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I look relieved, eh?

ps – someone emailed me the photo, not sure of the provenance… if it’s your’s, please let me know…

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Hoy cow, no burping last night…

To recount:

Last week at practice I ran: Shimano DA wheelset. Hutchinson Bulldog “tubeless ready” tires. Stan’s sealant. 35 psi…

The setup just wasn’t happening. I couldn’t get it to hold air, any major bumps or cornering and I burped air.

My next step was going to be an attempt at Fasttacking the tire to the rim, but Alex, the Shimano rep, asked me to try building up the rim bed with tape first.

OK.

Theory:

– The tire is burping off the rim hook, so if I can build up a layer of tape in the rim well, the tire bead will have a more difficult time blowing off the hook.

Process:

– Tire comes off rim, electrical tape comes out, and I wrap the rim 4 times. I run the tape right over the valve stem, and poke a hole in the tape with an awl when done. Pour in a s**t load of Stan’s and pump up.

Practice:

– so far, so good. I rolled out to practice with about 40 psi in the tires, and slowly lowered the pressure until I was right around 30 psi. No burping at all, it worked great. Conditions were super slimy, and I wasn’t hitting any big bumps in the goop, but there was a fair bit of sliding sideways and the tires were impressively solid on the rims – no squirm. Good stuff!

Stay tuned, but color me impressed. If this holds up under drier, bumpier conditions, I’m well on my way to being sold on the concept.

Next up, the “Ghetto Tubeless System.” I’m waiting for some new tires to come in, and will give it a shot when they do…

Notes:

– No Way In Hell could I have worked this without an air compressor. It took forever to bead the tires up with the tape build up, and I wouldn’t have had the patience or arm strength to do it with a hand pump.

– Marymoor cross practice in the rain is as much fun as you can have on a bike. Seriously, I think If I had to choose between the weekend races and the Wednesday practices, I would choose the practices… if the conditions were always like they were last night….

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Body language is everything, isn’t it?

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Seriously. Just buy one.

I saw 4 cracked seatposts at the cross race today, and after a friend broke a carbon handlebar, my  question about the installation torque was met with a blank stare.

Here’s a little tip to go along with the rant; if  you have a carbon seat post, make sure that the slot in your seat collar isn’t in line with the slot in your frame, to whit:

Good: Seat collar has an inner sleeve offset from the slot in the seat tube…

Bad: Slot is in line with the clamp, no distribution of force. Almost every cracked seatpost I see (and I see a lot of them!) is installed like this.

Does your bike look like the picture above? Simply flip the damn thing around… if it’s good enough for Rabobank, it’s good enough for you…

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I’ve got a fantasy that I’m going to ride well at some point this cross season… maybe I need to buy a leopard-print skin suit…

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Blecch.

I’ve been experimenting with the Hutchinson/Shimano tubeless cross setup, and so far it’s been a pretty grim travail. Alex, our fine local Shimano rep, hooked me up with a set of the new DA wheels to try out while I’m waiting for mine to come in, and I mated them up with a set of the Bulldog clinchers, and a liberal doseage of sealant.

Practice at Marymoor last wednesday. The setup is rocking. I really like the tires, the wheels are fantastic (stiff, light, bomber – what more could you want, eh?) Everything is great. Except that I’m riding at about 37 psi, and I’m getting my teeth knocked out.

I drop the psi down to just above 30, and things feel better. I roll on for a couple of laps, until I begin to notice that the rear end is getting squishy. Then things go downhill fast – “squishy” becomes “flat” the next time I go around a corner, punctuated by a loud farting sound as the tire burps air. I try again with 35 psi, and things seem OK for the rest of the night.

3 Days later:

North SeaTac Park, the site of triumphs and travails of the past. Land of the thorns. Perfect place for a tubeless tire, right?

I roll warmups at 35 rear and 30 front, and front burps air on a corner or two, so I pump it up to 35. Roll another lap, and everything seems copacetic.

Race time.

1st lap, halfway through, the rear tire is feeling low. As I go by the first time I yell to the “pit” that I will need to get a change. We’re rolling in a group of 5, and the tire is OK – just a little low – so I don’t come in for a change the next time through. The pit is on a downhill section, leading onto the fastest section of the course… so a change is gonna’ mess you up bigtime. I tell the pit that I will come in on the way back; the pit is a little less awful in that direction.

Yeah. I’m an idiot.

I lead off the road into the 1st run-up (which is pretty rideable, which I take advantage of,) and attack up it. Dale Knapp and I are off with a sizeable gap.

But now my rear tire is completely gone. Dale is cool and doesn’t attack me, but eventually he needs to ride away, and I’m dropped. We opened such a big gap that I actually manage to enter the pit with the 2nd place group, but I’m totally gassed from trying to ride the flat and the pit is super-shitty – on the wrong side and downhill, on pavement – so I lose contact when I make the change.

I’m starting to work back – on the “B” bike, which has standard Bulldog Clinchers on it – when I roll in to the runup/rideup again. The guy I’m riding with blows the 2nd step-up trying to ride it, comes to an instant complete stop, and I ride directly into a rock trying to avoid giving him a Redline enema.

Flat tire, about as far from the pit as possible.

Race over, end of story. Dale won by a mile, held the gap all the way home.

Stuff:

 – I’m not done with the tubeless experiment yet, and it wasn’t all bad. I flatted the clincher at right about the same spot as the tubeless, and there was no way I was going to ride that in. The adhesion of the tubeless tire when pretty much dead flat was impressive. I’m going to fasttack the tires to the f-in rim when I get my set of wheels and see if that helps…

– I rode 1/2 lap with a flat, and nailed I don’t know how many rocks and roots, and the DA wheels are dead true, no dings. Pretty f-in amazing. Damn fine wheels, folks.

– Miller genuine draft from a can actually tastes pretty good when it’s served up with a generous helping of dissapointment.

– Dale is back, and riding damn well. It’s an honor to race against him, and the whole scene is ineffably better when he and Anne are around.

later –

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Uh oh.

“States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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Radcup. Steilacoom. The run up from hell. Bum knee.

Lap 1. 2nd off the pavement. Feldman goes by just before the run. Reid is the only one who can go with him on the run. The race is effectively over for everyone else. I drop from 3rd to 7th or 8th by the top of the run up.

Lap 2. Work back up to 5th or so before the hill. Lose more places on the run. Knee is really bothering me.

Lap 3: 8th or 9th by the top of the run. Chase back to 5th/6th. I roll through the pits, and I’m done…

’nuff said, eh?

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http://www.mashsf.com/videos.php

Click on the “Austin – Texas” video. Great stuff, fixie kids go for a ride in Austin, and guess who shows up?

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Starcross came, went, and I was much the worse for the wear.

Opening shot was fired, and I led through the start finish on the first semi-lap. Not sure if I got the “1st lap prime,” ’cause “1st lap” is a pretty vague description. If a subscription to Cyclocross Magazine starts showing up, I guess I won, eh?

Shortly after we passed the finish line, Doug Reid came by me on the track like a bullet. He went way up track, and opened up about a 10 second gap in, well, 10 seconds. I’ve seen waaay too many people hit the deck trying that move, and no way was I going to follow.

Big Mistake.

Reid was gone, and after a couple of laps, I realized there was no way I was going to catch him by myself. I sat up a bit and waited for the 2 person “chase group” to catch me, thinking we could work together on the long flat sections and bring him back.

Whoops.

As soon as I got caught, I realized that these guys weren’t going as fast as I hoped, and that they had been chasing full gas – and the wind was out of the sails as soon as they caught me. I was in 3rd wheel when I realized this, passed into 2nd immediately, and was getting set to attack and go after Doug when I had trouble clipping in with my new pedals and newly modified shoes. 3rd wheel went around me when I bobbled the clip, crashed immediately, and took me down hard.

I got up, and I was a mess.

My bars were turned almost completely sideways, my levers were facing each other, and as I was soon to realize, I was completely entangled in the course tape.

How did I realize this?

I remount the bike after god knows how many people have passed me, get 2 turns down course, and just as I’m thinking that I need to get off and check my brakes, one of the spectators yells “Hey Matt! You’re dragging half the course with you!!”

Sure enough, not only am I dragging about 20 meters of course tape with me, but I have also pulled about 1/2 dozen snow stakes out of the ground, and they’re following me like a school of baby geese. I look like a freaking wedding car, substitute stakes for cans. Somebody paint “going backwards” on my face with shaving cream, OK?

Bike change, chase (ouch, my knee is killing me,) lather, rinse, repeat.

Finish somewhere low in the top ten (too disgusted to actually check the results.) First time off the podium in the history of this race. Bummed.

Pitting for a teammate in the womens race later in the evening, I slip during a bike exchange and realize my knee got pretty messed up in the fall. Damnit.

Turns out I dislocated my knee.

Bummed x2.

You can probably guess how the next days race went…

Notes:

– Dugast Rhinos http://cyclocrossworld.stores.yahoo.net/durhtunew.html are the bomb mud/muck/slip and slide tire of all time. I was riding on rails the whole damn race, which made the fall all the more dissapointing.

– The “B” bike had the Hutchinson Bulldog clinchers http://cyclocrossworld.stores.yahoo.net/hubucxtureti.html on, and I’ll be honest; they weren’t the Dugasts, but they were pretty damn awesome, and they cost significantly less than 1/2 what the Rhinos do. If I can ever manage to get the tubeless setup dialed, these things might just wind up being the “E” ticket…

– Don’t ever modify your shoes the day of a race. ‘Nuff said, eh?

M

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