Blather on Bicycling

I built up this mountain bike last spring, and I’ve been riding it quite a bit this summer. I’ve already introduced my road racing bike and my cyclocross bike, so here is my Giant XTC:

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I’m mainly a roadie most of the winter and spring, scared to jump on a mountain bike for fear that all my training will be ruined by some silly encounter with a tree or rock. Later in the summer and fall, I tend to enjoy more mountain bike riding, especially because the snow finally melts off our good trails in Northeast Oregon. Most of my riding on this bike is on gravel roads, ATV trails, and some singletrack.  

I intend to do some XC racing next year, mostly in Oregon. The tires pictured are intended for the all-mountain riding that I’ve been doing this summer. I’m sure I’ll go with some different tires for racing. I don’t have enough experience with tires and I don’t stay up on the mountain bike tech, so I’ll be researching and experimenting with some different models.  

So far, I’ve really enjoyed the responsive feel of the bike, especially while climbing. I’m glad I decided to go with a hard tail. I have yet to hear a convincing enough arguments to change to either full suspension or disc brakes.

Another major reason I wanted this bike is for ice biking in the winter. I’ll still ride my cyclocross bike with studded tires on the smooth plowed roads, but this bike with a couple hundred studs on each wheel will allow me to hit more gnarly terrain. I suppose the winter riding is a convincing reason to go with disc brakes. We’ll see. I do have a gallon of ammonia ready to be used on the rims and brakes to keep the ice melted in the deep stuff.

Finding the Fizik Nisene allowed me to transfer my love affair with the Fizik Arione to my mountain bike. The Nisene has the exact same shape, but with more padding and some plastic protection on the side. I removed the front under-plate right away though. There is no need for that and it looked like it was going to rip up my Lycra. 

The immediate upgrade I want to install are Eggbeater Ti or Stainless pedals.  

I’ve put up a thread at the MTBR.com forums for anyone to vote on the bike. Comments and critique are welcome here too.

The weight as pictured is 22 lbs.

Here are the specifics:

 
Click for full-resolution image.

Click for full-resolution image.

Click for full-resolution image.

I last introduced my road racing bike, and now I’m ready to pimp my cyclocross. This is truly the workhorse in my collection. Her and myself have seen plenty of hard weather training miles. She’s developed quite a few scars from thousands of miles on gravel roads but I’ve never crashed her (other than laying her down on a soft bed of grass at 1 mph during a cyclocross race last fall).  Here she is, Bianchi Axis:

Click for full-resolution image.

While this isn’t a top of the line bike, it has been a reliable ride for me especially to and from work (1 hr each way of pavement and gravel). The fork does a good job gobbling up bumps. Overall, the bike handles very well on gravel and most of the ride quality is determined by the tires used. Over the past few years I’ve had some migrating creaking issues but all of these seem to now be resolved in the bike as pictured.

I’ve recently made some changes that have her ready for another winter of riding. The saddle, seatpost, and tires are new. I’ve used quite a few different tires on this bike, so these aren’t my “perfect” tires, just the latest. In fact, I plan to ride more often with Conti Gatorskin road tires on this bike in the future because they do so well on gravel and road, which is what this bike sees most of the time (about 50/50).

The crankset is a 180 compact, which gets me up just about every climb around La Grande including Morgan Lake and Fox Hill’s 25%. The steepest roads are certainly a grind and sometimes I wish I had a triple when I’m not in peak condition. The longer-than-normal crank length was an adventure finding in compact.

You may note the extra tension on the rear dérailleur in the picture. This is because I run a short cage on a setup that includes an 11-28 cassette. The short cage barely handles the range, but shifting works fine. I try to avoid the cross chaining this is pictured.

I mainly use this bike for training on the gorgeous dirt and gravel roads of Union County, Oregon. The earliest climbs that melt open in the winter are gravel roads so this is a great bike for early season climb training. This fall I may do a few more cyclocross races than I normally have done (i.e. 1 per year). 
 
I’ve put up a thread at the RoadBikeReview.com forum for anyone to vote on the bike. Comments and critique are welcome here too.

The weight as pictured is 20.9 lbs.

Here are the specifics:

 
Click for full-resolution image.

Click for full-resolution image.