Category: cycling

Despite not feeling up for riding to work I still went to a Felt Bicycles demo over at Stony Creek after work. I’d wanted to try out some of their 29er hard tails and maybe a road bike, and thankfully I had no problem doing either.

I ended up trying out four bikes, a 26″ full suspension, 29″ carbon fiber hard tail, super-light (and expensive) road racing bike, and a single speed coaster brake cruiser, as follows:

· Felt VIRTUE 1: Five inch travel full suspension mountain bike. I didn’t care for this very much as it was far squishier than I would like, but there’s a good chance it simply wasn’t set up right. This was my least favorite bike of the demo.

· Felt NINE Elite: Hard tail carbon fiber 29er with Reba Race fork. This bike fit very well, and I enjoyed riding it quite a bit. It almost makes me want a 29er hard tail; a new bike that I probably couldn’t justify.

· Felt F1 SL: I asked for a 56cm road bike to try, and this $6999 professional racing level bike was the only one available. Being the first drop bar bike that I’ve taken a proper ride on made this quite an interesting experience. No matter how hard I pushed it felt like the bike could go faster, and I frequently found myself zipping down the road quite quickly with surprisingly little effort.

· Felt SLANT: Very comfortable, great looking coaster brake cruiser. This is not a bike to ride far, but just something to poke around a park on and enjoy yourself.

After the demo I took a few minutes to throw a leg over the Felt F75X which Erik had taken for a ride, but as I didn’t really take it anywhere I couldn’t form much of an opinion on it. It seemed really nice, though.

Now it’s time to get some sleep so I can (hopefully) ride to work tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will stick to the forecast and remain relatively nice and rain free.

This has been a good weekend. After my sister’s wedding (to a nice guy who I think is all right and will be good for her) I ended up back home on Sunday with some time to work on my bike and go for a ride.

So, after cleaning up the drivetrain (it’s been almost six months since I got the Titus Racer X 29er (photo gallery retired)) I took a quick ride from Rochester Mills (Beer Co.) up the Paint Creek Trail (and via some back routes) to Bald Mountain Recreation Area (North Unit) and back. After getting back to Rochester I took a quick spin through the two-track at Bloomer, located the hole-in-the-fence access out the back side of the park, then headed back to my car.

As seen above and in this photo, riding the Paint Creek Trail leaves quite a bit of limestone dust on one’s bike and parts. I’ve had people warn me that such grit will ruin bearings quite quickly, but I tend to think that the grease on such parts will do its job and keep the grit out of the important areas.

Riding through Bald Mountain itself left me covered in both bug bites and irritations from plants. Some of the trail (in particular the connectors) is becoming quite overgrown, and riding through them means a few minutes of continuous rubbing up against all the local foliage; Some of it even reaches out and grabs your bike, as happened today when the metal cap on the rear derailleur cable went missing.

Worse than the botanical irritation is the flies and mosquitoes in Bald Mountain, which fly fast enough to land on you at 10 MPH, and swarm behind you (waiting for you to slow or stop) at 12 MPH. The occasional downhills are the only savior, as one can then lose the flies. Still, despite all of this, I ended up with a horse fly in my helmet. Thankfully it didn’t bite and just allowed the mosquitoes to do their thing.

I seem to be having problems riding my bike lately. First, I fell last night, toppling over after failing to ride over a log pile at Stony Creek. I made it up the one side, lost momentum, and was in too high of a gear to pedal and just fell over. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but I fell right on the multi-tool that was in my jersey pocket, landing with it between me and the log that I fell on. Now I’ve got a sore butt, with the injured bit being right where the toilet seat sets when I’m sitting down and having a chat about horses. When falling I also landed on my backpack, and while instinctively trying to keep my head up I pulled some neck muscles. Thankfully this should all cease hurting by the weekend.

Today when out riding at Stony Creek I just happened to get a pinch flat on my rear wheel, causing it to lose all of its air in a few seconds and leave me stuck at the side of the trail swapping out a tube. Thankfully I had a bottle of 100% DEET with me, so I was able to mostly keep the mosquitoes at bay for the few minutes that I was stuck fiddling with things. After fixing the flat I hadn’t quite pumped it up as full as needed (a test ride showed this), but thanks to the KLM Stump Pump I had no problem filling the tire up properly before riding back to downtown Rochester.

Last night my friend Bob picked up his new bike (a 50th birthday present to himself) from the shop and brought it over. I adjusted a few little things to get it working nicely, then took some photos of it for him. Those photos can be seen here (photo gallery retired), in the Bob’s Black Sheep (photo gallery retired) album.

This bike is currently outfitted as follows, although some parts (bars, tires, stem, seat post clamp) will likely change:

Frame: Black Sheep Bikes Stellar 29er (semi-Custom Geometry)
Seat Post: Black Sheep Bikes Infinity
Fork: Rock Shox Reba Race Team w/ Remote Lockout
Stem: Thomson Elite
Handlebar:Soma Clarence
Crankset: Truvativ Noir (Red)
Front Derailleur: Shimano XT
Rear Derailleur: SRAM X.0 Long Cage (Red)
Cassette: SRAM PG-990 (Red)
Shifters: SRAM X.0 (Red)
Chain: SRAM PC-991
Saddle: Brooks B17 Aged
Pedals: Crank Brothers Eggbeater SL (Red and Black)
Brakes: Avid Elixir CR
Wheels: Chris King Hubs, DT Swiss X 470 Rims
Skewers: Crank Brothers Split (Red and Natural)
Tires: Schwalbe Racing Ralph, 2.4″ Front, 2.25″ Rear
Bottle Cages: King Cage Stainless Steel
Grips: Ergon GP1
Stem Cap: Purely Custom, etched with “More Tortoise Than Hare”
Bar End Caps: Soma (Red)
Spacers: Toronto Cycles Carbon Fiber

Today while washing my Titus Racer X 29er (photo gallery retired) I found the rear drive-side Horst link screw loose. If this had come completely apart the bike would have gone very floppy, but not failed catastrophically.

Thankfully Titus publishes the Titus Racer X Torque Specs (mirror on nuxx.net) so I was able to reset this screw and check the rest. Everything else was spot-on already, save for the top of the rear shock which I’d previously undone (to route brake lines) and done by feel. That shock mount doesn’t matter much, though, as the bolt itself carries very little load.

Now, time to figure out a place for today’s riding…