Rain, Ropes, Attics & My Deuter

Wow, today was THEE stereotypical Western PA "rope to the attic" Monday. Gray, rain, high 40s, and it's friggin' MAY!!!!! What. The. F*ck?? Combine all that with the second day of not riding (Monday is always "off" and a Wifey "gym day") and I would have been happy just to stay in bed all day guzzling some sort of cough syrup/vodka cocktail. OK, that MAY be a little strong, but you get my drift.

Recovery from the race is just fine. Legs are fine and I look forward to riding tomorrow on the road. My forearms, especially my right one, feel like someone smashed them with a hammer. Damn! All that "brake pump" must have taken it's toll on my chick like arms. Not to self- either don't brake as much or WORK OUT MORE!

I did get to hang with B-Man and watch him whack the whiffle ball over the fence a few times tonight. I was shocked how he was smacking the ball around. Very proud. I cooked up a quick tasty meal of lemon pepper chicken breasts/brown rice & green peas. Mmmm. I got hold of some Tyson frozen chicken breasts yesterday. Good stuff. Some of the tastiest individually frozen breast I've got my hands on. Yes I know, I know, I just made a reference to my hands on frozen breasts. Dooley noted.

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I was geeked to come home from work to find a box from Deuter USA (pronounced doy-ter). I have been lusting a new hydration pack for racing. In particular the Deuter Hydro M2. After making contact and talking with a rep of Deuter I was given the chance to use the M2 for racing this year. Very happy!

The M2 is a small-ish race pack. Holds 2 liters of fluids, and has enough cargo room for Co2, Tube, and a battery on night laps. It also has what Deuter calls the Air Stripes Back System. You can check out the graphic below (click to enlarge).It basically has two padded foam strips that not only add comfort, but keep the pack off your back to add ventilation to keep your back a tad cooler.

The M2 comes with the cool Streamer 2.0 bladder too.

The best thing (in my opinion) about this bladder is that you can open it up and clean it with no problem! You can get your whole hand, etc., in it too scrub it out. I think that's a nice feature. I'll be anxious to see how it handles a crash though. EDIT: I just did a test to see how well the pack would hold my current 50 oz. CamelBak bladders. It took 'em like a champ. Nice to be able to have addition bladders chilled are ready at races.

I'll keep you posted on how the pack fits, and how the bladder holds up. The biggest concern for me in looking for a new pack was it's stability on my back in technical single track. Last Saturday at French Creek my current pack was flopping all around, and sliding from side to side on the rocky descents. It was really annoying! I'm hoping that the M2 will help solve some of those problems. I thank Deuter for letting me try this pack in '08. I'll keep you posted on how it fits and holds up.

By the way, you may be asking why I wouldn't use the kick ass pack that Ergon has? Well, that's simple. Ergon's pack is an incredible design that would rock for an all day, self supported type ride/race. I do mostly (lack luster) lap racing. I can use a smaller "race" pack. It just needs to hold a couple bottles worth of hydration, a few small items like a tube/Co2, my Switchback 3 battery at night, and HOPEFULLY not slide around on my back.

BTW, when you buy a Deuter pack, you get a free tube of BIG Nuun for hydration packs. I was glad to see they slipped on into mine too. Nice bonus.

Time to get the Campeon ready for a post work ride tomorrow. Rumor has it the sun JUST might be out and the temps MIGHT get to 70!! (Gasp!!) Maybe I stop with the rope to attic talk, at least for tomorrow!

Later