Breezer Cloud 9 LTD

So I finally received my new Breezer Cloud 9. It arrived on my birthday April 14th. When I got to the shop it had been built up with Crank Brother Eggbeater 11's, Easton Monkey lite SL handle bars, and Ergon GX2 Carbon grips. The bike weighed 24 lbs. I was not terribly impressed. As an XC racer I am looking for a light bike. I did a little investigation and found the major culprit to be the tires, 775 grams for those WTB's. That's gotta go, and tubes? No tubes. So I put some Bontrager XR3 550 gram tires on without tubes and sealed with Stan's sealant. The bike lost well over a pound right there. I tried a Sele Italia SLR seat with a Thomson post. I like the post as it puts the rider more forward on the bike than the stock Oval setback post. But the SLR saddle proved to be a little uncomfortable. I am not real sure why, I have used that very saddle for years. I think it is mostly because I am at the end of a seven day run of 2 hr days, a lot of which has been high intensity. So I put the stock saddle back on. The stock rotors are too heavy, I swapped out to Sram's xx rotors(160mm front and rear). The stock cassette is very heavy to, about 340 grams for the XT 11-36. On order is a Sram XG 11-36 cassette that weighs 237 grams. So the bike should weigh 22 lbs when I get the new cassette, very respectable.
When I first threw a leg over the bike things were feeling good. My prior 29er was a Spot Longboard 9 and this was feeling somewhat similar, a little shorter of a cockpit, but still felt comfortable. First adjustments were the saddle height and position. All of the way forward is normal for me with my short femurs? Then adjusting the XTR brakes, takes an allen but works well. Air pressure on the fork is 120lbs in the positive and I started at 120lbs in the negative and let air out till it felt right. I weigh around 165. The tires are a little skinny so 26lbs in the front and 31 in the rear.My Spot has had a rigid fork on it for the last 6 months so the first couple of rides on this bike have been amazing. This bike feels as fast or faster than my Spot on the climbs. That does not make a lot of sense because they weigh about the same and the spot has a rigid fork but I attribute it to efficiency. I think this bike( and probably a lot of new carbon 29er hardtails) is very effective at transferring the power into forward momentum. Good news. Then the downhill. This bike is of course even faster here. I got used to the shorter cockpit immediately and I am no technical wizard on the downhill sections. The bike is quiet as a mouse. All you hear is the tires humming along. The carbon mutes a lot of noise. It seems to me tire choice is not as critical when you have suspension. These Bontrager tires seemed a bit sketchy on my rigid Spot but felt a lot more controlled on this bike with the suspension tracking the dirt.

I really feel at this point this bike will take many minutes off my race times compared to my Spot. Granted the Spot with rigid fork was kind of a limited race machine. Oh yeah I changed the wheels set to Easton EA90's but I think they weigh about the same as the stock WTB's.
Bottom line is I think any new carbon fiber 29er bike will be a great improvement over any older bike. I feel the geometry of this Breezer bike is very normal and comfortable. It feels like you are riding a very solid predicable machine that only moves in ways it was designed too. The new XTR stuff is great. It feels like the bicycle has finally been perfected and I am very happy.
As my legs get fresh this week I'll advise of any new thoughts and feel free to ask any questions.

Bend Nationals Course as of 12/8

Ok so I am not going to mess with this very long but there are about three inches of snow on the course. It packs down to about 1/2 inch. Everything looks more severe in person but it's all rideable. I hear they are going to remove snow around the beer garden area. I would say about a third of the course.
These pictures are roughly in order start to finish. I hope the snow melts off the pavement, or they put cinders down because the road is packed snow, very slick for a start. And the start is going to be critical if the snow is still around because you start into the section that is not going to be cleared so you want to have good position because there may be only one line. I think the snow will be around thursday and friday but things may change by saturday and i bet the course will be clear of snow and moist(perfect) by sunday.






































































































































































































































































































thats a runnup, looks like barriers first.

High Cascades 100 update

So the Mount Bachelor loop remains the same with the Kwolh butte climb and descent. The Swampy loops remain the same but they are a little shorter than we thought so the Funner loop has been extended to go all of the way down Funner and then up Tiddlywinks instead of road 4613.
I think the course is right at 100 miles.
The Swampy loop and the Funner/Tiddlywinks loop were marked yesterday, and the Mt. Bachelor loop is being marked today. The interconnects will be marked during the week. If you are riding one of those loops during the week and feel the marking has been removed/altered or is inadequate let me know or contact promoter Mike Ripley. You can get his contact info from his website Mudslingerevents.
Weather is looking dry and warm so we will have plenty of sand and dust. Be prepared for a cool start in the A.M., I am guessing 40 at the start and in the 70's during the race.
We are real fortunate to have Mike Ripley putting on events like this, I know he has been working real hard on this one. Look for him to put out an update or two this week, and if you can't make it this year I hope you can next year.

High Cascades update

The course has undergone some revisions. We start the same and go around Mt. Bachelor but when we climb the 5 miles out from Lava Lake, instead of descending we go up to Kwolh shelter another 2 miles before descending. This climb and descent are very rough with sand and rocks galore.
The purpose was to cut off a good chunk of overly sandy double track from Edison back towards the Tunnel.
One of the results of this change is the fabulous view from Kwolh shelter.



This is going accross the top up by Kwolh.















Some sections of the descent are just a jumbled mess. I was able to clean most of it but you sure do have to scrub a lot of speed.


Full suspension would be good but I felt great on my 29er hard tail. 26 inch hard tail? I don't think so.



This photo of the road is a change to the Funner loop. We stop short of going all of the way down funner, and then take 4613 up to finish off on the last few miles of Tiddlywinks. Two reasons.
#1 We needed to shave off a few miles.
#2 Climbing Tiddlywinks at this stage in the race= no fun. 2miles climbing 4613=ok.
Making the Funner loop 8.8 miles.


On the Swampy/Swede section loop number two that was 7.5 miles has been extended to the exact same as loop number one that is 19.5 miles. With the changes we end up at 100.5 miles total, by my computer.

I expect the Bachelor loop to take me 5.5 hrs, and the Swamy loops to take 2 hrs each. Back to wanoga .5 hr, and Funner 1 hr.
So a grand total of 11hrs. That might be a pipe dream, I expect the top pro to just break under 10 hours. So maybe I'll be 12-14 if I bonk. You pretty much have to finish in 14 hrs to beat the darkness, so good luck! And see you out there!

High Cascades 100 Mt. Bachelor loop

The high Cascades 100 mile bike race takes place Sunday, August 23rd and is staged at Wanoga snow play area about 15 miles west of bend.
We leave Wanoga at 6:30 in the morning on dirt roads that can be nice and firm like this.




















There are some sandy sections, but at least we get a view, and once you get on the single track this will fade away.
















After about 7 miles we cross under the road and continue the last 2.5 miles till we get to Sunrise lodge at Mt. Bachelor.
Where we are treated to a fabulous view.





We then commence the Epic single track ride around Mt Bachelor.






There are some technical sections here and fortunately we are going downhill mostly at this point.























Later we have a nice view of Lava lake, and there will be an aid station there. Drink lots!


Leaving Lava lake we are treated to about 5 miles of grueling single track climbing...






Followed by about 5 miles of some of the funnest singletrack descending central Oregon has to offer.
To finish off this we take a 4 mile double track climb back to the tunnel under the road and double back the way we came.
All told this loop with the out and back to and from Wanoga is about 50 miles and is by far the most difficult loop of the race. If you make it this far and your feeling good you are set.

Swampy/Swede loops

This loop starts with a 2.5 mile connect road that has a very sandy steep climb for a couple hundred yards before leveling off.












Once off the double track the rest of the loop is bliss. This loop is the one of the real treats of the race. Hopefully you have not bonked by now because this stuff is fun if you are feeling it.
The first loop is 19.4 miles. We go to the aid station at Swampy snow park, and then start an awesome descent to Swede shelter that continues to skyliners.








I did not get many pictures of the fun stuff because it was too good to stop but this is a brief section of double to split up the miles of downhill single track.
After that, more downhill with great views.






We turn back at skyliners and have a few relatively flat miles following Tumalo creek before hitting the climb up south fork. It is a nice packed trail with lots of shade for climbing back to swampy. We then head up Flagline and cross Flagline tie, that is loop one.


Loop two is about 7.5 miles and starts by taking us to Swampy aid station again, but then we go straight to swampy lakes. Ther we connect with the end of loop one that takes us back.
We go down the 2.5 mile connect to head back to Wanoga.