Weight a minute

I'll admit I spent more than a useful amount of time considering whether or not I should have made the 25+ pound "yet to be named Zion" more short track appropriate. Many things stood in the way, and every single one of them involved labor and time.

Fork swap - I have a rigid fork that would mount right up, but the crown races would have to be swapped, I'd have to find my 8" rotor IS standard mounting bracket and mount it, and I'd be backing out on my promise to myself to ride suspension until I'm fully recovered. I decided it would be a lot easier to just lock the fork out, so that bit of work cost me one second and saved 0 lbs 0 oz.

Bashguard removal - The reason the bike has a bashguard is because when I did the Double Dare (well half of the Double Dare) fixed I figured I would inadvertently run into a lot of shit. It's still on there since racing has been the furthest thing from my mind, but I did think about the added extra 1/4 pound of rotating weight I would be carrying around for no reason. I left it on since I woulda had to hunt all over the house for some shorter chainring bolts, take out the old bolts and bashguard and replace them with the new shorter bolts (sans bashguard), and adjust my chainline (I wouldn't want to be half-assed). In the end I left it on, 0 lbs 0 oz saved, but absolutely no time wasted except for the five minuts it took me to think of getting rid of the bashguard, playing the whole process out in my mind, and deciding against it.

Faster tires - I'm still rolling my worn out Rampage from last summer and an Ignitor I won at the Shenadoah 100 last fall. These are hardly the best tires for the job, and I have some new Crossmarks waiting in the hole. Since none of my Crossmarks have been Stans'ed I'd be starting from scratch, and if you've ever done Stan's before you know this could be a fifteen minute process or a fifteen hour endeavor. I decided to skip the tire swap and just jack up my pressure to some random higher setting. Time invested: five minutes (two minutes searching for the pump and three using it), weight saved: 0 lbs 0 oz, but morale definitely shot up an unmeasurable amount, but if I tried to measure it I would say it was this much:

Front rotor size reduction - I currently run an 8" front rotor, and I have plenty of 6" rotors laying around. It would save over 90 grams, but I'd have to remove all those rotor bolts (without stripping the heads), swap to the smaller (ahem.. again lighter) brake adapter, and realign the caliper. Yeah, that's a lot of work to save 90 grams when I didn't bother doing any of the other stuff, so 0 lbs 0 oz saved, but very little time wasted considering this an option. BTW: Looking at the rotor weights over at hayesbadassdiscbrake.com I saw that they now offer a 9" and a 5" rotor. Nine and five, what a sweet, silly contrast... like "Nine to Five" was a sweet, silly movie. Although there would be no reason to do what I'm thinking I must say it would look quite comical (just like the movie) and thus worth considering. Besides I can't stop thinking it would be a great way to pay tribute to an American icon and the eighth and ninth wonders of the world...

Dabney Coleman and his killer moustache

I did consider for a very brief moment (around two hours) the idea of getting the Thylacine in working order for a go at the short track, but the idea of mounting a rear brake, swapping out the 36T front ring, taking off the heavy Bonty front/Phil Wood fixed rear wheels and mounting up the I9's (damn it, and either swapping rotors or brake mounts), putting on the IF fork up front.... yeah, I pretty much threw in the towel after the list grew to more than two tasks.

In the end it would've never been worth all the effort. Instead of finishing slightly better than mid-pack I mighta ended up slightly better than slightly better than mid pack. With all the time I saved I sorted my sock drawer, washed the "yet to be named Zion" (had to impress my new sponsor Bolt Brothers), and applied decals to my new helmet.

I know... time well spent, right???