Slept in and woke up at 0600. Ate breakfast, drank coffee, lounged about reading and drooling over bikes on the ‘net until I realized it was 0740, and I told Yuri I’d be at his camp on Elden no later than 0930. Silly.

I couldn’t find the road he specified anyway, on top of being late. Sorry Yuri. So I headed back down to the bottom parking area, rode up Schultz, and did a north side greatest hits tour, singletrack up to Ricochet, down to the road, back up, across, and down Supermoto, then back and forth down to Schultz again. 3 leisurely, fun hours.

While I take things easy and build my knee back up, I’m focusing on becoming a better technical rider. Visions of ripping Gold Bar at Rim Ride ’08 dance in my head. Ricochet was uneven, and a good flow was hard in coming. Supermoto felt substantially easier than several weeks ago. It’s also a really fun trail to ride on a SS, well suited to short power cranks and trialsish maneuvering.

I spent a good part of the riding thinking about the new bike question. The Reba at 100 and the +7mm crown race slacken the angles of the Monkey a lot; close to 70/72 I would imagine (identical to the 3″ Lev). It also raises the bb height to 12.7″, a hair less than the Asylum. I like the slack angles and high bb. There are several rocks I’m used to scraping on Mint that I conspicuously did not hit a couple days ago, and the changed front end geo made a huge difference on both big descents today.

Ric and Supermoto have tons of moderately steep rock gardens, as well as numerous big log piles (a flag specialty). Being a wheels on the ground kind of guy, the increased stability and overall endo-proofness of the longer fork and big wheels make slow-speed, overcontrolled riding massively easier. I approve.

Ergo, the Lev it is. Negotiations pending.

I also had the last instance of foot hot spots, quite bad ones. It did create good reasons to stop and enjoy the scenery, but…. So I went all out, and picked up top o’ the line carbon soled Specialized shoes at Absolute Bikes. Just riding around our driveway and front yard yielded a drastic increase in power transfer. I’m very hopeful that they’ll treat me well.

I also couldn’t resist a Patagonia Spraymaster jacket, my size and on clearance, an almost unheardof combination. And picked up a little something for M, a hooded R.5 pullover. One of the best outdoor fabrics around.

That’s the instant grat part of the equation. Now I get to patiently pick over parts for good deals.

Sigh.