For the first time in a few weeks I felt like this weekend was fairly open.  We didn’t need to be anywhere for anything at any specific time, so I took advantage of that as much as possible.

Dean and I got in an early ride on Saturday.  He was on the road to my place close to 6:30AM and then we rode back to his house so he could get his day underway.  I took a fairly random way home from there.  Heading out towards Tigard and Progress Ridge and then following River Rd all the way back to home more or less.  I was done with 3 hours of riding in and it wasn’t even noon yet.

I took the change to swap out the handlebars on my Niner RLT.  I’ve been running Ritchey Logic II, the same as on my road bike, but I have a set of Salsa Cowbells sitting around that I wanted to try out.  I used to have them on the Salsa Fargo before selling that bike.

The Cowbells are 42cm and the Ritchey are 40cm.  That right there was a big difference.  Add in the slight 12 degree flare on the Salsa and they definitely feel different.  Did almost 30 miles,with a couple gravel farming roads, today and was happy with how they felt.

Mia and I hit up the soft opening of Insomnia Coffee’s newest location in downtown Hillsboro and then had date night at ABV Public House.  Great food!  Definitely will  be going back.

I got the Ritchey P-650b completed this weekend too.  Now I just need to get it out on some rides to dial it completely in.  I messed around with it last Monday night and it felt okay in the 15 minutes on it in the park, but I need to get it out in the woods and give it a good virgin voyage.

I also installed a 30 tooth oval chainring on the Trek Farley.  I used some cashback money to get a deal on an Absolute Black chainring.  Really interested in the concept of an oval ring, this is supposed to be a 28 equivalent at the weak spot and a 32 in the power spot.  Briefly tooled around the complex, but really won’t get to know how it feels until I also get this into the woods.

Lastly, I finally got a chance to do a quick setup of my NEMO Apollo tent.  I sold the Mio (similar to the Gogo) and got this one specifically for “light and fast” trips such as bikepacking.  The Apollo is a floorless design and comes in at barely 1.5lbs!  They claim it is a 3 person tent, but after setting it up I would say it is a 2 person tent or 3 people if 2  are adults and a child maybe.  Unless of course you’re all really “close” friends.

I’ll have to practice the stake placement in order to minimize the gap at the ground.  The ideal setup gives you a small gap between the ground and tent.  Enough for air to flow a bit, but you also want to discourage critters from just walking in while you sleep.

Going to be a few months before this guy gets a good testing, but I have at least 2 ideas for trips this summer to get a good opinion about its function.

That was my excitement for the weekend.

Thanks for reading,

-Pete