I am uncomfortably typing this piece two mornings after Ffej, Colin, and I woke up early and started the sixth day of Cumberlandworx with a first-light parent lap. It is the first time I have pulled the Wookie Toothpicks/Queso Grande lineup twice in one trip to Cumby and with a little more moisture in the dirt, it was even better the second time.
We had a fantastic ride, solved all the world’s problems (ha), and I even arrived at the bottom of Queso Pequeno without any more mechanical woes. Then we rolled back to the fort, changed some kit, and then headed out with all four of our groms for one last trip around the trail network.
The shape (sweep, rise, etc) of Vik’s steel Stooge bar felt great but without my push-on grips and the bar flex I am used to the rigid certainly felt more harsh than my own WZRD and Longneck setup. A contributing factor in some post-trip pain I am managing between my shoulder blades.
But honestly, sadly, I have to acknowledge that I can no longer put in dad laps and kid laps at Cumberlandworx and recover sufficiently to ride the rigid bike on this trip. The kid laps are getting bigger, and harder, but most notably faster. I love riding my single-speed in Cumberland (I have actually never pedaled a multi-speed bike at Easter or Cumberlandworx) so I’ll either bring two bikes, also managing my mechanical woes, or pop the ‘Magic Toothpick’ (Manitou R7) onto my #1FG rig next year.
If I am fully honest, after multiple rides a day, on the last day of Jac’s annual Easter trip this year I was having a hard time holding onto the bar (even with the magic WZRD ride and ODI push-on setup) so the Magic Toothpick might come out for that trip too. Actually, bike-foreshadowing, I am so excited about the next Secondhand Postilions rig (which Nina took one look at and said “Well, that’s never leaving the house“) that I could see myself pedaling a multi-speed bike around the mid-island trails at Easter next year.
With room on the car and an increasing amount of parts inter-compatibility between our three bikes, and just how many new friends (and their parents) Claire has collected on these trips, I think I can justify traveling over with an extra bike next summer. I imagine myself choosing the rigid one-speed for solo and parent rides and then the multi-speed squishy-forked bike for riding with the groms. They are getting fast enough that it makes sense.
I’ll write more about this in September, but it is not strictly a Cumberlandworx, or Cumberland shift. I f*cking love riding my rigid one-speed, but in a Larry-Talker-esque transition, I really see it becoming my solo-ride and single-speed group-ride bike. That will still see it getting the most mountain miles of any rig I own. But when it comes to riding with Claire after school and with friends on their long-travel sag-wagons I see some up-front-squish and a couple-or-few more gear ratio options in my future.
We did run into one other single-speeder, rocking a fresh Surly, when we were riding with Vik on day 4, so there were three of us in the same spot in Cumberland at the same time. It truly is the perfect trail network to push one gear, just maybe not riding quite the volume I sign up for when I come here with Claire.
I have said it before and will write it elsewhere this year, but I do wish that ProTaper did their A76 bar in a 15° or even 20° backswept option. It’s a fantastic riding, 810mm wide, DH-rated, high-rise bar just screaming for a bigger grip angle. And yes, I haven’t stopped occasionally asking the folks at Chromag about an alt-sweep FU50. Actually, two folks I know have, this month, independently brought up the fact it is weird that PNW does not do bigger sweep options. So lots of brands to keep poking.
In addition to stroopwafels and jelly beans, the big change to my ‘Jim Bag’ loadout compared to my recent BikeMag piece on the subject, was to swap in my original Wolf Tooth 8-Bit Pack Pliers tool. This thing has been to war and is still rocking. While they patina much more readily, I prefer the raw steel bits for a few reasons, but the key reason for the switch is that the extra leverage is much better for adjusting big-tension bolts like my Waltworks dropouts and all of our cranksets.
I guess that’s a wrap. We will hopefully be back next summer. The Cumberland Guesthouse is not inexpensive but it is awesome, which is true of a lot of stuff when it comes to mountain biking. Year four was different than year three, and the years before, which is a product of our kid working her way to being a pre-teen as much as anything.
I think, in riding, school, work, and life, that, when we look back, this September will mark the start of a big transition for our family but I do hope that Cumberlandworx Year Five will make it onto next year’s schedule.
My favourite part of writing these pieces is how many questions (e-mail or ‘gram) I get every year from folks about taking their families to Cumberland to ride. If you’re thinking about it I’ll say that the feedback in terms of family riding vacations is 100% great from every MEATengines reader who I have had correspondence with.
Claire spent almost all of her non-riding time this year hanging out with the other kids, so she did not put in the volume of writing that she was expecting to. But once we get home from the rock I am sure she will sit down and punch out one last Cumberlandworx-Year-Four piece. Until then, the end.
Welcome to MEATengines, I hope you enjoyed this piece. If you did, please consider buying me a coffee. Any questions, concerns, or comments – or to order a MEATengines water bottle – feel encouraged to drop me an e-mail, or join us at r/MEATengines.