I'm becoming more and more sold on running a lighter, faster rolling rear tire (within reason) and a Vittoria tire insert.

For places like Bentonville or CTX, I'd run a reckon or XC-ish tire in the back and a sticky compound exo assegai up front. I'll never go back to DHF after trying the Assegai. The performance on crappy, loose, flat turns that are so common, cannot be matched. 

The 29 insert weighed just over 150 grams, smoothed out the back end during high speed chatter, stabilized it during hard cornering (is there such a thing in TX?) and is a great runflat option in case something goes wrong. Not to mention the rim protection it offers too. Particularly with my poor line choices😎

IMHO, the insert sure beats carrying a bunch of BS flat repair kit with you or running 1100+ gram rear tires

1 hour ago, quixoft said:

I'm heading up to Bentonville for a week and also need new tires. 

Anyone ride up there and can recommend what sort of tires would be reasonable? It's my first trip up there. 

For reference, I mostly ride Brushy Creek and have found I like Maxxis Minion DHF/DHRII on the front/rear for the rocky stuff we have here. 

I think you'll be fine. Shale can be pretty sharp there, but i don't think its any worse than some of the stuff at deception or Georgetown lake trails etc. FWIW, I've been there several times on schwalbe rock razors and Hans D and never tore a sidewall. Take that with a grain of salt as I really don't tear sidewalls in general.  I do rip lugs off like nobody's business🤣

Just the thought of rolling around central TX on minions front and rear makes me tired. 

4 hours ago, notyal said:

Nice. I just caught up on the garage thread and was wondering where you ended up. 

Yeah we left Roanoke in February with the intention of moving to the Carson City/South Tahoe area of Nevada, but decided to wait out the winter for two months in El Paso. After a couple of weeks EP had grown on us enough, we decided to pull the trigger and buy. We'll be here for a couple of years until Canada pulls its head out of its ass and lifts the foreign buyers ban. 

Never in a million years did i think we'd like it here this much😁

Stopped by for a burger on the way home.

12 hours ago, St.Bernardo said:

Been a while since we've had to deal with this.

 

Long overdue. Glad to see you guys are getting some rain. Was 5% humidity here yesterday 

3 hours ago, Barry said:

Nice! I'm just at the start of my new garage adventure as well. I decided to go with some slatwall panels instead of pegboard this time. Hopefully they'll be delivered today. 

 

 

Nice upgrade man! That three car's got me droolin'. 

Made a little progress with the bikes today and also realized how spoiled I had gotten with our old Austin house. Way, way more space than this one. Plus, they put a Gas Heater with a friggin pilot light in a garage that cars from the 1960s were parked in. How this house is still standing is beyond me. The damn thing is also built into the wall and is keeping me from adding the fourth, and last bike. Not going to get into removing that thing right now, so gonna have to get creative. 

It begins 🤔

A younger friend turned mine onto this track. A bit meme-ish in a zoomer kinda way, but pretty catchy.

I struggle with these sometimes. Just seem like a MTB with drop bars which doesn't make much sense to me. In my experience, a real 20-22lb gravel bike goes like stink compared to fat tired heavier bikes. 

No shade, and to each their own though.

Drinking fancy sours in salt lake city. TF brewing 

My gravel bike is one of the only bikes I've regretted selling. I'd rather have one of those in CTX than an XC bike.

Those corner bars are magic. Great idea @mack_turtle

15 hours ago, ATXZJ said:

Surreal tour of north America continues. From Canada to the Mexican borderlands.

 

And now ever more surreal. Its snowing!!!

The new fezzari looks good and the price is right. Most importantly, they are offering a frame kit for people who build their own. About friggin time!

Hopefully this will start forcing other manufacturers to do the same and drive prices down.

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/fezzari-launches-timp-peak-long-travel-emtb.html

Surreal tour of north America continues. From Canada to the Mexican borderlands.

Going full New Mexico in the borderlands 

58 minutes ago, Barry said:

My Saris SuperClamp rack comes with a janky opportunity-theft prevention cable. Probably a screwdriver could defeat it. A couple of years ago we locked up my 5010 and Jessica's Hightower and went into Rudy's for some post-ride brisket. We parked and sat where we could see the bikes like we've done a thousand times...but an odd thing happened. Even though the bikes have different geo, from our particular viewing angle and distance, we were both suddenly convinced that my bike wasn't on the rack at all. We reasoned that no way someone would take just one of them. But it was so disconcerting that I had to go out and look! Sure enough, from just the right distance and angle, her bike entirely masked mine on the rack. It was confusing. 

Been there man. Bike paranoia knows no limits 🤣

We've tried just about every combo, and two bikes for each of us seems to be our sweet spot. Modern FS trailbikes are so good, you can do just about anything with them. Even hitting the DH park. Just bring extra tires etc. We have secondary big travel bikes for when the shuttle / lift trails get stupid and steep. There's no replacing a super-slack, long wheelbase big hit rig in those conditions. Especially with my poor line choices😆

For CTX, seems a modern full suspension 120-130mm downkuntry or trailbike is about perfect. Throw in a good gravel bike for the days of summer or when heading to flatlandia for a trip.

We've rolled all four bikes in & out of numerous hotels and BnBs troughout the USA and Canada over the last couple of years with zero issues. We also have a bad ass case hardened security chain we use to secure like pee-wee when we park the car for a post-ride lunch. Even at that, we still park in eyesight of the dining area or close to the front door, backed up to sidewalk.

more fuzz

currently obsessed with all things Sleaford

Been checking out the Son of Sam series on netflix and this was on the intro. Forgot how good her cover of this was.

FWIW, if anyone is still looking, Terlingua ranch was awesome when we stayed there. 

If I could do one thing before I die, sticking that landing would be very high on my list 😎

2 hours ago, BRAZOS1845 said:

Airrosti is awesome

This x100.

Brodie office for the win.