Now that I've had the bike for a while I figured it was about time I did a bike check video. That plus the other video I was going to make I wasn't going to be on the Bronson...so that really wasn't my go to bike after not riding for the last month. The Bronson still has that new bike allure! Either way, the days are getting longer and I'm able to squeeze in rides after work. That's exciting. I couldn't pull it together to do the night rides this year since the temps were a bit lower than what I'm willing to ride in. I played fair weather rider this season. I made it out to Rockville with a co-worker. Things didn't go exactly as planned, but at the end of the day, any time on the dirt is a good time.  Sorry about the Garmin/Strava data.  I forgot to stop my Garmin when I got back to the truck. Garmin or Strava JPG or PDF Nothing to see here

This ride was a bit of an adventure. Definitely not the ride we thought we were going on. There ended up being a bunch of downed trees covering the trail. We moved the ones we could and apparently weren't paying attention to time. Before we realized it the sun was setting and we were racing the clock to get back to the truck. GarminorStrava JPG or PDF Nothing to see here

In this video I head out to Salmon Falls with Moonlight Leatherfoot and we attempt to ride. California has been getting a lot of rain and the cabin fever took over as soon as the sun came back out. We only got a few miles in and decided it was best to turn around. The trail conditions at the beginning were wet but the trail was hard packed underneath. We came to one spot that was really muddy and I ended up going over the bars. We went a little farther to see if that was just one section and as we came to more mud we opted to go back to the truck. I'm sure we'll get back out to Salmon Falls in the near future and I'll be able to give you a more proper trail guide. GarminorStrava JPG or PDF Nothing to see here

This ride was a lot of fun.  It was really nice to get up to Auburn and give the new bike a run on trails I was familiar with, as well as taking the opportunity to do a little exploring in the Mammoth Bar OHV park. I've been riding in Auburn since 2006 and sadly I have not ridden the trails in the OHV park until recently.  I saw the Rocky Trail featured in another YouTube video by the Trail Peek guys. They are just phenomenal riders so I wasn't expecting my run to be like theirs.  However I do owe their video a little thanks for getting me on the trail.  Either way the OHV park stuff is not XC by any means.  Typically it's pretty technical or has +/- elevation that is steep. I've been on some of the climbs that you are just thinking, this was definitely made for a motor that is powered by a combustion engine instead of a heart.  There is a climb (or walk for us) that was just insane getting out of there.  At the end of the day all the pain was worth the reward.  That trail is on the list of…

This ride was a little different than any of my typical ones.  I'll be honest.  More of it was spent getting shots or thinking about what I wanted to show than just going for a ride.  At the end of the day, it is a ride.  I did get elevation +/- in and was on a bike for 4 hours.  However at this point I don't have the whole vlogging thing down to a science and am messing around with different camera angles and such.  Moving on, Rockville is a super fun place.  I've heard in the past that it's only one square mile.  I've never researched that, however it's pretty easy to believe.  It's just a spiderweb of trails and you have so many different options of how to make it new and fun that the place really doesn't get old.  Probably one of the best examples of a super fun all around place to ride that doesn't take up a lot of space.  If you go there a lot, you will tend to get into a routine what you ride.  This is a double edged sword.  On one hand you will get better and better at what you…

This video is a full review of my 2017 Santa Cruz Bronson.  It was really tough for me to slim this down as much as possible.  I had a lot to say about why I bought it and all of my feelings about the different components.  Not all of it made the final cut.  Sometimes I'm a bit long winded so I figured I'd spare you all.  The route that we rode that day was basically climbing for the first 6 miles and then mostly descending the last part down.  It was really wet and muddy.  On the way down I could tell how much the trail conditions really slowed me down.  There were a lot of nice little natural launches that I would typically catch a little air on that I just didn't have the speed to hit.  I also was not used to the new suspension and was mis-timing my preload to catch air.  I'm sure that will work out in a few rides.  I'll also need to keep an eye out for trail maintenance days in Annadale because I really didn't expect it to be that wet and at the end of the day we need to…

This video goes over how to install a Wolf Tooth Components Cassette Cog.  As mentioned in the video they are competitors with OneUp Components.  One up calls their product a sprocket instead of cog.  Which makes me not feel so bad about calling it a chain ring for the entire video.  Ok, that was a stretch.  Either way, bottom line is this video goes over installing one of them on your bike.  I also touch base on why I made the changes in my drive train from 3x9 > 2x9 > 1x10. Nothing to see here Nothing to see here OneUP Components Wolf Tooth Components