Back in the Saddle Again

So I was totally prepared for the very involved process of changing the tires on Kermit. I had all of my Stanzing supplies at the ready. The compressor was full of air. I was ready.

And wouldn't you know it, those Bontrager tires aired right up! The beads snapped into place and sealed instantly. I was shocked.
Bontrager has developed thier own tubeless wheel system that uses a different kind of sealant, but so far, it's working with Stan's. They also have a new tire called the Dry X, which I am looking forward to getting my hands on.

To recap, I had put a bunch of new parts on this bike to get it to a more racable weight. All things being equal, a large steel bike with a steel fork is going to be heavy. I managed to get the weight down by going to a tubeless set up, which I wrote about in this post over the winter. I lost a pound, going from 24.49 to 23.53. No small feat.

Well, I replaced the Mary Bars with a low rise Easton Monkeylite. This one component change got me almost a full half pound. And the front end is so much more quiet now. Those Mary Bars, while comfortable, did little to damp any vibrations or bumps from the ground.

Then I replaced Moo I with a WTB Devo Carbon saddle. Carbon? Well, I figured on a singlespeed, I wouldn't be sitting that often, so why not get an extra 20g? Turns out, this is a VERY comfortable saddle.


And now that the big 2.55 tires are off, Kermit is a scant 22.46! And you can really tell the difference in ride. It will do just about anything you want it to, when you want it to. I don't anticipate being able to loose any more weight on this bike and still have it hold up to my abuse. I will not go the route of Ti hardware to loose grams, and while a carbon seatpost will get me almost 1/4 lb, I'm not prepared to do that.......yet.

Now, if I could only do something about taking weight off the motor...

BOOM!

Well. I had my first blow out today. We were riding out in Jericho, and had just completed a pretty technical loop, filled with all sorts of fun rock outcroppings, logs and roots. I had let some air out of the tires to get a little more "cush" and traction in the technical sections, and had no issues whatsoever.

Then we got out to a big wide open meadow, where I let it go. I guess I came into a turn pretty hard and then BANG! I blew the tire right off the rim. My thoughts are that the pressure was simply too low to be railing a high G turn, an that the large round profile of the tire was just too much and it popped right off. It happened right at the apex of the turn, and we were able to deduce what happened from all the marks I made in the ground. It's a good thing it was the rear wheel and not the front.

The good thing, is now I am forced to change the tires to the ones I am going to be racing on. I was putting it off because the conditions have been so dry, that the high volume and fast rolling characteristics of the Weirwolf LT have made riding my rigid singlespeed so much more fun. I'll be replacing them with the Bontrager Jones ACX. Still a relatively big tire, but with knobs, so that you will actually have grip in the wet and mucky. This dry stuff isn't going to be around for much longer.

Note to self, more air!

RIP9 Redux

So finally I have a few moments to recant the major overhaul on my RIP 9.
To recap, the bike weighed 29.25 set up with a Reba, an older version of the Bike 29 Royale wheelset and pedals. While the nuts and bolts of the build didn't really change that much, the two changes made were pretty significant.

Fork
I replaced the front end with a Maverick DUC 32 fork. Truly a thing to behold. Despite it's stout look, it is almost the same weight as a Reba, but it's packing another 22mm of travel in those legs. I felt like I was running out of travel with the Reba on this particular bike, so maybe this will be the ticket.
The Maverick is an inverted fork, the axle is mounted to the sliding portion of the fork, which telescopes into the uppers. The Reba has two lower legs connected by a crown, that slides up on the sliders. Because there is now lower casting and crown, the Maverick has less unsprung weight. Only the axle and sliders move, allowing it to soak up small bumps with ease. On top of that, the fork is very tunable. Things like the oil weight and oil height can be changed, along with the damping circuit shim stack. It can be pretty confusing, but one can really dial this fork in to suit their needs.
And it better, it costs $795! And then you need to buy the stem, and upper crown, and requires a proprietary 24mm axle front wheel.
Is it worth it? Well, for the ultimate in tunability, I think it very well could be. It will be a while before I can actually put it to use. The snow still lies thick up here.

Wheels
With the aforementioned need for a proprietary 24mm front hub, I needed to rebuild the front wheel.
And while I was at it, I decided that I may as well try out one of the new Stan's rims, the ZTR Flow. I made the jump to tubeless. I built a lot of the Stan's ZTR 355 rims over the last year, but they were not suitable for my weight (don't ask, let's just say I'm a clydesdale). In January, they released the ZTR Arch, which is a beefed up 355, and the wider ZTR Flow rim, suitable for heavier riders, or getting aggro on full suspension bikes.
Because tire changing will now be more complicated, I also decided to try a Kenda Nevegal tire, in anticipation of the impending soggy trail conditions. These tires, while not light, have high marks in grip and cornering ability in sloppy riding conditions.

I also ran a tiny cockpit mod, the Avid Matchmaker. It's a cool little clamp that replaces the rear clamp of one's Avid Juicy hydraulic brakes, and allows you to directly mount a SRAM X0 or X9 trigger shifter. The only real benefit of this clamp, is that it frees up a bit more space on the handlebars by removing the shifter clamp. The actual weight of everything it replaces is 18g, which is how much the Matchmaker actually weight. You can adjust the trajectory of the shifters too, which is a nice feature for those that have to have it "just so".

The final build weight now is 29.07lbs, I suspect that had I kept the Rampage (679g), the bike would be about a 1/2 lb lighter. The Nevegal weighs in at 786g.


This was not an exercise in weight reduction, rather a significant performance upgrade. I still need to crack open the Maverick and set everything up the way I want it, but all in all, I'd say I have great confidence in the new set up.

We're talking about making a road trip down south in the next few weeks. Southern New Hampshire has some trails that might be rideable within the next few weeks.