my bike is heavier than yours!

Being sick sucks…duh. I had the flu for almost two full weeks…and I finally feel human again. Did no physical activity for those two weeks except for a short hike. That sucks (duh). So Sunday I went up boarding and tele’ing at Lambeau Field with DK and Joey in the 2-4 inches of "powder" (it’s all relative). The conditions are great up there though, seriously,..especially in the woods. We’re over average snowfall this year in Colorado and it shows…MUCH different conditions than the last 6 years. A happy factor of 9 (10’s are reserved for those rare days where everything is alligned and theres a LOT of snow, or being in the backcountry). I saw snowshoe hare tracks in the woods, which was cool…which to me means lynx habitat!

I hung with a couple of friends last night at the Toad and had dinner an dbeers talking shop (bike geek stuff). We talked tires and frames and ideas for parts, something T and I like to do quite a bit. Total bike dorks, thinking about what COULD be made and created and morphed or changed or for me most importantly SIMPLIFIED.

A story was told about a very fast foreign racer (not european) that was on the same team of one person at the table. The racer, having received his new race clothing in the form of skinsuits, took the box up to his room and came downstairs with a gram scale. He proceeded to WEIGH his new skinsuits and wrote down the weights of each one in a notebook that he later transferred to his computer. He had a spreadsheet of the weights of his race clothing and proceeded to compare his new clothing with the clothing of his previous team’s skinsuits (which were maybe 20 grams lighter). He was shocked that his new clothing was "significantly heavier" than his previous skinsuit and truly believed this would effect his racing performance. He did, in fact, have a worse year than normal…so maybe he had a point? No way, man.

This kind of behavior is unacceptable for mountain bikers. I’d expect this from pure roadies, but not mountain bikers. He is most likely an anomaly, but there are lots of racers obsessed with weight. I care about weight…but to a point. For example, I don’t own a gram scale. If I did, I would not keep track of the weight of my clothing. I could see comparing bars, BB’s, frames, pedals and big items like those…but clothing? That’s just absurd! Does 10 grams matter? No. But what is the number of grams that starts to affect performance? That is a valid question. I doubt you could feel the difference between a stem that is 50 grams heavier than another stem. (50 grams is a tenth of a pound). The CUMULATIVE effect of all the parts on the bike can add up, yes, but it shouldn’t be something too focused on. There’s a very strong relation between what’s light and what breaks fast. Heavier things tend to be more durable. But there’s a balance that should be met: strength and durability and low weight. Not just low weight.

Back to the clothing thing…at the speeds that mountain bike racers go, I would wage that there is no significant difference between wearing baggy and lycra shorts in race time, speed, or result. Maybe in breathe-ability, but the new Nema Crown Jewels are pretty breathe-able.

Anyway, just a funny and scary story.
(I will not divulge the name of this rider as he’s a really nice guy and he’d probably not appreciate me heckling his type A personality.)