New Bike Kicks My Ass

Bought an Ibex Trophy Single Speed … here’s what it looks like before its maiden voyage.

Ibex Trophy Single Speed – clean

And here is what it looks like after the first ride.

Ibex Trophy Single Speed – dirty

You might be wondering why in this day and age of mountain bikes with 27 plus gears would anyone spend good money on a single speed bike for mountain biking.

Let me explain by way of describing this morning’s mountain bike ride through the Boise foothills.

The ride started out innocently enough – just spinning and grinning on the way out to the Military Reserve. Then the first uphill occurred. It isn’t much of a hill, but on a single speed you obviously don’t have the luxury of downshifting to a more appropriate gear. Rather, you need to speed up as much as possible prior to the uphill. And that’s exactly what I did.

But – oh my goodness, I quickly lost my speed and needed to get out of the saddle and just start grinding. Which brings me to another point. With a single speed, there are three speeds – spinning, standing or walking (hehe).

By the time we made to the top of the first hill (about a mile into the ride), my legs were screaming. And on the way up, there were times when it felt like my bike was coming to a standstill and I would fall over. That’s just part of the joy of single speeding.

Suprisingly, I was able to do all of the ride without walking with the exception of one particularly steep section on Three Bears off of Rocky Canyon.

I guess what I liked the most was getting a killer workout in a short amount of time. Plus the pedaling was a nice smooth constant effort. It’s hard to get across how much I enjoyed this ride – especially if killer workouts don’t turn you on.

[tags]single speed, ibex[/tags]