For some reason I decided to check my visit stats and I have succeeded in grand style. Indeed this is Sveriges minsta cykelblogg. In fact no one in Sweden is reading it at all. The only visits I have are Google hits for my review of my fantastic Ridley X-Ride. In fact I deserve a discount or a free one for all this fine publicity...

So I could write about my new CX-etapplopp SlalomCrossen which I completed today. Obviously my Chris Cross name came from my enthusiasm for riding slalom between trees at training passes and certainly not my hiphop skills. And SlalomCrossen is definite proof of that. Yesterday some guy stopped walking his dog to look in fascination (or disgust) at me ride lap after lap around a set of 8 well-placed trees. And slalom is king when you get to 8:an and other nice grusväg parts around Delsjön. The great thing about cross training is that I can keep myself thoroughly amused without having to go anywhere else. For långlopp training I have to go far and spend a long time. Anything I do on my CX will make me breathe heavily. Interval is da shit.

Then I have written the word confessions in the title above...oooh...what kind of saucy secret will I tell now, you might wonder. But, nej, nothing like that. I just have to confess that my MTB from Full Dynamix is complete crap and it always has been crap. I have kept tolerating it because, like many Italian things, it looks fantastic and it cost a lot of money. First off the frame has always been too big for me and many have told me this. It is fine for långlopp with simple terrain but it is a rolling death trap in proper singletrack. I improved this a bit with Sid because the Recon on it was a hopeless shock. But the singlemost explanation for my problem in singletrack is the bike size. The second problem you all know very well...the clicking noise when I pedal. And I have still not managed to find the source of this despite taking everything off. And why have I not just put on the new XT group I bought? Well, the bottom bracket seems to be rusted on. Not to mention a worrying wiggle in the frame which I was noticing in Mörksuggejakten. I was slow in the downhills for a reason. So the whole bike is showing many signs of low quality and I could be so much better if I could only trust the material. My Ridley lets me hit speeds I would never dare to on my MTB. It is quality right through.

So when I keep cancelling races (like this weekend) or decide to not do any XC races there is a whole more behind it. I have to get rid of this rolling death trap of an MTB...and soon I will.