29 March 2010 - 14:58Beat

Better late than never sometimes.

After a long weekend of riding bikes in exotic locations, I’m finally getting caught up on work at the shop, and now I finally have some free time to tell you all of the goings on.

This was a family and dog free weekend for me. Mandy took everyone (except me) to PA to ride bikes and visit with family etc. I was left to run the shop. Saturday was very busy, lots of folks coming to kick tires and ask questions. I managed to finish T-Vo’s One9, which he has aptly named The Land Missile. It’s a pretty sweet bike.

He’s borrowing my Niner crabon fork until we can get a matching tang one, but the parts spec is nonetheless impressive. I9 hubs laced to Stan’s 355s with the pimpy white DT spokes, Cane Creek 110 headset, Race Face Deus singlepeed cranks, Juicy brakes, carbon stem and seatpost. It weighs 20 lbs. I had to get a bit creative with the lockring situation. I was all out of 12t and the 11t does absolutely nothing to hold the cog and spacers on. I dug an 11t cog out of the metal recycling/art project bin and was able to use one of the many 11t lockrings I seem to hold on to. It looks a little Mad Max, but it was triumph in the face of adversity.

Travis got to ride his bike this weekend, and he is looking forward to tearing it up this summer.

I did some more Gravel Grinder recon. I was a little disappointed by the overall mileage of my new and experimental route, but I had always intended it to go a little more into the wild. Last week, I deemed the wilds unsuitable for the size of the group. By sticking to the roads, I have a ride that is 8 miles shorter with 1000 less feet of elevation gain than the original GG. I might not mess with it after all.

Sunday was spent in Western Mass. A 2.5 hr car ride brought us to some mighty fine and very technical singletrack. Located in Granby MA, this trail system is in the Holyoke Range State Park. Three of us left Waterbury in search of the first real mountain bike ride of the year. I guess I already got my first couple of real rides in this year already out in AZ, but this certainly made me feel as if I had not ridden in a very long time.

There were a lot of difficult rocky punchy climbs, techy descents, some exposure, and lots of fun. It was almost like riding Raider Ridge in Durango, but without the 300 ft cliff of doom on your right. And with lots of trees. It’s the sort of riding I love, but I actually found myself lamenting my bike choice, which was my RIP9. The squishyness of the bike made it hard to ride certain spots well. Next time, I’ll bring Kermit or Furley and see how I do. Maggs of course was on fire with his rigid SIR9, but did a great job of tour guide, making sure that no one got lost or died.

There were no pictures taken this trip. It was all one could do to ride the picture worthy spots without exploding, and it was a little cold. Next time…

I forgot to turn my Garmin on until we had ridden about a mile into the woods, but I caught most of the ride. It took us 3 hours to ride roughly 8 miles. You need to come to these trails with mid summer fitness and fresh legs.

And now, I am beat!