potluck

Been eating and drinking a lot. Tried to get "double pounded" Saturday at Glynner's... (2 lbs of beef, 1/2 lb bacon, plenty of cheese and fries) fail! Did succeed in eating quite a bit of it, still rode my bike on the potluck ride, still found room for a few drinks. Potluck ride was incredible- looking forward to next year already.

Otherwise I sent $ in for all 3 days of jinglecrossrock. A daily cat 3 race and Saturday/Sunday SS races in the AM. Been rocking the Viner on a few practice rides. Made about 5 laps of Eastwood on it last week. After I was starting to feel real good about my handling skills and the bike I decided to try to really lay one down and time it. Turns out the CX bike isn't quite as fast as the 29er! as it was only just under 37 minutes. Tons of fun though. Fell a few times and rode over some obstacles and skinnies without breaking the Zipps. Probably shouldn't really be riding trails on them with skinny tires a whole ton.

On a related note I beat the HELL out of the Kona this past weekend... rode it up some stairs, off a few drops etc. etc. and it's no worse for the wear. There is something uber fun about skinny tires and aggressive riding, or is it just that it's the end of a long year?

I'm pulling the plug on the Marin as a 69er SS rigid. Going to set it up as more of a "trail" bike and abuse the hell out of it. Will be 1x9 with xt/xtr bits and a Marzocchi 130mm 26" front fork. It worked really well the way I had it, but it was serving a purpose I didn't have. Plus, I was really starting to miss my old Jamis freeride/trail/beater bike. 130mm will be a lot of travel for a frame originally designed for much less, but the angles won't be far from where they are now with the 29" wheel out front.

Next update will probably be my thoughts on Jinglecross.