ProGold is awesome stuff!!

First off, I recently found myself being able to pick up a new set of wheels. I ended up getting a set of Sun Ringle Black Flag Pro. They seem like they will be a great set of wheels to roll on this year. They are by far the nicest mtb wheels I have ever owned. I normally just have what ever cheap set I can find or what comes stock on my bike (this too is not normally very expensive). The only other pair of wheels that I had this nice was a set of Profile hubs with Sun rims and Ti spokes on my BMX bike. These seem to be giving those a run for the money. Time will tell when I actually get them on the bike and ride them.

Sun Ringle - Bad Ass Metal Parts!

These wheels come with the Stan's technology in the rims. Sun Ringle actually make the Stan's rims. I mounted up a new set of Maxxis tires on them. I had a big problem getting one of the tires to go on the rim. I had to work pretty hard to get it on there. Other than being hard to get on, the other issue I had was if I used a tire lever it wanted to poke a hole in the rim tape. This was not a good thing. After a lot of work and some cussing, I finally got the stubborn tire on and seemed to seal up nice. Later I realize that I must have put another hole in the tape since I am leaking air out the nipple holes. This means I have to take the tire back off and start all over after I put some new tape in there. Grrrr!

As I was getting the new wheel set ready to put on the bike and transferring the rotors and cassette over, it was obvious that I have not taken very good care of my cassette. It looked nasty! There was no way that I was going to put that on those new wheels in that condition. I also didn't want to buy a new cassette just yet, so what does one do? Well, I know what I do now. I grab some of my ProGold blast off degreaser and clean it up. In the past that was never something I looked forward too. I still don't look forward to doing the job, but it is sure a whole lot easier now.

Cassette just as it came off of the bike

 

Cassette after using ProGold Blast-Off

 

With less than 5 min. of work, the cassette was looking like it was back to new. In the past I would have had to work a lot harder than that and still not get it this clean before giving up. So, once again I am amazed with one of the ProGold products and very happy to have had it available to use. They have several different products to help with different shop tasks. Make sure to check them out next time you are going to do some work on your bike.

The Niner is starting to look like a good race machine for the season. I might test it out next weekend in the DRT TT at Brown County State Park. If not, the DINO series is just around the corner. I just hope to put some final touches on my legs. I am going to try and race them in to shape starting this weekend.