Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

As I mentioned recently, I ended up replacing my last frame with a Vassago Jabberwocky. I love this frame! Long top tube, reasonably short chainstays, burly steel construction, moderate geometry that is not "yeah brah, enduro!" slack but not dirt roadie XC. modern features like a fat seat tube, 44mm head tube to accommodate a tapered fork, and room for really fat tires.

This is kind of ironic because a bought an older version of the "small" size Jabber in spring of 2013 and sold it after a few short months. For some reason, I crashed on that bike more than I have ever crashed. I suspect it was my error in setting up the suspension fork, but I am happy with the way it played out. I now have a stout, steel, singlespeed XC bike with geometry that suits me, now that I have spent months agonizing over why my back hurts and every "medium" bike I have tried feels cramped.

I am definitely digging this bike. It feels much better under me than anything I have ridden. It could be lighter, that's my only real complaint. If I really wanted a lighter frame, I would probably have had to shell out 3 times as much cash on a titanium frame or get customer steel for even more than that. I can't justify that kind of spending, but I can dream.

In the meanwhile, the weight disappears under you when you're on a bike that fits and handles as if it was made for you.

bike fittings are not all the same

I purchased a Vassago Jabberwocky from the rad folks at Cycle Progression. Ask me how I arrived at this decision!

I might have ruined this past season of riding for myself if I had not been so stubborn. I spent a considerable amount of money on a chiropractor, a bike fit, and a new frame. In the meanwhile, I worked out and rode through the pain when I could. I am much happier now.

No doubt, my body was out of whack this spring and the chiro helped with that a ton. No matter how perfectly a bike "fits" you, if your body is not fit enough for the kind of demands that cycling, or any physical activity, puts on it, you're going to be miserable. Once I had my back in recovery mode and learned to strengthen more core muscles to support my body while riding, I decided to visit an expert for advice on tweaking my bike.

Every bike fit starts with the right frame dimensions, and mountain bikes only come in a few distinct sizes (not enough increments, if you ask me) for each model, so experience -- yours or that of a knowledgeable advisor -- will be the best guide as to what works for you. In my case, I am learning the hard way.

I visited two fitters over the past few months. One was somewhat useful and the other was worth much, much more than I paid him.

Bike fitting #1

The first fitter charged me $100 and gave me advice that was $25% useful and 75% a sales pitch to sell me some special insoles and more fitting services. He asked me some relevant questions, took a few basic measurements, and watched me ride my bike in a trainer for a while. He made a few valid observations:

• My handlebar was too close to my hips and too high. This position was painfully scrunching my back, as I was well aware. The compact handling made me very "on top of" the bike instead of "in" the bike. Also, the taller my handlebar was, the more effort was required for me to stand up, and standing enlivens the handling on a mountain bike ten-fold.
• My saddle was a tad low, which made for poor pedaling efficiency and contributed to the aforementioned resistance to standing up.
• The fitter thought the cleats under my shoes were in a sub-optimal position and he moved them. This was rubbish advice. More on that later.

When I was done with the fitting session, my saddle moved up about 2.5 centimeters and my handlebar went out 2 and down 4 centimeters by way of replacing my stem with a longer, much lower one. In case you're not familiar with bike fit fiddling, that an astronomical amount of change!

A few weird parts of this fit:

The fitter moved my cleats waaaaay forward, like under my toes. I thought he might be onto something, but he seemed to be moving the cleats that wasy to get my knees plumb over the center of my pedals, using the old KOPS method. As I have said before, KOPS works for some kinds of bikes for some riders. For modern mountain bikes, it's generally nonsense. That put up several big red flag for me: 

1. If you're going to fit a bike by KOPS, you do it by moving the saddle fore/aft, not by moving the cleats around. He didn't change the saddle position at all.
2. My frame had an eccentric bottom bracket, meaning he could have rotated the BB forward and gotten the same knee/ankle position without putting my cleats under my toes
3. Most riders in every cycling discipline are trying to find ways to push cleats and shoe positions back, closer to center on the pedal for a more balanced foot position. He did the opposite, putting a lot of strain on my calves. He also rotated my cleat to accommodate for the "duck-footed" right leg that tends to twist toe-out, which is also medical nonsense.

Most bike fitters are not medical professionals and even the ones with medical bona fides have to admit that there's a little voodoo involved in the process. But I rode the bike with the new fit once on my local trails and found that, while the saddle height and handlebar position made the bike fit much more naturally under me, the handling was awkward. Worse yet, I had to stop and move my cleats back to their old position after my numb toes and cramping calves forced me to stop.

I asked the bike fitter at the shop about this and he told me that I would have to buy some $30 insoles from him to be sure that my foot is level. If that didn't solve the problem, I should come back for a $250 fit session on top of the $100 I already paid.

Instead, I put my cleats back into a rational position and kept riding.

On a more general note, I question his wisdom in "slamming" a negative-stem and putting such a long stem on an AM hardtail with a 30-inch wide handlebar. I know he was trying to work with what I have, but I explicitly told him that I wanted to know if I should buy a few frame that fits me better but make what I have work in the meantime. What he did with the reach was probably the best thing for me on that frame, but he insisted that there was no reason to even consider a different frame.

There's some controversy among the mountain bike community about this, but generally, a stem determines how the bike handles with the fork and handlebar, not how it fits. That can work differently for different riders, but putting a long stem on a bike that was designed with s short one in mind is kind of like buying shoes that are a size too small and cutting a hole in the front so your toes can stick out and calling it good.

Bike fitting #2

I visited Frank at ATX Bikes after he had read about my consternation at my first fit and invited me to come in for a free consultation. Frank has an amazing fit studio with an automated fit bike. Basically, you put your own handlebar, saddle, and pedals on a werid-looking stationary bike, and the fitter plugs some numbers into a computer and viola! the bike moves around to simulate the frame dimensions, saddle position, and handlebar position that he types in.

Next, he put velcro dots on my joints and stuck a wired sensor to it. A camera captured my movements in three dimensions and created an animation on the screen. I felt like Andy Serkis acting out a really boring role where he pedals a bike for the whole movie. The program analyzes the data and saves it for future use.

I had Frank plug in the dimensions of a medium Vassago Jabberwocky, since I had my eye on the frame as a replacement for the ROS 9. We were able to determine that the Jabber would be a good fit for me from a sit-and-pedal position at least, and that was enough to know that it would be a good choice. I now have a printout of the bike geometry that made me feel comfortable and fast. The next step was to acquire that new frame and start riding conscientiously to see what works.

Vassago was very far ahead of the trend, designing frames almost a decade ago with long top tubes and slack headtube angles. The "wet cat" theory was a revelation to many and I hope it will be for me. More will follow on my experience riding the Jabberwocky.

exploring mountain bike fit

Mountain bike geometry is tricky. Inspired by my love of riding bikes and my body's apparent distain for it, I have been nerding out on how different muscle groups propel the body and how different aspects of bike fit accommodate those motions. I am starting to see how trends in how I set up different bikes for myself. I am finding that some of the conventional wisdom about bike fit is well-intentioned but detrimental to long-term goals.

Words of warning: I am writing this as much more my benefit insofar as "thinking out loud" helps me to process information. Several weeks of riding through back pain and frustration with budgetary concerns have resulted in my birthing this ridiculous collection of words. You're probably not going to read the whole thing, but if you share my obsession with getting the most out of a bike riding experience and my sense of frugality, you'll appreciate it.

I used www.BikeGeo.net to overlay the geometry of some bikes I have owned. This is a great tool for visualizing differences in bike geometry to help you imagine how one bike will be different from another. I am using my previous frame, a Soma Juice for comparison because, while it left some things to be desired in the handling department, my back didn't ache after riding it for several hours. To clarify, I doubt that the new frame caused my back pain, the new setup merely exposed an imbalance in my body that manifested as a back ache.

I can observe objectively that my new Niner ROS 9's seat tube is steeper, the chainstays are shorter, the front wheel is further in front of the bike, and despite the fact that the effective top tube (ETT) is shorter on the ROS 9, the overall reach (more on this later) is longer. Throw Niner's eccentric bottom bracket with 8.5mm of adjustment into the mix and you have a very confusing set of variables.

This frame is subtly but profoundly different from my old frame, or so it seems. For example, my previous frame has a slacker 72° seat tube angle and a 16mm offset seatpost, but my new frame has a 74° seat tube angle and came with an inline seatpost. This means that the resulting position of my saddle (saddle setback) is quite a bit forward of my previous saddle position, relative to the center of the cranks. A little basic trig will illustrate that on paper, but I was able to measure it as well.

In order to set up the bike so I don't look like tricycling circus bear on it, I had to put an offset seatpost on a bike that was designed with a super-short chainstay, which puts my center of gravity pretty far over the rear wheel -- a good thing or a bad thing depending on how and where you ride.

Conventional wisdom tells me to put my saddle back to the same position where I had it before, which I measured with the nose of the saddle at 75mm behind the BB on my old Juice. That's quite a lot of setback, and I don't have particularly long legs or disproportionately long femurs, to the best of my knowledge.

To achieve this position, I would need to get a seatpost with what I think is an unreasonable amount of offset and has very few options. in addition, I the resulting position would put my center of gravity waaaaay over the back wheel, resulting in terrific rear tire traction but no control over the amount of traction I get on the front, especially when climbing.

Then I put a 70mm stem on an "all mountain" frame that was designed with a 35-50mm stem in order to get the reach closer to being not "scrunched in there," as one person who saw me on the bike put it. Definitely odd. I tried putting a 90mm stem on it and it made the bike steer with the nimbility of a school bus. Do not want.

More importantly, it may be further exaggerating issues I have had with putting too much stacked weight on my lower back. If I keep going down that road, I will have relegated myself to riding a beach cruiser slowly down a paved path, which would be fine if I were closer to a century old.

Conventional wisdom also tells me to put my handlebar at the same height and distance from my saddle where I had it on my previous bike, assuming that the previous position was a good one. I have nearly achieved that and I am not particularly chuffed with the results. But was it a "good position" in the first place?

I had to take a step back and challenge the premise -- what is the optimal saddle offset for me? What's the best amount of reach and rise for my hands? Was the old setup optimal, or was it accommodating my body's imbalances and thus encouraging them to get worse?

If I could directly translate the old frame's dimensions to the new frame, should I? Time to re-think the whole thing. New bike, new fit!

Confronting Superstitions

A lot of bike fit advice relies on lore that is repeated enough to create memetic inertia. There are weird "rules" like the 40-60 weight distribution guideline, the "elbow on the saddle, middle finger to the middle of the stem" idea, goniometer measurements on hip, knee, and arm angles, and the eyeball-the-front-hub-through-the-handlebar theory, and KOPS or knee-over-pedal-spindle method of determining saddle fore-aft position, which Keith Bontrager calls KOPS a "myth."

Additionally, I feel that most of the bike fit advice accumulated over the years have been more appropriate for road bikes and old school mountain bikes (many of which were essentially road bike with fat tires). All of these ideas have good intentions, but vague results from one rider to another and among bicycle geometries as they evolve for riding conditions.

Why so complicated?

As I was typing all this up, I started thinking: why is setting up a bicycle so complex? All I want to do it take a bike that is designed to fit a rider my size and set it up so I can ride comfortably and with confidence for a few hours at a time, so why am I considering advice on the internet that involves employing lasers, video motion capture software, a stationary trainer, and enormous protractors like you see in those fancy bike fit studios? What made this "necessary," and what do I hope to gain by moving my bike parts around by mere millimeters in one direction or another?

Unless a rider happens to be Vitruvian Man, any amount of calculations and measurements is only going to get within a ballpark of a good fit. After the pain and frustration of my last few rides, though, I am gun-shy about riding my bike at all. Until I get my body and my bike fit sorted, is riding worth the physical pain and frustration that result?  This analysis paralysis might be worse than any amount of injury I could receive from riding an ill-fitting bike.

This is where I quit crunching numbers and moved on to practical matters. I could stare at these numbers all day but nothing is going to substitute for placing my butt in the saddle and considering how the bike fits and handles. Unfortunately, none of the frames I am interested in riding come in a complete bike format to test ride, test rides in parking lots are no substitute for riding on the trail, and manufacturer demo days are few and far between.

I can conclude that the best way for me to fit a bike is to ride the bike mindfully, listen to my body, adjust what doesn't work to something that does work, and ride some more. That requires some knowledge of how my body propels a bike and what adjustments will change how that happens, which is the kind of knowledge I am seeking.

One thing that I have discovered is a better way to look at how a bike fits from a geometric standpoint. I start by dividing my fit into two dimensions based on the idea that all motions on the bicycle start at the feet: pedaling and wrangling.

By pedaling, I mean propulsion generated by the position of the bottom half of your body relative to the pedals. This means saddle height, saddle-bottom bracket offset, saddle angle and so forth. You can tell, within a reasonable margin of error, if a bike will fit you from a pedaling standpoint based on the seat tube length, seat tube angle, and effective top tube or ETT. Getting a solid pedaling position on the bike is essential for just getting around and should not be ignored, even on a mountain bike that is ridden in a variety of positions. This should be pretty straightforward, but of course, it's not.

By wrangling, I mean where and how your weight is distributed when you ride the bike actively based on your position of your hands relative to the pedals. This circumvents the saddle position because riding a bicycle is a dynamic activity, especially on a mountain bike.

When wrangling a mountain bike over the terrain, the rider is constantly changing the center of gravity to maintain balance and traction while vaulting up ledges, whipping around corners, or bounding down descents. The rider engaged in wrangling the bike is rarely seated, and increasing numbers of riders are using telescopic seatposts (including myself, hopefully, in the near future).

Solid numbers

Yet I still feel the urge to quantify everything, so I am working on learning what matters when it comes to fitting a bike, and what is coincidental. My goal is to record the relevant measurements and make subtle changes so I can look back and remember where I have been on this journey. For the slightly-longer term, I would like to be able to find what I am looking for and make an informed purchase on my next frame, be it a more svelt off-the-peg frame or getting something built just for me.

In bicycle geometry, I find that quantified as stack and reach are more relevant in understanding how the bike will be wrangled, whereas effective top tube better defines the seated pedaling position that you can achieve by moving the saddle position around.

Stack and reach have been defined as the plumb-vertical distance from the bottom bracket to the intersection of a horizontal line that crosses the top of the head tube (stack), and horizontal distance from the center-top of the head tube to that vertical line that goes through the bottom bracket (reach). The intersection point is usually an imaginary one in the air perpendicular to the top of the frame and the center of the bottom bracket This has been explained in great detail by various manufacturers and has recently gained prominence as a standard measurement included with most manufacturers' literature.

Of course, as a bicycle's stack increases, so should it's reach. Tall people are tall because they have long legs, long torsos, and long arms, which is why bicycles get proportionally longer and taller at the same time. For different kinds of bicycles ridden in different ways, one needs to know what relation the stack and reach have to one another across sizes withing a model of bikes.

In other words, this is a fraction in need of a common denominator to make sense!

I played around with calculating effective downtube lengths and making the ratio into a reach/stack percentage, but then I read this blog and found my solution. The author was comparing stack and reach among lines of road bikes as a ratio, with a ratio of 1.5 to be about neutral. anything below 1.5 is "racey" and above 1.5 seems to imply a "relaxed" geometry.

Oddly, bicycle manufacturers seem to have made no attempt to connect these things in meaningful ways for their customers. Either they know that geometry is more complex than that level of simplicity (very likely)  or that the average consumer doesn't have the time, nor the mental capacity to wrap their head around that metric of comparison (equally likely).

If this theory holds any water, I can compare a few medium-sized frames that I find compelling (Kona Unit, Vassago Jabberwocky, surly Karate Monkey, etc) and find that the frame stack-and-reach ratio hover of most XC hardtail frames around the 1.4 mark. Niner's ROS 9 and SIR 9 medium frames are both 1.56, despite the fact that the former is labeled an "all mountain" bike and the latter a "XC/race" bike.

Of course, the end result of how a bike fits (pedaling) and handles (wrangling) depends on the way one sets up the saddle and handlebar position, but getting a frame that best a accommodates that position is a good start. If the frame dimensions do not yield the riding position and posture that suits your riding style, that's the wrong frame for you.

I am at this point: can I balance the fit and the handling of this current frame in a way that suits me and my riding style? If so, great! If not, I am back to shopping for a new frame. Since I am too cheap to just buy new stuff to solve my situation, this will be a long, difficult road.

back pain update

A few months ago, I replaced my Soma Juice frame with a Niner ROS 9. Although the fit was about the same, I noticed back pain after an hour or two of riding. I decided I should explore what's going on with my body rather than try to compensate for it by continually tweaking my bike fit.

I started working with Dr. Bradley Holden at Health First Spine and Wellness and ... wow! I could not ride my bike for more than an hour just a month ago and now the only thing sending me home is the brutal Texas heat and the accompanying dehydration and exhaustion.

Valuable lessons in spine maintenance

I have not ridden my bike in about a month. This is partly due to the fact that I was visiting Republic of Ireland and England for nearly two weeks (my brain is still on London time, which explains why I was up and writing this starting at 4:45 a.m.), but mostly because my first few rides on my new ROS 9 resulted in severe back pain.

I was able to ride the Castell Grind 100k without issue, but I have had to cut short all my trail rides after about an hour due to an aching lower back. It was unbearable and the pain would last for a few days. In an attempt to address this scientifically, I started listing variables that could cause this:

1. new bike is fitted differently
2. new bike is heavier than my old one
3. I am overly stoked on the new bike and riding harder/ differently
4. my body is mangled and this has finally manifesting itself in back pain

I concede that 1 through 3 are possibilities that should be addressed. I might end up paying a professional bike fitter to fine-tune my fit, but that seems like on unnecessary expense in my life right now. The new bike does fit a little differently, and it's slightly heavier, and I have been trying to manual and hop this bike quite a bit.

I took to internet message boards to help me narrow down what is going on and was told to set my bike up exactly like my old bike, fit it totally different, get a longer stem, a shorter stem, raise my handlebar, lower my handlebar, push my seat forward, push it back, get a softer seatpost, lower my tire pressure, and several other bits of advice that contradicted each other at every turn.

I have learned a lot about bike fit as a result of this pursuit, and also learned that everyone on the internet is an "expert," but more on that later.

[I preface everything else I am about to write with this caveat: I possess no medical expertise and an amateur understanding of bike fit and physiology. The following is based on my personal experiences, observations, and bits of knowledge I have gleaned from experts of varying levels of credibility. Take it all with a grain of salt and consult with a medical professional and/ or bike fitter for more information.]

That leaves my body, something better left to a medical professional. I have a history with back injuries from two car accidents, riding BMX for over 15 years, sitting for a desk job, manual labor, etc., and I have had mixed experiences with chiropractors. Despite what some people say about the practice (one person recently told me that they are all "chiroquacks"), I am convinced that no amount of stretching, exercise, "yoga" activity, bike fit adjustments, or painkillers are going to help if the spine is out of whack and a good chiro is the best person to deal with that.

On the advice of several local mountain bikers I know, I visited a nearby chiropractor a few weeks ago. He's a cyclist and his practice does everything, starting with x-rays and getting into adjustments, massage, physical therapy and training and he even does bike fittings. I was not terribly surprised to learn what his exam told me, but it's not terrific news.

My x-rays showed that I have a few issues going on:

1. my neck does not have a natural, healthy cervical lordosis. Instead, it curves slightly forward (kyphosis) and cantilevers my head in a forward position. It's subtle to the untrained eye, but it's definitely there. Some of the joints in my neck don't move very well and my head tilts slightly to the right, which is apparent in photos.
2. My lower back has some vertebrae that don't move freely. My lumbar lordosis is not quite what it ought to be.
3. My pelvis tilts forward and is not laterally level. I have an anterior pelvic tilt, which could be the result of several factors and habits I have.
4. My sacrum is tilted forward several degrees.

Since I was a child, despite being active and vaguely athletic, I have never been able to bend at the waist and touch my toes. Like many cyclists, have overdeveloped quads (front of thigh muscles that push pedals down) and weak, tight hamstrings, which somewhat explains the pelvic tilt and back pain. (I found an excellent article on Livestrong that describes this exact issue.)

Cycling likely exacerbated the pelvic problem to the state in which I find myself today. The muscles in front of my legs are strong and pulling down, keeping the weak muscles in back under constant tension, like a teeter totter with a really fat kid on one end. When I cantilever my upper body over the front of a bicycle and hammer on the pedals for hours, relying on my quads to do most of the work, it strains the lower back and, surprise!, it starts to ache miserably.

The chiropractor has me on a schedule of adjustments, training with a physical therapist and some home practices that will correct my spine over time and make it last.

Treatment is not cheap and it's unnerving to add this bill to my monthly expenses (I really need to find a way to earn more money, getting old is expensive and expensive is getting old), but I am convinced it's a good investment in my future health. I would rather make sacrifices now than have severe back problems in a decade or two that could keep me from working and enjoying life. At 35 years, I am not old, but I need to be intentional about these things.

In part II, I will explain what I have learned about bike fit and how I am learning to make my bike best accommodate the limits of my body.

ROS 9 cable routing

I wanted to add a little note about one minor frustation -- and a handy solution -- that I had with the new ROS 9.

The rear brake hose is apparently supposed to be routed under the down tube, under the bottom bracket, along the underside of the chainstay, then in front of the chainstay.

First of all, I was using a fairly long hose on my previous frame that ran under the top tube and down the seatstay, but routing the hose the way Niner intended made the hose dangerously short. It was feasible, but I knew I would be one handlebar-twisting crash away from ripping my hose out of my brake lever and needed to replace it anyways.

Secondly, I didn't like having the hose all exposed to rocks and such on the "outside" of the frame structure, preferring to have tacked away safely "inside" the frame.

The frame includes some hose hardware that bolts on and looks like it's perfect if you around anchoring two parallel hoses/housing along the frame for a brake and a derailleur or two, in addition to a dropper post cable or hose, but since my bike currently only has a rear brake, the hardware is unbalanced and inadequate for this singular duty.

nice 'n awkward

I made a trip to the local home improvement store and picked up a lifetime supply of these plastic cable clamps for under $2, plus some washers so I can bolt them down without smooshing the soft plastic into oblivion. I trimmed the square edges of three clamps into something that more closely resembles a round shape and bolted them to the underside of the top tube.

clean!

The frame does not have any sort of cable guides or braze-ons on the seatstays, so I had to fix the hose in place with two zip ties. I cinched them nice and tight to prevent the hose from getting too close the to tire, which could also spell disaster.

tucked in there

Shimano's design of the banjo bolt on that SLX caliper means I can point that hose any direction on that plane without affecting the brake's performance, which came in handy for this application.

I hope that helps people looking for alternate ways to route all the bits and bobs on their own bikes, whether you have multiple lockout switches or just a single rear brake.

New frame time! Niner ROS 9 first review

I have been itching for a new frame, something with a shorter chainstay for a more playful ride. The list of frames that check all the boxes (29er, steel, short chainstays, 44mm head tube, non-boutique price tag, etc) is a short one, so research should not have taken all the long. Nevertheless, in true 21st-century consumer form, I researched the daylights out of it. Contenders of note included the Canfield Nimble 9, Kona Honzo, Transition TransAM and Surly Karate Monkey. A few others made brief appearances on my list but were eliminated for various reasons (no longer in production, incompatibility with current components, price, etc) After careful consideration, I purchased a used Niner ROS 9 from an online seller on Pinkbike, which happens to be a fabulous place to find a deal on used gear.

I had some technical difficulties setting it up at first, but I'll get to that later. The ROS 9 (Roots of Steel or Ride Over S*** depending on who you ask), is made by a company that built it brand on the rising popularity of 29-inch tires and is a close cousin to the brand's every-popular SIR 9 (Steel Is Real) but with a more... [writer shutters at marketing jargon] "aggressive" design. Basically, it's more of a partying bike than a go-fast bike. It's relatively heavy because they built it out of big ol' tubes of steel, the rear end is shorter than the average XC frame (because wheelies), and the head tube angle is slacker so that the front wheel is more likely to go in a straight line when the trail gets rowdy and points downward. Based on reviews and riders' testimonies, I decided it would likely be an improvement over the Juice, which is an excellent frame in its own right.

Most companies making single-speedable bikes these days are utilizing sliding dropouts similar those available from Paragon Machine Works, or swinging dropouts. With those designs, the rear axle moves in relation to everything else on the bike to tension the chain. This also allows the rider to change the rear end length of the bike to accommodate their riding style, but realistically, most riders are going to slide the rear axle to the shortest position they can get, singlespeed or multi speed. The ROS 9, like most frames in its class, is not marketed as a singlespeed frame but it makes a great cadidate for a SS conversion if the rider so pleases.

Niner initially chose to build many of their frames with eccentric bottom brackets, a design that has fallen out of favor with most other manufacturers over the years. The EBB basically means that the center of the cranks can be rotated around an axis in the center of an oversized BB shell in the frame. On the surface, this is simply a way to tighten a singlespeed drivetrain, but it can also significantly change the geometry and, therefore, the fit and handling of the bike. Moving the cranks forward, rearward, up, or down creates many more options, which, I am learning, is a blessing and a curse.

The frame came together easily. The details on the frame are elegant- the "yoke" that connects the chainstays to the bottom bracket allows lots of chainring clearance, fat tire clearance, and room to shove the rear wheel very "forward" and still has room for a front derailleur in case you're still into those. The yoke also serves as a convenient shelf to collect and store mud from your rear tire, an option I hope not to use if I can find a way to make a fender for that area. The curved seat tube creates lots of room for the rear tire in this tucked position and has a plug for an internally routed dropper post, something I hope to try out in the near future. The shorter chainstay allowed me to remove two full links from the chain when I transferred the drivetrain from my Soma Juice to the ROS 9, which was very satisfying. The dropouts feature a 142x12mm Rockshox Maxle in place of a traditional quick release dropout, which necessitated buying a new axle for my hub. It seems like a great feature to bring my bike fully into the 21st century, albeit not to the cutting edge or Boost hubs. I can live without the Boost option. It's a good-looking bike. Round steel tubes with a few funky bends, subdued paint and graphics (with Niner's signature "Pedal Damn It" on the top tube), and a dropout sans derailleur hanger for a clean singlespeed setup. I was under the impression that this would be a "heavy" bike, but I am used to heavy bikes and the build was only slightly heavier than my Juice.

current form: 120mm fork, 34/21 drivetrain, offset seatpost, 60mm stem, 760mm riser bars, zombie head valve cap.

I have to say, the experience was not the night-and-day difference I had been lead to expect. I read and watched a lot of reviews of this and similar "AM hardtails" that had me believing on some level that this frame would have me fearlessly leaping off cliffs and manualing across the freshly-sawn log bridges that do not exist within several hundred miles of any place I have ever ridden.

The truth was much more subtle and I am trying to suss out what makes it different from what I have ridden in the past. The back end of the bike of the bike is significantly shorter, which makes wrangling the front of the bike easier, and the fork angle is a bit slacker than what I am used to which supposedly makes holding a line on the downhills easier. I have yet to push the bike hard enough to feel a significant difference or I am fairly tone deaf to these subtleties. However, the changes are welcome ones so far.

One snafu I encountered was in fitting the bike to my inflexible, average, quasi-athletic body. Stated briefly, subtle differences in frame geometry and component dimensions can have a significant effect on how a bike fits and handles. Case in point: My Juice had a conventional 72 degree seat tube angle and I had a 16mm offset seatpost on it. the ROS 9 has a 74 degree seatpost angle and the frame came with a non-offset seatpost. Putting the saddle at the same height as my old frame resulted in the saddle being shoved forward about 25mm relative to the cranks. combine that with the slacker head tube angle on the new frame and I lost over and inch of reach from the saddle to the bars by setting up the ROS 9 this way. A somewhat short ride of 15 miles on local trails ended with severe lower back pain from being hunched over the bike for two hours.

I am experimenting with adjustments to the fit that will accommodate me better. I built this frame one week before Castell Grind, a 63-mile gravel road "race" that I knew would turn into a torture session if I did not remedy these issues beforehand. Luckily, I was able to borrow a seatpost with 25mm of offset (which is a lot of offset) and an 80mm stem to stretch out the reach. I was very pleased with the results. I finished 100 kilometers of country roads on a very unconventional bike: "heavy" all-mountain singlespeed hardtail in about 4 1/2 hours, with a singlespeed drivetrain, nonetheless. I finished the ride with zero back pain. More on that later.

On trails, I feel I have a little more confidence blasting over rock gardens, down chutes, and hucking the bike up ledges than I did with the Juice. the Juice was long and smooth, whereas the ROS 9 is snappy. More to come on setting up the bike and tweaking it for better fit and handling.

May the Juice be with you- the final review

I have been riding my Soma Juice for over two years and I think it's time to say goodbye to this lovely brownstone steed. It's a beautifully designed frame- the hourglass headtube, curve stays, elegant use of sliding dropouts, versatility, durability, and smooth ride have all served me well. I rode this bike primarily off-road, tackling Austin chunk every week, and one gravel race, which turned out to be my favorite gravel race yet.

newborn Juice, January 2015

The above copy sounds like an advertisement because I have been reading bicycle reviews for so long. The brutal truth is that I was working at a bike shop at the time that I purchased this frame and it was literally my only option. I was riding a too-small Surly Karate Monkey, which is also and excellent bicycle frame, and I wanted to ride something longer in terms of reach. After two decades of getting my kicks on a 20" BMX bike, "small" mountain bikes seemed like a good idea to me, so I was riding a frame on which I felt comfortable at first, but time and miles on the trail showed me how squirrely handling can be and how unforgiving on the spine it is.

I wanted a steel 29er that would easily convert to single-speed use and not break the bank. Working in a bicycle shop means you don't make a lot of money and, with other financial priorities in my life besides purchasing bicycle parts, I could not afford to buy much of anything that was not subject to a hefty industry discount. The company for which I was working has recently lost its relationship with Surly, so a new Karate Monkey was out. Due to various levels of corporate nonsense, I was also forbidden to buy anything else from any other bike company with which my employer did not already have a business relationship, so that left me with the option to pay full-price for something from another retailer, or buy a Juice direct from the distributor. I chose the latter.

preparing for Full Moon Fever, a nighttime gravel race, which was canceled due to a steady downpour that turned the dirt roads to rivers.

I was not terribly excited about the Juice at first, feeling compelled by forces beyond my control to ride it over any other choices, but it turned out to be a great choice. I won't pretend that I can tell the subtle qualities of the metal tubes, the artistry of the welds, the "lateral/compliant" magical qualities of a "lively" bicycle that elevated me to mystical planes of existence. No, it's a piece of metal that connects two wheels and various components that translate human movement into locomotion. It does this much better than many other similar pieces of metal and it led to me having a lot of fun and burning a lot of calories in the process to make room for additional cookies that I would not have otherwise eaten.

it's peanut butter jelly time!

In short, the Juice was fun to ride, not very expensive and didn't keep me from doing anything I would not have otherwise done on a different bicycle frame.

At least that's what I tell myself.

a brief experiment with gears instead of single-speed

One thing that never felt entirely comfortable with on the Juice is the "weight" of the front end, which, for me has a lot to do with the chainstay length. Chainstay length on a mountain bike is a touchy subject, but I tend to land in the short camp. All other things equal, having the rear wheel tucked closer to you center of gravity makes it easier to shift your weight far enough behind the rear axle to huck the front wheel up onto or over whatever is in your way. Or just do a wheelie, which is an essential part of having fun on a bicycle.

The Juice is designed such that the sliding dropouts make the effective chainstay length about 445mm or just under 17.5". If you have gears on it, you can slam the sliders to this position and leave them there and this position is sufficient for many people, especially gearies. If you ride single-speed, you have to use the sliding position of the dropouts to tension the chain. With the range of effective chainstay lengths ranging from under 420mm (16.5") to ... much longer, the Juice limit of 445 leaves it on the long end of the spectrum.

Since I ride this bike with a single speed drivetrain most of the time, I have to make compromises, as all singlespeeders do. When the trail is flat and you want to go fast, there's a limit to how fast you can realistically go once you legs top out in RPMs. When the trail gets steep, the terrain loose, or you reach a series of rocky ledges, as often happens where I ride, most riders would shift to an easier gear, stay seated, and spin the cranks with relative leisure. It's still no picnic to spin your way up a hill in a low gear -- it's taxing on your heart and lungs. But with a single speed, you have to stand and "mash" the pedals in order to maintain momentum.

lightweight tires and a hard gear ratio made urban exploration rides fun on rainy days.

When a momentum-killing rock, ledge, patch of loose material, or change in topography presents itself, you have to react quickly, shifting your center of gravity on the bike to lift the front tire, unweight the back tire, or dig into the backside of and obstacle you have just cleared for that extra ounce of momentum. This is where bicycle designers have a conundrum that I don't envy: design a bike that is a compromise between stability and maneuverability. I think the Juice erred on the side of stability.

Climbing a hill on a singlespeed or navigating otherwise tricky terrain means shifting your weight around a lot, more so than you would need to with gears. To increase the amount torque applied to the rear wheel needed to keep going uphill, I need to change my body position so that my legs and piston the pedals up and down with more force. For me, that means standing up and getting forward a bit. Doing so, however, puts more weight on the front wheel and less on the back, increasing the chances of stalling out from a front-end collision or losing traction on the rear wheel and spinning out, thus ending the fun of painfully grinding my way up a ridiculous pitch of earth. If I lean back a bit to get the rear to bite harder, my legs lose some of the wattage I need to put into the pedals and I stall in lieu of ripping my knees apart or the pedals from the cranks. I am not sure which would go first.

What is the answer to this? The peanut gallery is saying "why don't you put gears on your bike, ya big dummy?" No, being stubborn is more fun and gives me writing fodder and another reason to be smug about riding my bike. No, really, the reasons for riding a single speed mountain bike are the subject of another session. The real answer has to do with what I mentioned earlier- is it the bike, or the rider? I think it's some combination of the two.

If I wanted to be able to rocket up and over all the difficult terrain I just described on a singlespeed bike, I could do one of two things:

1. ride more, get a stronger core and legs and arms, increase skill and vision to chose routes across the terrain that make those feats more likely to succeed.
2. change my bike in such a way that it is more conducive to my skills and body proportions for the terrain.

I only have so much time and patience for 1) so I am trying 2). This goes back to what I was saying about frame design and balance. Each rider has a different center of gravity; the amount of effort it takes to shift one's weight to increase traction or unweight the front or rear of the bike is different. Most frame manufacturers only take into account a rider's skeletal proportions so that the contact points of the bike (pedals, saddle, handlebar) fit proportionally for efficient, comfortable pedaling. However, as riders' heights vary, so do their center of gravity. But frame designers typically only change the dimensions of the front end of the bike and not the rear to account for riders sizes.

post-nighttime ride that turned a bit muddy.

For example, a few years ago, I helped a guy build a BMX bike for himself. This bike was designed for jumping, riding ramps, doing tricks, etc. With their small 20" tires, BMX bikes are very easy to toss around, but subtle changes in geometry can make the bike more stable or more "flickable." The trend in BMX bikes are the time was shorter and shorter chainstays. An older bike might have 14.5"-15" stays, especially if it was designed for racing or dirt jumping. At the time, chainstays were dipping well below 14" and pushing 13" to make the bike easier to flip around.

The problem was that this rider was six-and-a-half feet tall. The front end of the bike was designed with an extra-extra long top tube and he put the most enormous handlebar that he could find on it to accommodate his height. But the chainstay length remained true to the trend, extra short. With his height, lifting the front end required only the tiniest shift rearward, whereas a shorter rider would require more effort to do so. The result was that the bike was very unstable, difficult to find a balance point to manual it and easy to loop out and wind up laying on his back. He left the chain long enough that the rear axle was pushed as far back in the slots as was safe, but it still left a lot to be desired in terms of stability.

All this is to say that, while the Juice is a fantastic bike, I wanted something with a shorter chainstay so I can do wheelies on it and manhandle it over difficult terrain. All of my mountain bikes have been steel and rarely have seen gears, and the pool of available steel, 29er, singlespeedable framesets with short chainstays is a fairly short list. Stay tuned as I have already purchased and am now riding a new frame and will report on the new experience.

secret location

self-filmed video of Austin trails

I spent most of the day filming a video of myself (with a little help from trail guru Carl) and this is the result of many hours filming, editing clips, and cobbling together the footage. Enjoy!

All of the above video is taken within a few miles of trails near my home. I had trouble getting perspective on the terrain. The rather bouncy downhill sections and chunky climbs I am doing here look much more mellow than reality. I thought it was funny to include ten takes on the same climb, which is littered with little ledges and fat roots, only to discover that the angle only makes me look like an idiot who can't ride a bike in a straight line. I will need to work on that so my next video project is more compelling.

Bonus little behind-the-scenes info: I filmed this on my Samsung Galaxy 5s, which I always have on me anyway. I have made some cheesy videos in the past with a smart phone learning on a rock or bungee-corded to a tree. This time around, I went all-out and spent a whopping $13 on a flexible tripod that allowed me to balance and aim the camera exactly where I want it by perching it on a rock, warping around a tree brand, or standing it on the ground.

Filming took all day and I had to stop by the house halfway through to recharge my phone and eat a ridiculous sausage, which is also profiled in the film.

Further bonus info! These will probably be the last images of my riding the Soma Juice frame. It's been a great frame but I am trying something new. A more thorough review of the Juice is coming soon.

waterproof socks

My feet get cold easily. I probably have a medical condition. It's one of the many reasons why I can't imagine moving back to the Midwest, where I grew up. No amount of layers of socks made from cotton, synthetics, wool, baby seal or tauntaun guts (unless said tauntaun is really fresh, like warm saurkraut) can help me. I need an external heat source. The feeling of constantly-numb toes horrifies me so much that I would need to make a heavy investment in foot-warming apparatus before spending any significant amount of time up there again.

The only thing worse than cold feet is cold feet that are also wet. Since most of the cold water on might encounter while riding a bicycle is on the ground, it makes sense that keeping your feet dry would be important. Enter Dexshell socks. There are a few other makers of waterproof socks on the market but these are a little cheaper than the others and I got a pair for Christmas this year. I finally had the opportunity to put them to the test this weekend.

I joined some friends for an urban ramble on a foul Texas "winter" day of overcast skies, drizzily atmostphere, and frigid sub-50 temperatures! OK, it was not that cold, but cool enough to make getting wet miserable. We had planned to ride from a friend's east-side home to a park on the north side from town, then south through the city and back over to the house. I had time to do about half of that and learned that a rigid 29er with fat knobbies is not the worst road bike choice after all.

At one point, we made a point of going off-road, despite the soggy conditions and the fact that none of us was riding a bona fide mountain bike. We abandoned the world of pavement as soon as we could and followed a jeep road for a while, hoping it would eventually lead us back to civilization. Before we made our way back to pavement, we had to traverse a boggy area that resulted in wet shoes all around. Seeing the water, I realized that, given the misery that cold feet gives me, I would probably be scurrying home once I felt the water sloshing around in my shoes. So I took the plunge.

Cold? Yes! But dry. Dexshell socks held up to this first test. I learned that my toe covers and my shoes hold water well, and that cold water surrounding my feet for the next few hours certainly was not fun, but much better than being wet.

We kept riding and at one point I peeled off to head home. I stayed dry for most of the rest of the trip and lost feeling in my toes, as was expected. I learned that wet shoes are still cold shoes, so if you really want to keep feeling your toes, you need more than waterproof socks, but the socks are a good start.

[followed this concrete wall for a part of my journey. good message!]

Texas Chainring Massacre report

Half of the fun of mountain biking, for me at least, is exploring and just pedaling for as long as I can be out before life's obligations call me back. The other half is about technical challenges. Sometimes I want to focus on the latter, and I can find plenty of nearby trails to challenge me in that regard. The best way to do the former is a gravel grinder, a popular race/fun ride format that involves riding long courses on unpaved, rural roads.

I have done a few of these over the years, including The Holy Roller, Castelle Grind, and the Texas Chainring Massacre. Previously, I have ridden cyclocross-type bikes that I have owned (Pake C'mute, Salsa Vaya, Soma Double Cross Disc) and, while those bikes have been great for this kind of riding with 32-42mm knobby tires, I took the plunge a few months ago and sold my last CX bike and committed to making my Soma Juice hardtail 29er my only bike. With a little bit of adapting, a mountain bike makes a great gravel grinder. Most of the hundreds of other people riding around me (and past me!) were riding cyclcross/gravel-specific bikes for good reason, but I just wanted to do this for fun and finish these events strong with my bike.

In addition to riding what many will consider a sub-optimal bike for a gravel race, I chose to try this last event, the 2017 Texas Chainring Massacre 100k on a single-speed bike. To make my bike gravel-ready, I had to change a few things from my usual trail setup:

*replaced the 120mm suspension fork with a rigid Salsa Chromoto Grande fork. This fork has a tapered steerer tube like my squish fork, and a 15mm through axle, so I didn't need to do anything different with my front wheel.

[Salsa rigid fork]

*swapped my 60mm stem and 740mm riser bar for a 100mm stem and 640mm flat bar. I also put some bar ends and TOGS. Since most riders use a bike with a drop handlebar for additional hand positions, I felt that this was the next best thing, and I ended up using 3-4 hand positions over my hours on the road

*gearing- this was a tough call. I live in Austin and the event is held in north Texas. I had ridden CRM two years ago on a geared bike and did not remember the terrain well enough to know how much climbing would be involved. Knowing I would not have the options of shifting gears meant picking a gear that would cruise well on the flat sections and be easy enough to pedal up the hills. I went with a 38t front chainring and an 18t rear in place of the 32/20 combo that I usually use. As a bail-out option, I slid a 20t cog on next to the first cog, so that I could wrap my chain around it without too much drama and hobble to the finish on a slightly easier gear.

[big ol' KMC singlespeed chain actually didn't play nice with my Raceface narrow-wide ring, so I put an old 10-speed chain on instead]

*tires- this is, in my opinion, the thing that can make or break a gravel grind experience. I have ridden these events on 32mm Contintal Race Kings, 42mm Conti Speed Rides, and 35mm WTB Cross Boss tires. Every time I do one of these rides, I start to think "man, I wish I had bigger tires on my bike. next time I'll put some fatties on!"

While the Cross Boss has been my favorite "skinny" tire so far (partially due to the effortless tubeless application), I found a good deal on some Schwalbe Thunderburt tires in a 29x2.1 size and chose those over the Specialized Renegades that were competing for my attention. Thunderburts are light, supple, and fast on hardpack and on pavement, and the casing is big enough to roll at lower pressures. They seated easily on my WTB rims and have been grippy enough for some nimble singletrack riding.


The Chainring Massacre experience was my best gravel race yet. Kevin and the Spinistry team have upped their game this year with a much better-organized event than my last experience. There were hundreds of riders, timing chips, well-marked turns on the course for people riding different distances, and credit for free food/ liquor in the little town square at the end of the ride. The route took us through beautiful, remote farm roads and lots of challenging gravel, rolling hills, and folks willing to spin and chat once the group spread out enough.

As I mentioned, hand position options were a great idea for my mountain bike. I am having a harder and harder time making the case for myself that I should ever own a drop-bar bike again when I can ride narrow flat bars with ends and get the same effect (for my purposes, at least, YMMV). Tires were spectacular, I brought plenty of snacks and water, and I dressed warm enough for the ride that started just about freezing and ended in the low 50s. My toes quickly went numb and stayed that way for the duration of the ride, and I don't recall stopping to pee at any point. Pedaling and drinking water and not peeing for that period of time is probably not healthy.

I managed to finish in just over 5 hours and I was the 200th rider to complete the 100k distance. That is not impressive my any means, but I was riding against at least one Tour de France champion and handicapped myself with a relatively heavy bike with only one gear. I was perfectly pleased with my performance, though. I rode strong the whole time, only stopped once at the lone water station to refill, and didn't walk any of the hills, as much as my legs wanted me to.

Looking back, I would have geared down just a tiny bit to help with the hills (maybe a 19t cog instead of 20t) and shoved some warmers in my shoes to prevent the numbness that plagued me the whole way. Looking forward to next year. Before that, I have Castell, Holy Roller, and whatever urban rambles I can cobble together in the meantime.

[The Juice getting some well-earned R&R]