Tanasi.... technicalities

After the rain filled weekend last week, Becky and I were all geared up for a weekend of riding. We spent Saturday riding the road, handling responsibilities and tearing up a crawfish boil. Sunday we had Tanasi on our minds. Great place to get miles of ST without repeat laps. I am upping the mileage for Cohutta and Becky is trying to maintain BadLass status. I should have known there would have been problems when I found out on Friday that SirGold aka Goldie would not be ready, more on that later. Today went like so:
Coffee, then run to the store to get dog food.
Quick maintenance, pump up Becky's shocks, air up the tires, add a bottlecage to the frankenbike KHS (currently the "go to" steed).
Load up bikes and dogs, lunch on the way.
Forgot chain lube, floor pump, gloves for Becky. Should have called it a day.
3 mile pave climb , Becky's bike is ghost shifting. Trail adjustment
Becky gets a flat and we work on repairing it, knock out brake pads installing wheel, fix it and we're rolling. Tire appears to still be leaking, hit it with the last bit of CO2 we have. Seems to hold.
Becky wrecks hard on rooty trail next to river. Walks it off. Finish Brush Creek.
Cross bridge, head back to truck to check on dogs.
Sidebar: last time we road Tanasi, we took the dogs. They loved the river and the trails. We would walk them, ride, then come back. They would nap in the truck until we returned. They had a blast.
We return to the truck and are chatting up some folks from Ohio. I borrow their pump while Becky goes to let the dogs out. Day is over.
One of the dogs got sick and left breakfast all over the front seats. The back seat (dog seat) was fine.
The smell was awful. I used the newspaper to clean up most of it.
We drove home with the windows down and 14 hard earned miles under our belts.
A pitcher of margaritas at the local mexican joint eased the pain and smell a little.
At my current rate of training, I will not be ready for 100 dirt miles. So, i am going to take the riding time as it comes. If the schedule opens up, I ride. The only goal being getting miles on the bike.
Now speaking of the bike, or SirGold aka Goldie and technicalities. I de-parted the Jabber and went down to Addictive to have the headset and BB traded out. Bear in mind, Addictive is 30 minutes from my house and 30 minutes from work (for the next 2 weeks at least). They were getting bikes ready for the 6 hour race on that Saturday, so I left it. I knew i was going to rain all weekend, so I planned on picking it up the following week. Matt calls me the same day I dropped it off. BB bracket won't work the new EBB requires a 73mm shell (would have been nice of Niner to mention that). I have to order one in, should be here early the next week. Next week comes. "Cody, how's Goldie?" "Dude, we installed the new BB, but the spindle is to short to clear new beefier chainstays. We have to order a 73mm x 121mm." They ordered the correct size and it should be here next week. I guess Niner assumed everyone would use an outboard BB and spacer sould be used. They didn't mention the need for a different BB if using square taper. Would have been nice to know in the week I waited to go pick up the frame. Could have ordered it then. Something that irks me about Niner. All new technical information is given in threads on the Niner forum on mtbr. They don't have it on print or on there new website.
Next technicality, from the annals of mtbr. My current Reba fork will not work on the new improved Niner geometry. It apparently has a 38mm rake. Before this dilemma, I had no idea what rake was. The new Niner forks have a length of 470mm and 45mm rake. Steel runs you $179 (not offered in Gold) and the new carbon is $350 (not available until May). I have a Karate Monkey fork on the KHS and it goes 468mm with 43mm rake, pretty close. I guess I will run the KM fork and see how it goes. I could go with a ODIS fork, 468 and 45 rake and it would look cleaner. Buuuut, the the KM works out, there is a local paint shop that may be able to make a color match for about $40. We'll wait and see.
That last issue is the most technical research I have ever done on a bike. I went SS to limit all the technical mumbo jumbo.
Anyway, hopefully I will have the bike by the end of the week. No pics, forgot the camera too.
Later, Player