Real Ride, Partial Load

So this weekend I went for a mountain bike ride with the boys at FH. FH has a lot of tight twisty trails so you tend to need to stay on top of things. The tightness also means it is a great place for a bike that you can toss back and forth (an attribute known as being “flickable”)…which doesn’t really describe my current bike when it is (test-)loaded for CTR. But it was good to give the bike something of a test with a partial load on.

Clothing? Check.

So it was colder than I was expecting in the parking lot as we were getting ready. But the only clothes I brought were my CTR clothes because I wanted to make sure that, in toto, they would keep me warm and that they worked for layering purposes. So I started the ride with a short sleeve shirt, a long sleeve shirt, arm warmers and a light rain jacket.  I think it worked out pretty well.  Score. Also, since I plan to have with me, but not ride in, a “puffy down jacket” I think we’ve got the clothing bases covered. The only outstanding issue is gloves. Do I bring my winter gloves or do I bring something neoprene such as one might wear in 40* rain? Oh yes, I also wasn’t wearing my backpack which is part of the gear.

Security? Check.

So we roll out of the parking lot, hit the singletrack and wind our way downhill. The small stream crossing at the bottom of the very first downhill ejects one water bottle out of the cages that are attached to the front fork. Oops. Because they’re just cheap aluminum, I was able to bend them in so that they were much tighter. No more problems all day. Try that with your $80 carbon fiber bottle cage! Though I think I will look into some straps to hold the bottles in. I do not want to be monitoring them for a week. (A “week”, oh Michael, you are so cute.)

Handling? Check.

It has been a while since I’ve been out on the trails but overall, I would have to say that the weight of the two large water bottles on my front wheel was not a problem. I also had the framebag on. The framebag had my tools and other heavy items in the bottom of it, just like I will on the trail.  Any handling issues I might attribute to my being rusty on the trails and not to the extra weight of the bike. And lifting that thing up onto Mark’s truck at the end of the ride, I can tell you that there WAS extra weight on that thing.

So the items that were missing were the bar bags (sleeping pad and bivy, etc.) and the seat bag (sleeping bag and down jacket). So I don’t think that is much weight to add, but the bulk might impact handling.

I just wasn’t ready to do a typical high speed ride with those guys with a fully loaded steed. Not sure how helpful that would be anyway, but we’ll see. The other thing that I need to do is to start putting in some day long rides. Will leave here early in the morning, put in some miles, a full lap at the Wiss (rocks!), etc. then the uphill back home. Of course, I also need to do a couple of overnights to shake out any issues with camping gear as well. Not yet sure on where or when that will happen, but we have some time yet…