Big Bikes

Something Out of Nothing...or Something

I made a commitment that I would write something here five days a week. Five consecutive days, Monday through Friday. This has to do partially with modeling myself, or at least my blogging habits after super-bloggers like Fatty and Dicky. To model one's self after the biggest of bike blogs would be an exercise in futility. No one who works has that much time on their hands.

This has taken me out of race reports on Mondays and vast expanses of nothingness in-between territory into proper blogger territory. Unfortunately you'll have to bear with my lapses in and out of sanity and coherence, and of course the wild fluctuations in quality. Some days reading Big Bikes will feel like visiting a comatose patient in the hospital. As opposed to "normal" days where it'll feel more like visiting a patient in the mental hospital. Or a retarded cat at the animal hospital.

I don't have time to write anything substantive and I definitely don't have time to jabber in circles about nothing until I hit upon something worth reading, so what I'm going to do is answer a couple questions from the comments on my last couple posts.

Question and Answer period:

Q: Hey Thom,

Did you ever get the Bontrager XR1's set up as tubeless?

-Steve

A: Nope, not yet. I will make another attempt though. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to pull it off. One of the other 29er Crew guys, Travis, did make it work, he has some tips over on the site. Basically he used the double rim-strip trick. This helps the bead of the tire get up in the bead hook. Soap and water helps, as does a compressor. Another thing I'll do when I'm desperate to get a tire set up tubeless is mounting the tire, particularly if it's brand new, with a tube, then letting it sit for a while. This helps it take shape and hold its form making it easier to mount tubeless.

Q: beer?

- Jeff

A: Yes. More specifically Dale's Pale Ale and its brethren Old Chub. I had my first Dale'sPale after collapsing at the finish line of SSWC08 Napa. I was sitting there, my face encrusted in dust (more so than most people's for some reason that I cannot explic) some guy who was so awesome, he made Ghandi look like a prick handed me a can of beer. "Can of beer" I thought "like Bud or PBR, only with a much cooler can" as I brought it to my dirt-caked lips. Wrong! The low expectations coupled with the delivery of the most amazing beverage I had ever sloshed onto my palette was as close to a religious experience as an Atheist such as myself can have. Remember how I said I like to approach sponsors who's products I already actually use? Probably not, anyway, I hope after the guys from Oskar Blues experience the "Big Bikes Bump" they'll come a knockin' .

Q: Where in the general metrowest area is good riding right now? I'm here for a few days on spring break and would like somewhere good to ride my bike that's not TOO muddy and snowy.

- Luke S.

A: NEMBA has a whole directory of spots on their site. Surprisingly, from what I've seen anyway, trails aren't that wet right now. A sure bet is Otis. Reuters has a great write up on How to Ride Otis. Dogtown tends to stay pretty dry, the water pools in finite areas in the low spots, and it is technical and awesome. Foxborough shouldn't be too bad, I'm headed there Thursday and I might just write about it. I hear tell that Harold Parker is clear as well.

Hope you all found that stuff helpful and informative. Thanks for stopping by.

-t