Ti Muk II Ride Report

A little "Dirt Home From Work" action to test out the Ti Muk II ride.

Well, with yesterday's announcement out of the way, I figured y'all might want to know what I think about this new rig's ride. I didn't waste any time gettin' to it.

Saturday when we got back with the new-to-me Ti Muk, I couldn't ride as it was pouring rain and lightning outside. So, I waited until Sunday to get a bit better acquainted with this bike, its shifting, and its generator light. That went okay, but getting used to how the Rohloff shifter is indexed will take a little getting used to. It is kind of vague, especially going into a faster/higher gear. I shift one position and I cannot always feel the indexing. But going the other way- to a lower gear- is easier to feel. Plus, it won't shift at all if you have any kind of pressure on the pedals in that direction anyway.

The generator hub is turned on by a big button on the back of the light. I didn't realize this until after I looked up the information on the light on the excellent Peter White Cycles site. I accidentally got it on Sunday and then I noted that the light strobes and didn't have a solid beam. I figured I would have to look the model information up, and when I did, I found out that the light has a sensor and automatically switches to a solid beam when it is dark. Hmm..... technology. Okay, cool. I haven't double checked this yet, but I will get around to that soon. I did find out that the tail light has a standby function. I figured it would. Most high end generator lighting systems have this now. So, what it does, when you are moving, is that the hub charges up a capacitor which is part of the generator system. When you stop, the generator stops, but the capacitor, which stores voltage, starts to slowly drain and this voltage keeps the head light and tail light on when you are stopped for a period of time. And that "period of time" seems to be several minutes. Longer than any stop light sequence for sure.

I was stoked to learn that my purple Bike Bag Dude bags fit the new Ti Muk.

I went home Sunday and planned on riding the bike to work on Monday. I decided then to dub it the "Ti Muk II", since it is my second Titanium Mukluk and Salsa Cycles' second, and final, version of this model. So, this will hereafter be known as "Ti Muk II" on this blog. FYI- The history of the Ti Muk model is 2012-13 was the Lynskey made version with bead blasted graphics. The 2014 Mukluk was the first year of Taiwanese made titanium models and had a green painted front section. The last year, 2015, was this bike with the white painted front end. USA made Ti Muks have straight 1 1/8th steer tubes and the Taiwanese Muks have 44mm head tubes compatible with tapered steer tubes. The geometry was changed slightly on the later Taiwanese models also to accommodate front suspension. Thus, the front triangle is slightly different than the earlier Ti Muks.

Tour de Fungus- Check out the blaze orange mushrooms.

This slight difference had me worried that my newest Bike Bag Dude purple frame bag wouldn't fit, but it does, so that was a relief! I should note that Sam gave me a Surly branded Revelate made frame bag for this which fits it perfectly, but I will likely use the BBD bag most of the time. (Although it clashes with the crank set! Hmm.....) Sam also passed on to me a set of Jones H-Bar compatible Revelate pogies. Supposedly the very last set ever made by Revelate. They are nice, ginormous, and will be put to use in colder weather. Not anytime soon! (Thanks Sam!)

The rest of the BBD bags look and fit perfectly on here as well. It should make adventuring a bit easier. The Ti Muk II also has a rack mount, and I am contemplating getting a rack for this. The Alternator model this bike is supposed to have should work well. But I haven't decided whether or not to pull the trigger on that idea. I guess I have plenty of time to figure that out.

Monday I rode to work the regular route and then did the "Dirt Home From Work" route I have done a lot before. I was getting the hang of shifting by the time I was into the middle of my ride home. There is a bit of a trick to it, and sometime soon that will become second nature. The gearing is biased to the low side, as I would expect for a bike like this. That said, I can cruise along at what seems like 12-14mph all day long and that seems to be about 10th gear or so. The jumps between gears are bigger with a Rohloff, so I have tended to fall back on being more like a single speed guy, sticking with a gear a bit too long. The nice thing is that if I found myself stuck in a too-high gear, I simply could stop, shift it way down to a low gear, and start again, all while in the saddle. Or, if momentum could carry me, stop pedaling and swipe down to a much lower gear and then gas it back up, shifting to higher gears as necessary. It's definitely a different experience.

Interestingly, although the geometry is slightly different on the Ti Muk II, it still is really stable. Sam had a lot of spacers set up under the stem and the Carbon H-Bar is "up there", and I wondered if I might not like that. This would be pretty close to how Jeff Jones would probably recommend setting it up though, based upon what Jeff has told me personally. So, I figured I'd give it a solid try.

As it turns out, I think it is pretty close to, if not spot on. I'm at the very least going to run this set up longer term until I can figure it out in a more permanent way. The saddle, however, I think is going to be a different story.

I may like this saddle with a chamois, but I ride a bike like this so much in "civilian clothes", that it has to have a saddle that agrees with me in all situations. I feel like this saddle is a tiny bit too narrow though. Maybe. We will see after some more riding, but Monday's ride was pointing to the "too narrow" verdict by the time I got home. I may only have to tilt it back a bit too. This is set up dead flat and I never run my WTB saddles that way. Always a bit nose up for me. So, that will be the next thing to try. Oddly enough, the saddle height is dead on. Apparently Sam and I have very similar saddle height requirements. (As do Ben Witt and I. Weird!)

I did also notice something I was a bit surprised by. Both on Sunday's and Monday's rides it was quite noticeable that this bike has a pretty springy rear end, but only when seated. It isn't as stiff feeling when pedaling in the saddle as the old Ti Muk was, and that was far better than an aluminum Mukluk. That with a larger diameter seat post than a US made Ti Muk like my older one. So, that is pretty remarkable. The combination of the smooth riding rear and the Carbon H-Bar and Advocate fork make for a pretty nice riding bike, really.

More on this bike in the future. I have to get some details on the wiring harness tucked away and tidied up, then this will be fully operational.