Part of the reason we avoid Wednesday night shop rides over winter is that we are conscious of the effect us mountain bikers have on the Yarra trails when they are most vulnerable. Not only does it take months for the trails to repair after the damage caused by cutting through layers of mud and dirt, it also widens the trails as riders look to avoid the puddles and cut into extra vegetation.
With that in mind, and after hearing about the general trail condition out at Lysterfield from the Chase the Sun race last Sunday, we decided it was best to choose a trail network that hadn't degraded into a make shift land-mine testing ground, and headed to the tracks out at You Yangs near Geelong.
With the trails surrounding a quarry, the soil out there is sandy and quartzy and as a result, drains surface moisture really well. Even though it had been raining all day Monday, by the time we got out to the trails on Tuesday morning, there were about 3 puddles we encountered along our 2 hour ride that were the only evidence of precipitation. We stuck mainly to the Kurrajong Plantation trails due to some less than average fitness levels amongst the two of us, and enjoyed the fast and flowy singletrack on offer.
For me, this was my first real ride with my new cockpit setup on my Commencal Super 4, which consists of a slightly shorter Thomson X4 Stem bolted onto a Truvativ Stylo World Cup Riserbar and dressed up with some new ODI Troy Lee Design Grips.
Coming off 640mm wide riserbars, I was a bit reluctant with putting on the big 680mm wide Truvativs and had to hold off from chopping them down. In the spirit of testing, I decided to see how the extra width would effect the bike on the trail to see if this "wide-bar revolution" is all it's cracked up to be.
The beautiful Thomson stem is kind of the Rolex of the bike world, and any serious rider worth their salt will know what I'm talking about - there is just no better!
With the extra width on the handlebars and marginal increase in backsweep, I immediately noticed a more natural hand position that seemed to follow the width of my shoulders more comfortably. As we ducked and dived into the singletrack, I found the extra leverage on the big bars allowed me to really lean the bike over into the corners and I began to rail the many berms and tight corners that litter the trail through the plantation tracks.
My riding buddy, Ben, was incidentally also using the same Stylo handlebar setup as myself, and was finding similar results compared to the skinny flatbar that had previously been on his bike.
Ok, so maybe there was a little embellishment with this one...
Both of us came out at the end of our ride finding we were faster, more stable and more comfortable on the bike due to our new cockpit setups. The wider bar and shorter stem give great high-speed stability and responsiveness, with only a slight reduction in the bikes uphill abilities and slow-speed handling. For the average trail rider, this is well worth the trade-off, as it will give you more confidence when the trail gets technical and the conditions are loose as you can keep your front wheel travelling through the rough with much more authority.
When it came to buying new grips, I asked myself why I would bother getting anything else than my favorite Ruffians and especially anything with Troy Lee Designs written on it, but after using these new Lock-On grips, I am completely converted!
They feature a ramped design that provides insane grip in one direction when you're hanging on through the rough stuff, and an ability to rotate your hand in the other direction to reach for the brake lever and shifters with minimal resistance. They are also right and left-hand specific, with a comfy flange on the inside of the grip that gives you great traction on the bar without that annoying sensation of having your hands slide towards the shifters under a sudden jolt.
With a diameter between the Ruffian and the popular Oury grips, these TLD ODI grips will appeal to many riders, particularly those riding technical singletrack and are after supreme traction on the bars.
All-in-all, a pretty good experiment for me, as I've come out with a setup that gives me more confidence and stability through rock gardens and increased leverage on the front wheel for lifting it up over trail obstacles. I can corner harder, faster and with better control than with my previous setup and I'm breaking traction less often too.
If you're finding there are areas of your local trails that you just can't seem to master, or you're lacking confidence on fast, sweeping downhill singletrack, take a look at your stem and bar setup to see if there are any improvements that can be made - it only takes a small change in length / rise / width to make a big difference on the trail.
Happy Trails!
No comments:
Post a Comment