The Skinny

Over the last six years the vast majority of my rides have occurred on plus tires, either on one of my two Jones bikes (3.0") or my Salsa Timberjack mountain bike (2.8").

My gravel bike saw little use while I was inFATuated with big tires. Mostly it was relegated to indoor use on the stationary trainer in bad weather. I was pretty content riding slower with the big tires and being more comfortable with the upright position the Jones bikes gave me. I also lived in the foothills surrounded by rocky trails, so the Jones bikes were perfect.

When I acquired the Wolverine in January, I started to mix in a little gravel riding here and there when I wasn't riding with Jennifer (who also rides a Jones). The Wolverine fits me really well and the position is much more comfortable than my other gravel bike. I found that the 55mm tires were a pretty damn perfect compromise for mixed surface riding around my new home area. The bike opened up a fresh way to approach the rides around here that were starting to bore me. It was fun to go fast again.

Then a couple months ago, Jennifer broke her foot. During her recovery I shifted to riding the gravel bikes almost exclusively. As I jumped back and forth between the two bikes, one running 45mm tires and the other 55mm tires, I thought a lot about tires and how far we have come since I first stared riding over 40 years ago.

♦♦♦

My first mountain bike was a 1984 Ross Mt. Whitney. It was a pretty good starter bike and the gateway to my lifelong passion for riding.

At this point in our lives, my friends and I were transitioning from BMX to road bikes. After deciding to buy mountain bikes, we actually rode all three disciplines for a while. It was hard to completely leave BMX behind, but eventually we did as mountain bike fever took hold of us.

My Ross came with 2.125" Snake Belly tires. These tires were pretty common at the time for both BMX and mountain bikes. They looked like this:

This is a Panaracer reissue that stays true to the original.

You can see why they were called snake bellies.

The mountain bike guys simply borrowed the 26" version originally made for BMX cruisers. Here is Tom Ritchey rocking a pair of red snake bellies in 1981:

In BMX we basically had two tires sizes to choose from: 1.75" and 2.125" (not counting sew-ups and speed rims). In our circle the difference was pretty clear—2.125 for general riding (jumping!) and 1.75 for racing. There was no way you would run 2.125" tires in a BMX race because they were noticeably slower.

My buddy Steve catching air.

That same mentality prevailed when we decided to race mountain bikes in 1985. We believed that 2.125 inch tires were simply too wide for racing. We weren't the only ones. The 1984 Stumpjumper Team, a purpose build racing bike, came with 1.5 inch Tricross tires.

If they were good enough for the Specialized pros, they were good enough for us. Here we are rocking 1.5 inch tires at our first race:

Doug and I unloading our bikes at Sly Park.

My second race was the 1985 Rockhopper. Those tires are narrow!

Yes, my handlebars are bent.

My fourth race:

Looks like I cut my bars down, which I don't remember doing.

We suffered our fair share of pinch flats that year, many of which could have been prevented with wider tires. But we survived.

By the next season I was on my new custom Ibis using 1.95" Ground Control tires, and they were a huge upgrade in every way.

RIP, Charlie.

I bring all this up because sometimes when I am riding my old gravel bike through a technical section, the 45mm tires can feel woefully inadequate and tiny. Obviously after looking down at a three-inch tire for so many years, a gravel tire is going to look small. And railing a corner with a gravel tire is going to feel a lot different and less secure than a big three-inch knobby.

However, it's all relative. When doing the math a 45mm tire measures out at 1.77 inches. It's funny to me that these gravel tires are significantly larger than my original 1.5" MTB racing tires in 1985. I look at 45mm now and think there's no way in hell I am racing on the Rubicon Trail with these tiny things. But we did. We raced the 1985 High Sierra Challenge on those tiny tires. Not coincidentally, I suffered a high-speed pinch flat on my front tire and hit a tree, resulting in my first racing concussion. (I repaired the flat and still finished the race.)

Thankfully tire technology has improved and science has proven that bigger is better, for the most part. Even road racers, who tend to cling tightly to the old ways, have finally embraced wider tires. Back in the 1980s we wanted the narrowest possible tires, as small as 19mm. We pumped them up to crazy pressures, as much as 120 PSI. They rode like crap and we flatted way too often. Over the years I moved to 23mm, 25mm and then 28mm tires on my road bikes.

My racing bike, late '90s to early 2000s.

Currently a 30-32mm tire is pretty standard in the UCI peloton with even wider choices for more technical races like the spring classics. Tadej Pogacar ran 35mm tires in the 2026 Paris-Roubaix. These measure out at 1.38 inches, not much smaller than my MTB racing tires back in 1985. Crazy.

The UCI rules for road tires are now based on total rim/tire diameter, not width. The cap is a 700mm total diameter. There are a lot of variables involved, but for the most part this limits tire width to about 39mm. The UCI is using a super sophisticated 3-D printed device to check tire width. Incidentally, 39mm is about 1.54 inches. My first MTB racing tires might just fit in the checking tool!

In my first year of cyclocross in 2002 I was running 30mm tires, which is on the low end of road racing standards now. However, the UCI is still enforcing a 33mm maximum for cyclocross, a rule that was in place back when I raced. Why would cyclocross tires be narrower than road racing tires?

I actually understand and endorse the logic here because the point of cyclocross is to test the skills of racers riding what is essentially a road bike on mixed terrain.

District Championships, 2002.

For cross country mountain bike racing, the current standard is about 2.4 inches. The Maxxis Aspen and Schwalbe Racing Ralph are pretty popular options. These dwarf anything we could even dream of in the '80s.

On the gravel side, it's not uncommon to see 2.2 inch tires on race bikes. Manufacturers are currently battling in an arms race to see who can cram the biggest tires into a frame and still provide short chainstays, chainring clearance and a narrow Q-factor. The new Crux 5:

The winner of Unbound this year was running two-inch tires.

I don't think the tire wars have been settled yet. Tires are still evolving and racers are pushing the envelope in an attempt to shave precious seconds from their times. The cycling disciplines are all cross-pollinating and stealing bits of technology from each other. The end result is fatter tires winning races.

Like it or not, these trends trickle down to the general public. You can't go into a bike shop and buy a road bike off the floor with 23mm tires and rim brakes. A typical road bike will be equipped with disk brakes and 32mm tires now.

I for one and happy that I can have my cake and eat it too. Tires now are amazing compared to what I started with so many years ago—light, fast, supple, tubeless and wide. I am thankful to leave all the skinny in the past.

Later.

Get On Up

I have owned my blue gravel bike for over eight years now. In that time it may surprise you that I have aged a bit. Every year that goes by I am less and less enthusiastic about hunching over on a bike. Still, I am also an ex-racer, so the struggle is to find that line where I am comfortable yet still feel fast. I have not reached grandma-on-a-basket-bike age quite yet.

I knew I could get a little more stack height by getting a new fork. I looked around and settled on a Potts steel fork. With this fork I could accomplish a number of things: Get more height, get more modern (thru axle) and own a Potts Type II fork.

The Type II fork dates back to the 1980s, and it has changed very little since then. Like many people, I always wanted a Steve Potts frame and fork, but the price of admission was pretty steep. Steve doesn't even publish frame prices, but if your stem is $425, you can imagine what the frame must cost.

Oh well, at least I finally own a fork.

My old fork measured 410mm axle-to-crown. The Potts comes in at 419mm, so I gained a little stack there. It looks much taller in the picture, but it's not.

I also added 15mm of spacers over the old fork. I left an extra 5mm above the stem for future aging.

This is technically a mountain bike fork, so clearance is pretty massive with a 45mm tire. I obviously have the option of going much wider.

I like it.

I also took the opportunity to install the new Hunt wheels that have been sitting in my office for quite a while. They are a huge upgrade from my old wheels and I dropped almost two pounds from the bike in the process. The Hunt hubs are very modular, so I was able to run a QR rear and thru axle up front to keep this old bike relevant. Should I need to move these wheels to a new bike, I can convert to a rear thru axle with the readily available end caps.

I thought perhaps the extra 9mm of fork length would require some adjustments to saddle position, but I didn't feel a difference at all, nor did the bike handle any differently. The higher bar position was noticeable, however, and much appreciated.

The Hunt freehub is very loud and obnoxious. I did not like it at first, but then I learned how to use it. I no longer have to say "on your left" on the bike trail. I simply coast for a bit as I approach and people scatter like frightened bunnies.

Later.

Shifting Focus

Somehow the focus of my riding became only about what you see right in the middle of this picture.

I realized it last week while out riding. I wasn't really enjoying myself. I was simply out there getting my numbers, getting my miles, getting it over with so I could continue with my life of being busy. It's all about the GSD (getting shit done).

I am retired, for fuck's sake. Why is it like this?

Change can happen slowly and imperceptibly. Over time feeling like you have to rush through the extracurriculars (the fun stuff) to do the real things that supposedly matter (GSD) becomes the norm.

It didn't start like that. When I retired in July of 2021, I was very relaxed. Of course, this is very understandable. Suddenly I had an extra 40 hours a week to play with, and I was leaving an IT job (web server support) that simply wasn't a good fit. The isolation of Covid-era remote work only added to the misery, and I was so happy to leave all that in the rearview mirror.

The first year was mostly great. My son had just graduated from high school, and he played in a collegiate wood bat baseball league that summer. Often these games were during the day, and I was able to go with him due to my shiny new unemployment status. I gave very little thought to GSD.

In August we went to Catalina Island with family and friends, and it was wonderful (even though I caught Covid towards the end). The following January we went to Maui with the same core group and it was awesome.

Unfortunately in the middle of that "mostly great" year we lost my mother-in-law, Gina.

Losing a family member is terrible. I know. Losing that family member to dementia is in many ways much worse. It's a slow decline, one that cannot be managed by mere mortals at the end. A memory care facility is where Gina ultimately passed.

There are no real goodbyes. My own mother had all her faculties at the end of her battle with cancer, and there is some comfort in remembering those last exchanges with her. This is not the case with dementia. Depending on the day I see this as both a good or bad thing: My mom knew she was going to die; Gina was blissfully unaware.

Losing Gina kicked off a series of real estate transactions (seven?) that lasted for years. Two of these were court-mandated estate sales while the rest were our choice. Each of these entailed a lot of work, time, money and stress. And somewhere along the line my lifelong love of riding became just another task to get done. The rides became part of GSD.

Even though we are experiencing a bit of downtime right now, I still have a very difficult time relaxing when I ride. There is never not something waiting for any cyclist after he or she rides, be it cleaning the house, running errands, laundry, cooking, kids, home improvement, yard chores, etc. I assume there are people out there who can compartmentalize these things and enjoy themselves when they ride. Most of the time I cannot. I typically spend the entire ride thinking about all the tasks waiting for me when I get home.

In the end I think I have to get out of this funk in much the same way I got into it—slowly and methodically. I have to relearn how to enjoy myself.

A few days ago I went for a ride. I took the Jones so I would be riding upright. I went slow. I looked around. I said hello to just about every single person I saw, even the annoying ones. I smiled. Most of the time they smiled back. I rode 36 miles and the entire time I forced myself to think of anything but GSD. I thought about all the animals I saw, my childhood, old bike races, our next vacation. When anything negative tried to creep in, I willfully steered back to good things. I often went back to the very beginning, when life was simple and riding a bike was pure joy:

This kid isn't thinking about a kitchen remodel.

When I arrived home Jennifer asked how my ride was, as she typically does. Normally I say fine or OK, but this time I said "great" and I meant it. I felt good. I felt lighter.

Perhaps mental fitness takes just as much work as physical fitness. Maybe more. Enjoying that ride took a lot of conscious effort on my part. It may take a while to relearn how to love riding.

The work side of life will never end. There will always be tasks I don't want to do. If I can simply learn how to forget about them, even for a couple hours when I ride, I'll be in a much better place.

Later.