Sunday, April 12, 2009

Bouncing Off of Rocks

I had forgotten how nice dual suspension really is until yesterday. Contemplating what bike to ride for the bigMichaux 40-miler, I opted to take the dual sus out for a practice run and by George, there's nothing like a little extra cush when putting on the miles in rocks. My old, tired, flabby ass really enjoyed the extra little softness. I think this baby doll will be the bike for 40 and 50 miles of rocks (Rattling Creek is a 50-miler). The 12-hours of the Farm will be hard tail time. While riding this bike, I was thinking of the ultimate bike for rocks -- titanium, 29 inches with tubeless tires, and dual suspension. I'm sure some of you bike weenies know of just the bike that fits that bill -- please tell me! Would it happen to be IF? Another company?

And the ride in Weiser on Saturday? I screwed up the day before and planted 400 onions, 100 strawberry plants, 40 broccoli plants, and prepped the potato patch. When I woke up, my wrists would hardly bend. Needless to say, at mile marker 25 on the bike, I could hardly hold onto the handlebars anymore and had to call it quits. Now if I wouldn't have been rock hopping for 20 miles, maybe, just maybe, I could have gone longer and further. But fate has its way and my wrists said knock it off after playing in rocks for 3 hours. But have no fear, all the major digging and planting is now done -- so next weekend will definitely be the 30+ miles -- the required 75% of the destination race - the final long ride before May 3 (I'm planning to cut the long ride in half the weekend before the 40-miler to "save" myself for May 3).

5 comments:

brett said...

why do you need titanium with a FS 29er? seems like needless extra money for frame properties that the suspension should take care of....

Chili said...

Hmmm.. you are SO right... the full sus really does the trick and yes, ti ain't exactly cheap now is it!? I saw Gary Fisher carries an affordable FS 29er (1400).

brett said...

Watch the weight on the less expensive FS 29ers....cheaper wheelsets usually equate to HEAVY and heavy 29er wheels are pooey.

brett said...

GF does? What model?

Chili said...

Hifi... not sure where I got that 1400 - musta been something else.
http://www.fisherbikes.com/bike/model/hifi-plus-29