“He’s so nervous avoiding all the questions.”
I took disco dance lessons in fifth grade. The above line was from a song in regular rotation. The ridiculousness of that number has never waned, but the act of dancing always seemed equally ridiculous. I like ridiculous, and I guess I did back then too. Dancing was always a thing growing up. From weddings and bar mitzvahs to gym class dance segments and cotillion. I suppose there were moments when I felt nervous or embarrassed, but they were always brief, and I danced on.* I liked everyone moving around, whether I had a specific partner or not. If I or anyone looks silly, then someone laughs. If I or anyone looks great, then someone is inspired. Both are wins.
*I still want to learn the Tango
I have not gone to any clubs, events or shows to dance in longer than I’d like, but I still dance all the time. I entertain myself (sometimes others) nearly every day at work shuffling around and throwing some moves in the hallway at work. I do so at home too, incurring looks askance from my family.
The other dances I perform are whilst riding. This has become much more pronounced in the last couple of years as I have become a better bike handler. There were many times in the past when I was mostly looking just to get through the ride, just survive, keep up and/or keep me and bike in one piece. The bigger travel, slack sleds I rode gave me superior odds in reaching those goals. I chose bikes that allowed me to point them at the worst and still mostly come out rubber side down. I never let my skill or lack thereof stand in my way, and I certainly did not want a bike that would either. More slam dancing so to speak. Speaking of that, how about some tunes for slamming?
Invertebrates: Sick to Survive It seems no matter what interest you pursue that once you find your way in you start looking around at/becoming aware of similar possibilities. So was my journey early on in hardcore. After having those first albums blow my world up, I began mining every vein for more. Early New York hardcore became early favorites amongst my lil’ crew. Later I would get to see The Mob and have my band open for Agnostic Front, but two bands I really liked were Urban Waste and Cause for Alarm. Richmond’s Invertebrates are modern torch bearers of this style in the best of ways. You won’t find any blast beats, metallic breakdowns or swirly solos as is, dare I say, rather traditional. Just as quick, catchy and to the point as those examples from my wasted youth. While you are at it, check out Beach Impediment’s catalog which covers archival releases and a variety of killer modern ones.
I find now that I am more inclined towards throwing in some disco, swing, salsa and waltz into my riding. Yes, and still some slamming. Spending a great deal of time on my hardtail was a revelation and helped bring this into focus. I am a scientist at my core and had to know the why of this. I wanted to crunch the numbers and see if there was more to it than just liking this or that bike. Spoiler alert: there is. I previously went in deep regarding my time aboard the “wrong” size Evil the Calling. I really began to dig in on the geometry numbers between that and my Banshee. The geometry numbers on the Paradox as I have it built in a size medium are a 64° head angle, a 76° seat angle and a 446 mm reach. Saddle height (measured from the center of the bottom bracket is 27.8” (706 mm, but imperial is easier to figure out with larger measurements for my myopia). My end point reach number is approximately 488 mm with the stem measurement added. These are close approximates and there is some variation, but this just works for me. This is also measured with a 150 mm travel fork. I did not mention stack height but higher seems to be better for technical riding and many DH riders have begun using higher rise bars recently. I still run the same 35mm rise bars I’ve run forever, but I may try some higher ones eventually. That said, on my Levo I’ve a 170 mm travel fork and a concomitant higher stack. It has become my smash everything bike, and when I want to do some monster mutha-truckin I grab it. However, I prefer the precision of my pedal bikes. We’ll get into e-bikes in a future episode, but let’s get back on track.
A mixed wheel (MX) bike was definitely going to continue to be my choice for a full suspension rig. Even though I was not as psyched with the EVO, it was more a factor of the suspension and not the handling. If you’ve paid any attention this far you may wonder, why I simply just didn’t say fuck-it and call it a day riding my beloved Banshee? There are a couple of reasons beginning with jumping is more fun and chunky terrain is more manageable on a full suspension rig. Additionally, it’s fun to mix it up on a couple of bikes and while I could have something completely different than the Banshee, I wanted that bike’s numbers with suspension. This was trickier than I thought as most bikes with mixed wheels had slacker numbers and more travel than I wanted, or 29er wheels and more conservative geometry.
This brings me back to the Calling. I did some calculations and found that if I ran a 140mm travel 29er fork, set it in it’s “Low” setting and ran a -1° angle set I’d have 64.4° head angle, a 75° seat angle and a reach of 457 mm. Yes, this frame is no longer made, there would be no warranty, and it would take some tinkering and of course dough to take a used one and make it solid enough to be my daily driver. There are a number of these around for sale and I still might do this experiment at some point. However, in crunching numbers between costs, geometry and warranty a new Santa Cruz 5010 MX frame made way more sense.
I have a year plus review in store regarding my time with that frame so stay tuned out. Now we dance!