So I finally took my "gravel bike" to the local loop. Quotes because it's really just a relaxed geometry 1x, but I didn't know what I didn't know so here I am. 33mm tires, 41psi rear 38psi front, latex tubes. A little loose in hard road cornering but pretty much perfect for the application. The local loop used to be a "great" fire road situation with light gravel but recently they "ruined" it by dumping fresh cut coarse gravel by the dump truck load. The last time I was there, which was *running*, I thought to myself how much the new gravel sucked. I was wrong.
I've had the feeling before... hucking a real ramp on a snowboard, running with the bulls, sprinting with buses in downtown Seoul traffic, moving into the supertuck down the Whiteface Mountain road descent, a well executed Cat 3 attack or pack sprint, sitting down at a 5-10 table with the right bank roll, etc. The perfect combination of risk and skill, if you do it wrong you get hurt but if you do it right it's easy.
You know the old expression... hours of boredom interspersed with moments of panic. That gravel experience is making easy long runs and rides boring in comparison.
E
Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting
“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”
- First lap, picking my way around individual rocks in the smooth line, riding on frozen garden hoses on the downhills.
- Second lap, ignoring the individual rocks and just trying to follow the smooth line, normal descents.
- Third lap, ignoring the smooth line, just riding, having fun.
- Fourth lap, FULL SEND. All out on the downhills, ignoring the smooth line, the rocks, and even the road. Riding *over* the terrain like on a snowboard over fresh powder. I am riding over the roads, not on them... irrelevant. Rocks or groups of rocks or bumps or soft spots or whatever are irrelevant at this speed and perspective.
I've had the feeling before... hucking a real ramp on a snowboard, running with the bulls, sprinting with buses in downtown Seoul traffic, moving into the supertuck down the Whiteface Mountain road descent, a well executed Cat 3 attack or pack sprint, sitting down at a 5-10 table with the right bank roll, etc. The perfect combination of risk and skill, if you do it wrong you get hurt but if you do it right it's easy.
You know the old expression... hours of boredom interspersed with moments of panic. That gravel experience is making easy long runs and rides boring in comparison.
E
Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting
“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”
