Retro Grouch Ery

I know this is going to be a gigglefest.

I throw my leg over the top tube with a stupid, giant grin on my face. The singletrack leading out from my front wheel is mostly smooth but has plenty of rocks littered around to keep me on my toes. Normally, the rocks wouldn’t even register, but on this bike, they are to be reckoned with. The first pedal stroke is almost surprising as the bike lurches forward and spins up to speed quickly. I’m moving up the climb seated and standing as shifting is possible but not easy and it seems better to just change my position than to fiddle with the thumbie on the handlebars.

The rocks on the trail are at first a bit disconcerting, but the more I pedal, the more I realize this thing can handle all the rocks and hopping I can give it. It’s smooth and fast, but not plush. You can’t just dive down the trail without thinking. I am forced to assess the lines, the rocks and the drops and find the best way through that won’t require to much braking or be overly bumpy. Sometimes this is taking a bit bigger drop to the side to avoid the rocks in the middle and sometimes it’s avoiding the drop because, well, because this thing is rigid.

After a few minutes, the bike just feels like a bike, and outside of the odd looks I keep getting from passerby, I might as well be on a mountain bike. Which in fact, I am, just not one that has 30 years of mountain biking advancement baked into its DNA. No, this ’89 Rockhopper has about as much DNA from road bikes and cruiser bikes as it does anything that we would now consider to be mountain. To use the parlance of the time, it is an ATB.

And right now, I’m loving every minute of it.

Sometimes it is about the bike.

This particular one kind of fell into my lap. A friend sent me a photo of it asking if I wanted it. I can’t say that I really did, but I said yes anyway. The price was negotiated and the thing landed in my backyard pretty much unrideable. The tires were flat and completely rotted. The chain was rusted solid and the cables and housing were not functioning. It kind of just sat in a heap in my shop for a couple of months. I would think about it when I was working on other bikes, try to care that it was there, but mostly it just sat.

Then there was this sick 26″ old Kona hanging out on the back of the shop in Cedar. It turned out it was Nick’s new commuter and Josh also had an old bike he had built up. The seed was planted, I wanted this bike up and running and we were going to go ride them and giggle the whole time.

Soon the stoke had spread. A couple more bikes popped up in Cedar and the STG crew also decided they were on board. Some already had bikes, others procured them and even more, were just kind of happened upon. Which is really the correct way to end up with a 26er. Mostly because it’s not worth the trouble to assemble one or even go looking for one, but when the time is right, one will show up and you just have to rescue it from the rust bin that it deserves.

Once I had mine built up, the only obvious next step was to ride the stupid thing. KB had been bugging me to get her singlespeed running again so with both bikes running, we headed over to Prospector for a hot lap. Prospector hasn’t been a must ride for me in quite some time. It’s a fun little trail, but it’s just out of the way, can be crowded and the grapevining always gets under my skin. But on the right bike, it’s also a ton of fun. In the past, the right bike for me was usually some singlespeed drop-bar bike that could go way faster than it probably should, and somehow I would just be grinning the whole time.

This is all to say that the wrong bike for the right trail is often the appropriate choice. Such was the case with this Rockhopper. It not only gave me the feeling I often enjoyed on my drop-bar bikes, but it had a nostalgic element that was impossible to miss. This was closer to the bike I was riding when I first rode Church Rocks than anything I had been on in years. Surprisingly enough, old mountain bikes are still mountain bikes and can rip.

Of course, with everyone excited about these things, we had to get out and do a proper group ride. Seeing that it is technically still winter, our chosen date was a bit chilly and our time meant we would be pedaling after dark. This kept several people at home, but we sent it anyway.

With the hardy few gathered, the giggling began. A hot pace was set by Nick and the rest of us did our best to keep up. The way these things spin up, make you want to sprint and then you just keep going and going. There were a few obvious, huh, that bike didn’t do what I thought it was going to moments, but onces those were sorted out, we just ripped down the trail.

We even found some big rock rollers and tested the limits of the brakes that don’t work and rolled them. Without droppers, it was a question of having a quick release or not to determine if you got to put your seat down. There were both within the group. Surprisingly enough, even with brakes that at their best will only barely slow you down, the roller was doable and we giggled down and then ripped the climb up to the top of the red rock.

Descending off the back side was done just as the light began to drop, we flipped on our lights and sprinted back toward the cars.

On the last turn of Prospector, the one where you head to the Cottonwood Trailhead, I hit a rock kind of hard and then things got soft. Pinch flat. The first one of many I’m sure. Being this close to the car, everyone took off and I just walked my steed with my head down back to parking lot.

It’s been years since I’ve ridden anything smaller than a 6fattie. The last time I tried, I didn’t like it and sold the stupidly expensive bike I had bought a couple of weeks later. I’m sure that the size of the tire is part of the equation, but just being on an old bike, with old geometry and old parts that somehow work to provide the same feeling the ripping a brand new, dialed geometry bike does, well, there’s something magical about it. It’s part underbiking, part riding for joy and part stupid.

A perfect combination for a gigglefest.

Embrace chaos. Seek discomfort.