Six weeks post a purchase event best described as “What? A new bike? With my reputation“, a rather more significant milestone has passed under wheel. Actually rode the bloody thing. To the cynical* amongst you hypothesising that period conveniently brackets a slew of upgrades best characterised as a drunken man power sliding through a parts catalogue, let me offer a seasonal defence.
This winter is precision tooled to methodically strip away your will to ride. Endless waves of low pressure systems delivering rain on target with military accuracy**. Fifty days of moist+ weather leaving you feeling damp even when on the dry side of a water slashed window. The entirety of the UK is a muddy puddle occasionally accessorised with the odd dry spot. These are not prime mountain biking conditions.
Certainly not for something Californian born with sufficient mud shelves to outfit a decent sized Aldi. That’s before we get to the bearings with a lifespan similar to a wine gum in a blast furnace. Eventually tho my superpower – poor impulse control raised to the power of misunderstood secondary consequences*** – wrenched agency from the land of much dithering, and new bike ride day finally happened.
It was dark. But not too wet. Let’s not confuse that with dry- we’re at least a season away from that mythical dry line. A far too familiar climb reminded me that 160mm enduro race bikes are not XC race light. Geometry and suspension trickery negates the misery of bobbing long travel bikes, but gravity still has a say.
What it was mostly saying was “good luck stopping this bugger unless you’ve selected a handy tree as an emergency breaking point“. The Bronson has suffered a parts dart bait and switch including a set of stoppers left hanging off a wall while my collarbone was merely hanging. My good mate Steve jumped on the bike then jumped straight off summarising the experience thus: “that front brake” / “Yes?” / “would have liked one”
They improved a bit. As did I relearning the joy of two sprung ends and non creaky knees. Not sure I learned much more other than the bike felt pretty well sorted, that coil shock out back was a thing of immense loveliness evenly matched by a professionally fettled fork.
I took it home, hosed it off, chucked some new brake pads in and loaded it onto an uplift trailer. Been a while since my last trip to Bike Park Wales. And while the day dawned chilly and grey, this was a major upgrade to the sleet lashing down on us the last time I paid good money to swap pedalling for a motorised uplift.
It was still filthy tho. The bike however shrugged all that off and was properly awesome on a day that started stiff and confused, but ended with a “that’ll do pig“. In between a creative line choice which shimmied a rear wheel all of 15km old, an inability to properly pre-load that coil shock and a couple of refusals that had nothing to do with the bike reinforced the axiom that ‘it’s not about the bike‘
But it was about the bike. Or at least the fun I was having riding it. Runty rear wheel has a fab turn in, tuned dampers doing their thing, sorted geo whispers sweet somethings in your ear “you could go a bit faster, it’ll be fine, I got you” and it has, never got close to crashing and that’s beyond a high water mark for me at a bike park.
Strava tells me we did quite well. Not smashing my previous 10+ visits but a few crowns entirely unexpected with my pre-9am whispered mantra of “new bike, we’re not chasing anything here“. Yeah well that lasted about one run. Not the run chosen by Em who dispatched us down a “natural trail” represented by 50% mud and a similar percentage of terror.**** Still give me a few months and I’m sure I’ll be able to talk about it again.
Two days later we switched internal combustion for external computation. How many meters left to climb? How big is that hill? Is that a pub I can see? A difficult combination of Gym sessions, riding and – ahem – alcohol made this a tough day where giving myself a talking to was a lonesome task based on how far ahead everyone was. Got it done, but fuck I was properly tired.
Downhills were good. Felt pretty confident on the bike. Well mostly forgot about the bike and that’s a great metric for evidencing good frame choices. After a much needed 12 hours in the pit, a post ride examination revealed binding pedals and rubbing brakes. Fixed both of those and I’m sure those extra 10 watts or so will make a massive difference:)
Then a night ride over the border. Extra pretend finger strapped on and fully aware electricity is considered a dangerous luxury, we ticked off some of the steeper and harder trails. Because we thought they’d be dry. “Thought” is doing some heavy lifting here. Surprised myself by riding 50/50 features rather than reading from the book of extensive excuses.
Fifth ride tomorrow. Trail conditions may have been affected by wind/hail/sleet battering our little storm tossed island these land 48 hours. That’s fine, I have mudguards and a long suffering washing machine. And I just want to ride my new bike. However old I get, that never does.
*how can that not be an acronym for “devastatingly accurate“?
**Not the US military. Unless schools count as legitimate targets. Hey vote in a cognitively impaired narcissist with an emperor complex and be not surprised when global fuckwittery follows. Well done America, we’re all very proud of you.
*** There is must be a use case where this could actually be a superpower. I’ve just haven’t found it yet.
**** She was “banned from the trail board” for the rest of the day. Whatever Em wants to ride, we’ll go and do something else 🙂