Fellow bike racer and motorcycle rider Robert Wray recently packed up the family and escaped the Zion Curtain to Austin, Texas. Apparently there is a Tuesday Night World Championships crit series on some sort of race track, just like the RMR. Maybe it’s not on Tuesdays, I didn’t get the full report. There is also at least one person who has a bike rack on his motorcycle. Glad to see it. Parallel Universe type shit?

Bike on Bike from Robert Wray in Austin, TX.

After receiving a box from the Clement Tire guys this past Thursday, I had my work cut out for me. As to my last post about glueing cyclocross tires, like ogres and onions, it’s all about layers. Layers of glue on the base tape of the tire, and layers of glue on the rim. Glue bonds to glue, and you really need to make sure those layers dry completely, like 24 hrs in between, to ensure you get a good bond. So time was not on my side, with UTCX race #3 on Saturday, October 8. I had to glue up 2 new rims, 2 brand new tires, plus a TUFO Flexus Cubus 34 on what are now my back-up wheels. The new rims I was glueing were Reynolds 32 prototype road wheels. So how did it all end up? Let’s just say I was still wrestling with tires and rims late enough on Friday night to see Live with Jimmy Fallon in its entirety. And I went to bed with sticky paws. The tires were good in the mud, sand, and wet pavement of Fort Buenaventura. I had a lot of trouble at that same course last year with the TUFOs, granted that was in the snow and mud and I reckon a lot slicker than this year’s race. The Clements hooked up really well in the tacky mud, sliced through the sand by the river bed, gripped well on the babyhead river rocks, and make me feel like I had spikes in the grass sections. So all in all, I’d say it worked out well. I would have liked more time to do a few laps on the TUFOs to compare. I think they would have been good too. The Clements are made in the TUFO factory and share the same tubeless design, but the tread and rubber are totally different. You can see how aggressive the Clement side knobbies are, but also notice how open the tread block spacing is on the top of the tire, which is great for self-cleaning.

Birds of a feather: Clement PDX and TUFO Cubus are made in the same place.