I usually don't say much about cycling at work since no one is all that interested. But in the new place it is quite different. Yesterday at lunch there were some comments about cycling and someone mentioned Änggårdsbergen and being scared to walk since there was always groups of cyclists around. Uh...hmmm...I did my best to defend MCK here by saying that it must of been others since we always find quiet trails. So I said it was one of the other clubs. =)

And then today I was surprised to learn of at least 3 cyclists of various degrees. One is very into cycling history and prefers to collect bikes and not ride them. Cool. Another is one of many motionär MTB cyclists who has developed an interest for CX. Yes, come home my friend. Be tempted by the world of cross. And another seems mildly into CX as well. I have a feeling cross season will start early this year.

And finally more good news...my starnut and the tool is shipped and on the way to me. Tomorrow I should be able to fix the bike and then it is fun time! For those of you heading to Uddevalla on 7 juni the last day to sign up is today. 100kr now and 150kr tomorrow.

Today's CX route felt a bit like MTB considering the rain yesterday. But that mostly due to one big mud spot, the rest was lovely wet grass. I was not so inspired today so I just rolled over towards 8:an at Skatås taking random little grass or hills here and there. Of course it was busy out so the grus 8:an was a long series of stops and starts. I took a stop at Gbgcrossen's field spot and had a couple tries at the sand. It is very loose now so after the 4th try I made it all the way.

Back around near the little beach I headed down towards Östra and when I was turning from stop someone from HCK on a LVG went flying passed already on the bike highway. So now it was race. Starting from stop I attacked and up on the stora klingan I went and now things were going fast. I was going the same speed as him but we ran out of cykelväg before anything could happen. Besides, on a CX with wide tires I should not be able to keep up to a LVG.

During this trip I also came to a conclusion. I will make one more attempt at my MTB repair. The tool to put in a star nut is cheap and I just did get the other thing out. With all the holidays this week it will not be easy for me to drop off my bike anyway so there will be no time difference. I was just impatient this morning since I wanted to ride.

A look above might seem like my new superbike was ready for racing. But I am afraid this is a temporary assembly since I have failed again. The Hope Head Doctor did not go in smoothly and is now stuck with one half of it fallen off inside the tube. It wouldn't come out again either so I gave up and will take it to Allebike again. I don't have time to mess it up anymore.

On one positive note...I did succeed in getting the rear brake adjusted well. One more positive note...now I get to train CX again.

Yes, I managed to find out the answer to my pipe question while digging around the apartment. The metal tube from my vaccuum was the perfect size! Is there anything a Hoover can't do?

I also found my grease after going to the shop and buying some. But I did not need to buy any fancy tools for this. I already had the Parktool saw guide which is a perfect piece of kit. So tomorrow morning I can slap on some grease and head out to test drive and adjust.

And this makes me :D

The hammer method worked but this was no 'light tap'. What I found underneath was a very dirty and rusted fork shaft yet the bearings were greased well and worked just fine. So that was a surprise considering that it worked just fine but in reality was rusted. But this surprise has meant that I will take my time with this repair and make sure everything else is clean too.

I have only found one problem. What super design tool do I use to hammer the crown race down to the bottom of the fork? I have about 1 cm left to go. I am sure you construction people know which sized pipe I should buy to fix this problem? It needs to have a diameter larger than the 3cm of the fork but the part I need to hit is closer to 4cm. And the pipe needs to be 30cm long at least. The Parktool variant is here but spending 679kr for this seems a bit much.

What I do need to buy is some grease. I had some but it has gone missing in my move and I won't find it until I buy a new one (as usual). I did fix my brakes also which was a relief since I have always had trouble with those. But a tool to unscrew the XT bottom braket is on my list because that thing must be very dirty.

I was down at CykelCity today to buy a Hope Head Doctor after seeing that it would be cheaper than buying the tool and the star. I also wanted a second opinion on my Googling about forks that are stuck. The consensus opinion is that a hammer is the way to go. Probably it rusted after it came loose last year and I put it back on.

So, if I can manage to get the old fork off without killing the headset, I should be riding this weekend...wish me luck.

I started to take off the old fork and have already run into the first problem. I always thought that the headset felt loose so that the whole thing would just fall off when I removed the handlebars. Nope. It is sitting there very tight. And there is also one of those star nuts inside so I decided to read up a bit and make sure I am doing things right before I break it.

What could I do instead? Yes, another CX pass. Just around the corner from home I met Axel and Anton leading an MTB pass with CK Master. I said hallå and kept going since I had a CX and my MCK jersey and neither would be useful in this case. Besides, my goal was some serious grass hills at Sävecrossen which today was lightly populated by some nice women out for a walk. Hmm...good time to go out for training. But women are not impressed by cyclists so maybe not.

After that I rode around Vallhamra and up to Östra before taking a little spin around some of the side streets around Mellanvägen. I found a true gem there...a short but steep som fan hill which was a beauty for 3 intervals with some cheering from a couple local children. This was a short but supereffective pass today. And spontaneous...the best kind.

I know have my new Rock Shox Sid RLT Ti and it looks lovely! This may very well make all the difference in my XC skill since before I was just sort of flopping over roots and rocks. Sid will hopefully help me float over them instead.

But I am supposed to be working still so no touching for now...

Yes, tomorrow Sid will be arriving quite a bit ahead of expected. But this guest is much more welcome than many.

Looks like my weekend will be devoted to installation attempts and some type of adjustments. Unless I need a new headset and then I am stuck with another week of waiting.

I missed a call yesterday which seems to be a strange number from a delivery place. I thought Merlin used DHL but perhaps once it gets to Sweden they have other options. If this is about Sid, the delivery time was very very short.

I like.

The plan was quite perfect. Cheap flight to Valencia and the Ridley Test Center timed perfectly for the first week in September to get a nice head start on cross season. Yep. But anyone in research knows that September is the month from hell. Every application is due in September and everyone also has lots of ambition and ideas for projects to start up.

I have always preferred to work July since it is too expensive, crowded and hot basically everywhere else. I enjoyed my little relaxing trips in late August or September. But now that my job actually involves working with the people who are writing these things, I have to be around. And now that I have a decent job, I am not going to upset anyone over this issue.

A July vacation with no money sitting here sounds quite crap. But my bike should be in fine working order...

The trend seems to be that I will continue to miss out on XC. But here is a tip on a slightly longer race that I will do.

Herrestadsfjällsloppet is 30km and starts after work on 7 juni up in Uddevalla. This is a motionär race but what does that actually mean anyway? We all know that there are fast cyclists that don't bother with a licence.

This will be my first race of the season and a nice warm-up for Farrisrunden a little over a week after. But first Sid has to arrive...

Today I was planning to get some much-needed sun on my newly shaved legs. Right now they are whiter than my bike. But the dark clouds and chill in the air ruined that little plan. So the goal was to ride until it started raining and then decide if I wanted to continue riding. I started at Sävecrossen and my favourite grass field but this old guy seemed to like walking on my rundbana so I had to be patient. That can be difficult when I get the taste of grass on the CX.

Plan B was to explore Puketorp which is a lovely name for quite a nice area. Ganska steep hill up to the area and then every street was sort of up and down the whole way around. For those of you into svarttävlingar, this would be perfection. I also managed to find a way into the forest so I will have to explore that on my MTB.

Then it was time to explore N Sävedalen where there is an even larger hill of death. The goal of attacking every hill is a bad goal in that area. Fan...everything is up. At the top I found a nice little park to mess around in on the grass. All was good until the slightly terrifying trip down the hill full of blind corners and yield signs. We can wait with any GP races there.

To sum up the weekend...2 excellent training passes on the bike which I should not be training on. I can tell that from my neck and back träningsvärk.

For once I did not have to work this weekend and I am not running GöteborgsVarvet. So after a nice sovmorgon I realized that I actually had time for training! The MTB is shot as you know so I grabbed the next road worthy bike which is my Merida Cross 4. But this is not a real CX since it had screws for a bottle holder. My Ridley doesn't have that. So I decided to join that hated breed called LVG cyclist and set off to see if I could inspire any insändare...

First I headed towards Jonsered and found myself on a completely empty cykelväg. =) This went so &%#*¤ fast that my legs felt lovely by the time I turned down the road to cross Säveån around the fabriker area. Fint fint. But that little trail was full of people so I braked a fair bit (despite essentially having no brakes on the CX), smiled and tried not to piss anyone off much.

Next it was Kåhög where I was på rulle with a bus and managed to sit along side it when the cykelväg appeared. Racing buses is kinda fun until the speed limit hits 50 km/h. After that little adventure it was me vs wind of death the whole bloody way over to Sävedalen and then continuing all the way along E20. But I pushed on since there were people to pass.

Arriving at Svingeln and then along the water over to Liseberg was quite annoying. I can see why everyone hates cyclists. Most cyclists are flying all over the place, sending SMSs, cutting off cars and generally being annoying. But they are not tävlingscyklister. They are just stupid people. I in my MCK jersey showed respect and no one had a problem with me being there.

Anyway, after several stop light start sprints and some hill attacks at max speed it was time for Skatås. Up the hill at the tennis club is a well known pain inducer and I made sure to pass two people on my way up. Somehow I ended up on the Delsjön runt trail so it was MTB time before 8:an which was completely free of runners thanks to the race. So there was more flying, more hill attacks and more fun awaiting as I made my way back home.

This was so much more effective than the last couple MTB rides I have done on the hills. To hell with that unwritten rule of no CX in the summer. If anyone needs tjuvträning it is Chris Cross.

What can I say? Who needs a new car anyway when I can have a new friend named Sid? I just ordered a RockShox Sid RLT Ti for the insane price of only 4200kr! When you become a member of Merlin Cycles they give you another 10% off. They must make no money at all off of this.

Hopefully this upgrade will stop any urges to buy a new bike. After looking at the geometry of my betong Trek and the Full Dynamix, they are exactly the same. So there should be no reason why I can't get decent XC performance out of this bike. Sid will see to that...

Thanks to Philip for the link to Merlin Cycles from the UK. They have some insane prices which are more than magic. To buy a shock equivalent to the Recon SL sitting on the bike would cost 1200kr. By the time I get all of the tools and parts to service the one I have, I would easily spend 1200kr.

The problem as always is that they have other better things. The Rockshox Reba RLT is 3600kr and 300g lighter than Recon. And for Sid RLT at 4200kr the weight saved is an incredible 600g! And finally for the Sid XX World Cup at 6700kr we are talking 700g of savings.

I was really not planning on spending this kind of money right now. I am trying to save for a downpayment on a newer car. This is a tough choice. Crap.

I did manage to get brake pads and I even found a shock pump. But I was not home until 18.30 which killed any GBGserien for me. This time I have a good excuse...

When I started to play around with the brakes I found the answer to why the ride had more wobble than normal. The whole bloody shock is shaking around! I assume this means I need completely new bushings and probably a few other things inside. The lockout is also not working but that seems like a minor issue at the moment.

I would like to take this all apart myself since fixing it will save a load and then I will know what to do in the future. But now I only have my betong Trek to train with and I can tell you that there are even more surprises awaiting there. Fan. My budget is now officially shot for MTB season and it hasn't even started. Yes, what Björn says about CX season is universal. I am this close to just buying a new one since I had planned to anyway. But for Reba and up we are talking 5000kr or one third of the cost of the whole bike. =(

My feeling of 'no brakes' on the MTB was a correct feeling. Last night I took out the pads because I knew I had replacements. But then when I went looking through my tool box I realized I had extra CX pads, not MTB pads. Doh. So after considering putting back the non-existent pads and risk messing up my disc rotors, I decided to wait.

Let's see if I can make it to any store before 18.00 after what looks to be a very full day of work ahead of me...

Maybe I am just in a bad mood today because I started to look into why my MTB is behaving funny. Naturally I found quite a few things which need fixing immediately. Another reason to have a back-up MTB.

Anyway, I just read that you need a tävlingslicens to race in GBGserien and I can't see why. As I understand it, GBGserien is for fun and a way to bring new people into the sport and our clubs. Sometimes people email me to ask where they can race and I have no good answer for someone trying. To tell someone that they have to pay 20kr to enter plus 75kr for an engångslicens just to try out the sport is sending a clear message. You can't try out racing. You are not welcome. Go to happymtb.org instead.

And yet it is perfectly fine to race in Långloppscupen as a motionär without any licens or club membership. This makes no sense. If one of you does understand this, please comment...

My plan is to continue with my distanspass but gradually add in more singletrack so I don't mess up my arm any more than it already is. This morning was my first attempt at that with my Kåsjön - Tahult - Jonsered route.

I almost immediately started with the singletrack and it was going well at first. Mind you I should not have managed riding up that steep hill on a trail anyway but even the flat parts were going horribly. Ever since that downhill in Tidaholm last year, my fork has been just useless. I have checked it for cracks or other damage but I do not see anything wrong. But it is absolutely shite in rough terrain. On trails where things are more spread out or on grusväg with holes, things are fine. But in my opinion Rock Shox Recon is not at all meant for XC.

My old betong Trek has always been better at technical trails and my Full Dynamix is the master of långlopp roads. That should be enough for me to realize that my bike room needs a proper XC bike. But I can't afford one this year so for now I will just have to check the market and test ride.

On the positive side, I did this entire route without any energy crashes and no muscle problems at all. Good good.

Hello hello! Did you miss me? I have been busy being sick and realizing that it is ekpollen and not björkpollen that makes me so sedated that I fall asleep at my desk. So here it is Friday and my weekend is looking unplanned...other than the sleeping in tomorrow.

I have a plan again and it only involves MTB. So just from that fact you can tell that I am healthy again. If it isn't a CX, I don't want to ride it. MTB långlopp is what I do best during the summer so let's focus on it.

Life is funny sometimes. Actually, life is funny quite a lot. Exactly one year ago I went out for a quick afterwork ride to prepare for Hjo/Tidaholm and by Friday I had a sore throat. I raced the weekend anyway and ended up with a nasty cold which cost me Billingeracet.

Last week I also went for a quick afterwork and, voila, sore throat on Thursday. Friday-Sunday I was in Sthlm and Uppsala for several reunions, a thesis defence and one bloody great party! Now I am dead sick again. What are the odds of that exactly one year after? But it gets better. Right now my mom and sister are sitting in Canada and also really sick with a cold! So this probably has nothing to do with the 125 people I have to interact with at work now. This is some May-sicky gene. Cool. I will start writing the paper...

For some reason everything fell into place today and I managed to get home with enough time and energy for some training. With only an hour I knew I had to train fast, fast and faster. My tool of choice was my Merida CX because it hasn't been used for awhile and is not so much lighter than my MTB.

It had cross tires on it but I wanted to train LVG for once. That lasted about 2 minutes until I came to the section in Sävedalen where they are fixing the road and suddenly it was grusväg time. I continued along until the bridge over to Utby where I made a nice little attack against myself. Unlike Björn, I had no one på rulle. In fact it was dead all the way along that road until Munkebäcksmotet and along to Skatås where I then had to exercise some restraint.

Going up the hill to Skatås I managed a cramp in my calf muscle which is a sure sign I need to train more. Relaxed speed through Skatås since obviously GöteborgsVarvet is coming soon so I was not alone. But then I could fly along the cykelväg like everyone wants us to because no one was around to bitch and complain. A fine night if you ask me.

I am trying to figure out why 2009 and Grenserittet was my best performance in cycling ever. That was the year I ran GöteborgsVarvet and then trained LVG before buying an MTB and jumping into MCK Tuesday trainings. In June I broke my rib and was forced to rest for like a month. It makes no sense how this combination could lead to such a perfect performance in August??? And then I did it again last year with CykelVasan. What is it about August???

This year I have already managed to mess up my arm but I do have a bit of distance in the legs. So I think it is best to do a few LVG motion races with no prestige at all. My work schedule is getting lighter so things are looking up. And I just finished adapting my Merida CX for this purpose. My arm will appreciate the fact that I won't be using the top half of my body...

By now you will see that I didn't make it to Kvänum on this lovely day for some good MTB fun. There was simply no chance. After writing all day Friday, half of yesterday and a good part of today, my paper is now done and sent off to my other authors who can sit on it for awhile. This has been eating away at me for weeks now so I partly feel some relief.

May will continue to be a tough month with my 20% job and the supervising it involves. But my new gig as Scientific Editor is going brilliant and I am very glad about that. Making a career does sacrifice my cycling but I have mentioned before that I suck at XC so it is not the end of the world. And until CX season I am okay calling myself glada motionär with focus on Långloppscupen and stuff.

But I am trying to make it to some MCK trainings to see you guys...