Rest day. In the last 2 days I have ridden Walker 4 times on my Lenz Leviathan which will be my Leadville bike. I'm amazed at how much a full suspension corrects mistakes in technical riding! Many times I should have been eating dirt from poor line choices... but the bike just absorbed it. I rode every lap well under an hour with the fastest on Wednesday at 54:00. Yesterday I was pretty fatigued from a harder jog before the bike and still managed sub 1:00s. This bodes well for Silver Rush but I think I'll avoid too much technical stuff for the 100 and focus more on increasing volume and long tempo efforts.
And tubeless tires rock. I played around with tire pressure and ran one lap with just 25psi to see how it handled. It definitely corners better as it allows the tire to roll off the rim and maintain full contact with the ground and larger rocks. Similar to a tubular on a road bike. And the hydraulic brakes? No way I can ever go back to cantilevers now! You just very lightly feather the levers and you have all the stopping power you could ever want.
Both shocks also have lockouts which is crucial I am finding. Steep non-technical climbs with both shocks unlocked makes the bike feel very loose and you can feel the loss in energy transfer. Of course pedaling economy comes in to play and mashing doesn't work. The lockouts completely stiffen up the bike and allow for better climbing.
Awesome awesome bike!
3 comments:
Yea, if I had that bike I might even put it in the bed and sleep next to it.
Yeah the tubeless tires are like icing on the cake when you have a nice ride, and hydraulic brakes have a great way of saving your hands from fatigue. My first mtb had mechanical disc brakes and thought even THAT was awesome until I tried hydraulic...never looked back!
I've never ridden a full suspension 29er, but from how nice my new 29er HT rides, I can imagine it must be sick.
Did you get the green or the black on black paint scheme???
Brett- It's in my spare bedroom and I actually don't get to keep the bike. I get to use it as much as I want but it does belong to the Golden Bike Shop. Sort of duel custody. I get in the weekends (Wed/ Th).
Dave- I have mechanical discs on my rigid 29er. I sort of scoffed at the idea of "less fatigue" with the hydraulics until I got on Walker Ranch which has 1400ft of ascent and descent. On the long technical downhills, even with the hydraulic brakes, my forearms and hands burned! And today my shoulders are wasted. Time to hit the upper body weights a little harder! For Leadville which (I hope) will be 8:30-8:59 in length I can see how upper body fatigue is going to be a factor. My 'skills' got sloppy towards the end of yesterday too from fatigue. Lots of work to do still but the bike, as I said, does allow some margins for error.
They only had a green frame... but I definitely would have chosen black! And it isn't actually MY bike, it's a loner. I'm quite fine with that though.
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