Payson was flying high with excellent fitness, dialed set up, and big plans for the first big race of the year at Mid South Gravel. And the first 75 miles went perfectly to plan, until an unfortunate crash left him on the red dirt with a few broken bones to contend with.
While he's healing up, riding Zwift, and preparing for the rest of the season let's take a look at his dialed ABLE, along with a few images of the action on the day.
Payson is on a medium ABLE, with a custom purple fade / gold fade inspired by the mountain hues in his backyard of the San Juan mountains.
Components cover the bike in SRAM AXS, with a Red Quarq (46t chainring) 175mm crank paired to the MTB AXS 10-50 cassette and derailleur in gold.
SRAM Red hydro brakes with 140mm rotors.
Zipp 303 Firecrest hoops with Maxxis Rambler 40c EXO rubber, and of course filled with Orange Sealed. PSI to vary based upon conditions.
Zipp SL Speed seatpost, 110mm stem, and SL 70 XPLR flared 42cm bar.
Time ATAC 12 pedals
Hammerhead Karoo 2 head unit.
Arundel Mandible carbon cages.
The weather leading up to Mid South was up and down. The roads were dry early in the week, but Friday morning approximately three inches of snow fell leading to some messy roads throughout the day. Reports coming in from the course that morning were dire, and it looked like another messy, muddy Mid South. But the sun came out and the winds kicked up in the afternoon, melting the snow and drying out the roads, save a few short muddy sections. So Payson made the decision to go with the fully slick Re-Fuse 40c.
