SBCU...Day Three

Sadly, day three of SBCU had finally arrived. Nonetheless, it looked to be another great day in Morgan Hill. The rain had stayed away and that meant that we'd be riding mountain bikes today!

The day began with a series of lectures, led by our SBCU professor John, on Specialized's philosophy pertaining to mountain bike design,suspension technology (i.e., FSR = fully active, fully independent), and suspension set-up basics. Part of the suspension technology lecture was to compare and contrast Specialized's FSR suspension to other systems on the market: single pivot, complex single pivot, and VPP.

In addition we discussed S-Tune, a program offered by Specialized that provides custom valving for your forks and shock. It's a good resource for riders that have a very specific riding style or who may fall outside the bell curve average. We then talked about the Epic (the new 2011 S-Works Epic 29er is a work of art), the Era and the Stumpjumper HT line. After which we covered the Stumpjumper FSR, Safire, Camber and Myka FSR.

Then, a quick lunch and another visit to the bike cage:

After setting up our bikes' suspensions, we got loaded into the van and headed for Santa Teresa Park where we'd explore the Rocky Ridge Trail:

For today's ride, I was going to start the day on this:

Words truly don't do this bike justice; it's exceptional. The XX components are super crisp, and the bike just goes and goes (the carbon wheels don't hurt either!).

The first part of the ride was a switchback climb, followed by a rolling descent, then another fire road climb and a gnarly, rocky descent. My SBCU classmates and I traded off bike throughout the day; after the SWorks HT 29er I rode the Epic 29er and then, for the rocky descent, the SWorks Enduro.

It was great to try out the different bikes, back-to-back, and compare them directly to one another. Even still, I think I'm a hardtail 29er type of rider...for now. Althought it was fun to just roll over everything and anything on the Enduro.

Here are a couple shots from the top of the fire road climb (it topped out next to an electrical tower):

After topping out, we headed down Rocky Ridge and packed up the vans:

Once back in the building, I hopped in the shower and went back into the classroom for a discussion on the Enduro, Pitch, SX Trail, BigHit and Demo.

Rounding out the night was a really interesting presentation by Deacon James, director of recreational and cross country bikes at Specialized. Falling under his direction are the Rockhopper, Crosstrail, Ariel, P.Series (Deacon's an ex-BMXer), Hardrock, MYKA and the children's bike.

I truly enjoyed his talk because of how passionate he was about helping new riders discover the pleasure of cycling, in an affordable way, while giving them a quality product. The drive behind this boiled down to: figure out what people want, what they can afford, and giving them a product of the highest quality, that isn't compromised because of its price point.

A prime example of this is Ned Overend winning the 2010 Single Speed National Championships on a Rockhopper 29er (albeit a modified one, but the frame is just like the one you or I can buy). And that was a key principle throughout Deacon's presentation: the quality and value must be present throughout the entry level bike line, because for many people this is their first (or perhaps only) bike and they deserve a positive experience. And with that, my time at SBCU was over. I'd like to sincerely thank everyone at Specialized, SBCU and B+L for giving me the opportunity to attend. I had a blast.

Thanks for reading,

Hubert