1000 Miles on a Trail King
Rolled over my first 1000 miles on my Ti Trail King today. This has been my all-around bike since it was built for me at the beginning of the year while my wrist was broken. My wrist finally felt strong enough to go off road as of the first week of March and I’ve ridden this bike nearly everyday ever since.
The part of Austin I live in is right off the Balcones Faultline escarpment which gives us our own little slice of a mountainside all the way through town. The escarpment along with endless limestone shelves, razor-sharp loose limestone, 100 degree heat, sweltering humidity, bone-dry loamy dirt and every conceivable pointy/stingy plant and/or bug makes for some pretty fun riding. Of all the bikes I’ve ridden here over the last 15 years the Trail King really takes all the punches best.
Needless to say, the assembly was as smooth as anything I’ve ever built, and I’ve built many many bikes. All the clearances (front der, tires, etc.) were ample and the bottom-side toptube cable routing is just too trick. Since the above photo, I’ve gone 2×9 with a Boone bashring and have flipped the stem. Stem length/rise and fork setup were the only thing I’ve really had to tweak but have finally settled in. The chainline is perfect and the bike runs crazy-quiet. Maybe too quiet. I keep startling folks on the Greenbelt.
My new realization is that if I can get my front tire onto an obstacle in the trail, I can go over it. When negotiating the aforementioned limestone shelves, this bike just rolls right up them. I feel like I’ve got tank tracks on. The already big 29er contact patch is made more useful with a tubeless tire setup. Grabby! Descending is just as ridiculous. All the bad stuff gets soaked up but the bike is still responsive. It’s been a while since I’ve arrived at the bottom of the Hill of Life without feeling like my teeth were loose.
A huge difference for me from my previous bikes is my new lack of back pain. Probably the combination of geometry made for me and the titanium materials; it takes the hardest of endurance races to get my back aching (along with every other molecule in my body). I’ve been putting in daily 2-3 hour rides with little or no back pain. Amazing.
An important fact of note when considering my opinion of this bike is the fact that while I’m about 5’9”, I only have a 27 inch inseam. This means I can’t even stand over my wheel barefooted. Yet, Wes was able to tweak my geometry to accommodate my Hobbit legs as well as my disproportionally long torso without any weird angles, toe overlap or anything else that I would frown upon. My buddy Sam took delivery of his Trail King “shortly” after me and I think he’s around 5’4”. Since then, I’ve watched Sam clean technicals I literally didn’t even realize were do-able and ride just as comfortably as he did on his Epic, Sugar or any of his past bikes.
Needless to say, the coolest feature on my Trail King has to be the bent downtube. When I first went to Wes to talk to him about building my bike, I expressed to him that I planned on running a Reba and was worried about Pop-Lock clearance if I were to wreck (or bust an Xed-up tabletop) and the subsequent dinging of my pretty Ti downtube. I asked him about welding the downtube higher and he expressed to me how that made him nervous and genuinely went against his building aesthetic, but I could tell his gears were turning. Went back to visit (bug) him a few days later and he excitedly brought out a few tubes that he had bent differently, finding a bend that didn’t fail and met all the desired structual/aesthetic requirements. The result speaks for itself. I can’t tell you how happy I am with it. It has also turned out to be a valuable prototyping venture for Wes as the bent downtube has become a standard feature on all Trail Kings and really sets it apart in my opinion. Go Wes. I believe “Kitty-Bent” is the term.
Anyway, this is my first Ti bike and it has really delivered. As a rider, I don’t think in terms of a million things the bike does well, I tend to think more about how I feel. In other words, the bike is possibly the fun-nest I’ve ever ridden, I don’t hurt where I normally do and it seems to get me where I’m going with the least amount of effort I’ve ever felt, or not felt. I know this is gyroscopics, alchemy, and Majik all working together but while the nerdy side of me wants to analyze all of these factors, I don’t know that a unit of measurement really translates to “good-times” or clearing a gnarly rock-garden to me.
I do however feel like I’m riding a custom bike that was made just for me and it’s just fun and makes me want to ride more than any bike has in a long time.