Monday- Haw
Tuesday – Dirt jump and pump track
Wednesday – off
Thursday – Haw
Friday – off
Saturday – Tanasi
Sunday – Windrock

It seems that we take for granted how great we have it. Would you imagine packing 6 grown men in a F-150 super cab and driving 10 hours to spend a weekend of riding in E. Tenn? Well Toby, Hater, Scuba, Girl Matt, Little Matt, and Cannondale Tim think we have it pretty good and I agree. Thes guys have been coming up here for a few years now and ever since Loo has moved up here they have been coming fairly regularly. Scuba and Hater were just here back in February. Anyway after arriving at 5:00 am on Saturday morning they were up around 10 ready to ride. Scuba, Little Matt, and Tim wanted to ride some good XC, so I took them to Tanasi. Toby, Girl Matt and Hater hooked up with Loo and rode Windrock. The weather this weekend sucked, but we all made the best of it and had a great time.

Tanasi was wet. We had plans to ride Brush Creek and Thunderrock Express, but by the time we finished riding Brush Creek in the pouring rain, the entire way, we were a little too cold to continue. So we packed up and headed back. I think it was a little too far to drive for roughly 9 miles for good singletrack, but they really enjoyed it.

Sunday, the XC crew headed off to Norris while the DH crew stayed at Windrock. I stuck around and DHed in cloudy and muddy conditions. Wasn’t the best day on the bike for me, but the company was good and I enjoyed myself.

Earlier in the week, Meghann had the idea to drop Japser off with my mom so that we could ride XC together. I met Ben at Haw right after work and got in a quick paced lap before Meghann showed up around 6:15. We really enjoyed ourselves. I hope to make more time for activities like this without Japser again. I took Friday off from riding to get my TV sorted out. It seems that my HDTV OTA reception has been getting worse over the last several months. I went to Radio Shack and picked up a new antenna and mounted it inside my attic. WOW, what a difference. I am picking up everything crystal clear now, with no more pixelation. Plus I got some new channels to boot.

Little pump track session Friday night. Check out the faces the pump track brings out.

The last week has been incredible with the time change. Monday was some dirt jumping to stay loose and fluid. Tuesday was some Haw cross training with Ben. I am still doing a lot of tuning on my Mbuzi. The front end dives a lot due to the Lyrik being such a supple fork. Its causing me to understeer in turns. I think I need a stiffer spring. But that bike can motor. Wyatt is sending me some 2bliss Fast Traks. I can’t wait. Wednesday was some runs at Windrock. I did fulls runs. No more stopping. I need the hurt of full runs to get ready for race season. That is much tougher at Windrock these days, the new start is pretty tough to do at full speed. Thursday was some more dirt jumping. Met some kids from Richmond, Va who were on spring break. They were traveling south to hit skateparks here and there. What an awesome spring break. Some of those guys could really ride. Friday was chill with Meghann and Jasper. Saturday was raining, so again we chilled out most of the day. Dropped Jasper off at grandma’s and granddad’s while we ran some errands. We bought him a new cradle with automatic swinging. In the evening we stayed over at my parents and watched the Vols lose in the semifinals of the SEC tourney. Sunday was some more runs at Windrock. Again I did some fulls runs and I am whoafully weak. I did a full racerish run down Snake to Bedrock and I knew going into Bedrock that I was going to crash and I did. It was a nice stem humper that almost happened for about 10 feet before it finally happened.

However, I am a HUGE believer in I9 wheels now. They have made my bike so lively and quick by dropping all that rotational weight.

Thanks to Ben, Matt, Tim, and Corey, we got Bigfoot shaped and set again for some spring time sessions. Its tough to keep things good in the winter due to freeze and thaw cycles, but most of that should be behind us now. I am looking forward to many sessions like yesterday.

Drove to Jeremy’s house on Friday night to spend the night at his place before he and I drove over to Clemson on Saturday morning. The conditions were so unknown. It rained most of Friday here in Tennessee and they were calling for colder temps and snow on Saturday. It was still raining when I got to Jeremy’s so I was sure Clemson’s red clay was going to be nasty. To my supprize it was wasn’t that bad slick, but it was SLOW rolling. I had on some 2.3 tires and they felt like 3.0 DH tires. Luckily Richard was there and I borrowed a pair of ADvantage 2.1s off a demo bike. What a HUGE difference. I got 6th out of 25 in the Expert/PRO class. I am okay with that finish since I am not known as a pedaler and this course is quite pedaly. But it has helped me focus my spring training on some exposed weaknesses. Coach Ramsbottom is going to help me get focused and pumped up. However, Jeremy got me by 2 seconds and finished 4th. Way to go Jeremy!

These are by brado1, check out his flickr stream

These are by Richard Beytagh

Thanks to Fred and Jeff at I9 for hooking me up on these beauties. I hope to provide them some good feedback on these rims. They are hoping to be a in-house rim for I9. As I explained to Jeff, Windrock can test anything.

Got out lastnight at Haw before the rain blew in. I really want to dirt jump, but I knew the conditions should be excellent for some trail riding. I was right, for the most part. Middle Road was quite gooie, but most everything else was good. I wanted to get some time on my Mbuzi in prep for the Clemson race this weekend. Good thing I did. I had to figure out my Lyrik fork setup. The thing kept diving in turns and was causing me to under steer. I ran in to Gerard who let me borrow an allen key so I could adjust the Gate valve. Wow, what a difference. The Gate was all the way on, so that any LSC felt locked out when the Gate valve was activated. I adjusted that back quite a bit and was able to get the bike to have sufficient LSC for turns, yet blow off in the rough. It felt much better. However in a bid to quit getting flats, I am running some freeride 2.35 Maxxis tires. A DHF and Highroller combo. These tires are great for DH, but are a little too much meat for Haw. Since Haw has so many tight turns I like to square up a lot on the entrance, but these tires grip so well its hard to get them to come around. Plus they roll like lead. I loved my Fast Traks that Chris Wyatt (Specialized tire engineer) gave me but they were some special version I think. The side walls were ridiculously thin and I flatted all the time. He has given me a Eskar to try out but I couldn’t get it to blow up tubeless reliably, so I just opted for a tube and the heavier Highroller. I need to sort out my tires before this weekend. Clemson is really smooth and fast rolling tires will be an advantage. I have a Larsen TT, so maybe I’ll try that on the rear.