Can...not...wait to glue these babies up. The Clement PDX tubular is based on a "tubeless tubular" system. Great for durabiility (read: great for Colorado!) and with an improved casing for suppleness while, again, maintaining stregnth. The LAS (file tread) and a new all-around tread coming soon! The Boulder Cycle Sport Ambassador's Team will be rocking these full on. 

Here are some pictures of the first look. Stay tuned for ride reports. 

The PDX Will ship with these sidewall sickers to pimp your carbon rims. Complete with dragon and a dry-erase PSI sticker to place near your valve stem. 

The rubber on the PDX is phenomenal. The knobbies measure roughly 2.9mm. 

The base tape is unbelievably layered on to the casing with nearly no variance or huge disparity between casing and base tape. Best application I have ever seen. 

Here is a Dugast base tape for comparison (granted this has been glued put I want to draw attention to the edge of the tape as it meets the cotton casing)

The Rhino 32 (l) and the PDX 33 (r)

 Clement's new artwork is incredible (and we especially love it as it was desigend by our good friend Zach Lee here in Boulder!)

And along with seeing how it's done, an appreciation for the fine art of hand made sew-ups.

And even a cameo by the Michelin tread...

Its that time. The rubber and cotton has been stretching in the basement since the spring. The BCS team will be using  a mixture of Rhinos and Typhoons. Here’s what I am doing at this time of the year.

1. In order to prevent ‘Dugast Rot’, I called upon a great friend  of mine in Belgium, Michel Bajorek. Pro mechanic and cyclo-crosser extraordinaire. Michel, and others I’ve spoke to have insisted that I need to apply AquaSeal before the tire is glued to ensure the hard-to-reach spots where the base tape may be exposed are protected. In the picture to the left, I have applied Aquaseal from the tread all the way to the edges of the base tape. I have intentionally left the base tape ‘naked’ to ensure the best possible contact between the glue on the rim, and the layers of glue that will go on the base tape itself. Only the very edges are covered with AquaSeal.

2. I applied one coat on each side of the tire to cover the cotton completely. I do this off the rim obviously and let them dry off the rim overnight inflated. I then deflate, put back on the rim (no glue yet), re-inflate and do any touch ups on the sides. I’ll let this dry again overnight.

Next up will be gluing so I have an assembly line working….

Dear Andre’: Please start coating your sidewalls as part of your manufacturing process. You’re killing me.

My main man Matt Pacocha gave me some hints that I’d be REALLY happy and low and behold, homie was RIGHT!

While the UCI shit-canned their use in competition at UCI sanctioned races, nothing is precluding us wanna be Sven’s from using them at our ACA or Cross Crusade races…that is until one of us catches a Diablo in the heiney sprinting it out for a box of Gu’s.

They’re $225 each (that’s $450 bones for the math challenged for a pair) and must be special ordered.

Read the whole article Matt wrote here including his on-bike test with featuring a video of Matt versus our home boy, former slipstream seigneur and Subaru Rally whore, Jonny Coln as the drag race cooter style across 27” thick ice.

My friend Sander, and author for Wielrennen Blog in the Netherlands, who was responsible for the article below I translated on the UCI banning the Diablo, sent me the film from Sporza on the Eindhoven ICE SKATING RINK. Ha! A couple of things to notice: Examine Sven's tire pressure on the low angle shots. More importantly, when you hear the pads squeal on his carbon Dura Ace Rims and he braking and turning, not how the wheel moves not one inch. Incredible.

Thanks to Matt Pacocha from VeloNews who forwarded me a brief article about the Dugast Diablo ban and all the hullabaloo it’s been causing since Sven’s testing of it in Eindhoven. I loosely translated this article originally found on http://wielrennen.blog.nl/. Molly Cameron also chimed in to me to state that he thinks the ban has been around for some time (still researching that….):

"Cyclocross riders may not ride with spikes or with small nails during World Cup events. The Dutch tire specialist Andre Dugast had a new tubular, called the Diabolo (Devil), made specifically for the conditions for Tabor. Dugast is no stranger to the cycling world, as most of the worlds best have ties to the company and race on their tires. In a first test of the course in Eindhoven, Sven Nys achieved a speed of up to 30 km / hour (!), Sporza reporter Marcel Wuyts says. During the World Cup broadcast next Sunday on Sporza a special segment on Sven Nys’ test of the tires in Eindhoven with be broadcast. 

Nys said in an initial reaction that the tires are phenomenally good. And a phenomenon they will always remain because the UCI has thrown in a wrench. When rumors reached the UCI on the spiked tires, they quickly reacted to ban. It would distort competition because less wealthy riders on the "old" treads will not be as competitive. Well, on an old tape you have to learn it? Seriously, it is not dangerous to life with nail bands around, crossing? Imagine that you are smacked against the floor by, say, a drunken supporter. See how quickly you’ll have to have a Czech doctor to find and pull all those nails out of your body.

Moreover, the Schwalbe tire manufacturer has a much longer relationship with spikes in its product range, but unfortunately for the racers, this involves an ATP band as well":

Here's a set of my Typhoons. Have a close look. Clearly on their last leg. Glued and sealed in 2008, they are still solidly on, yet starting to peel themselves from the base tape. This is an example of how water...when it seeps in and under the sidewall sealant (AquaSeal in this case) damages the cotton and wreaks havoc on the cotton.

Note that these sidewalls were sealed after the tires were glued on. I will be applying sealant before I glue this year, trying a new product alongside AquaSeal as well to determine which works best. Much like FMB or Challenge treat their products. Dugasts are sealed, yet I'm not sure with what! It simply can not stand up to the elements.

Photo: http://meriwether-rants.blogspot.com/38. Thirty eight. Years passed and stuff learned. And yet I never felt younger. Should it come, I'd be satisfied. Failing it coming, I can look forward with wide eyes and determined nerves. Happy.

I crave it, year after year. The changing of the leaves, the donning of fleece, the running of thinner knobbier rubber...and yet Colorado makes it difficult to envision the season of the changing leaves with it's desert like surroundings. The rain pours today like it has for days and it's green. All green. And wet. And Belgium...and I slip back to Mol...

I watched my Rhino rip into the peat-like earth. I brought the tire back to its place of birth. And while I should have been watching the bends in the lush singletrack they call a 'cross course, I couldn't help but look down and watch as the cotton casing and the perfectly pliable rubber bent and molded to the earth, sending small wakes of peat into the air as I turned the wheel left and right. Perfect. God's good earth given to us to race on.

Ned reminded me of this last night with Whit-J and Dubba. After work frolics to blow the tubes out on soil that should have been dusty and hard. Instead, our 29" wheels and tires dug into the earth in the same manner, getting me stoked for the season to come.

We're here. What did you do to get ready for cross? Years ago I would have said intervals or barrier work or suffer or...well, honestly anything naive. And now...simply....carve. Just let the tires do the work and smile.

So as geekdified as it sounds, I set this calendar reminder once a week to head on out into the car hole and go and fill my tubulars up to keep a wee bit inflated during the off season. Especially those that have Stans in them and they get a little turn on the skewer to mix the stuff up a bit...lest the Stans cause the latex tubes to get all stick together whiel sittle idle.

The rack you see here is super trick for wheel storage and inexpensive to throw together. A bunch of hardware store grade hooks staggered in two roes alternating one high and one low (so the skewers don't bump). I drill those into a piece of pine then attach that piece of pine to the studs in the wall. Insta-storage.

I'm going to run a mix of toobies next year. Some Dugast, some Challenge, some clincher...whatever the day brings. I have settled on one fact though that I am in LOVE with 34's....especially on the Colorado crap we have to endure out here. 

6 more months till 'cross.

...waiting to be glued and ridden. When is 'cross season?