Where are the aggressive 36c CX tires?

I'm going to posit that 33c CX tires are not the optimal tire for CX. It's too low volume. Also that because of this, an entirely new wheel/tire was invented: tubular. However I'm not going to elaborate too much on the stupidity of tubular, except that you are gluing a tire to a wheel, so think about that. Obviously if you get a flat you are SOL, so not suitable for anything except maybe racing CX. And also WTF, you're gluing a tire to a wheel. What's the shelf life on the glue bond before the tire rolls off and you land in a ditch. What the tubular allows you to do is run lower pressure than a clincher would allow before burping, and presumably tubular rims, with a flatish profile can take more rock hits than a clincher, cause you are going to make contact with low pressure.

A 33c tire doesn't have much volume, unlike a mtb tire, but you want to run them low because the bumpy grassy will murder your body and slow your pace. But the only riders that are required to run 33c are UCI pros, so the remaining 99.1% of us are stuck with poor choices: tubulars or riding a tire that is really not optimal for CX. The non stupid solution would be to run a larger volume tire, something like 36c-40c, that can be run lower pressure w/o destroying you wheel when you hit a small rock, or sidewalk curb lip. The problem is these tires don't seem to exist that are both aggressive tread (like clement pdx) and tubeless, in 35c-40c size range. Most tires in this size are labeled "gravel".

Here's what I was able to find, none of which seem like great options:

Maxxis Rambler EXO TR Tire is available in 38c and 40c but it's not very aggressive. At 385g (claimed 38c) this is the best I've found so far.

Clement MSO 36c - not very aggressive tread. Similar to the Rambler tread. Weight not listed

WTB Riddler 37c - similar to the MSO and Rambler but with more side lug. 465g

Continental Cyclo X King Cyclocross is available in a 35c and is aggressive but not tubeless, so immediate disqualification. Seriously, who run tubes any more in anything but road?

WTB CROSS BOSS comes close in a 35c, somewhat aggressive and tubeless but the reviews hint at quality issues (problems sealing and out of round). 400g (claimed)

MAXXIS RAVAGER EXO/TR 40C IS AGGRESSIVE BUT KIND OF HEFTY AT CLOSE TO 500G

VITTORIA TERRENO MIX G PLUS TIRE IN 40C, SIMILAR TO RAVAGER

Add Grip to Your Gloves

Pro Tip: put a smear of silicone adhesive on your riding gloves if they are slipping. Also good for arm warmers that slip or even bibs that don't have a silicone

Gravel Bike Search

tldr I gave up on fenders and bought a Pivot Vault

There's lots of dirt roads in the front range I'd like to ride, yet nearly all the high-end bikes on the market that would be most appropriate for this type of riding were optimized for going around in circles on grass/sand, i.e. the cyclocross phenomena.
Here's what I wanted in a "gravel" bike:

• carbon frame

• supports 38c tire or greater

• fender mounts

• lower bottom bracket (ie not cyclocross specific)

• 50/34 cranks

• tubeless wheelset (supports > 45psi??)

• Under 20lbs

• Hydraulic brakes (Preferably Ultegra build)

• No more than $4K USD

• Internal cable routing

Here are the bikes that more or less matched the above:

• Salsa Warbird

• Jamis Renegade Elite

• Norco Search

• Felt VR (questionable tire clearance)

• Raleigh Roker

• Litespeed T3 (not carbon, omg expensive)

Maybe I'm a snob but I'm going to rule out most of them (Raleigh, Jamis, Norco, and not thrilled about Felt). I don't see a lot of these bikes around; actually almost never. Some were ruled out based on the basis of no fenders, Scott Addict Gravel, and some not being carbon, Niner RLT. And BTW, I really wanted to buy a Niner again, but they can't be serious with an Aluminum frame at the carbon bike price point.
So, I ended up with a Pivot Vault. Yeah, it doesn't have fenders but I was able to get last year's model on sale, while customizing the build, and it ended up costing $1000 less than a Salsa Warbird Ultegra, and w/o a gross red/orange frame.Pivot labels the bike as a great all-arounder. It has a lower BB and shorter wheelbase, but not cyclocross specific. The tire clearance could have been better, only rated at 38c for 2016, but it has all the fundamentals in place.

Things that happen when you install a directional chain the wrong way

In a rush to assemble my new Yeti ASRc I installed the XT chain in the wrong direction. On the first ride I dropped the chain twice, once on BB side and also off the big ring. Another weird thing happened. When I was riding, not even touching the front shifter, it shifted onto the big ring. The big clue is one side of the chain has "shimano" printed on the links, and that should face outwards. Overall I think I did a good job on the build. It always takes longer than expected and I rarely look at manuals anymore except for torque settings.

Fork Steerer Cutting Anxiety

tl;dr Cut it a tiny bit longer and file it down to the correct length. Cover your fork with an old bed sheet to keep metal shavings off the stanchions. Make sure you're not going to cut into the star nut! Steerer should be 3mm below stem for top cap clearance. Measure top cap clearance after stem is tightened.

I read several posts on mtbr of folks using pipe cutters. They seem to work fine but roll the edge a bit. I was going to try this but my pipe cutter is for copper 1/2" and was too small. So hacksaw it is. First I drew a circle around the steerer at the top of the stem with a sharp pencil. Then I removed the stem and measured 3mm down for top cap clearance.

Next I wrapped a piece of painters tape at the top of the line. The hacksaw blade I had cuts a little over 1mm in width (kerf), so positioned it accordingly. The cut wasn't perfect but it veered out rather than in so that's fine. Next I filed it down so it'd be even with the tape. I recommend wearing gloves when filing since it can get really sharp and you need your fingers to ride your bike. Now I tapped the star nut down to the correct position.

This filing created a huge mess of metal shavings which stuck to my fork, so I spent the next 5-10 minutes cleaning shavings off. I put the stem back and tightened down on the top cap but nope it was still too tall (the compression washer in the stem moves about a 1mm as it is tightened). So back to the filing. This time I wrapped the fork with a cover. Now I could get the headset tight. It did loosen slightly on the first ride which is typical.

Top of stem marked

Measured 3mm down from top and taped

Final length

Lastly, after you preload the headset and tighen the stem, remove the top cap and measure again. The preload compresses the washer and brings the stem down a bit, such that it may be less than 3mm now and bottoming out. If it is, file it down some more

RockShox SID XX Service + Travel Change

I have my fork serviced once a year and this time I thought I'd be super smart and do it myself, saving $150. Well almost, I had to make an initial investment in some tools (crow foot wrench, snap ring pliers, etc). The oil + sram butter alone is about $38 but should last three or more services. The seal kit is $17 but one came with my fork, yay sram! Amortizing the services comes to around $30. And less if you just put in fresh fluids. 

I also need to change the travel from 100mm to 120mm for my Yeti. It seems most RockShox forks can support a travel change. I called RockShox to verify. I only had to get a new airshaft (about $25). 

After a year of riding the only thing that was dirty was the foam seals (under dust wipers). All the o-rings look 100% good. I imagine I could go two years on the seals and once a year just clean everything. The foam seals are the one thing I'd want to replace though.

In general, the sram manual is really good but here are a few snags I hit:

• The service manual states -- All o-rings should be greased but they only say this at beginning of manual -- yet they call out greasing specifically in other sections. So, I didn't grease all the o-rings, dang! But I think I should be okay since they are saturated in oil. I did grease the dust wipers (critical) and the air shaft.
• The say to use a dowel to clean the tubes but don't say what size, so real helpful there. I wrapped a cloth around a air compressor hose and it worked perfectly to clean inside of fork lowers and stanchions
• I should have printed the service manual. Instead I ended up with grease on my notebook
• The red rebound adjuster just pulls straight out the bottom, wut?? How does this stay put?
• Air shaft side required harder blows to free shaft
• Dust wipers were *hell* to remove. Super tight in there. With tire levers they were not budging. Had to ever so carefully work loose from outside with razor blade. This time I greased the seal sockets even though it didn’t call for that
• Measured oil depth to top of fork crown. 106ml was right on 72mm
• A 24mm socket would have been easier for air side but used a crow foot wrench
• The amazon snap-ring pliers deform when squeezed don’t work so well (cheap!)
• For the air shaft I installed the 2 seals inner and outer on air shaft plastic disc. Kit didn’t include other seals.
• Put some air in the air valve to push air shaft out a bit before putting the lowers back if you can't screw in bottom bolts!
• Getting the dust wipers in place was tricky, even with some grease. Can see that tool being worth it.

Before travel change measurement showing 100mm of travel

Legs off

Cloth wrapper around compressor hose to clean insides

120mm air shaft

X-loc (XX) fork requires a crow foot wrench to torque properly

In summary, RockShox forks, at least the SID/Reba, are relatively easy to service. The documentation is excellent and doesn't require any proprietary, impossible to get tools. Take your time, follow the service manual and along with saving some cash, you'll keep your fork running smoothly.

Changing Fork Travel and Tribal Knowledge

It's pretty awesome that Rockshox forks (some) can have the travel adjusted. This will be saving me gobs of money as I go from a frame that requires 100mm to 120mm of fork travel. All you need supposedly is a longer air shaft, and it's only about $25! The stanchions are already long enough, how cool! The tribal knowledge aspect of this adventure is I can't find any documentation that describes how to convert and what parts you need so I called rockshox. The rockshox guy was super helpful; he took my serial number and gave me the part number to go to 120mm travel on a solo air SID XX fork 2015 (also for reba too): 11.4018.021.000

RockShox documentation lists the air shaft sizes for wheel/travel sizes. Part numbers would have been nice here

But almost no retailer lists the part number. The first airshaft I bought was listed incorrectly and was for a 26" fork, ugh. Universal cycles does list the part number: https://www.universalcycles.com/shopping/product_details.php?id=67483&category=701

Now I'm waiting for this airshaft to arrive and I'll report back on the conversion.

Here's the photo of the 26" airshaft. There is no marking on the shaft but it's it's 7 1/4" long, then it's a 26", not 29". Notice the part # ends in 005, not 000, but who could be bothered putting that anywhere in the website description!

Here's the correct (I hope) air shaft

Yup, I measured and it's just a hair over 8 5/8" so matches up with 222mm in chart.

1x vs 2x Range and Weight Savings

All the cool kids are riding 1x setups these days and it makes sense for a lot of folks but I'm not yet ready to give up on 2X. I have been racing XC and many of the races have flat fire road sections where you would simply spin out on 1x. It's true you can go with a bigger ring in front but then you are going to suffer (maybe) on the climbs. Of course more powerful riders may not experience this situation so 1x just works for them.

Also it's important to note that with the Shimano 11-speed line, they have reduced the max difference in chainrings in 2x to 10 teeth, so you can have 26/36 or 28/38, but not 24/38 as they offered in the 10 speed lineup.

I did some research into the ranges that are possible with 1x vs 2x and 3x (Shimano only). In short, 2x10 offered 518% range, while 2x11 only offers 493%. With 1x11 it drops to 407%. There are some aftermarket options (OneUp 50T) that could get you to a 10x50 and maybe even 9x50, which would best 2x11. I didn't look at SRAM since the cassettes are OMG expensive.

Of course there's some weight loss to be had with 1x systems. I couldn't find any concrete numbers so I did a little bit of research and came up with:

XT Front Derailleur adds about 137 grams

XT Shifters are 237g, so subtract one to get 119g

Small chainring weight? I'm guessing 60g, maybe it's less

But 1x increases cassette weight: 11-36 (268g for 32) cassette vs 11-42 (433g) + ~60g

Total 255 + chainring - 60g. 

So I'm calling it just under ½ pound of weight savings for 1x (Shimano XT). XTR should be less

Lots of noise in this table but the number to focus on is the range in the far right column. I wasn't able to paste the column headers, the second from the right is the number of feet the bike travels per revolution of crank.

3x10	22	32	25.73	80.7922	4.63	555.37%
3x10	22	28	25.73	80.7922	5.29
3x10	32	11	25.73	80.7922	19.59
3x10	42	11	25.73	80.7922	25.71
2x10	24	36	28.68	90.0552	5.00	518.18%
2x10	24	32	28.68	90.0552	5.63
2x10	24	28	28.68	90.0552	6.43
2x10	24	11	28.68	90.0552	16.37
2x10	38	13	28.68	90.0552	21.94
2x10	38	11	28.68	90.0552	25.92
1x11	30	42	28.68	90.0552	5.36	407.27%
1x11	32	11	28.68	90.0552	21.83
1x11	32	50	28.68	90.0552	4.80	500.00%
1x11	32	10	28.68	90.0552	24.01
2x11	28	40	28.68	90.0552	5.25	493.51%
2x11	28	35	28.68	90.0552	6.00
2x11	38	11	28.68	90.0552	25.92

Niner RKT is Bloated

I've been looking for a new carbon FS bike, and something I'd expect in a carbon bike is it will be lighter than my alloy FS. First issue is bike mfg. seem to have a great aversion to listing weights for their products. Some do and sometimes they are way under (claimed weight vs actual). I've found that while looking at bikes any bike shop is more than willing to toss a bike on the scale when I ask.  I had my current Jet 9 weighed and it comes in just under 27 lbs. I'm considering a Niner RKT, yet Niner does not list any weights. I had the shop weigh the Large and it came out at 26.7lbs!!! I couldn't believe it. This is a full carbon frame, hi-mod carbon, at around 4.5 lbs (claimed). I think and my alloy frame is at least 6.5lbs. This particular Niner RKT was built with some questionable components (not a standard Niner star build), so I started to lookup weights to see what I could lose with by moving a few parts from my current bike:

• This bike has test pedals, so I'm going with a cheap wellgo weight of 348g (candy is 304g, so not much difference there 

• It has 2.4 EXO/TR Ardents, which are 800g vs my 2.2 ikons at 640g, so significant savings of 320g

• It has a stealth reverb dropper, so losing that will save about 250g 

• I thought it was setup with tubes which would add about a pound but it's not according to the shop.

• It has alloy bars 300g. My carbon easton's are listed at 188g, so will save about 110g there

• But it is setup as a 1x and I want 2x, so I'll add about 300g for extra chainring, shifter and front d.

So, taking all this into account I come up with about about a 430g savings (1 lb) savings, when I make a few changes. The bike would be still rather hefty for an XC machine at about 25.6 lbs. This is really disappointing for a $5K bike, compared to my ride. I know there are advantages other than weight (carbon stiffness, remote rear lockout, stiffer wheels), but I expected to be at least in the 24lb range. I imagine the Boost components are adding weight, also I'd be going from Crest to Arch wheels (about 160g difference), but I still can't make sense of this. If the bike does in fact have tubes in it then that would at least get it to 24.5 lbs and make a lot more sense, but sales tech swore they were stans valves.

BTW, another bike shop that had a Niner RKT in a proper 3-star build (with niner carbon cockpit) weighed in at 26.1 lbs, and they swore it had tubes, so that would be just about 25 lbs even, tubeless, no pedals, still a bit chunky.

Carbon Frame Search and Boost

I've been looking for a carbon frame to upgrade my Niner Jet 9. I always seem to upgrade my bikes over time, instead of just buying new, which doesn't make sense financially but I do it for some odd reason. So my current setup is a Jet 9 frame that is a couple years old and new XT, SID fork, and Stan's Crest wheels, as of last year. At this point I'd be happy to just go to a carbon frame. The frame I really wanted was a Niner RKT, but that is now on the Boost standard, so that won't work with my components. It seems a number of bikes are now on the Boost standard (Trek Fuel, Niner RKT), and this will likely take hold and become the new standard. Boost requires Boost hubs, cranks, and forks, and no adapters, as of yet are available to work with non-Boost components. I get that the industry needs to innovate but Boost is a drastic change that introduces incompatibility for forks, wheels and cranks. Undoubtedly it will sell more bikes and industry knows that but not sure the supposed advantages (stiffer wheels, bigger tire clearance) are worth all the incompatibility headaches.

The Parting of the Yeti ASR Frameset

After my yeti asr cracked, I decided to disassemble and sell the good parts. I had dirt labs take apart the rear shock since one of the bolts was impossible to remove, for me at least. I sold the pivot bolts and rear shock locally on craigslist. I sold the dogbone on ebay and it went to a buyer in France. The rear triangle was sold via craigslist to a guy in nyc. The total of parts fetched $355 (150 + 40 + 135 + 30), so not bad for a six year old broken frame.

Mt Evans

I had been thinking of this ride for a while. The road closes after labor day and with a ideal weather forecast, I decided to give it a go. I parked at the clear creek middle school. There's lots of parking and it's right off 70, so you're not losing any climbing.

From the school it's just shy of 28 miles to the summit, with 6.6K of climbing. It's a gentle grade, averaging 4%, with only a few areas of steeper grade, but nothing steep.

The Chicago Creek and Squaw Pass roads are in excellent condition, but once you get onto Mt Evans road things go to shit pretty fast and you got to pay attention. There are plenty of pot-holes, road anomalies and tons of annoying water bars/channels.

Above the tree-line the wind started to gust and things got demoralizing at times, but it was nice when it pushed you along in a few sections.

I underestimated how cold it would be. The forecast for Idaho Springs was off about 10 degrees. It was 43F when I started at 7:45AM (late August). I have no idea what the temp was at the top but probably not more than 50F and felt colder with the wind.

I wore a short sleeve jersey with arm warmers on the ascent and while initially it was a bit chilly, it was fine once I warmed up. For the descent I brought along windstopper gloves, a wool hat, leg warmers and a wind breaker. This was just about right in terms of comfort. I can't even imagine what it'd be like if it rained or snowed.

The descent was unnerving for me in a few places since you need to deal with speed, questionable road condition, terrifying drop-offs in places and drivers, who may not be accustomed to or considerate of cyclists. But for the most part the descent is fine, although bumpy. Once you get to Squaw Pass road it gets super smooth but you can collect a lot of speed and gotta watch it with cars.

Overall it was a great experience and I plan to ride it again next year.

Race Nutrition

I started mountain bike racing this year. I had no idea what I was doing at first and I'm still learning. Here I'll share some of my nutrition related preparations. Feel free to dispute and mock.

The day before a race I eat basically what I eat for typical meals except for the following:

• higher sodium 
• more carbohydrate, less protein
• nothing spicy
• I eat a bit more than typical (carb loading)
• Low fat

Example

Spinach salad with tomatoes, extra olives, and mushrooms. Fat free soy vinaigrette.

Chicken taco:

• whole wheat tortilla
• shredded chicken breast
• black rice/quinoa
• guacamole
• olives
• tomatoes

Then about an hour before bed some fruit/yogurt, ex

Sliced peach with nonfat plain yogurt

Not just for race preparation but for all my meals I tend to eat smaller meals, more often. It just works better for me and I don't feel bloated or experience food comas.

For breakfast on race day I have the following at around 6am (Race starts at 10am)

1 cup coffee
1 1/2 cups homemade granola (low sugar, low fat) with soy milk
Fruit: blueberries and maybe half a banana
No dairy (though I've read others have no problem with dairy as long there's enough digestion time)

About 2.5-2  hours prior to the race in the car I'm snacking on sweet potato, banana and toast. I want to finish all eating with at least 2 hours prior to the race, to allow for digestion, though I may have some banana with 1.5 hours to digest. I drink about 32 oz of water with a scoop of EFS during the drive. I want to be fully hydrated prior to race start.

Just before the race I take a gel. During the race I will attempt to drink and take clif shot bloks but sometimes there are few opportunities. My hydration drink of choice is EFS, 1.5 scoops. Anything around 1.5 hours or so I don't worry as much about food. But over 2 hours and it's critical for me. Ideally I'll take a blok every 20-30 minutes. And drink about 18oz over 2.5 hours. I've been racing at Winter Park and they start in the morning so it's never going to be hot, but the sun can be intense.

I bring a cooler so after the race I have an ice cold protein drink waiting, burrito or something lunchy and green tea.

So far this has been working okay for me. I'm sure there are things I could do better and I'll continue to tweak it as I go along.

Animals I've seen on rides

Riding on the east coast I never saw many interesting animals. So far in Colorado here's what I've seen while riding

Bear (in the boulder canyon tunnel) Changed course and rode down canyon, which was probably more dangerous.

Moose (winter park) Steered clear of this guy

White pelican (Dodd reservoir, off neva road)

Snakes (bulls on walker ranch, rattler on 36)

Pack of coyotes (marshal mesa)

Fox (crested butte)

Wild turkeys (betasso, flagstaff road)

Racoons (on my roof, everywhere etc.)

Skunk (bike path)

Marmot or beaver type creature (winter park)

Deer (everywhere)

There was a mountain lion in my neighborhood which got tranquilized by animal control by the time I saw it.

Racing Ralph Ralphed

This tire lasted no more than 4 rides. It started to leak from a sidewall scratch just after a winter park race, fortunately not during. Without snakeskin these tires are notorious for sidewall failures so this is not unexpected. I got a deal on the tires at $27 so can't be disappointed. I sloshed the sealant around and the by the next day it would hold 30psi. Still I didn't want to get stranded so I followed the stans repair guide and booted the tire with a tube patch. I didn't have brake clean so used isopropyl alcohol. I see if I can get four more rides out of it but I'm not taking it to any pointy-rocks type trails. I found a stans booger in the tire where the sealant must have dried from the air rushing out.

Homemade Fox 26mm Chamferless Socket

Something feels very wrong about spending $140 to have my fox fork serviced every season. I started reading about servicing and the basic service is not all that complicated. Actually Fox provides some really great videos on their website (32 Float) that describe basic servicing and changing travel.

One of the tricky parts is removing the 26mm top cap/nut thingy, which is very low profile. You can't use a standard socket since they are chamfered and you will most certainly round it out. Some folks on mtbr are using an adjustable wrench, but you can't use that with a torque wrench and and you risk rounding out the nut since it only has two contact points. The solution many have been following is to make a chamferless sockets.

First I needed to find a 26mm socket. Fortunately Lowes had them in stock (Kobalt brand). It seems that most folks are using a grinder, however I didn't have one so I settled for the filing method. I picked up a 3" x 1/2 carriage bolt to secure the socket. Next I needed to find a place to secure the socket for filing. I found some plywood shelving in the basement and drilled a hole through it for the bolt.

I started filing and it went quicker than I expected. The filing probably took a total of 5-10 minutes. I was rotating the socket every minute or so to keep it even.

I haven't used it yet but I did place it on my older 2010 Float RLC and was surprised by the amount of play. So either this bolt is super cheap quality with poor tolerances or it's really not 26mm. Fox explicitly says 26mm on their video so it must be the socket. It will probably work unless it was really tight. I read that one guy on mtbr used a 1" (25.4mm) bolt so I may try that to see if I can get a tighter fit.

Total cost

$5 for socket

$10 for file set (I could have spent $6 but decided to get the larger set for a few bucks more)

$1.50 for carriage bolt

Avid Elixir CR Warble Fixed with Brake Quiet

My Avid Elixir CR rear brake made horrible, wretched noises on my Yeti ASR from day one. I tried a few different suggestions from the MTBR Avid turkey warble thread, but nothing worked until I tried Brake Quiet (suggested by TiGeo). I got the Carquest brand of Brake Quiet which is simply CRC rebranded. I squeezed some on the backs and used a credit card to leave just a thin film. I left them alone for a few hours to dry. Note: they are still tacky when fully dry. The only problem I had was these are new pads and with the film they fit too tight, such that the rotor rubbed. I didn't have bleeding tools so that wasn't an option, but after a few downhill rides they had worn enough to not rub. My brakes are 100% quiet now! BTW, I'm using plain old Avid rotors (steel).

http://forums.mtbr.com/brake-time/juicy-brake-turkey-warble-vibration-mega-thread-425196-37.html#post9603127

Broken WTB Titanium Rocket V Saddle

My WTB Rocket V came apart on a recent ride. The weird thing is it wasn't a crash; I was riding on rolling singletrack when it separated from the rails. You can see from the photo that the plastic cracked at this nose. I bought the seat used on ebay and the seller said it was only a few years old. I did have a one minor crash on this seat but I crashed the hell out of my WTB Pure V and it never had problems. I always thought the saddles were something that would last just about forever, assuming no catastrophic crashes. I contacted WTB and they said it's not repairable. This is disappointing because the titanium rail is in perfect shape. It seems the rail is heat molded into the plastic on the saddle, so there's no way to repair it. I read on mtbr forums that some have been able to coerce a rail into a seat but it takes exceptional hand/arm strength.

Hydration Drink Mixes Price Per Pound

I've tried a several sport drink/hydration mixes at varying prices and wondered if you really get what you pay for. The lowest cost mix that I know of is good ole Gatorade. I've found the lemon-lime at Costco for around $7 for a giant container -- I think it was 6lbs. I don't care for lemon-lime so this just wasn't palatable at any price. I can get the orange flavor at Target for $4.44 for 1.125 pounds. This is quite affordable a $3.95 per lb and I find the orange flavor quite tasty. Ingredients include:

sucrose, dextrose, citric acid, salt, sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, natural flavor, modified food starch, calcium silicate, yellow 6

Fortunately it does not have high fructose corn syrup as most cheap drinks do. It does not contain magnesium and I could do without the artificial color.

Last year I decided to try Cliff Shot Electrolyte. This sells for about $18 on Amazon for 2 lbs, so $9 per pound. I got the cran-razz and found it to be the tastiest of the drink mixes I evaluated. The Cliff product labels itself as organic. The Cliff Shot ingredients include:

organic brown rice syrup, organic dried cane syrup, citric acid, salt, natural flavors, beet powder, dipotassium phosphate, dicalcium phosphate, magnesium oxide and green tea extract.

The last mix I tried was Scratch Labs. This is a local company and the ingredients are all natural, so I thought I'd give it a chance. At $19 per pound it's by far the most expensive mix around. It's not as sweet as the others but of course sweetness can be controlled by just adding more mix. The orange flavor was decent. The ingredients include:

sucrose, glucose, sodium citrate, citric acid, oranges, magnesium citrate, calcium citrate, potassium citrate, and ascorbic acid.

Interestingly, the main ingredients in both Gatorade and Skratch Labs are essentially the same (Dextrose is Glucose according to Wikipedia). I suppose I could add magnesium citrate to gatorade and get any missing benefits. Oddly enough this ingredient is best known as a laxative

In conclusion, I didn't feel like a performed any better with the more expensive drinks, so I'll be sticking with Gatorade for the near future and saving money.

In preparation for a ride I usually drink about 16-24 ounces about 30 minutes prior to a ride. Then I bring another 8 ounces or so in a water bottle, in a concentrated form. Then I put water in my Camelback. For long rides I'll put Gatorade in the Camelback but it's a pain since if any sugar is not rinsed out it starts to grow mold.

Strava GPX import from MyTracks

Occaisionally Strava crashes and loses data for a ride, so as a backup I typically record with both MyTracks and Strava. To import into Strava you just make an export of MyTracks as GPX. The default export to drive uses the KML format, but Strava needs GPX. So, to get GPX you must choose the export to external storage to get the file type option. Then you can email to yourself. Then just upload the GPX file to Strava at http://app.strava.com/upload/select_new