Thursday, August 01, 2013

Twice

I endorse the "Woodland Carbon Fiber Kickstand"
I managed to squeak in a rare "double" appearance at Ingawanis Woods yesterday. The first ride was in the morning on my Inbred single speed dubbed "Project White". Since mounting up the Manitou Tower Pro with the 15mm through axle, I have had nothing but good times on this bike. Right now it is sporting the Deore XT wheels and WTB Nineline tires which seem to be working out well with the Inbred's single speed only demeanor.

The ride started out haltingly when I just grabbed my clipless pedal shoes and hopped on, only to realize that my Atom Lab flats don't like my shoes all that well! Good thing I had my running shoes with me. Those have a grippy sole that the pedals worked nicely with. Kinda reminds me of the old days when I rode on flats with Chuck Taylors.

Anyway, I got going and ran into a young Wild Turkey family. They were nonplussed by my fancy pants single speed and let me know as much by their clucking and their running as fast as they could away from me actions. It's amazing how big these birds are. Even the youngsters were as big or bigger than a full grown rooster. I get a chuckle when I see them run. They look funny when they do that!

Typically I see more than one deer in there, but I only caught a brief glimpse of one yesterday. Odd that. So I returned my attention to huffing up the steeps and trying to enjoy the near perfect trail conditions.

On One tires: Big volume- Mondo traction
Then I head for the shed, ate some lunch, chilled out for a bit, and mowed the yard. (Second time only for July!) I was sitting there having a cool drink afterwad when I realized that both my kids were gone swimming and not due to return for a bit. A thought leapt into my head, and I acted upon it.

I grabbed another test mule that had a tire and some wheels I needed to check out. I hopped in the "Truck With No Name" and hot footed it up for another quick lap around the woods and then got back home in time to spend time with my family.

It was a great day outside all day and to get two rides in on great trails was awesome. The tires I was testing were two completely different animals, and the full suspension versus the single speed hard tail was also rather different. But what wasn't different was both bikes and both rides were fun.

Feeling much better these days, and being able to pull all this off a couple of weeks ago would have been out of the question.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Ted:
Looking for information on Gates belt drive ratios vs. chains. I am building a SS cross bike and want to match or get close to my present SS commuter bike at 38T-17T if I can.
Any help is appreciated.

Brian (brie_boy@hotmail.com)