Gear Rolls In

Almost all the sponsorship goods are in the garage. It's so fun to get new gear from the sponsors. Almost like being a kid on Christmas with a mountain of new toys to play with. I just hope I represent this season and make their investment worth while.

A few weeks back Maxxis sent me a bunch of tires to satisfy my OC obsession with having the right tire for the right condition. My initial shipment included a good mix of tires for conditions from hardpack to wet and loose. I will post reviews of the various tires after I get some more time on them. This past weekend I ran an Ignitor on the front and an ADvantage on the rear. I think this is a good all-around condition setup. My only gripe is that the bead on the Ignitor is a little loose and I couldn't get it to seat in the rim with a Stan's NoTubes rim strip, which resulted in a mess of wet latex on the garage floor. So, I'm running a tube up front and Stan's in the rear for the moment until I get brave and try and do the Stan's again. I've got some Rancheros set up on the XTR wheelset for the Otter.

Spent a few hours last night getting the Enlightenment (a.k.a Stealth Bomber) dialed in. I'm going to run it this weekend with all the climbing that the Mudslinger course is going to throw at me. Plus, it will allow me to identify any issues that may be lurking before Sea Otter. As it sits now, its weighing in at ~21 el bees.

Yesterday, the brown box truck dropped off a sweet Fox F100x fork. I ran the F100x on my Enlightenment hardtail last year and liked it so much am going to put the one that arrived yesterday on the new Truth (when it FINALLY gets to Seattle). The beauty of the X line of Fox forks is the inertia valve. I call it the auto-lockout. Essentially, what the valve does is prevent the fork from compressing when there is downward force from the handlebar, i.e. no bob, and it will activate when the wheel takes an upward hit from the terrain. This technology makes out of saddle efforts during races easy because you don't waste any energy on a pogo-sticking front fork and when your in the pain cave you don't have to remember to turn on or off a manual lockout. Not to mention, that all the forks guts are machined aluminum and the stanchions are some super-stiff 32mm fattys. No flexy legs or out of spec plastic crap need apply.

Stick a fork in me...

... because I'm done.

Blue Star out