Quite the hiatus

well it's definitely been awhile since I decided to post on here, but for the new year, I have decided to start again.  A lot of things have changed but the big things are still the same: still madly in love with Emily, still spend to much time harassing my dog, still live in the same town at the same house...  So what has changed then? well mostly I've picked up some new hobbies, changed my career path (twice since I was last here actually) and recently had some facial surgery. I figure I'll go into more detail about those things in subsequent posts,but for now you can bask in the glory of my bicycle:

Frame: 08 Ares Garuda 
Forks: ABadThing 
Headset: kink 
Crankset:khe 2 piece hindenburg 
BB Set: ff euro 
Sprocket:tree spline drive, 20t 
Chain: KHE Tanga 
Pedals: Ares plastic 
Handlebar: OG caramel 2 
Stem: Sequence hook 
Grips: Animal Edwin 
Bar Ends: Fly Rubens 
Saddle: flybikes fino 
Seat Post: thomson 
Seat Post Clamp: TSC alfred lite 
Brakes: flybikes 
Brake lever: odyssey M2 
Gyro: Snafu mobeus w/hoffman uber plate 
Front wheel: 
-Hub: Fly bikes 48h 
-Rim: Odyssey Duralectra 48h 
-Spokes: 14g 3x, aluminum nipples 
-Tire: Odyysey frquency g 1.75" 
-Pegs: sequence majic sticks 
Rear wheel: 
-Freecoaster: Geisha street 48h 
-Rim: Odyssey Duralectra 48h 
-Spokes: 14g 3x, aluminum nipples 
-Tire: Odyysey frquency g 1.75" 
-Pegs: saquence majic sticks 
Other: 
-khe dubz tensioner
Weight:~21lbs 

I love my bike, it has taken awhile for it to all come together, and parts still change in and out a lot, but I have a better grasp I what I like to ride.  It's hard getting used to the back brakes, I put them on mainly for safety (being able to stop) but also figured I might get a few tricks out of it. For now I've been working on decades, but only sorta half-assed, still progress is being made.  Other than that the bike is really light and responsive, I'm a hitchhikin' machine on this thing.  I've also recently found a new riding spot close to Em's mum's  house. It's basically two sets of almost abandoned tennis courts in a public park, neglected enough for me to be able to ride there, nice enough for me to still want to. Check it out.

Soon I'll have Emi go and take some photos of me riding so I can show you all what I'm doing on such an odd looking bike.

Until next time!

...where did I go?

Well, a lot has happened as of late. I'm regretting not posting more, but a lots been going on, the good news is that I no have plenty of stuff to write about! I'm going to start of start off with the boring stuff to get it out of the way, namely my new bike.
It all started when Emily's wheels were starting to go on her redline t&t, and before long I decided I was just going to give Sleipnir (my previous bike) to Emily and upgrade my bike, as I really like flatland and Emily deserved a nice bike, not some rusty clunker. So I pretty much upgraded almost every part, I still have the same cranks, but other than that it's all new. I managed to drop the weight by about 4 pounds (around 24 now) and added some very flatland specific parts, some of the high lights are:
-My new frame! the St. Martin Wells, it is unbelievably beautiful! the extra clearance above and below the frame is definitely noticeable. The geometry feels great and weight is a ridiculous 4.3 lbs!
-My new back wheel is a KHE geisha free coaster. A free coaster (as opposed to a freewheel or cassette drive) has a clutch system that keeps the hub disengaged from the wheel until a certain pedaling happens. The point of this is that when I roll backwards, my clutch isn't engaged and my pedals don't move (where normally they would spin around and smash my poor shins!), and as a bonus it is damn near silent, no annoying clickity clickity clickity clickity when I coast. Also the 9t driver on it allows me to go down to a 23 tooth chain wheel!
-My sweet braking system! the brakes were a score on ebay (mad cheap) and the complete SNAFU dual braking system is smooth as butter! I have front brakes coming in the mail with a matching brake lever!
All in all the bike is absolutely awesome, light, ultra responsive and oh so very roomy! My progress had been a little slow however, the bike took forever to all get here (it was purchased piece by piece off line and I built it up) and then school and weddings and trips and financial aid and AHHHHHH!
Luckily the last few days I've gotten a ton of time in riding and I'm getting better. I'm about a hair away from landing full fire hydrants, I can pull, hold and scuff steam rollers now and I'm working on figuring spins out. The only problem is that my riding spot (the teen center on Harris) is busy later and later and the dang sun is setting sooner and sooner! I've looked around, but without having to drive in my car I can't really find another decent flat open space (let alone smooth!)to ride on.

Any way, expect more bike stuff to come, but in the next few days/weeks expect to hear about: My schooling ,my brothers wedding, and lots of new photo's, but for now I want to go watch t.v. and then sleep!

-Kai

The world is flat!

Well it's been a while since i last posted, but what can i say, not much has happened. Mainly of note is that i have switched from riding street bmx to flat land. I feel it is more of what I'm looking for, not to mention it takes place on flatland... not stairs and ramps...less pain. But seriously, I'm really into it, i bought a new frame kit to basically mod my Kaizer 1.2 into my brand new *drum roll* Sleipnir 1.0 ,check out the bike check, what a magnificent beast. I put in probably around 6 hours at this point (which is over about a week or so) and am already making progress. I'm working on fork glides, Dork wheelies, and tailwhips*, and i can proudly say i have landed successfully all of those tricks and am well on my way to dialing them in. I think a huge part of this learning curve is getting comfortable on my new whip, it's much smaller: 2 1/2 cm off the stem 1 1/2 in off the top tube and and inch shorter chainstays! The wheel base is shorter and the bars are closer to me, but at the same time i have more internal maneuverability due to the frames gusset and geometry...lets just say it's taking some getting used too.
Really that's all that been going on, walking my dog and riding my bike. I did manage to see 1408 on opening day, i thought it was very good, but I spent most of the time drawing connections to Dantes inferno instead of being afraid....The group of girls behind me screamed a lot though, so that's a good sign, and Samuel Jackson was as good as ever in the few scenes he graced. The movie did have trailers for two movies i am interested in seeing: 30 days of night, and I am Legend. 30 days of night is based off a weird ass comic book about vampires moving to a town in Alaska where night is more prevalent than day...such a sweet setup, i hope they just pump it full of gruesome special effects. I am legend, frankly looked really good ( i am such a fan of post apocalyptic survival horror), stars Will Smith, and also happens to be the title of a white zombie track, so I'm pretty sure I'll see it.
Until something cool happens I'll probably just update the look of my blog and load some new pics or something...we'll see.

-Kai

*tailwhips in the flatland world are not the same thing as tailwhips in the street world, the flat land ones are much, much easier as you never leave the ground.