Vague Idea Racing: Duck, duck... moose?

It was time to start getting ducks in duck appropriate rows for the 2020 "season."

Tires are a duck.

I double-doubled down on the Forekasters.

Unless conditions are gonna be super dry for a less than technical race (like 6 Hours of Warrior Creek reg opens in nine days BTW), I'll run the Forekaster 2.6 up front. New to me tho is the revelation of using the Forekaster in the rear, something I'd been doing on the Vassago Meatplow V.8 recently. It's got great goobly gobs of traction and...

it comes in a tasty 2.35 size with only a 45 gram weight penalty over the 2.2, and a 100 gram weight savings under the 2.6.

So more volume and happiness and the same traction is all the buenos to me. I'm still holding on to a Rekon 2.25 (rear use) for those dry, non-technical races... that I hardly do... because I like "technical"... technically speaking.

Shoes are also a duck.

My SIDI Cape shoes are on their last legs. My oldest pair are my about-towners, what with the sole so worn that the shoe/cleat/pedal interface is whacked. I can hear my feet bouncing all over the place from the lack of contact. Yeth, these are the shoes I was wearing when I busted my ass/elbow on wet, freshly-painted concrete last week. My lesser old pair are getting me around in the Pisgah now, especially since my dog ate my other option. Dammit.

The closest thing SIDI now makes to the Cape is the Eagle 10 (I think).

So, why SIDI?

I occasionally dip my toe into other brands, but I always seem to come back to SIDI. Somehow, while other companies seem to change the "fit" of their shoes when they update them (or completely change them), every single pair of size 43 SIDI shoes I've ever owned since 1993 fit completely the same. My toes are cozy, the heel doesn't slide around when I hike-a-bike (which I do a lot), and they just flat out feel like slippers on my feet... albeit some stiff-ass slippers.

Yeth, the soles are hard and slippery, like a lot of other shoes that have plastic treads. Aside from the SIDI SRS replaceable soles that had rubber bits, almost every pair of SIDI shoes I've owned since about 1996 have been like this. They're terrible on wet marble floors at work, but as far as stream crossings and scrambling up the side of a mountain go, to use Watts's favorite descriptor of just about anything, they're "fine, just fine."

To be fair, SIDI does have some shoes that have rubber tread, but the soles aren't as stiff. I can feel the difference, and I don't like it. Also, they don't come in yellow. So there's that.

I mentioned that I got my first pair of SIDI shoes back in 1993... back when The Pie and I didn't even have enough money to call ourselves broke because there was nothing to break. I was fortunate enough to live in the hometown of mail order juggernaut Bike Nashbar back then, and when I found a pair of size 43 OG SIDI Dominators in the returns bin for $40... they were mine. Since then, I've always had a warm place in my heart for SIDI. I've strayed with so many shoes from Mavic, Shimano, Pearl, Specialized, Duegi... jeebus. I can't remember them all. I guess after riding mountain bikes since the late '80s and messengering since '96, I've gone through way more shoes than I can remember.

So yeth, another pair of SIDI and mebbe another 'nother pair to back them up, which means I won't have to think about this decision again for at least another five to six years.

"Poor people cannot afford cheap things."

Winter Shart Tarck racing starts this Sunday, and ironically none of those ducks mentioned previously matter. I don't wanna wear my new shoes in the mud for forty minutes, and the course is NOT TECHNICAL enough to warrant anything other than my shart tarck/garvel meats.