That is the plan, as of now. There have been moments of regret and shame, and I'm sure if I sit still long enough to think it all the way through, I'll change my mind.
I have done the Shenandoah 100 every year since 2006. I've done it fixed and rigid and just plain rigid. I've had some fairly decent results and some poor ones as well. I feel like it's time to do something different. This is not being done as a performance enhancement strategy. I have no delusional aspirations of challenging Gerry "The Pflug" Pflug.
BTW: I am tired of certain cycling related sites referring The Pflug as the "Pfluginator." I'm sorry, but the use of "____ -(insert vowel here)-nator" jumped the shark when the movie American Pie introduced us to a character called "Shermanator."
Are you saying "The Pflug" has anything in common with that guy, other than a smashing sense of style? Of course not. The Pflug sounds like a great name for a WWF superstar or a Scandinavian mafia hit man.
Lars: Hey boss, Nils and his crew have been shorting the till again.
Scandinavian mafia boss: Really? Call in The Pflug. Tell him to clean höuse.
Back to the fjörk.
Since no one wanted to buy the fucking thing, I'm stuck with it. By putting it on my bike, I added well over 2lbs to my race rig. I realized that I could lose two pounds from my body quite easily, but then I had another idea. Before adding the suspended part to my bike I had a bike to body weight ratio @ 1lb : 6.5lbs. If I wanted to adapt to the heavier bike, it might make more sense to increase my body weight to keep the ratio the same. I was a few pounds into carrying out my plan until I actually did the math and figured out I needed to gain something like 16.32lbs. Without the aid of 20 packs of Imodium AD or a cross gender case of PMS I was never gonna make it. I decided to bail on the plan and just remove my bike computer to attain some kind of weight savings.
Odd thing about this fjörk? I am at the very low end of the 140-160lb rider range (in riding gear), I run the highest suggested air pressure for said weight range (90-105PSI), and I still easily blow through all the travel. To be clear, I weigh less than 140 and I've been running 105PSI. I have adjusted my adjustments to deal with this situation. I will not have time to test it.
I am aware of the fact that I should be able to swap the 2.35 Rampage front tire to something in the 600 gram range, saving 1/4lb or so, but I just can't imagine doing it. If I'm running a fjörk, it is for maximum funnage on the descents, and that's where the Rampage excels.
Plus the swap would require effort, and more so if I choose to bail on the fjörk and go back to rigid at the last minute.
I had recently had some issues with launching bottles. Realizing what I had changed before the problems started, I changed them back.
No wiggle room for the back bottle means no more launched back bottle. I had moved the front cage up to keep the bottle from rubbing the back cage which was the causation of my bottle launchation.
So the big question is, will I be able to keep the rigid fork off until I leave for Stokesville on Saturday?
I keep hearing Ramponi's voice in my head saying, "Hahd in the front yahd."
That evil harpie.
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I am also at the low end of that weight range and ended up with 90+ / 80- in my Reba, which seemed to perform well.
I've heard a formula for it...hm, 60% of ready to ride weight for the + then subtract 10 for the -. Or you could just skip all the math and put the carbon back on.
Is it just "ator" that has jumped the shark or "izer" still okay to add to the end of a name?
"ator," "izer" both done with. Omlattes are umlauts are whät all the hipsters are using. Well, hipsters, Germans, Swedes...
BTW- 140 lbs? Dear God man, have a cookie. I think my morning evac was 140 pounds.
What is it about this event? For the first time in my life, I'm obsessing about tire choice for a race -- causing night sweats, heart palpitations, full-on anxiety attacks. And yeah, I may change too before this weekend.
And as for "recommended psi" on RockShox forks: Even the guys at SRAM say they're bunk. Air it up, put a twist-tie on the fork leg, sit on the bike to get sag, and measure. Start about 20% of travel (if you're at 100mm, that would be 20mm, btw) and you should be good. I run 110/105 and I weigh 175+ all geared up. (5psi lower in the negative gives you good small-bump compliance).
But don't take my word for it, I don't work there anymore.
The sag is correct according to that little guide on the stanchion.
Perhaps I need to stop gnar.
1) Your tire pressure is incorrect for a suspension fork you need to figure that out.
2) Having your bottle cages that close together will cause a friction hole in both bottles leaving you waterless.
3) The distraction of the squishy bit will make it impossible for you to pay attention to eating and drinking, causing a bonk of mammoth proportions.
4) Having the squishy bit slowing you down will make it impossible for you to keep up in the first road section, leading to you being stuck with the walkers on the first singletrack.
5) The squishy bit will fail and you won't be carrying a shock pump, so you'll end up riding two hours with a fully compressed fork and jack your hands all up from the lower position.
Does that help?
Why would having your bottle rubbing cause premature ejection!?
The lack of contact caused the ejection. With the bottle shoved against the cage, it can't open enough to let the bottle out.
It's not that nobody wants to buy your fjucking fjork, it's just that a number of us are engaged in a high-stakes waiting game, knowing that the psychic pressure of lugging that black-n-red devil spawn thing around will be too much for you eventually, knowing that you're going plead with us to get it out of your sight, and offer up some awesome (if undersized) shirts to make it happen NOW! You'll crack when the certain knowledge that the Swedish Pflug is coming to repossess the faux-Scandanavian diphthong "fj" becomes unbearable. We're waiting.
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