Bob's 29er vs. My "Pogo Stick"

So for quite a while Bob and I have talked about trading bikes for one ride. Bob still thinks that I made a mistake by not buying a 29er, and wanted me to ride his bike on a trail that I was familiar with. On Thursday Bob and I swapped and were going to ride dry creek – one of our usual lunchtime rides. Bob immediately started to make fun of my “5,000 dollar Pogo Stick.” He certainly wasn’t used to the 5” rear suspension, and as I followed him he was bobbing up and down quite a bit with each pedal stroke. He also complained about the same thing I have been complaining about – the fork on my bike is in really bad shape. It is too stiff on the small stuff and then when it does give way it bottoms out. It has more or less been pretty bad for about a year. I did find out after the fact that it had leaked out most of the air pressure – it never used to leak before. In any case I need to have my fork rebuilt, and I would like to buy a stable platform rear shock even though Ellsworth claims that one doesn’t need one on the ICT rear suspension. The big thing was that with Bob’s 29er I could definitely feel the difference when I wanted to put the power down. It was also the first time that I kept up with Bob since he had diabetes and didn’t know it. It also hurt my arse! His bike technically has 1” of travel but I am sure with my extra 40 pounds of heft it wasn’t doing its job. I can definitely see the appeal of riding a hard tail vs. a full suspension bike – it was definitely faster. How much of that was because of the 29” wheels and how much was from the solid rear end. The one thing that I am sure of is that I will never buy another bike with rim brakes. I love my disk brakes and it only took one ride on Bob’s rim clincher to remember how much I love mine.

Today I was going over my bike and realized that the small and middle rings on my bike are done. There are missing and bent teeth. Guess that is to be expected after 5,000+ miles of wear. Be about 100 to replace them. Need a new chain and cassette as well should come out north of 400 bucks and that doesn’t include the 100 that I will likely spend on fork service.

Also of interest is that Ellsworth now makes several 29er bikes now, most notably is the Evolve with 4” of rear travel and the Enlightenment hard tail. I could probably sell my frame and build the Enlightenment without spending more than a couple of hundred, but I really don’t think I want to go back to a hard tail bike. For about a grand I could upgrade to the Evolve. Decisions, decistions…

Best Moto Picture Ever

Go HAYDEN. Damn I wish I could ride like this...Eyes focused on his goal, ass end going sideways, knee down...

GO HAYDEN GO!

I can't belive he pulled it off. Nicky Hayden is the 2006 MotoGP champion! Even before Rossi went down on lap 4 he was looking like he was going to do it. I am so excited. On one hand I feel bad for Rossi who is whithout a doubt the best rider there has ever been on two wheels. On the other I am excited to see Honda recover and with an American at the bars. Thanks Rossi and Hayden for making it an awesome season. 2006 has to go down as one of the best MotoGP series ever.