Nathan Riddle Pro MTB Racer

So stoked I got to race a super d again yesterday!! @wild_rogue_events brought back the Ashland 12 mile super D! Even though the snow line up high and a logging operation down low kept it from being the whole 12 mile course I think the full course will be in the works for next years event. Gotta say though I really liked it just the way it was! Thanks Bill & Sue for putting on a rad event! Thanks @ashlandmountainadventures for providing the awesome shuttle service & getting everyone to the top in style! Thanks for taking a bunch of great photos of the race @sean.gerhardt ! Thanks @santacruzbicycles for making the blur tr such a fast bike! And @wildernesstrailbikes for making the riddlers And thanks @shimanomtb for making XTR M9100 the light and responsive kit it is So stoked on the Super D format!

Aurora Ashlandia!!

That moment when you hop on your e-bike for a ride and realize it’s on “reserve” because you never charged it after your last ride… but you’re still gonna ride!! Found out some cool stuff today about my @santacruzbicycles #bullit I parked it having already hit the red bar of battery capacity (which means less than 20% remaining). It had, if I remember correctly, hit that red bar with a solid 15 minutes of riding still to go before I parked it. So when I took it out today I knew it was sucking fumes. But I was curious how far I could still go if I only used “eco” mode. Turns out I got about 2,000’ feet more vert (~5 miles) climbing in before the battery finally gave up. This is good to know! Guessing if I did a full ride in eco only (which I will likely never do) I could probably get 10K feet of vert in over 40-ish miles? Next thing I learned is that there is very little difference between pedaling the bike in eco mode vs the motor totally off 😆 Next thing I learned was that in the @rideshimano Di2 shifting rear derailleur (which is powered off of the main battery—via connection to the motor) does not stop working just because the motor shuts off. Someone smart figured you’d still want to be able to shift even when there wasn’t enough power to drive the motor and gave the system a small reserve reserve for the RD and display. Autoshift while coasting and freeshift stopped working but not manual electronic shifting. Big stoke about that!! Really liking the ability to choose between 7 different power output levels vs just 3 or 4.

Finally got my @santacruzbicycles Bullit CC all built up. So far just rides around town getting the brakes bed-in and ready for a real ride. Here’s the build: Santa Cruz Bullit CC Frame: Bullit CC, size large (Full fitted gloss ridewrap) Fork: FOX 38, GRIP 2, 180mm travel (w/Vorsprung coil conversion and SKF dual compound dust wipers), fork painted to match swingarm. Shock: @RockShox vivid ultimate Note: still playing with settings on fork and shock but I think the hydraulic bottom out feature on both the fork and shock are going to feel very balanced. Wheels: Santa Cruz Reserve Carbon 30HD 29” front with i9 hub. Santa Cruz Reserve Carbon 37 27.5” rear i9 Hydra hub. (Both wheels have Reserve valves w/gold caps & nuts) Drivetrain: @rideshimano EP801 motor (enabled with Autoshift while coasting, freeshift while coasting and manual shift while pedaling..it works really really well) Cranks: Shimano Deore XT, 160mm Pedals: Shimano XTR trail M9120 (20 clicks binding tension added from full open) Chain: Shimano Deore XT (12sp) Cassette: Shimano Deore XT, (10-51t 12sp HG+) Rear Derailleur: Shimano Deore XT Di2 (it is wired to the motor and draws power as well as shift prompts from the motor) Shifter: Shimano Deore XT Di2 Brakes: Shimano Saint Calipers (w/finned metallic pads and Titanium mounting bolts). Shimano XTR M9120 brake levers. Shimano Saint brake hose (BH90 w/gold Saint banjo) Rotors: Shimano E-MT800 IceTech 203mm centerlock rear rotor (w/integrated magnet and gold Saint lockring) Shimano XTR MT900 IceTech 203mm centerlock (w/gold Saint lockring) Tires: @wildernesstrailbikes Vigilante 29” x 2.5” Tough/high Grip front WTB Convict 27.5” x 2.5” Tough/High Grip rear (Still settling on psi for both) Cockpit: Handlebar: OneUp Carbon 800 x 35mm rise e-bike spec (w/grooves and ports to clean up wired shifters and mode switches) Stem: Shimano PRO Tharsis 40mm length (w/design integration to make wires route through clean) Grips: ODI lock-on Seatpost: Shimano PRO Tharsis 31.6mm x 200mm Seat: WTB hightail, Ti rail Headset: Cane Creek Hellbender 70 Miscellaneous: @burgtec purple axles Various Ti & aluminum bolts to (replace certain stock bolts)

I really enjoy teaching folks who come into @handlebarashland about how their bike works. Or why it stopped working sometimes… And I’ve always loved cutaways to help show how amazingly complex some of the parts are inside. Yesterday, I had the chance to step out of our shop, and into a friends machine shop, for the chance to whittle away at some metal bits to finally create a cutaway fork damper (happens to be a @rockshox charger 2 damper). If you’re in the area, stop by the shop & check it out.

So I got a @santacruzbicycles Bullit CC frame. And it had a brown front triangle with grey accents and a light purple (some might say “Lavender”) rear triangle*. Both of these colors look great as complete bikes but the combo together just wasn’t quite working. So, custom paint time!! I went through many ideas, concepts, before finally succumbing to a combination of impatience to get it built, laziness, and weather constraints. Which meant, try to match some of the grey accents in the front triangle logos with a solid grey swingarm. I thought it would work.. buuut.. as you can see from the first pic.. not so much working. So I stripped the swingarm and asked for some advice. @giladgozlan suggested I go with Bronze/Gold for the swingarm. He was very confident in his suggestion and I was kinda out of ideas on what goes with semi metallic, semi matte, straight up brown. So I went with it. Painted the swingarm that color and much to both of our surprises (Gilad since admitted that he was wasn’t nearly as sure of it as he initially projected) it’s a good combo! As you’ll see from the next pics. But I kinda wanted to tie it together more and did a couple hours of prep work followed by about 10 minutes of actual painting and eventually a fairly apprehensive unveiling. I’m pretty stoked actually. But I’m toying with one more addition. If you’ve read this far then: what do you think about my adding some more of that gold to the headtube (in a patch that mirrors the angular gold lines)? *you can’t actually get mismatched frames from Santa Cruz.

Winter is coming!!! I wonder if it’ll be as good of a snow year up in the mountains as it was last year? If I could order up my own custom weather program for this winter then yeah.. it would be an epic snow year up on the mountain. But all the snow would magically stop at about the top of missing links and it would just be tacky dirt all the way back into town. Except we’d get snow down into town about four or five times during the winter. Just for the sake of “feeling winter”. But it would melt off within days. And it would rain on the trails for about 3 hours every fourth day. And only rain at night. Except every other week for a day in order to keep perspective and feel gratitude for all the sun we got all the other days. So how’s that sound? Any takers?

Gorgeous day yesterday!! Probably the slowest I’ve ever come down the west side trails. Just couldn’t help staring at the fall colors. Stopping so many times to take pictures. The late afternoon light, & feeling the air.

Where am I?

My last post I listed the build stats for my new @santacruzbicycles Heckler SL. Now I’ve got a few rides on it and I can say.. it rides amazing!! So quiet. Balanced. It jumps, wheelies, and manuals at least as good as any of my analog bikes. And in some ways the few extra pounds it’s got, over something like my Nomad, actually makes the suspension more responsive and tires hook up even more. My first little ride on it was just around town ripping around in “Rocket” mode and bedding in the brakes. Started out with a full charge and rode around for 30 or so minutes. Came home and still had 5 bars showing (but obviously must have burned some battery. Maybe 10%..). Didn’t charge it and went for a ride next day. Ended up doing 6,800’ climbing & descending. 42 miles. 3 hours 20 minutes ride time. Didn’t run out of battery but only had one bar showing when my ride was over. Most of my climbing I did in green (wind) mode which is the most eco mode. Some of the descending I did in rocket mode. Super fun! And super impressed by the ride quality, range and just overall feel of the bike. Still got a little tinkering to do with it. I’m going to put the stock fork and rear shock it came with back on it. Just to try out. Should take a bit more weight off the bike too. I’ll make the changes and report back

My new SantaCruz Heckler SL, C! This thing started out life as an R-Kit. I Stripped it all the way down and rebuilt with Shimano, XTR Frame: @santacruzbicycles Heckler SL, C, Large Fork: @answerracing Manitou Mezzer pro, 160mm Shock: @ridefoxbike FOX DPX2 Wheels: @reservewheels Reserve rims built to Shimano XTR hubs (DT Swiss 2.0/1.5/2.0 spokes) Front tire: @wildernesstrailbikes WTB Vigilante 2.5 Rear tire: WTB Wolverine Handlebars: Santacruz Carbon 800mm X 35mm rise Stem: Shimano PRO Tharsis 40mm Grips: SantaCruz Seatpost: Shimano PRO Tharsis 200mm Seat: WTB Hightail carbon Rear derailleur: @rideshimano Shimano XTR Shifter: Shimano XTR Cassette: Shimano XTR 10-51t Pedals: Shimano XTR XC Brakes: Shimano XTR M9120, 203mm rotors front and rear, (metallic pads) Weight with pedals: 42.1 lbs Just have the first brake bed-in ride around town in on it so far. I can’t say what it feels like on the trail yet but I can say that from just jibbing around town hitting staircases & stuff it’s got a great weight balance and feel and has me really excited to see what it feels like on the dirt. Couple obvious questions: “Why’d you get the lowest end model?” — Because I knew that no matter what build I got I’d be stripping all the parts off anyway and I already had all the XTR parts, fork, shock, wheels, etc.. “Where are you going to ride it since you’re not supposed to ride them on Forest Service land?” — Spence mountain trails, Applegate lake trails, MOTR trails, Motorcycle Riders Association land/trails. Prospect OHV area. Downieville. In short.. there are places… And, no, I’m not an e-bike convert. But they are super fun to ride in addition to regular bikes 😁 If you’re in the Ashland area this bike will be hanging out at my shop @handlebarashland most days while I’m there. Come check it out if you want!!

New bike(s) day! Well… those of you who know me better know that both these bikes have been in the stable now for a while. I got to take some time getting both the builds dialed in. I’ve just haven’t been posting anything for a bit. Anyway, Zenyn is now in this @rockymountainbicycles custom built Reaper and I’m rockin around on this new @santacruzbicycles #nomad 6. More to come on each of the bikes individual builds but suffice to say that we are both extremely stoked on the new rides!!