StumpJumper Evo

I spent a lot of time deciding what mountain bike I wanted to purchase.  While I occasionally work at a shop that sells both Trek and Specialized, I extended my search to include companies like Santa Cruz and Niner, as well as just looking for dirt cheap frames that I could build up for next to nothing.  I tried hardtails and full suspension, as well as 1x and 2x drivetrains.  I skipped over the idea of a single speed because people who ride single speed mountain bikes are either really fast, or hate their legs.  I'm neither of those.

Phoenixville Ride

Aside from bikes, I'm also really into photography.  I often think about taking pictures while I ride, but always get too caught up in the ride to want to stop and do what it takes to take a respectable picture of something.  A couple of weeks ago I was determined to finally take some pictures of my friends while we rode bikes and informed everyone what it would require from them and asked for their participation.  Everyone was excited.

Long CX Ride

Lately I've really wanted to do more mileage than the shop ride (25 miles) and ride my CX bike more.  Yesterday, I accidentally combined the two.

Drew and I set out to do a ride at Betzwood.  He just likes getting out on a bike, and I really wanted to play in the mud.  I more than got my wish.  It rained two days ago but Betzwood looked like it rained five minutes ago.  In the first section, it was super sloppy and traction was occasional.  I would have loved smaller gears to just spin through it, but thems is the breaks.

Power Advantage Class/ Allez First Impression

I got to the shop early today so that I could finish putting together the Allez and dial it in (read: make it work).  After bending the derailleur hanger and making some cable adjustments, It's all good.  I slapped on the white Speedplay Zero pedals I bought for the Tarmac, but never got to use, and some white Roubaix bartape and she was ready for some Power Advantage.

New Bikes

That's right, plural. I'm now the proud owner (much to my wife's dismay) of three bikes. One of them is 90% built, the other is fully assembled and ready to rock.

Specialized BG Fit

For a really long time now, I've been talking about getting a fit from Isaac to make sure I was 100% on my bike. It was more important to me that I be fit on the Tarmac because the Guru is custom geometry, and was always the more comfortable of the two bikes. The last round of changes I did to the Tarmac before I disassembled it made it feel fantastic, and after taking measurements, everything was identical to my Guru with the exception of the stem. The Guru has a 100mm stem flipped to -6*, the Tarmac had a 90mm stem flipped to +8*. Measuring from the saddle, the drop to the bar was identical, the Guru had a bit more reach.

To Tubeless? Or Not To Tubeless?

I was in the shop the other day, and a customer I sold a Roubaix to, who is a huge MTBer, stood there looking at me funny. In his defense, I had two 29er tubes and rim tape hanging from my neck. I had just made a StumpJumper tubeless (or 2bliss as Specialized likes to call it) and we got to talking.

Hed Belgium + Chris King = YesPlease

Title says it all. I went out on a 2.5 hour CX ride with Jude and Jeremy (wrench and sales guys from the shop and all around awesome guys) and it was fantastic. Jude knows a lot of trails in the area and he showed us some that I had never been on around Betzwood. We skipped the more MTB type terrain and just stuck with some single track and rooty, rocky dirt trails. About half of the trails I had been on before with my cross bike, and I would get bounced around and have a hard time pedaling out of things. So I was blown away today when I just rolled over roots and barely felt it. The bike is so much more comfortable in every situation. They're noticeably stiffer as well. Because of the wider rim, the tire is pulled wider and the handling is much improved, both on road and off.

The bottom line is I'm stoked. I may end up running a tubeless set of the Captain CX tires I'm running now (which are just awesome, by the way), in the future, and word of mouth is that the feel of the Belgium rims with tubeless tires is pretty close to a tubular. Seeing as how I just rotated the tires for the first time a few weeks ago, I'm pretty sure I have a lot of time before that will happen. But it is on the list. If you're looking for a custom built wheel, road or cross, look into this combo.