Only a few more days now until Sonya, Yuki, and I head to Arkansas for the Ouachita Challenge. Today, after my training session I spent a good amount of time getting my race bike dialed in for the 60 mile race. This will be the 3rd time I have raced down in Arkansas at the OC. The course is fast and demanding. I am opting for the hardtail this year with the addition of the 100mm Magura Durin Race fork. Normally, I run the 80mm fork on the hardtail, so I swap the travel out for a bit of forgiveness on the front end. The course is a mix of super fast fireroads and singletrack.....that is why the hardtail...in hope of making time on the road.
With all the dirt riding that past weekends, I was left with a hardtail that needed a lot of tender loving care. Simple process really, just remove all those greasy parts and throw them into a container of degreaser and shake, shake, shake until clean.
As mentioned above, the course in Arkansas is demanding. The biggest challenge is razor sharp rocks. Most people that DNF at this event do for one reason only.....cut open side walls. I took off my Race King Supersonics in favor of the Race King Protection. It's the same tire...but with reinforced sidewalls. The high volume of the 2.2's were also another deciding factor in running the hardtail. These tires are tops on my list for almost all of my racing.
Beefy!
Speaking of tires...today I was sitting at home and I got a call from a freight company asking if my address was correct as they were attempting to delivering a tire shipment from Germany. Hmmmmmmm, freight? Must be a big shipment. Sure enough, it was one huge box on a pallet.
Roughly 170 Continental tires for the 6 Topeak-Ergon USA based riders for the 2009 season. Looks like when I get back from Arkansas I will be boxing up tires to send to the team.T-minus 5 days until race day.