Thursday night had me heading out to Matson Hill with my roomie. He had never been to Matson or Klondike, so I knew this would be a good time. All he had was the SS with a 20 tooth. We took off up the gravel hill, and started in on the singletrack. This was only the third time I have ridden there, but the first time it was fully dry. Very fast to say the least. When you dont have to worry about the front wheel washing out, that trail is awesome. The middle section is still very tough. Those short climbs really spike the HR, and put me in the pain box. We only did one lap at Matson. I thought I would be up fro more, but wasnt. We bombed the gravel down hill with the ass cheeks fully clinched. We set sail for Klondike, and gave those trails our best shot. We returned to the car with little daylight left.
The new bike really handled well, and I was excited to see how it does in the technical stuff. I was pretty impressed. The 29 makes you feel higher up, and a little more prone to tipping over in the low speed, extreamly technical stuff, but that is offset by the boost of confidence that you get in the highspeed flow sections. I have been asked about, or told that the back end of the of the dos niner is flexy. I cannot really pick this apart yet. I am still new to the tubless set up, so I dont know if the flat tire feeling is coming from that or the frame flex. once again this is mostly in the low speed areas, and when accelerating from a full stop. Overall, I am still in love with this bike, and am happy about the new addition.
After our session, we made a bee line to EL MAGU in the valley. We shut the place down after our 2 pitches of beer and burritos.

Saturday, I was in Bolivar, near springfield, and gunning for some singletrack at the Sac river trail. THis trail network is about 10 miles of rocky, tasty singletrack. The prospect of rain on Friday had me thinking twice about taking the new bike, so I loaded up the SS. I think it rained about 2 1/2 inches on the way down there, so that idea was done before it started. Instead, I opted for a 2 hr ride on the highline trail, a converted railroad bed. THis was an awesome ride, that had me going through some great country. The isolation was also nice. I only passed two other people. Here is the map.



I only had a 20 tooth on the bike, with a 32 up front, so the spinning was pretty furious. I went down the trail for an hour, and made it back in 55 flat. The rest of the day consisted of sitting in the pool and drinking keg beer. NICE!!