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Friday, October 2

You'll be okay

If you followed the very boring progression of my bike over the last coupla days and were wondering how it worked out... well here goes. Last night I busted outta work and rode as fast as I could to Stabby's house where he was in the driveway waiting for me so we could hop into rush hour traffic to hit one lap at Sherman Branch before it got dark. Sherman may quite possibly be my favorite trail in Charlotte, what with its berms, jumps, technical features, and man made stunts its just about as good as it gets. Usually the stress of getting off work on time added to the frustration of fighting the dense Charlotte city traffic takes the wind outta my sails long before I hit the trailhead, but we were blessed with an uneventful, non experience souring lead up to the ride.

The higher bars (which I raised another 10mm by swapping a spacer in Stabby's driveway) felt a little awkward at first, and I had trouble weighting the front end initially causing a few washouts in the dry, silty corners. Once I got used to the new set up though all I could say is "Hot damn!". It reminded me of how my old "death bikes" used to ride, tall in the front but easy to loft all over the place. Stunts were ridden, jumps were jumped, and berms were railed... the bike feels good, almost like a new bike. That was the point. Since I'm not gonna be riding something different this winter I'm stoked that my rides will at least feel different, and that's different good not different bad.

So I'm thinking I'm gonna leave the squish on there for awhile and definitely run the riser bars since I don't have racing on the brain for awhile. Of course whenever WTB gets their new 2.5" tire out there I'll probably swap back over to rigid to get full enjoyment outta it, but until then I'm gonna ride my new bike.

So yeah, things have been dry here on the blog lately. There's been a lot on my mind for the last month or two that will culminate into the events of this coming weekend. Hopefully once it passes the creative juices will begin to flow again, and life will return to abnormal like I like it. I will not get to ride at all this weekend, and there's a very real possibility that I won't post up on Monday AM. Deal with it. I would give you some advice on how to cope if I had any idea how normal people cope with such disappointment, but to be honest I'm not so normal, but I'm also pretty sure beer would do the trick. So Monday morning after you fire up your computer and click over to the top of your list of favorites don't be alarmed if there's no new content here. Just calmly walk over to the fridge, get a beer, and everything will be OK. I promise.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The least you could do was show a picture before the dissssssss.

Tomi said...

mmmm, nothing better than that Monday morning beer.

Bill said...

I love the smell of beer in the morning.

matt said...

Did you rock the new ladder/stunt at Sherman? 360 tailwhip off the end?

TheMutt said...

You just gave me permission to drink a beer in the morning. Sweet. Wait until I tell my boss.

Anonymous said...

Did you win the frame???? Petahh??

dicky said...

matt,

I totally stunted the new stunt. I did nothing impressive as I exited the thrill ride, but Stabby rode it backwards. I was stoked to see how sturdy it was and how well it flowed into the trail. Kudos to the trail gnomes.

dicky said...

Haven't heard about the Nummers yet. Peter's probably regretting that he didn't base the contest on something other than popularity.

George said...

better to strap in than strap on I always say