I managed to get out for a ride by myself at Hawkes Bay and spent more time fucking about with sag and tyre pressure.
The trails there are through a pine plantation and are alleged to be built by the guy who did Redwoods at Rotorua. They are pretty flowy but with plenty of doubles and drops, plus a couple of pretty decent climbs.
I reckon half my problem is that I've been riding VPP bikes for a long time and I'm really used to the anti squat built into that design, so pedalling hard out of the seat results in no traction so I'm very used to spinning hard hunched down over the bars.
On the Optic the traction out of the saddle is great so you can really charge up steep climbs, but seated you need to make sure that you keep your pedal strokes smooth or its bob town.
Some fork and shock twiddling resulted in some amazing traction down hill and the bike was is now more lively with a bit less pressure in the rear and I had a big smile on my face at the end of the black runs.
It's still heavy and carbon wheels have been ordered, but I'm starting to come around to this thing.
In other news I broke another Speciaized carbon seat, they just aren't that durable. And the back wheel needs some serious attention, I cased a double on the way back to the car and now it's not happy at all. Nothing structural but it's fucking noisy.
Back in Australia tomorrow and will head out to Smiths later in the week when I've got the wheel sorted.
The trails there are through a pine plantation and are alleged to be built by the guy who did Redwoods at Rotorua. They are pretty flowy but with plenty of doubles and drops, plus a couple of pretty decent climbs.
I reckon half my problem is that I've been riding VPP bikes for a long time and I'm really used to the anti squat built into that design, so pedalling hard out of the seat results in no traction so I'm very used to spinning hard hunched down over the bars.
On the Optic the traction out of the saddle is great so you can really charge up steep climbs, but seated you need to make sure that you keep your pedal strokes smooth or its bob town.
Some fork and shock twiddling resulted in some amazing traction down hill and the bike was is now more lively with a bit less pressure in the rear and I had a big smile on my face at the end of the black runs.
It's still heavy and carbon wheels have been ordered, but I'm starting to come around to this thing.
In other news I broke another Speciaized carbon seat, they just aren't that durable. And the back wheel needs some serious attention, I cased a double on the way back to the car and now it's not happy at all. Nothing structural but it's fucking noisy.
Back in Australia tomorrow and will head out to Smiths later in the week when I've got the wheel sorted.