Mt. Bike Now

Nope, not the Force and no Darth Vader is not my father. It's a review about riding the Giant TCR Advanced 0 road bike. I was fortunate enough to be handed a big cardboard box with the shiny new bike in it a little over a month ago. I was excited to be able to finally be on a Giant road bike and even more so one with the new Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset. Setting up the bike was a snap. I watched a youtube video, read through the brief instructions and had the whole thing up and going in about 40 minutes. The automatic indexing of the Di2 made the job so simple even I could do it.
Anyway, I get the thing out on the road and take it for a spin. The first thing I noticed was how well it shifts under load. My chosen loop for the day was Winn Road and it has a couple of pinchy little climbs after long descents. You hit the paddle and it just does what it's supposed to. You can be cranking it up a hill and need to drop a gear or two and away you go. Punch it, bang, there's the gear. Very snappy.
Any comment I make about geometry probably won't mean that much. I am not an experienced road racer and really only a masher at best. The bike feels very comfortable on the 70km rides I have done so far and I really like the way it climbs. The acceleration when you stomp the pedals seems good with the power core bottom bracket nice and stiff and the massive down tube allowing you to grab the bars hard and give them a good wrench for leverage.
In an interesting move Giant is using an in house wheel system and tyres. Again any comment I could make on this is probably not really all that informed except that the wheels feel stiff and responsive and the tyres roll quite nicely. My only negative comment in fact is levelled at the tyres. We have had a lot of rain here lately and they are  quite slippery with moisture on the road. The wheels are branded all over with Giant but the literature that is cable tied to the the skewers is DT Swiss. Read into that what you like.
All in all the bike is a really tidy looking unit with the internal cable routing and the reduced amount of control cables from the cockpit. The battery for the Di2 sits under the non drive side chainstay and there is even the neat "Ride Sense" unit built into the chainstay too. Ride Sense is an ANT+ sensor unit that talks to any device that is enable with the technology. In my case it is my Garmin 705 and it sends cadence and speed data to the GPS unit. Very neat.
I have to give a big shout out to Matt and Brent from Giant for hooking me up with the Advanced 0. I'm a very lucky chap. I can't say my foray into the darkside is complete because I still love my mountain bike. Riding around on the TCR Advanced 0 has certainly made the choice of what bike I will ride as a matter of choice much more difficult now though.

Well once again I slacked on posting…..and now August is over.  Can’t believe how fast the summer has gone, but it seems to be a recurring theme…..need time to slow down.  Yet it has been another amazing year of riding so far in 2011 (just went over 3,000 miles for the year).

 

August had it’s highs and low’s….mostly high’s as we were riding.  For now just some highlights with more detailed posts to come later (I will blog!!!).

 

With the warm summer (August was the hottest on record) I started doing some early morning rides around Golden which has been really nice getting home around noon and putting in 4 to 5 hours on the bike with few people out and nice early morning sun….

 

 

Early morning sun on the way to Chimney Gulch….

 

Some of the locals on the way over to Apex

 

 

In other news I upgraded my rear triangle on the Yeti to the carbon one that is supposed to be on this bike.  A couple years ago I cracked the frame of my 2006 Yeti 575 and Yeti replaced the frame but not the rear triangle.  Yeti is a great company and gave me a crash replacement price to upgrade to the new triangle.

 

 

We also took our anual trip to Crested Butte which was wonderful until Sarah rolled an ankle while hiking and broke a bone in her foot.  Just a couple CB pictures will post again with a full report….

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we were lucky to have a stage of the USA Pro Challenge in Golden….this was so much fun and really cool we could just walk into town and see the event.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally made it up to the high country for a couple rides last weekend; with the large winter the mountains had and the really wet July we have been having on the Front Range high country riding has been limited.

 

Saturday went up the Winter Park/Fraser to explore some of the “local” trails I have noticed over the past two summers.  The pace was slow with the navigation and adventuring of these trails, but what I have realized is there is a legit underground trail system up there.  Just so much to ride here in Colorado….over 6 years and thousands of miles and I am still riding new to me trail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday we headed up to Kenosha Pass off of highway 285 up near South Park; however, most people ride the west side up to Georgia Pass….we went East instead and saw no other bikers all day and very few people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plan was to keep some regular posts going from our Moab trip, but work has been really busy and with training for the Bailey 100 I really haven’t had much time.  Good news is the Bailey 100 went really well for me this year; I finished in 10:41 which was about a hour and a half faster than last year.

 

A new series (give me a chance to go through the 900 photos) dedicated to our annual long trip to Moab (yes I am a little behind due to work and riding).  This year we were once again there for 12 days of wondering around the desert.  Plenty of good weather, some wet weather, hiking, biking, and wondering everyday…..

 

Just a little teaser for now…..

 

 

 

 

 

Pictures from the weekend….

 

 

 

Made it up to Buffalo Creek yesterday crazy wind…so cut the ride a little short of what I wanted.  Ended up doing the same ride I did a couple weeks ago, felt stronger this time around, but have a ways to go to be ready for the Bailey 100.

 

Today the plan was a long road ride, but once again the wind was really bad…so did a Golden/Morrison tour with Red Rocks mixed in.  If you have never been, amazing concert venue and there are some really nice trails around the park as well.  If you are coming to Colorado to ride, well worth it to take a day or two in Golden and check out the riding here.  Todays ride….

 

 

All in all not a bad week…finished with 115 miles and 12,365 feet of climbing.  Starting to get excited about our Moab trip which is only a couple weeks out now…..Slickrock is on the mind.

If I can scrape together the money in the next few months, I will have some new mountain bike wheels. Just got an email from Industry Nine accepting me into their grassroots program! This is pretty cool, I applied last year and didn't hear a thing and figured the same would happen this year. Probably going with the XC 29er version which are their straight pull hubs laced to Stan's Arch rims. I'm sure I am light enough to go with the 355 or Crest rim but I have dented enough rims from running low pressure to err on the more durable side. Oh yeah, I still ride bikes in addition to geeking out over parts I don't own. After being knocked out with the common cold for close to 2 weeks I did my first hard ride in the same amount of time this Sunday. Went with the gang from around here that will be headed to Southern Cross to get in some gravel miles. My legs are getting back some snap and my sinuses no longer feel like they are ready to explode. Amazing what some rest will do when it is really needed.

Here are the photos… unfortunately, the trails are soaked here, so I just rode it through the Shelby Farms dog park and on the surrounding gravel/pavement. Once I have a rear brake and opportunities to really ride, the brake lines and steertube will get trimmed up:

This will not happen often that I have something of substance to write about two days in a row. Truthfully, this is two weeks worth of stuff in two days...race season is over, not much to say. With that said, thanks to Richard (Dick?) Clark of Backcountry Research for sending me some 2011 stuff to uh, do some research with. After a double blind study I have concluded that one of these velcro thingies full of Awesome will indeed keep a tube attached to any round device on or near a bike. This is the Zone, which seems to be a gussied up version of the Vital. I used the old model last year and it worked great but this seeems even better. It will probably end up on the seatpost but I can't stare at it worried it will fall if it is behind me. To the right of the stem is an Epic Ride Research Mountain Feedbag. These things are badass for carrying any sort of food or map but I have managed to wear a hole in mine by keeping loose tools and whatnot in there. I have heard of people using chalk bags that climbers use on their bars for food but never dog accessories. We were at Superpetz or one of those deals last week and they have some sort of bag to carry something a dog would never need for about 7 dollars. Looks like it could replace the Feedbag eventually. Maybe Petco will sponsor me.... I am going to give the Wald cruiser bars a fighting chance before pulling them off to put on wide, flat bars like the rest of my bikes have. They have maybe a 25 degree backsweep and a couple inches of drop. They felt fine riding the trainer tonight, but who knows what will happen when I have to ohhhhhh, you know, turn and stop. Minor things. Here is the current bike setup in the living room. Hell of a lot better than leaning them in one big pile and hoping they don't fall when a dog gets close. Left to right: Inbred cross bike: 32/15 with skinny Bontrager TLR tires Trek 510: 40/14 fixed with stuff laying around. Oh, and XTR pedals worth more than the bike Scandal: Winter mode waiting for the Reba to be Rebuilt. Great bike in any form. Way better than the two Niners or countless other SS bikes I have owned over the years, mostly due to not having an EBB to dick around with. Pic dump over, time to go train for this cross race. I rode earlier and will walk the dogs up soon later. Pretty much the same as intervals and run ups. i think.