post haste

So how was the first ride(s) on the new Ritchey WCS Alloy 1-Bolt seatpost?  Glorious...ish.

GLORIOUS:

Performance wise I felt no different between the alloy and my previous carbon seatpost.  So it does not appear I lost any magical dampening that might come along with carbon - or at least the carbon I had.  Would more expensive carbon sing a sweeter song, perhaps.  But for my purpASSes, no loss in the switch.

Position wise it felt great.  I had the 18 back on so my EBB was in a more forward position.  This was the only situation where I was a little uneasy with the setback - would I be too far back when the EBB was forward? Answer, nope.  I had my seat shifted slightly forward so it about evened things out, leaving me feeling I was in a great position.

ISH:

A picture speaks a thousand words, and in my case, most of them were curse words...

As you can see, there was slippage.  It was minor, but it was enough that I noticed, stopped and adjusted.  Even after cranking that sucker down as mush as humanly possible I had the TINIEST of slippage on the social lap...

The brain trust (riders partaking in the social ride) decided it was a clamp issue - that will be addressed prior to my next ride... I don't want to ruin another seatpost because a simple piece of plastic is not up to doing it's damn job.  Prolly a Niner or Salsa will be called in to take care of clamping business.  

Since I was already testing out my new seatpost I was named guinea pig of the ride and I mixed up a bottle of this stuff:  EO2 Edge  TheMutt scored a bunch of this after the Catawba Riverfront Classic this weekend and as we all know: free stuff is for me stuff.  Or so I thought... 

The flavor - Cola.  Not my first choice for hydration.  I like a coca-cola AFTER a ride, but slugging it down for hydration during a ride... dunno.  I mixed it up faithfully following their polite instructions "please use 1/2 per 8-10 ounces of water."  They said please, so I obliged.  I'm not sure how close it actually gets to a cola flavor either... kinda like those (if memory serves) and with a diet tinge to it.  I'll put it out there, I am not a fan of diet soda.  At all.  It tastes like cancer.

I gave it a whiff, and I must say it wasn't so inviting.  I screwed the cap on and took a swig.  No sir, I don't like it.  I'm a texture guy and this was slimy thick.  BUT, I was willing to give it a fair shot on the trail.  Directions call for drinking 8-10 ounces of this stuff prior to the ride, and then sipping on it every 20 minutes or so during exercise.  I can tell you right now, there is no way I'm just straight drinking 8-10 ounces of this stuff.  Small sips were more than I was willing to handle.

TheMutt documented the trial run, so you can go track him down to witness the joy I was experiencing for yourself.  I drank a bit over half throughout our ride.  I tried to finish it at the end of the ride but couldn't bring myself to downing the rest of my bottle, so I dumped it out and finished off another bottle of water as a sort of cleanse.

After the ride we went to Jake's Good Eats - AWESOME place.  Great food!  Awesome hospitality - they don't even mind smelly mountain bikers coming in close to closing time!  This is the second time I've been there (both post ride) but it is a place I want to bring Annie to.  Entering the establishment (an 80 year old gas station) you would never imagine the culinary greatness that greats you, it's delicious.  But on this visit I couldn't eat all of my food.  Not too common for me at all.  I don't know if I can 100% contribute my inability to eat all of my dinner to this product sloshing around my stomach... but I'm pretty sure it didn't help.

Will I drink EO2 Edge (cola) again... not without rum... A LOT of rum... and maybe not even then.  Could it be better in a different flavor?  Perhaps.  But for me, the consistency is still a "no go."  

      

So in the case of EO2 Edge; free stuff is NOT for me stuff.