Dirtydirtydirtydirtdirtdirtdirtdirt

Yeah, so, February 18th. 55 or so degrees. Makes sense, right? One warm day does not global warming make and all that. Might as well party on the way down, though, right?

A few changes on the mountain bike; testing is a never ending process. Gearing is a funny thing. We've got test/demo wheels which needed cassettes and rotors, but until the new frames come and we build them up I'm on 9 speed, so I didn't get fancy cassettes. When you have a scale, you weigh things. Whatever the heck cassette came on the bike, boy was that a way to save a coupla bones. The thing weighed 436 grams. The SLX I replaced it with is 324. The SLX is naturally a little lighter because it's 11x32 instead of 11x34, but SHEESH. The SLX is a freaking boat. Anyhow, the point was I want to replicate 36x36 gearing.

New wheels need new tires too, so I got Maxxis Ignitor 2.1s, which I've never used before but wanted to try. First impression, holy shit are they not necessarily round. Like so not round that you can easily feel the bounce when you're on the road. I've got to dig into that, because it's nuts. I ran them both "sticker on the right." It goes against logic to run them both the same way, and just looking at them you'd think the front would be better sticker to the right and the rear the other way. Once on the trail, HOLY SHIT do I like the rear tire. Nearly excessive grip. Shows you what I know about tread direction. The front I liked, maybe very much. Any time it was anywhere near the "I'm going to break loose and send you sideways into a tree" it would pretty much phone, fax, email, telegraph, smoke signal, semaphore and Morse code with a gentle invitation to please cut it the fuck out. The only thing was, maybe it was sending those signals a bit much. I'm going to try it flipped around and see where that goes.

The trails at Fountainhead are so fun it's crazy. The new Jack Rabbit is way more fun, smooth bermed flowy awesome replaces the fun but pretty much denture rattling what not of the old. Pedaling fast is at a huge premium, as are cajones and skill. Some things I miss, but all in all the joint rocks. I rode well, I was psyched. It was fun. When I ride on the trail, I get all sorts of psyched and want to go fast and pedal hard and left right left right hup hup hup hup. I get sort of like a puppy dog and just run run run run run run run run run run go go go go go go go go go. On the road, I actually really like the structure of a workout. Yin and yang. Two laps of Fountainhead is a pretty big day at the clambake, though. It left a small mark.


And I guess it's back to winter tomorrow, eh? Maybe sneak the 10am in before it gets nasty. I don't think I'm exactly going to be lighting the joint up if I do that though.