tire testing

Tire testing and a whole lot more

 

On Monday the 26^th of jan I left

Johannesburg

on may to tire testing with the specialized team down in stellenbosch. As it is my first year on the team I didn’t know what to expect but was looking forward to a really good week hanging with great people. on arrival in

cape town

bobby(team manager) and I drove around looking for a coffee shop as we waited for mylene (a journo from mountain biker magazine).we found a little cafe in a small industrial area just a little ways from the airport.  after picking mylene up we headed to stellenbosch to meet up with the rest of the team. after settling in at the guest house I was eager to get out and see what the durability was like on our new prototype tyres. our tire specialist frank Stacey had come down with a stomach bug and was out of action so benno(mechanic) put some freshies on my epic.

 

i joined Conrad stoltz for a rocky trail ride around jonkershoek to see if I could flat the new renegade tire.now before I describe the ride I must tell you that it’s the lightest mtb tire ive ever ridden at just 340gr for a 1.90 and with my reputation for flats, I didn’t think it would last long…however 2hours later and a rims which looked like they had been driven over a few times with bobby’s x5 I had all the air in my tire intact and I was an immediate believer. the tire rolls super fast and with the soft compound grips corners with loads of confidence and with a bigger 2.1 volume casing on the way its something to get really excited about!

Later that evening I had dinner with suzie(christoph) and benno at a cool little seafood restaurant and then retired early after being up at 4 earlier that day to catch my flight.

 

On Tuesday we all met up at the b&b after breakfast to test our tires’ rolling resistance and pit them against some of our competitors’ tires. i rode probably 20 sets of tires that morning and it was amazing to see how big the differences sometimes were. even more relevant to me was the fact that I learnt more about how compound ,tread layout, casing, air pressure and volume affected the rolling characteristics of each tire. after I narrowed it down to 5 tires that rolled the best and looked suitable for a race tire it was christophs turn to do the road and gravel rolling tests to see if they confirmed what we saw on the rollers. i did some more tire testing on the trail in the afternoon with the fast track slk lite compound tire that afternoon which is also a really fast rolling 430gr 2.0 tire. again Conrad and I did some serious damage to the wheels and we were now relegated to the testing on free ride rims. we were jumping straight into rock piles and aiming at the sharpest and biggest rocks in our mission to cut the tires. again we emerged from the forests 2 and a half hours later with nothing to show for our efforts. the tires had burped once or twice but were in perfect nic! after the ride I did a short run to where christoph was busy on the road and I was happy to see him confirming my tests on the rollers. it was also exciting to see how well the specialized tires were performing in a range of tread patterns.

 

Wednesday saw the whole team heading up into the forest, setting up base right at the top of the mountain at one of the trail heads. christoph, lene byberg and I were testing the narrowed down tires from the rollers on the trail to see how they handled and hooked up in the turns. conrad stoltz and dan hugo were there too testing the more durable tires in the range against similar versions from competitors and they were riding a longer more treacherous route. benno and Dylan(mechanics) did more tyre changes that day than an f1 team during a weeks racing! it was so cool to ride all the tires back to back on the same track one after another as you could accurately asses the riding properties of each model and figure out which were best suited for which part of the course. this ultimately will lead to more sensible choices next to the race track. i think I spent a total of 6hours on the bike this day and again it was an early night in for me.

 

It was back to normal on Thursday and friday with me doing the four passes road loop on both days. the riding was steady, the weather awesome and on a great route this made for a good time. on Thursday night a bunch off us managed to go check out the vensters show outside all the res’ on campus. it was pretty good and amazing to see the streets packed with excited students.

 

Saturday ended up being a rest day for me but the blood and adrenaline pumped none the less. benno and I decided to join some friends of his for skydiving! we spoke about doing it all week but I didn’t figure it was really going to come off but at around

three pm

on Saturday afternoon we rolled into the little airport just outside

cape town

along the western coastline. the nerves had totally taken over by that point and my adrenaline was pumping as it did when I stood on the start line in

Beijing

! we got suited up in about 15minutes and a realization of “wow im really going to jump out of an aircraft at 9000 ft or 3000 m started to take over my thoughts. we went through a very brief explanation as we walked out to the plane. i ofcourse was littering my jumping partner with questions mostly along the lines of what are the chances of things going bad? i must say his answers were very assuring even when we hoped in a little cesna 4 seater with no interior that looked about twice my age. as we took of the plane was swaying heavily from side to side as the wind was pumping and as the plane wasn’t airtight the wind rushed in from all areas. as we started to climb one of the camera men did however stick a “pool noodle “between the nylon sliding door and the roof to stop some of the air. it took us a whole 20minutes to ascend to the designated 9000ft and this was totally the longest 20minutes of my life. even benno was now finding it hard to put on a straight face and it’s safe to say we were both scared out of our minds. at 8000ft my partner attached us together and I put my goggles on. as we hit 9000 ft things happened really fast. the camera man opened the door and stepped onto a ledge outside .i was now super pumped. i wished benno farewell and slid myself over to the edge and hung my legs out under the plane .the instructor counted to three, pulled my head back(I had been picking out a line to my landing spot already) and we basically just fell out head first! we did a few flips before the stabilising schute was released. and the view I had was one of plane ,sky and ground rotating at a very rapid rate. the air rushing around is incredible and by the time we reached full on free fall I was loving it. the 40 second fall before the schute opened happened in the blink of an eye, litteraly! i don’t even think I did blink…as the schute opened I felt my body ripped back up in the direction of the plain with the most awesome display of g force I have ever experienced. as things settled I was given the controls and we even cruise along side benno for a while. i think we were both screaming at each other like 10 year old boys! we were soon back on the ground and I’m super hooked! were already planning on a team building jump before the epic.i think benno and I learnt a lot about each other day and I guess if  a guy can jump out of a plane with me ill trust him with my bikes!

 

On Sunday I did another four passes loop and im now sitting on the plane back to jo’burg recollecting myself after an incredible week. if this is anything to gauge my future with this team on I cant wait!

 

Ciao

 

burry