paddlerx
We have a local area that is conisiderd to be one of the most technical mtb riding areas around, roots, loamy trails, steep drops with roots, long doubletrack climbs and some weird gypsum sections (they used to mine gypsum (as in gyprock boards) from the area. Now with all the leaves down, and lots of recent rain its pretty greasy overall. My Klein palomino is in the shop for some tuning and i'm left with only my brand new Soul Cycles "Monk" cross bike, so i decided to ride that. My friends were looking at me like i wasn't right in the head when i pulled into the parking lot.."your going to ride a 10 speed?!". "Nope i'm riding my cross" i said. We even met some other guys from town riding big duallies with full body armour. They said..."oh are you guys going for a road ride?", "nope" i said. "oh your going to ride the fireroads?", "well i'll ride some fireroads yep", "and this years race course too"..they just looked at me...for the next 2 hours we rode on an off with them.
On one particular climb there is a new tree that's fallen down at the bottom, all 4 of the other guys were stopped and dragging their bikes over it, i rode up, they were kinda making fun saying "just bunnyhop it!"...on the right of it it was a bit smaller but off in the weeds and grass...so i kept riding, wheelied over it, hit my big ring on it, hit my rear wheel and kept on going. they freaked.
i rode everything there was to be ridden, and aside from 1) my new front tire is a bontrager and almost a slick which made it sketchy over roots and greasy downhills and 2) my brakes aren't dialed yet so i had to really hank on them; it was overall a lot more fun than my xc mtn bike. The Soul is wickedly stiff in the bottom bracket area and has a very neutral feeling, when i had traction it climbed like my road bike and when traction was at a premium the combination of a big meaty kenda rear tire and very easy fore/aft weight control for traction made for inspired efforts on the ups and downs.
I'm convinced that for most people a cross bike should do 90% of everything you'd ever need. I would have been overall faster probably on my full suspended klein, certainly less beat up at full race pace. But for ****s and giggles...the cross was hard to beat.
Anyone else have similar stories where you've shocked/impressed people by riding where they'd not expect you to be?
On one particular climb there is a new tree that's fallen down at the bottom, all 4 of the other guys were stopped and dragging their bikes over it, i rode up, they were kinda making fun saying "just bunnyhop it!"...on the right of it it was a bit smaller but off in the weeds and grass...so i kept riding, wheelied over it, hit my big ring on it, hit my rear wheel and kept on going. they freaked.
i rode everything there was to be ridden, and aside from 1) my new front tire is a bontrager and almost a slick which made it sketchy over roots and greasy downhills and 2) my brakes aren't dialed yet so i had to really hank on them; it was overall a lot more fun than my xc mtn bike. The Soul is wickedly stiff in the bottom bracket area and has a very neutral feeling, when i had traction it climbed like my road bike and when traction was at a premium the combination of a big meaty kenda rear tire and very easy fore/aft weight control for traction made for inspired efforts on the ups and downs.
I'm convinced that for most people a cross bike should do 90% of everything you'd ever need. I would have been overall faster probably on my full suspended klein, certainly less beat up at full race pace. But for ****s and giggles...the cross was hard to beat.
Anyone else have similar stories where you've shocked/impressed people by riding where they'd not expect you to be?