Yet another mish-mash of a post. The days count down to Trans Iowa V5, and some thoughts on 29"er tires are here for your perusal...........
Anybody Got A Boat? I think it rained harder for longer yesterday than I can remember in a long time. Maybe since 1993 when we had the big floods here. I am seeing that we received well in excess of 4 inches of rain in less than a 24 hour period from Sunday morning till now. (And it hasn't been raining for several hours!) That's a month's worth of rain in a day. Yeah.....go figure that out! Needless to say, I didn't get in a window of dryness to ride my bike in. Oh well........
Tire Report and Rumor: I have several tires on test for Twenty Nine Inches and The Cyclist. I did get out to ride these last week in the dry conditions. A report is up on both sites, so check that out, plus a feature has been started by Grannygear that has to do with bikepacking on The Cyclist. Good stuff coming up on that.
The tire rumors are always swirling. Here are the latest ones I am aware of. Michelin, who have one lonely 29"er tire in their line, (The XC AT, a great mud conditions tire), are currently developing "a few" new 29"er tires "coming out soon". The individual at Sea Otter I spoke with didn't know, (or was unwilling to tell me) any specifics, but promised that there are going to be new Michelin 29"er tires. I would think Interbike, or Eurobike would be the introduction time for these. Next up we have Continental, who are rumored to be developing a 29"er Rubber Queen tire. This would be an aggressive, all mountain type tire. No width has been set yet, (as far as I know), so I voted for a 2.4 inch version. We'll see, but it is coming. Finally, Geax should be popping out a 2.35 Gato 29"er tire yet this summer, unless economic concerns have them rolling that back a bit. I haven't heard much from GEAX on it of late, but I do know it is very near to being a reality.
Yes.....You knew I couldn't end without talking about this! The weather and Trans Iowa. Like peanut butter and jelly, these two go hand in hand. The weather is always a big player in the outcome of this event. Now we have had upwards of five inches or more of rain in two days over parts of the course and you know that some of that will be making for slower going in some places, even without more rain. Trouble is, there are scattered thunderstorms predicted for Iowa on Wednesday and Thursday now. So far, the weekend forecast has flip flopped several times, but is looking to be cool, overcast to partly cloudy, windy..........and dry!
Things are piecing together quite well on all fronts now, so be prepared to see a flurry of updates on the T.I.V5 site leading up to the event. Trans Iowa Radio will also make a "test post" on this site soon, so look for that to pop up anytime here.
Stay tuned................
No comments:
Post a Comment