After rolling in from a ride, I glance over at my front tire in the garage and spot what looks like debris stuck on. So I go to brush it off but it doesn’t come off. What the hell? I take a closer look and guess what? It’s tire casing!

Oops, I guess it’s high time to toss these guys and put some new rubber on the hoops.

It looked even worse after deflating them and pulling them off. Kinda looks like the casing was about to give. Good thing I wasn’t flying down Joaquin Miller Road doing 50mph or anything in the past few days. Cuz that wouldn’t have been intelligent.

It was a bad, bad day for the Discovery boys at the 2006 edition of Paris-Roubaix. Probably the biggest hit was Hincapie’s freak accident when his steerer tube somehow managed to snap, removing his handlebars and sending him to the ground. The poor guy gets dealt a fracture somewhere in his shoulder and leaves this evidence behind for Trek to mull over (you know someone is getting sacked over this one…):

If that wasn’t bad enough, UCI officials totally shaft Hoste, Van Petegem, and Gusev who crossed the line in second, third, and fourth. Yes, they did cross a train crossing when the barriers were down. Fine. If you are going to DQ them, then the next chasing trio of Boonen, Ballan, and Flecha have to be DQ’d for the same damn thing. Whether or not the train had passed or not is completely irrelevant since there is no provision for riders to make that call. I guess it pays to be the world champ because it gets you special treatment from UCI. Even Boonen is saying that he still feels that he finished fifth, not second.

GG to the course designer to send the race through a train crossing with 10k to go.

Product test? Who me? I’m no test dummy! Well maybe for the Human Biodynamics department at Cal. Or for PowerBar. But that’s besides the point. If it’s stupidly light, I’ll put it on the Compact SL.

Wait a minute, what’s the deal here?

Gah, same problem…

After a 15 minute consultation with Mr. Round File and some light sweat, I had it all under control. Carbon fiber dust everywhere? Check. 0.5mm clearance? Check.