Just looking

Sorry about yesterday.  It was Niner Mike's fault.

He came into town to do a demo on Sunday.  We were supposed to meet in a non-convoluted way that got somewhat convoluted.  Beer and wings at Sir Ed's, ran late, headed over to the Faster Mustache meeting, more beer...

When my alarm went off at 6:00AM Monday morning, there was just no way I was getting up just to blog.

The day before Mike's visit, I had a limited but still generous window to ride.  I made a very half-assed attempt to find someone to ride with me.  Dip n Spray said he wanted a piece of the action, but being that we were making arrangements on the phone Friday night as he was walking into a pre-wedding celebration...  Was he gonna make the ride the next day?

Chance.

By myself and with the opportunity, I made the long haul up to Lake Norman State Park.  I wanted to try and implement the cornering techniques I blogged about last week.  There's plenty of "flow" there and enough trail that one can ride well over two hours without doing multiple laps.
Anyhoo.

Not a bad first attempt at utilizing the skills gleaned from those better than I (including Harlan).  I did overcook one corner and almost flew completely off the trail.  Aside from that, there were moments when it just felt right.

But.

There were also moments when the whole "strong foot forward, lean the bike/not the body, belly button laser pointer" thing didn't work as well for me, and to be honest, I don't think it would work at all in those situations for anyone.

Say what?

An XC bike, with the saddle at XC height, on XC trails, with XC corners and constant elevation changes (up and down)...  For the most part, it's too hard to explain, and since I'm neither a coach nor someone you should take advice from, I say go out and try it.

Two more revelations that day.  A way to implement something that was going on in the back of my head.  More later this week, should the implementation come to full fruition.  It involves a plan that is only 1/5 thought out, but at least I started it.

The other thing? I think I'm over my 100mm fjork.  It either makes me wish I was on my 140mm or on the rigid crabon frok.  Travel.  All of it or none.   Sunday morning, I swapped the Dickstickel Meatplow V.6 back to rigid, which means I have two rigid single speeds and a fjork on the wall.  Stupid.  The beginnings of the off-"season" funk, I guess.

BTW:  This is pretty.

Yes, that's paint on a ti frame, something I absolutely loathe. 

And that fjork is in the 80-100mm range I was just bitching about.

But I like it.  What can I say?  Yeah, it's got 650b/27.5 wheels.  I'm looking.