The Thot Plickens

Meet Daniel. Daniel bought his mountain bike back in October of last year. He's 9 years old and Sunday's wet and cold Chickasaw Trace Classic was his first ever mountain bike race.  He pre-rode the nearly 10 mile trail twice before lining up to race - for the first time.

He owned the 14 and under class from the gun. Even under the heckling of the tifosi. This kid is my hero. Impressive, most impressive. Way to go Daniel.

Chickasaw Trace Classic

Tales to follow as time allows. For now a teaser shot from JD's perspective.

Thorax XR3 1138

The week of the super moon. I thought it'd chill out a bit after last weeks big hurrah, but CDT seems to always bring about expedited days with to do lists as long as daylight. I did come away with some cool parting gifts though.

120tpi XR3 Team Issue

For being a good student and paying attention in class Tuesday night, I was gifted a set of Bontrager XR3 Team Issue tires to try out.  I had a choice and was torn between the minimalistic XR0 and the knobby XR3 I opted for the meatier knobbed tire in anticipation of this weekends potentially mucky mud race. A multi-wheelsized mtb owning co-worker grabbed the XR0 to test in a 26" size so we could swap tires later on.

A little rim adjusting was needed before starting the tubeless conversion.

I used to be a Conti tire guy until they swapped to the triangular shaped knobs and started feeling all squirmy in turns on me. Maxxis has since been my go to tire the past 2 years, the Ignitor for winter and loamier trails, Aspens for everything else (cross, gravel, xc, pisgah). I really love the Aspens. It'll be a switch riding something with big knobs. It's also saying something for the tires that I'm actually taking the time to swap out and setup another tubeless wheelset. I absolutely loathe swapping out tires, which is why I run the Aspens everywhere. Yet here I am not only swapping tires, but going through the hassle of another tubeless conversion as well. Yep, the tread pattern intrigued me that much.

Bye bye stinky cloth tape.

Weighing in at 505 grams and composed of 120tpi rubber, the XR3 comes in under the 535 (120tpi) / 570 (60tpi) 2.35 Aspen tires I have. I can't find any documentation to support it, but I believe the XR3 Team Issue utilizes their Tubeless Ready technology (ok so maybe I wasn't paying that much attention. I do know the XR0 doesn't employ TRT in order to make a super light race tire, but I'm told they seal up just fine.)

Nice open lugs should be good for shedding mud. Time will tell.

I can vouch for the ease of setup on the XR3's though. Mine setup without a hitch in mere seconds. At first I thought the profile was going to be a lot smaller than the 2.25 Aspen, which has a nice high volume casing making for a fat, cushy ride with minimal weight penalties. Though once pumped up, the XR3 2.20 casing plumped up nicely.

(Left) Aspen 2.25 fresh off the trail compared to the newly setup XR3 2.20 (Right)

We got a little bit of rain today and I'm hoping to get out tomorrow on my trail out back to test how they handle. I'm a little leary the transition from center to corner might be a bit abrupt (ala old style weirwolf tires) but I'm holding out hope they ride similar to an ignitor with better shedding power. Had I paid for these tires, I'd be pretty stoked about their new guarantee:

You'll Love Our Tires. We Guarantee It.

We’re so confident in the performance of the new Bontrager tire line that we’re backing it with a guarantee unsurpassed in the bike tire business. All Bontrager tires are unconditionally satisfaction guaranteed for 30 days from the date of purchase. If you - for any reason - don’t like your new Bontrager tire, return it (along with your original sales receipt) back to the place of purchase within 30 days of purchase date for full refund or exchange. It’s that easy.

That means I can buy, try, and be confident that if they don't ride as expected, I'm not stuck with tires that suck. I can return them for a full refund or exchange them for another set. Pretty awesome.

Speaking of awesome. I took receipt of my new Raxter Thorax a couple weeks ago. Aside from them never hearing of someone named "TeamDicky" and charging me extra for merely mentioning his name, the rack lived up to it's promises. Well for the most part.

It's not as light as the site made it seem ("feather light"), though it's not overly heavy. It's a good weight, just not the lift it easily overhead light pictured. It's also extremely well made. I'm impressed with most of the details. The trays are great. The ability to adjust bikes left or right of one another makes loading multiple bikes a breeze. I love the velcro straps in lieu of the finicky ratchet strap devices common to other brands. And it folds up easily and quickly. My bikes are safely tucked up behind the car on the road and after a week of traveling with bikes on the interstate, I still got 35.5 mpg using low grade gas.

The biggest nit I have with the Thorax comes solely from the assembly stage. Paying as much as I did for the rack, I expected it to go together extremely well. And it would have. 6 simple bolts to assemble the trays and one bolt for the folding arm mechanism. The folding arm bolt was accidentally omitted from the package which made the rack unusable until I purchased a substitute bolt from Home Depot. To their credit Raxter got me a bolt out ASAP.

The tray bolts didn't fit smoothly through the square holes and required each one to be knocked in with a hammer. Each whack threatening to strip off the threads rendering the carriage bolts useless. The holes on one side were 1-2mm off from allowing the bolt to slide through. This garnered some cursing while assembling. It wasn't that the holes were off as much as it was the tray slot was bent out a bit and once one bolt was tightened, it pulled the holes into better alignment.

At first I was angry. I'd been dreaming of owning a Raxter hitch rack for over a year and finally got a car that accepted a hitch, installed the hitch, saved up and purchased the rack. I probably had some out of wack expectations due to that. Then I thought about it and realized I'd rather have too tight a tolerance in the rack than too loose, which makes for a very sturdy rack in which it is.

All in all it came together reasonably well and I've been enjoying the rack as intended. The assembly frustrations are the only real negatives I have about the rack. Raxter customer service was easy to get in touch with and responded immediately to the missing bolt. The rack easily accommodates my road bike and mtb, as well as allowing H's bike to no longer require the use of the frustrating faus bar. No more wrestling 3 bikes onto a hanging rack strapped to the back of the car. No more worries of things rubbing against/through the carbon fork stays.Three bikes fit with ease and still allow me the use of my hatch and returned to me the use of my rear wiper. Life is good. Long live the hitch rack.

Rut Row!

JD trail side waiting on the gang.

JD and I got out for two rides in the woods this weekend. Friday was near 85 and sunny. The first really almost hot day we've had this year and JD was a little slow to adapt. He limped along on our ride barely able to trot which actually turned out for the better as all the hours of elbow greasing, lack of sleep, and lack of water this week had finally caught up to me, sapping me of energy and motivation. We enjoyed a slow pace out on the trail, spent some time chilling in the creek, then headed home early. We were cooked.

Sunday proved to be similar temps and just as sunny, but after finally getting some decent rest, JD and I were feeling more spry. Chickasaw was the destination and with the upcoming XC race next Sunday, the parking lot was a veritable potpourri of who's who in the Mid-TN mtb scene. We had a new bike owner out experiencing the woods with us on what is probably one of the best ever first time ride experiences a newby could have. Perfectly manicured trail, clear skies, perfect temps, lots of polite riders, JD the amazing technicolor dream dog, and a cast of characters in the parking lot creating the perfect post ride festival atmosphere. I think we spent as much time hanging out as we did on the trail. Taking it back old school days, eh Daniel?

The water was cool, perfect for a post ride dip and several mid-ride stops. Good for keeping the pup cool (evaporative cooling works wonders) as we wound around the trail that got me hooked on mountain biking as an adult-esque person.

Saturday felt like a blur. The doors opened at work and the next thing I know we were closing, an hour late. A good problem to have but one that set off a chain of events for the night. Adam had plans at 7 but we'd also planned on getting a short road ride in post work. No worries, we'll only be about an hour or so. Other than starting an hour late, everything went pretty smoothly, everything except for my legs.

Caution: Ruts are deeper than they appear.

Finally starting to come around after a good climb and a hard 43mph quasi-sprint dig, Adam pressed to turn right and hit another big climb. I mentioned we should do an over and back rather than follow it all the way back to the main road for the sake of daylight. We decided to see how we felt after tackling the beast. Halfway up though, we were tempted by a road that had always intrigued us. A loose dirt and gravel rutted out logging road. You know, the perfect conditions for a road bike ascent.

On the way back down Adam's wheel felt a little wonky and was rubbing the brake. He thought he had just knocked it out of true and was going to take a moment to fix it. Turns out the hub flange busted, not gonna fix that. So we decided to skip the steep climb and rapid descent for Adam's health, and limped the bike back towards the shop.

We loaded the bikes on the car and headed home, stopping in town to find a spot to grab some dinner. Then the phone rang just as we both took notice of the time: 6:45 pm. The dangers of adventure roading, broken equipment and loosing time. (Double) doh!

Well Hello There!

Hi. Do you remember me? Sorry I've been away for a while, it's been one busy week. It's nice to finally get a chance to sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee while reflecting on the past week's activities. Where shall I start? The beginning? Nah, that's too predictable. Let's start further back (How can that be!?).

The unveiling.

There's been this little shop called MOAB that's been brewing in Franklin for a while now. There have been many adversities to overcome and as we all know time stands still for no one, except for giant watch wearing Peter, whom I've been told has gotten it to sit on occasion.

Last night we had a little sneak peak shindig for the shop in conjunction with Swiftwick's Shamrock Ride. Many a late night was spent preparing the store for entertaining. Lots of elbow grease was used to make it all go as smoothly as Cancellara's bearings. Time well spent.

Cruiser.

Swiftwicks for sale.

MOOTS and MOAB by Swiftwick.

Thanks to everyone who helped get everything ready for Thursday's unveiling. It was a great crowd, fun ride, and the party went on late, late into the night (technically early morning for some of us). It's been a long time since I've seen and hung out with many of you who came out to show your support and grab some free food.  It was great to see you all again. Thanks for coming out.

In other news, I did a little event called the Death March up in the grand state of Indiana over the past weekend. I headed up with a few friends from the Buffalo Valley area.

The goal was to reach the 5 mandatory check-points and get back as fast as you could while scraping up as many time bonus check-points as possible. You chose the route. Options included pavement, gravel, and singletrack and you pretty much would hit a little bit of it all. Problem was we only had a map and not much first hand experience with the area. I had a little bit of foggy memories from 2 years ago when I did the Gravel Grovel, but racing a marked course and navigating gravel roads and singletrack in foreign lands are two completely different beasts. Especially when all contenders scattered at the gun like cockroaches in the kitchen when the lights go on.

Not quite grampa bob: His last name might not be Koerber, but you can't spell Willow without it.

Fortunately I had this guy on my team. Meet Mr. Stanley Wills. I've written tales about this giant of a man many times before. He's a legend in his own time and a hero of mine. This is the first time I've gotten to race with Stanley. Normally I'm racing against Stanley and the first time we faced off back in 2006, he beat me by 5 minutes.

The final check-point.

Stanley didn't pack his reading glasses so navigation was up to me. Others had local knowledge and insight. Some (ahem, Steven) had pre-programmed GPS contraptions. I had a map and a pin-on compass. Luckily the compass was only needed twice as once properly calibrated, Stanley was a cycling human compass. We'd turn left on a trail and Stanley would state "We're heading North." Then ask, "are we supposed to be?" To which I'd check the map and be able to quickly ascertain that although we'd not technically gone the wrong way, we had indeed gone the long way. All of which culminated in us acquiring all 10 check points in a time of 2:07.02, good enough for 22nd place out of 95 teams.

Not too shabby for a couple of old guys. Thanks Stanley.

Who's your huckleberry? Inigo Montoya?

And leaping ahead to the current rendition of the present, I finally had time to clean up the scruff and sculpt my masterface for the latest update for MarchMustacheMadness supporting Vandy's Trauma Survivors Network. If you can spare a buck, please remember to vote. Thanks.

S80

Back at the barn after a full day of adventures. 

Crunched for time, but a write up for the Sub9 Death March is in the works. In the meantime, I wanted to share a photo that I love taken with my new Nikon S80. Even at a reduced image quality it's drastically better than my previous point and shoot. Although JD is rather striking, I think it's the detail of the texture and colors captured in the barn wood that captivates me with this photo. Not bad for a snap shot.

Stretching the legs out on the gravel path.

Sunday after the DM, I enjoyed a recovery gravel ride with H. and JD after an amazing hippie commune brunch, then a bit of play time in the river, and a few laps around the trail on the horses. It was a full days fun. Welcome back CDT.

In flight.

Mid-leap.

CLEAR!

My Olympic ring. 

Warning: Before you read this post please be sure to have your defibrillators at the ready. Find a comfortable seat before reading and if you're reading this while driving, please pull over.

Well, it happened. I took a big ol' giant step into the 20th Century today. One small leap for Thad-kind, one giant I told you so from the innerwebxperts. No worries though, I'm still fully one century of technology behind the curve, but I'm slowly catching up.

See what changed my mind is that there is this old fellow named Stanley who loves to ride his bike. Stanley is a country boy and as such doesn't have much wants or needs. He told me the only thing he asked Santa Claus for this past Christmas was a set of tubeless wheels for his friend Thad. Christmas came and went without his wish being granted.

Well, Santa finally showed up today and delivered me the missing pieces. And as payment, he took 4.5 lbs off my bike!  Look out Stanley, bodock thorns be damned!!

The 5th Horseman

More fun with the camera. Above is Dish with the selective color setting on blue as you can see by the pen cap in the background. His one blue eye is a little too pale blue to get fully picked up by the filter, but it's still a good shot of the ol' curmudgeon.

JD and is new chew tug toy. The yellow filter bringing out his eyes and new collar highlights.

Dos Perros looking resplendent in blue. 

Moots Red. 

With the Sub9 Death March coming up this Saturday, I needed to get the Rigormootis into tip top shape, install a new chain, and decide upon a cog that will work for gravel, trail, and pavement. So while it hung in the stand, I couldn't help but play with the camera settings some more. The above is with the macro lens enabled, the close-up scene selected, and red color filter applied.

Pink, an ever present reminder of Jan. 

Shiny happy people filter. Is that you in the corner?

Makes you feel kinda dirty, doesn't it?

The last few rides have found my drive side bb cup coming loose enough to start creaking on me. I thought I'd fixed it, but it wiggled loose again on my last ride so I borrowed a more torquier wrench and an 8mm 3/8" drive allen for my torque wrench and pulled the torque specs from the web-o-knowlo-sphere. Hopefully things will stay snug and quiet this weekend.

Finally taking a few moments between playing with the camera, wrenching on the bike, and searching online tech pdf's to actually look at the map and course info for the Sub9 Death March has me really wishing I had a more crossier rig.  Then again, I'm really jonesing over the new RSL. That'd be the ultimate do it all bike. But with Pressfit BB30, 44mm headtube capable of running all the latest fads in fork steerers, curved down tube for better fork crown clearance, 29" wheels (egads!) that can run mtb/road/cross tires, naturally I'd have to run tubeless on such a rig as well as, gasp, hydraulic brakes. I think I'll have to do my best to hold off until 2012 because, as you all know, that's when the world ends. Surely me owning such a beast would certainly have to be a sign of the apocalypse.

So until the world ends relax in the comfort of my obstinacy and belief of the 26" wheel.

Blue

H. and Clairebear being test subjects during hippie commune breakfast. 

I finally got a new camera to replace my dead from the dirt point and shoot. The plan was just to go for the same one as it's been good, but the telescoping lens has killed the 2 I've gone through. Something (humidity, dirt, H. dropping it) happens to the opening or closing of the lens and a retarded "lens error" message comes up and the camera is useless. Otherwise it was pretty durable, took a heck of a beating, and did what I needed it to do all at a cost of $70 bucks. Not too bad.

This time we found a similar camera but without the external telescoping lens. It's still a Nikon, does everything plus a lot more than the old camera did, but cost much more. I got the "no questions asked" replacement warranty for $29.99. I should come out ahead on that one as I'll either go through 3 cameras in the warranty lifetime or having spent the money will prevent the camera from ever breaking just to spite me. Either way I'm winning.

Selective color.

Luckily I had a good test subject to try out the new tricks of the camera on this morning at our house breakfast. Who doesn't love baby photos?

Selective color on portrait setting.

Yup, road bikes on gravel. 

I should also take a moment to apologize to my mid-TN friends for calling out Canardia last time. Seems they huffed, puffed, and blew their cold-arsed Northern winds down upon us and took our 60 degree days away. Today's 36 degree and cloudy day was a slap in the face, but once out the door it wasn't too bad. The exception being the incredibly cold and strong headwind near the river, the freezing hands after stopping to put in toe warmers along the river, and the final few miles atop the ridge into the wind. Other than those moments, it was a great long day in the saddle. Exactly what I was needing.

Rapha boy and his euro styled vredesteins. 

The route was a mix of twisty ridge roads, winding valley roads, leg burning climbs, gravel, and some exploration. Parker was along for the adventure which made it even better. He's pretty chilled, laid back, and doesn't seem to turn back when I press on towards non-road bike behaviors. Such as river wading, steep loose gravel, rocky singletrack, and comments such as "this isn't on the map, but it might hook back up" while heading off into uncharted territory.

I asked Park to step into this photo to illustrate the size of the water fall (steps) but even this doesn't do justice to it.

Or when 36 miles turn into 60. Or when 2.5 hours become 4. Plus he's always there when you're short cash to pick up that emergency Snickers to help get you back home.

Testing the timing of the camera. Turns out it's pretty spot on. Only one take.

Beginning of the good gravel.

It was on this ride that I realized I do want a cross bike. The ability to ride road bike speeds with fatter tires to better commuting and gravel/dirt exploring is something lacking in my current 2 bike setup. I don't really want to add another bike to the mix, but I think a cross bike would allow me to keep doing club rides, solo training rides, and fun exporatory gravel rides all on a single bike setup.

One of the switchback turns.

So the question becomes a Psychlo-X with sliding drops or go Comooter (now available as a frameset) frame which already has sliding drops, is built for flat bars, has a stylish curved top tube, and can handle a 38c tire and fenders? Not a monster crosser, but a monster roader. That is what I'm after. For everything requiring larger than 38c tires my mountain bike will be more than capable, and probably a whole lot more fun.

The bill says it all. 

Not the way we came, but helpful none-the-less.

Youth taking the sprint.

As we made our way back towards home, we hit a stretch of greenway. After crossing the bridge above, we came upon a family out enjoying the day. Their daughter was on a bike and they encouraged her to race. She took off. We followed. Her smile and sheer joy were contagious. And as such, she won.