Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Bike: Ready Rider: Eh...

I finished putting my bike together for Ouachita. They say never to make changes to your bike before a race. I broke that rule eight ways from Sunday: New tires, new (suspension!) fork, and a new gear. The bike in this configuration has about 5 minutes of riding on it; I've been too sick to give it a good test run. Hey, what ya gonna do?

The biggest concern for me is the fork. My last suspension fork was a 2001 Marzocchi Z-2 BAM. It weighed a ton, and since I bought it used and failed to maintain it, never really work well. I tended to avoid it even on courses where it would have been useful. The new fork is a 2007 Reba SL. I guess the entire Ouachita course is just littered with VW-sized rocks and the downhills put as much hurt on riders as the uphills. Oh, and there are hungry wolves and, um, pumas on the course. You have to bunny-hop them. So a suspension fork is required. I just hope my rigid riding style can adapt.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey good luck joe. i have always had surprisingly good results after fighting off illness. i laugh when i picture you and suspension....joe who???

alexdolpp said...

Yep, good luck from me, too. Suspension is a good thing - one daya you'll find out for sure!

PaddyH said...

a little late to wish ya luck, hope it went well though