First Ride

djeickme75

New member
I was out yesterday for my first ride on my "new" Yo Eddy (new to me that is). I got this bike on Ebay a couple of months ago. The seller described it as needing a minor tune up. I am not sure where he gets his bikes serviced but it was not a minor tuneup. After replacing the XT rapidfire shifters/levers with XT thumbshifters and Avid brake levers and substituting a DX/Araya rear wheel for the severely dented Xt rear wheel, it was finally time to get outside. In the short shakedown ride (I still have to replace the chain, rings and cassette as well as mount the Avid trialign brakes but at least it is rideable as it sits currently) I found it a pretty exciting ride. Definitely a bike that gives you lots of feedback. You seem to have to really stay on top of it but if you do it rewards you with a fun way to get down the trail. I am not that found of the Judy that it currently has on it but given that the frame is a 91 and it seems to have a 1 inch headset, it may be a while before I track something else down. All in all a cool retro experience. I will try and post some pics of the bike in the next day or two. Next on the list is doing a single speed conversion on an Ibis Alibi but that may take a back seat as I have a Slim Change arriving in the next few days that looks like a lot of fun. I am new to this retro thing but given that my first serious bike was bought in 1993 I am really getting a kick out of trying a lot of the stuff that I drooled over as a teen.
 

djeickme75

New member
Slim Chance FU

I also have a Slim Chance to go with my Yo Eddy. Today I took it out for a nice 30 km ride. Very different bike to my Litespeed Vortex. The Slim Chance is fast but not as much of a handful as the Litespeed. You have to keep on top of the Litespeed all the time but it rewards you with a really exciting (sometimes to the point of just a bit scary). The Slim on the other hand just lets you role away the day without any worry. I had a close encouter of the not so fun kind with a transport truck on the Slim today and I was able to ditch onto the shoulder and easily recover. A similar encounter on the Litespeed would have had me picking gravel out of my butt. The Litespeed makes me feel like I am in the Tour to France. The Slim just makes me feel like I am on tour. One is not better than the other but man are they ever different beasts.
 

djeickme75

New member
I did my first extended trail ride on my 91 Yo yesterday. 25 km of rolling single track through mixed forest. Generally a great ride. The bike handles really well in the tight stuff but it took a bit of body English to keep the front settled on climbing. I have an old Judy on the bike currently and I am wondering if that might be throwing off the angles a bit. Nothing that you can't compensate for with shifting your weight a bit so maybe it was just that I am out of practice with an old school racing style hardtail. The rigid back end took its tole by the end of the day but today I feel fine so obviously it wasn't too bad. Some of the transitions from downhill to uphill or downhill to stream crossing begged for the squishy bike but I think this has to do with the trail being new. With time I think these transitions will smooth out a bit (I hope so because I have 7 hardtails and only one squishy bike). My Fat City handlebar seemed pretty narrow in comparison with modern bars but I am not sure if that is buy design to fit through the tight stuff or if someone cut it down at some point (I forgot to check before I installed the grips). Still haven't put the new chain, cogs and cassette on but there were no troubles with shifting at all. It makes me wonder why we ever shifted to 8,9 and now 10 speeds (then I hit a steep hill and curse the lack of a wider cassette and I remember) but those old XT thumbshifters work pretty darn well. As I said the trail is new this spring so it will be interesting to see how it develops and I hope to try all my bikes on it by the end of the summer.

Dan
 

Jassie06

Member
My Team Comp, bought new with paint to match Chris Chance's own, is the twitchiest bike I've ever ridden. It was several years of being pitched over the bars before we became friends. But it is surely the weapon for technical singletrack in these parts.

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