Thursday, June 10, 2010

Bluebird Skies

After the weekend's blast furnace ride it was nice to enjoy a beautiful, warm, breezy summer day in Iowa. I headed up to the Camp and hit the trails which were a mix of small muddy patches, tacky dirt, and cool air under the thick, lush trees.

The bugs were even somewhat absent this finest of days and I thoroughly enjoyed the sweet little window of time I had to ride.

I rode the Blackbuck single speed with the 34 X 18 gear. I was a bit afraid that I was going to suffer mightily because of the weekends madness and my not being used to that tall a gear on steep stuff. Well, happily I was able to climb a lot more than I thought I would be able to, and without back pain. Good stuff. Sure, I had to walk a couple steeps, but I was more than pleased with my abilities especially after frying my legs in Kansas. 

I've got the Blackbuck set up now with the big, monstrous Specialized Purgatory 2.4's. The tires are mounted on Gordos, which make them look like monster truck tires against the svelte steel tubing of the Blackbuck. It really looks like a "fat tire flyer"!

Adding to the retro-look is the new Mountain Goat Cycles "Goat Horns" handle bar I am checking out. These are much like the Rawland Elgokse I also checked out last year, only the bar is permanently attached on the Goat Horns in the traditional manner. Chromed, "Bull Moose" style, and solid. These make the cruiser-ish lines of the Blackbuck even more neo-klunker-style. Almost made me want to polish up a set of old SunTour ratcheting top mounts and run gears on her. Almost!

Anyway, after playing cat and mouse with a deer for a bit, I high tailed it back home to do some chores. Ended the day grilling out with my family.

Hope your day was as good as mine!

1 comment:

Small Adventures said...

Sounds like a sweet ride,there GT =)

Yep,my day was pretty good too. No trail,but did my first Metric Half Century+ on my 29er on road (not much to a DK racer,but a personal first for me,and brought me to 100 miles this week by Saturday's ride coming =D). I had another 10-12 hilly miles left in me,but I was racing the school bus home-tomorrow's the last day,they get loose early today and tomorrow,LOL!

Steve