Paula and I headed west for a quick trip to Grand Junction. I needed to pick up a bike, and, well, the riding is OK there too.
The bike is a Lenz Leviathan–a lighter, more racier version of my beloved Behemoth. It will be my race bike for next season, and I really think it’s a move in the right direction. These ‘events’ I seem to be doing lately definitely take their toll on the body. But really I’m just hoping to enjoy the riding a little more… and a full suspension at nearly the same weight as my B29 is very hard to resist.
The first ride didn’t go so well. I couldn’t use my little ring, and we went launching up steep trail at the Lunch Loop. I’m no singlespeeder. I tend to lose all rhythm if forced to stomp on the pedals. I couldn’t get a feel at all for the bike, even descending. I also had a raging headache, and 35 other excuses. It’s rare for me to have a bad ride, but this one was definitely not good.
With the sun near/below the horizon, my eye-brain connection relaxed, and descending ‘the tail’ was pretty fun. I took out the camera to get a few shots of Mike doing what he does:
It was pretty cool to watch Mike ‘in his element’ out there. I’d follow behind, and any time he went off trail I knew it was going to be good. On his Behemoth it looked like second nature to him. I almost never followed him, but I didn’t care. It’s a treat to see someone execute what has taken them significant time and effort to accomplish. Even riding with Mike a year ago, it’s clear he has progressed quite a bit. I doubt anyone has spent as much time fine tuning as Mike has. Attention to detail.
We camped out at Rabbit Valley under a full night of stars. Despite not having a fire, we stayed up late looking at the stars and wondering… it was beautiful.
Still, every time the sun drops below the horizon out there, in that desert that I’ve twice crossed by bike, by head lamp, I get a chill down my spine. “Why would I want to do that, ever again?”
. . . as the sun rises the next morning I get a small reminder of why . . .
But the doubts still remain. Actually going out and doing is a way of silencing some of those doubts. I’ve yet to regret a single trip/race. But I do often question the wisdom of putting myself in those situations again.
The next ride was out at Loma in the morning. It’s really hard to have a bad ride out there. It took me 45 minutes and a flat tire to shake off the funk of yesterday’s ride. By the time I was climbing Moore Fun (in little ring) it was bliss. The bike felt perfect.
I’ve done a few more rides on the Lev since returning to Golden. Around here it makes the Behemoth seem a little superfluous. The Lev does 98% of what the ‘moth can do. But this is front range Colorado, not southern AZ. I ain’t sellin’ the Behemoth just yet. Descending Apex was just ridiculous. It’s a good thing it was late Saturday night (empty trails) because I was carrying more speed than ever. Less suspension but better tires (Rampages).
Work proceeds on TopoFusion D3D (codename: Honeycomb). We have a beta out, but it’s very “beta.” I can’t get everything to work on my laptop, and I’m not sure why. Alan has done some great work on converting the 3D code to Direct3D. The transition from 2D->3D is especially nice.
Finally, we are returning to Tucson this week. The Arizona sunshine calls my name, not to mention the huge variety of trails there.
Leave a Reply