Salsa Demo

Salsa Cycles was holding their annual demo at Carver Lake Park in Woodbury, where it's all good in the Hoodbury. I have to admit, I never really thought of Salsa as a relevant mountain bike company, that has changed.

I showed up to the Salsa Demo and recognized the East coast sales guy, E-Fred from the last demo. We chatted a bit, I met the new Midwest Sales guy, Freewheel's new Q rep, and the global sales manager for Salsa. They were all really nice guys, as they all were last time as well.

Chips?

I was really excited to take out their new Horsetheif, it is a full suspension 29er with 130mm of travel in the front and 120mm in the rear. I was pleasantly surprised by it last year but it was still lacking something that I just couldn't put my finger on. I was really ready to try the new model with the split pivot, which is essentially the same thing that Trek has on their bikes that I love. To put it in simple to understand terms, your rear suspension still works while breaking. On most bikes when you use the rear break, it takes up some of the travel of your rear shock, so if you hit bumps while braking you can easily bottom out. Alternatively if you are speeding along and hit the rear brake you can get quite a bit of lurch. Split pivot fixes this issue.

E-Fred helped me get the suspension set up and off I went. I liked it. A lot. It rolled over rocks like they were not even there. It was great in the loose corners even with the wide knobbed tires. It was just smooth and buttery. This years model has a really improved geometry as well. They shortened the chain stays on most of their bikes which is evident while riding. For a 29er it has a lot of giddyup and the center of gravity was perfect for me. The split pivot was the icing on the cake. I was able to fly around the singletrack with no issues at all. I liked it so much I ended up doing two laps on it.

After my second lap Thad and Ben from Freewheel showed up. Thad and I both went out on the Spearfish next. Other than the tires being a bit low, it was phenomenal. The bike was pretty much perfect for single track, at least the kind we have around here. If I lived in an area with a little more terrain, I would opt for the Horsetheif.

Spearfish and me.

The next bike I had in my sights as I am looking at purchasing one, was the El Mariachi Ti. I know the advantages of full suspension, they are real, it is just that I would never ever utilize a full suspension bike to its full potential. I want a bike that is in between the fat bike and the cross check. I have done some crazy stuff on the cross check and the fat bike but I recognize there is a time and place where those bikes are either not quite enough or conversely too damn much bike to handle what I want to do. Enter the mountain bike.

I picked the damn thing up and it was so light I could hardly believe it. The frames are triple butted this year, it has saved them a lot of weight believe it or not. I threw a leg over the beast and just started bombing off and up curbs and the first thing I noticed was they had shortened the chain stays on this one as well. It just took off. Add to that the set back of the seat post and the center of gravity was dead on. I was pretty much instantly sure that I was going to be making the right decision. Even with the triple butted tubing the ride was still really stiff where you wanted it to be but super comfortable. I'm pretty excited for that!

The carbon Beargrease is pretty cool as well. A lot of people were coming specifically to ride that. For those of you that don't know, I'll let you in on the secret. It is nothing like the Muluk, it is a totally different bike. If you want to race winter stuff, you want a Beargrease. If you want to just go out and have a good time and possibly do any kind of "touring" in the winter, the Mukluk should be your weapon of choice. The geometries are toootally different.

The Colossal is still the Colossal, a steel road bike with disc brakes. Pretty cool.

Ben took out the Warbird and was really impressed with it. It sounds like he may be getting one of them. If you have not ridden a Salsa lately, I recommend you go check one out for yourself. They are a lot of fun.

All in all it was a good day, talking to some good dudes, and riding some good bikes. What more do you need?