the before and after

The other day my Dad posted up a couple of pictures on Facebox of the transformation of "Brownie" into the "Ghost of Brownie". I never really took a good before and after pic which I should have and when I saw these it was really cool to look back at the old version and compare the differences.





Brownie




The Ghost of Brownie

Don't let the before picture fool you, that photo made Brownie look alot better than she did in person. The tires were in such bad shape I'm not sure how they didn't blow out on my Dad. I was a little afraid to ride on them.

After the disappointing award ceremony at the Ocho I guess Brad had heard enough of my complaining. He volunteered to contact the promoter and ask if we should stay in the Sport catagory or move up to Open. I guess it depends on if our points will transfer, not that we would really stand a chance against the other Open teams but who knows. Some teams may only show for one or two races giving us a better shot at the overall.
I had originally thought we did more laps than the Open class 2nd place team. After looking at the posted results I realized that was not the case. I think the promoter had tapped into the post race beverages a little too early when he began calling out the winners and their acheivements.

The past couple of months I've been riding in some pretty nasty weather, mud, rain more mud and.... oh yeah, two races with muddy laps. Why do you ask am I talking about this again? Well I never got around to purchasing one of those BackCountry Awesome Straps like I had planned. I did run across a seatbag, a brand who's name I cannot recall right now but it's design was almost identical to the old seatbag I used for so many years without fail. I've been swapping it back and forth between the JET and AIR9, really putting the velcro to the test. The brand is not one I am that familar with so I really didn't expect it to live through this spring's nasty weather. I've been proven wrong so far, this new, no name seatbag has taken quite a beating and is still hanging in there without the slightest bit of a slip. I'm really surprised at how well it has performed and am curious to see what else it can take.

Speaking of gear and accesories, I've been on a bit of a tire purchasing spree. Ever since Bontrager did away with the Jones ACX I have been on the hunt for a suitable replacement. After the recent Conti trial I ordered the Bontrager 29-4's which proved to be a bit more beefy than I wanted on my hardtail so I ordered another set, the 29-2's, which I've yet to receive. While waiting on them to return I ran across another deal on a set of the XDX's that I could not pass up. Now I have more tires than I know what to do with but plenty of options to keep me entertained for the summer. Hopefully I won't spend more time mounting up tubeless tires than riding.