This Wednesday (8/27/08)

The Titus Demo Truck will be rolling thru town this week.  This Wed we will be setting up the demo at the 360 Entrance to the Greenbelt.  More details below!

TITUS DEMO INFO:

This Wednesday 8/27/08
BCGB 360 Entrance parking lot
2pm to 7pm

Come join us for some fun on same great riding bikes!

Feel free to email me or contact me at the shop.  You can also find more info in our forum.
Thanks,
CJB
cody AT hammerheadbikes.com
512-331-2002

A mode of transportation, a freedom from life, and a direct road to a place where I don’t have to look back, that’s what my bike gives to me. I choose steel because I need to feel the trail without becoming one with it. I choose one gear because I don’t want to have to worry about anything else when pedaling. Just turn the pedals.
I am a cyclist.
A click of the pedals, a turn of the cranks, my adventure begins. I turn my I-pod up, not because I like the song, but because I hate hearing the traffic. When I reach my destination after passing the afternoon commuters I turn it back down. Not because I don’t like the song, but because I love the silence of the trail.
I am a cyclist.
I prefer to ride alone. The challenge of a technical trail when nobody is watching is my most desired object. The danger of solidarity doesn’t faze me. I choose to challenge my technical abilities not by my peer’s assessment, but by my own standards. I know whom I am when nobody is watching.
I am a cyclist.
It’s sad at times how the larger wheels give me such an advantage. They make me ride better than I am. That’s the way it goes. In my world you run what you brung and if you can’t handle your choice then you’ll have plenty of time to think about it as you’re huffing your bike through the trail. You prepare for each ride as if it has been 2 weeks since your last ride.
You are a cyclist.
I choose to forgo the suspension of today. My body is my suspension. Kenda is my suspension. A custom steel fork is my suspension. I may ride a little slower on the downhills. I have to choose my lines a little bit more carefully when the terrain tilts down. I don’t mind taking my time though. It gives me a chance to slow down. I might even stop. Sometimes I need to stop because I have to let my surroundings truly sink in to my core.
Without this I would not be a cyclist.

Sherpaxc

For a long time there was Kenda…

Somewhere about 2003 I started riding Kenda tires, found various ones to work great for different things, and haven’t had much of a reason to switch brands.

This year it occurred to me that technology marches ever forward, so in March I decided that when I needed new tires I was going to branch out and try some other likely candidates for a while.

Since I ride 300-600 miles a month, 85-95% off road, between mileage and trail damage I go through tires quickly enough that even if I don’t like one (set) much, it won’t last long enough to worry.

… and then there was Wilderness Trail Bikes …

Back in March I started this with the WTB Prowler SS and Prowler MX tires, which I posted about on the MTBR Forums. The short of it on them was nice sticky surprisingly fast rolling but fast wearing and heavy tires. Worked well tubeless with a Stan’s conversion on DT 5.1d rims. Please hit the thread link for more info, pics, etc.

In late April I switched out to the WTB WierWolf LT 2.55 as the Prowler’s were thrashed. These had more air volume, and marginally faster tread, but didn’t have that “Je ne sai quoi” that made me want to keep them on my main ride. They got about three weeks of use and have been moved down to my hard-tail bike. They seem to be a good use there, with the large air volume they almost make up for the obscenely stiff frame that is the Fetish Fixation.

… and next up was Maxxis …

Which brings us almost back to the present, the next tires to go onto the Quasi were the Maxxis ADvantage 2.4 MaxxPro.

This is a single-compound rubber tire using the 60a MaxxPro compound. This is supposed to be a tackier more-grippy rubber with better wear characteristics than the most grippy “super tacky” compound.

According to the Maxxis page the tire weighs in at 1.83 pounds (or 830g), and while I have not weighed them I have no reason to disbelieve the rating. The tires that I’ve run the most over the last five or so years have been the Kenda Nevegal 2.5, which weigh in about 2 pounds (899g according to Kenda), and the ADvantage 2.4 feels the same to me both on and off the bike.

The ADvantage was also basically the same width as the Nevegal 2.5 - coming in around 55mm wide at the tread, mounted on a DT 5.1d rim.

Surprisingly, the ADvantage was noticably taller - leaving much less room to the arch of my fork lowers and to my frame’s rear triangle. There was no “rub” though, except when my rear suspension was at full compression - when the tire would rub against my front derailleur. Took me a while to trace down that sound, this was the first tire I’ve run that has done that!

If you use a bike computer, be sure to do a roll-out check on these tires to keep it calibrated properly, they are not your usual 2.4″ tires!

The Ride

The tire mostly lived up the the marketing blurb on the web, it was definitely a faster roller than the Nevegal, the straight-up traction for both acceleration and braking were fabulous. The hard-over cornering also worked well, the thick shoulder knobs holding up well to speed and an almost-clydesdale rider.

The tire traction did fall short in one area though. If you look at the tread design you can clearly see there is a transitional area where the amount of rubber hitting the trail decreases as you lean partially over. When the tire was running in this area it would easily slide laterally, or drift, through turns. Coming from the high traction tires that preceeded it this gave me a few startling moments as I adapted. The good part of this drift is that both front and rear tires seemed to drift equally, and as I ended up leaning more on the tire as it drifted it would come over onto the shoulder knobs and bite again.

In the end I figured out how to make this a fun part of the sport, controlling the drift, even though I’m sure it did nothing to decrease tire wear. Swish-swoosh through the twisty-turny-flats as it were.

I further found that if I applied a skill from Alpine Skiing that I could further control the tires and maintain more momentum through turns - specifically by “setting the edge” so that I could “carve the turn.” Basically, I would use a little body english to flick the bike a bit more as I entered the turn, dropping my center of mass down and leaning the bike over a bit more, forcing the transition knobs to give way quickly and put the contact mostly onto the shoulders. Then roll on the edges through the turn.

With the large casing, large air volume, deep tread, and tacky rubber, the tire held a good line in a huge variety of trail conditions.

Everything from dry-over-hardpack (such as the ever dusty Walnut Creek park trails), to loose-soft-off-camber (such as Thumper), to hard-edge rockiness (City Park trail with its endless limestone ledges), to the smörgåsbord that is the Barton Creek Greenbelt trail network, the tires did not disappoint.

I was not able to evaluate them for wet conditions handling though, we have not had enough rain this summer to keep any trails wet enough to ride in that condition - the few that can be ridden wet.

How does it Wear?

I put a pair of these on my Quasi around the middle of June.

Unsurprisingly for a softer compound tire, it wears pretty quickly as a rear tire.

As in noticably quickly.

More quickly than the Nevegal 2.5 Stick-E folding tires I’d been running for years.

As in four weeks quickly, find a new tire, today!

By the middle of July the rear tire was starting to look pretty thrashed, so I got a new one for the shelf so that I could switch it out “RSN.”

The center line tread blocks were about half gone, which is okay, but what was starting to get into my “trade it out” zone was that the shoulder knobs that I was relying so much upon for cornering and off-camber trail holding were starting to scallop-out on the inside, folding away when needed, and letting go. That’s just a drag in my book, so while it wasn’t QUITE gone it was obviously really close to time to swap it out.

The front tire was wearing reasonably well, so I figured the normal ratio of 2:1 rear tires would be about right, and I’d be riding the ADvantage through or at least into August.

The sidewalls of the tires held up well. Lots of limestone rocks of various types have been hammered, lots of general trail crud. Lots of embedded limestone to hit the sidewalls. Fair amounts of crashing (I like to keep in practice). The wide tread design of the tires does a good job of protecting the sidewall, even with the slightly-narrow-for-the-tire rims the sidewalls did not balloon out beyond the tread.

The tires took to being used tubeless (DT 5.1d rim, Stan’s rubber strip, 1 thin Velox strip over the spokes) very easily. They mounted up easily, I set the bead with some compressed air, and topped them off with the floor pump. No worries. I doubt that I could have done it all with a floor pump though as the bead was just too loose over the rim strip for that to work. I could have probably built up another layer of Velox under the rim strip, and that probably would have made it floor-pump worthy. It also would probably have made it a PITA to mount/dismount the tires.

Final (?) Word

In the end what do I have to say about them?

Well, I liked them, but I didn’t love them.

If I needed big tires and they were the only ones available I’d be just fine riding them, but they’re NOT on the top of my list to purchase again.

They’re heavier tires so only people that are accustomed to rolling with bigger meats should bother playing with them. If you are accustomed to running 2.2-2.35-ish tires from most manufacturers do *NOT* consider these in the same classification. These compare more to the 2.5 crowd like the bigger Kenda and WTB tires.

Did I mention they are really tall? Consider test-fitting before purchase unless you have a big bike. Like a bike designed to handle 3″ tires.

Of the “big meat” classification I think they’re faster rolling than most, and the only tradeoff they make you take is the transitional drifting.

If you were riding places that were mostly bermed this would be a non-factor.

If Maxxis made the transitional area more knob-filled slightly, or
maybe took the angle-siped knobs and made them more robust, it may
handle that transition more evenly. Of course, they also may behave
exactly like the designers want them to.

I’ve never done it, but I’m betting that these would be great tires for riding places like Whistler Mountain Resort (think A Line) where the trail is highly sculpted. Likewise I’d expect them to do well at slow speed technical trails, nice and grabby for both acceleration and braking seem to work well here.

I would NOT bother riding them some place like Moab, or much of the sandstone terrain in Arizona similar to what I’ve sampled. They’d work well enough there, and their sizable tread would do a good job of protecting the sidewalls from rock cuts and cactus spines, but the wear rate would be high.

I won’t be going through a play by play of the race. I think that would be redundant. I will say that with out a doubt it was harder than I ever could have imagined. I trained HARD for a year and was amazed at how tough the CTR was. Could I have made it if my knee’s didn’t give out? Who knows really. The statistics say probably not. Look how many others dropped out.  Still I tried though.

I’ve gone over and over in my head things I could have done differently. I do think I’m going to change up my gear for “race mode” as compared to touring mode or just out for fun mode. Next time I do a multi day race I’m going to use a bivy bag and if I can afford it, a lighter weight sleeping bag. If I’m out for fun or touring I’m sticking with the hammock. The reason for the bivy you ask? I figure, I’m so damn tired I could pretty much fall asleep anyway/anywhere, might as well make it easier on my self to set up and crawl in. I’m also looking for that all important balance between lightweight gear so I can go faster as well as having some sort of comfort. I won’t be carrying as much on my back. I can load it up if it’s just for a couple days, but after that the shoulder fatigue on me just gets unbearable. I’m going with a smaller pack and I’m going to put most all of the weight on the bicycle. Right now I’m testing out a Wingnut pack. So far so good. I’ll update more on that later.

The biggest change of all for me will be that IF I go back, I’ll be on a geared bike. I don’t know what bike I’ll be on, I know what bike I want to be on. (ahem, hint hint, cough cough) One thing is for sure though, I don’t want to go through what I went through up there again. Hey, if I can’t handle using one gear fully loaded for day’s on end that’s fine with me. I’m there to ride a bike and have some fun, not ruin my knees just because I’m trying to prove that I’m a cool singlespeed rider. I know I’m a dork. Have you seen some of my pictures on Picassa? I have no shame. Really, I don’t.

So what to do from here? Well, for the next month my goal is to ride as much as possible with other people and not by myself. I’m tired of being out there for hours on end by myself. Even if that means riding with people who don’t necessarily go the same speed, I’m there to have a good time. My agenda is to not have an agenda. I’ll loose a little fitness, but who cares. I just want to have some fun. In October I want to go on a bikepacking trip in Arkansas and do a couple hundred miles on a long weekend. I also want to put together the Enchilda Buffet that Cody and I have talked about doing for so long. I’ll talk more about that later.

I’m sorry I didn’t post up a ride review or anything like that soon after the race. It was a REALLY tough time I was going through. I cried several times, once like a baby who didn’t get it’s way. I was very ashamed. Calling Cody and telling him I was out was one of the toughest parts. He and I talked for so long about it and had such high expectations and to be slammed down like that and to tell him I was out was super tough. Knowing my name had a line through it on the leaderboard, and having to call mtbcast.com and leave a message was another toughy.

Ok, enough rambling. So many thoughts and way to many words. I’ll update you all on my adventures this fall. I’ve got one or 2 I’m keeping close to my chest for now. I’m not sure if they’ll happen. If they do awesome. If they don’t, you’ll never know! I will also keep you updated on some of my gear choices as well as things that I’m testing. It’s in my opinion the funnest thing, testing different gear. I love to play with stuff.

Thanks for reading,

Sherpaxc

My mother had this to say about me, when discussing my riding with my wife …

When Ted was about 4 we had to get him his own bike, he kept taking his older sister’s and that just would not do. A short time after we got back from the store he came in asking to have the training wheels taken off. Since the bike was so new, neither myself nor his father would take them off. He was not to be deterred apparently, as not an hour later as I was washing dishes, I look out the window to see little Ted pedaling his new bicycle that no longer had training wheels on it off the work platform where we used to work on farm equipment when I was young! Rolling straight off the 3′ drop, landing, and continuing to pedal his way to the neighbor’s house.

… so you can see, me and bikes and playing in dirt starts a long time ago. Couple that with a boyhood hero of Evil Knievil and you have a predictable chain of events coming. I was rolling up and dropping off every dirt mound and plank-set-on-bricks that could put air under my tires. Getting lost in the woods. Making maps of where I was (from memory). Generally being a PITA to my parents.

This also started the litany of broken bike parts. The Schwinn Sting-Ray that I broke so many times in the 60’s and 70’s the dealer started keeping a spare frame on hand for me. The road bikes and euro-trail-bikes that I slaughtered in the 80’s while in the Army stationed in Germany. The Cannondale hardtail’s that predicatably cracked about every two years for me in the ’90s. Culminating with the ‘02 Specialized Enduro that I repeatedly destroyed while happily bouncing along the rocks of Central Texas, New Mexico, and Utah.I stopped counting the number of spokes, rims, and miscellaneous stuff I have trashed.

Fast forward to 1999 and my move to Austin Texas, where I “rediscovered” off road cycling in a new fashion, focusing on the “chunky bump and grind” of the limestone infested terrain. Ledge climbs and drops. Embedded limestone “cheesegrater” style. Many an OTB. This was soon followed up with the Navajo sandstone of Utah, and related terrain in New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona. All this collectively has really “upped” my game as it were, and I could hardly be a happier cyclist.

Through all this my primary love of off road cycling has been long-ish rides (although they do seem to be getting longer and longer in both time and space…) over varied terrain, I have also found entertainment value in the occaissional race. Races are definitely for a giggle, because who would ever “race” a 35 pound full-suspension bike without either lockout or a big-ring?

*cough* - ok - well I would. As Cody pointed out, I’m “different.”

But racing will never be my primary driver.

Seeing new and cool places, discovering strange and wondrous people, sharing good times far away from pixel projection devices.

Challenging myself in what and where I can do on a bicycle.

Cleaning that seemingly impassible obstacle.

Playing with the cool, functional, and beautiful toys that bicycles are.

Encouraging others to enjoy, and grow in their abilities.

Charging my solar batteries.

Those are the things that drive me.

I’m in the worst shape I’ve been in 15 years.  Give or take.  I mean, who remembers how fit they were at 19?  But, I’m pretty sure that even in first year of university I was more fit than I am now.  Which is crazy, since two summers ago I was as fit as I’d ever been in my life.  But some things have happened since then.  Her name is Kate and she’s 11 months old.

I stayed in shape through the pregnancy, but since then it’s been really hard.  Now that the one year mark is approaching, my adventure racing teammates are expecting me back.  And I really want to start racing again.  So, I’ve given myself a firm date of late January and a local 24 hour adventure race.  It was the last race I did (at 8 weeks pregnant) and it will be exactly two years away from racing.

Since I’ve never been so out of shape, I don’t know how it’s going to be getting back to race shape.  I can tell you it’s hard to get started.  I said August 1st, but here it is the 3rd, and I’m just now making the declaration. And I went to the gym today.  Have you noticed that it’s hot out there?  Bleh.  Not terribly motivating.

I’m going to be posting the adventure that is my return to fitness and racing. I can’t promise it will be totally gripping, but I’ll try to make it a bit more interesting that simply reporting on my workout for the day and the current aches and pains.

I hope you’ll read along. It will keep me motivated.