New transport

So I had lined up a demo for the new Giant Anthem SX, last I wrote about bikes. But with a move to the hills (which, bar for the Sampson Flat bushfire scare, has been awesome), it’s been about buying a car rather than buying a bike.

However, I did still get to demo the Giant. Here is their own gubbins about it all. And here come my thoughts…

On the highly accurate (!) bathroom scales, in comparison to my 08 Meta 4, I was surprised to find the weight was very close, practically the same. I had hoped to drop noticeable weight, as this is one of the things with the Meta 4, being from ’08 and a company that focuses more on aggressive gravity type riding than nimble XC stuff, it is “sturdy”. Also in fairness though, the Giant had pedals, bottle cage, a (crap!) dropper post, lock-on grips, uncut steerer, some other chunky looking stock finishing kit, compared to the Meta. And it had the bigger, stock wheels…

  

Now, on paper, this relaxed version of a reportedly very good and highly popular race bike was a good choice for me. I ride more XC than DH. But without a need for the super racey geometry, the extra get-out-of-gaol travel up front helps to compensate for mistakes, allows to hold some pace when tired and getting a bit ragged. But a few things were also under the microscope as a bit more “enduro-lite” than I need; the dropper being the obvious one.

I’ll be straight up; I felt the dropper was a waste of time. Maybe I need to ride with one more, but I couldn’t get on with it. Needing to play about with it, when looking to get weight shifted etc heading into a TTF or corner, it was just a distraction. On a race trail where you know what was coming and can anticipate the need to drop, it makes (theoretical) sense to me. Riding blind, not so much. And it can’t be light. And it’s another thing on the bars, too, which if you add a Garmin, lights, potentially a bar bag… it gets very busy.

It was lovely having the 10 speed cassette out back and the crisp shifting of a new transmission. None of that missed a beat. SLX brakes just worked. I’d swap for my XTs, simply because I can, but they worked fine and wouldn’t be a deal breaker, for sure. Suspension soaked everything up as expected. Combined with thru-axles, tapered headtube, wide bars and short stem, when pointed downhill, it just rolled over everything, wonderfully. I hadn’t notice how much the Meta gets knocked off course in the lumpy stuff until riding this stiffer front end.

But… getting up there was work. I can only put this down to the wheelset. A quick search online shows that the Giant wheelsets aren’t lightest. And man, did it show. I expected that the slight wheel size increase over the Meta would be offset by the lower gearing and make climbing not overly different, given overall weight was similar. Bike fit with the 650b was super comfortable, not high or tottering like I have felt on some 29ers, so I really can only put it down to the wheels. It was sluggish.

The bike is close to what I want, overall. It’ll be easy to quickly swap saddles, seat posts, grips etc and lose some weight and gain some personal comfort. But good wheels are not cheap. Being 650b, there is not much chance of finding decent 2nd hand set, yet. Nor were these leaden feeling hoops worth keeping for a spare set or cobble together build. Which adds a sizeable chunk of money to the total cost. If you are more into the aggro, gravity, enduro-lite type stuff, they wouldn’t be a deal breaker. And the dropper may be to your style and liking. But I’d rather have a straight post, but lighter wheels.

But for me the search goes on a while… a 2nd hand Scott Spark is on the horizon for a bit of a dabble on. Again, not perfect, but price plays its role and makes it look more viable, should tweaks be needed. Soon find out!

New(ish) Year, some new goals.

So a few year specific things.

– Complete at least one Strava Challenge per month. This should give me a bit of focus and motivation on those days that it’s needed. The introduction of monthly climbing challenges is a good call from my point of view and likely to be something I look to do each month. Managed to bag January on the last day. Feb is going to be hard as we’ve just had a crazy hot weekend which stopped riding. Might have to go for the 100Km Fondo badge to stay on track.

– Ride more than 100km more than once this year. I ride plenty of 50km+ rides throughout the year. I ride a fair number of 80km+ rides. But just the one ride over 100km was a bit of a poor show. I’d like to say 6 for the year, as that seems realistic with family commitments and the like, but not set in stone. At least 3, spread over the year would be good though.

– Average ride distance. Given that a total number of Km is a tricky goal with no commuting this year, I want to try and keep my average ride distance up. Again, being realistic with the fact that I get only one day a week to ride on average, I’m going to go for 60km/ride. I’m currently sitting just under that (59.167), so it seems achievable.

– Average ride elevation. Same as distance really. I have been riding with a loose idea that if I can, over 1000m is a good goal (when not a commute or down to the shop etc). I’m upping this to 1200m. Currently doing well, sitting at 1274.

In relation to the original goals, now that I’ve got the house move done etc, I’m going to start checking out some of the Super Dirtonneur route, with an eye towards that. Similarly, some of the stuff from home to the Mother-in-Law’s over at Warooka.

And I need to get bikes sorted… more on that soon!

move…

older stuff here…