Parts and stuff

All the parts are Bontrager, and thats fine. I picked out a bar, stem and seatpost combo that would all lean towards efficiency. The bar I chose was the XXX riser. It weighs a heafty 50g g more than my EC70 but is wider, 580 to 630, stiffer and has more sweep, 5deg to 7deg.

For the stem I chose a XXX stem. This was the hardest decision to make due to my fit. The XXX stem comes in one angle, 17deg, where the model down the X Lite comes in two, 7deg and 17deg. The XXX stem would give me the best fit bewteen my Race Lite Big Sweep and the XXX Rizer, but was 157g vs 114g for the same effectice length. I went with the XXX based on fit and the hopes of superb stiffness and I feel that it has delivered.

For seatpost and saddle I went for the XXX post and the RXL saddle. The post was an easy choice due to its light weight compated to my Thomson, 297g vs. 170g, and its simple design.

The saddle was my only iffy choice. I really didnt want to end up switching all my saddles out and buying new ones but I bought in to try for the spring on the 29er. So far so good, I got my ass sized at the local trek store and ordered up. It has a narrower fit than my custom SLR saddles and was quite comfortable. The bikes new weight as is, is 19.15lbs
More later....

Bontrager XR1 Team Issue

I just received a pair on Team Issue XR1 tires and I thought that I should share. The tires are intended for fast courses and tubes. There are two versions of the tire, a Team Issue and a Expert issue. The both have the same tread pattern but the Team issue has a softer rubber and thinner rubber. They have a claimed weight of 565g for the expert and 510g for the Team Issue.

My tires came in at 488g and 506g which made me very happy. There is now a tire option as light as a crow but with taller knobs.

Tubeless inflation on my 355 with yellow tape was not easy. It took 80psi form my portable 10 gal air tank, removal of the valve core and a lot of time. My difficulty was based on my past experience with Bontrager tires. Normally I can get Bontrager Tubeless and non-tubless tires to inflate with a floor pump. Any one with quality air compressor should have no problems.


They are labeled as 1.9" or 48/48 but are more like a 2.0 and take on a round profile when inflated. The look small when compared to my Karmas and ACX tires.

More to come once my flu bug goes away and I get a chance to rally them.

Team Mech

Yay.

Uphill Struggle

The trails are still to snowy to ride especially with the warm weather. So (as much as I don`t like to admit it) I've been riding the cross bike on the road lately. I put a pair of 25c tires on along with a 53x16 gearing and its been pretty fun. The team has organized rides leaving from Bread at 1:00 on weekdays and at 10:00 on the weekends. The group rides are great for learning new rides and faces. While speaking of the team Crawford is no longer with us but we have two new "coaches" Rutie and Mike. We are now also classified as a "varsity" sport which hopefully will lead to better funding and maybe some scholarships.

I've been working on my cadence and low end power in prep for SSWC which by the way will be super sweet by the sounds of it. Some time here I will be making my bike in to a power transfer machine through new cranks, bars and stem. My hopes are the extra weight gained will be well worth the extra stiffness gained.

Schmidty has been brewing his own beer and it has alot of head.

Eat Shit

Horse Gulch is fun

Back From ABQ

My last few days in Albuquerque were spent on an old Specializd rockhopper riding up and down the street practicing wheelies and riding the bike path with Sarah`s neighbors. I also bought a pet rat to keep Sarah`s company while away form her sisters rat. Pictured below is Sarahs rat Olive in my smelly ass shoe, I decided to name mine Pimento to compliment Olives name.

On Sunday we went for a nice two hour ride with the neighbor kids on the bike path and through town. I was with out a road bike so the rockhopper was ridden along with a bitchen helmet that I found in her garage. It was a good bit of fun, the two little ones even through down an attack.

Cyclings future

The scenery in Albuquerque was stunning... if you like carbon copy homes and brown, but to be fair there were some very beautiful mountains to the east of town.

Downtown Albuquerque public art

ABQ

I had been planing to make a trip down to the ABQ at some point during the break. I found some cheap tickets with Greyhound bus so I bought them. I arrived in Albuquerque Yesterday around 2:00 and walked to Sarahs house with a fully packed XXL Timbuk 2 bag (like 35lbs) which took another hour. Today I went shopping with Sarah and then went for a run.. which was good.. yeah.. it was good. Albuquerque has a huge bike path system which was nice but got a little boring after the first 30 min. For my returning route I got off the bike path and on to the streets where I got a little lost after only five minutes. The area I was in had a lot of dead ends and streets changed names. But after enough running in the direction that I thought was home I found a street that I knew and found home. Very good fun other than my legs being sore from not running in a few weeks.

Beautiful Albuquerque Scenery...

Bike Path