Slack

With Gewilli planning a vacation, I guess we'll all need to take it up a notch and get some content up. I haven't had much going on. Murat has put up the video from Wells Ave, complete with banner text in the parts where I find my way onto his wheel. Cut to about 9 minutes in. CTodd has a Mount Washington video up, featuring a cameo role by Diggerhead Darcy. You may remember her from last year's Green Mountain Stage Race posts. Don't miss it.

I gave myself a new bike racer haircut this morning, which came out OK, but no video this time. My knee is still creaky, but I've been just riding easy every other day. Tonight is off, with a trip to the Brockton Rox game with the work crew on tap. My bikes need a bit of TLC. I think the race bike is due for a new chain, and the 12/27 might be at the end of it's life too.

Yesterday I got bored and weighed a few tires. The Michelin Megamium 700x23's came in at 260 grams, exactly as advertised. The 700x25 wire bead Conti GP's were 300g. I meant to go upstairs and grab a Tufo S33 tubular for Slow Your Roll, BKR, but I never got around to it. Truth be told, I don't ride tubulars too often. I have them on the track bike, but never get to the track anymore. My disc is a tubular too. The only 130 mm tubulars I have are a beat up pair of Heliums, and two sets of DA hubs with GP4s that I bought from Markie. One pair has cross tires, and the other is setup for the road with the Tufos. I like these tires, and at only about $35 each they are a steal. Most cheap tubulars are junk, but these look very similar to old CX's, but what I really like about them is that they glue up nice and straight, and the base tape is perfectly even. In the olden days, those things weren't a given, even with expensive tubulars. I think Clement is French for "pregnant snake." I'm a Fasttack guy too. I used to use Wolber glue, but I never see it anymore. Conti and Vittoria glue in a tube seems to cause base tapes to fall off. I've heard many horror stories about Tubasti, though when I bought these wheels that is what was in use and the tires were on there very securely. I've heard Mastick One (another Vittoria product?) had the highest bond in tests, but with proper application, Fasttack is tight enough that sometimes I need to cut the tires off, so I trust it the most. Not good for training, but I never train on them.

In 2005 I used the GP4s for the Mount A TT. They worked out great, but everyone else used aero wheels so in 2006 I got greedy and used my 6501 clinchers, and promptly flatted as soon as I hit the dirt. For this year it'd be nice to have a set of racy tubulars, but that's unlikely to happen.

Still don't know which race I'm doing at Monson. I guess I'll decide that morning. Hardly anyone has signed up for the 30+ so maybe he'll combine it with the 40+ and make my decision for me. Thanks for reading.