A Day of Firsts

Yesterday was a day of firsts, First singletrack ride of the year, First ride on the El Mariachi, and First Bonk of the season.

We will start with the ride. Brandon and I headed down to Mohican State Park yesterday morning thinking the worst. We have had a ton of rain and snow over the past month, but Mohican is just sandy enough that it doesn't hold much moisture and dries out pretty quickly. Still, we have had a lot of rain and snow, we had decided we still needed to ride off road, despite what the trail conditions were,  Brandon's first race is in a month and I had been staring at a freshly built bike. Much to our surprise, other than being a little soft, the 25 mile loop was in fantastic shape, sure there were a few muddy spots, some erosion from the rain and snow melt, and downed trees. I will say that I was in no shape to take on the 25 miles on my single speed, but I did suffer through it, and survive. Barely! At mile 13 I began to wear down, because 1. I was pushing a slightly tall gear for me this early in the season, and 2. I was trying to keep up with Brandon who is 11 years younger than me! Regardless of my bonking, It was nice to spend the day in the woods.

Brandon and his Raleigh Hodala Single Speed

One of the best sections of trail

Another first was the ride on my new Salsa El Mariachi. Any one who has known me for the past few years, knows that I am a huge Surly Bikes disciple, and I have ridden and raced my 2005 Surly Karate Monkey for the past 5 seasons. So, the Salsa had a lot to live up to, and it did not disappoint. I built the Salsa up with a mixture of new and old parts, mostly new. One of the parts I am running on this bike that I haven't ran in the past is a White Brother's Rock Solid rigid carbon fork, and so far I'm pretty happy with it. It seems to move around a bit on washboard type stuff, and on bigger bumps, I just don't look at it. It is very stiff, but also very light. I am also running Hope hubs, this is the first time I haven't run White Industries' freewheels,but I haven't noticed any performance differences good or bad yet. I'm not running tubeless because I already had a pretty new pair of Velocity Blunt rims that I had polished to match my White Industries cranks. The brakes are Avid BB7's with Avid  Speed Dial 7 levers which I've used on many bikes since 2002.

Glamour Shot

Post Ride, not too muddy for March in Ohio

As for the ride, the first thing I noticed was the stiffness. I think the two major contributors are the existence of a chainstay bridge which the Karate Monkey doesn't have, and the new Kung Fu tubing. I had only ridden the previous generation El Mariachi in a parking lot , so I can't really compare the two. Compared to the Surly, the Salsa rear end feels a little stiffer. With the carbon fork the bike is definitely lighter, it weighs in at 23.60lbs, which is not featherweight, but neither am I so, it's light enough. When I was decided on this frame, I knew I needed a longer top tube than was on my Karate Monkey which is an 18" frame with a 23.5" top tube. With the Salsa I went with the 20" frame with a 24.5" top tube which stretched me out nicely, and the stand over ended up only changing by a .25 inches. The fit on the Salsa seems to be perfect. Though blue is not my favorite color, it was nice to look down and see the bright blue paint job in stead of black, brown or army green which all of my most recent bikes have been. So, in conclusion of the first ride report, the El Mariachi was a good fit, and a worthy replacement for my beloved Karate Monkey. Hopefully I can get some more time on the Salsa, and hopefully my fitness level goes up, because right now, I can't imagine riding the Mohican 100.

Salsa chainstay bridge

Lack of chainstay bridge on Surly Karate Monkey