Tom Hoppe

New Mountain Bike

November 28th, 2009

So I decided to pull the trigger on my new mountain bike. I went to the local bike shop, Free Flite, and demoed the Trek Fuel EX8. It is a real nice bike, and a bit pricey, so I figured I might as well try it out for real before putting my $$ in. Took the demo to Blankets Creek and had some fun. The bike is a whole new ballgame coming from my Giant hardtail. The rear shock absorbs all the imacts, roots, rocks, etc that used to hit my butt. With that, I was way less tired after my normal Dwelling loop. I then got on my hardtail and did another loop just to see what the back to back differences were. I was nowhere near as fast on the Giant and sections I just breezed through in the middle of the rear ring on the Trek, I had to almost use the granny gear to get through. Wow! The brakes on the Trek are also incredible. I always thought the mechanical Avid disks that came on the Giant were awesome, but these Elixir brakes blow them away. There is almost no lever pressure to get them to stop, and the are nice and progressive.

I headed right back to the bike shop and bought my new bike; Got the satin black paint instead of white. I did have the shop install my new SLX crank, as well as the rear cassette as they were both upgrades over what came on the Trek. Might as well use those on the nicer bike instead of on my Giant. After bringing the bike home, I set the shock air pressures, made all the cockpit adjustments and made sure all the bolts were tight.

This morning I headed out for the bike’s maiden voyage at Blankets. I wanted to get some trail miles on it before I headed up to Pinhoti on monday. The brakes needed to get bedded in and I wanted to make sure all the cables were stretched out. Instead of taking it on the Advanced trails, I just did a loop through the Dwelling trail. I wanted to take it easy and rest up for monday. As I figured, everything was perfect and it was a fun, easy ride. http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=429441 Can’t wait for monday!

Posted in All, Biking | No Comments »

Mountain Biking Rocks!

November 24th, 2009

So as I posted earlier, I’ve really been getting into biking recently. I found some awesome trails around here with miles of rocking singletrack. As my adrenaline rush self has ridden more and more, the natural progression was “I wonder if people around here race these things”. Well, sure as hell the answer is “YES”. Mountain bike racing happens starting in about Feb/March through Aug/Sept. These are 10-20 mile single/double track races. Should be pretty grouling considering that I get pretty tired about a 6-8 mile fast ride, but by the time Feb/March get here, I should be in better shape.

So for over the winter, “Cross Cycle” racing seems to take over. This is bike racing around a 7 or 8 minute lap course for 30 minutes. The catch is the course has some pavement, regular crass, as well as crazy mud or sand crossings, some SERIOUS uphills where you have to carry your bike, and also obstacles over which you can’t ride over. With that, you are getting on and off your bike a few times per lap and carrying it over or up the obstacles. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to try it. Unfortunately there is only 1 race left this year in the Georgia Cyclecross Racing series this year. Fortunately its on Dec 6th and according to some of the forums I’ve read its the “if you attend one cross race a year, attend this one.” I’ve tried one “training session” so far, and it kicked my butt. Did 30 minutes around the neighborhood and varied my terrain from mud to pavement, along with some getting on and off the bike. Whew! http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=424783 We’ll see if I get the balls to go to the race, but I think I’m going to try. I’m just worried about getting there and getting super embarassed as I’m still not in “go hard for 30 minutes” shape. Maybe I should wait?

This coming up weekend though, I’m going to do a little birthday partying, and then after head up to the Pinhoti mountain bike trails. There are 18 miles of great trails up in the mountains and should also be a great area to take Zoey for a great hike. I’ll take my iPhone along and do some GPS mapping as well. We’ll see how much/far I can go

Posted in All, Biking | 1 Comment »

ARRC Writeup and other updates

November 24th, 2009

Man I’ve been slacking on updating my blog. Its been another busy month!

The ARRC happened at the at beginning of the month. For those that do not know, its the Improved Touring national championship. I got the car as ready as it was going to be, packed up and headed up to Road Atlanta. I stopped by Trever’s to get the valves adjusted and also stopped by the dyno to make sure I wasn’t down on power. The dyno was a mix of good news and bad news. The car was making great power, but I wasn’t able to do any tuning as I had a leak in the header. No worries. I was right there with the best cars and it was time to kick ass.

Testing on Thursday went well. The car was handling nicely and I ran one session at “full tilt” and had 1:42s in the car. I knew I would need that to be able to compete. Friday qualifying was actually kind of tough. I started out way in the back of the pack, hoping to go real slow and get a couple of clean laps. I ended up only with one clean lap as I caught up to traffic VERY fast. It was a great lap though and a 1:42.350. That was good enough for 2nd. Kevin Ruck had a flyer of a lap as well, and at 42.280, we were right on each other. Seemed that the rest of the guys were struggling a touch as 43.3 was the next fastest qualifier. This was going to be a 2 horse race unless some others picked it up. Brian Cembor helped out with crew duties and we got the car ready for Sunday.

Saturday was race day. The race started and Kevin and I both got a good jump and drove a couple of laps 1-2. Then Marc Cefalo in his 1.8 Miata used his extra HP and got by me going into Turn 1. Unfortunately Marc was slower then me through most of the course, and faster on the straightaways. Fighting with Marc for a couple of laps let Kevin get away, and by the time I got around Marc 2 laps later, it was all over. I tried my best to catch up to Ruck, but since we were running the same lap times, I had no chance. I tried a little “too” hard while lapping a couple of cars and pushed a few cars out of my way with the bumper. Just funny that guys that are getting lapped like crazy don’t get out of your way.

In the end, I finished 2nd. I’ll definitely take that for my 2nd year out there. The champagne spraying was fun on the podium. Next year, I’ll try to be on the top step Teardown in the tech shed was interesting. Because of the podium finish, I had to take the intake and exhaust manifolds off the car among other compliance items. Never having done that before, the intake was a huge pain in the ass. I was just about the last car done in tech. At least now I know how to do it, and with a bunch of people giving me shit about being slow at the same time. Unfortunately the video was a big fail. I lost the charger to my pimpy HDTV camera, and after sticking the goPro on the front of the car, we messed up and put it on “picture” mode. At least I got one rockin picture out of it, posted below.

I’ve already started thinking about next season. I think I’m going to spend a few bucks in the offseason and early next year to bring some more speed to the car. I’ve got some ideas to get another 5-6hp and also a couple of ways to get it handling better, and some transmission work to get better gearing. I think with those items, I’m going to run a shorter season to save some $$. Currently I only have plans to hit VIR, Daytona, and Road Atlanta. Should only be a 4-5 weekend year followed by the ARRC. Hopefully I’ll have some good competition on those weekends to keep me sharp and have some fun!

Now that its offseason I’ve started to get into some other things over the winter. I’ve re-discovered mountain biking. I’ve gotten really into it and have been biking at least 2 days a week. Even thinking about getting into some racing. I’ve been going right around here to a couple of trails, Blankets Creek and Big Creek but this weekend for a little “after birthday ride” I’m going to head to Pinhoti north of Elijay. There are 3 trails that should total about 18 miles of awesome singletrack. Not sure if I’m going to do all 3, or just 2 of them, and take Zoey for a sweet hike along the 3rd one. We’ll see

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About ready for the ARRC

October 25th, 2009

Had a rocking car day today. Matt came over and we did a full brake job on his car, and also got my Integra ready for the ARRC (American Road Race of Champions) in two weeks. My car got all new brakes as well, new oil, a nice cleaning, and a nut and bolt to get it ready. I’m going up to Balanced Performance for a dyno tune and having Trever doing a valve adjustment the day before the ARRC, so I also ordered up some new plugs and plug wires which I’ll put in next weekend. Figured almost 2 seasons on that set and they are ready to be replaced.

I’m really excited and looking forward to this race. There should be some very good ITA competition with a couple of very fast guys, who I raced with at the ITFestival, coming down from the NE (Marc Cefalo and Joe Diminno), Kevin Ruck coming back to defend his title from last year, Chuck Baader in his powerful BMW 325 and Chris Perera in his Integra. Should be a blast of a race, and I’m going to try my best to be right in the mix. The car should be absolutely rocking, with a whole suite of new replacement parts, a new front air dam, and a new dyno tune. Can’t wait!

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2009 Petit LeMans photos

October 14th, 2009

Went to Petit LeMans this year. Thanks to Grassroots Motorsports magazine, I received a Photo Press Pass and was able to take some great shots. It was a fun few days of hanging out with friends and drinking beer. Unfortunately, the race was cut short as Saturday was just a crazy rain fest. I put up the photo equipment before the big rain as I didn’t want to ruin anything. Below are some of the best shots of the weekend.