Benno Willeit, Specialized Factory Team Mechanic Whiz and Equipment Manager pimped my ride with these custom Carbon Ti bits.

Does this mean “You have made it”, or does it mean “You’re supposed to go so hard you’ll forget your name?”

Winning 3rd leg of Western Province Cross Country Champs, this Sunday at Paul Cluver, South Africa.

Havent blogged in a while partially because I had to upgrade my web host, and partly have been crazy busy. Traveling to South Africa, visiting my parents on the farm with Liezel, spending time training and settling in Stellenbosch and guess what? Actual real training. (Well, kind of)

So I’m going to blog in bits an pieces, to try and catch up on news: Herewith, this past weekends’ Western Province MTB Champs, leg no 3:

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Conrad Stoltz -my 1st Cyclo Cross experience. On a mountain bike. Ok, a Specialized Epic 29er, but still a mountain bike.

If you were expecting the XTERRA USA write up, its coming. Actually, this is the 1st of a 3 part series of the 10 days leading up into XTERRA Nationals, explaining my interesting preparation, but mostly just mouthing about how amazing my 29er Epic is- which I did all 3 races on.

When I rode my 1st 29er it was love at first sight. I was so impressed with its rock riding ability I put this bad video on youtube in 2008 and it has over 36 000 views already. Wish I was smart enough to put some voice or music over it.

Then I was all fired up for 29ers, I wanted to race them. 1st time I did was at XTERRA South Africa in 2008.

Then I got onto to those poor MTB engineers at Specialized, I started nagging at them for a race 29er for over 4 years, and  I bet when they see me coming they quickly duck behind a planter or into the ladies toilet. But finally the bike came, and frankly, it blew the doors offa my expectations and Specialized is yet again, THE leader in the industry.

Back to the story:

I decided to jump into the 3rd leg of the much lauded Thrilla CX Series in Bend, OR. Bend is a bike crazy town- half the community watches these midweek ‘cross (that the cool way of saying it) races and the other half races. And I leanrt that a true ‘cross fan can be a scary thing….

I felt like a bit of a doofus on the start line with my mountain bike with balloon tires, Command Post and water bottle. Suspected I’d be booted into

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www.conradstoltz.com is a finalist in the 2010 South African Blog Awards competition.

Please vote (or not) for me under The Evox Advanced Nutrition Best Sports Blog and The Ogilvy Twitter Microblogger of the Year.

This is a quick post to explain to John Harrington (facebook discussion on 24 August ) about clipping tires.

(There is more, but I couldnt screen shoot the whole thing- was born in the 70s)

These Specialized Captain 2.00 tires  clogged with mud at XTERRA Vermont in 2009 (Read more about the race, rotten foot and tire story here)  Not knowing Vermont, I didnt bring real mud tires, so I had to make do, so I used a sharp wire cutter and clipped every 2nd knob out of the center line of knobs. Which would help the mud shed (fling off) the tire easier when speed increase.

Real mud tires are narrow (sinks to the bottom of the mud where the real traction is) with few, but tall knobs. Tall knobs provide more grip (like paddles or spikes) and few because, too many knobs will let the mud pack onto the tire  and make a thick sausage like the pic above.

Downhill racers are famous for cutting tires to suit certain courses.

Off course, a rainy pre race taper allows for plenty of cutting time, so here is my product. Cant see on the pic, I clipped every 2nd knob out of the center row  of this Specialized Captain for better mud clearing.

Of course, its a tedious job, it takes seemingly hours and 1 slight mishap and you can throw the tire in the garbage.

Before the new fast rolling  Specialized Renegade  tire the Specialized Factory Team (especially Susi and Burry) used to cut the Fast Trak knobs shorter for less rolling. (and less stopping/cornering 🙂 ) But now they’d cut Fast Trak tires for more grip on somewhat muddy courses. If it gets real muddy, they’ll go with a full on mud tire. Except Burry. He just sticks to low knobs and goes with the sliding- I saw it 1st hand at Sani2C…