A-Man at the start of Shock Treatment…
Man and dog…
Scott leading the pack…
Lazy up and over…
A-Man tackles the infamous HUMP of doom…
Scott HUMPing…
Grooving in the woods…
Geeking out…
Got Jones?
The Nomad…
Snacking…
Fun times in the trees…
Wall to…
….Wall
The classic A-Man roll in...
Big storm recently knocked down many trees...
The storm also dropped a lot of rain and snow on the hills...
Dirt loverz...
Chasing the sun...
Lots more standing water...
Lots more foliage to contend with...
A few dead end non-trails to backtrack...
Some hike a bike...
We are so powerful we shred gear...
Aaron's sweet Kona Honky Tonk...
My buddy Aaron is selling his lovely Kona Honky Tonk road bike. It’s a sweet ride, but he’s been seduced by the lure of the 650B wheel size and by the tempting plumpness of the Pugsley’s 4″ rubber. His GF is a reasonable lady, but she won’t let him bring any new rides into their apartment unless something leaves first.
Brake porn...
Wheel porn...
She's fast and pretty...
Aaron will professionally pack the bike at no cost and ship the bike to you for a reasonable approximation of actual shipping costs. Please leave a comment for Aaron if you are interested and he’ll get back to you rapidly.
Surly Karate Monkey...
Update: added a bunch of new frames in this post based on readers’ comments. Read the comments section for even more options. I’m too lazy to post ‘em all!
I’ve been looking at 29er hardtail mountain bike frames that would accept an IGH without using a chain tensioner. That means either an eccentric bottom bracket [EBB], sliding dropouts or horizontal dropouts. Since I’ve gone to the trouble to root out some interesting options I figured I’d share it so the other 4 guys on the planet who are interested so they can find this post with Google and perhaps find something they’d like…=-)
My Criteria:
BTW – if you click on any image in this post you can jump to the info page for the frame shown.
Surly Ogre...
Surly Karate Monkey/Ogre
The Ogre is just a a Karate Monkey with touring attitude so I lumped them together.
Canfield Nimble 9...
Canfield Nimble 9
Voodoo Bokor 29...
Voodoo Bokor 29
Voodoo Soukri 29er...
Voodoo Soukri
Niner SIR...
Niner SIR
Niner One...
Niner One
Kona Unit...
Kona Unit
Kona Honzo...
Kona Honzo
On One Scandal
On One Scandal
On One Inbred...
On One Inbred
Photo: Shiggy
On One Lurcher
Jeff Jones diamond frame 29er stock frame & fork...
Jeff Jones Diamond Frame
Soma Juice 29er...
Soma Juice
Salsa El Mariachi...
Salsa El Mariachi
Singular Swift...
Singular Swift
Vassago Jabber Wocky...
Vassago Jaber Wocky
Redline Monocog 29er...
Redline Monocog
Fall has fallen on Vancouver Island...
Aaron and I headed up to Partridge Hills to check out the trails and to try and up the ante on our MTB photography.
"How you doing?"...
We used my new Canon S95 and a small tripod to take some shots deep in the gloomy rainforest.
A-Man ripping...
The results were much better than we normally are able to achieve with our usual point and shoot cameras.
Those leaves are beautiful and slippery!!
It’s nice to have a bunch of decent photos to choose from post-ride rather than making the best of the least blurry snaps.
A-Man dropping into the shot...
Having said that we did run up against the limitations of the S95′s lens on a number of occasions where we either needed a faster lens or a flash. However, there is only so much a camera that can fit into your pocket can do. I’m impressed with the S95 so far and happy to have a better weapon in the quiver.
A-Man pondering his next awesome run...
Of course the nicer shots in the forest came at the cost of far more setup time and messing with camera settings and reshooting the same image a bunch of times. I’d guess we spend 4 times as long taking photos and got in 50% of the riding we normally would have in the same amount of time.
Feeling golden...
We’ll have to find a balance between taking great shots and getting in as much riding as possible. It’s nice to have more low light photography options though. So if we really want to get a particular shot we can do it at the expense of some extra time.
Aaron heading back into the trees...
I didn’t ride my MTB much last winter so I didn’t realize how early it got dark on the trails. With the time change it’s getting gloomy by 4pm and dark by 5pm – especially in the trees. Typically Aaron and I have been heading out on our MTB rides at 2pm or 3pm. That’s going to have to change or we are going to have to bust out some serious light firepower.
Aaron was kind enough to bring snacks...
It’s been raining a fair amount in Victoria lately. Not enough to mess with our riding time, but the trails were damp and the leaves all over the ground were quite slippery so we had to ride with care.
Time to head back to the car...
We are getting the hang of the unmarked trails at Partridge Hills. We don’t know where are exactly all the time, but we were able to make it back to the car reasonably easily. Which was good as the light was fading fast!
Chasing after A-Man...
I’m not holding my breathe for Bike Magazine to to offer us a gig as professional MTB pornographers, but hopefully we can entertain our loyal blog readers with finer fat tire images from here on in…=-)
Kona Coilair = $1750cdn for 2009 stock
I got Sharon out on Kurt’s Santa Cruz Nomad. The good news is she liked it a lot and is stoked to try some dirt trails. The bad news is Kurt won’t let her keep his Nomad permanently!…=-)
Santa Cruz Heckler = $2000USD
So we are looking at a few long travel all mountain full suspension bikes for her. I’m not sure if she’ll even be able to swing one this year, but we might as well do our homework now and figure out how much $$$ we are talking about so we know how much saving has to happen.
Santa Cruz Nomad = $3000USD
I’m of the mind that upgrading suspension on a MTB is so damn expensive that you’re way better off to wait and buy the bike you want/need than to think you are saving $$$ buying a lower quality bike and upgrading when you wear stuff out/have more $$$.
I’ve added links on each image to the manufacturer’s website – so click ‘em if you want more info.
Giant Reigh 2 = $2,300CDN
Our next move will be to get out to Bow Cycle for some test rides on as many 6″ travel bikes as we can. Looking at bike specs online is useful for narrowing down choices, but ultimately you gotta push the pedals to know what’s what!
Personally I’ve had such good luck with Santa Cruz bikes that I’ll be pushing for one of them unless Sharon falls in love with a bike she test rides and/or we find a sweet deal on a used bike along the way. The Santa Cruz Heckler is a very nice rig at $2K and unless we luck out on a used bike I don’t think a sub-$2K bike is in the cards if we want 6″ of travel and quality suspension.
If you have any suggestions for suitable bikes for Sharon or maybe you’ve got a lightly used long travel MTB in a smaller size you want to get rid of – please leave a comment…=-)
Kona 2009 Full Suspension Sale
Okay I realize I’m being dramatic, but as a Canadian you do get really tired of getting the shaft because you live on the North side of an imaginary line. It’s not like our money doesn’t buy stuff or that there is much difference between living in Windsor Ontario or 2 miles across the river in Detroit….well unless you want a good deal on a 2009 Kona FS bike….
Kona is having a big sale on specific 2009 full suspension bikes – well as long as you don’t live in Canada!…=-( Kona is USA/CDN company – supposedly 50/50, but it seems the USA half gets the good deals. *sigh*
My Bike Friday NWT daily commuter!
How can a guy who works at home be a bike commuter? Easy you just need a girlfriend who has much nicer place to live than you do so you stay there overnight a lot and have to bike back to your home office in the AM. It may be a self-imposed commute, but it’s a commute nevertheless! It’s only a 2km ride, but I forgot how much I enjoyed getting on my bike every morning for a ride before starting work. Fresh air, bright sunshine and crazy motorists – smells like victory!…=-)
Kona Wah Wah BMX pedals
I needed some BMX platform pedals for my Surly Big Dummy and my LBS Bow Cycle was sold out of the NRG Slabalanche BMX pedals I have on a few other bikes so I had to settle for some bright white Kona Wah Wah pedals. Not afraid to bling out my Bike Friday NWT I took the black NRG pedals from the NWT and swapped in the white Konas. A bit ridiculous? – sure, but if you can’t have fun with your bikes what can you have fun with? Just like you’d expect the Kona’s are comfy, versatile and grippy. I tend to commute in a pair of 5.10 Impact low bike shoes so staying firmly attached to the bike is not an issue.
Ortieb panniers on my Bike Friday rear rack.
I haven’t toured with the NWT yet, but carrying enough wine, beer and ice for a sunny afternoon in the backyard is a decent test of the rear rack and panniers. The NWT is rock solid with a heavy rear load. I love how fast I can adjust these Ortlieb panniers to go from one rack to the next. Although my feet are fairly large 11.5-12US I don’t have any heel strike issues with this rack & pannier combo. I even have an additional inch of adjustment if I wanted to move my panniers further back, but I prefer to keep the load as far forward on the bike as I can without hitting my feet on the panniers.
The Bike Friday rear rack provides lots of ground clearance.
Without any bags on the rear rack the Bike Friday rack looks like it sits excessively high, but once you have full size rear panniers on it you can see the extra height is needed to get a reasonable amount of ground clearance with the smaller 20″ wheels.
Getting ready to roll with Anna & Marcie
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