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Thursday, February 21

Meatless meat is not

Shart tarck over.  Now what?

photo cred: Supercycling
I guess it's time to make my bike less shart tarck friendly and more mountain bike capable.  The 2.25/2.1 tire combo goes back in the closet until mebbe I garvel this year.

Rekon 2.25 120TPI 3C MAXX SPEED/EXO/TR in the rear for most things I'll ever do. I've got an Aspen for less technical chunk gnar, but these will see 95%+ of the riding and making of great bike race in '19.

Rekon 2.6 120TPI MAXX TERRA/EXO/TR in the front for when it's dry. I had a flat in some super chunky gnar at the Giro d'Ville last year on this same tire, and after that, I stepped down to the 60TPI version. Heavier and more durable, but giving up that extra MAXX TERRA traction. Since there were so many people fixing flats on the same descent that day, I'm gonna go ahead and give it another try.  I shouldn't write a tire off so easily.  I had so little time on in the first go around, and I'm trusting the advice of people I consider smarter/more experienced than I.

Forekaster 2.6 120TPI 3C MAXX SPEED/EXO/TR. I had to get another one of these, as I don't wanna find myself without one in the future. Such a good tire when conditions merit the extra knobbiness.

So pretty much a tire swap, taking off the race number, and finally strapping the tube and CO2 back on the bike.  I don't shart tarck with extra weight (other than my clothespin), but I don't ride anywhere without my flat fixing stuff... except the other day when I rode away from the house and was all the way across town riding trail before I remembered that my bike was still in shart tarck mode.  Doh.

One other thing that's not important at all.  A few people noticed my GORE shorts that I wore at shart tarck (and elsewhere) the past couple weeks.  More to the point, it was comments like "Aren't those the same shorts that you already own in blue?"

"Yeth."

My GORE C5 All Mountain shorts have become my favorite go-to baggies.  I was originally stoked on the Enduro Blue™, but in an ironic manner.  I figured I'd wear them mostly whilst riding a fully turgid single speed.  Problem being, I liked them so much, I was wearing them all the time.  Just as with an ironic mustache, the long term result of it overstaying its welcome is that it is no longer ironic.  It's just a mustache.

My Enduro Blue™ shorts had become just a blue mustache.

On top of all that, I've found that the more I really dig something, the more likely it is to be discontinued when I finally getting around to replacing it.  I didn't wanna end up in that scenario, so I threw money at the problem and ordered another pair, in a very non-ironic mustache colorway.

Baggy enough to be called baggies but not baggie saggy and with plenty of ventilation and loads of ass splash protection.

Also... clothespin.

3 comments:

Not in the know said...

What's the clothespin for?

dicky said...

As my dad would say, "To make you ask questions."

Moe said...

Running the 2.25 on rear due to lack of clearance or lack of availability of the 2.4 in 120tpi?