Big Mountain Riding

Quick Hit: Ergon GX-1 Grips

Review and photo: Scott Schekman

You are probably thinking: how the heck can we consider grips part of big mountain riding? Well, considering that grips are one of the three contact points between us and our bikes, and that big mountain riding often encompasses longer rides and epic conditions, including a review on grips seemed to make sense. Especially if they can make a difference in rider comfort or control.

The grips in this Big Mountain Riding Quick Hit test are Ergon’s basic offering for smaller hands-the GX1. No bar ends are included, although they can be found with another model of the same grip, named the GX2. Along with this model for smaller hands, Ergon offers a full line of grips for a range of riding styles and riders.

I have been using these on my geared and single speed rides since 2009. I bought my first pair as I was preparing for big mountain race the Shenandoah 100.  A friend who had completed the ride a few times and was helping me prepare recommended the Ergons. I can honestly say that my hands were one of the few body parts not totally whipped at the completion of the 100-mile epic race.

Through the shape of the paddle section, they actually eliminate the stress on my palms and wrists. My fingers don’t cramp even when I’m riding my single speed with a rigid fork!

It did take a couple of rides to get the position correct on the bars, but once I did they were – as my grand daughter says – SWEET. The only con I have found is that in cold weather,  thick gloves don’t pair well with these grips, as it can be hard to feel comfortable and in control with the grip’s shape.

To summarize: if you don’t find your current grips that comfortable, or you’re looking for a grip to ease the pain of the miles on your palms, give these a try. Your hands, one of your three contact points with the bike, will thank you.

© 2011 Big Mountain Riding

So Simple, So Fun – This Rigid Singlespeed 29er Will Blow You Away

Review and photo by: Scott Schekman

This is a long term review of my first 29er (of hopefully many), the Redline Monocog Flight 29er. This “Mono-cog deluxe” is not to be confused with the straight Redline Monocog. The Flight upgrades the quality of the cromoly frame, adds disc brakes, and sports a better set of wheels than a Plain Jane Monocog.

I bought my Monocog Flight as a complete rigid single speed in early 2008 for only $800. This was the retail price from my LBS, not an internet special. What I got for that price is a 4.75 pound (2.15 KG)  Sanko cromoly steel frame and fork, Ritchey Pro riser bar and seat post, Avid BB5 mechanical brakes, a decent (although heavy) set of wheels, a FSA Alphadrive singlespeed crank set, and a pair of Maxxis Ignitor folding bead tires. A pretty fair deal, I thought.

For those still on the fence about the big wheel revolution (or the zealous converted looking for a quick ‘Amen’ line) let me begin with a little history of how I came to drink the 29er Kool-Aid before I get to the bike itself. I was riding pretty regularly with a friend who had been on wagon wheel bikes for some time and he had been telling me I should try one. I was somewhat resistant to the idea of these big wheelers since I had heard all the usual complaints; they handled like trucks, they were plagued by slow acceleration, etc. My friend kept after me, and he finally talked me into trying his wife’s 2007 Redline Flight rigid 29er singlespeed. I tried it out at our local trails on Lynchburg, VA’s Candler’s / Liberty Mountain. There were four of us meeting for that fateful afternoon ride. I was blown away and riding on a rigid at that! At that time I was planning on buying a Fisher Hifi demo bike, but it never happened once I had ridden the Redline. Two weeks after riding that Redline I had one of my own. Then I sold both of my 26ers and also bought a Salsa Mamasita frame, which I built up with gears and a Reba fork to go in the quiver with the Flight SS.

I have found the Redline Monocog Flight 29er to be an extremely versatile bike. I have ridden it configured as a rigid single speed, a geared rigid, and have softened up a bit with a Reba suspension fork. Right now it is back in rigid SS mode. The flexible Flight’s next use will probably be with taller gearing and shoed with cyclocross tires for some paved and gravel roads excursions. A pretty flexible cycle, wouldn’t you agree?

Piloting the Flight on single track, the first thing that I noticed was the accurate steering (with a rigid fork) and the good ride for no suspension. Pedaling responsiveness is good – not as good as the Salsa Mamasita, but the Redline is not advertised as a race bike. I did race it once when it had gears and a Reba and it carried itself quite well. For most of its life my Monocog Flight has been set up as a rigid SS, and that seems to suit it well. I switched to a tubeless wheelset and a fatter front tire so I could run lower air pressures for some cushion, but I am 54 years old and not as flexible as I used to be. The Monocog Flight frame uses sliders on the chain stays instead of an eccentric bottom bracket to tension the chain. They’ve worked well, and I have not had them slip since new.

Tight trail switchbacks? No problem. Fast sweeping turns? The Flight’s got ‘em. Rooty, rocky trails? If you remember this is full rigid and line choice is critical to keeping momentum, the Redline Monocog Flight will back up its BMX heritage in its bombproofness. Every time I rode this bike for the first year I was always smiling because it’s just that fun.

I think for a budget single speed 29er it is a tremendous deal; it does everything it should and does it all well. In the market for a 29er single speed? The Redline Flight deserves a serious look.

© 2010 Big Mountain Riding

Introducing Unsafe Ace (USA)

Dumb Decisions, Unforgettable Memories

Unsafe Ace is back to regale us all with harrowing tales of two-wheeled stupidity.  Another reason to love Unsafe Ace: the dumbest decisions often lead to unforgettable memories. Example: 127 hours

On our second trip to Moab,  my brother Dig and I decided to put on the lights and ride the slickrock trail at night. Brilliant!

The pale sandstone gleamed in the moonlight, and we had the world-famous Slickrock Trail all to ourselves. We tooled along on silvery ribbons of rock, between inkwells of pitch black that might have been mere hollows in the rock or could be the 200-foot deep Colorado River gorge.

The falling temperatures turned us around eventually, and we headed back for the Sand Flats parking area.

Between where the practice loop branches off and the main trail turns into a loop is a technical section with a steep climb and a side hill off-camber section. In my memory it skirted a 30-foot deep canyon. As we approached its depths were obscured by darkness.

I lost too much momentum on the climb up to the side hill section, and I had to pedal to cross it. My bulky Shimano DH pedals clipped the high side, pushing my bike out toward the abyss. Fear spiked through my frozen brain. Was this it? Surely THIS could not be IT?

The bike and I pitched over, falling toward the inkwell below. I came down on top of my bike, and immediately slammed every part of my body I could against the steep stone. My helmet, hands, forearms, feet, knees, etc. all pressed against the rock, over and around the frame and wheels of my bike. I could feel myself sliding. I dug in with my helmet visor and finger tips.

I stopped sliding. Unbelievable but true.

Dig had to help me back up, pulling the bike and me back up the hill. It turned out that the canyon was only about 15-feet deep, and not the 30-feet I had thought. I didn’t care. Unsafe Ace had lived to do more dumb things, trumping the theory of survival of the fittest yet again …

©2010 Big Mountain Riding

Number 9, Number 9 – Fuel EX 9 is Another Soldier in Trek’s Quiet Revolution

Review: Randy King
Photo: Trek Bicycle Co.

MORE PHOTOS COMING SOON

I have a new squeeze.  It wasn’t my choice to move on, but sometimes one member of the relationship just wants out, and the other half is left to pick up the pieces. That’s where I was when my 2007 Gary Fisher HiFi Deluxe broke in three places. Trek and my LBS, Bikes Unlimited in Lynchburg, promised to replace it under warranty. While this took longer than expected – more than two months – I won in the end, getting a 2011 Trek Fuel EX 9 frame.

Onto the frame went my Fox TALAS fork, XT rear derailleur, LX front derailleur, Avid Juicy 5 brakes, Thomson seat post, Bontrager Race riser bar and stem and wheels, SPD pedals, and a new Shimano SLX crankset and arms and new Aheadset. Built up so, the bike tips the scales right at 30 pounds (13.6 KG). I would guess that in its from-the-factory kit, the Fuel EX 9 weighs around 27-28 pounds.

I was excited to get the Fuel EX 9, with its Fox DRCV RP-23 shock, which I first had ridden on a 2010 Fuel EX 9.9 and loved. The 9’s “nude aluminum” finish also hooked me.  For the first time in a long time, I started dreaming about color-matching parts and how to bling out my bike. The days drug out while I waited for the word that it had arrived and been rebuilt.

Finally I got the newbie’s tires onto the trail.  Bikes Unlimited, with the on-again-off-again style that plagues their work, had put the wrong air pressure in the shock, and had not test rode the bike, so the cables were not tight. My first ride was like cruising on a barcolounger. So much plush! Unfortunately it did not shift or climb so well.

I looked up the owners manual online and got the air pressure closer on the shock. Now it was an efficient climber, but some of the fun was gone. After a few rides, I left for a week in Moab, where I rode a Giant Reign 7 with the Fox DHX Air shock. I came back East, took off on my Fuel EX 9 (back from the Bike Medic shop with all the cables tightened and the bolts wrenched) and felt like I was aboard a rigid – on a 5″ travel bike.  Time to use all of those knobs that festooned both my TALAS RLC and the DRCV RP-23 with Boost Valve.  After fiddling with compression and slow rebound and the boost valve, I came up  with settings I liked better.

It’s winter now, and my riding is more about getting outdoors and having fun, versus about training or the sheer miles. So, I like the softer settings. I took the Trek Fuel EX 9 to Lynchburg’s Peaks View Park to ride the improved trails. The plusher suspension setting survived casing the landing on Dusty Bottoms, the 32″ vertical ramp that is one of the the park’s Three Amigos (a 12″, 22″ and 32″ set of well-built ramps), and made the three-foot drop-off on Gorilla Soap trail easy to digest.

Compared to the Gary Fisher HiFi, which excelled as an epic race bike, the Fuel EX 9 has a more active suspension. A glance at their linkage designs highlights the differences. In fact, it’s marvelous how efficient the Fuel EX 9 is on climbs, given a linkage design that looks like a Kona. The extra plush and activeness in the suspension works for me, as it unleashes a bolder, more aggressive riding style. A good big mountain riding bike should act as an extension of the rider, and the less that it causes the rider to hesitate before tackling a line – whether tech climb or gnarly descent – the better the bike. Another piece of technology that works well on the Fuel EX 9 – along with the Fox DRCV shock – is the ABP, Trek’s floating pivot aimed at reducing brake jack. Brake jack was something I only noticed in its absence. I had read about it without understanding it, yet flying down rooty descents at Danville, VA’s Angler’s Ridge park, I can tell the difference in the rear suspension not stacking up under braking. It is just another piece of R&D that pays its way by not seeming to be there at all on the Fuel EX 9.

I’m looking forward to getting my style dialed-in on this new squeeze in time for May’s Pisgah Mountain Bike Adventure Race. I think the Fuel EX 9 will take the edge off the miles and bring grins on epic descents. The bike is trail-oriented. By that I mean that it is an efficient climber with suspension enough to take the edge off roots and rocks and mix it up on small drops and jumps. It is not an all-out XC race machine – a few extra pounds and the more relaxed angles would grow tiresome while sprinting or on competitive climbs.  Nor would I have wanted to trade it for the Giant Reign 7 I rode in Moab – which felt so solid and confident as I dead-sailored it off of rock ledges and powered through rock gardens.

So, what’s the verdict? This is another expensive bit of fun from Trek. Like the Fuel EX 9.9 and the Remedy 8 we reviewed earlier, the Trek Fuel EX 9 rides like cheap fun, belying the science and craftsmanship that it takes to turn out a bike that can do so much so well. A complete bike is priced at more than $3,500.  The technology mostly works in harmony, and gives the rider options to tune the bike to suit several styles – efficient epic racer, or plusher rough-and-ready trail bike, etc.  It is definitely a big mountain riding bike, as well as being just plain fun to ride.

© 2010 Big Mountain Riding

Howdy, everybody. I’d like to sake a tecond to introduce myself. Folks call me Unsafe Ace. You may remember me from such informative encounters as your bicycle or ATV or hunter safety class. I’m the kid that’s always blowing his own foot off or flipping his four-wheeler into a fireball showing off for girls or crashing without a helmet. This blog is gonna be a catchall, for the dumb things people do on bikes, for the dumb stuff I do on my bikes, and the dumb stuff we all wish we could do on our bikes. Yepper.

Several things inspired the creation of this blog:

1. I was one of those kids who secretly thought Unsafe Ace was kinda cool. I mean, he has “Ace” in his name, right? And it is kind of funny when it happens to somebody else. Unsafe Ace is the Wiley Coyote of safety courses. Sometimes you cheer for him.

2. Danville, VA – my new town – had a poster of this kid who had crashed on pavement without a helmet. It reminded me of those long-ago safety courses. Photo coming soon.

3. My new town has a very visible representation of Unsafe Ace archetypal characters.

It was as I pedaled down the greenway and saw two old men riding toward me on cruiser bikes that the inspiration struck. They were both a bit paunchy,  dressed in blue jeans and unbuttoned short sleeve shirts and mesh-backed trucker hats.  The one guy was lighting his cigarette from the glowing end of his previous smoke – while wobbling his bike along the bike path. Ah yes, Unsafe Ace trumps the theory of survival of the fittest yet again …

© 2010 Big Mountain Riding

We boarded the shady Coyote Shuttle – a welded together “Stretch” Volkswagon Vanagon, or a “Vanagon Again” as it was dubbed, for the haul up Sand Flats Road. Eight of us plus the driver, who hauled freight at unsafe speeds up the Sandflats road, with the brakes shreeking at every push. Up top it was cool, with the mud just beginning to melt, and snow still visible in pockets. We all bailed out and paid off the driver. No Whole Enchilada for us this time. We would have to go with an 18-20 mile descent of more than 3,000 feet.

The ledge-dropping, rough-riding, huckfest began. The Porcupine Rim Trail is deservedly legendary.

Blue skies and a lapse in the wind as we drove north of town for Bartlett’s Wash, a huge mesa of Entrada slickrock. We had rode it on Moab Adventure 2007, but had not been too impressed, and had been crunched for time to get back to town to meet a friend. So this time we had nothing on the agenda. We found many ledges to drop off, and surfed a few sandstone gullies. Got some great photos, a few videos and a sunburn. Definitely a better time this go around. We exited on the super steep sandstone ramp into the wash.

On the way out, after several hours of hopping and hucking (Dig dropped a few 6-8 footers), I suggested we tag Baby Steps loop. It was only a few miles from Bartlett’s, at the Klondike Bluffs trailhead. We reserved a Porcupine Rim shuttle for the next day and headed back into the scrub on another dirt road. Dig was feeling fatigued from the many jumps and heart-pumping slickrock climbs at Bartlett’s … however, he was a good sport and went along on the second ride. He came to regret that later, after two crashes that left no one more surprised than he. I missed seeing his massive endo on a six inch gap in the rocks. I only heard the clash of metal and the dull thud of a side of beef hitting the rock.

Baby Steps loop is the new Moab singletrack style, more contour lines and twitchy weaving through loose rocks and under obstacles, with small (for this area) exposure on many turns. A fun advanced intermediate tech trail.

Day 2, slept in to recover from 1,000 miles of driving and 3 hours of sleep topped off with two rides on our first day. Headed north of town to try out the newer M-O-A-B brand trails. If you go, drive past the first parking lot and down to the parking lot at the end of the dirt road. Saves you a mile or so of gravel road riding.

Bar M proved disappointing, a fireroad, mostly. Rockin’ A was weavy but easy. We rode the O on Circle O, a tight 25 foot diameter clay banked circle. Bar B has a fun first half. It climbs up a small hill and then winds down through the rocky and sandy desert. Along with lots of rock riding, it features a sidehill countour line trail too. We rested at the entry of the Killer B to have a Clif Bar.

The rest of Bar B was another fire road and boring. After breaking a chain and fixing it, we rode the rest of Bar B and back on the first leg of it again back to Killer B.

Killer B is gnarly. It drops 650 feet in less than a mile. The trail is very narrow and has its share of exposure. Rock stair steps drop into tight switchbacks edged by 30-foot deep rock choked canyons. We managed most of it … though I did hug a rock and send the bike down the trail. Killer B got the heart going with several of sketchy descents into switchbacks.

The ride back ended on a paved bike path. With the exception of the first 1/2 of Bar B and Killer B, these trails are blase. If I was Moab, I’d want my name back.

We splashed into town under a glowering gray dawn, pelted by the heavy rain and winds that had driven us from the warmth of our mummies dossed down in the high desert NW of Green River. Inspiration proved hard to find, as did joy. Breakfast at the Jailbreak Diner. Things looking up with hot bacon and more coffee. Rain slowing. Tried early check-in at Moab Rim Camp Park. No dice. Car steaming up from wet gear, we rolled back down hill to Chile Pepper Bike Shop to pick up my squeeze: A Giant Reign.

Chile Pepper folks needed some humor, though the sky was gray. They lectured me on how much I’d owe if I lost the bike, and told me that “crashes are not normal.” Uh, huh.

Rain stopped, wind stayed. We drove up Kane Creek Road to Amasa Back to tackle the Amasa Back/Rockstacker/Jackson loop. We had only ridden the Amasa back part before. Dig started off strong, dropping in on the initial ledge not 200 yards into the ride. Acorss the creek, it was a rocky slog up the climb. We sweated it, except when we rounded an outropping or the trail turned and we met the wind. Then we shivered and chilled as it raked our sweaty jerseys.

They have put up new signs. Basically, that’s how you know you’re at a junction. We peeled off the Amasa route to head out to pothole arch. After that Rockstacker awaited, a trail described on the signs as “ultra-technical,” with “edgy ledges” and “tight, exposed switchbacks.” So true … A Rockstacker debrief will follow. 100 yards in, the trail dropped over a 6 foot high rock. Things were getting hairy.

We’re off to Moab, Utah again! So wired to get a chance to rail Porcupine Rim Trail again, to tackle the ledges and sand of Amasa Back, and to sample some new-to-us trails like the M-O-A-B Brand Trails. Dig and I will be out there for at least 5 days of riding, and we hope to have a shot at The Whole Enchilada, a 27 mile trail with more than 7K of descent!

Watch next week (Oct. 25-30) for pics / vid and debriefs on some epic big mountain rides.

©2010 Big Mountain Riding