July riding

[north woods gal]

Put my two drop bar bikes on consignment at a local bike shop and looks like I already have a nibble on the Salsa Warbird. Not surprised, since gravel specific road bikes are hot products, these days.

One of the reasons I let the Warbird go was this bike, my 2008 vintage Trek 8000 MTB.


It was my other bike I used for commuting in my Chicago days during the winter. With an extra wheel set with studded 26" tires, I could change wheels to suit the weather in a jiffy, thanks to disc brakes. That's one of the overlooked advantages of disc brakes, by the way. Changing wheels is much quicker and easier than dealing with center pull brakes.

As with my Kona, I did a lot of upgrades on this bike. It's a full SRAM X9 with XT crank and I also upgraded the wheels to Bontrager's best aluminum MTB version in the Race Lite. Tires are a very fast Bontrager XR Team Issue. The reason I bought this Trek, however, was the excellent Alpha Red frame. Aluminum frames don't usually get me excited, but this one is really outstanding. It can turn on a dime, yet it tracks as straight as an arrow. This was a real plus for commuting, by the way. I could ride a perfect steady line on the narrowest of streets in heavy traffic, but I could also respond, instantly, to any situation. Definitely a better handling bike in the tight spots than a road bike. The front suspension was also a big plus on some of those crummy Chicago area streets.

Anyway, I did a 15 mile sprint with the Trek, today, with a couple miles of gravel and some sand and then finished with an hour of serious single track work. The Trek is very nearly as fast as the Warbird on pavement, but, unlike the Warbird, it has the gearing to handle any hill. Actually a pretty decent pavement bike the way it's set up. Not sure I'd want to do a century on it, but I have done plenty of 30 and 40 mile trips on it.

Compared to the Warbird, though, it's still the better bike on gravel and it can handle some sand, too, though it's no fat bike or plus bike. Best of all, when I get tired of roads, the Trek begs to be ridden on hard-pack single track. It really screams, there. That's something the Warbird could never do.

I may get another drop bar road bike, sometime, but my mixed bag riding is best served with flat bar bikes on one kind or another. Just not my nature to stay on pavement all the time, I guess. Each to her own, though.