A dreary Sunday morning, Brett, Billy and I saddled up trying to beat the rain. We headed south from Cedar Park to hit some greenbelt trails. I hadn't ridden these trails in many years so I was pretty excited, but a bit anxious. The slight misting wasn't helping as the Austin limestone becomes slick as snot when wet, but ultimately the trails were perfect.
The Spartan was confidence inspiring from the first bit of loose baby heads, roots and steps through to the huge g-outs and even the biggest drop the greenbelt has to offer. The suspension floated over the chunky stuff, ate up the hard hits due to my mistakes and sucked up ledges on the climbs. Climbing prowess is not sacrificed at the cost of the more descent specific travel and design of the Spartan.
Due to budgetary constraints I was not able to replace my broken Chumba XCL with a like bike, so I settled for a HT 29er. Knowing I would get back to a more all-mountain/trail bike again I decided to go with a bike that would be versatile for family rides, off-ride Tri and long rides, those are my reasons for getting the Salsa El Mar. So, having been off a longer travel FS bike for more than a year and a half, I'm back and back big with the 165mm rear travel Spartan fitted with the 160mm Pike up front. The point being - I'm rusty hitting the big drops...without further rambling...watch in HD.
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