Friday, August 29, 2008

A Little Late.....

Hey everyone! I'm a little later than usual today due to a technical glitch here at Guitar ted Laboratories. Seems that the wireless router has a mind of its own lately. Anyway............

More Tire Goodness: I've gotten a set of Maxxis Ardents and a set of Bontrager XR Tubeless Ready tires within the last two days. So you know what that means! More riding, more testing, more writing. It's all good. Initial impressions are that neither tire is as big as advertised, ( an all too common thing) and the Bontragers being the worst of the offenders. We'll give them a day or two and see, but in no way do the Bontragers represent the girth of the original XR's that came out three years ago or so. I got the fast set up on the XR's: Two fronts, running them on the rear is a fast way to go, almost a race tire set up. With these new treads looking to be spot on two inchers, they might just be great racing tires after all.

Labor Day Weekend: Big end of summer bash for a lot of folks which includes racing for some. Sadly, I am not going to be one of the fortunate few. My wife has "on call" duty this weekend and the two kids need a parent at home while Mom is away. So, I will be going on an "Adventure" with the two little ones instead. It'll be a good time. Sunday may see me get out for a local ride, since Mrs. Guitar Ted can work from the house. Monday is wide open, so that's my target day. I hope everyone else gets their groove on riding a bike somewhere this weekend!

It Is A Busy Time: Lots of things are cranking up around here now. Appointments for Interbike, possibilities for test/review items for Twenty Nine Inches, trying to arrange some out of town riding/testing opportunities, and the regular things surrounding my everyday life. September lately seems to last about five minutes and the next thing I know, I'm wearing wool and watching the leaves blow around my local trails. Somewhere in the midst of all of this, I have to hook up with d.p. and get Trans Iowa details sewn up before winter sets in. I vote for an extra month in between September and October. Any takers?

"Cagey McCagerson": This is a nic-name that has been given to a certain someone in the bike industry by a certain someone else I know. (Yes, now I'm the one being cagey!) It is sort of an unspoken code in the industry where everyone you meet has something they are busting at the seams to tell you about, (because they are dyed in the wool bike geeks) but can not due to marketing/company rules, or for maintaining relationships, so instead they give you this wink, a smile in an odd place, or maybe a highly veiled tidbit of info meant to lead you on towards the discovery of what they are so excited about. It can be really frustrating at times, on both ends of the equation. I only bring it up because I find it a fascinating part of how bicycle industry people relate to other bike geeks. Right now, just before the trade show season, this sort of micro-culture communication is at its highest form and use. Pretty strange stuff, and I admit, I am right there in the midst of some of it. So, stay tuned as a lot of this "caginess" gets diffused over the coming month. It'll be a good time!

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