Another hare-brained idea

Pat Rick. On this morning's SOS ride.
 He's not hare-brained.

I plan on taking this ride next Saturday or Sunday.

As far as Nat'l Forest rides go, it's sort of an odd duck. It's a hybrid ride: the first half is paved and all climb to the top of Sherman Pass. The second half is all dirt. Most of the second half (I'm thinking about 25 miles or so) is dirt road descent.

The dirt part has a lot of different surfaces: nicely graded bits, super smooth shady bits, rocky off-cambery sections. There are random mud holes, wood chunks, and fallen rocks along the way that make for wonderful split-second decision making (ride over it? go around? bunny hop?)

Visual foreshadowing.
A sophisticated literary device.

So that's the context for the hare-brained idea. Normally, I take my Rawland for National Forest rides. With big fat 58mm Quasi-Moto tires, the descent part of the ride is just fun; you don't really have to do the micro-line picking. Generally: point and go and ease into the sharp turns.

The climbing part of the deal though is a bit more of a chore. Especially on paved roads. The Rawland is a beefy bike and as much as those Quasi's will pretty much out-roll any other knobbie within 10mm width, they're still pretty turdy for 25+ miles of paved road climbing.

Enter. The CX tubulars on the beloved hacked-to-hell-RB-T.

What's not to love? This bike is so rad.

That's the hare-brained idea. I can run these bad boys at 60 psi for the climb, then drop them to about 40 psi for the descent. I'll have to be a hair nit pickier and a tad slower on the bombing sections than I would on the Rawland, but not  by a huge margin.

I have one spare. And if shit really goes north, I have a sewing and patch kit. But really, the flats I would worry about as I bomb dirt roads on 34mm tires would be of the pinch variety. The dreaded snake-bite potential drops a shitload with tubular tires. You with me here?

Phone-cam doesn't really capture the pretty violet flowers.
This is from the middle trail on the HD trails.

I may have hit on something here! I've been riding these tires around the bluff for a the last couple days and they're pretty much all-that in the corning and fast department. And on pavement, they're good enough. I wouldn't want to lean into hard fast paved turns with them on a rainy day -- but for getting up hills, this set up is a good one.