there is no going back

I'm referring to the 2011 Specialized Epic 29er that I am now the owner of. There are a few things that I have acquired in my short cycling career that represent huge jumps in performance/fun/going fast. The first would be going to my first carbon road bike from an aluminum framed specialized allez elite. Britton at Volker bicycles helped make that one happen. The Jamis Xenith Race was a great bike. Another would be getting a nice pair of carbon road shoes, again courtesy of Volker bikes. When you switch from plastic road shoes that have zero stiffness - that jump is huge. The most recent jump is riding this new MTB. The combination of big wheels and full suspension is crazy good. The bike is so much more responsive on the front end than my Gary Fisher which was a bit sluggish. Part of that may be due to the larger 2.2 tires on the Fisher. But the rear of the bike just puts power to the ground and it keeps the power there. It's a bit of a lazy mans bike because you can just ride through any obstacle and it just keeps going with momentum.

I rode the cam rock trails last saturday, it was hot and it was the first official ride on the new bike. I got things dialed in pretty good. Sunday I went out to Kettle Morain state forest and rode a shit ton of single track. 25 miles to be exact. and i never rode any section of trail twice - although it would have been nice to, there was some fast stuff. I rode the john muir section then the overgrown connector trail to emma carlin. It was hot and I was low on food. I went through 3 gels and was wishing i had some solid food. Rode back towards john muir thinking I might bonk, but the return route was a lot shorter. Packed up and hit the general store in La Grange which doubles as a bike shop. Had a good lunch and drove the 2.5 hours home. Great day of riding and I was buzzing. I haven't had this much fun on a bike in a long time.