Fourth Ride

Today I got out to ride a super steep, loose challenging trail locally. It ascends 1000ft in about a mile. The grade is just near the maximum I can push with a single speed. If I take it slow and easy, I can barely get up it without blowing up. Some parts are steeper than I can sustain, but I can burst through them on a good day, then recover on the less steep stuff. It starts out steep immediately, so you have literally no warm up from the trailhead. Within 30 seconds my heart is near maximum.

Compounding the difficulty are two issues:
1. 70 wooden water bars, so every 25 yds or less you have to accelerate, pop the front, then the rear over a ~10" obstacle.
2. The surface is decomposed granite and extremely traction limited.



Anyway, on a good day I can clean this climb on the SS bike. I probably get through clean 1/4 tries, but I have not done it for a while.

I felt tired and weak today, too much rigid SS riding this week. Somehow I still managed to clean it New bike magic? I dunno.

Observations: The short rear really helps this sort of climbing in two ways:

1. It seems easier to pull the rear up and over when I am nearly stalled. I remember a couple instances where I was almost not moving, got the front over an eroded bar, then did a desperation lunge throwing the bike forward to get the rear over and on to a tractive surface again....it worked better than any bike I have ever ridden at that sort of thing.

2. The short rear makes it really easy to get the front up and over stuff when I am completely anaerobic and not really seeing straight. It is just one less bit of energy I have to expend to get up the trail.

I can't say I noticed increased traction with the shorter stays, but theoretically it makes sense. I would say tires have a much bigger impact.

It feels like for every 1/2" I take off the chainstay, my J/bunny hop increases 2 inches in height. Probably not the case, but it just feels like I can fly through the air.

After the one mile climb, the trail descends on loose eroded surfaces with multiple water bars. Turning around and going back up this descent presents many unclimbable (by me) obstacles, but it is always fun to try.

I got up this for the first time ever (any bike) today.



Burst and hop and hope the traction holds on the off camber surface. It was a blast.

Descending the 70 water bar trail is best experienced with as much travel as you can bring. The looseness with the short sometimes less than a one second interval between water bars means you really have to be on your toes and the forgiveness of suspension is a blessing. It's no big deal if you ride the brakes and go slow, but who want's to do that?

With this bike I definitely had to keep my head in the game. It was easy to leap over the water bars, but too much speed/air meant I was leaping, landing and two wheel skidding in to the next one without being set up for it, with no suspension to cover my mistakes. I ended up throttling back and having a fun, drifting type descent. I wouldn't say the bike was a handful, but there is no way you would want to fall asleep on it on this trail. Horses for courses; my best runs down this trail have always been on the Lunchbox....just bash through everything on the way down, keep the wheels on the ground and go.

I will be interested to repeat this ride some time with a 120mm fork on the front for comparison

Later.