Spring Time Tinkering

Christmas break was a great time to make a few changes and tinker a bit with stuff.  Unfortunately, work load in the new year then went mental so whilst stuff has been taking place, having the time to document has been low. Anyhow, a summary of what I've been up to is below. 

T3 Tyres

On recommendation from Mark S, these bad boys from ATBShop (with 10% off with ATBA membership) provide a flatter contact area with the ground with additional noggins round the edges.  Upshot of this is supposedly better lateral grip with slightly slower acceleration.  Having ridden in them most of this year, I can confirm that although they will still slide out when it's really, really muddy, they still provide control in poor conditions.  I've been told that they lose their effectiveness if over inflated - this makes sense in that the more you pump, the less square edged they become as they try to match the doughnut shaped inner tube.  How much to pump then I suppose depends on how many pies you've had recently.  So, in summary, less fun on the golf course, but great fun kicking up leaves in the woods.

Burton Ratchets

..both look the business and (so far) work great!  The big problem that I've had in the past with MBS, Trampa and the ones on noSno is either the ratchets failing to hold position, either though broken teeth, or worn ladder straps, or ratchets failing to disengage at the end of a run.  So far, I'm very happy with these, with only slight bodging necessary to fit into place.  All that was required was a new hole in the plastic binding for the notch on the ratchet to fit into.  Added bonus that these seem very easy to remove, even with big gloves on.

Head Torch

Night riding has gone down very well this winter with riding once or twice a week most weeks with both Phill and brother Rob coming along for the ride.  LED torches seem to be cheaper than ever and I picked up three '9-LED' torches for a fiver with batteries included.  At this sort of price, they are almost disposable.  Industrial strength Velcro from Homebase was relatively expensive at around a tenner for half a metres worth, but then you only need a little bit at a time.  Bonus of doing this is the ability to replace one torch with another, should one fail, and the ability to change position slightly.  This comes into effect quite regularly as a torch in the wrong position only manages to illuminate the inside of my helmet, leaving me blind to the outside world.  As mentioned quite regularly on here, it's worth giving night riding a go if only because it means you can ride more.  Don't worry if not though - British Summer Time is almost amongst us!

Bindings

My Rage noSno bindings are in reasonable condition, but the padding on the underside of the bindings were in a reasonably poor state.  My biggest concern then was the metal parts of the underside catching on my snowboard boots and ripping them up a little.   Maybe unfounded, but I do like my boots and would prefer not to have to replace them for a while, particularly as my feet should have stopped growing!  Solution this time was to remove all traces of the foam underside and replace with a leather section of similar shape; glue into place (one with Evostick Impact, one with Araldite, see which works best long term), and leave to dry.  In the morning, chop off the excess leather and away we go.  So far, both seem to be doing reasonably well so my additional step of restitching round the edge I haven't bothered with, but we'll see on this - could be more effort than it's worth.  No definitive difference so far between the glues.

So, where is this all leading?  There are a whole load of ATBA events happing over the summer including Boarder X, Freestyle and Downhill.  Added to this, hopefully the Mountainboard Derby Summertime sessions will become a reality, or at least an opportunity to ride on a regular basis in a more relaxed way.  Add to this all the usual events and stuff that happens around the country that hopefully we'll be finding out a bit more about soon.