Poor man's 3rd hand.

Best way I've found to set up cantilever brakes.

this is my 300th post, or, send Jeb to Belgium

But the number of my post is not important. What is important is helping a brother out. My friend and teammate Jeff "Jebbagger" Bahnson is trying to get to Europe to race some cyclocross at the highest level of the sport. Why is that name familiar you might ask?

Courtesy of cyclingnews.com

That's Jeb winning his 2nd National Cyclocross Champion title. That's right, his second title. So yeah, he's pretty talented, and is trying to see how he stacks up on the international scene. But, as you know getting to Europe is pricey, so he's looking for help to get there.

You should go here:
http://dccofd.org/jeffbahnson.htm#goreraffle.

There are some sweet helmet cam videos from some of Jeff's recent races. And there's an option to donate to his race fund to get him to Europe to race with the big guns wearing the Stars and Bars. Just to sweeten the deal, Gore RideOn Cables has donated 5 sets of their Professional System Derailleur Cables that will go to some lucky winners who have given generously to Jeff's Euro-campaign! These are the cables the Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com riders are using to dominate races...

monsters of folk...

Saw the Monsters of Folk last night at the Academy of Music. They were a treat to see live. For four guys from three different bands, they had one cohesive sound, and they could have fooled anyone into thinking they had been playing together for years.

They played original MoF tunes, my personal favorite played last night was "Man Named Truth" (sampled below), as well as songs from the catalogues of M Ward, Bright Eyes, and My Morning Jacket.

It was spectacular to watch them switch from perfectly synced rocking out to solo and duet acoustic performances (crappy cell phone video below).

If you get a chance, go see them!

austin...

Last weekend, I traveled with Tough Cookie to Austin TX to participate in the liveSTRONG ride for which we both raised money. It was a nice chance to see a part of Texas I've never seen, and is always fun to ride my bike somewhere new.

The weekend began with a walk around Austin, the Texas state capital city.

Some of the best facial hair I've ever seen. I wish I had the cojones to take a picture of this guy in his line of sight.

We visited the capital. There was a monument to the soldiers lost in the "War of Northern Aggression."

I told GW how I feel.

We also visited Mellow Johnny's bike shop. The place was PACKED busy. The most exciting part for me was seeing the "Shack's" HQ - all those bikes are rocking my bike cables.

US Service Course.

The next day, we got up bright and early to participate in the ride. These charity rides, while taking riders through some beautiful, scenic areas are terrifying. For at least 3 days after the ride I was having nightmares about several things:

Horribly ugly charity ride-specific jerseys... though I kind of liked this one for several reasons.

Guys on aero bars trying to weave through tight charity ride traffic at mach 0.9.

I was trying to capture this guy's heinous pit hair, but there are so many horrifying things in this picture, I'm not going to bother going into detail.

Cattle guards. They didn't bother me particularly, but a lot of people were going down on them. I just wanted to cross them alone, with no one around to crash me.

There were some beautiful moments as well:

The rivers were swollen.

Tough Cookie scopes out some alpacas.

Cock shot.

Fat Tire Ale and a shot of espresso at mile 50.

65 miles is now the longest single ride I've completed on a fixed gear.