![]() In essence, comparison takes you out of the Here and Now and insinuates a whole mess of “what if” and “yeah but” into a given moment. Not so sure we would have shared political ideologies, but I bet he was a hoot to drink with. Another of those quotes of debatable origin, it is mostly attributed to Teddy Roosevelt. Testing bikes is not about trying to unlock personal peak experiences (although that can sometimes coincide with the task at hand, and those magical fleeting moments ultimately have to be reviewed and further dissected later for potential bias) as much as it is about trying to parse commonalities and differences, weigh performance from a place of neutrality, ask the tool if it is doing the job better or worse than other tools, and why. The first set of comparisons, not a problem. Not only am I comparing the bike I am riding against the other bikes I have ridden up this climb, but I am also comparing the “athlete” I am now with the athlete I might have once been. Inevitably, I find myself unhappy with this comparison. ![]() Inevitably, I compare my times up this climb, taking note of my feelings on the bike. I’ve ridden this climb a whole lot of times over a whole lot of years. So, when I am testing bikes that are a bit more burly than XC bikes, this is where I go, often. This is the only way to access a pair of spicy and ripping singletrack descents, and those two descents are the only ones within a couple hours that pack enough challenge and consequence in them to test bikes that are a bit more burly than XC bikes. It gains about 1600’ in five-ish miles a mostly fire road grind with a long sandy pitch and then a couple of intense steep bits near the top.
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