I've had to exercise the 85* cut off for riding lately because it's just been too damn hot, but it poured rain last night and the temp was nice today so I went for a cross ride on the Betzwood trails. I went out with Chad, who is Jen's sister's fiancé, and he did a great job of demonstrating how much faster you can be with a front suspension.
I did a great job of not hurting myself this time (the whole hand incident, and the time after that I went right over my bars at the first log and landed with my hip and ribs on the log. That shit hurt.) but there were a few parts where my lack of experience caused me to just pogo off my bike. Chad would keep on motoring on so many areas where I had to hop off. It makes me want a hardtail Stump Jumper. Towards the end of the trails, I did start picking a better line and was moving faster, but it wasn't what I would call fast. I also need to see if I can run my tires tubeless. I get pitch flats at any psi lower than 45, but I need to run lower pressures to get a little more grip on roots and rocks. Running tubeless should allow me to get down into the 30's without issue.
Other than that, I love riding my cross bike there. Some of the technical areas are great for me because it forces me to dismount and run for a bit. The bike handles so much better in those conditions than it does when you try to ride it like a road bike. It makes sense now. After tightening up my front brake and dialing in the shifting, it works flawlessly. The only two things I don't like about it (I'm nit picking here) are that the cable is too short for the rear brake and there is play in the rear hub. The brake cable being too short is terrible for steering feel and when I turn the bars more than 45* to the right, it locks my rear brake. Not always the best when you're going 2mph and trying to keep your balance. I'll fix that sometime in the coming weeks.
The rear hub itself is fine, I am just completely spoiled by the Chris King hubs on my road bike. Almost every time I start to pedal from top dead center, I can feel the gap in engagement because of the lack of teeth and clutch. Most of you wouldn't ever notice. Eventually, I'm going to build a set of King wheels for the bike. I just have to decide on what rims I want to run. I'll keep you posted.
