A glorious return to mountain bikes after a rough go after a stupid crash on stupid Selkirk Knights. A rather big bummer considering the season has been quite incredible you know despite well umm... the fires.
I chose the Rocky Mountain as it opened up this year to singletrack and found fun yet annoying. It's been a love hate relationship, well I guess more hate I'd say. That bike has given me lot's of grief for the last eleven years and I even vowed on this here blog that it's up for sale and yet I still ride it.
It has a skipping issue when hammering up steep hills which is very uncool. It did that when I first got it and heard it was a Rocky Mountain thing and the fine mechanics at Hardcore Bikes knew how to fix it and after so many drive trains and multiple rear hubs the skipping is back. It's only on the hard steeps which is super annoying when all you want is power and your bike fails you. I took a few average climbs with no issue so it wasn't that bad.
No wait. This is bullshit.This bike is robbing me of my dignity man! I walked the few power climbs I tried and avoided countless others.
The route was dictated by the bike and me wanting to avoid steep power climbs so I took the gentle route from the Velodrome in Mill Creek to Dawson Bridge via . I teased the idea of the singletrack in Dawson Park but turned back at the fire pits and restrooms.
This wasn't a bad ride at all despite the bike giving me grief. It was expected and the ride was better than expected although I did avoid lots of good stuff. I looped back on the north side of the river and took the beloved Instagram Edmonton famous Walterdale Bridge back and around through West Coast and Old Timers which was a highlight . The fast roll through the lower half of West Coast Trail is always quite amaze.
Good ride, this bike is long overdue on replacing.
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| the lovely river valley is home to all sorts of interesting garbage i hate people |
