~ behold the glory ~

It has finally arrived, my brand new Gary Fisher HiFi Deluxe GS women's specific full suspension mountain bike. I have been awaiting this day for months, and quite frankly, I thought it would not come for several more weeks, what with it apparently being unavailable in the country. But yesterday, Josh from The Bike Shop called to say that my "special order" had arrived. I had already scheduled to take the afternoon off of work to study for my stats exam, which is this evening, so I had something else to take my mind off of studying.

For months, I've been pouring over online reviews (such as this one from a female mountain biker) and mountain biking forums (such as this one) drooling over what I hoped would soon be mine. My skill in articulating overly verbose explanations of things fails me when it comes to the complexities of mechanical dealie-bobs, so for engineering design details I will refer you to the above linked review and forum where those sorts of things are expounded upon at length. I am still working on understanding them myself, so I read them regularly. See, people have different strengths, and wrapping my mind around mechanical dealie-bobs is not one of mine.

Yesterday, Josh and I spent some time in the back of the bike shop after he got off of work, tweaking the fit and whatever else on my new bike. It turned out to be more of a procedure than I anticipated. I've become much more mechanical-oriented in the past two years, so while Josh was switching out the handlebars, I successfully performed complex mechanical operations such as installing water bottle cages and removing the tires and tubes from the wheels. When I thanked the owner of the shop for the special deal on my bike, he said that now I'm charged with the responsiblity of teaching Josh how to ride a bike. I suspect that he was impressed with all of the grease on my fingers and the finess with which I handled the allen wrenches. Once the bicycle was set up to the fern-specific specifications, we set out to ride Hard Guy.

Interestingly, Josh and I rode Hard Guy the day before, on Sunday, when it was windy, windy, windy. There were times during the descent that the wind was blowing so hard against the side of my person, that I was concerned about being blown off the trail. Josh described what he saw as "the leaning tower of fern" while I was attempting to counteract the forces of the wind by leaning into it. There were times when it felt as though my helmet was acting like a parachute - - the wind was lifting it from my head and I had to make something of an effort to pull my head down.

Last night, the wind was a gentle breeze that just plain felt good. This past winter, I didn't stay in cycling shape, I hypothesize, because I performed my exercise on the elpitical rather than in spinning class, so my legs haven't felt up to par. I expect that this will change quickly and that I will be up to snuff, and exceeding my past snuff in no time. Also, I've had a bit of difficulty relaxing on the downhills ever since my crash...I've been a bit tense.

Anyway, I absolutely LOVE my new HiFi. It is wonderful having so much suspension under my person. My ascent and descent last night on Hard Guy was significantly smoother. Also, I've heard that there can be difficulties with full suspension bikes being heavy and squishy, thereby reducing power and speed on climbs. The HiFi is pretty light (27 lbs) and I didn't notice any squish. I found that the mid-level setting on the rear shock was quite nice - - the washboard sections were easy on my sit bones, but firm enough so that there was no bobbing. The front shock doesn't have a lockout, which I do think is a shame. While we were riding up Bogus Basin Road, I had the shock turned to the most-firm setting, and there was a significant amount of bobbing when I stood up. I am considering having the pressure increased to compensate for the lack of lockout...after all, there's a lot of room in five inches of suspension.

I'm not the biggest fan of the disc breaks. At the moment, they're not adjusted to my satisfaction. There is a great distance that one must first pull before experiencing any breaking effect, but once the breaking effect is achieved, they are ridiculously sensitive. Also, the front and the rear break seem to be adjusted slightly different, which was very noticable on the descent, as I periodically almost hurrled myself off the front of the bike. Luckily, these are all things that can be adjusted. And I'd also like to state for the record that I am not complaining, instead I am observing. As already articulated, I absolutely LOVE my new HiFi.

After the ride, Josh and I went to Lucky 13 for some beer and cheezy garlic bread. When we arrived, the establishment was filled with gads of other mountain bikers drinking beer. It was truly astonishing the number of bikes leaning against the outside benches and trees, unlocked and perfectly safe under the watchful eyes of all the enthusiastic cyclists. I perched my HiFi along the bench on which I rested, and attached joy to it being out in the world and having a great fun time. Here's a photo of the sweet HiFi in its new home.

Posted by jennifer at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)