Stay fat(ish)?

The Industry Nine raffle/fundraising for the PA Interscholastic Cycling League is off to a good start...

but we're not quite there.

I'm not gonna talk about it every day, but until I hit my goal? Yeah. Pretty often. Remember, it's only $10 for two chances to win a set of Industry Nine hubs, and every $5 gets you another chance.

photo cred: Frank J Bott

All the details are in this lengthy post, fewer details and where to donate are here.  Get me to $1,500, and I'll ease up.

I realize that some people wanted to know if I ran 29" or 27.5+ wheels at the 6 Hours of Warrior  Creek.  I went with the latter.  What did I think?

Keep in mind, I ran 27.5" wheels at the 2013 Wilkesboro 100k (same area of NC) and rode them to a 3rd place finish.  I went back to 29" wheels the next year and fell back to a lackluster 6th place.

Damn.  There's Mike Mike Jarzomski behind me (one of the guys who took the top step at the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek duo SS category).  I was able to beat him that day, so is he getting faster or am I getting slower?  Once again, I'll go with the latter.

Anyways, the 27.5" tires were only 2.25 Ardents, but the 2013 experience was enough to turn me completely off from making the swap.  I got the piss beat outta me.

One thing that I noticed on both the normal 27.5 wheels/tires and the plus version was that I could take way tighter lines in the berms, going up or down.  The bigger (of the two) tire just held its line better than its smaller counterpart or my usual 29 X 2.4 front.  Normally when climbing an uphill berm with the 29er, I would crank hard using the berm to get around.  With the plus tire, I could stay inside, pedal fewer times, and exit the turn with less effort.  Nice.

All the other things I've blerhged about already were still there.  The ability to let it hang out on the wide open descents, less of a beat down from roots and braking bumps, and more float/traction in the rock gardens.

I'm really looking forward to finally getting these things to Pisgah this weekend.  This will be the make/break moment.  I've always felt that I don't care so much about how a bike rides in Charlotte if it sucks in the mountains.  If I never rode outside of the city, my bars would be lower and narrower and my stem 20mm longer... but I do leave the area sometimes, and those things would suck hard when things get steep and fast. 

We shall see.

So yeah... DONATE NOW (and don't do it anonymously if you want to be in the raffle).