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Here’s a photo of a Slingshot Ripper at the Trail’s Edge booth at this year’s Michigan Bike Demo. Unfortunately, this bike arrived at the demo too late for it to be ridden as a demo unit. This is disappointing to me, as I would have loved to try this modern piece of retro tech.
Unlike last year the weather was nice, with cool temperatures, sun, and a breeze making it a great day to be outside. Like last year I was able to try a suite of bikes on the demo loop, many of which I was surprisingly happy with. The bikes I tried were:
· Salsa Muklua
· Niner Jet 9
· Giant XtC 29er 1
· Specialized Stumpjumper Comp 29er
· Specialized FSR 29er (of some sort, with a Brain shock)
· Niner Air 9
· Surly Pugsley
Of these, the medium Specialized FSR fit me the best, and was a surprisingly comfortable bike to ride. I also really liked both Niners, although the Air 9 was a bit too stiff for me. The fat tire bikes (Mukluk and Pugsley) were also both a lot of fun, but by their design I had to constantly pedal, as simply coasting slowed me down. I think that throughout most of the ILRA demo loop I didn’t even have to bother braking on these two bikes as I could just time my coasting so that I was never feeling that I was moving too quickly.
Danielle came along today specifically to try out some of Specialized’s woman-specific bikes. These tend to have a shorter top tube for the typical woman shape, and of these she found herself very comfortable on a medium Safire Expert. This is a very nice trail bike which would do her well, but unfortunately it’s $4700 MSRP. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to use the geometry info from this bike to find something more suitable for her and either pick up or build a new bike that she’s quite happy riding.