In June of this year, I bought a used mountain bike from a friend at work. It’s previous owner is a serious bicyclist, and had just gotten himself something newer and better, but his old bike was none too shabby, really. The bike is a 2002 Giant DS-1, but he had cracked the frame and Giant had given him a replacement DS-2 frame. My friend had done a couple mechanical upgrades to the stock bike, but it did need new tires. I rode all summer pretty religiously and now it looks like I’ve taken my last ride for the year - it’s too darn cold.I’m not up on all the mountain bike vocabulary, so please pitch in the correct verbage if I get anything wrong. I was (am) still quite a bit disoriented by the whole new language that has evolved around bikes since I was a kid - everything seems to have been reinvented, and I find most of it is definitely for the better.

This bike definitely earns it’s name as a mountain bike, it’s heavy weighing in at over 35 pounds - made to beat on for trails and downhills. 35 pounds wouldv’e been light back in 1982, but today’s bikes are made of all kinds of composite materials and usually weigh in alot less. You don’t think the weight of a bike matters till you’re pedaling uphill on a heavy one. For those unfamiliar with modern mountain bikes - it’s a full suspension bike meaning there are shocks supporting the front of the bike over the front wheel and a big wonking spring on the back - the whole rear end of the bike is hinged to allow it to contort to absorb bumps in the trail. In modern mountain biking, something doesn’t qualify as a bump unless it is at least log-sized diameter, and in fact, the folks who maintain the trails usually leave fallen trees across the trail, placing other smaller diameter logs parallel to it so you can jump it easier. It’s got big 2″-wide knobby Hutchinson tires (actually these are pretty good on the road too when fully inflated compared to some cheaper mountain bike tires. Max rated pressure on the ones I have is 80psi, while competition pressure is 29psi. I usually keep them at about 45psi on the trails or pump ‘em up to about 65psi if I know I’ll be on the road alot). To shift gears (there are 27 I think, since there’s 9 separately sized gears on the back and three on the crank) the bike has slick thumb and forefinger triggers just on the inside of the hand grips. A Cat-eye digital cyclometer (odometer/speedometer/average speeds/clock/timer, etc.) is absolutely critical to a good experience on the trails. Once you know what you can do safely, you can use that tool to make sure you’re not getting too far out of your range and it lets you measure your improvement over time. This bike has a hydraulic disc brake system, which never squeaks, and stops on a dime, but it had one odd consequence: during that stretch of a week this summer when we had almost 100 degree (F) temps and high humidity, the brakes locked on the wheels, and I actually had to put the bike back in the van and drive home! Bleeding some of the fuid out of the brake system solved that problem. I might consider mechanical disc brakes on a future bike.

I got the bike at 588 miles and my last ride (16 miles last Saturday) brought me to 1022 which is testament to probably the most summer riding I’ve done since I was in High School! It started slowly, doing just a few miles at a go earlier in the summer, but building to a usual ride of about 15 miles (about half of that trail). I discovered that mountain biking as an activity is really popular now, and there are trails everywhere, which is great because I really don’t like riding on the roads. I was able to find trails that led almost right from my door for miles through the woods such that I didn’t have to ride on roads for most of the trip, though later in the year after participating in a 42 mile road ride as a Cancer benefit with other friends from work, I did a lot more road rides.

I a bit bummed that I won’t be able to ride any more this winter, or that if I do I’ll be out of practice and have lost my momentum. I’m really not motivated enough to mount the bike on a stand in the basement so I’ll just have to start all over again next season I suppose - but I’m looking forward to it.

Being in the woods, quietly zipping down the trails, with deer bounding across my path is something I loved doing when I was a kid. If I had had a bike like this then I might have never gone to school, frankly. The added benefit of getting some exercise makes mountain biking the perfect activity for me. I shudder to think how much I’d weigh right now if I hadn’t been riding two or three times a week this summer. Keeping it down over the winter is going to be a major challenge.