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So I did a ride last night and tonight. Last night was at Wakefield and it sucked. The first thing that sucked was that the paths did not completely dry in many spots, so we really got caked with mud. I know it was stupid being out there, but I had to ride my new EWR. I regret it now.
Another reason it sucked is that the Accostink side of the ride is now closed at night, officially. That's right, you heard it correctly: Accostink is officially closed to activity at night, including my favorite one. It was in the works for a while, but they finally did something about it and are going to start enforcing it. I wonder how crowded and ugly it will get at Wakefield on Thursday nights when the hordes come out for the big MORE ride. Before we'd be spread out with all the land we had available to us. Now we'll be one teeming mass. This sucks.
On another slightly sucky note is that JoeP is incredibly fast. I've mentioned him before being a speedy toothpick on wheels, but trying to keep up with him nowadays usually leaves me exhausted. That guy weighs $1.20 soaking wet, so I already have $.45 on him. I think it's all in my lovely handles. It's not so sucky because he's one of my good buds, and seeing your buds get better is good also.
Tonight's ride was at Schaeffer. Erin organized the ride and thirteen folks showed up. It was sunny all day so the trails got a chance to dry out a little better. In a word, the ride was awesome. A few mud puddles, but they were no big deal. The bulk of the ride was swoopy, fast, smooth, fun. The EWR and I got along a little better tonight than last night, where I ended up crashing a few times. No crashing tonight because I'm starting to get used to its different geometry compared to the Chester.
I'm not good at describing ride qualities, but comparing the two bikes, I'd say the EWR is more twitchy. If I leaned or turned too much, I'd slip or wipe out. Does that make sense? The Chester doesn't react as quickly, and that's a good thing to me. I can ride more relaxed. On the EWR there's a bit more sphincter-puckering around fast swoops and turns.
The flip side is that with the suspension fork I can bomb downhills faster. No worries about picking the right lines or rattling your eyeballs out of your head. Look 10 feet further down the trail and just pedal your ass off. But I still have my qualms about suspension. The back side of logs are still scary because too many times I've completed the first half of a log-over successfully. But when the front tire hits the ground, I hate when it dives because I've been bucked. Needless to say, when we got into the log playground, I locked out the RLT so I wouldn't have to do any headers. The rest of the ride was unlocked and it was bob, bob, bob on the uphills. Anyways, after the split with the slow group, we cooked at race pace. I did fine. I feel fine. I'm going to sleep.
So I did a ride last night and tonight. Last night was at Wakefield and it sucked. The first thing that sucked was that the paths did not completely dry in many spots, so we really got caked with mud. I know it was stupid being out there, but I had to ride my new EWR. I regret it now.
Another reason it sucked is that the Accostink side of the ride is now closed at night, officially. That's right, you heard it correctly: Accostink is officially closed to activity at night, including my favorite one. It was in the works for a while, but they finally did something about it and are going to start enforcing it. I wonder how crowded and ugly it will get at Wakefield on Thursday nights when the hordes come out for the big MORE ride. Before we'd be spread out with all the land we had available to us. Now we'll be one teeming mass. This sucks.
On another slightly sucky note is that JoeP is incredibly fast. I've mentioned him before being a speedy toothpick on wheels, but trying to keep up with him nowadays usually leaves me exhausted. That guy weighs $1.20 soaking wet, so I already have $.45 on him. I think it's all in my lovely handles. It's not so sucky because he's one of my good buds, and seeing your buds get better is good also.
Tonight's ride was at Schaeffer. Erin organized the ride and thirteen folks showed up. It was sunny all day so the trails got a chance to dry out a little better. In a word, the ride was awesome. A few mud puddles, but they were no big deal. The bulk of the ride was swoopy, fast, smooth, fun. The EWR and I got along a little better tonight than last night, where I ended up crashing a few times. No crashing tonight because I'm starting to get used to its different geometry compared to the Chester.
I'm not good at describing ride qualities, but comparing the two bikes, I'd say the EWR is more twitchy. If I leaned or turned too much, I'd slip or wipe out. Does that make sense? The Chester doesn't react as quickly, and that's a good thing to me. I can ride more relaxed. On the EWR there's a bit more sphincter-puckering around fast swoops and turns.
The flip side is that with the suspension fork I can bomb downhills faster. No worries about picking the right lines or rattling your eyeballs out of your head. Look 10 feet further down the trail and just pedal your ass off. But I still have my qualms about suspension. The back side of logs are still scary because too many times I've completed the first half of a log-over successfully. But when the front tire hits the ground, I hate when it dives because I've been bucked. Needless to say, when we got into the log playground, I locked out the RLT so I wouldn't have to do any headers. The rest of the ride was unlocked and it was bob, bob, bob on the uphills. Anyways, after the split with the slow group, we cooked at race pace. I did fine. I feel fine. I'm going to sleep.
posted by rickyd 2 at
10:29 PM
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