Thursday, July 2, 2009

Branched Oak Testing

Early this morning I met up with Ryan at Branched Oak for a little singletrack to start the day off right. It took me a little while to get going. The legs were feeling pretty stiff but once I got warmed up on the humid morning (thanks to a light sprinkle) I was feeling really good and ready to really test the new frame out on some real trails.

As far as the frame goes the things I noticed today is that the position it has me in is slightly more aggressive and I notice that the most coming out of corners. This frame has a bit more snap coming out of the turns and once I pair that with a new set of wheels it's going to explode out of the corners. It also climbs slightly better. I found myself wanting to keep getting up out of the saddle and really power up the climbs which is sometimes good but if I do that to much in some races it will actually hurt me. I kept having to tell myself to sit back down and put it in a higher gear and spin up the hill.

Other than those two things I found the ride feel to be very similar to the awesome 08 Indian Fire Trial frame I have been riding. Very happy with this new frame and I can't wait to really race it plus it looks super sweet. The combination of Black and Blue has always been a favorite of mine. I acutally used that color scheme for a restaurant I was working on that I about opened but decided against it.

My original plan was to only do 4 laps of the course 2 going each way since I'm not sure which way they are going to run the race course this year. When I finished the 4th lap though I was still feeling pretty good so I decided to do a 5th. Tomorrow I'm going to head out with Ryan and Sean (team manager) for some more time on the track. Can't wait.

Harp

No comments: