The rubber is important

For last night's 'cross practice I put the clinchers on my pit bike (Lemond) and rolled over to the park. The last time I had ridden these wheels was for a combo road/dirt ride so the tires were pumped up to 50+ psi. That's great for doing some miles on the road/bike path/fire road, but not so good for doing hot laps on a twisty 'cross course.

We had a good turnout last night and the group was riding some spirited laps. I was following Mike B. and after a couple of turns I commented that I was running way too much pressure. A few turns later we hit an off-camber right sweeper at speed and my bike just slid out from under me. I hit hard on my ribs, elbow (which was already bruised from a mtb crash the night before), and the side of my head. Ouch.

Instead of letting out some pressure I jumped back on my bike and kept riding. I guess I am just dumb or stubborn. Next lap I'm in the middle of a 180 turn on dirt/stone road when the same friggin' thing happens and my knee/shin gets the cheese grater treatment. Thankfully, Sean didn't run my ass over as I was layed out in the dirt.

I think part of the problem is that my tub's were hooking up so well in Sunday's race that I became overconfident in my cornering abilities. I was jamming into the curves at speed thinking the bike would stay hold the line. I guess I forgot that I wasn't on the Dugast's pumped to 35psi. Bike handling skills are nice, but the rubber (and tire pressure) really does make a difference.

Other than the crashes it was a fun practice. I'm looking forward to racing again this weekend at the Ed Sander 'Cross.

Here's a camera-phone shot of the damage. Nothing too bad, but scrubbing the dirt and pebbles out of the scrapes was not fun.

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Originally uploaded by cbnystrom.