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Tuesday, October 24

Proper Fisting of Cycles Accomplished

I wake up to an alarm at 7:30AM.  My first thought is, "When was the last time I woke up in the comfort of my own bed without an alarm?"

I don't remember.

Anyways, drag myself outta bed, seven minute breakfast, out the door at 8:20AM so I can be one of the first people in line to get into the demo.  I wanna get on a Bronson first thing, as the Santa Cruz bikes were just so hard to come by the day before.  Blame their cursed popularity and prime location in the vendor area, I guess.

Roll in at 8:45AM, no traffic getting in, just about the most choice parking spot.  Walk past the security guy, show him my wrist band, sit down in front of the Santa Cruz tent and wait semi-patiently.

Or not.

Damn. Not a lot of activity with less than five minutes to go... pull out my phone, hit the googles... shit. The demo doesn't start until 11:00AM. I weigh my options.

Go home. Give up. Ride around town the rest of the day (which is what I was planning on doing this afternoon).

Find a grocery store, knock out an errand, come back later.

Walk around the USNWC? For two hours?  I don't even have normal people shoes to wear if I wanna go walk in the woods.  Of course, I didn't bring a bike of my own because I was here on total business this time.  Meh.

I walked down to the fake river, pondered my dilemma, headed back to my car... wrote 99% of yesterday's blerhg.  Sorry for all/any errors.  Writing blerhg on phone sucks.

By around 10:30AM, I decide to creep around and be impatient.  The guard sees my wrist band, lets me in... and then chases me down.

"Where's your credentials?"

"Uh... wristband. I was just in here at 8:50AM."

"You can't be in here.  Credentialed vendors only."

He follows me out, some friends offer some credentials on the side, I decide to play by the rules like I'm supposed to.  I get in a little early anyways (so mebbe I ended up borrowing some credentials), and I walk over to Santa Cruz... and I got in a line full of people who somehow also got in early... and the bike I wanted is gone.  Meh.

Over to Mondraker to find out that they don't have a small Foxy (the medium I rode the day before was too big).  They have a small Dune tho, bigger bike but similar sizing.  I'll come back.

Over to Pivot.

"Mach 5.5, por favor?"

"Si."

Demo Jesus grabs it off the rack, Mills checks my sag, and I head out... and bump into a couple friends who just snagged some demo rigs as well.  One being an e-bike.  Of course.  We head out onto South Main.

Whir, whir, whir, whir... Todd rides away from me in an e-assisted manner right off the bat.

The 5.5 is everything I want it to be.  Playful, super climber, light feeling, dare I say "flickable?"

Every single test bike, I launched from the top of this roll-in all the way to the bottom.  Every single one.  I miss doing dumb things on capable bikes.  A lot.

Anyways, I'm not a bike reviewer per se, but I expect that when one rides a $6,000 bike, they smile.  Unless they're an asshole who never smiles.  I may be an asshole, but I'm an asshole that does smile.

I return the Mach 5.5, wander over to the drinking fountains to refill my bottle, walk back past Santa Cruz not expecting to ever ride my choice.

"Dicky, get over here.  I got your bike."

"Unnnhhh..."

Don had mebbe kept his eye out for me and also mebbe sat on a Bronson.  Size small.  The size I would think I would ride but not the size the Santa Cruz site says I should (I'm at the very bottom of the medium chart), but it will do.  I'm mostly interested in how the new VPP platform performs, as I was a happy Tallboy owner... seven years ago?

I hop on the Bronson and ZOMG.  The levels of fun I've been having all weekend are off the charts.  I'm taking lines I haven't considered in years, using almost all the 150mm of travel multiple times.

Mang, that's a shitty image, but I did just get done launching into a nasty root section and came out unscathed and laughing so mebbe I was vibrate with excite.

End the ride with the sender down the hill (more than a couple times) and back to the lot to grab the Mondraker Dune.... which was just going out with a friend... and mebbe enough time for her to get back so I could squeak a ride in to see if the small would fit me?

She does and I do and it did pretty well.

The size feels much more buenos for my four apple tall height, but the bike rides very much like a capable Enduro™ machine.  I think it's just outside my limits in terms of "too much bike."  I would never live up to what this thing can do.

By the time I'm done riding, it's almost 3:30PM.  I've long since burned through my seven minute breakfast from eight hours ago and the two Pop Tarts I had brought along for lunch.  I'm woozy when I get to my car and drive home.

I've got more to say, but I really wanna get... something.  I just don't know what yet.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

KONA, check em'

Anonymous said...

welcome to the dark side my little friend

dicky said...

I wanted to demo a Kona Process, but they no-show at the Cyclo Fist. SAD.

Vertigo Cycles said...

I can't sit on my hands while you're looking at small Santa Cruz bikes. I'm going to check it against your Vertigo in BikeCAD and will get back to you with more details. You know I don't believe in ETT, but if I did, and I normalized the ST angle on your bike (with your saddle in the correct position) the ETT on your Vertigo is 23.8" or 606mm if you swing that way. Reach is 401.34mm on the Vertigo and Stack is 603.78mm. The Hightower is 428/610 and the Bronson is 425/595 for the Medium size.

That said, it's complicated because I don't believe Santa Cruz puts out those numbers with the suspension sagged. Maybe you know that I bought a Hightower last month...I installed a longer stroke shock, now it gets 150mm of rear wheel travel. I also am using a 160mm travel fork on it and if I had to do it over, would have gone with the 170. It's got a low BB and I wanted to raise it a tad and slacken the HTA but in doing so, you effectively reduce the reach, more so if you want to run the sock deeper into its sag (which I do ~35%)

IMO, for the way the bike rides when you setup the suspension to keep your tires stuck to the ground, you want a longer bike than you think you'd normally ride. Run a shorter stem (I think I have a 45 or 50 on mine) and enjoy.

BTW, I love the Hightower more than I ever thought I would and it's caused a bit of an existential crisis.

Brian said...

that is some righteous service after the sale from mr vertigo