The Dark side.

July. This is that time of year when I spend most of my time riding in darkness. The morning commute begins before the dawn & the return is in amongst the headlights & street lights of inner city Melbourne. Always dark and always cold, I layered up, still sweat underneath, but I never feel my fingers or toes until the end of my hot showers. My gear spends more time in front of the heater than I do - drying.

The cool autumn days lead into that constant cold & wet dampness of July & August that really ages a MTB. Brake pads wear & groupsets are reduced to lifetimes measured in days. At Thursday night dirt crits the numbers drop & coming in last still means finishing in the top ten.

There’s been a new section of singletrack opened up on the course, but I’m not a big fan. Mostly because it was cut by just placing some arrows through long grass & assorted debris, then letting the run of MTB tyres wear a groove into the under growth. It’s been 3 weeks now since this new bit was opened up & I’m still getting lost it in all when I don’t have a wheel to follow – and this on a 3kms course! Jumping on the ‘bus’ (after dirt crits, a grouppetto of MTBs usually heads to the city down Lorimar St Pt Melb), you can see grass in just about everyone’s cassette & derailers, even the s/s don’t miss out on taking something home.

I don’t want to go on about my form of late, as there doesn’t seem to be much to speak of , but I have been able to manage an over-the-‘bars effort 2 out of the 3 races out there. I’m blaming this on the odd set up on my Stumpjumper, where the Rock Shox SID team forks I recently bought for it seem to ride quite low (unable to change the ride height). This steepens my geometry & it kinda feels like it wants to tuck in on corners & fastish going. Standing out of the saddle & powering places me way over the front of the front axel. Fox RLC 100 forks on the Anthem seem to ride much higher & actually the ride on that bike comes across as much nicer. I’ll scout out 2nd hand forks & see if I can buy/sell 2nd hand & manage a change over for less than $100 to reduce that nervous feeling the front end has on that Stumpjumper.