St. George day 1

I snuck out of work a little early Friday and we headed for St. George. After arriving at Rhonda's moms house I mounted up a new Racing Ralph 2.25 up front to give it a bit of run in the desert. Saturday we relaxed in the AM enjoying coffee and bagels before heading over to the raceway for some course recon. We hooked on to a Mad Dog (plus UMB Kendra) group ride at the base of the course and started out on a lap. Rhonda and Dot took the point with me trailing behind. At the top of the first wash I had to stop and adjust the pitch of my saddle a bit. I've been experimenting with a slight bit of starboard roll on my saddle this winter to help compensate for a leg length discrepancy and I messed up the pitch a bit in doing so. After I finished adjusting my saddle I looked up the hill and the girls were long gone. I don't know what it is with girls and group rides but I figured I might as well try to catch back on. I opened it up on the hill and caught everybody else but no Dot and Rhonda. Ripped the downhill full military power thinking to myself jeeze, still no girls, damn I'm slow. Climbed the second wash, tore down the final DH and finished without running into the girls. OK, now I was truly embarrassed. I'm so slow they left on another lap without me. I headed to the car hanging my head in shame so I could deposit my long sleeves and grab some chow before heading out for another lap. As I was leaving the girls came rolling in and I'm thinking there's no way they're that fast. They weren't. Apparently the pace was so heated they took a wrong turn and I passed them as they doubled back to the course. The angry K9's had just driven down for the day to preride so they headed home and we headed out for another couple laps. We ran into Greg Larson on his way over to Zen and he burned a lap with us. After the third lap Rhonda drove back to her moms and I rode the Bearclaw Poppy war zone back. It's going to be a long time before Bearclaw recovers from the beating it received this winter. It's in such bad condition now that it's not even worth riding. Pretty much rattle your filling out bumpy. Great day, wonderful weather and a saddle time of just under 3.5 hrs

The Racing Ralph is an amazing tire. Mine was light for a high volume 29er at 540 grams. It has tons of grip set up tubeless and still rolls really fast. I've ridden SB 8's, Pythons and Nanoraptors in the 29er and this tire blows them all away.