The Chilhowee SORBA group ride started off a little different than most. As you can tell by the picture above, we started off leaving the house at 6:00am to arrive for a 8:20am RTR. Jeff, a new riding friend that is a transplant from VA, met Jenn and I at the local QT, and we started making the trip north. The ride up to Chilhowee (near the White Water Center/Tanasi in Tennessee) was a peaceful one with the other half napping the entire way up!

Wheels4Life is a non-profit organization that provides bikes for people in developing countries in need of transportation to get to work or to school, including health care workers. Wheels4life was founded by extreme biking legend and former Mountain Bike World Champion Hans Rey [hansrey.com].

The momentum that 29ers create is well documented. On my local trails, the larger diameter wheels are incredible. Locally, almost everything is typical rolling cross country loops with rocks and roots, but there are no major drops or typical “all mountain” riding. The low top tube of the Evolve really gives the bike a lower center of gravity causing you to feel in-between the wheels instead of on top of them.

It was Saturday morning. I headed down to Blankets Creek to get in an early morning ride to beat the heat. Just like I expected, I was one of 3 cars in the parking lot this early. Usually, this parking lot is filled with over 40 cars on a weekend. The morning fog hadn’t even lifted off the lake yet and I started to get ready for my ride.

At first, I just started playing with the Clix in the RST fork. To my surprise, I was able to hold the heavy RST fork in one hand while quickly removing and latching the hub with the other. It was almost too good to believe! Was this really a QR that wasn’t going to require re-tensioning and could be operated with one hand?

Nothing is more annoying on the trail than equipment that is not cooperating with you. An ill-functioning bike can ruin even the best of rides. It is extremely important to keep your bike a well oiled machine so your rides are focused on fun rather than repair.

The Mountain Bike Hall of Fame and Museum (MBHOF) is located in downtown Crested Butte at 331 Elk Avenue within the Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum. Our biking museum houses items of memorabilia, including vintage bikes, components, classic photos, press clippings and highlights from historic races and events.

Gary Fisher’s new bike this year is the 5.5 inch Roscoe. It might look like your average 140mm bike, but this new ride is anything but average. Stapled as their new light weight, all mountain bike, the Roscoe weighs in at 28 lbs. with their build kit and it has some suspension and geometry tweaks that set this bike apart from the rest.

I read other bike blogs as much as I write on my own. After our regular Tuesday spin this week, we starting talking about blogs over a huge dish of “2 for Tuesday” wings. For me…sharing our life and biking experiences is just as great as the ride itself and with blogging, we are able to share these experiences to a much wider audience than just our dinner tables and trail heads.