First Real Ride!

The 21" in front of the 15'

The 15"

15 & 21"

UPS dropped the bikes off early Monday morning, right before I had to head to school, it was hard sitting in school all day knowing that I had two bikes to mess with. As soon as I walked in the door I started assembling the bikes. Like I said the first thing I did was swap the tires. I sold the small block 8s on ebay, didn't make anything on em of course, but it helps pay for the new tires.

For Aprils bike I put a WTB Silverado saddle on, Specialized BG Ergonomic grips, Promax Barends, Kalloy 400mm seatpost (the same one Sette, Origin8, Rockwerks and others put their name on), Woodman seatpost clamp in dark blue (it matches the BG grips), Easton Carbon Flat bar (with a 31.8 to 25.4 shim), 100mm Race Face Dues XC stem and her Nevegals.

For my bike I swapped out the original saddle for the same thing in Brown (WTB Rocket V comp, actually a very comfortable saddle), Brown Oury Grips, Continental Mountain King 2.4's and Wellgo Pedals (COMPLETE GARBAGE!!!).

We went on a ride Tuesday night, mostly on the road but some trail riding at MT Tabor. I didn't really notice much difference on the road, except that when I try to sprint I can't throw the bike side to side like on a 26er, it just feels really wobbly, instead I just smash the pedals and keep the bike in a vertical position. On the trail the turns feel like the bike is on rails, a very strange sensation, I point the wheels where I want to go and it goes. I did notice how the bike rolls over things I would normally try to avoid or pull my front end over, but part of that has to due with my prior ride being a 26" singlespeed fully rigid bike.

On Friday we went to check out the Wilson River Trail in the Tillamook National Forest. The trail is a 20 mile long trail that parrallels the Wilson River. The trail can be accessed at 5 or 6 different spots. We chose the footbridge because it had a good parking area that appeared to be busy, I've read about cars being broken into up there, so I wanted to avoid that. We headed East on the trail (to the west is 6 miles of trail to Keenig Creek) for 7 or so miles.

Some sections of the trail are super steep, so steep that I was expecting the front end to pop up, but it didn't, if the trail was too steep it wasn't because the bike wouldn't stay down it was because my legs are too weak. The longer wheel base is certainly noticeable, not only on the hills but also on the tight switchbacks, I made most of them but a few were just too tight. I'm not sure a 26" bike would have done much better since the rocks and roots would have stopped the wheel easier.

The bike gets up to speed really fast, I actually went to fast and went over the bars because there was a small bump with a dip right behind it, I went over the bars off the side of the trail. The bike was fine, and I was mostly good except that is probably where I picked up a couple of ticks, one of which burrowed into my armpit and the other one was found scurrying across my back.

We chose the Wilson River Trail because we had heard that it was a good ride, but that singlespeeds wouldn't be much fun. I would like to get on Brown's camp trail, the ride we have done quite a few times on our singlespeeds for a comparispon, but right now we just want to take advantage of our gears and suspension.

I almost forgot, I weighed our bikes at my parent's house. They have a digital scale that rounds to the nearest .5 lbs. April's 15" with wire bead Nevegals weighed 29 pounds and my 21" with kevlar bead Mountain Kings weighed 30 lbs.

The Small Block 8 is one of the lightest 29er tire available, mountain kings weigh around 200 grams more (so almost a half a pound per tire). I am going to buy April the Maxxis Ignitor because they are around 600 grams (a 1/4 lb lighter than the mountain kings) per tire. The wire bead Nevegals are probably around 1100 grams per tires.

Other changes: I am putting Shimano M540 pedals on my bike along with a red Salsa Cycles FlipLock. I forgot to mention that I put Wellgo WR-1 pedals on Aprils bike, they weigh 200 grams a set and have enough grip for her.

Saturday I shortened one of Aprils brake cables, only one because the hose barb installed in the cable cannot be removed and I only bought one. It wasn't very hard, including bleeding it only took around 15 minutes. On Sunday I decided to bleed my rear brake, not for any good reason, mostly because I was procrastinating on my homework. I screwed the syringe into the lever wrong and ended up sucking a bunch of air into the system so it took me around 20 minutes to get it fixed. I suggest that people buy the real AVID bleed kit, I thought I would save money and buy a set of syringes on ebay that have the right fitting for attaching to the lever and caliper, but it didn't include all the other little things that are actually really expensive. You should be able to find the real AVID kit online for around $30, I'm pretty sure a 2009 kit is the same as the 2010 kits.

I'll try to keep this updated with any changes I decide to make to our bikes. For anyone on the fence about a Fantom29 Pro Sl, I would suggest you just go ahead and get one. If you're worried about what people might think of you riding a Motobecane then you should buy a Gary Fisher because they are so coool.