Holy Crap!

Boy did we ever manage to squeeze a lot into 2 1/2 days.

Friday afternoon, I headed up to Newport VT to check out the "ice crit" portion of the Jay Winter Challenge. Newport, is practically on the other end of the universe from us. I started my day in Burlington, and drove 2 hours in the afternoon to reach the crit in time. I'll have a detailed post on the event in the next day or so, there is simply too much to talk about in one post! I spent Saturday morning at the big race.


And speaking of events, we had our first annual Big 2.9 sale this weekend. We did a lot of work on the front end of this, as we knew we wouldn't be able to physically manage the sale, as we were double booked. Luckily, everything went smoothly. The website did what it was supposed to do, and we'll just say that I'll be busy over the next couple of days shipping everything out.
Having only a few free hours this morning, it was spent on the mountian, where an overcast morning turned into a serious blow down storm. In our last 2 runs, our tracks were quickly being covered up by the pounding snow. I estimate that it was coming down about 2" an hour, maybe more.


At the end of this week, I head to Minneapolis for Frostbike. It's a trade show put on by Quality Bicycle Products (QBP, or The Q as it may be known to shop folks). It's a distributor that pretty much has it all, and every year, they have their own mini trade show. I hope to actually meet up with the infamous Guitar Ted this time around! I'm also hoping to spend some time with our friends at Twin Six.

Well, back to the grind for me...

The Big 2 . 9

Yeah, it's coming. Some might say it's already here...
Sorry for the radio silence, it is a monumental task to get everything organised for this 1 day sale, and work, and have a kid, and get some time to enjoy lifeto stay sane.
I have updates for the demo Spider, tomorrow is the Jay Winter Challenge, and this morning Mandy and I shredded some serious gnar.
Gnar means powder for those that are unfamiliar with the term. We snowboard too, and this morning, we were blessed with 18" of fresh on trail, and sometimes chest deep off piste. It was awesome. It was the perfect release for us, the answer to many long days and nights staring at a computer screen.
Even though it isn't bikes, it's still flying through the trees! Beleive me, there would be pictures, except that digital cameras don't really like snow that much. I haven't had turns like this in years.

The BIG 2.9 happens on Saturday, but the savvy shopper could score some deals early if they were savvy enough. Ironically, I'll be away from the computer and phone on the big 2.9, I'll be up in Newport, VT, covering the Jay Winter Challenge. With any luck, all the time we've spent getting the website in order will be worth the effort. We've gone to great lengths making sure that the web is up to date, and able to handle the traffic.

Up next, the Jay Winter Challenge!

Business News

There are going to be some exciting things happening in the next 2 months.
First of all, we've been sneaking a new look on our website, little by little.
One of the problems about "doing it yourself" sometimes, is that you run out of time to effectively "do it". This was a problem with the webstore. Since the site was set up, component models changed, parts were redesignated, prices have changed etc. It was a lot to juggle. We now have a little help on the back end of things, and we'll be streamlining the catalog as we go.
We're going to be staying pretty 29er-centric on B29, but we'll still be offering the parts and gizmos we use and love. Think of it as January Thaw Cleaning. Same great stuff we always sell, but without the fluff.

Five Hills Bikes is going to become a bigger part of the picture. Besides being the mothership for B29, it is a shop that services the cycling needs of local community and beyond. We're making some pretty significant changes in it's operation too. Still can't divulge the whole picture yet, but let's just say this, it will be a very big deal.

We are planning a spring kick off ride in April that I will announce this comming week.

I write this in the middle of a nasty bought of weather, that has pretty much brought the entire northeast to a standstill with freezing rain and high winds. It seems as if the precipitation has remained mostly frozen up here, which will make for some good turns in the morning!

Owning your own business is full of ups and downs, especially a seasonal business such as mine. It's important to take the good with the bad. While I'm enjoying winter to the fullest, with lots of days on snow already (and many more to come) I look forward to warmer weather, wearing shorts, and cooking outside comfortably. I especially look forward to throwing a leg over the ole' two wheeler again.

How it gets done

Sorry for the lack of truly interesting commentary as of late, but as it stands, bike season is pretty much over in our neck of the woods.

Sure, there's really cool stuff happening, like the delivery of the brand spanky Vassago Bandersnatches, the super grippy Nokian Gazza Extreme winter tires (which Stan's up nicely I hear) or the long awaited Schwalbe Racing Ralphs. It's all here. Kermit AIR 9s? Here. RIPs? Here. Fox forks? Here.


This is the time of year we hunker down, make tweaks, improve, plan, and try to not loose our minds.

One of the things we do, is get outdoors. Just because we don't ride bikes, doesn't mean we don't have fun. Sunday was no exception. A large and partly unplanned posse of some of my closest friends got to play in the snow together. There is nothing finer than blasting down one of New England's finest ski slopes surrounded by your friends.


It doesn't happen often.

5.5.1

So, here it is.

The finale.

It looks like this will unfortunately be the last time I get to ride this bike, as it needs to go back home so it can be ridden by those that created it. I will say though, I had a blast riding it. My first ride, definitely made me want more, and after I had made some necessary component switches to get the riding position I needed, I was a lot more in tune with what it was capable of.

The conditions today were near perfect. Overcast, but very warm at 38°, with about 3" of crunchy snow on the ground. No one had ridden bikes out on the trails in quite some time, and I was amazed that I was able to guess where the trail actually was. Freshies are always fun, even more so when you are riding your bike.

There were certain times when the big guessing game of "what exactly is under all this snow" got ugly, but the 5.5 seemed up to task. There were only a couple of times when I spun out. I was pretty impressed actually. For low speed technical handling, (with my stuff on it) I'd give this bike a 9. Some of the situations where my bars were crossed up, with no forward speed, that should put a person on the ground in a hurry, simply vanished with a quick stomp on the pedals. Good stuff.


One of the things about it that made me wonder what they were thinking though, was the integrated headset. In an effort to keep the front end down, they incorporated the headset into the headtube. They did it in a rather crafty way, but I was pretty disappointed to learn that I would not be able to change the frame geometry in my favor. To me, this could be a deal breaker. I would not want to use this integrated headset on my $2K+ frame, I'd want a King, or at the very least, the option to use one.

So, what are the big changes with all my junk installed? Well, not much. After I figured out that I couldn't raise the front end by adding the lower cup of a headset, or change the geometry enough by adding 5 mm of (working) fork travel, I pretty much tried to mimic the cockpit configuration I was most comfortable with. I ended up with about a mile of spacers under the stem, and then some above to make up the difference.


Now that my riding position was more familiar, I felt I could judge what this bike was capable of. I still kept smacking my heels into the swingarm though, and with the sag set where it needed to be, I actually smacked the pedals into the ground more than I did with my RIP. I will go so far to say, that with a few inches of snow on the ground, it becomes harder to think ahead in the pedalling department. You have no idea what lays under that cold white blanket.

Oh how I wish I could have gotten this bike in August!


Now the riding position felt pretty upright, even more so than with the RIP because of the 73/74° HT/ST angles. While it wasn't necessarily the best conditions to be objective about a bike, the way it handled spoke volumes. I was pretty pumped on how it did. Is my RIP too slack? A back to back shoot out on 6 Flags would be the only way to tell.

I never got to go very fast, but I did get to put it in some precarious positions. And it did well. Lateral stiffness seemed like it might be a problem on the trail, but it wasn't apparent during the ride. In fact, there were a couple of fast switchbacks that were executed with two wheel steering at speed. I knew where those wheels were at all times, and was able to count on them being there once I was used to the sensation. Just goes to show you, what you think on the sales floor, and how it works in the wild, can sometimes be two very different things. Think about the feeling when carving a powder turn on a snowboard or skis , I was there today on two wheels. Sweet!


Would I buy this bike? I think so. I'd love to ride it on Perry Hill in the middle of summer, but from what I have learned about it, in less than perfect conditions, it can certainly get the job done. We'll see how production frames differ from this prototype, but as far as I'm concerned, it's just about there. It made me smile today, and any time you walk away from a ride with a big grin, it's a good thing.

The Season of Poor Bike Riding

Locals have a saying about our climate up here. We have two seasons, winter, and the season of poor sledding. In that context, I choose to look at it as, the season of poor bike riding, and riding bikes in what ever mother nature throws at you. I finished swapping the parts from my RIP9 over to the 5.5, took some measurements, and have everything ready for my next opportunity to ride. Bikes that is.

Today, I rode my snowboard. Here are some shots of the local bump.


Despite our frosty disposition, I'll be logging a couple of miles on the 5.5 tomorrow.
It will be cold.

First Ride - Intense 5.5

After many weeks of waiting, I finally get to ride the bike that many folks are waiting for, the Intense 5.5 29er. While this bike is still in it's prototype phase, I would imagine that it is pretty close to production as is. Because Intense makes all their own bikes in house, small tweaks may be made, but we won't really know until the production bikes show up.

It was a balmy 30°, brilliant blue skies, with a few inches of freshly fallen snow. And the ride was fun.

Really fun. It was the type of ride that made you wish it wasn't Sunday, so you cold go out and do it all over again tomorrow.

Our location was Stowe's Town Loops, always the first place I like to take a new bike. I know this area very well, so I figure it's the best place to see what a new steed can do. It features a little of everything, without going to extremes (unless you know where to go) and is a good place to figure out if you forgot to tighten something.


So here are the numbers. I'm sure there are many that are waiting for this comparison. I'll give the numbers of the 5.5 followed by my own personal RIP9

Head Angle: 73°, 70°
Seat Angle: 74°, 70°
Effective Top Tube: 24.25"
Stand Over: 33.5", 34"
Wheelbase: 44.5"

From a numbers standpoint, you can see that for the most part, the bikes are pretty evenly matched, except for the frame angles. As I stated previously, it seems like Intense has gone out of it's way to keep the front end low on this bike. Why, I'm not quite sure. With a normal headset, the angles would be slacker. My RIP has a Fluid 135 on the front, the 5.5 has a coil sprung Fluid 130, again dropping the front end.
The bike set up has XC racer written all over it, but why would you race a 29lb 5" travel bike?

Yay!
The construction is top rate.
No noticeable feedback from the pedals at all.
I was able to ride things my partners in crime weren't able to.

Nay!
Low front end. I felt like I could go over the bars at any time, and often did.
Rapid Rise shifting, it is so counter intuitive, that I only stayed in a couple of gears.Who uses this stuff? So I only had a couple of gears I could use without skipping the chain all over the place. This is after all, a demo bike, and it came complete and beat. Even though the Rapid Rise deraillieur made me want to shift less, there were only a couple of gears that I could actually use. So maybe this is a positive. I didn't shift very much.
I think the fork was beat. There was no rebound adjustment, and no matter how much air I put in it, it always seemed to react the same way - like a pogo stick.
I kept clubbing my heels on the rear swingarm.

Say!
If I were to buy a bike like this, I certainly wouldn't build it up this way. But, based on this ride, if I were in the market for a long travel full suspension 29er, it could be a serious contender.
It did pedal very well in fact. Despite the goofy XC set up, I enjoyed the bike tremendously.
What seemed like an ungodly amount of flex in the rear end around the wheel's axle, it didn't come through in the ride. It tracked true.
I didn't notice the steeper angles so much as the lack of elevation at the bars. Still, it was responsive, and made last minute course corrections without any twitchy oversteer.
The "Works" finish is very cool, and all of the machined bits are anodized black to give it an air of seriousness.
I had to put my body weight in the rear shock to get the correct sag. Don't ask, it's a lot. I am willing to bet that my shock pump may not be that accurate, but it seemed excessive to get the recommended 20-30% sag.
Also falling under an anti-Shimano rant, are the XTR brakes. The 160mm rotors did an average job of slowing me down, but bigger rotors would be more apropos on a bike such as this, especially if you are in the Clydesdale range. Also the modulation seemed to vary throughout the ride.

The next step, is for me to pull all the XC components off of it, and replace them with bits more becoming of a 5" travel trail machine from my RIP. Then we'll see how it really shines in a true apples to apples comparison...

Stay tuned!

BTW
The tires I opted for today were the Bontrager Jones ACX TLR. I ran about 32 psi (with tubes - not my wheels) and found plenty of grip in the wet, leaf strewn, semi frozen ground beneath the snow. I figured the Crossmarks that came with the bike may not have performed as well.

Epic

Epics are one of those funny things that can be really good, or really bad, or have elements of either. Epics can take a very long time.
The good version could be that epic day long mountain bike ride with friends where everything was perfect, or something like Iron Maiden's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (March 14th!!!!!!).
A bad example would be something like the 45 mile ride that ended around midnight in Santa Cruz one summer (the last 3 hours were in pitch black).


In a true and classical sense just about sums up the completion of this bike.
8 weeks ago, it seemed that this should have been a snap. It's not exactly like we don't build these kinds of bikes all the time. Who could have foreseen the almost perfect storm that grew overhead as the build progressed?

First, the frames were not available.
Then the hubs.
Then the lost week of Interbike ensued.
Then the forks were delayed.
Then the forks were delayed again.
Then, the rear brake refused to cooperate.
Then the second replacement brake decided it was going to be a problem, but after many expletives and "one last try" , the nonsense suddenly stopped. Amazingly enough, I managed to keep my nerve through the whole mess.

Holy Cow!

But look at it! This is the first Atomic Blue RIP adorned with red bits. Coincidentally, the Easton logos on the handlebars are the same colors as the flames on the Terry saddle.
Pretty sharp.

Congrats Judy, and I'm really sorry it took so long.





Conditions at Stowe, not that epic.
Not quite yet...

Bad Weather

With Mother Nature up to her cruel tricks again, we got about 8" of heavy wet snow on Sunday afternoon, as part of a fluke mid April winter storm. Nothing will stand in the way between me and my grill though...

The snow gradually turned into rain, and then the wind picked up. 30 mph breezes with gusts up to 70 mph. It stopped raining in the early afternoon, but the wind was relentless all day. Despite the power outages, and the extra work it created with downed trees and other mayhem, it did help to make the snowbanks disappear. The roads are pretty dry up here, and if it stays like this, we'll be riding again in no time.

I finished the big silver RIP9. Here are the pictures.


A shot of the green King front hub and headset framed my the DUC.


The matching rear hub. The rims are Stan's Flows with Panaracer Rampage tires.


The bike came in at 28.59 lbs, without pedals. Not bad for an XL frame.


Also in the shop today, we finished up a new Karate Monkey. This is a big bike. It's owner is 6'7. The wheels don't look that big on this bike at all.

I'll have more stuff to show and tell tomorrow, so come on back!

Happenings

While most of the bike industry is focused on the new and exciting 29er products that will be shown in Monterey, CA at the Sea Otter Classic, we'll be dealing with a winter that just won't quit.

I did actually predict a back loaded winter this fall, but I never expected it to be like this. Last weekend was amazing for snowboarding, not so good for biking. We have TWO Nor'easter storms on deck, with the possibility of a third next weekend. What does that mean?

More snow.

So now I will be kicking myself for opting not to go to Sea Otter this year, and digging out my other riding gear.

In the shop, I have a couple of really cool things going on.

I will be working with Vassago Cycles, and sponsoring their Endurance racing team. This time around, I'll be supplying 2 sets of Bike Royale wheels for Jeremy and Chris. I spoke with both of these guys, and I'm really pleased to be able to help them out.
Check out Jeremy's website here.

The big silver RIP should be completed by the weekend, just in time for about 30" of snow. It's coming together nicely, we're just waiting for the last few straggling parts to come in.

There is a medium blue RIP in the pipeline too, a new Karate Monkey, but most importantly, I'll be able to divulge some privileged product information in the next day or two.
Stay tuned!