Evasion Tactics

This time of year in Colorado is like playing hide-and-go-seek with the weather.  It’s incredibly nice one day, almost summer-like, then snowing the next.  Good rides are hard to come by when the combination of unpredictable weather, unpredictable trail conditions, and unpredictable work-hours and other “real-life” stuff is all thrown in a bag, mixed around, and dumped out.  If everything lines up correctly, you can have a phenomenal day.  But you better take your opportunities when they arise. 

I got one “decent” ride in this weekend.  Honestly, I can’t even really consider it a ride.  It was more of a test-session/joy-cruise/get-your-fix-before-the-shit-weather-hits-the-fan ride.  It was another chance for me to test the capabilities of Sensei Shinobi, my Ninja bike instructor.  On Saturday snow was projected to start falling around 1pm.  My view from downtown Boulder that morning was one of sunshine to the east and mild temps, with a thick blanket of milky clouds consuming the flatirons and hills to the west.  This generally means one thing: something is coming out of the sky in the hills above.  I wanted to “test” the Shinobi at Walker ranch, a local trail with some rocking-fast, steep, pick-your-own-line-and-hold-on descents, and equally abusive climbs.  It’s a good place to test a new rig; or maybe just a good place to have some fun.  Normally I would do what is called the Super-Walker.  You ride from town, up Flagstaff past the “fake summit” (where the roadies in this year’s USA Pro Cycling Challenge concluded their day) on to the true summit, down another couple of miles to Walker Ranch, then ride the 8+ mile loop at Walker, however many times you deem necessary or of acceptable bodily destruction, turn around and make the climb back to the top of Flagstaff, and coast on home.  

Typical "Super-Walker" route.

Two things discouraged me from taking on that task on Saturday.  One being time, the other being the blizzard I got caught in on the same ride on a very similar day last April.  Instead I loaded up the bike, got in my fuel-burning box of steel, and drove to the trailhead.

The ride was great.  I started to feel more dialed-in on Sensei Shinobi than I had in my previous lesson.  A couple of things that I liked: handling and cornering at speed felt better than any other bike I’ve been on.  I felt comfortable leaning the bike into corners more so than I would on any XC rig, and didn’t even come close to pushing its limits.  The way it eats up trail obstructions/obstacles is confidence inspiring.  Again, I haven’t even come close to pushing its limits in this way.  The stiffness of the chassis, with beefy linkages and thru-axle rear, burly wheels, etc. combined with an efficient suspension platform, is amazing when standing up to climb.  A few things that were meh:  The bars and stem need to go.  Wider bars, shorter stem.  This combo should only add to the playfulness and handling ability of the bike.  The super-long wheelbase.  This is great when cornering at speed, as mentioned above, but can feel a bit cumbersome in slow speed corners.  I could actually feel the delay of the rear end lagging behind in slow speed turns.  This is just one nuance of this extremely well-designed and well-built bike that I will get used to.  It definitely doesn’t take anything away from a good day spent riding.  The dropper post.  The only time I used it was before one of the steepest and most technical descents at Walker.  But, I did so very consciously.  Not the on-the-fly instinctual feeling I would like, but maybe more time with it is needed.  My buddy from Sedona has different thoughts on the matter…

Hmmm… an excuse to further “test” the bike?  Maybe a trip to Sedona is in store.

Just as I got back to my car the first snow-flakes were making an appearance, and not more than 5 minutes later they started falling with intensity.  Perfect timing.  Cheers.

How quickly weather can change in Boulder.