CX Tires

I am always looking for a better cyclocross tire. I own a disturbingly large number of bikes but find myself on a cross bike more often than anything else. While the UCI limits competition cyclocross tires to 33mm in width, the terrain I ride (and my larger than a pro-racer size) require something a bit more substantial. With the luxury of multiple frames that can fit 42mm or larger tires (My Black Mountain can actually fit 29"X1.95" mountain bike tires) I prefer tires in the 35-45+mm range.

Finding a large CX tire that rolls smoothly on the road and provides good traction in the dirt and weights less then 600grams is always a difficult task made more so by the constant churn of the bicycle tire industry products. For many years I rode a Ritchey WCS tire in 38mm that reamins my single favorite CX tire. It has a supple carcass and large, agressive knobbies but still rolled very smoothly on pavement. It provided a perfect balance of rolling resistance and traction. I rode them, rotating front and rear frequently, until they were nearly bald. 10 years later, I have still not found a replacement that hits that perfect balance. Ive tried Bontrager, Specialized, Maxxis, Michelin and Vittoria tires searching for the magical combination. The closest was the Schwalbe Marathon XR that offered the low rolling resistance and nearly the same traction but have a rather thick carcass that lacked the "feel" and light weight of my beloved Ritcheys. To make matters worse, it was discontinued right after I bought my first pair. I moved to another Schwalbe, the 42mm Marathon Extreme that is much like the XR, heavy, strong and durable. Availability of these larger CX tires from Schwalbe is problematic, often requiring ordering them from shops in Europe and paying some stiff shipping for tires that are already on the high end of the scale.

After reading reviews by men who know about such things here and here, I recently purchased a new tire that seems to offer everything I want from my tires. It's the new 40mm Clement X'PLOR MSO in 120tpi construction. It rolls like a road tire and offer great grip off-road. The carcass is soft and provides great feel. They have quickly become my favorite tire and are the heir-apparent for the "Best Cross Tire" title. They work well on the loose, gravel covered hardpack common in mid-summer California. It digs in nicely to redwood duff and provides out-of-the-saddle-climbing traction when the trail is a little damp. They work best when aired-down -- I don't use a pressure gauge but I suspect I prefer them at or below the suggested minimum on the sidewall.

Last Sunday I did expose a possible weakness due to that soft carcass and preference for lower pressure -- pinch-flats (or snake-bites). I hit an exposed root descending the newly-recontoured White Oak trail in Stevens Canyon and simultaneously pinch-flatted both tires -- something I doubt would have happened with the Schwalbe tires. Add a little forgetfulness on my part (leaving my seat bag, tubes and patch kit on the Tandem after a ride with Kathy on Saturday), poor cell coverage, and being 20+ miles from home provides all the necessary ingredients needed for an "Epic". Oh, and I also managed to lose (and much later recover) my wallet too.

To be fair, this is a pretty agressive mountain-bike trail where cross tires in general may not be the best choice so I'll hold final judgement until I get a few more miles and roots under them but in every other category they are without question the best large, agressive, CX tires I've ridden in many years.

Dry cleaning bag to the rescue

Putting the 4th of July holiday to good use I rode my bike to the beach yesterday via Lexington reservoir and the old Santa Cruz-San Jose highway. I met Kathy there where we had a nice espresso, walked the beach where I learned to surf, and enjoyed lunch at Betty's Burgers. On the ride I was reminded how fickle our coastal weather can be. I left the house in full sun wearing nothing but shorts, a light jersey and PI's "Sun Sleeves". Nearing the summit I got the first taste of the wet, cold wind that was waiting on the other side. The heavy fog at the summit became a cold rain as the trees filtered the water from the air and dropped it on my already cold back. Where was the warm sun I left just a few miles ago?, I wondered. As the "tree-rain" continued, the temp dropped to the mid-50s I began to shiver. Taking a que from the Tour riders I began to look for a newspaper to stuff under my jersey for a little insulation and respite from the wind until I could reach the Summit Store a few miles ahead and wondered wether they would have warm clothing for sale. Then I spied it, a plastic dry-cleaning bag tangled in the weeds just off the roadway. It was clean as though it was placed there moments before and torn a little by the hasty removal of hanger and cloth. It was perfect. I smoothed it out and stuffed it under my jersey where it did an awesome job blocking the wind and cold during the 16 mile, 40+ MPH descent from summit to the beach where Kathy was waiting with a warm sweatshirt. I didn't even think to stop at the summit store. The ride would have been much different without my little roadside find. Here is the ride on Strava.com.

iPhone 4 repair

I dropped my iPhone at the track on Saturday and shattered the front glass. It still worked fine, just the broken glass.

I found a local place that would not only replace the glass but gave me the option of picking a different color front and back glass. I now have a blue-tinted mirror finish that looks pretty cool. Nice to know there is an low-cost option after Apple care expires.

Workplaces

18 months ago (has it really been that long?) I started a boutique consulting company providing technical, operational and management advice to Cable, Satellite and Telephone companies and vendors in the commercial video space. Part of the plan was to operate the business out of my house to keep expenses as low as possible. The business started slowly as I learned what it takes to run my own business.

The business has grown to the point that I recently decided to rent some managed office space in a nearby building. It's quite a commitment for a bootstrapped startup but I think the results are worth it.

Here's why: It was certainly cool to work from home. I've done all the fun things, conference calls from bed, the backyard and the garage and at first is seemed like heaven to never "go to work". But, therein lies the challenge; if you never go to work, how do you know when you leave work? At first al all blurred together, hours and days didn't matter, just the number of billable hours I worked each week. That was fine for a few months, but after a while some problems started to emerge.

First of all, I live in a pretty small house, so the option of where to work are limited. I tried the home "office" which was too buried with personal junk. I tried a couple of other places and ended up simply working from the couch in the living room. In hindsight, this was the first mistake. You need separation between work and home.

Second was the intrusion of work on "personal" time, it starts slowly with a couple of early calls from the east coast, then came even earlier calls from Europe. I was OK with them because I was "at home". They quickly become a regular occurrence and pretty soon I started to resent the constant disruption. Letting this schedule go unchecked was the second mistake.

For me, a more pressing problem became when and how to end the day. After a few months I realized that I was spending 12-14 hours a day on "work" because I was continually multitasking between work and personal stuff and felt that I was never done with work. I tried to formalize the arrangement by closing all the work apps on my laptop at 5pm to have a clear separation of work and play. That was a step in the right direction but I still felt that I was always at work.

Then Kathy lost her job and started to spend much more time at home. I love her to death, but humans are simply not meant to spend 24hrs a day together. All of a sudden I felt the need to keep the volume low in morning conference calls or skipped optional calls all together to avoid disturbing her. After a few months of this the reduction in productivity and the marital friction became apparent. SOmething had to change.

I shopped around and found a small full managed office with Regus near the house. For just a few hundred dollars a month I now have a fully furnished office in a beautiful building. I'm only a few days into the new space but I've already noticed I'm closing To-Dos faster and making more "networking" calls then ever before. I'm obviously still in the honeymoon period here, let's see how long the glow lasts.