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CX world champs were yesterday. Awesome race, worth watching the whole thing if you haven't already. Van Aert even broke out a set of sweet aqua-blue 15 year old Michelin tires for the muddy conditions.
The Michelins are a bit heavy and not quite as supple as the FMB, Dugast et al, but are far more puncture resistant. I think the choice was more to avoid flats than grip on the frozen mud.
Yep, totally agree. From what I read, the tread was from an old Michelin clincher that was glued to a Dugast casing. Don't want to give away too much for those that haven't seen the race, but he got far fewer flats than other riders.
Set up for the 2017 grinder season. Belgian Waffle Ride, Crusher in the Tushar, Rebeccas Private Idaho and and a bunch of smaller local ones.
Added 45mm tubeless Light Bicycle wheelset, CX Ray/Novatec for the Hutchinson Sector 28's. XTR shadow RD with 11-40 cassette fed by SRAM uniglide 46/34 rings. Bike is so fast and versatile. Funny to be on a local mtb trail, go blazing past some mtb'ers on a climb and have them say "woah, a road bike".
Well, I'm going to Baton Rouge for at least a month and only taking the road bike which makes me kind of sad. I'm working 7-days per week so it's not like I'd have time for more adventurous stuff, so I'll be on the trainer and riding on the levees at night for training purposes. The hotels are stick chock-full of people so I had to get a hotel in a dump, going to live out of my Aroma rice-cooker for a month.
My winter rebuild isn't as SEX as that van dessel but I'm very happy with it! I started with a 36 lb 2002 mongoose dual suspension 26er from Dicks, replaced the frame with a '90s rockhopper last summer to get down to 29.4lbs. Recently added some more ebay specials: bontrager racelite wheelset, specialized crankset, FSA cartridge headset, SID world cup dual air, and Nick hooked me up with some specialized tubeless tires and appropriate Stans jiz. Now at 24.0lbs. Took her out for a shake down run yesterday and holydamn is it easy to climb now. Tires with grip! Lovelylovely.
Slowest custom build ever (unless you are on a wait list for someone who is busy).
Yesterday I finished the work needed on the rear end and broke out the finishing tools. The openings are finished and ready for bearings, the bearing seats were faced and I tossed the wheels on and put the fork in to get a photo. Im pretty happy with how it has turned out. Do you think I need a brace under the seat stay for the disc brake?
All that is left on the frame is brake hose brackets and water bottle fittings before I send it out for powder coating and heat treatment.
I mounted the rear bottom bracket to check chainring clearance to the chainstay and there is loads, even with the narrow standard crank. The measurements I took paid off. In hindsight I could have made the rear triangle shorter being that the chainring clearance is more than I had planned, but its such a long bike the chainstay length is a non-issue.
I did a shuttle route on saturday that is one of the 3 epic must do socal shuttles. It's called the Palm Canyon Epic. It's a 20 dollar shuttle ride from the bottom car dump off location which is at 350' of elevation up to the top at 4,400. It's then a 27 (and change) mile ride back to your car with 2,400' of climbing 7,000' of descending and 24 total miles of single track. Abso-*******-lutely epic day on the bike. Conditions were perfect, we caught some rain at the top and finished in 75 degree weather. This ride is full of completely natural high desert flow. It waffles back and forth from desert pump track, to technical rock gardens, to up and down single track and then finishes crusing on the tops of ridgelines and dropping down some super fun tech stuff back to the car. Unbelievably rewarding ride... I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
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