I had been thinking about getting a big-wheeled, geared bike with full XTR. The Dos Niner was one of the top contendors. Out of the blue, Lou Waugaman happened to post on his blog that he was getting married, and was doing a little garage cleaning in preparation for the event. I jumped all over his Dos Niner, as it was just what I was looking for.
It's got XTR everywhere:
I went down to Lou's on Wednesday to check it out, and we went on a nice, friendly ride and had a great chat. We rode over to the science center where we rode on the trails that weren't under water, and hooked up with the Wednesday Night Taco Ride guys, including Taylor and Kyle. We chatted about postponing the May Seven Oaks race, and I offered to help them with trail clean-up. After that Lou and I rode back to his place. I then took my new bike home and tried to tweak the set-up a little so that it could be race worthy by Sunday.
For this weekend, I'm going on a boy scout campout on Friday and Saturday nights at Backbone state park, and then on to Waverly on Sunday where I'm going to race the Dos Niner. Although I'm not sure that sleeping on the ground for two nights is a recipe for success on Sunday. I'll keep you posted.
4 comments:
Oh man I'm jealous. Sleeping out of doors makes me feel superhuman. Something about fresh air, sleeping with the sunset and up with the sunrise.
You oughta mop up Sunday with all that good air. Though I'm not sure how throwing in a bunch of other people/kids in the mix will change things. Never done that one.
Have fun and see you Sunday.
Camping is where it is at! Should be warm enough.
See you Sunday!
Ineb - We'll see. Sleeping outside is cool, it's sleeping on the ground that will do me in. You will do great up there. I think the course will suit you well. It opens with a big gravel climb. You should charge up that and then work on holding your place/moving up afterwards.
Bidwell - Looking forward to meetng you in person. Are you racing, or helping run the race? If I don't see you first make sure you introduce yourself.
Sweet looking Salsa, Paul. Congratulations on your new purchase. I've found the key with my Dos Niner to handle the tight and twisty singletrack is to make sure the width of your handlebars is not more than 25". It's a whole different bike if the bars are wider than that. But, 24-25" handlebar width keeps your knuckles off the trees and allows that big front wheel to slice and dice the singletrack just fine and dandy.
My guess is that Bruce Neil's FS Gary Fisher has the stock Bontrager Race Lite Big Sweep OS bar which is 640mm in width. If he cut that down to the 610-620mm width it would make a lot of difference.
See you tomorrow if the rain keeps at bay. We can compare our XL Dos Niners.
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