Dammit’s adventures in mountain biking

I’m at Swinley

I may head over later for an afternoon.

I am jealous

Scalpel 2.4 km/h faster than Hightower around Swinley blue, and actually a lot more fun

Some of that is going to be that XTR is much better than the sram on the Hightower, and that the Scalpels brakes don’t squeak permanently

Although the Hightower’s saddle was too low, making pedalling annoying.

Get an e-mtb

You need a bunch of power meters to do a proper test

Same tyre and pressure?

I think Hightower wins when gravity is the primary motivating force.

Curious to know how the Hightower would fare on the steep technical climbs you were hating on the Scalpel.

when gravity is the primary motivating force

So Hightower = more biscuits?

Might have to get one myself

I also notice the Hightower had Minions on it. I found them painfully draggy

Very well, although rotating the bars forward on the Scalpel largely solved its wheelie issue.

Going to have to give this to the Scalpel.

Short travel bikes are better at 90% of Swinley

I think Neil should test the Klein there next

All the red route downhill stuff was shut today, which didn’t help the Hightower’s case

What's next? Yeti? Evil? Geometron...

Genius

Swinley was alright. A bit muddy in places and rocky everywhere else. Wrong tyre pressure, fork too hard but fun anyway.
The red stuff being closed was a bit lame. Just meant a lot of fire road pedalling.

The type of riding I mainly do is, I think, what the Scalpel is good at. Now that I've fixed the uncontrolled wheelie thing, it doesn't have a (big) flaw that drives a replacement.

The Hightower is good for bumpier terrain which mainly slopes downward.

However, that does mean that it would spend 99.9% of it's life hung up in the garage.

Based on this weekend, I'm going to hire a bike when going to Morzine or BPW, and stick with the Scalpel as my MTB.

That horrible feeling when you know you don’t need another bike

No Christmas presents for the Cruz children this year

I PR'd the Helter-Skelter descent segment on the Scalpel, despite riding it twice on the Hightower to once on the Scalpel.