I'm not very good at cross.....

But who cares, it's so damn fun! Arrived at Wheeler nice and early which worked out well because after riding for 5 minutes I realized I didn't bring enough clothes. Ran home to grab tights and warmer gloves, got in a warm up lap and lined up with 65 other souls in my category. No, this wasn't a race in the northwest, Utah CX is just that big now. Started out around 20th or so, passed a few people, got passed by a few people, pulled about 8 people down the road sections each of the first two laps and finished mid-pack. Compared to others I seem to be faster on the straights and road sections and much slower in the twisty stuff. Strange since I'm a MTB guy but I waste a lot of time dodging trees with my large frame in the narrow singletrack. I bet I would be faster on my MTB, even with the paved and road sections but the point is to get faster and gain skills not to try to beat 10 more people in a C race. The Wheeler course set up was sweet, many props to Matt and Joe for building such awesome courses week after week.

I kept my front wheel tubeless but went with a Stans'd tube in the rear at about 60lbs. Just got sick of the rear tire burping. My back was hurting by the last lap but both tires held air and rear traction didn't seem to suffer too much.

Rhonda started out slow (she hasn't been on the bike much lately either) but built up to normal speed by the last couple laps. Sucked a few wheels (she's learning), held off Melissa and passed TC at the very end for 14th out of 30 starters (the women's fields are getting huge as well).

Tomorrow we're hitting Cutthroat cross which will be our final race of the season. Time to start thinking about next season..... Desert Rampage is less than four months away!

Double X weekend

Wheeler tomorrow, Cutthroat Sunday and then we have to throw in the towel for the rest of the season. We'll be out of town for the last two races and I can't get to Ogden in time for the AM scrub races next weekend. Home improvement projects have temporarily taken over my free time so I've only ridden once in the last two weeks. That means I should be peaking tomorrow right?

Road Tubeless Review

After a full summer of riding Stan's road tubeless system I'm pretty impressed. Rough and chipsealed roads feel almost as smooth as fresh blacktop and the tires are very grippy while cornering. I used to be a 6-7 flats a year type of guy and had to run 120lbs to avoid pinch flats but with this setup flats of any kind have been non-existent. Railroad tracks, huge potholes, no worries. I originally has these setup on a normal rim with spoke holes and I had some trouble sealing the spoke holes with the yellow tape but since I switched over to Ksyriums mid summer the setup had been bullet proof. They lose almost no air between rides. I would recommend this setup for anybody but if you have Ksyriums or a similar sealed rim it can't be beat.

Why Lance is still cool.

29'er hard tail and hairy legs.

(also note the soon to be available Stan's ZTR Race 29er wheelset)

The Elixer of the Gods

This ferocious lion guards my Mexi-Coke 24-7

Obama skis victory lap

Yesterday at "the bird".

Two starts, no finishes

Saturday Rhonda felt like sleeping in so I headed to RMR by myself. I almost called her after doing a warmup lap to have her run my MTB over, I just had this feeling that I might need it but I decided not to bother her. One lap in I hit a bad part of the last downhill whoop-de-doo, launched off the lip and landed dead on my rear wheel. Burp, tubeless tire blown, wheel way out of true, no backup anything, race over.

Repaired my bike and headed to Wheeler Sunday AM. First lap tried to make a wide pass on a corner into a cement pad. Caught the edge of the pad square on my read wheel. Burp, lost about half my pressure (in all fairness had I been tubed it would have been a pinch flat). I rode three more laps on real low pressure but finally with 2 laps to go the bead buckled on a sharp corner and I lost most of the rest of my air. For some reason I never even considered stopping in the pit the 5-6 times I went past it to top off the tire until Ken mentioned it to me after I withdrew. I guess I just don't yet have the fix your bike in the middle of the race mindset. Next step will be to try a Stans'd tube in the rear and see how that goes. Cross is fun but this is getting frustrating.