Pugs Report 2: Frozen slurpy

I spent a couple-few hours tooling around town yesterday on the Pugsley. The slurpy has froze solid. This has created much more favorable conditions for the ultra fat rubber on the Pugs. Although the Pugsley is not a huge fan of sheer ice (and this is not a shortcoming of the Pugs, though can you imagine studded 4" tires at 10 psi?), it does great powering over clumps of frozen slushy slop.

I'm getting a feel for the front end. The hard part about frozen slurpyville is negotiating tire ruts. You can ride in them if you're zen and look down the road. Or you can ride across them. On a normal bike, riding across them would be challenging. On a Pugs, it's can be challenging, but your odds are way better. So -- front end wise, I'm finding that unweighting/slightly popping the front wheel on transitions over the ruts helps a lot.  

Generally, I'm not finding the Pugsley to be as "slow" as I expected it to be. And I expected it to be a major slug turd. It's clearly not fit for the early morning race up Hatch, but given how huge it looks, I was surprised at how relatively not-hard it is to get it up to a nice cruising speed and keep it there. David has got this bike dialed in, so that helps.

I'm still interested in taking it bike camping some day. Imagine the Badger Lake run on this bike -- pure cush.

They don't make em like this any more

And it's a damn shame. Mavic 550 hub set.
These will become Maddie wheels. The front is from my pile. The rear is from Glen's stash.
We may be getting carried away.
Tis the season!

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Monday Bike Hang

New (to me) venue. Jones Radiator on Sprague. 8:00 PM. Nice looking tap list and food to boot!

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=143677585681038

What the hey?

I don't know what's wrong with me. But this deal here is solidly Glen's fault. He gave me a deal that I couldn't refuse. And it didn't involve a horse's head.

He's going to build a Maddie x-mass bike out of laying-around frames and tubing. There's even an RB-1 frame to be mixed into this project.

It's going to be based on 24" (507mm) wheels. Low bottom bracket. 155mm cranks. It will be turquoise, or navy blue, or bright orange.

It will be under the tree on xmass morning.

Don't tell Maddie!! Don't even hint!

Pugs Report 1: Slurpy conditions

If you have not ridden through a giant Slurpy, then I submit that it may be difficult to appreciate how lame it is. It sucks. Verily.

I picked up the Pugsley today. First off, thanks David Nelson for letting me borrow your amazingly dialed rig. It's always a treat to ride a bike with shifting that works so perfectly.

The last time I tried a Pugsley (which was my first time on a Pugs), the conditions were very similar to what they are now. The snow is like sno-cone ice. Or Slurpy ice: cold, large granules of wet frozen gunk. The product of a half-melted 20" of snow fall in mid-to-high 30's.

It's too deep to slice through and ride and too soft to get up and float on. In fact, I fell at least a half-dozen times today trying to navigate this stuff. And I was on the Pugsley.

There's a lot going on here I don't understand and/or I don't have experience with. The front end on this Pugsley is completely and utterly different than any other bike I own. It's super slack. It's got crazy huge tires. And David has a suspended fork on this monster. So the steering and handling is way different. In a nutshell, the Pugsley likes straight. It does not like quick inputs and mid-turn adjustments. I also think it wants some kind of man-handling that I've not quite figured out yet. And I don't know how much of this is the Slurpy conditions dictating this.

And then there's the tread pattern. What would happen today if I had 4 inches of squishy soft big-ass aggressive knobbies, instead of 4 inches of squishy soft "paddles" on the Endomorph. Again, it may be the snow conditions too -- I don't know if there's any tire that can find purchase in this nasty shit.

I've only had this bike a for a few hours and I've nerded it out with a cloroplast fender and a stinking bucket pannier.

I'm not much for praying, but I'm really hoping for some proper winter here. David is a gracious loaner of bikes and I've got until next Friday for sure to play on this bike. Maybe longer, but David wants to play too when the good snow falls. I'm thinking snowman-snow is what we're looking for: that mostly dry snow with just enough wet to hold it together. 29F?

Stay tuned for more Pugsley adventures.

space

Slush

39F. Deep wet slush. I'm sidewalk riding.
I hope these conditions hold through tomorrow. I'm picking up a Pugs at 10am.

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Nov. 30 - rack progress

The close-up is a demo fillet by Glen.