I think I got it right. I took delivery at the shop and built it up. When I first picked the bike up after assembly, it felt light. You can read numbers online or on a sheet all day and it doesn't really matter until you lift the object off the ground and see what that means. I can tell you that even after this 'long way to work', the bike, with three water bottles, bivy gear, food, and all that crap, is still light and easy to lift over obstacles and push and pull through thick foliage. I don't know how much it weighs kitted out for a typical ride, but I'd say probably about 31lbs. I'll be doing some modifications to the bike which will cut some weight and improve ergonomics (stock grips make my hands go numb, as usual), but it'll probably settle around 30lbs out the door. It's all a balance between weight and usable durability. I didn't want another Surly, though their ECR was my first choice before it was discontinued. You can have a durable bike but if it weighs enough that it keeps you from wanting to push up a high peak, then what's the point? I've had a lot of heavy bikes.
Anywho, point is this is like a monster truck if it was really lightweight. For the maiden voyage, I had it in my head for a few months that I'd wanna ride up 39 to Rincon, taking that to the summit of Wilson, camping somewhere such as Fuji to descend into Pasadena for work the next morning. I've been fascinated by reaching summits by bike regardless of trails or roads going to em, so I figured I'd tag Pine and Monrovia on the way. I hadn't been to the summit of Pine in years and never been up Monrovia, always just riding past on the road, so that would be a nice new experience. Newcomb Pass would be next, with what I assumed would be a long slow push up the Rim Trail to the summit of Wilson afterwards. I'd descended the Rim Trail from atop Wilson in 2017 or so with my 'gravel' bike, and that was a challenge as it was overgrown. It would be similar but quite a bit worse this time, as the Bobcat Fire had burned the area, and the big winter meant everything was overgrown to the point of being unable to even see the trail this time around.
I started around 0800 or 0900 on my day off, riding through Covina to pick up groceries for the trip, then taking 39 up to Rincon. Despite the big tires the bike didn't feel super slow on pavement, so getting from point A to B on boring terrain isn't as big a deal as I figured. I dropped some air pressure when I got to Rincon and rode up to where the old service road intersects. I took this off Rincon a little bit to filter some water and top off. Rincon is 'closed' by some dumb forest order right now. These closures are frustrating and stupid, and I fear more people nowadays are willing to just accept them and 'stay safe' and stay indoors and all that bullshit. In the end it is truly impossible to close public land, or any land to sentient travel as it is up to the individual sentient being to give in to authority and not walk freely upon the land that nobody truly owns. I don't have interest in crossing private property under most circumstances, but this is public land and it's been three goddamn years since the fire. Give me a break. I can rant on this forever, so I'll just move on.
The bike has real low gearing and I never felt I needed lower while climbing up this steep road which has tested my gearing in the past on other bikes. I don't recall what the chainring is on this 1x setup, maybe a 30 tooth, but the cassette is an 11-50 or whatever, with that 50t big dinner plate providing a ton of advantage. I casually crawled up all the steep stuff without breaking a sweat, and was able to enjoy checking out all the cool flowers and bugs up there right now. The weather was fantastic, with a high of maybe 70 and some light cloud cover from time to time. I passed some firefighters out on a walk and eventually made it to the summit of Pine, where some dudes were doing maintenance on the facility at the summit. Nobody told me I couldn't be there or anything, everything was chill. I must assume maintenance guys go through intense training on the dark side of the moon in order to survive the truly insane conditions us regular peons could never dream of making it through in this closed area. I am truly grateful our elected (lol) officials care so much for our personal safety to close off sections of the surface of the Earth. Rejoice! Hold on, I must put a helmet on before I open the fridge door.
The bike ships with a bright orange (hate that color) front and rear rack made of aluminium, which isn't truly necessary with the bags I've collected over the years, but I didn't have the front bag properly secured, so it was rubbing against the tire over bumps. I had to redo the strap setup to keep it off the tire. I had the rear installed with some stuff strapped down to it, but left the front rack at home. For most of what I aim to do with this bike, the racks will stay home.
I eyeballed the GPS to see which way I should climb Monrovia Peak, and decided upon the first good option, which was the firebreak ascending from the northeast. This firebreak starts after a short road accessing a powerline tower, and is quite steep and a bit loose. The light weight of the bike was appreciated as I slowly pushed my way to the summit over about 40 minutes. I found my buddy Tim's signature in the register as the last dude having been up there, which was funny cause we had just camped at Fuji a week prior and were talking about Monrovia Peak. I descended the northwest firebreak and had some lunch. This descent route was very easy and would likely be much easier to push up with a bike than the way I came up. I was able to ride some of it, with the fat tires really helping make that possible.
The clouds took over as I got closer to Newcomb Saddle, and I saw the Rim Trail on the GPS splitting off before my road descended down into the canyon. I wasn't familiar with this section, but I took it so I didn't have to lose and then regain elevation just to get to familiar territory. This section of trail is likely an old road bed, which is pretty worn out but rideable for the majority of its length. I soon made it to Newcomb Saddle where the trails split off in different directions. Everything was so overgrown that I couldn't even see the trail, so I opted to follow some recent sign from either bears or humans up the firebreak which leads towards the summit of Wilson. This too was steep, and I put a fair amount of effort into avoiding Poodledog Bush as well as some Poison Oak on this stretch. The firebreak roughly parallels the Rim Trail, and occasionally I would put the bike down and look down towards where the trail should be, only occasionally seeing any remnants of it. There was often a huge amount of itchy plantlife guarding it, so I just kept on the firebreak until it ran out not too far from the last bit up to Wilson. From here I carefully slid my way down onto the trail and pushed uphill through thick patches of Poodledog, somehow managing to void touching almost all of it (I'm still not itchy).
The most challenging part of the trail involved a downed tree that compressed the wall of foliage in front of me into a 3x3 foot tunnel. I had to get into the prone position and low crawl backwards on my back, pulling the bike behind me like a body through this tunnel for about 25ft. The light weight of the bike was once again greatly appreciated in this instance, and not just some sort of figure to brag about to roadie friends about my latest $1,000 crankset that shaved the equivalent of a weight of half a sandwich. There was plenty more light bushwhacking on the way up and finally I came across traces of maintenance. Thank you to whoever is working on this trail! I will gladly buy you a chilled refreshment in appreciation of your work. I smiled at the sight of Poodledog Bushes that were specifically cut down in the trail. There is a section of real narrow trail with a big dropoff closer to the top which is really cool. I carried the bike under my arm for parts of this, again appreciating how light the bike is. This allows me to bring this bike places I wouldn't otherwise, which is vital to me as I don't have a car and thus I will always have the bike with me whether I like it or not (and I do like it very much!).
Eventually I got up to the top, eyeballed the GPS once again, and made my way to the parking lot with the water spigot, saying hello to one of the people living up there working on the telescopes. Seems like a pretty cool place to stay for a while. Lotta real cool history up there. I drank a buncha water, topped my bottles off, and took a bird bath before leaving the front gate and descending the toll road. The bike descended well, and I found that the brakes worked great even though they have stock cheap rotors and organic pads. They're Shimano mid range hydraulic 4 piston calipers, which provided good reliable power and feel. The upgrade for the system will be metallic pads and better rotors. Not sure if I want to get larger rotors, as I don't think its necessary and will add both weight and a larger disc to potentially get bent while portaging the bike. Metallic pads will improve the braking force greatly, and I need new rotors to use those anyway so I'll get some higher end ones and probably feel just fine with that. Anyway, sorry to bore you with tech talk. I descended to Fuji Camp to bivy, with thick fog cutting visibility down to about 30ft in places, clearing up by the time I passed the heliport level. Unlike last time, I could look upon the entire city from my spot, and after finishing my massive sandwich for dinner I slept atop a big table. The mist got real heavy at night and my 30* bag got a bit wet, but I was never uncomfortable.
The next morning, I woke up and got breakfast at Everest in Altadena, went to work, and rode home on pavement, moving faster than expected for this monster truck.
I have some big plans for where I want to take this bike. I am brainstorming pack designs for carrying it where it cannot be ridden, which was a big part of my purchase decision in getting something light and simple. I have a hunting pack type rucksack which can carry enormous weight and certainly can handle this bike, but I may need to make my own pack frame that can carry it without being heavy, something that can be broken down and carried on the bike as wearing a pack while riding is generally unpleasant to me, as well as typically unnecessary. Make the horse carry the weight, not the rider. I plan on riding to Wrightwood via the North Backbone soon, as well as White Mountain Peak from the Owens Valley floor, stuff in Anza Borrego through sandy washes, the Mojave Road from the border back to LA, some very high and sometimes lost roads and trails in the Sierra, stuff like that. Really cool stuff. Some of it quite hard. Makes my imagination go, makes me feel real happy. Over the years I've come to finally enjoy and now crave pushing slowly up steep hills like Sisyphus, one foot in front of the other, slow plodding sludgy doom metal playing in my head, thin air and a heavy load, crawling up an endless mountain working through feelings and thoughts and getting lost in existence, the punishment of gravity become one of existence's greatest rewards. The endless toil reflecting life itself, an involuntary endurance event with no escape, only the forever slow burn in your muscles, what was once pain is now pleasure and once a twisted choice now a requirement to suffer the rest of this waking experience. Beautiful realization of existence, absolute freedom.
84.65 miles with 9,500ft of gain
