End of Year Gear Extravaganza

Christmas has come and gone and now its time to look ahead to 2012 full force and mess with all my new gear of course!

I've got a full week of 'forced vacation' to mess with new toys, brew some beer, ponder upgrade choices, finally get some time on the slopes, etc., etc.

My race bike has begun to take its new form for next year, the bike shop has moved into the basement this year on account of I hate working on bikes in a 20 degree shed.  FYI metal gets real cold when it sits out in the cold.  I got a few new bits for xmas this year to get me rolling.  I bought myself some new wheels before the holidays, my Dad got me a new crank/bb, and Gina got me a new stem and grips.

Wheels are Stan's ZTR Crests, running tubeless with some Maxxis Ignitors on there right now, I stuck with the 180mm Stylo cranks and a new Stylo Race stem.  Not sure what makes a stem 'Race' but I'm sure I'll be faster now.  I had contemplated hard about going to a full carbon fork but lately I have been waffling on that a lot.  The fork I wanted was pretty expensive and I'm having a hard time mentally qualifying spending that much money in essence to just drop some weight and maybe increase some chatter absorption.  I think dropping the weight in my wheels as well as running tubeless now with be enough of an improvement in that realm and I feel like spending some of the money I was saving for the fork on a nice set of hydro brakes might be a better investment.  That way I improve the bikes weight and ride feel as well as its stopping power.  Now I just need to figure out which brakes I am going to go with...

I am really liking the bikes weight right now and most of the stuff I need to add isn't very substantial weight wise: cog, chain, pedals, brakes, grips thats it.

I also scored all kinds of GoPro accessories.  Very much looking forward to doing a bunch more filming this winter.  I got the vented helmet mount for another angle while biking, a grab bag full of various mounts to mix and match and some of the moisture absorbing strips to try and combat those issues I had while filming the Mighty Chicken vid. 

I'm also running a fairly hilarious inventory of Cytomax now as well as Clif Bloks and Stinger waffles.  Or more appropriately murder juice, murder bloks and murder waffles.

As for beer, its been a long time coming but this week I will finally be getting my next batch going.  A Black IPA with a full 6oz of hops!  YeeHaaaaa, can't wait to drink some of that after a sweet day of spring skiing in a few months.