650B ya'll

So not much has been happening these past few weeks - a little bit of school, a little bit of work, a little bit of traveling, and so on. I'm in the final push of what I hope is my last semester of school for several years. Three weeks of night-shift neonatal ICU rounds and that's it. Gettin 'er done.

A new and exciting addition came along this past week, though - it's a frankenbike project that's been in progress for over a year now but Steve made it happen after some frantic digging through his bike parts bins in the basement. So I give you..... the Salsa Ala Carte single speed complete with 650B Velocity Blunts. Daaaaaang.My coworker Dave took some great photos of it for the Velocity website - check it out here. Luckily that was before I took it out in the muck at Luton Park over the weekend. It's definitely going to take some getting used to - not only is it a rigid singlespeed but the wheels are bigger than I'm used to (650B's end up somewhere between a 26" and a 29" wheel - probably around a 27ish" wheel). Add that to having zero moutain bike miles in the last few months and I'm just happy to report that I'm still alive. It was actually a ton of fun and I can't wait for this spring, although the tires I'm running (Pacenti Neo-Moto) make this bike more like a hovercraft in the snow and slush. Many more good times to come with this bike, I'm sure :)

Because of the snow we got these last few days, I did break down and put the studded tires on the Surly this morning. I'm planning on taking it into town a little later this afternoon to get some school stuff wrapped up before the MMBA meeting. Although now that it's started snowing again, I'm not as excited about this as I was this morning. Oh well - slushy roads, here I come!

Not much else to report - I'll leave you with a few of my favorite pictures from this fall. Some Halloween, some chilly waves, some hockey game craziness, and some muddy riding. Nothing too exciting but I'm sure I'll have some good stories in the next few weeks!