I collected my Rail on Monday, Invisiframed on Tuesday, Wednesday and a little bit on Thursday evening (sounds like a Craig David song ?)... and spent the rest of Thursday setting up suspension, putting pedals & mudguards on, and fine tuning the gears.
Friday was an evening off other than looking some stuff out and fitting the matchmaker set to put the shifters on the brakes - and this morning was the ‘maiden voyage’!
Last Saturday I rode my Stumpy a 10mile loop that I often do at a local trail. For the first time ever, I attached my Sony Action Camera (much like a go-pro) onto my chest and filmed it. It was also routed on my Garmin Edge 520. Today I did the same - purely for a comparison.
The route I did has 510m of elevation gain.
On my Stumpy, this took 1hr and 27mins (1hr 19mins moving). Both bikes have the SRAM Eagle groupset, and I spent about 3/4 of it on one of the 2 biggest cogs. A lot of the journey was at about 2.5-3mph. There’s quite a lot of fire road involved, but there is also a single track uphill climb - which has some quite technical ‘obstacles’ on the way. Some of these I have to get off and push over, as I don’t have the speed or stamina to carry them. It’s also difficult to do some of them due to continual pedal strikes if you were to try and pedal up them at slow speed.
This morning, I rode the rail in EMTB mode for the entire journey. There were no 2.5-3mph sections... and I did the entire loop in 50mins (44mins moving). There were no issues with any of the obstacles or climbs (other than a bit of inexperience where I pedalled at the wrong time and got an unexpected surge!).
The bike felt really planted, and comfortable to ride. I’ve read of people saying the front comes up quite easy on steep climbs, but I actually found it much better than my SJ. The trail was relatively dry, and the Bontrager stock tyres were surprisingly good.
The Bosch Gen4 motor was surprisingly quiet, and I didn’t notice any rattling.
After I completed that loop, I left some stuff in the car and headed out again. I did another 11 and a bit miles (695m elevation gain) and tackled some uphill sections that I would have never dreamed possible on a regular bike. The sort of climbs that tire you out when pushing and you struggle with footing on big rocks. I’m not saying they were easy to climb, but I managed.
I was starting to panic when the battery turned orange at 30%, but I made it back to the car with 12% remaining!
I spoke to a few people whilst out, and they were all pro EMTB. The general consensus was that if money wasn’t an object, they’d have one.
Good news is I have a few hour window tomorrow and my wife has said I can go cycle again! Can’t wait!!
Friday was an evening off other than looking some stuff out and fitting the matchmaker set to put the shifters on the brakes - and this morning was the ‘maiden voyage’!
Last Saturday I rode my Stumpy a 10mile loop that I often do at a local trail. For the first time ever, I attached my Sony Action Camera (much like a go-pro) onto my chest and filmed it. It was also routed on my Garmin Edge 520. Today I did the same - purely for a comparison.
The route I did has 510m of elevation gain.
On my Stumpy, this took 1hr and 27mins (1hr 19mins moving). Both bikes have the SRAM Eagle groupset, and I spent about 3/4 of it on one of the 2 biggest cogs. A lot of the journey was at about 2.5-3mph. There’s quite a lot of fire road involved, but there is also a single track uphill climb - which has some quite technical ‘obstacles’ on the way. Some of these I have to get off and push over, as I don’t have the speed or stamina to carry them. It’s also difficult to do some of them due to continual pedal strikes if you were to try and pedal up them at slow speed.
This morning, I rode the rail in EMTB mode for the entire journey. There were no 2.5-3mph sections... and I did the entire loop in 50mins (44mins moving). There were no issues with any of the obstacles or climbs (other than a bit of inexperience where I pedalled at the wrong time and got an unexpected surge!).
The bike felt really planted, and comfortable to ride. I’ve read of people saying the front comes up quite easy on steep climbs, but I actually found it much better than my SJ. The trail was relatively dry, and the Bontrager stock tyres were surprisingly good.
The Bosch Gen4 motor was surprisingly quiet, and I didn’t notice any rattling.
After I completed that loop, I left some stuff in the car and headed out again. I did another 11 and a bit miles (695m elevation gain) and tackled some uphill sections that I would have never dreamed possible on a regular bike. The sort of climbs that tire you out when pushing and you struggle with footing on big rocks. I’m not saying they were easy to climb, but I managed.
I was starting to panic when the battery turned orange at 30%, but I made it back to the car with 12% remaining!
I spoke to a few people whilst out, and they were all pro EMTB. The general consensus was that if money wasn’t an object, they’d have one.
Good news is I have a few hour window tomorrow and my wife has said I can go cycle again! Can’t wait!!
