So I decided to pull the trigger on my new mountain bike. I went to the local bike shop, Free Flite, and demoed the Trek Fuel EX8. It is a real nice bike, and a bit pricey, so I figured I might as well try it out for real before putting my $$ in. Took the demo to Blankets Creek and had some fun. The bike is a whole new ballgame coming from my Giant hardtail. The rear shock absorbs all the imacts, roots, rocks, etc that used to hit my butt. With that, I was way less tired after my normal Dwelling loop. I then got on my hardtail and did another loop just to see what the back to back differences were. I was nowhere near as fast on the Giant and sections I just breezed through in the middle of the rear ring on the Trek, I had to almost use the granny gear to get through. Wow! The brakes on the Trek are also incredible. I always thought the mechanical Avid disks that came on the Giant were awesome, but these Elixir brakes blow them away. There is almost no lever pressure to get them to stop, and the are nice and progressive.
I headed right back to the bike shop and bought my new bike; Got the satin black paint instead of white. I did have the shop install my new SLX crank, as well as the rear cassette as they were both upgrades over what came on the Trek. Might as well use those on the nicer bike instead of on my Giant. After bringing the bike home, I set the shock air pressures, made all the cockpit adjustments and made sure all the bolts were tight.
This morning I headed out for the bike’s maiden voyage at Blankets. I wanted to get some trail miles on it before I headed up to Pinhoti on monday. The brakes needed to get bedded in and I wanted to make sure all the cables were stretched out. Instead of taking it on the Advanced trails, I just did a loop through the Dwelling trail. I wanted to take it easy and rest up for monday. As I figured, everything was perfect and it was a fun, easy ride. http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=429441 Can’t wait for monday!
