Three is company

So despite being 25 weeks prego Ali asserted that we were going for some tandemming on Sunday. Who am I to argue with a woman like that?


We rode to Silver City, and upon realizing that there are not restaurants or stores, we rode back to Mineola to eat at the infamous "taco ride" establishment.


When we got home, it was nap time!
Good times! Even prego, her Al-ness cannot be contained!

Tires and tubes and rims, oh my!

First, the UCI is stupid. Its not like you should expect anything different, but I am just pointing this out because of their decree that no CX tire shall be greater in width than:

"1.3.018 Wheels of the bicycle may vary in diameter between 70 cm maximum and 55 cm minimum, including the tire.
For the cyclo-cross bicycle the width of the tire (MEASURED BETWEEN THE WIDEST PARTS) shall not exceed 33mm and it may not incorporate any form of spike or stud."

The average rider will gain more from wider tires than more advanced riders regardless of whether they are tubular, tubeless, or tubed clinchers. Tire volume allows a rider to utilize a wider range of tire pressures. The voluminous nature of tires is a factor of several things, but I am just going to focus on rims and tire size.

See below

On the left is a 40c Michelin Transworld sprint mounted on ZTR 355 rim(19mm wide), and on the right is the same tire mounted on a Ritchey Pro rim (17mm wide). Even a 2mm increase in rim width creates a tire that is substantially more voluminous with a broader tread profile.

Now lets look a a more realistic CX tire selection, Hutchison Bulldogs 34mm

The ZTR 355 rim is on the left, and Mavic Open Pro is on the right. Visually the results are not as stunning as with the 40c tires, but you can definitely see that the ZTR creates a tire profile that is less rounded and more boxy. This boxy profile is essential if you decide to run lower pressure (<30psi) style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">
Late edit: I am not hating on anyones wheels, I just wrote the below statement in regards to a recent velonews article that totally ignored the impact that Stans has had on CX tubeless
Road tubeless wheelsets: maybe its because I do not own a road bike, but I have never really gotten the big deal over Shimano's Ultegra(~$650) and DuraAce (~$1100) tubeless wheelsets or the Mavic Kysriums for tubeless use in CX. They are (in my mind) over priced and will never allow you to run pressures as low as I could run with a Stans ZTR rim. I do not doubt that they are awesome for road, but for the same pricepoint I could have ZTR 355's laced to Chris King Hubs (32 spokes with DT Revolutions). With the left over money (compared to DuraAce) I would buy a set of Mud tires (Michelin Mud2's) and a all around set of tires (Hutchison Bulldogs). If you already own a set for on the road, then I can see the utility of using them for CX, but buying them solely for CX doesn't make sense to me.
I actually just commissioned a new set of gravel/CX wheels. Big Poppi's is lacing me up a set of the new Stans Alpha 340 to Chris Kings. I have had the hubs for a while, but was waiting on stans to bring another round of rims out of manufacturing. The Alpha 340's are a narrower rim than the 355's so I am reserving judgement until I get to play with them.
As an aside, one of my all time favorite CX tires was the dirt cheap IRC Mythos CX Slick (I last bought a set at Capp's in Topeka for ~$30 for a pair). They were a super durable tire that lasted through CX season and gravel season. I actually won the 2008 Dirty Kanza SS on those tires. I haven't seen these tires in at least a year.
Sigh.
FYI: Big tires are not light, but neither are tubes.
Bontrager tube

Michelin Transworld Sprint 40mm

Hutch Bulldog

Omaha CX Sunday

After having been laid up this past week with grain dust induced/aggravated cold and cough I decided to forgo the 1,2,3 race and just stay where I belonged, in the 3's. After a bit of warm up I did not feel to shabby, but the faces I saw at the start line made me realize that this was gonna be a real suffer fest. As the numbers were called at the start line I realized that I had my number pinned on the left side, while the official was going to be on the right. Made a mental note to call out my # every lap.
Whistle blows and we are off. Things quickly looked grim as Kaos rider Vaugh Pierce goes off the front with Mike Miles laying down the power, giving chase. That lasted about a half mile as Miles took a pretty good digger right in front of me and Jeff Bonsall. Jeff picked up the slack, and was making tracks with me in tow.
I looked back after a lap and we had a pretty good gap on the 2nd chase group. Jeff pulled another lap, and then let me take over for a bit. I came around and might have gone 100 yards before I ran into (literally) a downed rider that had fell off the pace. He tried to extricate himself asap, but I still managed to clip him. Bonsall came around.
It was at this point that I started to realize just how much better Jeff was in the corners than I was. He was putting seconds into me in the chicane sections, as my tires were squirming about (tire pressure was way to low).

I shamelessly jacked this image from Lucas Marshall's Gallery.
I managed to catch back up to take my pull for a few laps. With 2 to go we got caught by a Powerade rider that had been chasing hard the entire race. The Powerade dude was absolutely crushing the flat open sections, and that had Jeff and I worried. Jeff decided to make a break for it.

He came around and created a gap of at least 5 seconds as he just destroyed me and the Powerade rider with his cornering skills. At this point I had given up hope on 2nd place and was just gonna try to hold on for 3rd. However, once we hit the high point of the course I saw Bonsall, and managed to make the bridge back up to him. Not really sure what happened, but I imagine that he must have went down. I managed to slip by before we started the descent back to the volleyball sand pit.
If you have ever worked around Thoroughbred race horses you have seen the wild eyed, foam flecked sprinting that makes horse racing exciting.
That was what ensued for the last half lap.
I just tried to keep it laid down, knowing that we were going to sprint at the finish. Jeff stayed right on my wheel the whole time
Sprint, we did.
Managed to hold on to 2nd place by a wheel.
Good times. Lots of smiles were had by all.

Mod managed to come back after some disappointing mechanical problems the previous day. He rode away to take the Win on Sunday.

Everyone loves a train wreck

Click Here.
This was my preride lap. gnar!

2010 KC Cup Cyclocross race

I have always been pretty wary of races that are this early in the season. Namely because there are too many roadies with huge motors that try to throw themselves under your wheel, then make up time on the straight aways. Couple this with the fact that this course was 50% singletrack and you have a recipe for some serious rage....and heat and humidity. I was stoked.

I rolled to the line in next to last place with a huge hill climb to start the race before we got into some gratuitous 180 degree turns. The first lap I don't think my HR got over 155 as I watched the lead group ride off while I jockeyed through traffic.
I had one minor incident that came from my failure to communicate with someone that I was trying to over take. I got into his back wheel, and apologized about rubbing his tires. Then I hear Chris Locke shout "Rubbing is Racing". That just about cracked me up. Then I started to slowly move forward, unaware of my position, but feeling good that I was able to bury myself on the 500 yard road section, and then just flow through the singletrack. One disconcerting thing though was that I could feel my front wheel rocking in the fork. I could see the skewer cam was not moving, but it was a little unnerving.

There was one barrier section that consisted of 2x6's that was rideable but on my preride I went over the handlebars on the third barrier so I elected to run the barriers through most of the race. With a lap and a half to go I could see a SKC racer (I think it was Joel Terry?) up ahead. I realized that I had been putting time into people the entire day, so I went to the big ring for the last road section to bridge up and make the pass as we went back into the grass. I had seen the SKC rider clear all the barriers without dismounting and I knew that he was going to come around if I dismounted and tried to run it.

As my race progressed I felt more and more comfortable clearing the logs while in my drops, so as I rolled into the barriers I figured I might as well leave it all out there. The first two barriers were smooth and fluid, but I banged my back wheel pretty good on the third. No style points. Then it was time to motor. I was really leaning through the 180's before we hit the woods, and I managed to open a bit of a gap. Focus on fluidity. Pop out of the single track, look about and see no one, roll across the line. Good enough for 4th place. Brad Sullivan emerged from retirement to take the Win in the 3's. It was really good to see Brad back out there.

i really liked how the course was laid out and how they made use of the terrain. It definitely kept the race tighter than it would have been of it was a wide open course. I liked the smaller barriers and the 10" log crossings in the singletrack sections. Probably made for some good wipeout pics though.
Keith Walberg (of Zero Traction fame) has some sweet footage

KC Cup Cyclocross, 2010 from Keith Walberg on Vimeo.

It take a while to load but it is very high quality and well edited.
Thanks to MOD for putting together all the Wed nite CX practices, I felt like I had a leg up on alot of other riders this early in the season.

Fail

This was too good not to share.

lot happens in 2 weeks

We went cruising the Blues. Waller was not feeling so hot so we had the Ladies repping it for us.

Afterward it was time to kick back with all our homies from manhappenin.

Then It was off to Wilson Lake for our third annual BGR shenanigan fest.

As usual, Tanner does all the work while Zack and waller look on.

Brutus Supervised.


Then this past weekend it was the 2nd annual River trail TT. I mean where else are you gonna find koreans in a dress cookin brats?


True Dat!

Rode Fast for about 28 minutes, but my TT skills are still pretty weak. I need to see people to actually feel like I am racing.



Then it was time for a well deserved break. Last night I put the the 40c tires on the CX bike and rode it to tranq for some "in the drops" training. I have never really been comfortable riding down in the drops , so I am trying to break some bad habits.

Today we found out that its a Boy!