mission accomplished!
Awesome. I really want to shove as big a 29" tire as will fit into the back of this OG Jones frame but when the measurements from some manufacturers (or just Maxxis?) are all over the map it is kind of difficult.
I ended up getting the dakine 5L at REI. been walking around the house with it full of water and it feels fine so far. I am never incredibly far from my car so I can just fill up a jug and leave it in there if I plan on being out for an extra liters worth. And I don’t have a lot of shit to bring with me so the backpack seemed like overkill.
preferably 29 but seems like 27.5 is the best I could hope for to keep geometry relatively intact.
it really does suck riding with it full unless your trails are exceptionally buff. only good for light day hiking totally full with water in my experience. it is nice for all the other stuff if you only plan on putting a bottle’s worth of water in there.
if carrying the most water possible is necessary i really do prefer a normal hydration pack in spite of being a hot, sweaty person. i’d rather have things not bouncing around while trying to shred.
As an experiment, I’m doing all my off-road riding this year w/o a hydration pack. I’m not shredding the gnar, so my bike has five bottle cages. It’s great not wearing a pack, but carrying enough water for a 4-hour ride in hot weather can be a challenge.
My plan is to fill it up all the way then drink a lot after the first climb up the hill. That way it’s sloshing in my belly and behind my belly.
My rides are usually 2 ish hours.
Damn! I feel like Rachel’s MSA run just now is the hardest I’ve ever seen her try. Fucking spectacular. I’m glad that Tahnee is really pushing her this year since we get to see Rachel riding pissed off in a way that I don’t think we’ve seen maybe since Emmeline Ragot retired.
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Ride report on the hot laps 5l. I really liked it. It was a little bouncy until I drank some water. I put too much ice in it and ran out of water but had plenty of ice at one point. In the future I will use less ice.
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Do you follow Tahnee on insta? She’s so funny and new to fame…just straight up answering all the fanmail about diet, exercise, and exactly what she does to train. I hope she keeps battling it out with Atherton, it’s more fun to watch than the men’s stuff this year.
I only follow dogs on insta, but might consider making an exception. Tahnee is definitely a rad rider and I’m happy to see her going so fast the last couple of years. Having a fierce battle between two riders definitely makes for a fun season.
I always feel like I can learn more about riding from the women’s races. I love Gwin, but I feel like especially after he dominated 2011/2012 and everyone else had to figure out what the shit he was doing, men’s racing largely became “pick the straightest line and gnarbro through it by being insanely strong.” Which is incredible to watch, but not much help for me. I used to love watching Emmeline Ragot back when she was racing because she was so small and so fast and had to pick really clean lines and ride with a lot of finesse. And she could sometimes beat Rachel riding that way.
That said, the men’s racing has been great, atmo. Pierron is a bad motherfucker and Loris Vergier has such a hyperactive style that’s crazy to watch. It’s been a bummer that Gwin and Minnaar have been out with injuries, since it would be fun to see them go up against the young guys. Minnaar was the only rider to hit that huge huck in the rock garden during the race run.
I feel like next year might be another 2014, where there were young riders hitting their stride and established riders uninjured finding their form and like 5 men won world cups or something like that.
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I thought Minnar was gonna take it. Dude is like a giant sized bat out of fucking hell after being out all season. I bet Gwin returns on a 29er and starts wrecking shop. Pierron is fun to watch at the moment and I’m happy for all the frenchies. They are all just hugging and kissing at the podium and it’s hilarious. Bruni deserved and needed this win but has to get off what must be the slowest DH bike of all time.
This so hard. Like, I bet Specialized pays more than anybody but Trek, but shit. Why can’t they just do what their race team wants? Pretty much everybody seems to do worse while they are on Demos.
Like Gwin’s first season on Spec when they spent half the year fucking around with custom linkages, moving up to larger and larger frame sizes, custom rear end and just never getting what he needed. He basically threw away a season on that bike. They eventually built a whole new Demo that worked for him in 2015, but even then, I still think about the comment that got caught on camera after that chainless run in Leogang where he told Troy Brosnan that the suspension worked way better without the chain.
Then he goes to YT and wins immediately on a totally stock bike.
Would be awesome to see Loic go to Mondraker or Commencal or Santa Cruz and see what he could do on the bikes that win races. Or to see Specialized just make a bike that their race team wants to race and not just make them ride a super sick park bike a size or two too large.
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It was so apparent that this was not a coincidence.
I have learned more about my riding by riding with the ladies that race around here than the men. They always seem to actually help me when I say hey, I notice you are bombing all this track, mind if I catch your lines? The dudes are just like sure seeya.
This thread needs more vids of whatever you guys are talking about. New forum auto inserts them if you put links to youtube/vimeo on their own line.
Damn, Red Bull player doesn’t embed. But Rachel’s run is around 35:45. My favorite of the day.
Went to bike park with sup. Xprezo was so fantastic today after fiddling with some dials. Ate it hard on the jump trail (probs because I can’t jump). Hy no broken bones or concussions despite totally endo-ing a landing. Right side is scraped up to shit tho.
Get me into some elbow pads, them gform jawns good?
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I wouldn’t buy them again. Materials surrounding side and back not durable enough for wrecks. Tore mine day 1 in Moab.
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If you don’t use ice, one thing to keep your eye on is that you have to continuously keep tightening as you drink the water. I keep chugging along, drinking water up the climb, then the first drop I hit, the pack falls halfway down my butt from the impact cuz it’s too loose after drinking the water…
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I am not great a jumping, but get at me if you ever need someone to practice with, as i hang out on at the bike park enough to feel like i can critique form better than my actual form. Finally transferring my abilities over to hitting stuff at speed at winter park and everything is so much more fun when you feel like you know what to do going in…
I have the dakine slayer elbow pads. I don’t know if i’d recommend them for trail use, but they do the trick and aren’t uncomfortable. They are just burly enough. I’ve crashed in them 3 times at this point and elbows came out pretty solid, including a couple crashes where i would have been somewhat torn up otherwise.