River cruise.

Four hours of sleep. Nine and a half hours in the woods. Four and a half hours riding through snow. Twelve beers. Big fire. An unknown amount of hot dogs. One bottle of water. Best chili of my life at Buster's.

First DNF of the year comes early.

Normally in the past I've felt bad about a DNF. Normally I've though that I should have dug deep and pulled Rule V out of my gut. Today was not normal. Elk River took my lack of preparation and thwacked me with it.

At the start line I could tell my pedals were going to be a problem. The race hadn't begun and my left foot already wasn't fond of attaching itself to my left pedal. Before we even got into the woods we had to get over the giant mount that Rich had made. I ended up having to run it because of congestion and that was the last time my my feet decided to attach themselves to the bike. Entering the woods it was obvious that this was going to be a long race. No one was riding anything that went up at all. A lot of this stuff would at least be a bit rideable, but it just comes down to one guy in the line messing up a little bit and everyone has to run. Pretty easy to do when every one of us has the new Shimano Iced Cleat Interface. Going down the big hill under the bridge was exciting since I'd kicked my crank and couldn't find a pedal, I was going down rodeo style. No stirrups and legs flailing. At the bottom of the hill I passed Dominic. I think the bull thwacked him in the nuts from what I heard.

About this time I started to notice that the snow was deep enough that it was packing into my boots. I kept going on hoping that it was warm enough that it wouldn't matter. I made it to the power line climb and I saw Heath and everyone seemed to be going pretty slow. I threw my bike on my shoulder and ran around hoping to get a little closer to the leaders. As I passed Heath I saw that I was also passing B. Moore and was now in the lead. Sweet, I'm finally beating that guy. I knew it wouldn't last, but that's been a goal for a long time.

After not a very long time of being ahead of Brendan I realized why they were going so slow. The trail hadn't been ridden at all so he'd been breaking trail the entire time. Now not only could I not ride the uphill, but I couldn't ride most of the flat. That was fine enough as the adrenaline was pumping pretty hard. We switched off breaking trail a couple of times with a bit of a gap on the rest of the group, but that gap was fading fast. Toward the end of section 4 I think, I never learned the stupid section names, they caught on us. The adrenaline started to fade and I noticed that my boot wouldn't stay velcroed any more. Both of them were packed full of snow that was melting inside my boots. I moved over to futily try to fix them and get a little bit of relief behind some other guys.

Through section 1 and 2 I think, I never learned the stupid section names, a couple of the guys I was behind started falling a bunch and let the leaders go. I say they fell, but probably mean, I was struggling to keep up with them even though they kept falling.

I soft pedaled out of the woods to cross the start and go through the prologue to start my second lap. I'd been in the woods for 2 hours. My feet were wet and frozen. The soft pedaling was no longer because of an outside factor, it had become my only speed. With the prospect of two more hours of this ahead of me I gave up and went home.

I'm disappointed I didn't prepare better. I've ridden in conditions like this and know what it's like without gaiters and know that my pedals will freeze. In the end though I feel like I gave it what I had and am happy I was able to do well for at least a short duration of the race.

An idea I was kicking around.

Components of bicycle handling due to tire variation,

I think that bicycle handling is not viewed in a realistic way. I want to start the journey that ends in real progression rather than marketing hype. This is some of what I’ve learned.

Stability; Stability comes from increased width and decreased pressure, stability slows down reaction from rider input and reactions from outside variables.  Increasing stability does not mean that you will not slide, but it does mean that you will be less likely to fall down when you do.

Grip; Grip comes from tread design and decreased pressure. Grip will change the likelihood of sliding though it does not help you stay upright once a slide has begun. Grip is very misunderstood as it is associated with width, but seems to have little to do with width. More width can lower the minimum pressure thereby increasing grip but doesn’t seem to contribute to grip directly.

Float; Float does not help you in a corner and seems to help primarily when force perpendicular is questionable. This may seem of little value, though it does help as a sort of straight line stability. For example, ram jamming through a snow bank. Float is often misunderstood. It relates to the pressure that is being run. Maximum float equates to minimum pressure that is possible. It is often viewed as maximum width, but in fact contact patch is a 2 dimensional shape and length should also be accounted for. This has to do with tire diameter and again pressure.

Reaction; Reaction is possibly the same thing as stability though for this reference it is viewed through a different lens. As width increases  Reaction becomes slower and the bike will feel heavier. This is mentioned in stability, though it is necessary to point out the negative connotations of increased stability.

This is not a complete list and definitely not 100% scientific. The main purpose is to view grip by it’s components rather than as one quantity.