The Ride
You sit up tall compared to a 26″ mountain bike and the front wheel seems to stick out impossibly far past the handlebars. Riding a 29′er is like driving a tonka truck when you’ve been used to matchbox cars, the big wheels just bounce and skip over small bumps which a 26″ wheeled bike would get held up on. Some people say that a 29′er compared to 26″ is like having 1″ of rear suspension and while I don’t 100% agree with that, I definitely believe the bigger wheels smooth the trail more.

Occasionally on rougher trails I do wish I’d spent the extra money and gotten a 29′er with short travel rear suspension, but for the most part a hard tail is fine. On the flip side, I’m positively ecstatic I got a hard tail when standing and stomping pedals to get up small pinch climbs. The combination of big wheels and supple steel frame does well to take the edges off the small bumps, so it’s the larger ones you’ve got to watch out for.

Wheels and Tyres
A month or two back I got Tom from Hell on Wheels to build me up what would hopefully be a fairly light but rugged 29er wheelset. I’m happy to say that after a few rides they’re performing brilliantly. DT Swiss 240s hubs laced to Velocity Blunts with DT Swiss Super Comp spokes. The total weight was around the 1800gram mark, which puts them in the ‘reliable but moderately light weight‘ category.

The new wheels also saw me with a cassette based rear hub with buttery soft splines. Unfortunately this means whenever I convert Greeny back to single speed I’ll be stuck using the original rear wheel. No dramas though, it’s a tough as nails rear wheel… even if the bearings do play up a little.

I was less than impressed with the Kenda SB8s which came standard. For the rear the’re fine, but up front they struggled for grip in the sandy conditions prevalent in Sydney. A small amount of internet research later and I was running a WTB Exiwolf. 2.3″ wide, waaaay deeper and chunkier tread pattern yet still fairly fast rolling. Once again I was happy going round corners at speed.

Brakes
The Avid BB7’s which came with Greeny were okay, but nothing special. On long descents they’d lose power and I’d get sore forearms, so very early on I upgraded them to Avid Elixir CR’s which had worked so well on Whitey. Last week I cut and bled the lines which was surprisingly easy and tidied up the front end immensely. With the upgraded G3 rotors bolted to the wheels, I’m very happy with my braking setup. Good modulation, long pad life and always plenty of stopping power.

Forks
When I bought Greeny I honestly thought I would give the rigid Kona P2 Forks a go. Sure, I’d be slower across rocky terrain, but I’d have a new appreciation of mountain biking and feel at one with the trail. Sadly it only took one lap around Manly Dam to change my mind. A few weeks later, Torpedo7 had a sale on Fox F29 RLC’s and I never looked back from the rigid forks. Initially they had 120mm of travel which I tried to make work for a few weeks, but it was clear that the bike’s geometry messed up, so they were slammed to 80mm.

The forks have continued to be good, at 80mm they suit the bike’s geometry brilliantly. I’d say there’s an extra half a kilo or so of weight over the rigid P2 forks, but that’s well worth it on my aging bones.

Drive Train
It’s true, I’ve wimped out and now have a 1×9 setup on Greeny. It was inevitable really. Smashing myself up hills in 32×18 gearing was great when I was fit, but it hurt so so much when I wasn’t. A 1×9 drive train setup is far more practical and negates the endless need to set up the bike for different tracks.

The parts were taken from Whitey’s old geared setup. SRAM x.9 rear derailleur, SRAM x.0 shifter, SRAM PG980 11-34 cassette, SRAM PC991 chain, Shimano XT cranks and the original 32T noname chain ring. You’ll notice a lot of SRAM components in there. I like SRAM stuff. It’s got that oomph in the shifting.

The chainguide is an MRP 1.x which I was initially sceptical about, but the chain has never dropped so it’s certainly proving itself.

Cockpit
Again, it’s the standard cockpit from Whitey which has made the transfer to Greeny. For my ass it’s a Thomson 27.2mm x 400mm layback post and SDG Bel Air saddle. Up the front it includes a set of Raceface Deus XC 25.4mm low rise bars, Raceface 80mm Evolve XC stem and ODI Rogue Grips. The spacers on top of the flipped stem and a high seat position maximises pedal stroke and makes for an aggressive position. But that’s okay cause it reminds me of the Salsa Casseroll’s geometry.

The Future
As I said at the start of this post, I’m extremely happy with the way Greeny is currently setup. That said, I guess the n+1 bikes formula also applies to parts cause I do have an idea of what I’d buy for Greeny if I won the lottery.

First step would be tubeless tyres/wheels. I can accept that tubeless setups might be better due to lower rotational weights and the ability to run lower pressures. I’m just not sure it’s worth all the messing about. Time shall tell if tubeless setups become mainstream and reliable enough for me to try them out on Greeny.

The other thing I’ve considered is getting myself a set of road bike bars and brifters to make myself one hell of a tough cyclocross bike. I’d also switch back to the P2 Fork and BB7 Brakes to make it happen. Maybe it’ll happen. Maybe it won’t. Time shall tell.

Other Posts
Wow, you made it to the end of the post! Well, I’ve blogged a fair bit about Greeny, so feel free to check out the following threads if you want more details on my Greeny build.
November 2009 – 2010 Kona Unit Single Speed.
February 2010 – Kona Unit Update.
March 2010 – Greeny’s Sliding Dropouts.
June 2010 – Greeny’s Got Updates.

This was my second consecutive year doing the 50km and I’m fairly sure it’ll be my last one for a while. Why’s that? Well, let me walk you through my day yesterday and then do some explaining.

• 3:45am – the alarm went off. I woke up. Began eating breakfast, showering, etc etc.
• 4:10am – I began waking Liz up.
• 4:25am – Liz finally got out of bed and into the shower.
• 5:05am – With the car packed, we hit the road. First destination was Dural Maccas where I promised to replace the toast component of Liz’s breakfast with a Bacon and Egg McMuffin.
• 5:50am – Dural Maccas. 10 minutes too early. They weren’t open yet. Boo!!
• 6:10am – The sweet aroma of a Bacon and Egg McMuffin filled the car and we were on our way again, this time, destination Webb’s Creek Ferry.
• 7:00am – We join the queue for the Webb’s Creek Ferry.
• 7:15am – Two cycles of the ferry later, we were heading to St Albans
• 7:40am – Dirtworks day parking at St Albans. I found the other BMU guys and began setting myself and the bike up. I’d also spend the next 45 minutes or so wandering over the registration tent 4-5 times, each time asking if they had the single speed registration cards & timing chips. It wasn’t until…
• 8:30am – … when I finally got my timing chip & goodie bag. I attached both of them, said a quick goodbye to Liz and headed off with the BMU guys down to the start line.
• 8:38am – Had a quick chat to Matt. Wished him well for a sub 2 hour ride.
• 8:45am – Rejoined the BMU guys in the corral to leave in the first wave.
• 8:50am – Boring rider briefing.
• 9:01am – I rolled over the start line. Dirtworks was underway.

I’ll stop my annoying time line here as it’s a little fuzzy. Pushing an off the chart cadence while doing 35kph on a dirt road tends to warp one’s sense of time. No matter, the cadence hurt my lungs more than my legs so I didn’t see it as that much of a problem. Besides, my lungs would recover quicker and I won’t be swearing at them for cramping up during the final stages.

It might have been that I left in the first (not third like last year) wave, or perhaps the news that the first climb had been freshly graded, but more people were having a crack at riding the massive hill this year. Mind you, most people around me were walking by the first right hander. It’s a great leveller that hill. Unless you’re properly elite (or crazy), I still see it as silly to ride the hill. Mind you, if you’ve got the legs to motor up it and you can gain some time, by all means go for it. Just don’t do it for the sake of it and kill your legs for later.

As per last year’s review, the ride to the 28km feed station is a bit of a blur. I rode most hills but walked the steeper/longer ones. Single speeding still gives you that brilliant feeling when you overtake geared duallies by powering up a small to medium pinch climb. It’s even better to get to the crest of the hill and keep putting the power down to leave those duallies in your wake. Sadly it seemed the hills around St Albans had grown in the last year, or I didn’t quite have the legs I thought I did as it didn’t happen all that often.

28km feed station and I made my first error of the race (well, second really, but we’ll get to that). Now this is a literal translation of what I did. See if you can spot the mistake. I leant the bike up against a tree, camelbak came off, I dumped the Staminade I’d brought in my water bottle, filled the water bottle, placed the water bottle on water truck, filled my camelbak with water, screwed the camelbak closed, I took my second muesli bar out and put it in my jersey pocket for later, camelbak back on my back and I was away. Looking at my speedo time and the official time, I can tell you I was there for 1 minute and 40 seconds. I didn’t know that at the time, but I did know I was in and out of there damn quick. What was the mistake? I realised a kilometre or two down the firetrail while I was giving myself a mental pat on the back for being so efficient I realised I’d left my Staminade mix on the back of the water truck**. Well done Jarod. Very efficient.

The second half of the ridgeline was more of the first. The track had been dumbed down to the point where there wasn’t any sort of technical challenge. There were major patches of sand and it wasn’t that much fun. With the exception of a few stretches, it’s the sort of firetrail that a cyclocross bike would be at home at. The only saving grace were the downhills which were kinda fun, but still just about picking the well worn line and holding on.

Hitting the road and sprinting for home, I was mindful not to blow up my legs too early. Last year as soon as I saw the road I started sprinting. This year, I was very aware it’s a long 12kms back to St Albans.

My second error of the race occured to me about this time. You see, Liz and I got JellyBelly’s as a belated Christmas present last Thursday and the night before Dirtworks I’d proceeded to eat far too many of them. Add to that the cookie & shortbread batter which Liz tempted me with and by the sprint back to St Albans on Sunday my stomach was a mess. I’d only consumed a bite or so of the muesli bar since the 28km mark and my energy levels were reflecting that. I still had a muesli bar, Gu, energy bar and water (thankfully I’d saved myself the option of staminade at the feed station) but couldn’t bear the thought of eating/drinking any of them. I picked up the pace when groups passed me, if only to jump in their slip stream for a few hundred metres. I was slow but consistent.

Official ride time? 2 hours 33 minutes and 16 seconds. Faster than last year’s time by a shade under ten minutes which I’m happy with. Ideally I’d have liked to be closer to 2 hours 20 minutes, but it wasn’t to be on the day. The silver lining is that I picked up second place in the 50km single speed category (again!).

Liz and I stuck around and I talked bikes with various people I knew. While waiting for the presentation, we bought and ate pizza (oily and messy), hot chips (soggy and average), a kit kat (melted and gooey) and a bottle of water (cold and delicious). About two minutes after getting my second place show bag, we promptly left St Albans for another year.

Massive congrats to Matt for coming within two minutes getting under 2 hours. Jing, Kevin & Brad all put in awesome times for their first Dirtworks. Felix slept in so missed the pain of the 100km race, but still beat his 2009 50km time by almost ten minutes. Gijs and Clifton both did their first 100km Dirtworks and in my humble opinion both smashed the course and exceeded expectation.

So would I go back? I’m really leaning towards no, especially as I wrote that review up. The only reason at this stage that I would do Dirtworks again is that it’s a known benchmark for me. If I do a bucket load more training in the next year, it’d be great to test myself and see how much I’ve improved on the same course again. Yet I still can’t shake the thought that it’s a lot of effort (and money) 30kms of average firetrail and 20kms of mundane dirt road/asphalt.

** Liz later found the abandoned water bottle in a box that got delivered to the finish line by the sweeper vehicle. It was a happy, tearful reunion.

Excuse the Photoshop disaster. It’s up there to illustrate a point, not to win a prize.

It’s something I’ve considered for a while now, but yesterday’s ride certainly brought it back to the front of my brain. It is in short, it’s a hair brained idea to run a 1×9/1×10 geared setup on my Salsa Casseroll. I mean, I can make the whole single speed thing work, but sometimes it’d be nice to cruise around and not kill oneself climbing hills.

The switch should be fairly simple^.  It’s just a matter of grabbing the following parts…

• Rear Wheel
• 9/10 Speed Rear Derailleur
• 9/10 Speed Cassette
• 9/10 Speed Downtube Braze On Shifters
• 9/10 Speed Chain
• Bottom Bracket Gear Cable Slider Thing

… and bolting them together in a fashion that resembles a geared bike.  It shouldn’t cost that much either*.

Anyway, this is just me thinking out aloud for the time being.  Damn yesterday’s Waterfall ride for getting it into my head again.

^ I cringed as I typed this. Writing it down is like the kiss of death and will surely make it a nightmare.
* Another cringe. I wouldn’t be surprised if it costs me the price of a new bike for writing that statement.

From when I bought the Kona Unit in November until just before the WSMTB 4 hour race a few weeks ago, I was running a 32:18 gear ratio on the Greeny. Just before the race though, I changed it to 32:20 and I’m pleased to say that it couldn’t have been easier.

Wrap a chain whip, use a lock ring tool and the old cog is off. Chuck the new cog on, lockring tool it tight and reinstall the rear wheel. Loosen the slider bolts, adjust the tensioning screws, tighten the slider bolts. Aaaaand you’re done!

Today I changed from the 20 tooth cog down to a 17 tooth, and I’m pleased to say the whole process took about 5 minutes from start to finish. When compared to a cog change on Whitey (when he was still a single speed), it’s about 5 or 6 times quicker. Who’d have ever thought having the right hardware for the job would make that much of a difference.

So essentially, Greeny’s Sliding Dropouts are awesome. But I suppose that can be expanded to say that all sliding dropouts are awesome.

When riding Greeny with rigid forks, after about 30-40kms my upper body would be absolutely smashed. The biggest positive with the Fox Forks is that they even out the little bumps. This reduces fatigue and over a longer distance ride, makes my body less ouchied. The other significant factor is that it helps me maintain speed through rocky technical sections.

One small downside is that the 120mm forks have a larger axle to crown measurement compared to the Kona P2’s. This makes the headset higher, which in turn slackens the headtube angle (by about 1.5 to 2 degrees if my calculations are correct). No matter. When I get them serviced for the first time they’ll be reduced down to 80mm or 100mm, then it’s back to nice twitchy handling. Hurrah!

Thus far I’ve only done about 50kms on the forks so time will tell exactly how good they become. But if initial impressions are anything to go by, they’re going to be great!

Quite tired. Shall post a proper review in the coming days.

Now in a slight retrospective, these are a few of the stand out posts (in my mind at least) that I’ve made.

2010 Kona Unit Single Speed

Gary Fisher Cobia, made into a single speed

The Salsa Casseroll Single Speed

The Giant Iguana Single Speed Frame

Strange that all of them are about single speed bikes. Well… not that strange I spose.

Thomson Elite 410mm Layback Seatpost. While setting the bike up, I worked out that to have the right pedal stroke I’d need about 350mm or so above the seat collar. The standard Kona one was only 350mm, so a longer seat post was a must. The layback is just to get my ass over the back wheel a bit more.

Thomson X4 120mm Stem. I needed to push the bars forward a bit, so what better way to do it than with a cheap Thomson X4 stem? I also grabbed a Thomson Top Cap for the top of the stem. That was an upgrade which serves no purpose other than bling. I’ll happily admit that.

WTB Exiwolf for the front wheel. As fast as Kenda SB8’s roll, I found the front tended to wash out when corning. Haven’t hit the dirt with it on yet, but I’m hoping for a bunch more grip.

Avid Elixir CRs. These were a big one for me. As great as Avid BB7’s are, they require a fair amount of finger strength to get good braking out of them. Add to that a long rocky downhill and rigid forks and you’ve got a recipe for very sore foreams and fingers. By the way that Whitey’s CRs have performed in the last 6 months, I only hesitated slightly before getting a second set for Greeny. 185mm up front, 160mm at the rear.

EA70 Handlebars. They were properly cheap and slightly lighter than the stock Kona ones.

I had a bit of indecision between the 50 & 100km events. The 50km appealed cause it can be treated like a short, sharp sprint. The 100km cause it’s epic and a helluva challenge. In the end I decided on the 50km so I could sleep in a bit longer.

With no training under my belt (yet) I’d be happy with anything under last year’s time. But if I’m being completely honest, I’d like to smash last year’s time. Whether that’ll happen or not is anyone’s guess at this stage.

I’ve owned my 2010 Kona Unit for almost a year now. You can read my massive review of ‘Greeny’ here.

So I picked up my new bike from TBSM on Tuesday night. It’s a 2010 Kona Unit. Single speed. 29er. Sexy.

After leaving it stock and riding it for a 20km spin around Loftus last night, I have much to talk about. There are a few upgrades that I want to do, with just about all of them making the bike more rideable/comfortable. So while I collect my thoughts on the initial impressions of the bike, enjoy some 29er bike porn…