the hot chilli ride

the hot chilli ride, a photo by rOcKeTdOgUk on Flickr.

Dan had finally built up his new frame and this was the first opportunity he had to get it dirty. With conditions as they currently are there was no danger it wasn’t going to be well and truly christened on this ride.
We decided to do a circuitous route firstly climbing over the lickeys to test the frame out over bono and then head down into the vally for some flat land fun and finally ending with an uphill run of the canal, all in all it should be a good test of the new bike.
This is dan’s first 29er and I think he’s not quite convinced of the potential of them for someone his height (6ft 5” I think) as he comes from a BMX backround and had to have his 26” wheeled bikes virtually wrenched from his hands and then only went to 27.5 on his Heckler. In the early days of 29ers when the geometry wasn’t sorted and forks were pretty rubbish the bikes got a reputation for only being good in a straight line, albeit a very fast straight line and this had sort of stuck and is often trotted out by the died in the wool 26” fans who are reluctant to try something new. However these days things are a lot different, if you are tall 29ers are now very agile machines and in the right hands can surpass 26” bikes out on the trails. I’m sure if dan had not had this influence he would hop straight on and find himself at home straight away. I’ll leave any review to Dan, but the bike sure did look good in its bright orange livery and the surly enabler fork paired with a narrow mud tyre didn’t look as odd as I expected it to.
After a very tentative descent of Bono (it was VERY muddy) we headed down into the valley where Dan acquired a thorn in his front tyre, luckily we were able to change it at a café in the town, we didn’t use the snuggle blankets though!
I also tested a new pack from www.beerbabe.co.uk which I had a hand in designing which I call the F.R.O. (for racing only) which is a minimal way to carry, tube, tool, levers (there is also room for CO2) well if you don’t notice something the entire ride and it carries everything you want in a waterproof case I’d say that was a success, just need to test it in a race.
Ride12
22 miles
Total 237