This year was not the typical Burner
Gina had to be up pretty early for the Humane Society adopt-a-thon so I got an early start on Black Friday but for completely different reasons than all those other tools. I took the scenic Sanbornton route to avoid Tilton and got on my way down to Auburn, with a short detour through Heaven...
don't go towards the light!
Lots of the usual suspects in play: Bully, Carl, Alby, Andy Gould (our local/guide), Marty Allen and a few other young guns went out for our own little loop courtesy of some of Andy's local knowledge. Great stuff and much better than the double track cruise along the lake. Not that that cruise is bad but shredding a bit more singletrack at a good pace is always nice especially when unexpected.
I had made some slight tweaks to the Y since the maiden voyage at FFD last weekend. Different 175mm cranks made a HUGE difference. I would have been dead meat on some of the stuff we were on today with the 180's. I also changed up how the tension is applied and it works awesome and the chain felt smooth and didn't drop once. It was also nice to ride the bike at a good pace with good riders to see how it holds up under 'real' riding conditions and I am happy to report that the Y is the real deal. Probably to the point that I will indeed be dumping some additional funds into this thing at some point and it will probably be around for a bit longer than originally planned.
It is just plain fun to ride, a great addition to the stable. Very pleased. And you can't beat the looks in the parking lot.
Still getting used to the small hoops. Rode up to a stream crossing today and just went to own it and my front wheel got eaten for breakfast and I went down pretty efficiently and got my left foot completely soaked with freezing cold Nov stream water. I was worried that my day was quickly coming to an end and that my foot had maybe 30mins before turning into a solid block of ice. Good thing about riding with a group of mostly Elite riders is the constant pace and the resulting heat output.
I had to bail before hitting a bunch more of the classic FOMBA singletrack to head north and buy a new generator and get that squared away but it was a stellar day and a great way to start winding the riding season down. Skiing tomorrow!
Sounds like fun. Too much snow here. We had about a foot earlier in the week and still 6" on the ground today. Riding might be done until April up here. Rides like that make me wish we were closer to southern New England at times. Still waiting to see what the weather is like for the Cold Crank.
ReplyDeletesounds like the Y is gonna get the job done....diggin' the bear gut pic
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