George Mallory would be proud

On Tuesday I forgot to be thankful for one more thing.

I am thankful that my left ankle held up to 8+ hours in Pisgah. The night before the race I had a dream that it was all puffy, blue'ish white, and pulsing with pain. I woke up and could feel it throbbing a bit in the cold (or maybe that was just a dream within a dream that Thad had incepted). As misshapen as it is, my ankle feels pretty solid'esque.

Speaking of Thad, why did he screw up on the wooden nickle thing at PMBAR?

Instead of reading his passport he entertained himself by digitally documenting my panic attack. Notice everybody except me (and the guy behind the camera) is looking at their passports.

Asshole.

Back when the Misfit diSSent Brontoawesomeous Meatplow V.5 was first drawn up I noticed a certain coincidence. I haven't had a chance to act on said coincidence until Tuesday morning when I woke up way too early in the morning.

Although the Superbeast has remained on the wall while I got the new bike dialed in, and I'm dying to get it back to the mountains, I still had one prudent matter of discovery to explore.

The 120mm Reba XX mounted right up to the Misfit diSSent Brontoawesmeous Meatplow V.5 without the use of any spacers. Sagged, the front end is aboot (it's a Canadian bike, all measurements are aboot) 25mm taller. I flipped the stem back over and enough said.

Why bother?

Firstly, because it's there.

Secondly...

Dough and Grig, first and second to my third at last year's Trans-Sylvania Epic, both ran squish up front in 2010. It's kinda hard to see Grig's fork since he's laying on the ground. Anyways, TSE is the kinda race where a squishy fork makes a whole lotta sense. Tons of embedded rock, or as Peter called them "ill shaped fuck face rocks" all over the place. Most of the descents aren't high speed skip-across-the-rocks fare, but middle speed rock fields that suck the momentum out of a rigidly equipped bike.

Since the fork fit on the bike, I have to try it. I will probably not like it, as it goes against the marrow of my being to race it at TSE. It's just that the competitive urge is rising in me, and I know I'm bringing a peeled banana to a gun fight if I stay rigid. The problem is that I need to get a good ride on it before TSE, and we're looking at rain this weekend. I'd hate to think I wasted my time putting the fork on, but I've wasted my time in worse ways, so whatever.

Look for a full report on Monday... or not.

Bored?

Really bored?

My profile is up today as a Genuine Innovations sponsored "athlete."

That's me in three paragraphs with a little Forrest Gump "When I was in China on the All-American Ping Pong team, I just loved playing ping-pong with my Flexolite ping pong paddle" style quote in it.

Did you know I wrote for Dirt Rag? The next issue contains my opus, so you best fill out the virtual subscription card ASAP.