Oh, only in my dreams

Pisgah Monster Cross is this weekend. As tired as I am of prepping bikes for races every weekend (not to mention the every night prep at Breck Epic), the Fire Mare was even less ready for the upcoming race than I am.

I was just gonna leave the gearing on the Fire Mare with the Gates belt drive, but someone who lives way closer to the mountains who has way too much time of his hands told me that would be a terrible idea. 50X22 just wasn't going to cut it.

So, look into swapping the gear Gates style. Go much bigger in the rear, need a new belt, unless I drop the front... and everything seems to be in the neighborhood of $100 a piece.

Invest $100-300 to change gears.

All this for one race.

So, back to the chain I go.

Removing the Gates cog confirmed a theory I theorophilized when I installed it. The pulley is too thin for an aluminum free hub body (Gates doesn't know that all the popular cogs have wide bases for a reason?), and it was notched into the splines. I coaxed the pulley off, filed down the high spots on my beautiful and now notched Industry Nine hub, and installed a cog of a certain size.

And then I dug out a massive chainring from one of the blue bins and mounted it thusly.

My gearing is still tall enough to have the other single speeders shaking in their shoes... until they see me walking up 477 ten minutes into the race. Tensioning is still an issue. The Spot Rocket tensioner sucks donkey, especially how I'm using it. I'm gonna procure a Surly Tugnut tonight. That should fix that.

Expect fifteen minute rear flat tire repairs to drop into the ten minute neighborhood.

Flat tires are probably gonna happen. Even with my Larsen MiMo's jacked up to the maximum PSI, there's still a chance. I'm ready.

Not one, but two Fat 20's ready to go. One X-Mounted to the seatpost and one in the Mütherloaded with a tube. The U-lock will stay at home.

First line of defense...

One tube and a tire lever up front with a Tube Tourniquet, the fast go-to first flat repair with the X-Mounted Fat 20. After two flats, I'll be using my phone to fix the third.

Other shit?

Still running flat bars. Hopefully I'll get some nice drop bars at the Big Stampede swap meet in a couple months. Who doesn't think used carbon bars purchased from a stranger I'll never see again are a good idea?

Canti-levers. What of it? I dream of one day having a disc specific single speed cross bike, but I also dream of having fabulous Kip Winger hair.

It's good to have dreams.

By the way: There's still room, so if you wanna ride 70 miles (40 of which are gravel) and climb a bazillion feet, sign up before 9/14 at 6:00PM.