Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Tire Whoa!(s)

Quick note on the Spokane trip. The Nanoraptors were a great choice for rolling around town but I don't think I've been in the dirt on a worse set of meats in years. The High Drive trails consist mostly of a thin layer of loose sand/small gravel over hardpack and the tires just couldn't cut through at all. I was having a lot of trouble climbing anything steep in my usual monkey man style and the only way I could keep from spinning out was by shifting all the way down to my lowest gear and spin away. As I've mentioned in the past, this kind of kung fu hasn't really worked well for me since singlespeeding destroyed my geary skills. More importantly, I was having a hell of a time modulating my brakes on fast decents because the tires wanted to give up so quickly. Of course this is all really about the rear tire since I didn't really feel comfortable cutting loose 100% going down so I never did get to push the front tire all that much.

In retrospect if I were to do the weekend over again, I'd still go the same route. Tires sucked on dirt and were steller on pavement, most of my miles were on pavement. Maybe I should have just found room for two wheelsets? Nah, too easy.

2 comments:

Gordon said...

High Drive trails are awesome! Try the El Mariachi single-speed yet?

Unknown said...

No SS on the El M. as of yet. I know that SS and 29ers are a match made in heaven but I kind of like it the way it is. And yes, the High Drive trails are awesome!