Hot!

Hot! My riding has been hit-and-miss these week, not bad but there was potential for more. Instead of riding mileage yesterday I spent a considerable amount of time at OYLC watching Derek try to weave a spell on the Crosscheck. I'm getting ahead of myself. A few days ago I took the Ute over to LithoDale's to borrow his Dremel to do a bit of surgery on the latest rendition of the CC. The FireCross 45s fit in between the chainstays, but there isn't much room at all, whether it be for mud or run on those massive outofthesaddle bursts that I'm accustomed to. I spent about 2hr total on the rear tire using the Dremel to shave off some of the side knob action. The first side took 75% of the time, during which I futzed with different attachments and made a huge cloud of tire rubber dust. Eww! By the 2nd side I figured out a method and that took me much less time. Problem more solved. More chainstay room with monstercross tires.

The next CC issue was one of gears, and there lack of. It's adequately geared for 'crossing, but for trail riding I find myself *not* strong enough and needing smaller gears, as I'm apt to have on a standard mtbike like the 'Dale. I first thought of a smaller inner ring, the logic being that moving from a 36 to a 32 would get the job done. Then I noticed that the no-name crankset is drilled for a third ring. A small ring!! So to OYLC I went for a simple procedure, but as some of you, a simple solution sometimes isn't so simple. Two long-term issues came to the fore. First, the Q factor was too narrow to allow the front mech to move sufficiently to engage the inner ring. So, change to a wider bottombracket and, Presto!! But, Alas!! The old crankset has none of the fancy little ramp doo-dads that help lift and move modern chains, so Derek couldn't quite get things going. He tried combos of 3 different bottom brackets and 3 different front mechs, all to no avail. Humph! I appreciate Derek taking such time, knowing that his time is valuable. The end result is that the CC still has the same gearing, and until I'm ready to spend some $$ to replace some old parts (now 8 years or so-I think it was the first or 2nd year for the CC), I'll just have to be stronger.

p.s. I'm getting a little more comfy and enjoyed my miles on the Crosscheck with the 'stache bar set-up. I did about 2 hours worth Wednesday mixing trails and road through the park, which got me thinking of the gearing issue that took so much time Thursday.

Today I hit the parks for about 2 hours of really hot mtbiking. Did I say HOT!?!? I would do a sequence and clear everything, hills included, but at the end I would have to seriously soft-pedal or stop mid-trail to catch a breather and some water. It was brutal. But I did it. Did you?