Dancing in the Park

Skipped out on work on Tuesday and headed down to Wilderness Park to help out with another Salsa Demo Day. Weather was absolutely perfect for it and the park was in pretty good shape considering all the rain we had gotten just a few days prior... seems like rain right before the Salsa Demo Days is getting to be a trend.



Being a mid day, weekday demo ride the setup went really smooth and we were done in plenty of time before the bulk of the riders would show up. Workday demo rides might not be ideal but I know that all the manufacturers and busy, busy, busy with demo rides and sometimes you draw the short straw as they make their way across their territories.


One plus about a workday demo is that once the bikes, tents, etc. are all setup there is usually a little bit of time to take a spin on the demos yourself. Knowing it would probably be a popular choice since it was brand new, I opted to take the Redpoint out for an early spin. This is Salsa's new trail bike sporting 27.5" tires, 150 mm or front and rear squish and Boost hub spacing. While 150 mm, or 6" if you prefer, of travel sounds like way too much for Nebraska, I see this bike being snatched up by those people out there who want or can afford only one bike and they want that bike to be able to do almost anything. Sure you're never going to use 6" of travel in Wilderness Park or any other trail around here but it also isn't going to hinder you either, I've never heard anyone say that they wished their bike had less travel. On the plus side though, if you frequent places outside the confines of the Nebraska border, places like Colorado, Montana, Oregon or Utah that 6" of travel would probably be very appreciated.  It rode really nice and as you can imagine smoothed out the earthen imperfections of the park like nobody's business... it's like the suddenly paved over the singletrack.


Bill grabbed himself a Bucksaw and joined me for a few mile romp through the trees, that Redpoint absolutely carved up the trail for having that much travel.


Of course preferring my bikes with a little bit more girth around the middle, I didn't pass up the opportunity to take the Bucksaw for a spin myself. This bike is by far my favorite mountain bike I have ever ridden... yes, I typed that right, while it is also a bike with fat tires it is a mountain bike. Fat Bikes have come a long way since their heavy, lumbering and often sluggish days to what you see here in this beautiful 100 mm travel, 4" tire, carbon beauty. If I had the coin to get me one of these it would already be a done deal and I'd happily give up a slight weight penalty over a traditional anorexic mountain bike for a ton more smiles per miles.


It wasn't all riding bikes for me though and by the time I got back people were starting to show up at a pretty good pace. I might have only gotten to ride two bikes but I'm not complaining, I got to take the new Redpoint out and see what it was all about and then ride my girl again.

Not much more for story from here on out, just some pictures of people riding bikes and having a great time and that's better than any yarn I could weave anyway.



















And just like that it was a wrap, 5 hours of bikes, dirt, smiles and laughter and another successful demo day was in the books leaving nothing left but the tear down and of course beer-thirty.

Thanks to everyone who came out, it was a blast.


Parting thought, while not part of QBP or the demo at all, if you're into fat biking, bike packing or gravel/adventure racing; check out the folks at BarYak. They make some pretty light weight and innovative handlebar mounting systems for attaching all sorts of equipment and devices to while providing additional hand placement options. More options for hand placement is always good when piling up the miles on the bike to help prevent hand, arm, shoulder issues from being in the same riding position for hours and who can't use more attachment points when hauling some gear. These bars belong to fellow Rasta Rider and BarYak sponsored superwoman Jamie, so if you want to see them close up and personal just ask her and I'm sure she'd let you have a look. Plus they are made right here in the good ole US of A in South Dakota by the Stillers, who not only manufacture the products but do their fare share of riding themselves so they know what works and what doesn't.

Two To Tango, Three To Salsa

 Salsa demo was yesterday morning out at Tranquility Park in Omaha, of course just to make things interesting we had a little rain roll through over night Friday night into Saturday morning. I showed up a little bit early to do a little prospecting to make sure that the trails would be OK to ride on and as it turned out so did Brian from Salsa.  This was a blessing as I didn't bring a bike with me and was just planning on walking some of the trail, luckily Brian had a whole van full of bicycles so that we could go out a little farther and test more of the trail, which ended up being in really good shape despite Mother Nature's attempt to literally rain on our parade.


Unfortunately for me the bike nearest the back of the Salsa van was the brand new 27.5+ Pony Rustler, so I was forced to ride it for the prospecting lap. I can see a lot of these bikes being sold this year for Salsa, it's almost identical to their longer travel 29er, the Horsethief except with a different tire size. Although because they both run the new Boost hub standard front and rear and have identical geometry, it is my understanding that you can run 27.5+ on the Horsethief or run 29er wheels on the Pony Rustler... you could buy either bike and have two options just by buying a second set of wheels. My only question would be, since they are identical and can run either wheel size, I wonder how long it will be before one of the bike lines is absorbed by the other. For example they could have just offered the Horsethief in a 27.5+ option and wouldn't have needed a newly named bicycle model. I guess only time will tell but I can tell you one thing for sure, it was an awesome bike to ride.


I tried to convince Brian to just let me take this one home and say that it must have fallen off the back of the van but as you can see, he wasn't buying it.



Once it was determined that the trails were good to ride it was time to unload and setup bikes, tents and tables in preparation for the masses looking to ride. It's pretty amazing the amount of bikes they can fit into one of these vans, it was a good solid hour of unloading and assembling bicycles.


Align handlebars, secure front wheels, pump tires, check suspension, install pedals and repeat; Rick showing us how it's done.


Thankfully I stopped on the way to the demo and picked up some cream filled, glazed and frosted energy pills.




10 o'clock sharp and bicycles started rolling out of the tents and down the trails.



Of the bikes that Salsa brought out the Blackborow got my nod for best colorway, that green up close is even better than the pictures on the site... but they couldn't come up with some catch name other than just green? For 2016 the Mukluk and the Blackborow share the same frame geometry, making them virtually the same bike except the Mukluk will still run 4" tires and the Blackborow keeps the 5" behemoths allowing you to chose the best tire size for your personal application.


And they are super light weight?!? I don't think this is exactly what they mean when they say that the big tires offer lots of flotation but what do I know, I'm not a bike manufacturer.


I've ridden the aluminum Bucksaw and it's a blast, the carbon one is just as fun but seems to be much, much faster when he rubber hits the dirt. If I had carbon Bucksaw kind of money I'd love to make one of these mine, still my all time favorite Fat Bike. I also love the fact that while there seems to be a trend toward 5" tires, Salsa has stuck to the 4" on this bike, 5" might look better on paper but in my experience the 4" tire seems to be better on the trail where it matters, especially if you are trying to use your Fat Bike year round. Maybe I need to setup a GoFundMe and see if the kind folks of America wouldn't mind chipping in a few dollars for my Bucksaw fund.



While I was out riding the Bucksaw the clouds opened up and starting dousing us in liquid sunshine, chasing both people and bikes under the tents.


The rain might not have lasted long but it was long enough to bring an end to the demo ride, thankfully we were able to get quite a few people out on the trails during the fist three-ish hours of the demo.

Being the first demo I've ever worked at, it gave me a whole new perspective about what it takes to put one of these things on and that's only from the bike shop side and doesn't even touch on how much work and sacrifice guys like Brian make delivering bicycle happiness to countless numbers of people over the course of a year. On the surface it sounds like it'd be a great job but I'm not sure I could do it, I know one thing, I'll never be able to just show up to a demo ride again without having a better appreciation for what it takes to get it up and running.

Thanks to all those who came out and sorry to those who didn't make it before we got rained out, there's always next time though.

Big Tires, Big Smiles And A Really Big Snake

Cycle Works had their Salsa Demo today out at Wilderness Park, originally when this came up on Facebook I was going to be in Lincoln anyway for a dental appointment so instead of just taking a few hours off of work I opted to take the day off and join in on the fun. I would not be disappointed.


Coming down from Omaha and planning on riding demo bikes I decided not to bring a bike with me but since I was going to be in town with a few hours between dentist appointment and demo ride I stopped by Cycle Works to see about renting their Mukluk for the day... as it turns out this one was on the house. I've said it before and I'll say it again, great local bike shop with great people and service you just can't get from the interwebs.


Since I now had some wheels and a few hours to kill Brent and I decided to do a little riding around town and then have lunch at Sips and Subs, another Lincoln favorite of mine, we were in the neighborhood so I decided to make a short pit stop at Moran's on the way to eat and say hi to the guys and see what was new/good, happened upon some Mad Hatter and another four pack of the Empyrean Mango Carpe Brew'em... such an amazing beer.


After lunch it was time to head on down to Wilderness Park and ride some Salsa bikes where Brent and I met up with Gary, since we got there a tad early we decided to lend a hand and help unload the van. To be honest it seemed like a good way to get to the riding much faster than standing around watching so there might have been ulterior motives.


Fat Bike parking only.


What else would you provide to eat at a Salsa demo if not salsa... and this was really good salsa from local Johnny's Salsa, guy makes some of the best salsa I've personally ever tasted.


Unloading and setup went quick, which meant it was time to get down to the riding.


Since we were there right at noon and we figured this was going to be a hot ticket once it got busy we decided to take the Bucksaw out first, this is one bad ass, full suspension, root, rock, trail eating machine. If I had Fat Bike fever before this only increased that affliction, if you're in the market for a Fat Bike I would recommend giving one of these a try before you pull the trigger. It just plain crushed the trail features making it as smooth as the cities vast cement trail network.



I'd like to say everyone we met was having a blast and enjoying the Salsa demo ride but this guy was none too happy that we were rolling fatties down his trail on an otherwise peaceful Monday morning. I literally almost ran into him coming around the corner and thought for a second that he was a rattlesnake with the rattling/hissing noise he was making. Fortunately it was just a bull snake but he was no less intimidating, we tried to convince him to move off the trail but he was holding his ground and challenging us to "do something"... not wanting to get our butts kicked by a snake we decided to just let him be and hope he moved off before he got ran over. We didn't see him on subsequent passes so he must have decided that fighting for ownership of the trial on this Monday just wasn't worth the effort.

My next pick was the carbon Spearfish, after riding Fat Bikes most of the morning this thing just seemed to fly. It was light, nimble and a provided smiles in bunches, this one might make my short list of bikes to consider when the time comes to replace one of the existing bikes in the stables.


I didn't ride the Blackborow but Gary decided to take it out and loved it, really light, single speed and HUGE tires.



The good part about being early on a Monday demo was that most people were working and that meant we had plenty of time to ride and enjoy these awesome machines and ride we did, all told I had just over 36 miles and 3.5 hours of rolling time (over 6 hours time spent all told) on this demo. I feel sorry for all those who had to work today, this was by far a much better way to spend a Monday than sitting behind a desk, starring at a computer screen. Suckers!