Things Cost Money and Stuff

Making changes.  Changes I shoulda made last week, but whatever.

It rained like nuts the night before last week's shart tarck, so I was comfortable leaving the Forekaster 2.6 up front.  I really like that tire...

That said, it was dumb.  What little peanut butter diarrhea mud that was on the course when I got there before 11:00AM was all packed down and yummy by 1:00PM.  Traction on the A-Line climb outta the woods was outstanding (last year it was almost always unrideable by 99% of those who dare tried).  Add to all that, since I'm a racer boi this time, I'm taking the faster clean lines as opposed to hitting the little drops, gaps, and what-nots.  No need for all the volume of a 2.6 tire, especially when the quickest lines are getting mega-railed on garvel bikes.

Time to undo what I did do before The Whole Enchilada...

Once again, I don't think I can say enough positive things about the milKit system thus far.  If you're a space-limited mechanic person who doesn't wanna muck up your tiny area with spilled tire sealant, their valve/syringe thing is perfect for clean tire swaps.  Also, the Booster 2.0 is still 100% at getting tires to set up on the first try.  Twenty pumps in the can and boom.  Considering that my compressor is outside in the laundry room, it isn't always sitting with 140PSI+ in the tank, and it seems like whenever I wanna use it, the nozzle adapter is attached to the hose... this has to be just as (if not more) speedy of an option in my situation.

So, non-EXO Rekon 2.25 up front with the Pace 2.1 (that I won at a bike race a couple years ago?) makes for an almost half pound reduction in rotating weight and (in theory) a faster rolling setup.

That and it's time to shift gears.

Not like that, da doi.

I generally run either a 32 X 18, 19, or 20.  Nothing lower or higher works for anything I like to do.  To be honest, I could probably live the rest of my days in a compromise with a 19... if I had to. 

I don't tho.

I still have a very worn out 17T Chris King cog from back when I rode a converted SS road bike at work.  It's extremely shark-toothed, so I don't know why it's anywhere but the recycling bin.  I have stamped steel 16T that I won at some bike race (many years ago?), but I don't wanna mangle my aluminum freehub body... what to do?

It dawned on me that I'm reducing the outer diameter of my rear tire a smidge, so a one tooth jump wouldn't be truly one tooth, so a 16 if I do anything at all.  Problem being, I don't wanna sink money into a sweet cog that I use for competitive shart tarcking.   It dawned on my that my beer fetcher has a limiting gear of 38X18 on 40mm tires because that's all I had, and I don't like dumping money into the beer fetcher.  I'd rather spin out at 19MPH that throw money at the problem.

But dumping money into a cog that will benefit me for a month and then last a lifetime living days its days out fetching beer?

Okay.

I also found out that the prizes for the overall series are 1st-5th, $120-$40 in bike shop gift cards, so mebbe I get some of that money back in gels or tiny hats?

Of course after I convinced myself that I wasn't wasting money on upgrading the beer fetcher, I realized that its freehub body is made of steel, so it prolly woulda handled the stamped 16T cog just fine...

Meh.

Racing for gel money this weekend (and the next three).  Lots and lots of gel money.

Assuming the new cog shows up at the shop today...