I'm Not Trixie

Meet Trixie.

Or trick-sey.  Tricksy?  I don't do tricks well.  Now, stop that image in your mind right now.  I am talking about bike tricks.  You know…wheelies, bunny-hops, manuals, etc.  I suck at them.  I bet any 12 year old with a bike and a paper route (do they still have those?) can crush me in a wheelie contest.

I have been aware of this for some time…years, really.  And it has not gotten better with age.  I thought of it again the other day during a group ride where I was following a rider down a bit of a techy single track.  He was hopping and bopping over a few of the trail obstacles while I was flowing and going just as fast as he was.  I was a bit jealous, actually.  I wish I could do that, the hippy hoppy bunny trail approach to trail riding.

Some of these things are really practical such as the nose wheelie around tight switchbacks, the manual transitioning to a quick bunny hop for trail obstacles, etc.  I am a pretty good trail rider, actually.  I am even considered 'fast' in the group I ride in, but that is a 'big fish in a smaller pond' reality.  Still, it takes a pretty good rider to gap me on trail.  But if I have to do any trick moves, a skilled 3 year old on a straddle bike could school me.  Little brats.

I am not too sure how to improve this.  I guess I could set up some kind of skills course and work at it, but first I better armor-up and check my medical plan cuz' I think it might require a skin offering to the trail gods.  I do wonder though, since it has been this way from the beginning, if I just lack the gene.  Heck, even when I was a wanker on a BMX bike I was too attached to gravity to jump worth a fig…a flying fig in this case.  It might be too late for this old dog to learn any new tricks.

School is in session.

Still, I think I need to try to get better in this regard.  I think it will make me a better rider and that is something that anyone, no matter how new or experienced, can benefit from.

Turning serious tricks may not be for me, but perhaps I can learn to flirt in the dirt a bit more.  No street corners required.

Fun on purpose.

This bike is fun.  Trek/Fisher Stache 8

I bet most of us, when we really get down to it, ride because it is fun.  And unless you are truly driven or are in this for cash or acclaim, when it stops being fun we stop riding.  So here is a bike that, according to the builder, is all about 'fun'.

A 29er hardtail with a twist here...120mm fork with 51mm (G2) offset, 68.6* HT angle 72* ST angle, 17.5" stays, dropper post ready, 2.3 tires stock.  Long TT, long-ish stem.  Typical 2x10 XC gearing.  SO what is it?  AM hard tail?  No...not short enough or burly enough.  XC racer?  No, too heavy with that dropper post and big tires plus the HT angle...no, not an XC racer.  Endurance bike?  Well kinda over qualified for that too.  SO what is it?

Just a fun bike to ride in the way that maybe 90% of the people that do ride, ride.  That being, out with the gang, on the trail, up the hills, down the hills, across town, over the horizon, maybe fast, maybe not fast, checking Strava, checking in to life, checking out of life.

Why is this bike so different then, so 'more fun'?  Here is what I think.

• The relaxed HT angle and overall weight distribution works to keep YOU relaxed and smiling.  You are off the front wheel, back in the center of the bike.  So while this is against you in some cases, like steep seated climbs up a switchback, it is for you most all the other 99.9% of the rides. This is the first time I have been...wait...the second time I have been impressed with a bike that had a 51mm offset fork on it on purpose; this G2 Trek and an Ibis Ripley.
• It loves to just play down the trail, bopping off everything, taking rougher lines just for fun, whatever.  Speed feels really good on this, keeping in mind the hardtail limitations.  
• Dropper post.  Man, those things make a bike into a whole new animal and let you do things with your weight balance that a normal post will not do (unless you stop and drop, raise, drop raise, etc)
• Fattish tires.  More rubber is more gooder on trail rides.
• 120mm of travel and a 17.5" CS length.  Just right for anything short of full on BC log drops and yet you can sit and spin along, having some hope of getting up the steeps without needing to perch on the nose of a faux leather, ti railed suppository.
• The vibe is right.  Yeah it all just comes together to not be the 'nth' degree of anything but the meat of everything we like about riding.  In fact the closest thing to this I have felt in an FS is that Ripley 29er, but that was just a brief impression.
• No pretense of being all serious.  Trek seemed to get it marketing wise and I think riders will respond once they stop obsessing over perceived needs like under 17" CS lengths and 140mm forks on hardtails, and conversely, steeper than required 71+* HT angles and bike set-ups that only feel really good when we are trying to go very fast uphill or on some smooth course.

Like anything, this simple but slightly unique 29er is not for everyone but I really came to appreciate it and I had to think to myself that it was, more often than not, more fun to ride on any given day than many other bikes I have hanging around the garage.  And that was quite interesting to me, at least.  

Maybe to you as well.

And if I was to go out and order a custom bike right now, I would take the specs of this Stache 8 and have it rendered in Ti just for kicks.  And then I would ride and smile, having fun.