
Originally Posted by
Rontele
So...
Moving to Boston at the end of the year so a majority of my riding will be transitioning from Colorado singletrack to east coast riding (never ridden east of Michigan). Anyways, I am in the queue to have Walt Wehner build me a new bike and originally was going to have him put together a low, slack Krampus style rigid 29er. Other option would be for more of a hardtail 29er...Looks like gravitylover and scrubby are using the fat bikes out east with ease.
On that note, what should I expect with regard to riding? I'm fine with mediocre skiing so long as there is good riding
HIJACK
That 'oughta work well for a general burly hardtail bike out here. Lots of flexibility there to play around with tire sizes and rigid vs. squishy forked. Really, anything works out here, just (obviously) tailor it to your riding preferences. Only bike or adding to the stable? I've only ridden with you twice I think, and haven't got a clue what your pedaling about nowadays.
I love my Fatty - it's a hell of a lot of fun to ride, but... No way in hell would it be my only ride. As an ancillary ride, it's great. If living somewhere with more/better snow than I am, that opinion might differ.
A good 5-6" pedal-able bike, slightly over-forked, 1x something drive-train, dropper post equipped, toobless tire setup ride out here is TITS, IMO. Lighter/beefier wheels and tires to suit your tastes and trails. If I could only have one bike, it'd be along these lines. Thankfully, I don't only have to have one bike.
The Fatty, the hardtail, and the 7" bike all get their time, but I'd say the TRc gets the majority of ride time. I took it for a long weekend with some riding around Douthat, VA recently and was completely over-biked - I had to actively seek out anything even remotely technical to make it worthwhile for that bike. No wonder the 29er hardtail is king down there. OTOH, the climbs fucking crushed me, because the local this has so little vert. Potato, potatoh.
Warning: gross generalizations ahead.
Riding out here (and the riding areas/community) I have found to be very different than out west. Not in a better or worse way, just different. We seem to be seen far less as nature destroying hooligans out here. Much more of a libertarian mindset - "those dudes riding their bikes in the woods aren't bugging me, so I won't bug them" more or less.
It's all shorter ups and downs with lots of tight bits in trees and slow speed chunky tech mixed in with higher speed smoother stuff. Long ass bits of contiguous climbing, descending, and baby ass smooth bits are far less prevalent. The name for a lot of the riding is cross-stuntry. Skinnies and way more trialsy side options on which to play/drop/roll out here than around CO, if you are into that sort of thing.
Now, this will all depend on where exactly you end up, your preferences, and what your local spots end up being of course.
Florence Nightingale's Stormtrooper
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