Niners, January group riding!

It's like a late Christmas for me here... Devin and I got the Niner One9's built up, they're sweet. On top of that, we get 7 people out for a group ride in January... life is good. Tori, Gerry, Devin, Jon and myself on SS, Ivan and Pat brought gears. We did Sideshow Bob first, I think I could ride 100k of that roller coaster if it was available. Smooth surface, not too much ice right now, and I love the pedal-pedal-torque-torque-crest the roller-cruise and flow, rinse and repeat trail. Crossed the river, made our way through Bowness, climbed Edworthy and did some icy/snowy singletrack descent back down to the river. Down the path to Coffee Junkie downtown, then up Center Street, along Crecent Heights, and home through confederation park. After a stop at home for the guys who were done, my touring legs wanted more. Knowing Jon is never one to shy away from more riding, we headed up to Nose Hill for another hour. Did some great leg strength climbing on the SS, grinding it out at low RPM trying to keep the heart rate in check on the climbs. This works for 2/3 of the ascent, but it's inevitable that HR will climb. Jon and I finished it off with two large helpings of Chinese leftovers, everyone knows that's what keeps a cyclists' yin and yang in balance after a workout.

The Niner web site doesn't do the colors justice. Tim's kermit green one looks way better in person than online, same with Devin's hot tamale and my tang colored one. Suffice to say, they look great. The build kit on these is sweet, nice parts throughout. I've still got some hangup on why they didn't package a progressive technology like the niner concept with the other revolutionary mountain bike technology, the tubeless tire. Running these giant things at 28-29 psi is now my short term dream. Just gotta decide if I swap the wheels, or just home-do these into tubeless. Large contact patch is touted as a benefit, but with a tire at 35 psi, this isn't going to be as large as it could be. The tires are comically large. I felt like I was working an inordinately long amount of time with my floor pump to fill these things up. Pat had a new Rocky Mountain out, looking shiny and fast, and Tori of course had pinky.

They ride nice. The scandium is stiff, power transfer feels great. The track chain is a nice touch. The fork is stiff despite it's long legs. There's really nothing to complain about, it's a quality component kit all around. I understand the logic on the ultra wide handlebars (71cm!), to help you generate torque. But seriously, not everyone rides trails built nice and wide by the local highway department. I might trim them back a ways, I was feeling more brush/knuckle contact than I have for a long time.

New toys and riding with friends is enough to really make my weekend.