Thursday, November 29, 2007

Thursday News And Views

Trans Iowa Registration Update: As you all probably know by now, the T.I.V4 roster is complete. What you may not know is that the waiting list has swollen to over 30! Well over 30 in fact. The crazy thing is, most of those people stand a reasonable shot of getting in. By faith for sure, but still- if you are willing to train over the winter you might just get the call up around February or March. Then again, I could be entirely off base this time and everyone will hold their spot and show up to race...........not!

Who's First and a Retraction: The funny thing about we humans is that we like stories about history and who was first to do such-and-such. Some of us like those things so much we'll put ourselves in the story and make ourselves first. Something like this happened when Dirt Rag published a story by Don Cook about where 29"ers came from a couple of issues ago. Funny thing about that story is that it left out key elements regarding Wes Williams of Willits bikes and some other sundry bits that were highly important to the modern 29"er movement. So, enough folks complained that Dirt Rag published a "retraction" of sorts. They really didn't say they were wrong, but they did say there is "another version" of the story. Hrummph! What ever happened to investigative journalism? And another thing about retractions and corrections in print media: Ever notice how those sorts of things are buried in some unnoticeable corner with no headline? Hmm........

Big Fat Tires Are Cool! I like big fat tires and Captain Bob and I should be sporting some Schwalbe Racing Ralphs in a few days here. Looking beyond Schwalbes goofy model names, we have a 2.4" tire that is said to be so big and voluuminous that it may not fit into the back of many frames in existence now. With that in mind we have some 2.2" versions of the same model coming as well. This promises to be a great tire for our Mid-Western trails and a fantastic roller by all accounts. I am specifically going to look forward to slapping one on the front of my single speed device!

Snow, Ice, or Rain? The weather prognosticators are predicting a winter storm for our area this weekend and my locality is on the borderline between wet or frozen precipitation. I suppose if I had a choice I would vote for the snow. Ice ruins our riding around here. It would certainly put the riding season into a screeching halt until warmer weather melted the ice. I suppose I could hope for rain, but we are on the doorstep of December here, so I'm trying to be realistic about this!

Vote Your Preferances! There are a couple places asking for opinions that I think the industry will take note of, so I wanted to point out your opportunity to be heard. The first is at Salsa Cycles Amigos Blog where the question is, "Would you buy a high end mechanical disc brake?" Click over and leave a comment if you would. The other place is at Twenty Nine Inches where you can leave your comment regarding what you think a cool 29"er product intro would be. Let the industry hear your voice! Do the democratic, American thing.......Vote Today!

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