year

Fantastic food at Heaths house.   Thanks Ling Hui.

My trip to Florida

Went to Sanibel island with the family to visit the inlaws and see Susan's youngest brother Mike get wed to the very wonderful Shelly. 

I took a bunch of pics of my favorite subjects and could not pic my favorite so you get them all.   

Ella carried the rings and Maya forgot to toss the flowers.  

With Cousin Lucia

I think Maya's grimace kind of smile looks a little gangsta.

  After the wedding Susan and I took an express ferry to Key West to meet the Icelanders.  Other than these boats the morning we left I forgot to take pics of some of the other cool stuff on the trip so I just borrowed them from the web.

Things I liked about Key West  include chickens all over, six toed Hemingway cats and an open gay community.  

I went paddle boarding and loved it.  It was easier and more efficient than I thought it would be.  Kind of like going for a walk on water.  My board was a lot bigger than the one in this pic.  

Once back on Sanibel I got to watch a giant dead Manatee wash up onto shore.  I touched it.  The scene kind of looked like the pic below except my manatee did not have a head.  

New vst portafilter filter basket.  20gram basket.

I love using the Amazon Cloud player both on the cloud and with music downloaded to my phone.  I have been expanding my music library a lot this year.  Here are some of my favorite albums I became aware of this year.

Watkin Tudor Jones  - "The Fantastic Kill"
South African white guy rap who keeps changing his name.  He used to be Max Normal, then Watkin and becomes the Ninja in Die Antwoord with Yo Landi

Die Antwoord-" $0$ "
Check out some of their videos.  Evil boy, enter the ninja and rich bitch.   They sort of both embrace and are satirical with their South African white trash kind of presentation.

Tim Exile's-" Nuisance Gabberet Lounge"
Seems like a haphazard dj thing but isn't at all.  He is a great innovator, creator and teacher of his craft.  Also seems like a very nice nerdy guy.   I keep playing this one over and over for some reason.

Tune Yards - "WHO KILL"
What a voice.  Her song Powa builds into the winner for sexiest song of the year for me.

Afx- "Analogue Bubblebath" and "Hangable Auto Bulb" (love the song Laughable Butane Bob)

James Blake- Four albums: " CMYK"  Also" Klavierwerke", "James Blake" and "Enough Thunder"
Very unique stuff that is very well thought out.

Tinariwen-I love both their albums I have  "Tassili" and "Aman Iman: Water is life"
I don't know how to label them, North African rock? blues? with soul.

 Boubacar Traore- "Marcre"
Old school song writer from Mali  Wiki

Squarepusher- "Go Plastic"
Listen past the first few minutes of the first song.

I also like all of these a albums a lot but find myself just adding them to a my random mixes rather than listening to them as a solo album.  If you plan to ignore all of these I would encourage you to at least look into Amon Tobin.  Jazz meets electronica.

M83- Hurry Up We're Dreaming
Deer Hunter Halcyon Digest
Boards of Canada- Music has the right to children
Amon Tobin- Supermodified and Permutation
Four Tet - There is Love in you
Youth Lagoon- The year of hibernation

Don Cherry's Piano Desk

Why don't down hill racers use fat bike rim and tire sizes?

What do you ride when 6'9" 235lbs.  Nolan from the MTBR fat bike form rides this.  This bike is a beast.  Notice that is a big fat larry on the front looking so much like a regular old tire.

 The rim cut outs are very nice.