The new SID

I have just put a new Rockshox SID Team on my titanium mountain bike. My old shock was completely worn out, so I looked at the SID range (Race, Team, World Cup) and picked the middle of the range. It has blackbox technology and a handlebar mounted lockout.

There are a couple of great ideas included with this fork. It comes with several different colour options (brown, silver, purple and orange) for the decals at the bottom of the fork. So you can match your frame colour.

Another great feature is the measurements marked on the stanchion that show the percentage compression. You can see it in the photo of a world cup fork in the photo below.

So to check sag when setting your fork pressures you push the red rubber ring down, sit on the bike and you can read it off the scale. There is one scale for a fork set at 80mm and another for 100mm. No fiddling with rulers and zip ties.

I set it up with the recommended settings and went riding. When I rode on my old fork, I could feel it working - or not working. With the SID I did not feel it working at all, but when I looked at the red o-ring it showed that I had been using the full travel. It makes the front end more predictable when you hit a bump mid corner for example. I also thought it made the bike feel softer at both ends, but that does not sound very logical.

The only odd thing I found was that the Rockshox website does not match reality. The weight of the Team I have is 1507g and the World Cup in the photo is 1508g. On the website they say the weights are Team 1475g and World Cup 1407g, however that is for the 80mm version. Then on www.superlightintegrateddesign.com, the SID website it gives weights of 1485g and 1460g.

Overall the SID Team is a great fork, with lots of adjustment, a handy lockout and a light weight. Most of all it just works superbly.

Rider update

It's the middle of winter but the Baum mountain bike team aren't slacking off, secret training is rife!

Steve has taken the drastic step of moving to Ballarat to ensure his secret training remains secret. He is making promises of big dirt and road loops for anyone who wants to go visit him.

Jim has been playing in the hills close to Melbourne, doing "easy" 160km days. He's excited about racing the Tour D'Africa in early 2009.

Ryan as always isn't training at all. He has been vegging out with only short snow shoe walks up Mt Buller to get some milk, turns out they had none left so he went skiing for the day.

David is slowly organising his new hard tail, rumours point to an unveiling in the near future, I'm fighting for the first test ride in return for the time's I've let David on my Cubano.

Darren has decided to come out of racing retirement and is training for some races later this year and early next year. Early form suggests legs never forget how to go round in circles regardless of the claims of their owner.

It's the time of year for long cold rides and mud covered mountain bikes. I've been trying to convince everyone that base training is about putting on an extra few kg to keep warm during winter, no one is convinced.

The handicap

Sunday started without enough sleep, I was tired, nervous and regretting the previous nights curry. Ashley (my lift) and I got registered and headed out for a practice lap. We had around 2 hours before we would be called up to start and even doing 10km of the course gave us time to watch some of the earlier riders start.

I had been ranked 18th by the handicapper but due to a few riders not turning up for this race I estimated I was about the 9th last rider to start. My first goal was the rider 12 seconds in front of me. I managed to catch him inside the first 5 minutes, and rode on concerned about the riders who had started up to 1 hour and 22 minutes in front of me. Every 5-10 minutes I'd catch glimpses of another rider giving me impetus to chase hard. Towards the end of my first lap I caught the first rider, Ben Scarlett an 11 year old. I yelled encouragement to him, but knowing I wouldn't catch him again took it's toll, and I had to work to get my mind back to racing, even if it was just with the riders immediately in front and the ones chasing from behind.

The course gained around 120 metres over each 15km lap. A fast time meant holding high speeds through the flowing trail and I was loving the occasional drift as I tried to go faster and faster around the bends.

I buried myself on the second lap, my legs were full of fire but I had to beat Ashley and Murray, if I could beat them I would be happy. Each small climb or long straight I locked out the forks and stood up, I dropped the rider who'd jumped onto my wheel as I passed. I got anxious riding behind anyone in flowing trail, to the rider I kept asking to go "faster, faster" on one gravity fed section, I'm sorry. I was flowing well, and loving it! The pain in my legs was just a gauge to how fast I was going. If it didn't feel like my blood was acid then I wasn't going hard enough, I'd dig deeper trying to brake later, corner harder, snap out of corners and good old fashioned grunt in the straights.

The final run to the line was agony, I knew I had some space on the rider behind but i stood up and cranked the sandy fire road with a slight upward tilt, I turned into the last 50 meters and *bang* my chain snapped and wrapped itself around my bottom bracket. I jumped off and shouldered the cubano and ran, amidst shouting from the crowd, to the line. Unable to pull a mono I hopped the last few metres instead. I stopped dead 1cm past the line staring at the crowd who'd already finished, I have no idea how many there were (1-2 dozen?) but I was disappointed that I hadn't caught them all.

I waited for Ashley to arrive in, happy that he hadn't closed the 3 minute gap. I grabbed some food and drink from the free BBQ, waved good bye and high tailed it for the car. Ashley had to be back in town for work, so I never got to see if young Mr Scarlett had won. I was tired but stoked that I had beaten Murray, one of the fastest XC guys in Australia, my estimates are he took 4-5 minutes out of my handicap lead, but that's good enough for me.

So, this brings us to now. It's Monday morning and I'm at my desk at work with weary legs. GMBC's website tells me that Ben did in fact win, I'd love to have seen his face. The site also tells me that I managed to win A-Grade, and managed to acquire enough points for 3rd in the series. Ace!

The waiting game

It's a sunny winter Saturday afternoon. My bike is being cleaned, parts checked, tyres swapped all ready for tomorrow. The same can't be said for me, my brain whirs and nerves are on edge. Tomorrow I race.

It's unusual for me to have these feelings, "why stress when you can't effect the results now?" I ask myself. "The result doesn't matter" I say, but I know I'm lying, every race counts.

GMBC has run a great series this winter, each time something different, keeping things interesting on those cold dark days, it all culminates tomorrow – the handicap.

I know the rider behind me, I know the rider in front. Jim will have a head start, I'll have to bury myself to catch him, and while I think I know his weakness, he has definitely seen mine. Nothing to do but wait, I hate waiting.