# Burlington/Nassahegon  05.05.2012



## WoodCore (May 5, 2012)

The Cinco De Mayo ride and Scott Bikes 29er demo day put on by our friends at Suburban Sports was fantastic! The weather sucked, very foggy, raw and damp but the trails rode fine and it was great to see everyone rolling the big wheels! 

Rode over 12.5 miles, climbed 1700 feet and christened 1.75 mile of new trail!

Here's our route:

Plateau Trail>Dipper>Connector>Half Pipe>Easy Out>B52>Ursus Reversus>Bridges>Boneyard Extension>NW Passage>Dirt Jumps>Stone Road>Wasteland>Kitchen Bypass>Surveyors>FKC>Miller Road>Miller Time**

Plateau Trail>Jekyll & Hyde>Easy Out> Plan B1>Plan B2> Blue Trail>Cole Cut>Llama Farm>Hatchery Ponds Trail>Blue Trail>Rogues>GW

Tired and hungry but ready to go do it again tomorrow!!


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## skidmarks (May 5, 2012)

*Great Day Great Trails*

Fun time hooking up with you guys today! Super Single Track Trails perfect for testing out the 29ers. I liked the Scott Scale 29er carbon hardtail the best. As Arnold said "I'll be back"


Hungry?? How can you be hungry...


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## skidmarks (May 5, 2012)

*Vibert 29er Testing*


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## Nick (May 5, 2012)

Looks interesting ... I'm overdue for a new bike. 29'ers have me a lil' nervous


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## MR. evil (May 5, 2012)

Nick said:


> 29ers have me a lil' nervous



Why?


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## o3jeff (May 5, 2012)

Thanks for getting Scott there and putting it together. Not 100% sold on them yet, will have to demo them again when they come back.

And great job on all the new trails WC.


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## bvibert (May 5, 2012)

Nick said:


> Looks interesting ... I'm overdue for a new bike. 29'ers have me a lil' nervous



 Nothing to be nervous about, try one out. Honestly didn't seem all that much different from my 26er.


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## bvibert (May 5, 2012)

bvibert said:


> Nothing to be nervous about, try one out. Honestly didn't seem all that much different from my 26er.



Of course having that damn big ring made me nervous around rocks, so I didn't ride it as hard as my bike.


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## bvibert (May 7, 2012)

It was a great ride.  Thanks to skidmarks and woodcore for getting this setup!  If nothing else it was great riding someone else's bike, so I didn't have to worry about cleaning mine when I got home... :lol:

Aside from slick rocks and roots the trails were rolling great, no mud or puddles that I can recall.

I tried out a 29er FS and a HT.  The FS (a Scott Spark 29 Elite) was okay, but not awe inspiring.  It climbed well and rolled nicely, but it also had skinnier tires with smaller knobs than what I normally ride, the rims were narrower too.  Not exactly an apples to apples comparison.  The bike may not have convinced me to go 29er, but I may try some tires with lower rolling resistance as a result.  They seemed to have plenty of traction.  The suspension design worked well, I didn't notice any excessive pedal bob, and the shock air pressure was set low enough for me to use up all of the travel on relatively mellow terrain.  The bike had a nifty suspension lockout switch on the lever that locked out both the front and rear simultaneously.  I didn't use it once.

I think I had more fun on the HT (a Scott Scale 29 Elite).  It was setup similarly to the Spark, just no rear suspension.  What I liked most is what's good about HTs in general; awesome transmission of power to the rear.  Most of the terrain at Nass can be handled pretty easily with a HT, particularly on the short loop that we took.  Surely the 29er wheels helped smooth things out a bit as well.

Both bikes were spec'd well.  I really enjoyed the SLX 10 speed shifters, they had a much more definitive click when going up to a bigger cog or ring than my older XT 9 speed shifters.  I wasn't a big fan of the brakes on the Scale though (Elixir 3).  I don't know if they needed to be bled, or just weren't setup correctly, but the levers came way to close to the bars before the brakes were useful for my tastes.  I generally like to one finger brake with my middle finger, leaving my pointer on the bar for stability and to perform shifting duties if needed.  I couldn't do that with this setup as my pointer finger kept getting squeezed by the brake lever.  The Elixer 5S brakes on the Spark worked just fine though.


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