Gear Testing Ride

RidgelineTestingOfG9-19
Originally uploaded by Christopher Bailey

Did a quick ride at Ridgeline this evening, mainly to test some things before tomorrow's big McKenzie River Trail ride. I was testing a few things:

• New 7" rotor up front


• Camelbak's energy drink pills


• New Specialized BG Comp shoes


• New Canon Powershot G9 camera


• New Novara/REI gloves

I had to stop twice to reposition the caliper on the disc brake, but by the second time it was dialed: no rub, no sounds when braking, etc. And, yes, more power, nice.

The Camelbak drink pills were interesting. Very light flavor, which is nice, and the flavor was pretty decent, not ideal, but pretty close. I'm thinking I'll go with my tried and true Powerbar stuff for tomorrow, but then continue to try the Camelbak stuff (which will ba damn convenient for travel).

The gloves worked well, and were a nice deal at $19 on sale. I will ride these tomorrow for sure, while I wait for Troy Lee to send me a new pair of SE gloves (story on that in a future blog post).

The shoes... Well, I'm a serious fan of Specialized shoes, and had simply worn out my last pair. These new ones were dialed pretty quick. They do need some breaking in, although oddly, the left shoe felt great, and only the right shoe had some slightly less comfy points. I actually "downgraded" this time around, not going with the most high end shoe, mainly for reason of cost, and not feeling I needed the carbon soles. So, I went with the BG Comps.

Finally, the camera. I bought this camera for the sole purpose of being able to take lots of pics on rides. Carrying around my Canon Rebel XTi DSLR was just way too much. I also wanted something that was quicker to get going on the trail. The G9 is killer, because it's basically most of the features of the DSLR packed into this tiny unit. IT's not as small and light as many folks' point and shoot's, but it's got way more features, such as adjustable ISO, all the normal Canon shooting modes (P, TV, and AV being the key modes), hot shoe, and it shoots video, etc. It has some other really slick features. And, best of all, or well, a great thing, is that it shoots RAW (or JPEG of course).

This little camera kicks ass. I have it in a neoprene type pouch secured to my Camelbak strap. So, I don't have to take off my Camelbak, and can get to the camera really quickly. The particular pouch seems extremely secure (it's a very tight fit on my camera, a bit tighter than I'd like, but even if the flap opened up, the camera wouldn't come out, and it's got a super secure attachment to the Camelbak strap). The camera takes excellent pictures, and I'm just ramping up on full use of it, and all the features. This will just be great to have.

Can't wait for tomorrow's big ride...

WTB Weirwolf 2.55 LT 29er First Impressions

Today was my first ride on the WTB Weirwolf 2.55 LT 29er tire.  I had it mounted up front on my fully rigid Niner.  After inflating it, I was rather disappointed in the size.  It seemed smaller than my Panaracer Rampage 2.35's.  Upon measuring them, the Weirwolf has a wider casing/volume, but the Rampage has wider knobs.  The "LT" portion is definitely true as well, I'd call this tire a semi-knob, as the knobs are very short, and not aggressive.  

I rode the local Ridgeline area, which is mild.  The tire has decent volume, and felt squishy enough, but I did not find I felt confidence with it in the corners.  It was fine on tacky soil, and at slower speeds, but when things got going fast, and there was a bit of loose, and really, I mean, only very minimal loose dirt, covering harder soil, it just didn't feel like it was holding that well, or felt like it was going to go at any second.  I did not lose it, but, I didn't feel I could push it as hard either.

In part, I suspect this tire is not intended for technical, or really aggressive riding, but who knows.  It certainly seems to roll fast, and the large volume is great (although I didn't feel to be much more noticeable than the Rampages).  If you ride mild terrain, and want a large volume, fast roller, it's probably a good choice.  For me though, I think I will likely not be using it much more, but sticking with the dual Rampages, as they simply rock.  I'll put some more rides on the Weirwolf to see for sure though.

Ridgeline Ride Today - Lots of Off-shoots

I rode the Ridgeline trails in Eugene this morning. It's a small place, but boy are there a ton of little off-shoots! I really need to spend some time with the GPS there and map stuff out - so many interesting looking little chunks of singletrack. Today I did the main drop down towards Amazon Parkway, but at a fork at the bottom I went left. This took me over to W. Amazon which lead back to Fox Hollow, which I then rode back up to the park and did another loop on the main trail. Quick and fun.

This was also only my second ride on dirt on the Niner. Definitely still getting used to lack of suspension (I nearly ate it on a relatively mild rooted descent). The bike rolls so nicely though, just have to learn how to ride it better in the rougher terrain. Tomorrow's ride at Oakridge (never been there) ought to be interesting :)

First Real Ride On 29er

Today I did what I'll call my first "real" ride on my new 29er. By that I simply mean it was of decent length, and involved trails (even if it was a small chunk of the ride). There are two very short trails within town, so decided to see what it was like to ride over to one of them from my house, ride it and come back. The quick of it:

Distance: 13.7 miles
Time: approx 1 hour 45 mins (of which about 20 mins was on dirt :(
Ascent: 2300'

The trail, Ridgeline, was quite buff - with scenery/surroundings that made me think a lot of Skeggs/El Corte de Madera in the Bay area: shady with tons and tons of trees, lush, buff trail with a few small rooted sections. It was actually the perfect intro to a dirt ride on the rigid 29er. It is going to take some getting used to to be fully effective on a rigid bike! The thing rolls really well, and it climbs quite well. But, I did a small little drop off, and wham, uh, ya, there'd be no give at all in the rear end :) Interestingly enough, it's really the rear suspension that I miss/notice the most. I think the front is more obvious, and I'm lifting the front wheel as needed more. I will most definitely be getting some fatter tires for mtb riding (and I already received the Schwalbe Big Apple 2.35 mostly-slicks for town riding). The bike definitely rails the buff singletrack, very direct-drive. Any way you slice it though, it's a fun ride, just have to re-train my brain a bit. One note... I haven't played with tire pressure much on this bike yet I was running the tires pretty hard, mainly cuz I've been riding on pavement a lot. For real dirt riding, I could go lower pressure, plus, as said, I'd use something bigger (I'm riding the WTB Nanoraptor 2.1's, will likely go with some Panaracer Rampage 2.35's).

The ride overall was nice, mainly because I got out for a couple hours on my bike in beautiful weather, and got to be on some dirt (even if it was weak). About 30 mins in I was pretty hurtin' and just bummin' over my fitness. But, by the end, cranking up some seriously steep hills, I was enjoying it a lot, and much more positive. Hopefully this ride, and some others will become a multi-day per week event going forward. Working at home again I'm feeling I'll be able to do that.

Tags: 29er, bike, Eugene