So I got my brand spanking new UZZI out for a shakedown ride recently. The orginal plan was hit up Iron Mountain and Ellie Lane but with early moring rain, the plan shifted to Anderson Truck Trail in Alpine.
The boys at BikeBling did a mighty fine job with the mechanicals as it was shifting flawless right of of the gate and even under tension. (A feat which I often miss the mark on a bit requiring lots of trailside tinkering on the first ride) I was bit leary about going to the 10 speed drivetrain as I like the idea of having only one drive train type to worry about (9 speed). Between mine and the kid’s bike it good to have some commonality on the logistics side of the house. Well it did not take long into the climb to notice the marvels of the 36-tooth cog in the back. I’m sold on it already and I did not even have to try out the 22-36 granny ring setup yet.
My last two longer legged bikes had Fox 36 TALAS (160) airsrung forks up front and I really liked being able to adjust the travel down to make long or steep climbs easier to deal with. This bike has the Fox 36 Vanilla (180) coil sprung fork without the travel adjustment. It will take a bit of getting used on some of the climbing bits with this longer slacker frontend as a bit more body positioning is going to be required a steeper bits. It was so freaking nice to have a VPP suspended bike back under the saddle. This bike climbed exceptionally well for it weight without any of the dreaded energy sapping “bob”.
When it was time to turn the bike down the hill that was when this bike really came alive. The bike is so stinking plush and it only took a few rock rolls and drops to get sold on the coil fork.
I stuck to only the small air bits while getting acquintted with how this bike handles. This bike is pretty confidence inspiring so I got a feeling I’m going to get myself into trouble with this rig at some point. It’s gonna be great!
The trail overall was in about as good as shape as it ever gets so it was an absolutely great day to be out testing a new bike.
My the time it was time to head back down the main run, I had a pretty good opening day feel for the bike and I had one heck of fun descent back down the hill. There was some hooping and hollering on the way down. A mighty fine shakedown run with the new rig.