BMC Speedfox SF29: First Ride Report

A couple of weeks ago I took delivery of my 2012 race bike from my sponsor shop Sugar Cycles: a 2012 BMC Speedfox SF29.

BMC is new to the 29er market, and my sponsor Sugar Cycles is one of three dealers in TX (none in LA BTW) so we wanted to get the word out. They have this bike in two component levels, the X.0 shown here and then an SLX equipped version. They also have a great hardtail, the Teamelite TE29 in both versions as well. One of my teammates is riding the TE29, says it is a great riding frame, handles well and manuals easily with short stays. BMC has more information on their website about the SF29 and the TE29. I'll be up in a couple of weeks with the bike, if you'd like to check it out I'll probably be riding Ruston Friday and Saturday 24th & 25th. If you're interested in a BMC you can get in touch with my boys at Sugar Cycles and they can definitely hook you up.

Now a little more about the bike. The drivetrain is all stock, X.0 2x10. Brakes are the new model Elixir 7. The fork and shock are Fox, with 100mm travel both ends and a 15mm thru-axle up front which I'm very excited to try out. I changed the wheels out, it comes stock with Easton EA70 XCT, which are very nice wheels but I am a big fan of Stan's and I saved a bit of weight as well. The tires were spec, I just moved them over; they mounted up tubeless on the Crests with ZERO effort, one handed with the hand pump and showed no sealant seepage through the sidewalls. The Easton EC70 carbon seatpost is stock, I added the EA70 stem (will be upgraded once I get the fit dialed) and the EC70 XC Wide carbon bars. I also chose to go back with Ergon grips, these have made a great difference for my riding comfort especially having a nagging old wrist injury. A nice Fizik saddle was mounted up out of the box, but I changed it to my tried and true Specialized Phenom.

It's been raining a lot around here the last couple of weeks so I hadn't gotten to ride the bike at all. This weekend we were up in Ruston and I got to spend almost 6 1/2 hours on the trails with the bike.

First impressions are really positive, I really liked the bike but I'll try to stay away from all the "new bike" hype and superlatives and stick with some real observations. First, of course the full suspension is so much smoother than hardtail. I felt like I had it pretty dialed right out of the gate so I was happy. I set it up to be a bit firm in the full open position, about halfway between 0 and the recommended mark on the built-in sag-o-tron meter. I felt like it was soft at first, but of course it felt soft coming off a hardtail. I switched back and forth between open and ProPedal a few times, and once I kinda got used to the squish I decided I liked it open. With as firm as I've got the shock it gets REALLY firm in the ProPedal and I think open is better for trail riding. ProPedal will be for hammering and really smooth climbs. I was able to detect some bob while pedaling seated in the open position, but it didn't seam like much. I'll have to play with the settings a little to see if I can tune it out. The fork is 100mm and I've been riding rigid or 80mm for the last 3 years, I think I appreciated the extra 20mm up front almost as much as I did the rear suspension. Overall they combined for a really smooth ride, and I was able to ride some sections at Ruston like I've never ridden them on my hardtail, for instance the two big dips off the fence line by the front gate. No brakes, no line, just plow through.

I've had a 100mmx100mm full squish 29er before so I kinda knew what to expect there, but overall I was very impressed with the suspension. I think I was most impressed with the handling of the bike. The bike has a 70° head angle, wheelbase is very close to my hardtail, chainstays are 5mm longer. Based on these numbers and the ht having a 71° head angle, I expected the BMC to handle a little slower. I was pleasantly surprised to find the opposite. I think it handles with about the same quickness, but it's better. I sometimes feel like in tight corners the ht wants to tuck the front end a little, while the BMC was very solid. I think this is owed to the 15mm thru axle fork and tapered head tube. The front end is very stiff and the bike goes precisely where you point it. I was able to really whip it through some sections pretty hard, where on the ht I would feel sometimes like I was getting "behind" the bike. It seems to handle a lot like my Monocog which has a 72° head angle and a rigid steel fork which makes it similarly stiff and precise. Combined with the suspension I was able to really push through the rough corners. Another impressive trait was how easy it was to get the front end to come up, for example to manual the rollers. This probably has something to do with the shorter top tube and my cockpit setup as the chainstays are a bit longer than my ht as I said.

The bike has 180mm rotors and I was really happy with the brakes, very quiet (new Avid HS1 rotors) and strong. I may go to 160mm rotors though as I can lose 90g (0.2lbs), and 160s have always been plenty even in Colorado last fall.

This was my first ride on 10spd gear (X0), it seemed a bit more finicky than 9spd but very smooth when it was working well. I think the cable might have been stretching and maybe even slipping at the rear der. No unwanted ghost shifting from suspension action or frame flex though. I never had to get out of the 36t ring up front, of course with the 36t out back I could get the same ratio as 32x32 on the 9spd.

This was also my first ride on the Rocket Ron front tire, I was pretty impressed and it might have contributed to my liking the handling so much.

I still haven't gotten to weigh the bike, but I'm estimating it weighs a lb. or so more than my ht. Could I feel it? I don't know. Certainly not in general, on the climbs I really can't say as there was so much new going on. I think any weight penalty will be offset by the bike's willingness to roll over things so easily by the rear suspension. On really smooth climbs is the only place where I think it might be a penalty overall.

I'll have to get some more time on it and try a few things, but like I said, so far, so very good. I had my GPS on and was able to compare some previous segments on Strava to this weekend. Most segments I'd gone faster during races, but times from this weekend when I was "just riding" took the next top spots. There was one section though where I set 3 new best times, all this weekend, all better than any previous race effort (and another time from this weekend matched my previous best race effort). That is a pretty good indicator for me. I'm really looking forward to racing this bike this year, and especially doing the Ouachita Challenge on it. I think it will make a huge difference in a long race like that in reducing overall fatigue and keeping me feeling fresher.

Warda Race 2012

Last weekend was The Warda Race. There's really not much to write about, but I'll give it a go anyway. Saturday we went up to hang out and get in a preride. I did two laps by myself, the first I was just trying to get back into the groove of riding singletrack and check out the new stuff they'd added since I'd last ridden there at the 2011 race. The second lap I tried to pick it up a bit but just wasn't feeling it. My legs had felt a bit flat in my ride Thursday and they kinda felt the same way. I let it hang out just a little bit on Gas Pass to try to go for the Strava segment, it was a good run but not quite enough. I knew I had a little more to give, so I didn't worry too much. After my second lap Ben did the Kids' Cup race put on by our buddy Rick Wetherald. He had fun, he really liked lining up with the other kids and riding around on the course.  He's gonna be a bike racer for sure.

Lining up for the Kids' Cup

 After the Kids' Cup I went back out for another lap with Alan Johnson and a friend of his. We weren't going too fast, but mixing it up with Alan in the singletrack got me back in the groove a little which was good. When we got to Gas Pass I dove in wide open planning to let it all hang out and snag the segment KOM. About halfway down I ran into a junior racer and dad preriding so I had to abort the run, which was unfortunate as I'm pretty sure I would've gotten it done.

Sunday morning I drove up by myself to start my race at 11AM. My 19-29 Cat. 1 group started with the 30-39 group, so there were 46 people on the line, only 17 of them in my group. I don't mind racing a lot of people, except in this case I never had any clue where I was within my race and didn't know who I was racing against. So that was a bit weird, normally you can know whether you're doing well or not and work your race around that a bit, but this was just ride. I started about 2/3rds of the way through the pack, and fell back a little bit on the long, super fast start. I passed a few on the downhill to the pond, then lost a few more on the way back up the hill to the singletrack. I probably went into the woods near or at the back of the top 10 in my group, and maybe 35ish overall. I felt good through the first singletrack section, staying with the long train easily still connected to the leaders. When we popped out to the first pasture section I started going backwards a bit. That pretty much sums up my race: hold my own in the singletrack and then lose ground on the open sections and climbs. The first two laps I felt ok, like I was moving pretty decent on a personal basis. Early in the third lap the pro women's leader caught me in an open section, when we got back in the twisties I was holding her wheel easily. She made a little mistake going up a rooty climb and lost all her momentum, my momentum carried me into her back wheel and I highsided, falling down a steep section off the side of the trail. I was laying downhill pinned under my bike unable to clip out of my pedal. It took me a bit to wiggle out of the situation, then I had to get back up the hill and to the top with my bike before I could remount. Oh well, probably didn't make a big difference in my race the way it was going. But considering the fact that I only finished a minute behind the person in front of me, it might have cost me a place. Anyway, late on the third lap I bonked pretty hard. I hadn't eaten or drank enough during the race and it really caught up with me. The whole 1hr 50min all I had was a couple of shot bloks and maybe half a bottle of HEED. That was not smart. I struggled on to the finish for a 13th/17 finish in my class. I think I still looked pretty good even going slow.

I haven't bought this pic yet but I think this is legal, I didn't steal it and it's posted from the photog's site on a supplied link and it's still watermarked. If I'm in the wrong someone please tell me.

Richard drove over right after church to do the Cat. 3 race, his first in Texas/TMBRA. He did great and got 2nd in his class, without much of a warm-up and having never even seen the course. He is the first member of the Neilson Development Racing Team, I think we're going places.

Riding

I've been getting in a fair amount of riding the last few weeks. Last week was a good one at 114 miles and a bit over 7 hours. This week I've only done about 54 miles and 3 1/2 hours so far, but I'm racing this weekend so I backed it off just a little. Of course I don't have any weekend miles in that yet, either. The only downside is that both weeks have been mostly all riding on pavement. It's been pretty wet around here, and while I'm very thankful to be catching up on rainfall, it has kept me off the trails. We need rain worse than I need to ride trails though, so no complaining here. The Warda Race is this weekend, with a lot of twisty singletrack and short punchy climbs. That's quite a bit different than spinning along on the road, but is usually my strong point so that should help. I'm really quite out of shape these days, so I don't expect anything better than last place but if I can ride strong for the full race I'll be happy enough. I also have to reclaim my throne on Gas Pass from Payson McElveen.

Last Sunday was mine and Raine's seventh anniversary. Her mom and grandma came down for the weekend to watch Ben so we could relax a bit and go on a date. We went to Taste of Texas for dinner Saturday night. We've been going there for our anniversary for a few years now, and have made it a bit of a tradition. Their quail bites are one of the best things I've ever eaten, but everything is very good there. It's a long wait, but how often do you sit with your spouse for an hour with absolutely NOTHING else to do but spend time together? Looking at it in that light, it's a good thing. And we always have the Snickers pie with a sparkler (we don't eat the sparkler) for dessert. I'm very thankful and blessed to have married such a great girl. We've had a great go of it so far, with a lot of fun times, great stories, and an amazing son. I can't wait to see what the next 7 years and beyond will have in store for us.

Snickers pie!