The Strip, Las Vegas, NV

On with the show. The Sands Convention Center, one of the most wretched hives of scum and villainy, and also free beer and tequila if you know where to look.

As I said before, I had sat out the last few Interbikes, I’m not really a fan of being cooped up indoors, breathing conditioned air with a bunch of people milling about and touching everything. I’m not a germophobe by any means, I just have little patience for annoying and deliberate gawking in artificial environments. There are also the constant interruptions when you are talking with people, the butt-ins, the “hey, real quicks…”. I find that to be especially annoying, and completely counterproductive. Especially because I have such a short attention span and I am likely to forget what I might have been talking about. I’m of the firm belief that if you are going to discuss serious business with someone, you give them 100% of your attention, and the hi-5s with passers by should wait until said business is concluded. Just an observation, and a bit of a rant. This happens all the time.

The purpose of my visit was very focused, I had a couple of “important” meetings that I had scheduled, and those took place away from the isles and potential interruptions. This ain’t my first rodeo… they were productive, and I came away from them feeling like it was a good thing I had made the plane ride. This left me with a lot of well organized free time to mill about and gawk.

Unfortunately, my point and shoot camera has decided that it is going to take mostly lousy pictures from now on. Most likely a result from being jammed in my jersey pockets on hot sweaty rides over the last few summers. It has outlasted all the others I’ve owned, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. The flash does send up a puff of smoke when it is used, which is rather exciting.

want

Up first is this new crabon bike from Ellsworth. This bike fits in the trail category, along with bikes like the Santa Cruz Tallboy LTC, and the new Niner RIP RDO.

hey, isn't that Mike Maggs?

I didnt get any good pictures of the RIP RDO, thank you camera. So you’ll have to go here to see them. It’s a neat looking bike for sure. And I’m sure anyone glued to Facebook or MTBR last week has seen and read up on it already.

There wasn’t much in the way of awesome new tires out there. I, like The Dickness, feel that anything named for viral video sensation that was over long ago, lacks long term relevance in the market place. Besides, when the tire company in question actually has such tires in stock, it will be 18 months from now, making them even less relevant.
The only cool thing I saw was this:

white walls!

The white compound is supposed to provide a more supple ride. Whatever, it looks cool and I want them.

There are some new 29er suspension fork choices out there now.

"we'll never make 29er suspension forks!" oh, wait...

improving, updating and expanding

Then there was this. I really want one, just like this one. Anyone want to hook me up? It’s a damn good thing it was bolted to the ground…

double want

There were quite a few 650B bikes out there. They looked cool too, but reports coming back from the on dirt demo from trusted sources say that they either rode like 29ers or 26ers, begging the question, do we really need another wheel size?

Intense Tracer 275

The overall vibe of the show seemed pretty subdued to me, almost sleepy. There wasn’t much going on that had people buzzing. I think it might be time for the Marzocchi girls to come back…
Many of the regular players weren’t at the show, instead choosing to hawk their wares at the Outdoor Demo. Interbike is pretty expensive for an exhibitor, I imagine that hard choices have to be made as to which eggs are going into which basket, especially in this uncertain economy. I mean, you could literally do 5 or 6 events in a targeted environment, reach more consumers and have better results for the same cost of being stuck indoors at Interbike along with most of your competitors. There’s a reason why there is a Trek World.

That being said, I don’t regret going at all. It was great to catch up with friends, old and new, and making sure to enjoy some of the local “real”, off Strip flavor really made the trip for me. Vegas is no longer my least favorite place on the planet.

So as some of you might have noticed, I was out of town all week. I hopped on a plane and went to Vegas for a few days. My trip happened to coincide with Interbike, the big bike show that I have chosen to sit out for the last few years.

I have historically disliked Las Vegas, and I did not relish the fact that I had 2 days of tradeshow capped off with a red-eye home to look forward to when I parked the car at the airport on Monday. I did tell myself that I was going to be open minded though, and decided to lighten up this trip. After all, I was going to meet up with a long time buddy of  mine from the days when I lived on the left coast.

I spent as little time at the convention center as possible, while getting as much work done as possible. Having a rental car at my disposal was one of the biggest assets I had going for me, so needless to say, I got around. I saw Hoover Dam. It was awesome. It boggles my mind that it was made out of concrete almost 80 years ago and it has zero signs of wear and tear. I mean, they cant even make a sidewalk of a bridge that holds up that long it seems…

I also found some nice spots off the beaten path. Frankie’s Tiki Room is my new favorite place. Something about rum drinks, surf music and darkness is pretty relaxing, despite the fact that from the outside, it looks sketchy as hell. I highly recommend a visit should you be in the area.

I’d also never been to Fremont St, the iconic Vegas strip of incandescent bulbs and dirty old casinos. Fabulous people watching opportunities are found here.

So here is an instagram photodump of all the non bike stuff I did while out there. I’ll be following it up with a bike related post soon enough. Enjoy!

I’ve gotten quite a few quality rides on this machine so far, and I have to say I’m impressed. To some, the idea of a full suspension singlespeed might go against the very concept of simplicity – the single speed way. I suppose it’s true, but like Han Solo once said “hey, it’s me!”. I like to tinker, and why have limits if you don’t have to?

Bikes are supposed to be fun, and if I can’t have any fun on a bike, then why ride it? Rigid singlespeeds are fun, but only under certain conditions. I can’t ride one on super technical terrain very fast, or for very long. Adding a fork definitely helps things out, allowing me to ride longer and more comfortably. Still those longer rides beat me up. I mean, I can still DO THEM, but I feel terribly banged up anymore. Enter the next level of singlespeeding, front AND rear squish. My Niner Jet 9 RDO was hankering for some tinkering.

Having ridden just about any trail I would ever want to ride on my SS locally (there are ones I don’t), I can say that without a doubt, this weird bird flies. And flies well. Having put on a good show a couple of weekends ago over in Sterling Valley, and the Kingdom, I got another ride in on my locals, which basically was the deal sealer. I only had to walk one hill early in the ride, but that was because of lack of fitness and a cranky knee, and it is a steep assed hill. I’m not too proud to walk when I ought to.

something that should have no place on a SS?

So what makes it work? Oddly enough, it’s the rear derailleur. With any full suspension bike, you are going to have to deal with chain growth. Some grow more than others, just the nature of the beast. Niner’s CVA design has minimal chain growth, which makes things a lot easier for me. In a geared scenario, the rear derailleur handles the changing chain length by allowing the pulley cage to pivot as it needs too, which is how your squishy bike works, because the cage changes position relative to what gear you are in. If you take a look, one might bounce up and down on their FS bike, you might notice the cage moves a little bit. Now take away all the rest of the gears. Now you have a lot of extra chain flopping about. Now, as you don’t need all that extra chain, you can take as many links out as you can to stretch that cage out as far as you can while still allowing it to move. Again, the key here is that the Niner has minimal chain growth, so I can get that chain pretty darn tight and still have some movement on the deraiileur. Also important to note, you’ll want to use the shortest cage derailleur as possible to use the shortest amount of chain possible. Road derailleurs work great.

the transmission

Chainline is pretty crucial too, you don’t want it feeding onto the cogs at a funny angle, or you run the risk of having the chain walk off on you at some inopportune time. That is not fun. I run a shift cable through the barrel adjuster and anchor it right where I want it to keep everything lined up.

And pedaling induced suspension bob? Yeah, you’ll have some of that. But thanks to the miracle of modern rear shock technology, this is greatly minimized. Now, obviously you aren’t going to make a full blown DH bike into a singlespeed. This sort of nonsense is really only applicable to XC rigs, with short to mid travel. I found that the aluminum Jet was an absolutely fantastic choice for this with the Shreddie Van Halen experiment. The CVA suspension design, along with a few others do a pretty good job of isolating pedaling force from bump force, so if you have a smooth out-of-the-saddle pedaling style (like me!), you aren’t going to have much of an issue.

Shreddie

So why would I do this? Because I can, and so should you! Here’s to the next level of singlespeeding!

Get out there!

After several years of not playing, I decided a few weeks ago that it might be time for me to go to the big dog and pony show. I am of course taking about Interbike.

Sin City

While the whole getting to the show is somewhat of an ordeal, the loss of a day to get there, the redeye back, the casions, the pure Vegasness of it all, I am actually looking forward to my trip. I think it might have been 3 or 4 years since I’ve been.

I’ll get to see a lot of my industry friends and colleagues I haven’t seen in a while. I’ve got some meetings lined up. I’ve got some futeristic plans, and some of the craziest schemes get cooked up at the show. So I’ll be gone all next week, but will hopefully have time to update from the road as my dance card allows. Part of me just wants to leave the laptop at home, and travel fast and light, and provide updates via the Book Face or the Twitters with my dumbPhone. Not sure what my approach is going to be, but in 1 week from today, I will be baking in the hot Nevada desert.

Oh yes, there will be cocktails.

 

I’ve been riding Niner bikes for a really long time. They work for me. I’ve owned at least one of just about every model, with the exception of the EMD and the MCR. I’ve owned and ridden other bikes, there was a time when I had an Intense Spider 29er, and all of last winter I got to spend some quality time on the Spot Brand Rocker. But let’s face it, I’m a Niner guy.

The good news is that Niner makes a variety of bikes that work for many riders, but my one niggle is that they are a little slow to develop bikes in what I consider the “growth” category. Sure the RDO bikes are fantastically beautiful race machines, but not everyone races. In fact, the ratio to recreational riders to racers is a pretty big difference. I am referring to “trail” bikes. The bikes that people just want to ride.

Now, I’m a little different in that I’m a semi-weight conscious nerd, but there is one thing that I don’t like and that is heavy bikes. My WFO is not heavy by any means, but it is a 32lb bike. All things being equal, it is a beast of a bike, but there are similar bikes out there that are lighter, because they are made of carbon. Carbon is where it’s at, and Santa Cruz is currently singing my song with their Tallboy LTC.

mmm carbon

My friends up at iRide had just gotten one of these in, and offered me the opportunity to take one for a spin a couple weeks ago. I rode it back to back against Black Sunshine. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to get all nerdy with the weights and numbers as I was nowhere near my shop, plus the bike was a medium. I’d ride a large. The bike was set up with a 3×10 Shimano XT group, WTB Frequency wheels, Hans Dampf tires, Rock Shox Revelation fork and Reverb dropper post. A pretty legit build if you ask me. My course was to be 1 lap on each bike around the Adam’s Camp trails.

I rode Black Sunshine first, and it had ben a while since I had hauled my fat ass out on a bike. The DH40 to be exact. Ugh. Obviously, the climb up hurt a little, and I needed a minute or 2 to get myself ready to descend Kimmer’s. I wanted to concentrate on a nice smooth ride down, something I’m nit super capable of when I’m all blown up. But, I had a nice run down, not pushing it too hard, but also working the corners and keeping the speed up. Kimmer’s is a hard trail to ride fast, it pays to be smooth than speedy.

I got back to the car and swapped bikes. I set up the rear shock per the recommended rate of body weight minus 10psi or so. It felt really really firm. But climbing was fine, the 3×10 gearing allowed me to find a gear to get a good spin on, and I motored up to the start of Kimmer’s once again. I decided that I would drop some pressure in the rear shock. A lot actually. JayPro had ridden the bike the day before, so when I got my hands on it it had been set up for him. I dropped the psi form 200 to 170, and the back end felt immediately better. I left the ProPedal off, dropped the seat a couple inches, and also let some wind out of the tires. I like my Hans Dampfs around 22psi.

Well, it was a giggly good time, that’s for sure. The bike felt very agile and quick, but I’m willing to bet that had more to do with the size of the bike than any other factor. Still, it sliced and diced through the woods like nobody’s business, and I was hooting and hollering all the way down. The VPP suspension was great, very snappy and responsive, but in a different way than Niner’s CVA design. It had a bottomless feel that I really like, and did very well pedaling out of the saddle when exiting corners at speed. The frame was stiff and tracked with surgical precision. And it felt light. Flickable. Quick. Carbon. Love it.

Well, I gave the bike back with a big smile and thanked iRide for the chance to play with their new toy. I’d own one.

I tracked my laps on my Garmin. I knew there was going to be a little inconsistency in my lap times because I was farting around a lot longer on my first lap before dropping in on the downhill, but what I found is that the Santa Cruz was actually a tad slower in terms of overall speed. The WFO felt like driving a baddass truck by comparison, exhilarating but requiring careful attention to stay on line. Think of it like the difference between a Ford Raptor vs a Tacoma TRD.

Well, Interbike is coming, and Niner put a sneaky picture of something on their latest newsletter. I wonder what it might be…

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it 1000 times, I love me a good project.

There has been much smack talk over the last few weeks and months locally about the awesomeness of bike polo. It is awesome. I got my first taste in February during my pilgrimage to Tucson. I feel privileged to have been able to play my first ever polo match  in a “regular” game played on the Mall at U of A, where such notable movies like Revenge of the Nerds was filmed. The Tucson guys are for reals serious, yet they welcomed me with open arms. I was terrified most of the time, having terrible hand-eye coordination, but I did get an assist for my team, which for a newb, is pretty baddass. We played polo for about 3 hours under the rising full moon.

night of funness

Hooked.

During the bike festival in July, we got an impromtu game going out on the grassy field, and got a few others hooked. Needless to say the rumblings of a regular game are getting rumblier. Except some of us need bikes.
I’m all set though!

stripped down, ready for rebuild

This is the “16er”, which is named for the amount of money it cost back in 1998, $1600, which is a pretty good deal for a Stumpjumper that had a mix of XT parts and a Judy fork back in the day. Of course, it is also a lot of money. Let’s just say, someone got in trouble when someone else told their mom how much it cost. Hence the name. 16er. Ha!

how they looked back in 98

Needless to say, the 16er was a workhorse for a number of years.

It divided the country in half

It was well loved until it’s retirement, and until recently had been hanging on a hook collecting dust. Having gotten the polo bug, I knew it would ride to glory again, and so deals were made, handshakes exchanged, and the 16er now sits in my stable.

the 16er, now a battle stag

I did make a few changes. Most polo bikes have only 1 brake, the rear, set up on the left side. I have been given crap about the 2 brake set up on this bike, but I’m ambidextrous, and I can swing the mallet equally as poorly from either side of the bike. So there. I also added my own personal little flair to the bike from my huge box of parts, including my old circa 1998 SDG Stars and Stripes saddle, and Mootsstem. The only thing I need to get on the bike are some wheel guards, which I will make out of some corrugated plastic. I’m also planning on putting a big “16″ sticker on the front wheel.

So the current idea is to rally on Wednesdays in Waterbury for a friendly game of grass court polo. There are several venues in town we can use, so if there are any local riders out there that might want to get in on this, contact me at the shop. We’re a couple weeks away from getting going, but I’m hoping we can rally enough folks for a game before the end of the month.

I have all sorts of things to write about, and my internet at home crashes. It’s still down, and it has been extraordinarily frustrating. I still have updates to bring you on the Santa Cruz Tallboy LTC, my polo bike, the shop, and a few other things that have happened since the last time I was able to write. Unfortunately, I can’t just write anywhere. I need to be able to be creative, and let’s just say, the shop is not the place for that. That is where the work gets done, there are far too many distractions to get a good stream of thought going.

The good news, is that since my return to “health”, I have been spending quite a bit of time on 2 wheels. It’s really been helping me get through quite a bit of personal turmoil and anguish. I spent the weekend riding bikes with Dough and Ginger, we had some pretty awesome time. Saturday, we rode in Sterling Valley, and hung out at Peak a View for about an hour, sitting in the swings and talking, before finishing up our ride with some Lauren’s Loop, Kent’s and Godstreet. It was very relaxing.

Sunday was spent up at the Kingdom. We rode for about 4 hours, hitting some of the old favorites, and learning some new ones. The weather was picture perfect, a quintessential VT summer day. I saw a ton of wildlife, one of the benefits of being in the front and letting the love birds ride together. I almost hit a deer on Poundcake, and sent a baby black bear tumbling off into the woods on West Branch. I was piloting the RDO SingleSpeedwagon, which is becoming one of my favorite bikes of all time. Not only do you get the silence of the singlespeed, but you get the speed and control of full suspension, which is the only reason I can think of that allowed me to sneak up on these woodland critters. I’ll spill the beans on this bike in greater detail at some point in the future, but I can tell  you this, FS/SS is my new jam.

Until then, here are some images I grabbed from the weekend. You would have seen these if we are face friends or you follow me on instagram. I love instagram.