Three Stage, Day 2

It was back to Three Stage again today with Terry along for the ride as well as Steve. We did a lot of trails that weren't covered yesterday and some trails that I have never been on before.
Before leaving I went to the Rock Shox website to look for info on my fork which didn't seem to be working very well for me. There were no schematics or air pressure information that was of use to me so I headed out with some questions about whether or not it is a terrible fork or I haven't set it up correctly. I don't mountain bike near as much as I used to so it's hard for me to tell how much is my poor performance and how much is the bikes.
I will say that I have had this bike for a few years now but I have never really warmed up to it. It's a Gary Fisher Hi Fi and it is a much different bike than the Gary Fisher Sugar that I rode and raced for many years. I still remember my first ride on the Sugar. It took about 15 minutes of riding for me to realize that I loved that bike. It just fit my body and my riding style perfectly. In retrospect I wish I had kept it and the odds are I might still be choosing it for rides over the H Fi. The Sugar was quick and nimble and it suited my active in the seat riding style perfectly. The Hi Fi is heavier, I sit straighter up on it and it's 4.5 inches of suspension travel allows you to ride over more obstacles. I guess the problem is my style has always been to thread the needle, go around things if I could. I liked the Sugar's thinner tires which fit between rocks on the trail. Because it was so nimble it reacted quickly to my input and always did what I expected it to do. I had 8 years of great riding on that bike. The Hi Fi does some things well but overall it does not have a race bike pedigree. The Sugar was a scalpel, the Hi Fi is a dull knife.
That being said one of the reasons I was having trouble on the Hi Fi was the Rock Shox fork was simply awful. It was like having a pogo stick on the front. Hitting a small rock would cause the fork to kick back at me and make riding technical sections doubly hard. I tried adjusting the rebound but that didn't seem to help. I finally got Terry and Steve to help me out and it turns out the air pressure in the fork was down to 60 psi. That's much too low so we took a guess and pumped it up to 125 psi which did the trick. From then on it was a much different bike which pissed me off because the only reason left for my lousy riding was operator error. I did improve on yesterdays ride but I suspect my performances on the Hi Fi will never come close to what I was able to do on the Sugar. That Sugar was one sweet bike (sorry, couldn't resist).
It was great to be out riding with the boys again as well because they put up with my ranting and raving on the trails. I called myself a fucking idiot about 30 times today so that's a reduction from yesterday. At least I improved on something.


The Sugar at Gooseberry Mesa in Utah