Mountain Biking - New Mountain bike for birthday!!

OK so I got it three days ago but today was the first thrash ride to give it a true test.

The bike is a Cannondale Scalpel 1000 which runs the lefty front fork ( yea the funky one with one leg ) and the rear suspension is a flexing carbon chainstay and fox air shock.

I have been riding a Jekyll with the lefty so it is not really new to me.

The verdict after today is WOW. I did two laps around the local trail ( Olympic trail from the 1996 games ) and I felt as if I have been riding this bike for months. It is really stable on the fast descents, I felt as comfy with it as my much longer travel Jekyll. A pleasant surprise.

All in all I love it. Still gotta tweek the shifters a bit, play with saddle position, and normal stuff like that.

My biggest problem today was my lack of mountain bike training this year. I have been pouring the miles on my road bike but not the trails. Thats gonna change now, got the 24 hour race at the Olympic trail coming up and my riding buddies are counting on me to turn fast laps for the team.

Congrats on the bike and welcome back to the trails. Sounds like a good time was had and you have a lot more mtb time coming up. Gotta love the feel of a new bike.

Must be nice ...

Post Pics!





...of both bikes :)

I'm jealous! So you decided to run the 24 hour race, eh? That's hardcore man... I can't handle 3 hours of that olympic race course, much less 24. Congrats on the new bike.. in my opinion its one of the best XC full squishies available!

how much does that rig weight?

OK here is a quick pic...

Jim, I would not be doing the race without a team, beleive me. 3 hours of nonstop on the trail here would kill me too. I will probably end up doing 5 laps or so like last year. Would have been 4 but one guy bailed on his last lap on the team.

I had aspirations of trying it solo but just cannot get enough training time in to build my endurance to that level. At least not to be competitive.

Maelstrom, I just cannot beleive I did not need to spend a good week riding it to get the feel for the new geometry. It was almost like hopping onto my old steed.

Thats gonna change now, got the 24 hour race at the Olympic trail coming up and my riding buddies are counting on me to turn fast laps for the team.

And sam thought I just bought him the bike for his birthday. Since my office is sponsering our team this year, I want to win....muahh ha ha ha !!!!!!!!

Originally posted by mindbogger
how much does that rig weight?

Not sure, I will have to weigh it later. Being full squish it is not gonna be ultra light but it is much lighter than my Jekyll.

it seams like there would be alot of torque at that one connection on that fork... i've never seen anything like that. looks cool though, stands out :P

Soc522, it is very beefy and my older lefty has taken a lot of abuse over the past 3 years. I did have a oil seal problem a couple of times which I was not happy about but they have since corrected it and have not had a moments trouble since over two years ago.

Nice rig man! ;) that a hell of a bday pressie :P