Randomonium

Another disjointed blog effort for you to navigate today covering 29+, Trans Iowa, and maybe some other odd ball things.......

A Rooster in the USA soon? Why yes!

Did you know a new US distributor of Singular Cycles is going to be importing Rooster 29+ rigs? Well.........now you do! The name of the outfit is Colorado Specialty Velo, and they have a great deal on a "rolling chassis" that you can score, if you are so inclined.

The rolling chassis is a great start to a build and consists of a frame, fork, and Velocity Dually Comp wheel set with Magura MT-6 brakes. For more details, see the site here.

I am not connected to Colorado Specialty Velo or Singular Cycles in any way, but I do happen to know some of the principals involved in both companies, and they are nice fellas. Besides, the bikes are really nice, and I have seen and briefly ridden a Rooster proto, which is going to be a sweet 29+ rig. It's different than either the Krampus or ECR, and I think it would be a great Mid-West single track machine. Heck, my buddy MG is even racing one, so you know they can handle the twisty-turnies!

Raleigh FS Prototype as seen at Sea Weasel (Image Courtesy of Raleigh)

Raleigh FS Prototype:

While I had known that Raleigh was fixin' to get back into the full suspension mountain bike game again, I was a bit surprised by the model they put on view at Sea Weasel last weekend. It is an XC oriented rig, which makes sense, because Raleigh actually has a history in XC that goes back a long way. (Remember the Tomac Signature XC hard tail?)

Anywho.....Raleigh proffers up this rig which looks like a mash-up of a Salsa Spearfish, Specialized Camber, and with a dash of old Gary Fisher HiFi thrown in for good measure. In other words, it may be a fine bike, but there doesn't appear to be anything remarkable about it. Still, it is nice to see Raleigh trying something in the world of mountain bikes beyond steel hard tails and the carbon hard tails they have been doing for a while now.

Panaracer "Fat B Nimble" (Image courtesy of Panaracer)

Panaracer Fat B Nimble 26 X 4.0 Tire:

More fat tire stuff is coming down the pike than you can shake a stick at. One of the single biggest complaints of fat bikers for years has been the high price of rubber. Fat bike tires traditionally have ranged from $100.00 a piece on up to $250.00 a piece for the ultra-cool studded examples.

That seems to be something that is going to change. Panaracer has said that the 120TPI version of this tire will retail for under a hundred bucks and the 60 TPI version may be around $60.00. You might be thinking, "Yeah, but they probably weigh a boatload and don't roll well. " Not so fast, partner!

Initial reports say the 120TPI versions are under 1300 grams each and that they roll fantastically well. Panaracer also has traditionally made some of the highest quality tires for reasonable prices for years, plus they usually can be set up tubeless with little issue. If all of that pans out with the Fat B Nimble, then we're looking at a tire that will revolutionize pricing and competition for fat bike rider's greenbacks. I see no reason to look elsewhere if they are going to hit on all cylinders with these meats. (Well, unless Maxxis and some others follow suit with their pricing structures!)

Oh yeah, did I mention that this Fat B Nimble will also be a 29+ tire? Yes.....that's what Panaracer is saying. UPDATED: See comments by Panaracer's Jeff Zell below

Shazbot.....Nano Nano

 WTB Nano 40's:

The gravel road tire selection is getting very interesting of late. Now we have WTB on the verge of putting forth another choice in rubber in their soon to be available Nano 40 tires. These will start showing up in stores and shops in May-June, so I am told.

However; I happen to know where 5 sets of them are in the US right now. That's right, they are here at Guitar Ted Laboratories but I can't touch 'em! Nope, these are earmarked for Trans Iowa prizing and the fastest 5 riders will each score a set of these tires. I suppose that if you'd like an early set of these, you could hang out at the barn where the finish line is with a stack of cabbage and see what kind of deal you can make with the winner!

These were supposed to go to OEM clients for inspection, but five sets were "stolen", (The WTB guy's words, not mine!), from that batch and redirected to Trans Iowa. So, as of now these are the only ones up for grabs. Don't ask me anything about them! I put them in a box and sealed it up so I won't be tempted!

That's a wrap for Randomonium this time. Thanks for reading!

Randomonium

Another disjointed blog effort for you to navigate today covering 29+, Trans Iowa, and maybe some other odd ball things.......

A Rooster in the USA soon? Why yes!

Did you know a new US distributor of Singular Cycles is going to be importing Rooster 29+ rigs? Well.........now you do! The name of the outfit is Colorado Specialty Velo, and they have a great deal on a "rolling chassis" that you can score, if you are so inclined.

The rolling chassis is a great start to a build and consists of a frame, fork, and Velocity Dually Comp wheel set with Magura MT-6 brakes. For more details, see the site here.

I am not connected to Colorado Specialty Velo or Singular Cycles in any way, but I do happen to know some of the principals involved in both companies, and they are nice fellas. Besides, the bikes are really nice, and I have seen and briefly ridden a Rooster proto, which is going to be a sweet 29+ rig. It's different than either the Krampus or ECR, and I think it would be a great Mid-West single track machine. Heck, my buddy MG is even racing one, so you know they can handle the twisty-turnies!

Raleigh FS Prototype as seen at Sea Weasel (Image Courtesy of Raleigh)

Raleigh FS Prototype:

While I had known that Raleigh was fixin' to get back into the full suspension mountain bike game again, I was a bit surprised by the model they put on view at Sea Weasel last weekend. It is an XC oriented rig, which makes sense, because Raleigh actually has a history in XC that goes back a long way. (Remember the Tomac Signature XC hard tail?)

Anywho.....Raleigh proffers up this rig which looks like a mash-up of a Salsa Spearfish, Specialized Camber, and with a dash of old Gary Fisher HiFi thrown in for good measure. In other words, it may be a fine bike, but there doesn't appear to be anything remarkable about it. Still, it is nice to see Raleigh trying something in the world of mountain bikes beyond steel hard tails and the carbon hard tails they have been doing for a while now.

Panaracer "Fat B Nimble" (Image courtesy of Panaracer)

Panaracer Fat B Nimble 26 X 4.0 Tire:

More fat tire stuff is coming down the pike than you can shake a stick at. One of the single biggest complaints of fat bikers for years has been the high price of rubber. Fat bike tires traditionally have ranged from $100.00 a piece on up to $250.00 a piece for the ultra-cool studded examples.

That seems to be something that is going to change. Panaracer has said that the 120TPI version of this tire will retail for under a hundred bucks and the 60 TPI version may be around $60.00. You might be thinking, "Yeah, but they probably weigh a boatload and don't roll well. " Not so fast, partner!

Initial reports say the 120TPI versions are under 1300 grams each and that they roll fantastically well. Panaracer also has traditionally made some of the highest quality tires for reasonable prices for years, plus they usually can be set up tubeless with little issue. If all of that pans out with the Fat B Nimble, then we're looking at a tire that will revolutionize pricing and competition for fat bike rider's greenbacks. I see no reason to look elsewhere if they are going to hit on all cylinders with these meats. (Well, unless Maxxis and some others follow suit with their pricing structures!)

Oh yeah, did I mention that this Fat B Nimble will also be a 29+ tire? Yes.....that's what Panaracer is saying. UPDATED: See comments by Panaracer's Jeff Zell below

Shazbot.....Nano Nano

 WTB Nano 40's:

The gravel road tire selection is getting very interesting of late. Now we have WTB on the verge of putting forth another choice in rubber in their soon to be available Nano 40 tires. These will start showing up in stores and shops in May-June, so I am told.

However; I happen to know where 5 sets of them are in the US right now. That's right, they are here at Guitar Ted Laboratories but I can't touch 'em! Nope, these are earmarked for Trans Iowa prizing and the fastest 5 riders will each score a set of these tires. I suppose that if you'd like an early set of these, you could hang out at the barn where the finish line is with a stack of cabbage and see what kind of deal you can make with the winner!

These were supposed to go to OEM clients for inspection, but five sets were "stolen", (The WTB guy's words, not mine!), from that batch and redirected to Trans Iowa. So, as of now these are the only ones up for grabs. Don't ask me anything about them! I put them in a box and sealed it up so I won't be tempted!

That's a wrap for Randomonium this time. Thanks for reading!

Rendezvous Ride

MG on the Rooster. So close to home I couldn't miss this!

My good friend, MG, lives a long haul away from me down in Nebraska. We keep in touch via different channels, but we don't get to see each other very often and usually when we do, we're in an event, (or I am running one), so even then the time we get to share is limited. (MG is a LOT faster than I am!)

So while we were chatting on the phone one day a while back, MG says he is going to visit relatives with his wife near the City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Hey! That's just a short drive away from me. So, plans were laid to have a rendezvous near the city of Cedar Rapids on a Saturday.

Much closer to the date, MG said he would be bringing along the Rooster, the Singular prototype 29+ model he is testing out. I thought I may as well bring the Singular Buzzard I am checking out to make it an all Singular Cycles affair. So it was that I loaded up the "Truck With No Name" Saturday to make the short trek Southward and meet up with MG and ride.

I had just started riding again after being pretty sick earlier in the week. Wednesday I had my first ride after being ill, and while Thursday was okay, Friday I awoke to symptoms akin to what I had when I was sick, only not as bad. I was going to ride Friday, but I cancelled so I could ride Saturday- hopefully- if I wasn't getting sick again!

The gravel was clear down there.

Fortunately I awoke to feeling just fine. The rest on Thursday and Friday must have worked. I was on my way to Fairfax, (a small city just Southwest of Cedar Rapids proper), to see my good friend and ride bikes. The weather was even cooperating with temperatures forecast to be in the 30's, which for me was almost balmy considering the single digit to low teen high temperatures we'd been having just previous to this trip.

Of course, I didn't know how well I would ride. I hadn't been in any sort of "good fitness" since the middle of January when I did Triple D. Since that time I had been mostly hiding from double digit below zero temperatures or stuck inside due to being ill. Contrasting this was the fact that MG had been enjoying warmer temperatures, almost no snow, and miles and miles of gravel riding under his belt. I wasn't sure he would even know how to go as slow as I was likely going to be going!

MG's Rooster prototype

Well, I found the residence of his relatives and we all sat down for a proper cup of coffee first and chatted. Then MG got kitted up and we headed out to the garage where I traded out some gear to ride in and MG checked out my Buzzard. After a bit of fooling around there, we were off. It was a nice, overcast sky at the beginning with little wind to be concerned about.

The ride started out, fittingly enough, on Cemetery Road. (Trans Iowa veterans will get the joke there.) We had in mind to go check out some local single track to see if perhaps the fat biking throngs had been in there to pack it down. So we cruised over on a combination of chip seal and wettish gravel until we were back in a neighborhood of Southwestern Cedar Rapids and there it was that we discovered a trail head.

Initially, the riding looked promising, but we were on the windward side of a hill where a snowmobile had tracked down a rideable path for us to take. The going was slow, but it was going at least! One thing about the Buzzard with the short chain stays it has is that it really digs in and gets traction with your weight right on that back tire. The On One Smorgasbord tires really dig in and get you propelled forward in loose conditions and seem to be a trick for snow riding as well. MG noted how I was climbing and digging through stuff that his 29 X 3" Knards were not doing well in.

The slack front end and long 140mm travel Rock Shox seemed to be a bad choice for this on paper, but the Buzzard in combination with that fork were really stable. I used a 70mm stem and wide aluminum PRO Tharsis bars which gave me a lot of leverage and made light of the steering challenges in the soft, unconsolidated snow.

MG scouting out a way to get through the deep snow.

On the leeward side of the hill the snow had drifted up deeper and the path was too mushy for us to really do any effective riding. MG thought it might be better in the woods so I followed him down the hillside and we checked it out. While the path was clear to see, as far as where it went, it turned out to be no better, and we were reduced to post holing and pushing our way through. MG decided we should cut over to a residential area where we popped out of the woods and into someone's back yard and then down between two houses with barking dogs till we reached the street.

Then it was some "urban assault" riding until we got stuck into a section with many truncated roads and were forced to do some cross country bush whacking until we reached a four lane road. We then decided to cut over a steep embankment up to what looked like a city park which abutted the back end of a trailer park.

Following MG as we pushed for a bit.

Then we hit on a blacktop road headed North and it seemed to be taking us out of the urban area. We continued to follow along this as we continued to chat while we rode along. This was turning out to be a great ride with a good friend.

My concerns about fitness were not forgotten. Early into the ride we hit a steeper pitch on a paved section and I had to let MG walk away from me a bit. I thought maybe I was toast, but I figured I would go along as far as I could go. My breathing was pretty taxed out, and I just kept plugging along, sometimes unable to respond to MG, sometimes with only a few words, but the main thing was, the pedals kept turning around!

Later on though I started to come around a bit. I was able to chat and ride at a decent pace, so maybe it was just another case of my slow warm up, or maybe I blew out some cobwebs! Not sure which, but as we reached the rural parts, I was feeling better and we saw a left hand turn onto gravel so we took it. I'm not sure where we were exactly either, but neither did MG. We were riding by "braille". Whatever felt like the right thing to do, we did it and then settled back into conversation. Direction to our starting point was a vague concern at this point in our riding.

I thought this battered sign was funny. Is it a verb or a noun or both!

We had peeled off a bunch of clothing and vented everything we could earlier in the ride as the clouds had parted and the air had gotten warmer. Now the Sun was in full stride as we headed Westward and came to a hill leading up to a "T" intersection where I asked MG to stop so I could have a "nature break" and rest a bit. We had been pounding pedals for quite awhile, and while I was feeling okay, my endurance still isn't what it could be just yet.

The rest was good and we also had a chance to consider which direction we should head in after we got going again. I thought the street sign showed a familiar number- 80 St NW- and we decided to go South. This road turned into pavement and we were entertained by some huge Red Tailed Hawks as we chatted along the way.

Eventually we got back to the house where it all started and I was really hungry. We switched out clothing and headed out in search of grub. We found a "strip mall Mexican place", which MG said had a "better than 50-50 chance of being good", and we sat down for what turned out to be some of the best grub I've had in this style in a long time.

We also had one of those deep, meaningful conversations that only great friends can have, which was awesome. Plans were made for the next visit MG would make to the area to get together again and ride some more. Hopefully I will be in better shape and the shape of the weather will improve to allow for more options.

Afterward we went back to the house where I got a brief tryout on the Rooster. It feels very different from a Krampus! I've ridden an ECR a bit, and in my view, the Rooster cuts a distinctive line between the two Surly 29+ bikes. You don't have the very "slack-ish, trail bike" feeling a Krampus has, but you also don't have the sedate, touring feel of the ECR either. The Rooster, (as MG has it set up, and in prototype form, obviously), has a very sure footed, planted feel, but stab the pedal and the front end leaps up, rather surprisingly easy. The chain stays are shorter than a Krampus' are and this maybe why I felt that. It's a super stable bike as well. I could track stand it and cut super sharp corners on it at slow speed with no trouble at all.

Maybe I'll get a right proper ride on it someday, but I like what the Rooster is showing so far. At any rate, the day was a huge success for me riding-wise, and very satisfying to me from a personal standpoint. It isn't often I get to spend time alone with a close friend like MG, and that was a day to cherish for sure. Thanks MG for making the time!

Rendezvous Ride

MG on the Rooster. So close to home I couldn't miss this!

My good friend, MG, lives a long haul away from me down in Nebraska. We keep in touch via different channels, but we don't get to see each other very often and usually when we do, we're in an event, (or I am running one), so even then the time we get to share is limited. (MG is a LOT faster than I am!)

So while we were chatting on the phone one day a while back, MG says he is going to visit relatives with his wife near the City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Hey! That's just a short drive away from me. So, plans were laid to have a rendezvous near the city of Cedar Rapids on a Saturday.

Much closer to the date, MG said he would be bringing along the Rooster, the Singular prototype 29+ model he is testing out. I thought I may as well bring the Singular Buzzard I am checking out to make it an all Singular Cycles affair. So it was that I loaded up the "Truck With No Name" Saturday to make the short trek Southward and meet up with MG and ride.

I had just started riding again after being pretty sick earlier in the week. Wednesday I had my first ride after being ill, and while Thursday was okay, Friday I awoke to symptoms akin to what I had when I was sick, only not as bad. I was going to ride Friday, but I cancelled so I could ride Saturday- hopefully- if I wasn't getting sick again!

The gravel was clear down there.

Fortunately I awoke to feeling just fine. The rest on Thursday and Friday must have worked. I was on my way to Fairfax, (a small city just Southwest of Cedar Rapids proper), to see my good friend and ride bikes. The weather was even cooperating with temperatures forecast to be in the 30's, which for me was almost balmy considering the single digit to low teen high temperatures we'd been having just previous to this trip.

Of course, I didn't know how well I would ride. I hadn't been in any sort of "good fitness" since the middle of January when I did Triple D. Since that time I had been mostly hiding from double digit below zero temperatures or stuck inside due to being ill. Contrasting this was the fact that MG had been enjoying warmer temperatures, almost no snow, and miles and miles of gravel riding under his belt. I wasn't sure he would even know how to go as slow as I was likely going to be going!

MG's Rooster prototype

Well, I found the residence of his relatives and we all sat down for a proper cup of coffee first and chatted. Then MG got kitted up and we headed out to the garage where I traded out some gear to ride in and MG checked out my Buzzard. After a bit of fooling around there, we were off. It was a nice, overcast sky at the beginning with little wind to be concerned about.

The ride started out, fittingly enough, on Cemetery Road. (Trans Iowa veterans will get the joke there.) We had in mind to go check out some local single track to see if perhaps the fat biking throngs had been in there to pack it down. So we cruised over on a combination of chip seal and wettish gravel until we were back in a neighborhood of Southwestern Cedar Rapids and there it was that we discovered a trail head.

Initially, the riding looked promising, but we were on the windward side of a hill where a snowmobile had tracked down a rideable path for us to take. The going was slow, but it was going at least! One thing about the Buzzard with the short chain stays it has is that it really digs in and gets traction with your weight right on that back tire. The On One Smorgasbord tires really dig in and get you propelled forward in loose conditions and seem to be a trick for snow riding as well. MG noted how I was climbing and digging through stuff that his 29 X 3" Knards were not doing well in.

The slack front end and long 140mm travel Rock Shox seemed to be a bad choice for this on paper, but the Buzzard in combination with that fork were really stable. I used a 70mm stem and wide aluminum PRO Tharsis bars which gave me a lot of leverage and made light of the steering challenges in the soft, unconsolidated snow.

MG scouting out a way to get through the deep snow.

On the leeward side of the hill the snow had drifted up deeper and the path was too mushy for us to really do any effective riding. MG thought it might be better in the woods so I followed him down the hillside and we checked it out. While the path was clear to see, as far as where it went, it turned out to be no better, and we were reduced to post holing and pushing our way through. MG decided we should cut over to a residential area where we popped out of the woods and into someone's back yard and then down between two houses with barking dogs till we reached the street.

Then it was some "urban assault" riding until we got stuck into a section with many truncated roads and were forced to do some cross country bush whacking until we reached a four lane road. We then decided to cut over a steep embankment up to what looked like a city park which abutted the back end of a trailer park.

Following MG as we pushed for a bit.

Then we hit on a blacktop road headed North and it seemed to be taking us out of the urban area. We continued to follow along this as we continued to chat while we rode along. This was turning out to be a great ride with a good friend.

My concerns about fitness were not forgotten. Early into the ride we hit a steeper pitch on a paved section and I had to let MG walk away from me a bit. I thought maybe I was toast, but I figured I would go along as far as I could go. My breathing was pretty taxed out, and I just kept plugging along, sometimes unable to respond to MG, sometimes with only a few words, but the main thing was, the pedals kept turning around!

Later on though I started to come around a bit. I was able to chat and ride at a decent pace, so maybe it was just another case of my slow warm up, or maybe I blew out some cobwebs! Not sure which, but as we reached the rural parts, I was feeling better and we saw a left hand turn onto gravel so we took it. I'm not sure where we were exactly either, but neither did MG. We were riding by "braille". Whatever felt like the right thing to do, we did it and then settled back into conversation. Direction to our starting point was a vague concern at this point in our riding.

I thought this battered sign was funny. Is it a verb or a noun or both!

We had peeled off a bunch of clothing and vented everything we could earlier in the ride as the clouds had parted and the air had gotten warmer. Now the Sun was in full stride as we headed Westward and came to a hill leading up to a "T" intersection where I asked MG to stop so I could have a "nature break" and rest a bit. We had been pounding pedals for quite awhile, and while I was feeling okay, my endurance still isn't what it could be just yet.

The rest was good and we also had a chance to consider which direction we should head in after we got going again. I thought the street sign showed a familiar number- 80 St NW- and we decided to go South. This road turned into pavement and we were entertained by some huge Red Tailed Hawks as we chatted along the way.

Eventually we got back to the house where it all started and I was really hungry. We switched out clothing and headed out in search of grub. We found a "strip mall Mexican place", which MG said had a "better than 50-50 chance of being good", and we sat down for what turned out to be some of the best grub I've had in this style in a long time.

We also had one of those deep, meaningful conversations that only great friends can have, which was awesome. Plans were made for the next visit MG would make to the area to get together again and ride some more. Hopefully I will be in better shape and the shape of the weather will improve to allow for more options.

Afterward we went back to the house where I got a brief tryout on the Rooster. It feels very different from a Krampus! I've ridden an ECR a bit, and in my view, the Rooster cuts a distinctive line between the two Surly 29+ bikes. You don't have the very "slack-ish, trail bike" feeling a Krampus has, but you also don't have the sedate, touring feel of the ECR either. The Rooster, (as MG has it set up, and in prototype form, obviously), has a very sure footed, planted feel, but stab the pedal and the front end leaps up, rather surprisingly easy. The chain stays are shorter than a Krampus' are and this maybe why I felt that. It's a super stable bike as well. I could track stand it and cut super sharp corners on it at slow speed with no trouble at all.

Maybe I'll get a right proper ride on it someday, but I like what the Rooster is showing so far. At any rate, the day was a huge success for me riding-wise, and very satisfying to me from a personal standpoint. It isn't often I get to spend time alone with a close friend like MG, and that was a day to cherish for sure. Thanks MG for making the time!

Friday News And Views

The Rooster- A bicycle, not Alice In Chains

More 29+

The whole "29+" format, which Surly invented when it came out with the Krampus, and furthered with the ECR, hasn't really caught on as fast as I thought it might. Some custom and very small brands aside, Surly has pretty much had this to itself since the dawning of the green, sparkly Krampus trail rig. 

Not anymore though. A prototype Singular, dubbed the Rooster, is going to be "Kickstarted" soon and I suspect many folks will be very interested in this frame/fork. By the way, the image shows a regular 29"er tire in the back, but this bike will take the full 29X3" rubber with no issues. (I have seen other, unpublished images which confirm this.) An eccentric bottom bracket, which is typical for Singular, is also on tap for your single speeding pleasure.

The hopes are that the Singular will be easy to set up with a front derailleur and 2X cranks. If that is the case, and with Surly's Dirt Wizard tires soon to come in 29+ sizing, I could see this as the choice for most Mid-western single track. I can also see this as a great bike packing platform. I hope to be getting a closer look at this soon. Stay tuned.....

T.I.v10 News:

This week I am glad to have made contact with my two Springtime recon partners, Wally & George, who are planning on coming out again to verify the cue sheets as they drive by the cues across the proposed course. This has proven to be the final check before the cues are locked in and readied for printing the past two Trans Iowas that I've done and it has helped me get the cue sheet errors down to zero. 

With 84 days left to the start of Trans Iowa, I am going to be starting to ask about riders not being able to make it. I like to weed out potential "no-shows" because it cuts down on a lot of wasted effort and materials on my end. So- if you are in Trans Iowa, but it looks like you won't be making it for any reason, please let me know. It does make a big difference.

There is some concern this Winter with the very cold weather we've had that frost will damage the gravel roadways. While this may very well happen, the big thing to remember here is that it depends on when Spring comes! If we transition slowly into Spring, there will be less of a worry here. Especially if it starts to cycle up to warmer temperatures sooner than later. In the end, it's anybody's guess as to just how it will go!

Winter still holds court

More Fat Biking:

The fat biking has been really outstanding of late. The really cold weather firmed up the trails and I got out Wednesday for a good two hours along with the regular forays to work and back. I hope to slip out at some point this weekend, possibly with my son in tow, to grab a bit more of this primo fat biking weather before it all goes away in about a month. 

One thing I've noticed is that the Dually wheels are not really holding me back from doing what I want in regards to "bushwhacking" my way through the trail system. I suppose a more accurate term would be "sno-whacking". I don't mind post holing a bit, or even busting my way through a drift here and there. Which is good because I did a healthy amount of both on Wednesday. I think a recon of the Mitchell Avenue area is in order soon. I usually make a pilgrimage out that way every Winter to have a bit of an adventure, since I've had a fat bike.

By the way, there is a fat bike race out at George Wyth State Park this weekend, but I have plans that afternoon to be with my son, who is looking forward to an adventure. Race or adventure with my son? I do not even see a question about how that is answered! Good luck to all who toe that line though.

That's all for this edition. Have a safe weekend and get outside!

Friday News And Views

The Rooster- A bicycle, not Alice In Chains

More 29+

The whole "29+" format, which Surly invented when it came out with the Krampus, and furthered with the ECR, hasn't really caught on as fast as I thought it might. Some custom and very small brands aside, Surly has pretty much had this to itself since the dawning of the green, sparkly Krampus trail rig. 

Not anymore though. A prototype Singular, dubbed the Rooster, is going to be "Kickstarted" soon and I suspect many folks will be very interested in this frame/fork. By the way, the image shows a regular 29"er tire in the back, but this bike will take the full 29X3" rubber with no issues. (I have seen other, unpublished images which confirm this.) An eccentric bottom bracket, which is typical for Singular, is also on tap for your single speeding pleasure.

The hopes are that the Singular will be easy to set up with a front derailleur and 2X cranks. If that is the case, and with Surly's Dirt Wizard tires soon to come in 29+ sizing, I could see this as the choice for most Mid-western single track. I can also see this as a great bike packing platform. I hope to be getting a closer look at this soon. Stay tuned.....

T.I.v10 News:

This week I am glad to have made contact with my two Springtime recon partners, Wally & George, who are planning on coming out again to verify the cue sheets as they drive by the cues across the proposed course. This has proven to be the final check before the cues are locked in and readied for printing the past two Trans Iowas that I've done and it has helped me get the cue sheet errors down to zero. 

With 84 days left to the start of Trans Iowa, I am going to be starting to ask about riders not being able to make it. I like to weed out potential "no-shows" because it cuts down on a lot of wasted effort and materials on my end. So- if you are in Trans Iowa, but it looks like you won't be making it for any reason, please let me know. It does make a big difference.

There is some concern this Winter with the very cold weather we've had that frost will damage the gravel roadways. While this may very well happen, the big thing to remember here is that it depends on when Spring comes! If we transition slowly into Spring, there will be less of a worry here. Especially if it starts to cycle up to warmer temperatures sooner than later. In the end, it's anybody's guess as to just how it will go!

Winter still holds court

More Fat Biking:

The fat biking has been really outstanding of late. The really cold weather firmed up the trails and I got out Wednesday for a good two hours along with the regular forays to work and back. I hope to slip out at some point this weekend, possibly with my son in tow, to grab a bit more of this primo fat biking weather before it all goes away in about a month. 

One thing I've noticed is that the Dually wheels are not really holding me back from doing what I want in regards to "bushwhacking" my way through the trail system. I suppose a more accurate term would be "sno-whacking". I don't mind post holing a bit, or even busting my way through a drift here and there. Which is good because I did a healthy amount of both on Wednesday. I think a recon of the Mitchell Avenue area is in order soon. I usually make a pilgrimage out that way every Winter to have a bit of an adventure, since I've had a fat bike.

By the way, there is a fat bike race out at George Wyth State Park this weekend, but I have plans that afternoon to be with my son, who is looking forward to an adventure. Race or adventure with my son? I do not even see a question about how that is answered! Good luck to all who toe that line though.

That's all for this edition. Have a safe weekend and get outside!