Apparently I erased all my old pictures……. oops
Sunday, February 19, 2012
SBCU Training
Monday February 13, 2012
I went to Morgan Hill in California for some training at Specialized Bicycle Components University. It was a great experience.
I left Raleigh North Carolina for The Twin Cities in Minnesota. During my layover I met Lillian and her lamb Lamby.
We had a long in depth conversation about absolutely nothing it was awesome. After a while Lamby finally opened up and I was getting high fives and hugs.
From the Twin Cities it was a 3.5 hour flight to San Jose California, after I got off the airplane I met some of my other classmates and we left for Morgan Hill. We all checked in at the hotel and prepared for the next day.
Tuesday February 14, 2012
I woke up and went to breakfast around 6:30am and left for Specialized arriving at 8:00am. The first part of class we introduced ourselves, it turns out the class had people from Hawaii, Canada, Texas, North Carolina, Alabama and Colorado. For the most part the first day was uneventful except for the lunch ride where I rode through a huge mud puddle.
Everyone should try this
I was the only one to ride through the mud. A T-shirt was offered as an incentive I asked for socks since I ruined the only pair I had that day. After lunch we spent the rest of the day talking about wheels, brakes and internal cable routing. Once class was over Specialized fed us dinner and we were shuttled back to the hotel.
Wednesday February 15, 2012
Wednesday morning was much of the same at the hotel up at 6:30am breakfast then shuttled to Specialized. This was a day to be spent on suspension. The beginning of class was spent on suspension theory, I am still trying to wrap my head around it, I do have a better understanding though.
After we went through suspension theory we worked on a Specialized AFR rear shock. Here is a cut away of the whole shock.
This is the rebound piston that is housed in the air can piston.
After the AFR shock we looked at the “Brain” portion of the shock. The “Brain” is an inertia valve that works when force drives the rear wheel up. This is a cut away of the inertia valve, as the shock is forced up the brass mass at the top drops down to let oil flow freely.
When we finished rear shocks we went for another lunch time ride and this was my steed, it is the Venge. The Venge was devolved With McLaren a company that designs and makes Formula1 cars. This bike is not slow it likes to go fast.
After lunch we went back to class and worked with front shocks, it turns out the Specialized E160 and S140 Forks are custom tunable at the shop level. After dinner we went back to the hotel on the party bus, it is to bad I didn’t get any pictures of that.
Thursday February 16, 2012
Morning was the same at the hotel. When we started class we spent most of the time working on a hassle line, which is about finding the problems of getting from point A to point B, then finding the solutions. This is what we came up with:
Once we we were done with the hassle line we ate lunch and then went for a mountain bike ride to learn how to setup full suspension bikes.
My steed 2012 SWORKS Epic 29er.
A couple others that came along.
2012 SWORKS Enduro
I think this is a Camber.
Not to mention the Vans of Awesome:
There is about 130,000$ worth of bike on the vans. After the mountain bike ride we took a test and then went to dinner at Troy’s Bocce Ball Room.
Friday February 17, 2012
Flying from the West coast to the East coast is rough, I left San Jose at 10:00am Pacific time and arrived 12:00am Eastern time, then had to go to work at 10:00am the same day. It was rough, I would do it again in a heart beat if I had the chance.
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