I’ve long ago accepted the fact that compared to the human-toothpicks that are the rest of the MBT staff; I’m a bit of a human-dumpling (with heavy gravy and a side of mashed potatoes). While the rest of these guys are chomping protein bars and washing them down with energy goo, I’m the guy with the bag of chips and can of Pepsi, okay 2-liter of Pepsi but you get the idea. I enjoy a little gristle with my meat after a long ride and am convinced that a cold beer somehow contains the perfect blend of nutrients, hydrators, and fizz that a body recovering from physical exertion demands. I swill coffee as if I own stock in Maxwell House and were you to pose an impromptu inspection of my riding pack, you would discover a ball of Snickers wrappers, a few damp peanut shells, and a half-eaten piece of black licorice. The bottom line is that I, like yourself at this very moment I suspect, often find myself wondering why these guys keep me around.

The answer may have come to me last month when we were performing tests on the Continental Rain King tire. The conditions were pretty awful and by pretty awful I mean the snow was melting, the air was barely above freezing and the sky looked like it was about to unload precipitation in all possible forms at any given moment.

The ed. and a few of the testers showed up, conveniently sans riding gear, while I unloaded our test bike, a Jamis Dakar XCT3 from the back of my warm and inviting van/ workshop.

See I failed to mention that my van is far more than mere transportation; it is my mobile office, work shop, living area, café, and closet on wheels. And the MBT crew knows this.

“Well,” Jason said from behind the clipboard when I attempted to pass the bike off like the baton in a relay race.

“Well what?”

“Well aren’t you going to gear up so we can start the testing?”

I was the one who was supposed to suit up and start splashing through the slushy swamps just moments ahead of an early spring storm? Nobody bothered mentioning that part.

“I didn’t bring my gear,” I fired back without thinking.

“Sure you did,” Dave called back while rummaging through the back of my van thanks to the rear door I apparently left open. “You have 18 dirty socks in here, two pairs of soiled riding pants, three shoes, a coat from when you were pumping gas in the 1970s and about 40 empty coffee cups.”

Busted by own sanctuary as it were. It turned out the fuss was pretty misrouted because once I geared up and started putting in laps, I actually began to enjoy letting loose in the oozy conditions. A testament to the tire’s charm perhaps, it somehow became a game to try to cause the knobbies to step out on a leaned turn while cold water and slush sprayed out in all directions around me.

The snow began to fall and quickly melt upon contact so we wrapped up the session after only about a half hour of my stunt riding: To be concluded on a warmer day, in different conditions by a different group of riders. My splashing through the puddles, though fun as it was at the time, managed to fling grit into nearly every nook and cranny the bike had to offer. I know this because take a guess who’s job it is to clean the bikes after testing.