When I took my bike into the fine folks at Revolution a few months ago they clued me into the faultiness of my shock. It doesn't rebound properly. I knew it was kind of stiff, but didn't realize that it was nearly like riding a rigid fork. The shock I had been riding previous to this one was 10 years old, so I didn't have much to compare it to. Then Lucy & I pre-rode the Canyons we swapped bikes for a few minutes. I was amazed at how smooth her full suspension, carbon, Santa-Cruz rode. She couldn't WAIT to get off of my bike, it was SO bouncy & uncomfortable. "It's the poor carpenter who blames his tools." I can't blame my bike for my slow descents this year, but I'd like to think it would have helped to have a functioning shock. I didn't dare take the time to send it in for warranty work when my races were so close together, but I finally did last week after the Full-throttle race. It's supposed to be back this week sometime.
In the mean time I called my friend Julian at White Pine and he hooked me up with a full suspension Cannondale demo bike. Friends, it was heaven. I had no idea what I had been missing. I could hardly feel any bumps at all. I didn't have to flex every muscle in my body for every bump. Oh man, I had a love affair with that bike and I may be ruined. I want a full suspension bike so stinkin' bad. Just for training, I'd still race a hard tail.
Carl & I set out to ride some more of the P2P course. We ran into Lance & Doug of Revolution who were also looking to link up some of the course. Carl & Doug spent a lot of time looking at the map & phone to figure out the correct turns. That meant we didn't pedal as much as planned, but we were happy to know the course.
