First Impressions

First of all, I should say that this was supposed to go down on Monday but I've been crazy fucking sick since Sunday, and as my momma used to say,"If you're too sick to go to school, you're too sick to ride your bike." I worked a half day on Monday, nothing Tuesday, most of Wednesday, and some how powered through yesterday. Today I'm feeling pretty good except for the upper respiratory crud that's still lingering, or so I thought.

Anywhoo, on to more important things, the Cowan first ride impressions. I took the bike out to Colonnade after work today for a little spin around the park. As for feeling better today, I was completely beat by the second time around the pump track, but I digress, this is supposed to be about the bike. First of all, this is the first bike of mine in many years without clipless pedals and the feeling of not being attached is completely foreign to me, especially in the air(minimal air BTW). I had no trouble keeping my feet where they needed to be for landing but I'm so used to using my pedals as a crutch to pull the rear wheel up and get it where I need it, it might take a little work to get back those basic BMX skills I had 20 years ago(20!?!). The whole low seat thing for a hucking bike makes total sense to me, but again feels totally unnatural. Not a huge problem, but as out of shape as I am plus the lingering sickness meant that I could have used a place to both plant my ass and pedal at the same time.

The bike felt pretty good on the pump track, and I was able to keep momentum pretty well. On the jumps and on K-Line I felt ok but my weight was clearly too far forward, not a huge surprise considering the fact that I'm running what are basically fat boy XC parts. The bike is begging for a stubby stem, something in the 40-50 mm range. I also think a taller gear might be in order, maybe even, heaven forbid, gears(plural). All in all it's a seems like a pretty decent bike, I think I'll hold onto it for the time being and swap parts back and forth between it and TBFKaU and needs warrant.