Roadie in the woods.

Torin isn't just a skinny tire rider anymore. Sorta.

Last weekend I took part in the Bear Brook Classic MTB race, hosted by State 9 Racing and the second stop on the BUBBA Trophy Series.

(Prepare for a lot of bike shots, not many photos emerged from my race.)

Believe it or not, I do not normally race mountain bikes, mostly due to the fact that I do not, in fact, own a mountain bike. To remedy this, I was riding a loaner bike, provided by Tyrol Sports Group.



The ride in question: the SwixHR Circo Gigante M.

Although I do not have much to compare it to, this 27.5+ aluminum hardtail rode rather well, and didn't feel overly heavy despite topping 30 pounds.

My first rides on the bike didn't go quite according to plan.

Day one saw a slow-ish leak in the rear tube where the rim strip decided to poke through. Patched up and continuing on my test ride, I could tell that things were still a tad soft, but left it up to me not fully reinflating the tire.

Next time I rode everything was fine. I topped off the tires for my course preview on race day and went on my merry way. Until I hit the rocky section of the course.
With roughly an hour-and-a-half before my race, and two-and-a-half miles away from my car, my rear tire suddenly went flat. 'Suddenly,' of course, being the term used when you don't want to initially admit that you landed wheel first on the sharp edge of a rock and suffered a massive pinch flat.

Two miles of bikerunning is not the way I imagined my pre-ride going.

I got back to the start with an hour before my start, and not having a 27.5+ tube available, I initially tried to see if I could patch the holes.

I couldn't.

Now having a half hour, I went searching for anything that could help. Turns out not many people carry tubes nowadays (thank you tubeless...).

As it turned out, hidden in the depths of my toolbox was a 29" tube that worked just fine. Five minutes to start.

I sprinted to the line at the last minute for staging, and got a few comments about being a roadie and about the size of my tires.

The gun goes off, and as there was no real 'hole shot' to fight for in our field, we went out comfortably hard. I settled into third for a little bit, but quickly made use of the two-lane access road to move into the lead.

A couple of minutes into the woods, I didn't have anybody within sight, but just kept pushing along, figuring that just because I couldn't see them didn't mean they weren't close. it is the forest after all.

But as it turns out I was wrong. There wasn't anybody near me after the first ten minutes, and I rode the rest of the race solo.

Once I reached the top of the course (where I flatted just hours before), I figured I would be riding the rest of the course blind, having not really previewed it beforehand. Apparently, switchbacked descents handle a little differently on a bike rather than running.

By the finish, I had put nearly four-and-a-half minutes into the rest of my field for the win. And then the waiting began.

Technically, there were two races going on: the one for my age group, and the one for the whole category. I had won the AG race, but we had to wait for everyone to come through for the Overall Cat 3 results.

I won both. My time of 31:46 was nearly a minute faster than the next fastest racer, all on a borrowed bike and my first time.

Getting Brumbled and Ninigretting my teeth

It's easy to write about when races go well. Excitement, adrenaline, glory.

When they don't go so well, three times in two days, well, yeah. 

Bike racing is hard. Waking up at unholy hours, driving through multiple states to arrive in time to get mentally ready for racing for 50+ miles at 35 degrees. And for the first race of the season when you haven't remembered your routine, things are only harder.

Last weekend saw me in the 'Tropics' of southern New England for Brumble Bikes Kermesse and Mystic Velo Criterium, where the peak racing temp was in the mid-40s with a coastal wind. I was on tap for a 53-ish mile road race at Brumble, and two crits at Mystic, on less than 200 miles of training in the last month. So here we go.

Brumble: Fairly straightforward (albeit cold) race. Four and a bit laps of a 12-ish mile course that included somewhere north of 4500 feet of climbing over the entire race. With it being a 4/5 field, things got off to a bit of an interesting start, with the LOOK NRS car coming to someone's rescue within the first half-mile.

In traditional Torin fashion, I spent too much time at the front working way too hard for the first three laps. Going into the "bell" lap (there was no bell), I got dropped heading up the final climb, had to re-pass the neutral support car, time-trialled my way back into the bunch, only to be dropped again heading up the final series of climbs to the finish, rolling in ~5 minutes back in 24th place.

Rest and repeat for Sunday, where the Men's 4/5 start at 9:00 had a RealFeel® of 20º. Jackets and tights were the fashion during warmups, only to be doffed at the start line in favor of skinsuits and leg warmers. More of the same from me, spending too much time in the wind and ultimately losing contact in the closing laps before the finish, coming across at the tail end of the bunch.

After that, I just thought my 3/4 race would be spent casually hanging in the bunch, working on maneuvering and whatnot. That worked for the first 50 minutes, but then I found myself tailgunning, and was unable to cover an acceleration with four laps to go. Once again off the back, I cruised in for a -1 Lap finish, ready to eat as much food as I could manage.

First Rides Review: SwixHR ASX-1 and ASX-2 Gravel Bikes

Doing something a little different on this one, mainly because I haven't been so excited about a piece of equipment that I've been on to write a review about it.

Yesterday was a little weird for northern New England. Instead of our usual February temps of mid-20's and an ever-present chance of snow, we were greeted today with temperatures nearing 70 degrees and blue skies. With this short turn of nice weather, my teammate and Tyrol Sports Group co-owner Bruce Diehl invited me out on a ride to test out Swix's new ASX line of gravel bikes in their first rides on US soil.

For a little refresher, and for those of you who know Swix mostly/only for their skiing goods, the Norwegian ski company bought the Norwegian bicycle manufacturer Hard Rocx in late 2015, and in late 2016 came out with the Swix Fatbike in an effort to (re)establish their image as a year-round active brand, rather than just winter sports.

Enter the SwixHR ASX-1 and ASX-2 gravel bikes.

Bruce sported the carbon fiber ASX-2

My steed, Swix's aluminum ASX-1

Jumping on the ever-growing gravel/all-road/adventure trend, Swix's latest venture into the drop-bar market feels strong. The ASX-1 sports a 6061 Aluminum frame with a sporty geometry and is spec'd out quite nicely, featuring an FSA headset and BB as well as a Shimano 105 5800 compact groupset with flat-mount hydraulic brakes (160mm rotors front and rear), and with a chainring and tire change would make a pretty decent cross bike.

The compact 50/34 crankset paired with an 11-32 cassette made light work of the rolling hills on our ride.

For my first ride on Shimano Hydraulic levers, I felt the reservoir integration was well done and made for a comfortable ride.

The roads were what most New England cyclists expect for early spring riding, wet; and full of grit, salt, and frost heaves; all of which the 40mm Schwalbe G-One AllRound tires handled with ease. Driving these roads every day on my commute and feeling like my car was going to break in half was not a feeling that was repeated on this ride.

Even with the less-than-perfect road conditions, the bike responded well to dirty cornering at speed, wasn't terribly harsh over the winter speed bumps, and hardly flexed climbing out of the saddle.

While I rode the ASX-1, Bruce was on its carbon cousin, the ASX-2. With a slightly more relaxed geometry than the ASX-1, this bike would make a decent carbon touring bike; and is full of bosses for whatever you may choose to mount. Equally spec'd with Shimano 105 5800, Bruce had already upgraded his wheelset to Mavic's new Allroad Pro UST wheelset with matching Yksion Allroad UST tires.

Between the two of us, a majority of our two-hour ride/conversation was spent exclaiming how much we loved the bikes we were on (with a brief break for a photo-shoot), and the only gripes we had were about adjustment issues we had brought upon ourselves.

I absolutely loved the bike, although as a SRAM guy, my main modification would be to drop the front mech and toss on a clutch rear derailleur for a bomber 1x setup (fight me, Bruce).

I really hope to be able to ride this bike again (it's currently our display piece in the shop I work at) the next time the weather calls for it so I can put it through its paces. All in all, I think Swix has done a great job with their entries into the market, and I look forward to hopefully seeing them hitting shop floors in the near future.