Finally got some

Mountain biking, that is. With my usual Thursday off, and finally some dry weather, I loaded up the new fancy bike and drove up to Seven Oaks near Boone to check out the course for the upcoming 3/6 hour race, that I won't get be a part of due to work. I did however need to try out my new mountain bike and get in my second off road ride of the calendar year. That's how wet the weather's been and how busy we've been at the shop. Brutal. The course itself was a bit damp, a bit slick in corners and on most climbs but it should dry a bit and be in really really good shape on Saturday. If you've ridden here, you know how steep everything is and how mind stabbingly hot it can get in the woods with no wind, a billion percent humidity, and an air temp around 9oF, this made the ride a bit tougher than I would have liked, but whatever, I was finally riding in the woods period. The ride itself went pretty well, but a) i know what I'm doing and b) riding on ice and snow all winter kept my skills in decent shape. But enough about me and my lies about my skills...on to what you really care about, how the bike worked.

New bike for this year (full disclosure: I paid nothing for this bike, and I'll make nothing when it is sold this fall, it is a demo bike, one of the best perks of being a bike shop employee) is a 2010 Jamis Dakota D29 Team. I have been sold on 29ers since I first rode one. Being 6'4, the big wheels make it feel like I thought a bike should feel. I guess all you shorter folks have been riding bikes that feel "right" since day one. Jerks. This would be my first ever ride aboard a carbon mountain bike, and I was quite curious to see how it would go.

Aww, all nice and clean and new.
Not so much.

So, first of all this bike is stiff, fast, light, etc etc, everything you'd expect from a carbon fiber wunderbike. Overall the ride quality was better than my Salsa El Mariachi, much stiffer, and pretty much as comfortable. I say pretty much because the Jamis has a Fox fork on it, but terrible grips, and the Salsa has a rigid steel fork, but Ergons. Once I switch to Ergons on the Jamis and spend a bit more time getting my position dialed, it will definitely be one of the more comfortable bikes I've ever been on. The Elixir brakes were awesome, strong, responsive, good modulation, couldn't be happier with them. The SRAM XO drive train also worked great, but that's no surprise. The tires were 100% wrong for greasy, slippery, barely muddy singletrack. I've read they're awesome in the hardpack, and I'd believe it, but for general use I'd recommend something with a bit more knob and maybe a bit larger volume. 2.0 is not big enough nor are the knobs on these Geax Barro Race tires. Probably swap on some 2.2 WTB or Specialized tires. I was running these with tubes at about 32 psi, only because I didn't have time to switch valve stems and set them up tubeless. It should be a snap with the Mavic rims being very tubeless friendly and the Geax tires being reportedly super easy to get sealed up. Aside from the tires my only complaint that's not easily remedied (those silly thin, foam Ritchie grips have got to go) is the crankset and frame clearance. Just reading that probably made some of you cringe, knowing what you know about carbon and spinning metal bits. Read on, but be warned, there are semi-graphic images below. Long story short, I had some wicked chain suck. Like, gently grinding up a hill in my lowest or second lowest gear and *clunk* i can no longer pedal, that bad of chain suck. It happened 4 or 5 times, and as you can tell from the photo below, it did a bit of damage.

Ouch.

Seriously, everything is so tight in there, there's no margin of error should anything go the slightest bit wrong, which I don't know if Jamis knows this, but that tends to happen sometimes when mountain biking. One more thing I don't fully understand about this bike; it's pretty high end, very race oriented, but they run a 2x9 set up rather than a 2x10, and spec an FSA crankset when the could have probably bumped the price very slightly and gone with SRAM XX. I'm not sure that would have fixed this issue, but if not, how about a bit more clearance down there for things? Check out the chainstay/front derailleur area. Just about no clearance. I'm pretty sure i couldn't fit a business card in there. I'm 100% sure I couldn't fit two business cards under the derailleur.

Overall I'm pleased as punch with how this bike rides, I need to make some minor fit adjustments, and tune the drive train back in(it got a little worse as the ride went on, damn cable stretch), and try to figure out how to stop such massive chain suck. I can't wait to ride it again, I'm actually a little upset I can't go hurt myself at the 6 hour race tomorrow.

One more quick thing before I go, since I can't post without talking about beer and/or booze, I have to share this. I went to a bar in Ames last night and was annoyed that they were no longer serving Goose Island's Matilda, but replaced it with Sofie. Sofie is very good. Different flavors than Matilda but in the same vein, and very very solid. Yay beer!