Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Meet My New Friend; Kanuga

There must have been some Belgians running around in my house yesterday afternoon because I was seriously waffling on my ride. I forced myself to think about the sweet dirt I would encounter if I could only force myself out of the door.

After much deliberation between my hundreds of personalities, I was able to force myself on the bike. I took my newly normalized route to the top of Paris and dropped in on the dirt. As soon as I was in the park I saw Brownie’s crew and chatted with them for a minute.

I recently slapped a new Conti Mountain King 2.4 on the front and I was interested to see how it would hook up in the dirt. I don’t know what my problem is but this tire just looks skinny. CAN SOMONE MAKE A FATTY 29 INCH TIRE THAT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE RIDDEN IN THE SNOW? I mean hello, I am riding rigid here and I could give a rat’s ass about rolling resistance. Rant over.

So after we chatted it up I thought I would go see if my fruits of labor on Kanuga (am I spelling this right?) were ready to be received. HOLY COW! I had to stop and take in the view a couple times, the second time I saw a fellow climbing so I waited for him to huff by and took off. This trail is sweet. Not technical, not steep but it travels over some really steep terrain. To know what that section of the mountain looked like before and see a trail running through it is awesome. Kudos to Deno and his trail crew along with all the General Electric and SORBA volunteers that helped make this possible.

I will say that even though the Conti lacked in visual size it hooked up fantastically in the dirt. I am a little worried that it might be a mud slinger though, only one way to find out.

I am so glad the Belgians didn’t hold me back. This should be a big week for me if everything pans out I will ride every day of the week until Sunday. YEAH BABY YEAH.

4 comments:

cornfed said...

Conti's all seem to run skinnier than their designations.

I've been digging the Conti VerticalPro (similar in tread to the Maxxis Ignitor). A poorly placed exhaust pipe pre-snake #1 cost me one tire and the emergency replacement was a Conti Vapor. Sucks in mud, squirms in everything, don't like it. Just threw a set of 2.1 (man they are skinny) Speed Kings (protections) on and am really surprised at how well they hook up and soak up the bumps. Better than the larger and bigger treaded VerticalPros. They didn't have the mountain kings in stock, but I've heard good things about them.
(yeah, I'm bored at work...)
ramble over.

The Evil MGE! said...

Kanuga is Sw-eeet and yeah, you should be spelling that correctley as I live right off a road by the same. Got out there yesterday for a late day lunch ride and I'm still blown away.

I'm out for the Gathering. Celebrating my girl's 3rd birthday. May be out and about on Sunday getting some dirt in the treads of my tires but its up in the air at the moment.

Jut Rut said...

going down south tomorrow. do you have time for some dupont...

Jut

ExtrmTao said...

Jut,

I am headed to Cove Creek tonight. . . When I talked to Rob, he said something about staying out there tonight, not sure if you are a part of that crew.

I am waffling back and forth between Dupont and Pisgah, should be able to hit up both tomorrow.

Either way, come out to Cove Creek in the morning and a decision will be made from there.

Peace