5thplacepodium
This past Sunday was the beginning of race season for many here in Southern California. The Sagebrush Safari plays host to those looking to compete in both the Kenda Cup and US Cup West series. I know many of you are still riding trainers or playing in the snow, but out here in So Cal the season started this week with the Sagebrush Safari race in Lake Morena Park just east of San Diego. My good friend Joe and I made it out to Sagebrush to test our spring fitness. We had had a week of rain before Sunday and the big question on everyone’s mind was what the course would be like. Thankfully the rain stopped Saturday night and the soil there is sandy so it drained pretty well. I thought about changing tires the night before the race, but I stuck to my tried and true Jones XRs front and rear. As for the bike I went with the SuperFly hard-tail set up with the 1×10 drive-train. The Sagebrush course has two major climbs and both are on paved roads, so the hard-tail seemed the perfect bike. (more…)
Thanks to Travis Ott, Jeff Laselle, Eric (inside sales rep), and Eastbank Cyclery my 2010 Superfly arrived last week to be assembled with the new Sram XX group. For several years, I’ve exclusively had Shimano on all of my bikes. After a few hours on the Sram equipment, I can certainly say that I’ve made the leap. As for the wheels, I don’t think there’s a better 29er wheel out there than Bontrager’s XXX lite. The wheels accelerate quickly and are stiff and light weight. Overall, the bike handles and rides better than anything that I’ve tried yet. This is my first post, and I would like to add that I’m very happy to be part of the crew.
So the mountain bike season is coming to a close here as people are trading in their mountain bike for cross bikes and gearing up for winter, such as myself. However, I was thinking today as I looked over the trusty Superfly how pleased I was with the bike this year. Many of you also have the opportunity to ride the same bike, so there is no need to make you aware of its downright awesome-ness, as you already know. I did want to offer my thoughts on the whole single ring thing becoming more and more common today, especially with the 29-inch crowd.
Once mounted on the bike and after some minor adjustments to prevent chain rubbing, I got to test out the setup. Although I was skeptical at first about the 34tooth ring not being big enough for some wide open sections, my worries were quickly put to rest as the 34-11tooth cassette seemed to have the right gear for just about any terrain. What’s funny is that fellow Crew’er Michael Patrick told me back in the spring that a big ring was just excess weight on a 29er, but it took me almost the whole season to completely realize this.
Bontrager 29er Carbon Wheel set. Why not? Lighter and stiffer! And so far they’ve been hammering the rocks here in the 
