New Local Bike Forum

With the recent threats from the founder of MPLS Bike Love to shut down the forum, a new local forum has popped up.  It looks pretty basic right now, but seems to be off to a good start.  If it keeps growing and develops a more finished look, it should be a nice replacement for Bike Love.  Check it out here and become a member.

[Update]
Mpls Bike Love is now under new ownership.  Thanks to Jeremy for starting such a cool site, and to Bjorn for keeping it alive and well.  It also sounds like Bike612 will be changing it's focus... waiting to see how the re-design turns out, but it should be another cool local bike site.

Polo Crash

Two weeks ago I took a pretty good spill at polo... while riding at full speed my brake cable snapped, leaving me without brakes.  It happened about 10 feet before the goal and I had the option of smashing into another player, or hitting the goal.  I must have hit the goal perfectly since I bent my fork (a Surly 1x1 fork) but not my front wheel.  The full-size steel hockey goal was pushed off to the side and I ended up on the pavement.

My fork now has zero rake...

I also did a number on my seat...

And my helmet...

All because of this... snapped right at the bolt that holds the brake cable:

I ended up with a few bruises, a few scrapes, a possibly bruised rib, and a broken hand.  It all happened so fast, but I'm guessing my hand broke from the impact with the goal... either my mallet or the handlebar put enough pressure on the side of my hand that it completely fractured my 5th metacarpal.

I'm not sure yet how long I'll be out of commission, but I should be back before the snow riding season starts.  It kind of sucks that this happened just as we started getting fall weather, but then again this time of year is really busy at work so I usually don't get much riding in anyway.  I will miss polo and the few times I get out for fall rides.  Oh well.

I'll likely be playing polo a bit less aggressively from now on, and with some new equipment to help keep me from getting injured.  But I will continue playing... it is just too much fun.

Earlier this week I went in for surgery to install temporary pins that will help secure my bones while they heal.  Here are some pics of the surgery.



FYI - they are a bit nasty...




Installing the temporary pins:

Pins installed (pic and x-ray):

Cutting the pins to length:

Good times!

Cool Stuff from Eurobike 2010

New Pugsley (soon to be available as a complete bike):

Surly's new singlewall snow rim, the Rolling Darryl:

This is the coolest thing I've seen so far... Surly's new 26" geared mtb, the Troll.  It appears to be similar to a 1x1, but with new SS/geared dropouts and looks to be designed around an Instigator-sized fork.  If this frame has the same tire clearance as a 1x1, it definitely has me interested.  Shown here with their new trailer:

All pics are from this webpage and are property of Singletrack Mountain Bike Magazine, the UK's best mountain bike mag.  A big thanks to Singletrack for their coverage (and great pics) of Eurobike.