riding into the heat of july

[north woods gal]

That's the way it works for me, sometimes, Crankin. I'll sit around, debating whether or not to ride or where to ride, but once I'm out on the bike, I wonder what took me so long.

Been having a great week going out of my way to find the nastiest gravel and/or sand backroads and testing my various bikes as to how they performed. Did a full 14 miles of gravel/sand with my standard 26" 2008 vintage Trek 8000 MTB and it did very well, though conditions were excellent, given that we had a nice rain, last night, and the sand was firmed up nice. Have to be very careful in dry sand, though, with this one. Definitely a lot more squirrelly in the dry stuff. When the sand is dry, I use other bikes. Great bike for typical hard surface MTB trails, though. Light, very quick and agile bike.

Did have 25 miles of pavement to get to these gavel/sand roads and back, so even though those old 26" wheels are slow by road bike standards, did okay on the pavement. (LOVE the way the front shock eats those road cracks!) Also used this bike for winter commuting while living in Chicago.

[Crankin]

Emily, your pictures with the hills look like the San Juan Islands in WA. Lots of ups and downs!

[emily_in_nc]

Emily, your pictures with the hills look like the San Juan Islands in WA. Lots of ups and downs!

It was a roller coaster for sure! I was glad I rode my Bike Friday as I needed every gear!

NWG, your MTB is lovely. I am partial to a blue bike myself.

[north woods gal]

Thank you. I am partial to blue on my bikes. Have two others that are blue.

[emily_in_nc]

Thank you. I am partial to blue on my bikes. Have two others that are blue.

Two out of my three bikes are blue. :-)

Today's ride was a windy but fun one. We had a stiff headwind all the way to town, where DH needed to buy a tool. Slow going, but the return trip was so much fun. We barely had to pedal! 22 miles that took us an hour to get there and 48 minutes to return!

[north woods gal]

Bit windy here, too. I always try to have the wind at may back or at least quartering at my back for the ride back home. Nice to have that extra boost when I'm tired.

The big country music festival is over, but it has been a good week working the gravel and sand roads in the other direction. Did a lot of experimenting with the different bikes as to tire sizes to see how they managed some pretty challenging soft sand conditions. Not surprisingly, the bigger and the wider the tire, the easier it was to negotiate the soft stuff. By the time I got to my 29er plus with its 3" wide tires, I could relax and ignore all the bad spots that caused problems with the narrower/smaller wheeled bikes. Even went out of my way to hit the bad spots. Way fun.

Still, on the hard packed gravel, my Salsa Warbird with its 700x35 tires just flies. In the soft stuff, kind of spooky to ride, though. Couldn't relax for a second. Would get sudden and unpredictable spin outs and way too much fishtailing to make for anything but a nerve racking ride. Oh, well, different bikes for different terrain.

Trek Stashe, 29er plus with 3" tires. A hoot to ride.

[emily_in_nc]

I bet that Trek is a blast on gravel!

We rode quite a few unpaved forest service roads down south this spring, and even with our MTBs, there were squirrely areas. And with our Bike Fridays (1.35" tires), they were downright scary in spots, as you experienced with your Salsa. They do great on the hard-packed gravel, like the Katy Trail, but when the surface gets loose...no.