Monday, October 23, 2006

Slip sliding at peaksview

Went up with the family to visit my Brother-in-law and family in Lynchburg. We always have a good time when we go there. They live at the edge of one of the historical districts. I'm pretty impressed with how Lynchburg has revitalized much of their downtown. There are some nice bike paths down by the river too. It's cool to see small cities like that taking the effort to develop their quality of life for the residents.

Peaksview Park is just 10minutes from their house, so I had to bring my bike and get a quick ride in. This location is also the site of one of the VA Derailler Series races.

It is amazing the amount of trails these guys crammed into such a small area.
It's not easy riding by any means. Mentally tough cause you are either climbing, cornering, or descending. The trees are tight, and there are just enough roots to keep on your toes. The dirt is was just muddy enough to get really claylike tacky. So the knobs on the tires got gummed up and it was a slide fest in certain areas.

I'd put on the 100mm fork back on the Azure so it wasn't as responsive to this tight stuff. It took about 45 minutes of riding before I started to feel comfortable, then things started to click a little. The flow was coming. It takes some body english to get the bike to drop in to the tight corners. I was also focusing on getting my upper body low and forcing it low in the corners and not reacting by moving back.

The next day back in Blacksburg, I got another short ride in and felt really good on the bike. Weight balance and just shifting the weight around felt much better than it has. Bombed down the Beast. Having a good fork now makes a big difference.

I'd gotten my Minute tuned up by the folks at Garageworks suspension. Their web site seems down now but their # is 949-861-2240. I've got at least 10mm more travel available, and it's really supple. It took a while just to get used to having plush travel. The Minute is such an adjustable fork that it takes a while to settle in on new settings.

1 Comments:

At 3:20 PM, Anonymous mamon de mierda said...

Thanks for your post, very useful information.

 

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