Where have I heard this before? Oh! Well...... Anyway. If you know, you know. (I mentioned this last Friday in the "FN&V") That said, this idea is taking shape again out of Cumming, Iowa. I understand that the field is getting pretty full and that the promoter is already getting lambasted with questions about what a single speed is. In any event promotion, you are going to get people that want you to bend your rules/definitions/suggestions to their way of thinking to make things easier for them in some way. This is happening here with this event, from what I can see on Facebook.
It's a free event too. But that doesn't register on people's brains, I guess. They still are 'demanding' things, tongue in cheek or not. It doesn't matter, it's goofy. But that said, I am not at all surprised.
Good luck to all involved. I hope the event goes off well and becomes popular. I also am very happy I am not doing events/promotions anymore. Nuff said.....
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| Pinarello's new hardtail MTB. (Image courtesy of Pinarello) |
Pinarello Debuts The Dogma XC:
Pinarello has to be commended. They do things outside of the box in terms of design often. Squiggly forks, electric gravel bikes, and now this asymmetrical hard tail mountain bike.
This thing is designed to have the stiffest bottom bracket for energy transfer out there. Great for racers. Not so great for fun. It reminds me of a painful experience I once had back in the 1990's.
Klein mountain bikes were racing inspired hard tails which were designed to have the stiffest bottom bracket area at the time for, you guessed it, efficient energy transfer to the rear wheels. I bought a 1992 Attitude model which "Velo News" had tested and found to be off the charts stiff compared to anything else out there at that time.
That's good, right? Well......no. Not really.
I remember that bike being so stiff that if you hit a small depression in a smooth trail at speed the bike would buck you off the saddle. Like you became airborne for a brief moment. Other MTB's did not do this. It was disconcerting, and it caused the rear wheel to loose grip when the bike unloaded that brief input as energy to the rider. That bike was a climbing beast, and it went GO when you stomped the pedals, but otherwise it was a chore to ride it, and other bikes were a LOT more fun to ride.
I don't know about you, but I like "fun", so I don't think a modern-day version of what I had is a good idea for the average rider. But yeah....Pinarello is a cool company.
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Iowa's largest Competitive Bicycling Event?
Tomorrow CORE4 will happen near Iowa City, Iowa, an event in its second year. Last year it was easily the largest cycling event outside of RAGBRAI in Iowa, but this year it has grown to nearly 1000 riders.
I hesitate to call CORE4 a "gravel event", due to its very nature, it is not that. CORE4 uses a healthy dose of single track and pavement in their course, along with gravel road sectors, so it wouldn't have passed my "sniff test" I used for gravel events back in 2008. Not by a long shot.
But it certainly could be said to be "gravel adjacent", and I'd agree with that assessment of this event. Regardless of how anyone wants to classify CORE4, it is a huge event and a surprise from the standpoint of its relative newness on the scene. It would appear that "adventure' cycling in a competitive format is touching a nerve here in Iowa.
I'm interested in how things go mostly from the standpoint of a certain person being in the event. N.Y. Roll is set to take on the challenge of riding his fat bike on the 100 mile version of the course. We will see how things go when he gets back and tells his tales.
It's a pretty big day in gravel racing tomorrow with several events taking place, most notably SBT GRVL in Colorado. Good luck to anyone who will be pinning on a number this weekend!
Lithic Carbon Gravel Fork:
Note: Image of the Lithic Carbon Gravel Fork courtesy of Wolf Tooth
You may not be aware that Wolf Tooth/Otso Bikes has a component arm called Lithic. they have some pretty cool carbon fiber forks that are available for your mountain, gravel, or fat bike needs.
made for a replacement for more modern geometry gravel bikes, the claimed 505 gram fork will fit bikes with a suspension correction from 30mm - 50mm. the offset is 47mm and the axle to crown is 420mm. It jas the ubiquitous "Three Pack" bosses on each fork leg too. Tire clearance is a whopping 29" X 2.1".
Flat mount only and tapered steer tube, of course. $549.95 USD
You can check it out here: https://www.wolftoothcomponents.com/collections/forks/products/lithic-carbon-gravel-fork
Comments: I have ridden a Lithic Carbon fork before on an Otso Bikes Warakin. It wasn't very compliant, but there are not many carbon forks that are for a gravel bike. This all-new fork is likely pretty stiff in keeping with the genre.
I have ridden a carbon fork I thought was pretty good at vibration damping, but you rarely ever see them. The TRP carbon gravel fork was really quite nice, but it isn't in production anymore, and old ones can be found but they are post mount for the brakes. I've complained about this before, but carbon gravel forks are just far to non-compliant. So, if there is a negative to this new Lithic fork, I would not be at all surprised to find out that it has to do with stiffness.
That's it for this week. Thank you for reading Guitar Ted Productions!
4 comments:
Yeah about that Fattie 100. My rear tire picked up a few thorns on the Green Belt and I can not find a Jumbo tire that I could get in my hands till after Core 4. This all happened the first week of August, so I have transferred to the regular 100. Still gonna do it, just on a different bike. Yeah, Jumbo Jims are evidently hard to get now.
When people wonder why group rides/events disappear it's because of things like this. I've been doing a pretty regular group ride for almost 10 years nows I'll add it's a ride I started/inherited because the other group rides I'd attended didn't do what I wanted them to do so I made my own. The few times I've contemplated ending it, it's almost always been because of the complaining... if you're not getting what you want from a free ride/event, make your own and do it how you want it done... and then prepare for someone to not be happy with the way you're doing it.
@Ryddn9ers , yeah I was talking to Mark yesterday about how I really dislike cyclists as a group. You have a few people who ruin the entire ride. They show up, complain about the start time, complain about the route, complain about the amount of hills, complain about the pace, etc etc. I have stopped doing group rides because of a certain person. That person is unsafe, and complains about every ride every time they show up. Fast forward that to being a Race Director. Once I had a rider ask me what my entertainment plan was for their kids. I retorted, we are mtn biking in the woods, give your kids a hammer, nails and a saw and let them explore. Lets just say that did not go over well. But seriously could of been those kids best day ever.
@Rydn9ers, @N.Y. Roll - There are a lot of threads and comments one can find concerning how race/ride organizers need to do "X", but you don't see much - if anything - on how to be a good participant. The over-arching philosophy seems to be one of "What have you done for me lately?" on the part of participants at times. And of course, let's not forget that one "Negative Nancy" that comments can outweigh 20 great participants "atta boy!", pats on the back.
I had to deal with that, as you all know, for many years. A good friend of Trans Iowa said to me once, "Feed the Eagles, Starve the Turkeys". It's a good plan, but the bad apples do wear you down nonetheless.
It would be nice if the people who complain would put on their own event, but they never will, in most cases, because they know that the problems will suddenly be their own. All they have to do to understand that is to look in the mirror. Why take the pot shots when you can be the one giving them?
There is a LOT more to the event promotions side of things that can lead to midnight headaches, but the negativity that some people display towards event/ride promoters is one of the worst things and the antithesis of group ride/race goals. I wish more people understood that.
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