Spoke Prep

Looking to build your first wheelset and find yourself wondering what spoke prep is?

The idea behind spoke prep is both a lubricant and thread-locker in one. It acts as a lubricant during the building process and helps to prevent binding between the nipple and spokes as tension increases.

As binding happens, the spoke itself begins to twist which will cause uneven tension your new wheel causing truing issues both before and after it's first few uses.

Perhaps the most renowned spoke prep is called, "Spoke Prep" from Wheelsmith.  Don't get too confused by the color options of blue and gold.  They offer both colors as a way to ID drive-side and non-drive side spokes for the build, but function of both colors are the same.

Are there alternatives to spoke prep? I'm sure there are, I've heard of people using Locktite, Chainlube, Linseed Oil, etc.  My opinion, Spoke Prep is designed for one thing and one thing only, to help you build and tension your wheels properly and few extra bucks to do it correctly is worth the price of admission.

Wheelsmith Spoke Prep

 "The ultimate spoke thread compound is SpokePrep™ because it is both a lubricant and a thread lock! How can it do both? When spoke tension is low and there is risk of loosening, SpokePrep "locks" the nipple by maintaining a minimum nipple torque. When spoke tension is high SpokePrep keeps nipple torque low with Teflon lubrication. We also have SpokePrep in two colors so you can prep your spokes and immediately know on which side of the wheel they will be used."

GPS: Using a Track vs Route

I've been wondering what the difference between a track and route?   So I did a little research and as it turns out, there is an easy way to explain the difference.

Track or Route, What is the difference? 

Route(s) characteristics:

• Route is about where you are heading/going ( more of a straight-line representation)
• It is used in the field to guide you from waypoint to waypoint.
• It uses straight-line, as the crow flies, navigation. 

Track(s) characteristics:

• Tracks are about where you have been. (more definitive representation of where you have been)
• GPS devices record your location based on your settings, usually a value defined by Time or Distance. Electronic "bread crumb trail" if you will.
• Tracks more accurately reflect the shape of the trail or road you have taken than the straight-line segments representing a route.

Both can be downloaded onto you computer or uploaded to online sites that overlay the information over a map so you can see exactly where you've been on your adventures! 

CCVA Forums Are Running!

CCVA forums are back up and running.

The short: We lost the last 4 months of data!
So if you have signed up during Jan. 25, 2012 until May 14th, you'll need to sign up again.

We have also modified the category structure to make finding areas of the forums easier.
IE: Less hidden.

Our goal was to reduce the forums titling down by 30%, we're close, but not quite there just yet.

Forums Future: The immediate future holds an forums software upgrade, after that, some new skins.

Our focus is going to be on spending more time riding and getting people to ride!  So don't be shy, post a ride, event, etc.

CCVA forums almost back online

We've been working all weekend to get CCVA forums back up and running.

In fact, we did get the forums running with some data loss and it looks like we'll be missing the last 3 months of content.  While this stinks, it's much better than loosing all 9 years worth of content.

We got a little greedy and went in for the latest upgrade which ended up going horribly wrong and now little is working well.

We hope to have everything up again within a day or two.

Thanks,
Jay

CCVA forums Update

Update: 
The old host is truly MIA and our last "full-site" offline backup goes back a few months,
so we'll be loosing a little data.

We're hoping to have everything running by late weekend or early next week!

PS: We thank everyone for the continued support in emails, Facebook comments, and donations.  We'll bounce back bigger and better!

CCVA New Hosting

Hello All, CCVA has new hosting!

While this great, it's just a start to solving the issue of getting CCVA back up and running.

CCVA hopes to be running between May 11-14th, but we don't want to make any promises.

We want welcome people to post topics and questions on the CCVA Facebook page in the meanwhile. www.facebook.com/CyclingCentralVa

Thank you again for your support and patience.

New Hosting on Horizon

It's been day 5,6, or 7 for CCVA being down, depending on which side of the limited access users fell on and it doesn't look to be coming back online. All attempts to get a host response have simply failed. CCVA is in the process of locating a new host and moving the site to it. Estimated time for a new site, we're hoping by week's end or the 1st of next week. Thanks again for all your support and we are working hard to make this work again...

CCVA Host Issue Continue

Good Morning Everyone, We are very sorry and deeply concerned at CyclingCentralVa.org by the lack of response time to by our host, ReadySetConnect.com. For close to a week now, there has been a server issue that has kept us from gaining access to CyclingCentralVa.org or our server files. We have been emailing and leaving tickets to get them to respond or take appropriate actions to avoid and correct this issue just prior to the whole site going down. We are taking steps to keep this from happening in the future by moving to a new host ASAP, but are willing to give a short time frame for the old site to come up to avoid loosing data. While we do have regular backups off host, our day-to-day operations have hosting backups and this will minimize a gap in postings. Again, our apologies for this hosting issue and we are working to remedy this issue as quickly as possible. CCVA Admin.

CCVA is still down and we are looking into options of moving the site. More info to come as we move forward.

12 Hours of Lodi Farms

This weekend is the 12 Hours Of Lodi Farm race in Fredericksburg, Va. Good luck to all the racers!

CyclingCentralVa.org site is down. We're trying to contact the host and this issue is usually resolved in 24-48hrs. During this time frame, access to the forums may be spotty; meaning some folks may be able to access the site without issue, while others or later attempts may be met with failure.

May "IS" National Bike Month

May is National Bike Month. May 9th is National Bike to School Day, May 14-18th is National Bike to Work Week and May 18t is National Bike to Work Day!