Sunday, April 03, 2016

Switcheroo: Update

Glad to have these on the Tamland yesterday.
The new wheels with the huge Panaracer SK 40mm tires went to the Renegade Gents Race yesterday, (full recap tomorrow), but I wanted to get out an impression of the set up while I had time here.

The Gent's Race has it's courses change up from time to time, but there is one consistent thing about all of them- The gravel in that area has a higher sand content than many places in Iowa. It is very similar to Nebraska, "Gravel World's" type stuff. Loose, shifty, and deep at times. While there had been a lot of rain down that way recently, and some of the roads were pretty firm, there was still a fair amount of that sandy, loose stuff.

The other factor was the high winds. We were obligated to head straight into the teeth of a 25-30mph wind with higher gusts for a stretch over 10 miles in one crack. In order to keep our team of five together we had to ride in echelon, which required us to be in pretty close and tight to one another to make it effective. That meant that you had to run over whatever was coming your way. No picking your line or looking for the smoothest parts of the road to ride on.

So, having to run over all the deeper, loose stuff on the edges of the road, since I was helping to pull, meant that if I had a tire/rim combo that knifed in, I was going to have a really hard time staying up there and keeping my line. I'm glad to say that this wheel and tire combo passed muster in this scenario. I couldn't have been happier.

More soon......

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