First Mountain Bike Ride On the 650B Stumpy

Rich left me a message on my phone, Friday. "Hey, dude. Want to go mountain biking for a few hours, up in Buffalo Creek, tomorrow?" (Words to that effect, anyway...)

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"Hells yeah!" I thought. "I want to try the 650b bike out on the dirt.

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So, plans were made, coffee was drunk and we eventually found ourselves at the trailhead parking lot outside of Pine.

I figure we got the "odd couple" award for our mismatched bikes. I was riding the 1984 Stumpjumper Sport 650b conversion, while Rich was on his new YETI ASR.

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OldSchool/New School Shootout? Nah, I leave that kind of crap to the guys at Mountain Bike Fiction magazine. We were just two guys riding the bikes we wanted to ride.

Did I like the way bike rode? By the looks of the maniac grin I'm sporting in this picture, I'd have to say so. I love Mustache bars, off-road, and the big wheels and tires hooked up well on the sandy trails.

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Plus, it's a hoot to ride rigid, again, after all these years. I think I've slowed down so much, in the past couple of years, that I ride about as fast rigid as I do with suspension (or as slow with suspension as I do rigid, I suppose).

Part of the ride took us through the burn area. Lots of vegetation has reestablished itself, but the horizon is still a lot farther away than it was ten years ago when the whole area was heavily forested.

Rich on a climb.

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The one shortcoming of the bike was the brakes. I was running Avid Shorty cantilevers, and they just weren't cutting it on the long downhills. I had a few "life flashing before my eyes" moments, and pretty much was constantly on the brakes just to avoid gaining enough speed that I'd overshoot a turn, unable to slow down enough.
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In other words, I was transported back to 1996.

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In all, we rode 19 miles of trail. Rich sent me the elevation profile from his GPS:

That last downhill was worth the price of admission.

Today, I decided to make some V-Brakes work on the bike. I modified the 29er adapters I had made, back when I was running the 700c wheels on the bike, so that they aligned the front pads with the rim. The rear brakes were close to usable, and I was able to slightly lengthen the mounting slot on the brakes, themselves, to get good alignment.

The road bike brake levers were replaced with some V-Brake levers, modified to fit on the Mustache bar diameter. Presto! I got stopping power!

Here's the Dr. Jekyll personality of the bike. Road tires and the rear rack convert the mountain bike to a randonneur/touring rig.

Those are the stock tires from the Raleigh Portage I just sold. I'll be getting some newer, nicer tires for it, eventually. I'd like to get another pair of the Schwalbes like I put on the Portage.

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Fenders are in route from Velo Orange. Maybe I'll actually get around to installing them, on this bike. I sent the fenders I bought for the Portage away with the bike, still in undrilled, new condition.

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Oh, well, gotta get the snow bike ready for the commute, tomorrow. Close to 80 degrees, today, and a winter storm is supposed to move in overnight. Rain/snow in the morning, snow in the afternoon. The forecast is for only a few inches, though. The blizzard is apparently going about 90 miles north of Denver, this time.

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