New 29er Wheels for the Salsa Mukluk

While life, in it's manifold manifestations, has kept me from these pages lately, gentle reader, it has not -- I repeat, not -- kept me from fun on the bike. 

You all know I spent the winter sneaking out for fat bike adventures on the new Mukluk (and, if not, go to the links in the right-hand column of this page to catch up). As the weather warmed, I got to thinking about how Salsa built the Muks so they could take 29-inch mountain bike wheels as well as the monstrous ones that come stock.

Since I'd originally planned on buying a mountain bike before I fell in love with the Muk, the idea really appealed to me. Friend Will Sytsma, over at Hampshire Bicycle Exchange in Amherst,  put his mind to it and eventually found me a great deal on a sexy pair of Sunringle Inferno rims. He also nabbed a Salsa 2 rear hub and a Salsa 3 front, and began lacing them up for me. In no time, I had a pair of all-jet-black Systma Originals, and they looked pistol-hot.

Sytsma originals...

As is my wont, I did endless research online regarding the best tire solution. My needs were well-defined: I wanted the best tread and rubber compound for New England's rooty, rocky, hard-pack mix, and I wanted to go tubeless to add extra cush on what was to be a fully-rigid mountain bike. Even with the 3.8" Surly Nates, the Muk puts my wrists through the wringer on anything but the smoothest snow.

I settled on what seems to be the hot new tire on the block, the Maxxis Ardent, 2.4" up front and 2.25" in back. When I finally got hold of a pair last Friday (which was no mean feat) I ran over the the Bike Exchange and watched mechanic Alex mount them up.

Mmmm… new tiiiiiires...

The 2.25 hopped on the rim like it was eager to go out and rip the trails. The 2.4, however, was more truculent. After much failed experimentation and frantic pumping, I exhorted Alex to mount the thing with a tube, which I'll use until Will can get a Stan's tubeless rim strip in stock. The thinner Stan's rim tape was just not getting the job done.

Bubbles aren't good when you're testing the seal on a tubeless set-up

Alex puts the finishing touches on what amounts to a hot new mountain bike

On Saturday, as soon as I could fake finishing household chores and convince the tolerant Mrs. V to let me go, I threw the bike on the rack and headed for Earl's Trails in Amherst, my local playground at the foot of the Holyoke moutains. (Did you know they're the only East-West-oriented mountain range in the Eastern United States?)

New wheel and a favorite trailhead on a Saturday morn… Life is good.

The first thing I noticed was how ridiculously light the bike felt. Just lifting it off the car rack was a different experience. Yet the tires, while much smaller than the 3.8s, provided a surprising amount of impact absorption. The Sytsma wheels are wonderfully stiff, and, along with the aluminum frame on the Muk, ensure that every watt I apply to the pedals translates into forward motion.

On flat-to-rolling terrain, this means that I want to stand up and hammer, because the response is so quick. On climbs, the benefits of the lighter rig are tangible. To be honest, there is a slight cost in losing the huge rubber of the Nates, because the latter simply roll right over the rooty, rocky inclines of Western Mass without a moment's thought. I'm going to have to learn a lot about picking climbing lines. All told, though, the 29er Muk will almost certainly out-climb the fat version by a mile, because of the weight difference. I laughed aloud when I picked up a Nate-equipped Surly wheel in one hand, and one of the new Sunringles shod with an Ardent in the other. Rock versus feather.

The new set-up at a picturesque spot near the high point of the day

Of course, there's a real price to pay for lightness of the bike. One reason it's so light is the lack of suspension fork, which means that my wrists felt mighty abused at the end of a mere 1.5 hour ride. However, I have a number of fixes in mind for that: 1) learn to pick better lines on descents, 2) keep elbows and arms looser, 3) perhaps a shorter stem to keep a little more weight off the hands on descents, and 4) get slightly more absorbent handlebar grips, 5) and new gloves with fresh cushioning in the palms. Finally, perhaps most important of all: 6) go tubeless in the front. Five or so fewer pounds of pressure in the 2.4 should significantly ease things for the wrists, and increase traction.

In the meantime, I had the biggest blast Saturday I've had on a bike since I first climbed on the Muk for my fateful test-ride. I climbed way higher than I have before, descended more nimbly, and flicked on the afterburners on nearly every flat section, just to feel the acceleration. More good things to come from this package, without a doubt!

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The Woods Are Lovely, Dark and Deep

Here are some things I've recently seen. On a bicycle. In January and February.

Fort Hill, Amherst

Fort Hill

Fort Hill

Fort Hill

Puffer's Pond dam, Amherst

On Puffer's Pond, Amherst

Ice fisherman, Puffer's Pond, Amherst

North Amherst

North Amherst tracks

North Amherst 

I've been so busy, I haven't had time to turn around, much less sit down and detail my wonderful experiences with my new Salsa Mukluk. So, let this suffice: If you like to explore, and you want to do it in winter as much as summer, and not just on cross-country skis, get yourself a fat bike. You'll like it a lot.

Fat Bikes: Why Rip When You Can Roam?

One week into fat bike ownership, and the obsession grows. It's clear why folks who scoff when they first lay eyes on these freakish things end up falling in five minutes after climbing on one.

So far, I've taken my Salsa Mukluk over local singletrack, up hidden urban trails, along the riverside, and even over the road -- but only when necessary (riding it on paved surfaces requires a Zen-like acceptance of its limitations). Here are some things I've learned:

1. Fat bikes were originally created to ride on snow, but that doesn't mean that any old snow will do. Many of the flashy videos you'll see on the Web of fat-tired jockeys zipping through frosted forests and pulling advanced singletracky moves were filmed on specially groomed trails. The more homemade vids by folks like me are obvious; they feature riders poking happily along at five miles per hour, spinning away and enjoying the scenery. It seems like it takes very specific snow conditions to create fun-to-ride powder. Research so far indicates that the most reliably enjoyable powder here in New England, where the temps change so quickly these days, is a modest coating of up to an inch, creating some scary-fun float on sharp turns and just enough challenge overall -- rather than a slow, draining grind on deep, crusty, re-frozen stuff. Ain't nobody floatin' on that, don't care how fat your tires.
2. I've read the debates about whether fat bikes can climb, which usually bring the predictable response: "They can if you can." As far as climbing goes, I'm more stubborn than talented, and a pair of painful old knees doesn't help. Add to that a bike weighing a chunky 35 pounds without pedals, and climbing becomes a real problem. My first couple times out, I climbed way up high so's I could enjoy the crazy-fun descents on snowy singletrack. Worth it? Not in the long-term. Tonight, I'm nursing an all-too-familiar case of chondromalacia in both knees.
3. Knowing all the above, you won't be surprised to learn that many of the fat bike owners and retailers on the Web live in the upper midwestern United States, where steep hills are not a big problem, and 300 fluffy inches of frigid snow is the norm. Many of the rest live on islands or near lakes, both of which commonly feature lots of flat-to-rolling trail. Conclusion? Unless you're real strong and have stainless steel joints, fat biking is best suited to moderate topography. The long, steep climb out the back of Earl's Trails in Amherst, on the way up the sides of the Holyoke range, was simply too much up for this old fellow.

So yesterday, I decided to give my aching hinges a break and make my ride a photo safari. I've previously investigated a nearby waterside trail along the Connecticut River on my Salsa Vaya, and I thought to re-visit it with a bike more suited to the chunky, rutted terrain. This time, taking a left where I usually go right, I was delighted to discover that the trail stretches on and on in that direction. Bend after bend produced yet more doubletrack (thank you, farmers and your tractors!). I feasted on the severe ice-scapes. Below, some of the results.

For the nonce -- and despite the daredevils out there flicking fat bikes around like they were featherweight 26ers in July -- I'm  sticking with the laid-back faction who claim that floaty bikes are the best-ever vehicle for exploring where you ordinarily wouldn't even think to ride. That sounds about perfect to me.

Salsa Mukluk 3: First Impressions

Regular readers know how many decades of dyed-in-the-wool-jersey road riding it took before I discovered the joy of putting bike wheels on dirt and exploring the forest. It was only a few years ago, when I bought a Salsa Vaya, that I started tentatively checking out local fire roads, beginner's trails, and, eventually, more traditional singletrack, gaining confidence as I went (and suffering some grievous falls). Starting trail riding on a touring bike with road gearing and only 35 mm-wide tires certainly inhibited my progress, but I  was content to poke around until the difficulties turned me back toward the road.

As the years sneaked by, skills quietly crept up on me, until I recently realized that the bike was holding me back more than I was. It was at this point that I did what I promised my long-suffering wife I would never do: I started contemplating owning a real mountain bike.

I test-rode a couple of lovely hardtail numbers in the parking lot of my wonderful local bike shop, Hampshire Bicycle Exchange (where I bought my Vaya). I liked them, and considered buying them. My fiftieth birthday is next month, and it seemed like a fitting present to myself.

Then fortune stepped in.

Will, the owner of HBE and a riding buddy, texted me a couple weeks ago, to the effect of, "Want to test-ride a couple of Mukluks with me?" Now, I knew about Salsa's Mukluk, and about all the furor in the cycling world over fat bikes. Given that I found buying a traditional mountain bike an intoxicatingly naughty idea, I certainly wasn't thinking, "Hm, maybe I'll end up buying a Muk!" It just sounded like a really interesting ride, and Will is great company, so I responded, "You bet!"

This is what greeted me when I pulled up to his house a week later:

Without much delay, we hit Earl's Trails, a well-known patch of flowy singletrack not far from us, some of which I have covered with my Vaya in the past.

Will takes a turn in a blur

Fat, indeed

The patchy ice on the trails didn't give our 3.8" tires any trouble

Yours truly, acting like a mountain biker

Sometime soon, I will record here my many thoughts and impressions from my first fat bike ride, one of the more unique experiences I've had on two wheels.  The essence was this: I had a blast. 

I mean, I was whooping and giggling like an eight-year-old kid. Everything good you hear about fat bikes is true. (How often does that happen?) I rode over any- and everything in my way. I railed turns I would have previously wobbled over. The skills from all those experimental rides on the barely-suited Vaya flourished like mad on this bike built to take away the fear of riding weird, slippery, rooty, rocky, wet places. 

By the time we were racking up the bikes on Will's car at the trailhead, I was asking how much the bike cost. A few days of obsessive Internet browsing later, I emailed Will and said, "I'll take it." 

Literally the minute I pulled in to pick it up today, it started snowing. Nice…. very nice.

After dumping the reflectors and adding a bottle cage, I took it back to Earl's Trails, and spent an hour and forty hauling its heavy carcass up vertical trails for the absurd pleasure of flying back down. Descending on the curvy, lightly-coated trails was beyond fun. 

I'm hooked.

A Fling Forgiven

Well, when you're pushing 50, these things happen.

We've all heard about the guy who runs out and buys the bright red sports car to compensate for his fading manhood. As for me, I bought a mountain bike. Like, with about 15 minutes of forethought.

I was gonna test ride it -- really, seriously! But this mysterious other buyer was circling around, and my friend selling the bike said I might want to move fast. I figured, what the hey! So I have almost no idea what to do with it. I want to learn more about single-track riding. It's a gorgeous bike. I'll grow into it.

I was wrong.

I rode that stunning beauty four times, and never once had a really good time. It was like being on someone else's bike. The 700c wheels -- my norm -- felt huge with those fat tires sitting on them. I couldn't really get over very much that I couldn't get over with the much narrower tires on my beloved, fully rigid Vaya. Between all that air in the tires and the suspension fork, I just couldn't feel the surface of the trails or roads, which led to worse handling, not better.

Maybe it's just too advanced a bike for me, or maybe I need a 26er; my friends who race say that smaller wheels allow them to pick their way through the rocks, roots, and tight turns of New England more nimbly. Or maybe I just wasn't built for mountain bikes.

Saturday, after another frustrating ride, I called the shop and asked my pal if he'd take the Mariachi back as a straight trade for the Vaya I had swapped. He was very understanding, and to my great relief, said simply, "Sure!"

It's good to have that bike back in the stable where it belongs. I plan to lay slightly fatter rubber on it, maybe 40 or 43 mm, so I can reel in those those nasty gravel and washed-out fire roads a bit more handily. But nothing like the 2.2" tires on the Mariachi. Beasts, they were.



I grew up a road rider, and perhaps I'll always be defined by that provenance. But that doesn't mean I don't like to get dirty. Salsa's Web site says of the Vaya, "Designed to take on any surface that someone might consider a road." In the end, that might neatly describe yours truly, as well.

I've Been Turned

Well, the dirt-loving virus that took hold of me when I bought my Salsa Vaya has completed its hijacking of my brain and legs: Yesterday, in a feverish haze no doubt brought on by too much time on single-track (or too many blows to the head falling off of single-track)...

...I purchased a mountain bike.

To be specific, a Salsa El Mariachi, with 29-inch wheels, a metallic-flaked dark charcoal and ruby-red paint job, classy components, tubeless-ready rims, and snappy WTB Bronson 2.2-inch tires.

I'm both thrilled and nervous. Will I like real mountain biking as much as I think? Did I give away that beautiful root-beer-brown Vaya in vain?

I managed a straight trade for the Vaya (also a Salsa), a bike that I am certainly grieving today. If I could have kept both, I surely would have. The Vaya is a solid, lovely bike, well-built to its purposes, but those main functions -- touring/commuting or gravel-grinding -- aren't things I can do enough of around here to justify keeping such a nice bike in the stable. My master plan includes a separate treasonous act: trading in my racy Cannondale for a slightly more comfortable but still-swift bike, which would handle both pavement and gravel, and be more forgiving of my middle-aged back on longer rides. At that point, I'll be able to do single-track and rougher fire roads/double-track on the 29er, and longer gravel and road rides on the road bike. (I sure wish I had the scratch to keep all the beauties that have passed through my clutches.)

Words can't describe my disorientation when I enter my garage and spy that broad-shouldered draft horse leaning against the wall. I'm used to a featherweight thoroughbred with wafer-thin tires. It's a weird thrill -- sort of like the day I bought my Ford Bronco when I moved to the mountains of New Mexico years ago, after having driven only economy cars to that point.

I'm really looking forward to taking the Mariachi out on the trails I've already mastered (and, especially, the ones I've almost mastered) on the Vaya, to experience the difference between riding dirt on a modestly-geared touring bike with cyclocross tires and drop handlebars, and on a wide-bar bike with monster-truck wheels, a classy suspension fork, and silky-smooth disc brakes.

I suspect some of you old (uh, I mean old-school) mountain bikers out there are cringing at the idea of a 293er, thinking "When I was starting out, the wheels were the size of a silver dollar, and you could have put Action Jackson on my saddle and he would have reached the pedals! Harrumph!" Well, have mercy on me. I'm a 47-year-old rank beginner to this discipline. I have the most grown-up job I've ever held, a terrific marriage, a new house, and kids in the not-too-distant future. To top it all off, it's not like I'm starting off with a bumper crop of athletic talent. In short, I need my energy and body intact at the end of the weekend. My impression has been that 29ers make mountain biking a little easier (or a lot, depending on who you ask), especially on the rooty, rocky, narrow trails of Olde New England.

Besides, this is a looker, with an outstanding reputation, and made by a small, still-funky company run by people who really ride and love bikes. What's more, the guy who sold me the Vaya was looking to get rid of the Mariachi right at the moment I was considering 29ers -- it was another one of those "right place, right time, right bike" deals I seem to have a knack for.

So rejoice for me. And then hook me up with some beginner's trails, because I can't seem to find any around here, and I'm tired of falling on my popo.

To Texture

Saturday, I felt good. I'd slept two complete nights in a row -- like manna from heaven these days. I just had to go spend my new-found energy.

I cooked up a mostly-gravel ride for my Salsa Vaya; there were some roads I'd learned of from reading the route maps of an infamous annual late-winter ride in these parts, called Cushman-Roubaix. I strung them together with some of the other gravel I've found in recent months, and voila! 37 miles, almost half of it unpave'. Much of that was very vertical, and therein lay the rub; before long, I found myself humping up a 14% sandy grade. There was lots more like that over there in Pelham, and, after an hour of such labors, I was inspired to name the route, "The Tenderizer." The first 40% will definitely soften you up.

The overall ride, however, was so rewarding that the town of Pelham was fully forgiven for dressing its most ridiculous grades in a costume of loose sand and rock. (It seems like most towns do that out here, and it's baffling; wouldn't steep roads be easier to maintain if they were paved?)  Even on the uphills, I had the feeling I was riding on singletrack, so close, deep and verdant were the woods:

 Brooks babbled and burbled through lush roadsides:

I passed a neatly coiffed and perfectly-set house, surrounded by natural beauty...

 

A closer look revealed a 6-foot-high burger boy ready to serve rowers on the pond...

Mists enshrouded fertile hillsides...

And a friend was readily made in an upland pasture.

That was just during the climbing. I was moving too fast to get any shots of the long, exhilarating descent from Shutesbury Center to North Leverett Road and the Leverett Co-op, my frequent lunch stop. I can't recommend Montague Road highly enough, a lengthy, snaking bobsled ride that occassionally found little whoops of joy escaping my lips as my rear wheel did small fishtails around bends. From the Co-op (after a quick field repair of my rear derailluer) came another great gravelly descent, down Hemenway Road all the way to Route 63.

I am loving graveling more and more. Paved roads around here mostly have surfaces chopped up by other weather-related damage. That chop will slow you down and jounce you without remorse -- it's effect is wearing, interfering, annoying. Gravel, on the other hand, while also quite irregular, feels more like texture. It forgives, it lets me lose traction for an exciting moment or two (and I've come to love rather than fear that moment), it keeps me on alert.  

Most of all, it feels real.

These roads are made of stuff you can find on a walk in the woods. They have the same surface our cycling ancestors pioneered the sport on -- first on bone-rattling, precarious high-wheelers, later on the relatively sporty, 28-pound safety bike. They completed the first centuries and cross-country tours on those beastly machines, on roads just like these (maybe worse) probably in times I couldn't beat on silkiest tarmac. They competed in the first stage races, grinding themselves to a filthy pulp day and night for weeks. They were hard, hard people.

But I think they also knew, more deeply than we hard-paved roadies, forever seeking the smoothest, slickest ride, that dirt equals fun. Why do you think folks who ride the looser surfaces almost always post a shot or two of their grubby bikes and splattered legs?

Dirt equals fun. Go ride some.

The Call of the Wild

Why would a died-in-the-wool-jersey roadie, who rode this racing bike in 1980 (the royal blue version in the box)...

and this racing bike in 2010....

... be spending the last two weeks obsessing about a heavy, fat-tired bike, with geometry so relaxed it can handle pavement, dirt, gravel, and even single-track? Oh, yes! And featuring -- shudder -- disc brakes??

It's a long story.

I went to my LBS -- Hampshire Bicycle Exchange, a great shop and a subject for another post -- a few weeks ago looking for the fattest tires that would fit my Giant OCR 3, so I could turn it into a little more of a dirt-road bike. No luck; the best I could fit were 25 mm tires, barely wider than road racing tires.

While I was there, the owner, Chris, planted a seed. He's a enthusiastic fan (and dealer) of the fun, unique bikes Salsa have been making out in Minnesota for a number of years, and he personally owns one of the earliest examples of their Vaya, the roughneck bike described above. He suggested that perhaps I was trying to make an orange out of an apple, and should consider purchasing a more rugged rig.

I went home, looked up the Salsa, and it turns out there is a small legion of passionate fans out there. They ride for fun -- to get out in the woods or the fields, to spontaneously turn off on to a gravel road just to see what's down there. The kind of fun I'd been dreaming of, only half-aware, since Mrs. V. and I moved out to this beautiful rural area replete with farm fields, hidden mountain bike trails only vaguely hinted at in oblique conversations, and tons of intriguing roads too sketchy for my thoroughbred, skinny-tired CAAD 8.

I gobbled up every post and page I could get get my virtual hands on. One beautiful and inspiring site (created by an employee of Salsa) was especially instrumental in whetting my appetite for some Salsa, with many lyrical posts like this one.

Finally, I returned to the Exchange on Friday afternoon, hoping to have a conversation with Chris about how we could make a Vaya affordable to me. Guess what? He'd ridden his in that morning, so I could test-ride one right away. Guess what? He's exactly my bike size.

And guess what? He had just recently decided to sell the very bike I was about to test.

No!  Yup.

After a quick and encouraging ride in the parking lot, he generously offered to let me ride it as long as I wanted on Saturday. I sped over there eagerly yesterday morning on my Cannondale, jumped on his bike, and headed off for a true adventure. He'd told me about some trails a few miles south of his store, and I was itching to try them.

Woah... this riding-bikes-in-the-forest thing is really cool! Wow, the trees are really close, they're practically hugging me as I ride! Wow, smell the pine on the breeze! Woah!!! Downhill on roots and piles of leaves is scary! But FUN! WOAH, speeding over big humps is like being on a rollercoaster!! Let's do that one again!  And again! Wow... look at that beautiful pond! I've ridden near here hundreds of times and never even knew it was here! Hey, I'm learning how to pick a line, how to steer with my hips like I've always heard you should, how to trust the back wheel to steer the front! This is GREAT!!!

Many, many wows and woahs later, I headed back to the shop. I'd stayed out far longer than I expected, because I was having so much fun I couldn't make myself leave. On the way back, I even pulled off the main road onto a couple of dirt and gravel "roads" -- one of them just some muddy double-track, calling to mind Salsa's verbiage about the Vaya: "... designed to take on any surface that someone might consider a ‘road’."

It's been a long, long time since I've been that excited just to be on a bicycle. It looks pretty likely that this one is coming home with me soon. (Update, 4/13/11: I just returned from putting half down on it, and will be picking it up in about 11 days. Can't wait!! Thanks, Chris!!)

As an homage to the lovely posts on gnatlikesbikes, here are some more shots from the wilds yesterday:

Beauty and the Bridge

Wheeee!!!

"I took the one less traveled by..."

Double-track and the Holyokes in the distance

Promise?

The four elements: Earth, Water, Steel and Rubber