EB Cycling Club
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Rough week for the Supe clan. We tried our luck at another new-to-us trail in the area, Purser Park. For the most part, it's a very mild trail.
First part, "The Enchanted Forest", is very freaky ride through some very narrowly spaced tall trees with the ground covered in pine straw. The entire ride section is like being on a skinny that never ends, as there are only a few areas where you're not trying to avoid clipping your bars on a tree. The photo below that I found online is from one of the "breaks" in the trail. Outside of the breaks, there isn't a single part of the trail where you can't stretch your arms out and touch two trees in any direction. I don't think its even rideable with an 800mm bar set.
However, there were more than a handful of tricky spots in the trail. There are two pretty rowdy descents with loose over hard soil that you basically can't brake on without locking up the tires. I narrowly escaped them both. Junior was not so lucky on the one that requires a sharp fast turn onto a bridge and went OTB. No major injury, but plenty of scrapes and bruising. It really spooked her though - she ended up walking almost the last 1/3 of the trail because of it. She and Mrs. Supe went from "this is our favorite trail yet!" to "we're never coming back here".
There were also a couple really sharp, really sudden, zero momentum climbs over HUGE roots. Enough so that you question whether or not they alternate trail direction each year based on how some of the features are set up. One of those climbs was a no go, and I managed to flatten a couple saplings in the process. On another of those climbs, my foot slid off the pedal, shredding/hooking my shoelace and destroying my shin against the pedals. One section had a mundane wood not-so-skinny through a section, but started off slow and off camber, so I humpty-dumptied it off the side. Mrs. Supe thought it was hilarious... until she did the exact same thing, but scratched up her arm in the process.
Of course, what all this boils down to is me needing to upgrade the Marlin again, so I ordered a Suntour Epixon air fork for it. I am actually going to swap the Rockshox 29er fork onto Junior's bike (which is a 27.5) and ride it myself to see how it feels. Since that's a true XC bike, it has a very shallow head angle, and that Suntour XCT garbage fork on the front is just acting like a pogo stick on the downhills and self destructing. The Rockshox coil fork is pretty good and the preload adjustment actually works, so I'm curious to see how the ride will be affected, given that the 29er fork will actually slacken the head tube angle.
First part, "The Enchanted Forest", is very freaky ride through some very narrowly spaced tall trees with the ground covered in pine straw. The entire ride section is like being on a skinny that never ends, as there are only a few areas where you're not trying to avoid clipping your bars on a tree. The photo below that I found online is from one of the "breaks" in the trail. Outside of the breaks, there isn't a single part of the trail where you can't stretch your arms out and touch two trees in any direction. I don't think its even rideable with an 800mm bar set.
However, there were more than a handful of tricky spots in the trail. There are two pretty rowdy descents with loose over hard soil that you basically can't brake on without locking up the tires. I narrowly escaped them both. Junior was not so lucky on the one that requires a sharp fast turn onto a bridge and went OTB. No major injury, but plenty of scrapes and bruising. It really spooked her though - she ended up walking almost the last 1/3 of the trail because of it. She and Mrs. Supe went from "this is our favorite trail yet!" to "we're never coming back here".
There were also a couple really sharp, really sudden, zero momentum climbs over HUGE roots. Enough so that you question whether or not they alternate trail direction each year based on how some of the features are set up. One of those climbs was a no go, and I managed to flatten a couple saplings in the process. On another of those climbs, my foot slid off the pedal, shredding/hooking my shoelace and destroying my shin against the pedals. One section had a mundane wood not-so-skinny through a section, but started off slow and off camber, so I humpty-dumptied it off the side. Mrs. Supe thought it was hilarious... until she did the exact same thing, but scratched up her arm in the process.
Of course, what all this boils down to is me needing to upgrade the Marlin again, so I ordered a Suntour Epixon air fork for it. I am actually going to swap the Rockshox 29er fork onto Junior's bike (which is a 27.5) and ride it myself to see how it feels. Since that's a true XC bike, it has a very shallow head angle, and that Suntour XCT garbage fork on the front is just acting like a pogo stick on the downhills and self destructing. The Rockshox coil fork is pretty good and the preload adjustment actually works, so I'm curious to see how the ride will be affected, given that the 29er fork will actually slacken the head tube angle.
Well, I'm almost done modifying the Trek. Yesterday, a set of 780mm PNW Range handlebars went on with a 30mm rise. Much more comfortable than the stock Bontragers which were hard on my wrists. I am now just waiting on the new front fork (Suntour Epixon), and I ordered a KS E20 dropper post.
My biggest issue with the dropper post was my baby legs. The Trek has a pretty high seat post, and I have really short legs, so I needed a very low stack height (seat collar to center of saddle rail at full extension), with an external cable routing. I struck out completely finding anything with the 145mm stack height that I need, they're all too long at full extension.
So, I ordered the "infinite adjust" dropper post, which will lock in place wherever you release the lever. However, this is still kind of sucky, because it will never extend to where you want it - it will always extend to the max, and you'll have to shift it down to the perfect height with your butt. So, my current plan is to use some thin, coated wire and a couple ferrules to create a limit strap to stop the seat at exactly the height I want, which should take care of that issue. The strap will go from the seat rail to the seat post QR collar.
My biggest issue with the dropper post was my baby legs. The Trek has a pretty high seat post, and I have really short legs, so I needed a very low stack height (seat collar to center of saddle rail at full extension), with an external cable routing. I struck out completely finding anything with the 145mm stack height that I need, they're all too long at full extension.
So, I ordered the "infinite adjust" dropper post, which will lock in place wherever you release the lever. However, this is still kind of sucky, because it will never extend to where you want it - it will always extend to the max, and you'll have to shift it down to the perfect height with your butt. So, my current plan is to use some thin, coated wire and a couple ferrules to create a limit strap to stop the seat at exactly the height I want, which should take care of that issue. The strap will go from the seat rail to the seat post QR collar.
Installed the new front fork yesterday. Between it and the handlebars, you sit way more upright than stock, which was a very forward/low XC feeling. It'll take some getting used to, but looking forward to seeing how it feels. If I don't like it, I will drop the fork back to 100mm in front down from 120. Tried setting sag, but at 20% or so it was way too soft based on a 15 second ride in front of the house. Fork was using up almost all of its travel from plowing under braking. Will air up and try again once I can shake this cough. I also sent Suntour a note asking about volume spacers, as I suspect I will need them given my weight and riding style. I don't know if they make any volume spacers for it, but suspect I can add oil to the air chamber to accomplish the same thing. It is definitely way more plush at top and mid stroke than the Rockshox coil fork was, and a good bit lighter.
Dropper post is also here, but the provided cable is too short to route under the BB and up the back of the seat tube, so that will have to wait until the replacement cable and housing come in.
FWIW, vacuum cleaner wand attachments might also be the perfect size to act as a driver/seating tool for a crown bearing race...
Dropper post is also here, but the provided cable is too short to route under the BB and up the back of the seat tube, so that will have to wait until the replacement cable and housing come in.
FWIW, vacuum cleaner wand attachments might also be the perfect size to act as a driver/seating tool for a crown bearing race...
csb
Well-known member
My shock pump arrived yesterday, but I didn't get to airing up the shocks. Pedals arrived Saturday and I went for a brief ride and whoa is a dropper post like the best thing ever. Also, full suspension is like I've switched to a Crown Vic.
I'm super jelly that you got an enduro bike. I kept trying to talk myself into skipping the Tallboy and going with something with more travel, but it would suck to ride on the local trails which are perfect for the short travel bikes. I'd rather use it as an excuse to buy a different all mountain/enduro bike later on if I felt like I needed to ride out in Western NC, but sadly, I think we'll have moved somewhere before I ever get the chance.
csb
Well-known member
For all intents and purposes, the Marlin is complete. Getting the dropper post installed was a *****. The entire thing needed to be disassembled to reclock the actuator assembly to clear the QR for the seat post, the internal cable routing down to the BB was not being cooperative, but I got it. Thankfully, a quick seat check seems like I don't need to put a limit strap on it, so when I can breathe again, I will go for a test ride. The only thing I don't like is how busy the cockpit has gotten with the dropper post and remote lockout for the fork, but nothing I can do about that for now.
Road Guy
Well-known member
Is that the auto seat dropper thing? - Thats a must have on my ext mountain bike!
Knee was feeling weird so I opted out of the normal Saturday workout (which looked like it really sucked) - ended up doing around 30 miles on the ole street bike, lately I cant stand to do out and backs, so I tried to make a loop, ended up on a road with zero bike lanes and no sidewalk for about the longest mile ride of my life, defin a wrong decision. Was up early so not many cars out but I still have no idea why people enjoy doing that type of riding - where the white line is the edge of pavement..
They have Mount Evans closed to cars so I really want to try and get my legs and *** in shape to do that ( havent rode much and my *** hurts worse than my legs today!)
Knee was feeling weird so I opted out of the normal Saturday workout (which looked like it really sucked) - ended up doing around 30 miles on the ole street bike, lately I cant stand to do out and backs, so I tried to make a loop, ended up on a road with zero bike lanes and no sidewalk for about the longest mile ride of my life, defin a wrong decision. Was up early so not many cars out but I still have no idea why people enjoy doing that type of riding - where the white line is the edge of pavement..
They have Mount Evans closed to cars so I really want to try and get my legs and *** in shape to do that ( havent rode much and my *** hurts worse than my legs today!)
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Road Guy
Well-known member
Yeah - Its normally a Cluster **** up there with people driving there - we went just before the closed it last year and even in the freezing weather it was pretty crowded -
But Id like to try and give it a whirl mid August or so before it starts getting too cold.. they got some snow up there this past weekend it looked like ( we got some much needed rain here in Denver) = snow in mountains I guess..
But Id like to try and give it a whirl mid August or so before it starts getting too cold.. they got some snow up there this past weekend it looked like ( we got some much needed rain here in Denver) = snow in mountains I guess..
Yep, push lever and sit to lower, stand up and push lever to raise.
They recently opened this place in Western NC: https://ridekanuga.com/
Downhill park, but you climb to the top, no ski lift. Supposed to be really fun with plenty of beginner trails, would like to try it out before we close up shop in NC.
Road Guy
Well-known member
So is there an easy grade to ride to the top?
Ive never done any of the ones here, they look cool but there is so much to mountain bike in the summer without having to go to the ski resort - I feel like I give them enough money in the winter.
If I stay here I really got to get an upgraded bike for next winter...
Ive never done any of the ones here, they look cool but there is so much to mountain bike in the summer without having to go to the ski resort - I feel like I give them enough money in the winter.
If I stay here I really got to get an upgraded bike for next winter...
I can't imagine riding a bike up there. I got out of breath just walking from the car to the summit at 14k feet.
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