I have some tire choices this cyclocross season which is a first for me. Years past it was either Michelin Muds and then Grifos. This season I have mounted up a set of grifos, a set of grifo xs and fangos. It will be interesting to see what tire gets the most use as the season progresses. I do believe that the right tire and pressure can make a big difference, trusting the tire and the conditions will make anyone faster. This season I have a set of Grifos mounted to Revolution Wheelworks Carbon 50′s, the tire and wheel seems to work really well together. I raced this combo last week at the Green Mountain Cross race #1 in Golden, Colorado. I ran about 30 pounds of pressure on the loose and bumpy course, the wheel spun up nice, was really light and of course built super well by Rev’s own Jon Kahler whom builds some of the best wheels. The Grifos to me are the safe tire choice for any situation. I have a set of Revolution 30′s glued with Grifo XS, file tread in the middle and nubs on the outside, I have never raced this tire but i have been riding it around a bit. It is fast and has been hooking up pretty good, sliding about a bit but the nubs seem to keep things together. I really like this tire and wheel combo and I hope I get the confidence to race it, I think [...]

Second race of the season for me today at Xilinx in Longmont, Colorado. It is race #1 of the Boulder Cyclocross Series. The day started with some coffee and bike tinkering, I was going to run the Grifo XS file tread tubular mounted to a Revolution 30 wheelset but I had crazy brake squeal and chatter up front that I could not remedy. I fiddled with it in the morning drinking some strong java, adjusting the brake pads in and out trying to get the chatter and squeal to chill out. I decided to race the Revolution 50′s with the regular Grifo tread pattern. After I made the call and ate some grub we trucked the 8 miles over to the race course located the Xilinx offices which are super rad, they remind me of a camp in the woods or a retreat of some sort. Suited up, pinned up and had enough time to roll 1 lap of warm up. The course was about 7-8 minutes long and had a mix of everything possible which I found to be totally awesome – asphalt, single track, sand, grass, off camber, ups and downs, and a bunch of on and off the bike. The on and off the bike has always been my kryptonite and I dreaded having to run because I knew it would really throw me off, peg my HR and cause me more pain than others. I worked on this aspect of my training in the pre-season and [...]