Great rides and Lunch rides

Well it's that time of year again. Later than usual due to my new Cyclocross bike early season purchase but it came. Mountainbike season!!! Again I have been looking at new toys and new frames and salivating over what's out there. Again I dug my bike out and wow!! I love it when you grab a bike you have not ridden in a while and it's like New bike Day all over again. Of course there is still a part of me that wants upgrades that require dollars that I already spent on other things.

Anyways went out for my season opener ride on Sunday at the Hydrocut  with Paul and Mike and his crew and had a blast, a segment of Adams run was reworked and between that and riding with guys above my technical calibur I rode some things I have previously shied away from. In hindsight not sure what the big deal was. Unfortunately late in the ride I trash talked Mike and the cycling Karma got me back with a brown tube. Lesson learned... Anyway a snipit is above.

I have had 2 lunch hour MTB rides since and both have been great. Today I stopped and snapped a couple pix. Enjoy the light reading portion of the post.

The Beast

Looking Half Dead Pre-Ride (Too much white too??)

Trails 2K from house

Trailside lake/pond

Trillium season

What to ride this am.....

I decided on the singlespeed 29er over the fixie because this is one of the beautiful sites along the way from home to my office. I see the office over the pond.

Not much more to say right now...

Fitted and brought home, now I ride??

Well took off a chunk of work on Friday and went back to the hometown to pickup my new bike. What will I talk about here now that I have made my 26/29 decision and actually have a new toy. Maybe back to ride reports and fun stuff like that?

Brad got me all sized up and was able to get the Rotor-Q-Ring on there before pickup. I also swapped out the stock Maxis Ignitor tires with Geax Saguaro's as I have been liking them on my 26er, and chose not to bother with the stock pedals and went with my PD M540's. Only thing I have not got on there yet for the basic setup is my already ordered Profile Design Stubby bar ends. I did install a Sigma 960 computer on there for training even tho it took away from the clean look a bit. eh well ;)

This is going to be a fun project bike for quite some time. I just can't wait to get it out on the trails. Not looking good for this weekend but will be doing some rolling Monday I'm sure. Well this post was really just a bunch of blither to get some pix up here so I can stop there... I'm out...

Broken Record... 26 or 29 with 27inch inseam...

Damn I need to test ride a 29er. I am having serious bike envy out on the trails of late. The local Ontario Misfit Psycles bikes are constantly catching my eye. After Winter WOW I was talking to a guy that I finished along side and felt his bike. Even with the big wheels it came in 5 or more pounds lighter than my old rig. I would have to keep the old toy as a cottage bike as it has lasted me so well all these years.

On the other hand my buddy who owns a shop locally and sells Kona products thinks I should be looking at the new Explosif 2010 frame. He has fit me on bikes before and thinks it would be far fetched to put me on a 29er. Says there is no way to get the bars down low enough to allow me to get the proper control. I asked about the Unit as it has a nice price tag and he said they just wont fit everyone. If I want to be on one he would put me on it but it would not be ideal.



Both bikes look great. My budget constraints definitely keep me out of the running for the beautiful new dissent(fe) but I have seen many happy riders on the dissent(al) and that helps me to dispel the myth that Singlespeeds must be steel. I know a couple Singlespeeders that would not agree with this comment though.

My new bike account is running dry right now but hopefully this winter will allow me to scratch something together. Otherwise I will be contemplating well into next season. Contemplating is fun tho, the fun thing is once I choose a frame it will be time to start dreaming of parts to build the new toy up.

Anyone out there 5'6" with a 26.5" to 27" inseam riding 29er's? Or is my monkey body just built to ride a 26er ever-more?

A new country loop!!! Great ride!!!

Well, as you can guess from the pic today's lunch hour ride I chose a loop thru the country. After looking at my previous loop and zooming out I found an alternate route that looked fun. So instead of a ride just shy of 18K this time it was a ride just shy of 25K. Altho my previous post stated that I would be thinking 26 vs 29 on this ride that was not in my mind at all. Not long before I left Phaty tweeted this. Now my mind was racing why would a bent top tube be a bad thing. I am not sure why but I am sure there are well founded reasons.

Is it weaker? Harder to fit the cycle to the rider? Too noodly? Or esthetically not pleasing to certain cyclists? Does it rob the cyclists of pedal power in some way? If you can shed some light on this subject please let me know.

The other thing I kept thinking about was the Blackberry in my jersey pocket. Should I take pictures of the shoddy road repairs. Nah I don't want to stop. Do I take pix of the country side, maybe in a bit.... Then eventually I stopped.

All in all a great 25K. I will probably just do a short 6K ride to the office tomorrow and a walk on lunch to round out my training for Saturday's 6 hour solo race... If I have not mentioned this is my firs solo endurance race so i am starting small with a 6 hour. Ride report to come after race...

That's all that's runnin around in my head with the hamster right now... I'm out...

26 or 29 on my next Singlespeed MTB???

I am lovin' the look of next years Kona Unit but have always read that for short riders 29ers don't fit the bill. In the last couple weeks I have found that there is a new thought on this. I read a decent article that has made me rethink the big wheel - small guy issues "The 26-inch Hard Tail is Dead". I may not agree with the title but the information inside seems to make sense. Was talking to a guy the night before the 24 Hours of Hot August Nights over beers who shared these opinions. He said to me "It is an amazing feeling to coast down a hill passing 26ers who are pedaling". He is the owner of Misfit Psycles so may be a little biased. I am loving the diSSent FE frame and associated build kit but am a little poor to ride a toy like that.

Prior to all of this I was trying to figure out how I would fund raise enough to buy myself a Kona Explosif frame and a decent build kit to go with it next year. All excited that Kona has decided to release the 26er chromo Singlespeed compatible frame again.

Oh well, will probably end up thinking about this far too long and wind up broke next year anyhow. I will live to contemplate another day. In the end I will probably just replace the bottom bracket in the old Nishiki and keep on pounding the pedals on that fun old toy. Maybe I will pour over this topic on my 20K lunch hour ride on the old fixie today....

More next time... I'm out...