Getting Ready For Fun

About a week ago, I was at a doctor’s office (for work stuff; I'm fine.)  There was an older lady there (probably in her late 70s), and she was asked about her recent vacation by the check-in nurse.  After a chat about some island getaway, she then went on to say, “I just booked a trans-atlantic cruise this summer.  It’s the last thing on my bucket list.”

That stuck with me.  I don’t know what else was on her list, but that fact that she’s nearly reached the end of it fascinated me.  I didn’t really have a chance to talk to her, but looking back I wished that I had.  From what I heard, she loves to travel, so I imagine that most of her list items were trips to far away and/or exotic lands.  She seemed so happy about it, and that made me feel pretty good as well. 

I have a long way to go until I reach her age, but I have plenty of time to do all sorts of fun things.  I don’t have a “bucket list” per se, but I do have a mental list of things that I’d like to do at some point.  I’ve checked off quite a few things, but I’m more of a “fly by the seat of my pants” type of person.  I’m just gonna make sure I have fun, no matter what I’m trying to accomplish.

I guess that’s one reason that I’ve reconsidered beefing up my racing schedule again.  I was really burned out when I raced a lot of cross country stuff a few years ago, to the point where even just riding my bike for fun wasn’t um, fun.  It wasn’t the racing that did it though.  It was my shitty attitude.  I was traveling to new trails and meeting some cool people, but I guess that wasn’t enough.  Racing can be fun, but if it ceases to be then maybe I need to look at why instead of just running away from it.

Maybe that’s why I’m a little nervous about this weekend.

Sunday, I’m jumping back into the Southern Classic Series, with the intention of doing the whole thing.  Once upon a time I raced almost every weekend, with varied results. 

There’s no reason to be nervous.  There’s really nothing on the line except whether or not I have fun.  That’s the approach I plan to take this time around, and I hope I can keep it up for the remainder of the season.  It’s gonna be difficult to stay focused, but as long as I can have fun then I should be fine.

Since I’m planning to “mix it up” with racey folks, I figured that I should get my bike in order.  I started by giving it a good bath, paying close attention to wear items such as the chain, cog, and chainring.  Everything is good (for now), but while I had the wheels off I noticed something odd.

Really, there’s no excuse for that kind of nonsense. I get tons of awesome support from Maxxis, and when I ask for new tires they show up quickly.  Maybe I’m just lazy (or don’t pay enough attention), but letting a tire go this long is unacceptable.  I didn’t take a photo of the actual tread wear, but it was quite shitty as well.

Luckily I haz options.

A brand new Ikon, just waiting for me to install it.  Once I did, I realized how much of a dumbass I am for not doing it sooner.  Tubeless setup was a breeze, and the fact that my rear wheel won’t spin out anymore is reason enough to never let this happen again.

At least I didn’t wait until I started racing this weekend.

That’s when I’ll see what else I forgot to do.

And no, new tires were not on my bucket list.  They probably should’ve been though.

Is it Friday yet?

Really Tired

Although it was only two days, it felt like the longest weekend ever.  I was up in the mountains all day yesterday and it was pretty damn fun.  We laughed, we cried, we climbed, we descended.  We even got dirty.

I don’t really have my shit together enough today to talk about it though.  After stopping on the way home to have a giant steak and having to unpack and clean off all my shit I’ll need to take a little time to go over everything in my head.  I’ll do that tomorrow.

Instead, I’ll talk about the boring shit I did leading up to Sunday’s ride.

When I got home Friday after work, I had a mission.  Little Miss Sunshine needed new tires put on her geared bike, and I was asked to “show” her how to do it.  When I got home she was already in the garage, and everything was ready to go.  She mounted up a set of Ignitors, put in the proper amount of sealant, and with the aid of my air compressor she was able to get them to seal.

She done good.

With no test ride (other than up and down the street in my neighborhood), she hoped like hell they would hold up when she took off to the mountains the next morning.  That’s right, some of the crew went up Saturday to have two days of riding.  I chose to stay home because I had more shit to do.

That is the rear wheel from Lunchbox’s bike.  I’ve been meaning to set him up tubeless for quite a while now, and I finally had a chance to do it.  He’s been getting flat tires (or tubes, whatever) just about every time we got out to ride now, so it was time.  He’s got a big event coming up this weekend (more on that another time, of course) and I’m happy to say that he shouldn’t have to worry about getting a flat.

His setup was pretty much a pain in the ass.  Without “real” tubeless-type rims I had to work a little extra to get them to seal.  In fact, I worked so much extra that I missed a trail work day with TomTom out at our neighborhood fun spot.

Damn it.

It’s all good I guess.  My kid will be flat free and that’s one less thing I’ll have to worry about when he’s out riding.

So, if you will excuse me I need to try to put together all the pieces from yesterday’s ride.

I was pretty damn awesome.

  

Not A Ride Report

Because my dumbass brought my bike with me yesterday but forgot riding apparel. 

So, I’ll talk about some new shit I got instead.  After getting the single speed setup just right I’m starting to find things that need to be changed on the geared bike.  Other than removing the gears, I mean.  We’ll get into that another time.  Anyway, I’d gotten really accustomed to the big, fat 2.4 Maxxis Ardent on the front, but because my SS is a rigid I didn’t think I should run one on a bike with front suspension.  Lately I’ve (obviously) been riding the geared bike, and while the Ignitors are really good I found myself missing the super duper grip of the Ardent.

You with me?

Good.

So, I got with my people down there in Georgia and had a box sent my way.

In that big box among all the other stuff I needed (not very exciting stuff like tubes, etc.) was a new tire.

It’s an Ardent of course, but this one’s a wee bit narrower.  It’s a 2.25, and even though it’s a little lighter it has the same tread pattern (and therefore the same grip) as the big fatty.  I haven’t put it on yet, but I will soon.  I can’t wait to enjoy good ol’ front end traction on the geared bike just like the SS, and I'll even save a little weight.  That means I can drink extra beer, you know.

Apparently I can only change one tire at a time, so I used that one time on the rear tire of my SS.  The Crossmark is a fine dry condition XC racing tire, but it was giving me a little trouble when I stood up to climb.  I solved that problem by installing a still fast, yet slight bit gripper tire.

There was one more change made to the SS, but I’m not at liberty to say what it is right now.  I'll just tell you that I’m trying something out right now to see if I like it.

Let’s keep this one between us, mmmkay?

So yeah, bike shit is getting swapped around here at the B-43 Worldwide Headquarters.  One for a bike that I’m not currently riding right now due to a self-imposed hiatus and the other for a bike that is probably gonna see a major change anyway.

I confuse the shit outta myself sometimes.

Two rides to go on the geared bike, and I’m not sure if the next one will be soon.  I’m busy tonight, and after that I’ll probably save myself for some big ride I’m planning this weekend. 

I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Free Time

When I woke up da udda morning I found myself with some free time. Free time around here doesn’t mean sitting around drinking beer (okay, it does.) It was early in the morning, and I had a few things to do around my house. While I was out front, The Chili Man rolled up on his fancy new 29er and asked if I was working on “The Trail.” He meant the secret neighborhood trail I’ve been working on the last few weeks, no doubt.


I hadn’t had a chance to tell him about it, but he does read the blog. Since he lives a few houses away from me, it wasn’t hard for him to figure out where it was. He volunteered to join me for some trail work, which I was planning to do anyway. We grabbed our tools and set out for some diggin’.


This was my third week in a row out there, and things are coming along nicely. We are now on phase three (which was initially supposed to be phase two by the way.) Phase three is a long section with a slight downhill, and it was actually the first spot I saw on this piece of land that made me want to build trail there in the first place. Lunchbox and I had set aside some logs which would later turn into trail features, since I’ve had a vision of what this section should look like for quite some time now.


I cleared the corridor and flagged out some trail, and The Chili Man got busy harvesting dirt for a couple of jumps. He dug for a long time, which gave me an opportunity to cut the whole section I had been dreaming about. When I finished, I help pile the dirt over some log piles to make the jumps. The Chili Man did most of that backbreaking work, but I did contribute a little.


Here’s what we’ve done so far:





This section is pretty smooth, and it looks like you can get a lot of speed. The jump at the beginning was built on a drop off, so you get sent flying down the trail into the next jump. After that the trail winds around the outside of the property, and will eventually circle back into the middle of the property. I had to stop there, because that shit took a long time.


I’m looking forward to phase four of the build, because there is a nice valley in the middle of the woods. The plan is to wind back and forth through it, making good use of the natural elevation changes. We have a few more ideas for features, but I’ll probably hold off on building those until we get a good bit more trail cut. So far so good though.


I really appreciate the help of The Chili Man. We took a test ride out there, and he got a chance to see how much his hard work paid off. It’s really satisfying to ride a trail that you worked on, so I’m sure he’ll be back for many more workdays. Since it’s so close to where we live, I can’t see a reason why we won’t get it done soon.


In other news, George sent me a present for my birthday a while back. Well, since it showed up a few days before my birthday, I will assume that it was a present for such occasion. I am obviously Bike 29's most favorite team rider.



Tires. Yes.


This “offseason”, I thought I might need some knobbier tires for when the conditions around here get shitty. I rode the Kenda Nevegal back when I first jumped into the 29er “fad.” I found them slow and heavy, but they did grip like a monkey on a coconut tree. I decided that I would go with them again to help my “training.” Since they are a bit heavy (compared to the Slant Six I currently ride), it could help me get a little stronger over the next few months. Plus, I won’t be all sliding around in the muck when I ride in less than perfect conditions. I haven’t had a chance to put them on, so hopefully I can get to it this weekend.


Sounds like I have a lot of shit coming up, but that’s not really the case. Hell, I haven’t even mentioned actually riding my bike. I probably will, but I haven’t decided when and where just yet. I guess you’ll find out Monday.

Tires Ain’t Pretty

Sorry, I was having a flashback I guess. That guy was in a bunch of tire commercials back in my hometown years ago. Anyway, yes I’m talking about tires, and these sure are pretty. My new Kenda Slant Six tires have been put to the test, so I figured I’d talk about them a little bit.





I’m a Kenda guy, and there’s no denying it. All of the bikes in my stable are equipped with them. I’ve used the Nevegal, which is good for not so good conditions. They don’t roll so fast, but they make up for it with their grip. The Small Block 8 (which up until now was my favorite), was my “go to” tire, and I used it pretty much for everything. They rolled fast and had really good traction, as long as the trail wasn’t too muddy. I have used many other models of Kenda tires, but I’ll skip the description for those. It's better that way, trust me.


Anyway, my newest tire (the Slant Six in case you weren’t paying attention) is a good mix of the Nevegal and the Small Block 8. They are brand new to the Kenda lineup, and I must admit that I was a little hesitant to try them. George gave me the idea, but I wasn’t sure if I would like them. He’s so slick he could talk a stray dog into buying fleas, so I made sure to get some when I got my new wheels.





My first test of them was at the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek. Nothing like trying something new during a race I guess. Since the first lap was a muddy mess, they pretty much sucked. Any tire would have sucked though, but things did get better. As the trail dried up, I really had a chance to test them out. I really, really liked them. They seemed to roll just as fast as the SB8, but there was much more grip in the corners. I felt like I was stuck to the berms (in a good way) when I flew around the corners, and I never lost traction.


After the dust settled (after the race of course), I was hooked. The Slant Six is now my favorite tire, and I will stick with it from now on. They were pretty easy to set up tubeless too. I know, I had some leakage, but that was my own fault. I kind of hurried the process, and paid for it on race day. After riding for six hours, they were completely free of leaks. When I first mounted them, they aired up just fine without any sealant. Next time I’ll take it a little slower when I do the tubeless thing.


Anyway, I like them. Will they work for you? I don’t know. I’m pretty brand loyal when it comes to stuff for my bike, so trying a new Kenda product wasn’t a difficult choice. They are much better than the Small Block 8 in my opinion, and if you run them on both front and rear you should have good results. I ride like a sack of anvils, so if you are more of a finesse rider then they may even be better for you. I’m not gonna tell you to go buy them though. I like mine, and that’s all that matters. If you try them and you don’t like them, don’t come crying to me. I don’t know shit about your needs. If you give them a chance though, you just might like them. Or not. Whatever.