This week has been spent prepping for battle as Jenn O’Connor and myself recover our bodies and sort out our equipment for the Intermontane Challenge in Canada. My Lefty has been tuned to perfection at the Eightyaid centre in Germany and is buttery smooth and ready for the fast flowing trails or North America.
Other additions to the bike are the Tune 180 Fast Foot cranks, its a shame I cant find a BB30180 crank as i think its a fantastic system but for now the Tune cranks are tried and tested as we have used them for some years. The green Hope brakes would look great on the new Cannondale team bikes and do a great job of bringing my 78kgs to a halt when needed. I have also added a Hope Lefty stem as the one piece 120mm SI stem is slightly too long for big marathon days but does the job for shorter XC races. Within the stem lives the Cannondale multi tool, a fantastic design that keeps your tools secure and easily accessable.
Big riser bars are most definitely the way ahead for MTB racing, I’ve been back to straight bars and bar ends but they just don’t feel like you have control over the front end in the way that riser bars do and FSA make the best. I have a tricky relationship with tyres and get through a large number throughout the season, I’m big and I ride hard so getting the combination between light weight reasonable rolling resistance and grip is tricky.
Panaracer Razer MX 2.3 seems to fit my marathon racing needs well. As for the important part of the racing unit.. me, well i worked hard up to the start of last week and have had a week off this week to prevent the risk of getting swine flu on the plane. Once we get to Canada we will spend a week tuning our legs and getting used to the terrain and the environment and look forward to the race.
