Bike to Work Week

I took the Dos and the dog to this weekend’s race venue for a pre-ride last night.  Turned out to be a pretty good ride.  I let the pooch tag along for the first of three laps, loaded him into the back of the toaster and then headed out for two more, faster laps.  The Dos is going to be a good bike for the course, it has lots of rooty areas that the Dos just gobbles up.  It is at a slight disadvantage because of the number of tight turns on the course but I think its root abilities will more than make up for that short coming.  After the ride, I’m most worried about my tires.  The ignitors hooked up well on the tacky stuff but once it got slimy, they lost all grip.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any other 29’er tires to throw on so I’m stuck with these but I guess I should start looking for a good mud tire for conditions like these.  I’m getting used to the grip shift now which is good.  For some reason SRAM decided to make the shifting opposite from what I would expect.  When you ride a dirt bike or motorcycle you twist the grip back to go faster but on the SRAM stuff you twist back to down shift.  It probably makes sense from a mountain biking point of view but its taking me some getting used to even though I haven’t ridden a motorcycle in probably 10 years.  I guess some habits really stick with you.  I was very impressed with the rear derailleur’s ability to deal with mud and gunk.  By the end of the ride, the pullies were completely jammed with junk but shifting was still right on, very impressive.  The weather looks like it may cooperate for the weekend with somewhat clear skies being called for at present time.  Hopefully that happens because I’m not looking forward to a complete mudfest.

Since its National Bike to Work Week I’ve decided to ride home tonight and in tomorrow morning.  I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to do a butt-crack-of-dawn ride again to get some time in that I missed earlier in the week or just do a more direct route in.  I know that I need the extra mileage but with the race on Sunday, I may not want to tax the system.  I guess I’ll wait until the ride home tonight before I make the decision.