Rigid Retardation

Andrew bugged me last night about not posting in a while, so I figured I'd catch up a little with the blog.

The last two Tuesday nights I've been out riding Blackstar with the usual suspects. I've been forced to ride my singlespeed since my normal bike has a broken suspension link. Even better is that stupid Specialized sent the wrong part to the bike shop, so my time on my other bikes has to be extended.

I'm going to be really honest and say that I've become very tired of riding rigid. It used to be really fun to ride rigid on Blackstar, but that was before the rain and the ruts that come with the rain.

In the last 3-4 months I've crashed _THREE TIMES_ on Blackstar in the last 2 miles of the descent coming back from Beek's. I'm sick of it.

The ruts on Blackstar are wide and I'm not good at bunny hopping. Everyone tells me to just jump over them, but it's not easy jumping with a rigid bike. You get no spring at all when you push down and the landing always hurts.

Add to the problem the fact that the singlespeed has the worst brakes I've ever used on any bike ever and, and, and ... well at this point I'm just making excuses.

Ok enough excuses. I suck on descending Blackstar on my rigid bike. There are lots of reasons, but the fact is I just plain suck. I can climb just fine on it, but the trip down is problematic.

Here is a picture Slater took of me the other night after I ate it:



He posted it on his blog: Trail Time

I need to practice my bike handling skills and I need to fix the brakes on the singlespeed. I'm planning on putting on my old manual disc brakes that I had on my Specialized. The singlespeed has everything I need already to mount the brakes. The hubs are ready and the frame has the mounting places for them, so it's just a matter of making the time to put them on. I'm planning on doing some bike work this weekend if it rains.