Monday, October 19, 2009

Best Weekend ever

So this week end was insanely crazy for me. Friday I worked 9-4 at the shop and immediately then headed up to Rays Indoor Mountain Bike Park. Each year CAMBA puts on a preview night where you can get into Rays a day before it actually opens and ride the park for free. If you haven't checked out Ray's you must if are a mountain biker. A lot of new features this year. The cross country loop has been given new lines to take, though it hasn't been lengthened. This should make the indoor time trials more interesting. I got to talk to Ray a little bit and he confirmed that there was going to be an indoor tt series.

The rhythm room looked amazing and the pump tracks addition to make it a complete loop was nice. The sport and expert sections stayed about the same, and the beginner rooms flow has been improved so it's a little safer when the XC loop dumps into the room. Overall, I love the changes and it was nice to be back there and see a lot of my riding friends.

Saturday I woke up early and Sara and I headed up to the "Cross your heart and hope to die" cyclocross race. Trust, me each lap as I enter the "Spiral of Death" I was hoping to do. I was worrying about the sled hill climb "Todd Hill" but it was the baseball field spiral that killed your legs and your spirit. Overall, the bike performed perfectly and my Hutchison Bulldog tired shed mud and gripped great. my one regret was the 42t chainring. I took Johnny P's advice on the size. But I forgot that my strengths and tendencies means a smaller chainring that I can spin up works better for me. My road bike uses a compact crank and my mountain uses a 40t big ring instead of the usual 44. It's just the nature of my small size. Most of the course I was wishing for a lower gear. Luckily I had an extra 39t ring laying around. So that's all ready to go.

Sunday I worked open to close at work and decided to "help" our sales for the day I picked up a new Sram Rival drive train. When I got home I cleaned and tuned Sara's cyclocross bike so I could return it to her in time for her commute to class today. Cleaned and tuned my Cyclocross bike then installed the new drivetrain on my road bike. I haven't gotten to do a true test ride yet, but I can say it was an easy install and was easily tuned. The shifting system seems ingenious and something that I could get used to and like better than Shimano shifters. Look for me to have all my bikes converted to Sram next year. Test ride tomorrow morning.

No comments:

Post a Comment