Small Man, Big Hoop Dreams

I got it all built up Thursday night...

I was too short to toss it in the bin, so I guess I ride it?

once the wheels showed up in the big box that some benevolent Industry Nine employee had to create to fit my giant purple people eaters inside.

Bleth their heart.

The build was completed after work, so the best thing I could do was ride it to the store to buy beer and bed in the brakes properly.

The next day, I got it out on dirt.  Not that it's exactly what I wanted to do on its first trail ride, being that I've ridden the Winter Shart Tarck course three times on two other bikes since Thanksgiving, both before and after we worked on the trail.  The series begins next week, and I think it's safe to assume this bike isn't going to feel the same, and mebbe some of the lines I was taking on a 29" wheel would change.  So Shart Tarck it is.

Gawtdam.  All the whining and bitching I've read online coming from people who have not even considered trying a 32" wheel... trbl.

"It's gonna handle like a truck... trbl at tight turns... unwieldy... not even remotely flickable"

I'm assuming you've also read it or have successfully kept your head in the sand or paid more attention to the wars we're starting.

Lap one.  My brain was tricked into thinking this bike might be faster.

Lap two.  I let the bike be faster.

I allowed my grin to grow to shit-eating status.

I'd already watched every video, read all the reviews, listened to any podcast that even so much as mentioned 32" wheels... many of them more than once.  Angular momentum, additional weight, contact patch, ramps, acceleration, rider size limitations, so much jargon, science and educated guesses.  I also read a lot of the more negative comments.  That just comes with the territory. 

What I was truly hoping for came true. 

  

I can honestly say that this bike held it's line on the high speed corners like it was on rails.  On the flatter, looser corners, the front wheel kept traction past any speed I would have dared on my 29 (rigid or 130mm squished).

But...

For those unfamiliar with the course, there is an A-Line/B-Line climb option towards the end of the lap.  The A-Line is shorter but very technical (steep, rocks, a chunk of telephone pole, a tree splitting the upper section into two lines, large rocks of consequence you can land on if you fail, and very little momentum on the approach).  The B-Line obvs longer and not technical at all, aside from loose gravel and a sharp off camber left turn over some roots at the top.

I tried it dozens of times on my past three rides on a rigid and squished 29er.  I failed every attempt.  The last time we raced on this course in 2020, I was making it consistently until I swapped my gear to a 32x16 halfway through the series.  It was more gear than I could push up something that steep.  The general consensus is that if you can clean it, you come out at the same point as the B-Line with a one to two bike length advantage BUT at a much higher heart rate going into the flat gravel section.  All that said, one of the studies I came across found that heavier riders rolled further after hitting the same size obstacle than lighter riders (duh) because of momentum... so a wee man like me is at a certain disadvantage going up the very lumpy A-Line hitting many obstacles along the way.  Add to that equation, I'm on a stupid single speed geared for the other 99.9% of the course.

Screw science.

Or not.

I did my best to forget all those previous failures and just give 'er.  I did actually make it... just not consistently.  Mebbe 20% of time time, and I told myself it had to be at least 80% of the time.  With each success, I was getting better but probably not good enough. 

But this is where it got interesting.

I went back out the next day, and even as I was getting better at cleaning the A-Line (but not by much), I went at the B-Line climb at full speed, and instead of worrying about traction while swooping right and banging left, I was accelerating as I went up.  When I came to the top and got on the flat gravel road, my heart rate was in the low 170s, and I was able to get back on it with full gas as opposed to trying to recover from a maximum effort.

Which means that the 32X19 that I swapped out the day before to a 30X18 in the hopes of getting better at A-Line could go back on...

Which means that I can get back on top of my gear sooner with all the speed and momentum I'm carrying through the turns into pedaling sections.

So, B-Line it is for this little man, which means I won't have to endure the results of further continued failures. 

Yeth, I tried the upper line to the right of the tree and ended up in the large rocks of consequence.  Those spokes were so pretty.

Rides one and two were buenos.  I got out Sunday for an altogether different kind of riding.  I'll write that up next.