Product Review #1: Maxxis Ignitor tires

I have ridden a mess of tires over the past 8 years. On the mountain bike side of things, Kenda, Continental, Specialized,Toiga, IRC, and WTB tires have all found their way onto my wheels. My favorite all around rubber though has to be the Maxxis Ignitor 2.1 w/ Silkworm Technology. It is my race tire and my trail tire of choice (when we have it available).

They roll fast, grip hardpack to sticky mud well, and are about the lightest thing on the market with any tread. And they are fairly puncture resistant (only two flats ever while racing them). What I am really looking forward to is trying them tubeless this summer on my XC race wheels. I currently run them around 30 psi front and rear, but from some previouse (although punctured) experience I think they will run even better around 20 psi. So if you are in the market for an all around tire for the upcoming XC season or just to ride on the local trails, check out the Ignitor: they won't let you down.

Enjoy the trails.

Ohhh to be in the 50s again... a public letter to mother nature.

Dear Mother Nature,

I began riding again last week. Put in some good miles, had some great rides, really enjoyed myself. You blessed me with some great weather over my four days off. And then I worked for three days (I look forward to these three days every week- not complaining). Following my three days of labor, you decided to have fun with me again.

You have thrown an intolerable mix of cool weather and soaking rain, two things that as a cyclist, I am ill-equipped to deal with (even with my best wool jersey and "waterproof" shell). This is so wrong. Either give me a nice two weeks of weather so I can work the kinks out and really kick some butt on the bike- or give me foul weather all the time so I can get used to it, suck it up, and be a man (or a softly crying baby depending on my mood).

Anyway, my dearest Mother Nature, please keep me in mind when you throw your next low pressure system towards Damascus. I would really just like to ride my bike in unchanging conditions for a while. No more of the false hope stuff please.

Yours (quite literally) truly,

Steve


P.S.  Oh... and thank you for making Saturday sunny with a high in the 50s.

The Benefits of a Stuck Car

When the weather turns this bad (I haven't seen temperatures above freezing in weeks) it becomes next to impossible to motivate yourself to ride. Unless of course your car is not in working order. Or is stuck in such a way that attempting to move it might cause it to fall down a 10 foot embankment.

The latter is the predicament my beloved (and hated) explorer currently rests in. Another foot to the passenger side and it will, in all likely hood, roll down into a 10 foot gully that runs up to the side of our driveway.

This has led me to bike everywhere that I need to go. And being that it keeps snowing and making traction along the side of my driveway worse, it looks like I will at least be riding to work for a week if not more. And if I am already out on a bike, why the heck should I just ride to and from town? So I will probably get some real snow riding in this week which is just one thing to be excited about.

Bringing in the New Year

Being a cyclist makes celebrating hard. You can't train as effectively after partying and eating copious amounts of food. But when the holidays (as mentioned in my previous post) come in the off season, it is hard to avoid. So with multiple Christmas dinners under my belt I arrived at my doctors office for my yearly asthma checkup. Here of course they weigh each patient. This time the scale read 162. Now when I got home (to the trailer) I weighed in at 159. It was with that in mind that I chose how to celebrate the New Year.

First I made some goals. I want to weigh 135 for Wintergreen. For the remainder of the season I would like to stick between 140 and 145. I want a top 5 at Wintergreen. And I want to win a race this year.

Second I set a start date. January 2nd (today) I will begin dieting and training to achieve my goals.

Third I set a last hoorah. This coincided with celebrating New Years Eve and so forth.

With that Jared and I set forth on a road trip. 2 hours up to pick up Jess, followed by 3 hours to Stephen's house for the festivities. Stephen's plan included food, beverages of the adult variety, and a rather large bonfire. Sounded fun to us. And boy was it. Whoever thought that Dinwhitty, VA could hold so much in store for us.

To begin with, using a little patience, a lot of old homework, questionable amounts of accelerants, two road flares, and a blow torch we started a 10 foot high by 10 foot wide pile of wood on fire. On top of this we added one and a half cords of split wood, two bags of M2000, one package of Black Cat firecrackers, a tire (on wheel) and eventually a couch. The fire kept us warm from 8 when we started it until around 3 in the morning.

At this point we headed in the house for pizzas and water to ward off the consequences that faced us in the morning. And with that, we all headed to our respective sleeping areas.

Yesterday we made it back in 5 hours and that brings me to my fourth step. I need to plan all of this dieting and training stuff out for the next few months. Yipeee.

All in all though, it looks like its going to be an amazing year.