I never was good at math.

Geometry.  Angles, dimensions, millimeters, degrees.   Toss all that stuff into a bucket with bike tubing, add glue, and shake well.  Out pops a bike frame.  More or less.

And the result can be quite varied.  A bike is a pretty simple thing yet at the same time it is quite complicated if you are looking for a specific result in a handling trait or 'feel' to the bike.  'Feel' is sooo subjective.  This bike feels fast,  It feels slow steering.  It feels nimble. 

As a guy that spends time riding bikes and talking about them as a reviewer, I am constantly reading the tea leaves to divine what the bike provides as far as handling, etc.  So, you rely on your years of experience and decent skills to put into words what you hope is the truth mixed with opinion and spat out onto the keyboard in words for the eager readers.

I has been eagerly expecting the arrival of a new SS frame to possibly replace the SS Jabber.  I have really liked the little, orange, steel beast over the last couple of years.  It is a fine perch to pedal the countryside from, but there were some things I wanted to 'tweak' in the next steed.  This new SS hits all the marks on paper that I hoped would give me the results I wanted.

And, I am pleased to report, after two rides, it looks to be all that I had hoped it would be.  There is a lot more trail time to come in that regards, since two rides is just a quick hit off the sippy cup, not a long drink, but I am always surprised how a very few changes in a tube length and degrees of angles can produce such a subtle but noticeable difference.

Never let anyone convince you that one bike is just like any other.  While you can get used to anything and you certainly can obsess over the 'perfect' bike, it is worth a bit of effort to grab a ride on different bikes to find the one that meets your expectations.  Bikes can be very different, as different as each rider on them.

Vive' Le Difference.

I miss my SS

The post surgery recovery is going well enough, I suppose, but I still am not back on my singlespeed except for some small forays into the local canyons.  I am still not ready for the full body effort that SS riding requires up hills.

So yesterday, after my morning ride on the Epic, I changed clothes, grabbed a bottle of the new chocolate Fluid recovery drink, and rode over to a bike festival that a local land access group was putting on.  I figured the Epic needed a rest so I picked out the SS Jabberwocky and headed out.

Right away I was smiling, even pedaling down the street.  I really like that bike.  In fact, as I have ridden more and more SS bikes, I keep coming back to the Jabber as the ride of choice.  I know that some day I will have my head turned and retire it, but for the money (or even more $$), it is a fine bike.  Stiff in the right places, rides well, weight is OK, handling is slow but steady....good trail partner, that Jabber.

Now that Vassago (they make the Jabberwocky) is coming out with the Black Label frames, a hand made in the US of A product with grade AA tubing and a grade AA price tag, it will be interesting to see how it turns out for them. The Jabber is about a $500.00 frame IIRC. The Black Label bikes are in the $1500.00 range.  Wow.  That is a BIG jump.  If they are, say, a half pound lighter with a sliding dropout and a tighter geo, well, those are good upgrades.  If it rides a bit nicer, then that is fine too.  But three times the cost?  I bet it is not three times better to ride compared to the Jabber.

That is into the custom range of builders like Waltworks.  Now, the upside is no wait for the custom shop to build the frame and you know exactly what you are getting since they are all the same.  What you see on the website is what ya get.  Walk into the bike shop and point..."I want that one!".  And that has value too.

We shall see how it turns out for them.  I hope very well, as a slightly better Jabber is enough to get me pretty excited, seeing as how much I like the old one.

Reconnecting.

Every so often I like to revisit old trails and locations that I had not seen in years.  This was the case for Saturday's ride #1.  I did not want to stuff 20 bucks worth of gas in the family truckster to get across town, so I looked into the map-in-my-head and came up with a route that I figured would get me about 4 hours of riding.

I had to be back by mid day for a potential bit of bike testing business, so I got out a bit later than I had intended, but still I was on the road by 08:00 AM.  I grabbed the SS Jabberwocky just to up the difficulty a bit.  Gears are sooo easy (sure) and besides that, I just like to ride the SS every chance I get.

The Chinese calendar has the timeline broken down into odd things (to this Westerner's reckoning) such as the 'Year of the Rat", etc.  OK, fine.  In that case, I will call 2010 the Year of the Bee.  We always get hives placed in various canyons and such in the local area from spring to early summer, but this year was intense.  Many rides were like some hideous video game where you are trying to avoid hundreds of flying targets in your path.  It did not always work out so well.

So, on the first section of dirt, it was the same scenario.  Bee city and the keepers thereof.  I gotta get me one of those suits, maybe with an 8 panel chamois in it.

Bee keepers..a blessing and a curse.  I heart honey.

A bit farther along the road I played hide and seek with a coyote.  It always amazes me how agile animals are.  He (or she) was bounding through the brush like it was nothing.  Then it hit the road and would run a bit, stop and look.  I would pant and pedal a bit closer and then the pattern would repeat.  Neat animals, unless you are a chicken or house cat.

Peek-A-Boo.

At the top of the first 8 miles of climbing, I took a Snickers break before it melted.  I was melting too.  Kinda warm today as the June gloom seems to be giving way to July roaster.  I was also wearing the Bonty shoes I have been testing and a new pack...yes, another one...an Osprey Manta 25.  It was bigger than I needed for the day, but the mesh panel kept it cool on my pack.  Nice pack and ready for hiking and scrambling as well.  More on that later on The Cyclist Site.

Comfy shoes and Swiftwick socks.

Osprey Manta 25 hydration pack.

It must have been 15 years or more since I was on top of this Townsend Peak.  When I was doing a couple of Ride Guide books for mountain biking, we hit every trail on the map and some that were not on ANY map.  This trail showed it taking off of the peak and heading west toward the town of Piru and the lake there.  Then we drove a truck up a good road and parked at the hitching rail circled in the pic.  The trail takes off just behind the rail and heads down and to the right towards the far right arrow, ending up at the middle arrow far below.  The lake is behind the hills here.  I could still see the trail and I remember it was a good ride, passing through cattle grazing areas and lots of wildflowers.  I also remember pushing 50% of the way back up.  We never came back and I don't think this one made the guide books either.

Like many USFS roads, this one has been falling into ruin.  At one point, there was a wash out that prevented any vehicle from getting through and now the road is brushed in and narrow.  Actually that is good for me...more fun...but bad for anyone else who might want to get a horse trailer or other vehicle in there.

Spring clings.

We drove a truck through here?

The goal achieved.

I celebrated my peak bagging by laying under a Yerba Santa, getting  my head out of the sun, and listened to the frenzied buzzing of myriad buzzy things...files, bees...dunno...but they were the insect equivalent of superbikes and sounded like Suzuki Hayabusas on the pipe.  No wonder insects have short lives.  I was much less stressed then they were and cloud watched a bit before heading out.  

One gear pedaled, one bike pushed, one peak bagged and reconnected with.  See ya' in another fifteen.

It's great to be single again!

No, I am still happily married...my wife sees to that. I am speaking of single SPEEDS as in one geared bicycles. I am really digging the new Jabber. Really. It has brought back some joy in riding around shiftlessly that had fallen away after the crash and the back injury. Both boo-boos really did not allow for fun SS riding. Hurt too much.

Then there was the time off the SS when I was waiting for the diSSent to come together. And, when I was trying out the diSSent, it kinda cooled the fire of my SS passion as I tried to come to terms with it's personality.

Going back to the Karate Monkey post diSSent really was a bummer as I had begun to realize the odd handling traits of the Monkey, the ones I thought were just normal for a 29er hardtail, were actually just the quirky Monkey and I was really missing the sharp handling of the diSSent (but not the 'sharp' ride qualities).

After reading the final thoughts on the diSSent by Captain Bob and Guitar Ted, I was a bit perplexed. How could they feel that the diSSent rode as well or better than many steel frames they had tried out? Maybe I was chasing something in feel and performance that did not exist. I came pretty close to building the diSSent back up again and giving it another go.

Then the Jabber showed up. I will be putting my review in detail on the pages of The Cyclist. Suffice it to say that I am once again diggin' the SS and I like the big, orange groove the Jabber puts down on the trail.

This post is worthless without pics.

Can't find the camera. Has to be somewhere. Vacation remains held within its silicon memory banks. Sigh.

Meanwhile, spent some time building this up last night:

I am pleased with the quality of the frame for the money. It looks nice, a few places where the tubes are manipulated, ovalized, welds look good, the head tube is nice and high but there is a ton of head tube hanging below the down tube/head tube junction. Sure gives ya lots of room for a sus fork crown and knobs, etc.

Long CS length. Sitting at juuust over 18" right now. There is potential to shorten that a bit with a half link and I do need to replace the CR and chain. I will likely get an 8 speed chain this time around and not a 9 speed. I think that will be cheaper and easier to deal with. What kinda sucks is that I ran into the same thing with this frame as with the diSSent. If there was a few millimeters more 'travel' in the sliders/dropouts I could keep the chain shorter and the CS length at 17.5". If I removed the little adjusting screws in the Jabbers track ends, I think I could keep it very short and eliminate that extra link but then I would have to deal with more potential for wheel splippage under load. Hmmm.

Well, part of the Wet Cat geometry idea is a longer CS length, so we shall see.

I sure do like the looks of the frame. I always thought the KM looked ugly with the bent seat tube, etc.....all squished up. The Jabber has a very classic look with the sloped TT and the straight tubes. I like small diameter tubes. Years of riding steel HTs, I guess. It just looks nice.

Will it ride as nice as it looks? Stay tuned.

Plushness is in the butt of the beholder.

So to speak.

Interesting post by GT has me scratching my head.

He is wrapping up the diSSent test period and says that he thinks the diSSent is a pretty smooth riding frame:

"First off, if you are thinking the typical “aluminum is harsh” thing, the diSSent isn’t that at all. I would put it on par with the stiffer steel frames I have ridden."

Huh.

Captain Bob said, when he wrote about the diSSent:

"I would have to call this frame set steel with the looks of aluminum. Yes, it is aluminum but the feel is all steel. In fact it’s better than most steel frames I have owned or ridden."

Well I will be dipped! How can that be? I just built the Monkey back up with the same parts I had on the diSSent and it is certainly a bit smoother overall and the KM has a rep for being a bit of a rough riding steel bike.

If the steel frame that I was told is coming my way turns out to be vaporware, I may just try it again. I think I would run a 90mm stem to get my weight back a bit, go back to the Easton carbon h-bars and pick up a Ti seat post from Erikson. What did I miss? Both of them have ridden more 29er hardtails than I have so I appreciate their perspective.

I do miss the handling and the pedaling performance that the diSSent offered. I wonder if I miss it enough to try it again?