My Libertarian Tire

I like traction.  In riding a mountain bike, it is one of those commodities that can be used for so many things, like propulsion, cornering, braking, stability, or just about everything needed to make a bicycle move quickly through the woods.  Given the choice of traction or suspension for venturing off pavement, I'd pick traction without a second thought.  While that statement might not carry much weight coming from a guy with a penchant for rigid bikes, it was echoed by one of the absolute best bike handlers I've ever attempted to follow down a trail, Chris Krug.  Chris tends to ride full suspension bikes and spends a lot of time with a large air gap between his tires and trail, but even in his airborne opinion, traction is king.

No tread on me!

And yet, I've been loving my nearly worn out back tire.  Many years ago, the favorite rear rubber of friend, arch racing nemesis, and eventual teammate, Matt Estes was a bald Continental.  Those tires came with minimal tread fresh out of the box, but Matt wouldn't race them until a few hundred road miles had worn them down to a near slick.  Knobs are great at grabbing, but if the goal is wheels that roll, a tire that lets go of the surface is needed, and with this Saturday's mountain bike outing from Angie and Mike's house in Connecticut starting a 45 mile road ride from my door, yeah, a little roll would take me a long way!

On the road again: while I contemplate my next competitive event, I've been spending the weekends pedaling a little further than usual to the trail head.  With Adele attending a naturalist program at the James L. Goodwin Center on Saturday, followed by a friends-and-family hike for both of us on Sunday, riding the Natchaug Forest with Mike on Saturday was the obvious choice, followed by some backyard camping to span the gap to the next morning's reunion in Mansfield.  As a huge bonus, Doug and Gary also joined Saturday to ride and swim and reconnect and swim and sweat and swim, which allowed many birds to kill the moss on one rolling stone, or something like that.  Oh, also, it was hot.

A Good Morning!

It all worked out great: a scenic morning pedal down to Connecticut, and my low tread tire worked its magic to help me shave an hour and fifteen minutes off Google's four and a half hour travel estimate.  That even included stops for a couple glamour shots and to sniff the flowering garlic mustard.  For the return trip on Sunday, I joined Adele in her car to help collect her newly acquired kayak after we didn't find time to bike trailer it home from Southwick earlier this week.  I, and her car's roof, hope we never have to resort to that again.  Like so many things, in my opinion, it's just better with a bike!

Cool views from a morning that turned HOT.

High nineties in May,

It's almost like the climate changed.

Sigh