Review of the Giant Trance X2

A few weeks ago, I began toying with the idea of a new mountain bike. This was initially prompted by a trip to Gooseberry Mesa where I got the crap beat out of me riding a hardtail. I decided it was time to go back to a full suspension bike. The desire for a new bike was confirmed a week or so later trying to keep up with the Cottles on some twisty descents in Corner Canyon. My experience with the Cottles, combined with the challenge of getting saddle-bar drop correct on a size small 29er frame led me to suspect that I not only wanted a full suspension bike, but that I also probably wanted one with 26" wheels.


Since my team shop, Revolution, sells Giant and Cannondale, those were the brands on my short list. I've been riding a Giant TCR road bike for three seasons, and it's never given me cause to consider buying a new bike, so I figured I'd start there. I called the shop and reserved a Trance X for demo.

The good parts version of my review is this: it is the most fun I have had on a bike in years. If you're looking for a do-everything mountain bike, look no further.

If you want nitty-gritty detail, here goes: Giant manufactures many of the bikes labeled with other brand names. They know what they are doing when it comes to making bikes. The Maestro suspension is remarkably efficient when climbing, even with five inches of travel. I used to have a five inch travel Specialized Enduro that I got rid of after getting my first hardtail 29er, primarily because the hardtail climbed so much better that I never wanted to ride the Enduro. I didn't feel like I was making that kind of a tradeoff with the Giant.

Downhill and technical terrain were where the bike really came into its own, though. My first ride was Thursday afternoon in the Orem foothills. I was riding with Kris, who lives in the area and knows the trails well. I had him lead on the descents because I figured he'd have home field advantage. I had no trouble keeping up and could have gone faster.

Rides two and three were on some technical terrain near Zion National Park. Aaron was riding with me and commented that I was seated and pedaling through sections where he was out of the saddle and coasting (on his hardtail 29er), a feeling I knew all too well from my Gooseberry trip a month earlier. I was riding up rocky features I may not have even attempted on my hardtail, and as my confidence grew, I stopped seeking the cleanest line off of a move in favor of a little jump, drop, or other form of excitement.

Just to make sure this wouldn't be a bike I would enjoy everywhere but my own backyard, I rode Corner Canyon Tuesday morning before returning it to the shop. Let's just say I would like to ride this bike down Ghost and Rush with the Cottles--I think I'd do a much better job keeping up.

When I returned it to the shop, Ryan asked me how I liked it, and all I could do was gush. There was a guy standing at the counter while I was talking to Ryan who let me go on and on for a few minutes before finally interjecting some comments about the Maestro suspension and the component spec. Turns out I had walked in when the Giant rep happened to be in the shop. Needless to say, he was pleased to hear that they'd be selling another one.

Giant was thinking real world when they spec'd the Trance X2 that I rode. If you're a non-racer, one-mountain-bike, trail rider who wants a nice bike without breaking the bank, I think this is the sweet spot. It's got a tapered head tube like all the Trance models as well as the quick release 15mm through axle fork. These two features made for incredible front end stiffness and control. Beyond that, it's a mix of Shimano XT and SLX that makes for a sensible, reliable, and still reasonably lightweight group. The complete bike, with pedals, tipped the scales at 12.75 kilos (28.1 pounds). Not XC racer light, but light enough, especially for the price. One other feature that highlights the attention to detail is the Kenda Nevegal tires--the front was the Stick-E rubber compound for better grip, while the rear was the dual tread compound for longer tread life, a minor but noticeable touch.

In order to sound objective, I should probably find something about the bike to niggle with, but really all I can think of is that the Fizik Gobi XM saddle wasn't the most comfortable perch. I could live with it, but when I buy my own, I will probably get a different saddle.

The only problem I have now is that I was thinking I'd buy a new bike next spring. I'm not sure I can wait that long for the Trance.

More guilty pleasures

I started on a post today that either needs a lot more work or to be thrown away. It's bound to draw out some opinions; I'm tempted to keep working on it for that reason alone. I just want to make sure I get it right, so instead I'm going to talk about more guilty pleasures:

• Lady Gaga - just downloaded the new album today (thanks to Amazon - 99 cents!). Love it. Never thought I'd be this into a pop diva, but I am.
• PBR - when I mentioned this one to a friend, he responded "Swiss chocolate is nice, but so is a Twix bar." Pretty much sums it up.
• Training on tubulars - I had a flat tire in the masters race at Sugarhouse on Saturday, so I borrowed my brother's spare (clincher) for the P/1/2 race. I apologized when I saw him Sunday afternoon for not getting it back sooner. "That's OK," he said, "gave me a good excuse to ride on my tubulars today." I feel the same way. The ride is so, so nice. I don't even care if it's placebo effect. I like it.
• Cup-o-Noodles - the vending machines at work have spicy Cup-o-Noodles for $1.00. I've indulged only a couple times because it's got like three days worth of sodium in it. Not worth getting fat over, but kind of tasty once in a great while.
• Olive oil - alright, I won't even pretend to feel guilty about this one, but it's still worth mentioning. Some friends just returned from Italy and brought some olive oil and 18 year old balsamic vinegar with them. Unlike the previous item, this is worth getting fat over.

These are some of mine. What are yours?

Rat in Mi Kitchen

I should be writing about the knee deep powder I skied this morning. It was nice, especially in May, and more especially because this spring has been cold and wet such that a chance to do anything outside in good conditions is something to relish. I should also note that it was day 59 this ski season. That's an amazing season no matter how you slice it.

But instead of writing (or writing more) about that, I'm going to write about what happened between 4:50 and 5:10 a.m. as I got ready to go skiing.



The rat, or rather mouse (or possibly vole--I'm no good at small rodent taxonomy), never set more than a couple steps into my kitchen. I discovered it when I opened the dryer and it scurried out from underneath and into the bathroom, where it disappeared.

"Great," I thought, there's a mousehole in my bathroom and this thing can come and go at will. Thing is, I couldn't find any kind of a gap in the wall or baseboards that it could have conceivably fit through, even though it only needed a 5mm gap.

I sat down and ate breakfast, figuring I'd deal with it later. Being a curious type, it came out of the bathroom and a few steps into the kitchen while I was eating. Then it ran into the bathroom and disappeared again.

At this point I was freaking out, because I am a full-on ninny when it comes to rodents in my house (yet somehow squirrels in my campsite are cute? go figure...). So I called Rachel, who was asleep, because I needed moral support. She came down and I told her about the problem. She insisted I go in and check the bathroom again.

No sign of it. Wasn't behind the wastebasket or under the stool or behind the toilet brush. But the plunger. We have one of those plungers with corrugated sides that's pretty deep. It could be in there. Which meant I was obligated to do something about it.

The plunger was leaning against the wall at an angle, so I pushed it so the business end was flat on the floor. Then I dragged it across the floor and onto a piece of paper. I lifted plunger and paper into a bucket and shook the plunger. Something was clearly in there. Which presented a new problem--what to do with the live rodent?

Any PETA members should stop reading now, because there was no way I was risking that little sucker coming into my house again. So I did what any red-blooded American who happily eats meat but wants as far away from the killing process as possible would do: I overturned the bucket and shook the plunger over the toilet and watched as the rodent plopped into the water and immediately started to tread.

And then I flushed.

And then I watched anxiously wondering if it would go down.

Thankfully it went down.

Rachel said she flushed about nine more times after I left just to be sure.

Doing it wrong

Last summer I went to the dentist more often than I rode my mountain bike in Corner Canyon. Which is not to say I didn't ride. I was just too busy riding my road bike to get on my mountain bike. Clearly I was doing it wrong.

Sunday afternoon, I rolled out of my driveway about noon and was on dirt within five minutes. I dropped down the freeride trail (for which a 29er hardtail is particularly ill-suited), over to the Shoreline, up to the tunnel under the highway (that will open up miles of new trail later this summer), back down to the Shoreline, up Clarks, down Rush, up Ghost, down Ghost, up Canyon Hollow then Brocks then Jeep road back to the neighborhood, with the last five minutes to my house on pavement.

Ride time was 2:05 door-to-door with zero driving to the trailhead or time spent loading bikes onto racks. I was reminded why I bought a house in my neighborhood in the first place. Just because I race on the road doesn't mean I have to train on the road, right?

Even if I'm wrong, don't tell me.

110%

One of my (many) pet peeves is when people talk about giving 110% effort or putting any effort in excess of 100% into something. It's a pet peeve simply because it's not possible.

Let's say you're a sales person, and you have an annual quota. It's possible to get 110% or 150% or even 200% of your quota. Because your quota is a fixed amount with, theoretically at least, no upper limit.

But let's say that you're the most spectacular sales person in the world and so good that everyone buys only from you, so your sales are equal to 100% of the company's revenue. It would be impossible for you to have more than 100% of company revenue, because each additional dollar in sales (the numerator in this equation) increases total company revenue (the denominator) by one dollar. Effort is the same way--no matter how hard you work, you can't put in an effort greater than 100% of what you are capable of. A 100% effort is, by definition, everything you have to give.

So it is in life, with family, work, bike racing, skiing, even blogging. I have 24 hours in each day, and no matter how hard I work, I can't use more than 100% of that time. You may have noticed last week that I didn't post. I think that's the first time that's happened that I wasn't on vacation in the three years or so that I've been at this. Life got in the way.

I didn't blog about White Rim three weeks ago or Gooseberry two weeks ago or state criterium championships one week ago. Part of that is because I've blogged about all those things in the past, and I couldn't think of an innovative spin to put on White Rim being hard or Gooseberry being fun or state crits being disappointing (disappointing for me--Junkie Boy won the 10 and under race, and even though that wasn't an official race category, we're still claiming the win). I imagine I could have thought of something interesting to say about each, but I just never found the time to think about what that thing was, let alone to write it down.

This lack of time seems to be a microcosm of my life this year. Since starting my new job in February, I've had to put at least 20% more effort into work than before. Since upgrading to Cat. 2, the races have been at least 20% harder, which means I need more time and focus in training. Unfortunately, all I had was about 10% to give either way and to give more than that to either one would require a compromise of the other. I love bike racing, but it's not my life.

Which is not to say I'm giving up or making excuses. My performance has sucked, I know why it's sucked, and I own my suckiness. All I'm saying is that my hat is off to the guys in the Pro/1/2 field, Sleevie in particular, who's got two wins on the trot against some pretty vicious competition. I, on the other hand, will be lining up with the Masters field at Sugarhouse on Saturday and will put 100% of what I'm capable of into trying to at least finish a race for the first time this month.

Cinco de Mayo

Me (to Dug): I'm riding at lunch. Mellow pace. You should come.

Dug: Unfortunately (or fortunately I guess) I have a team Cinco de Mayo celebration today.

Me: I've now heard it all. The company that imports Corona makes up a holiday to sell more beer. And you can't come so you can celebrate said made up holiday with a bunch of people who don't even drink beer. Wow.

Dug: They're watching The Three Amigos. I love Three Amigos.

Me: Oh well why didn't you say so. Sure for Three Amigos. I mean, had you said "Can't. Watching Three Amigos," I would've understood.

Dug: Glad I said it then.

Convergence

When I was attending business school early in the last decade, all the talk in the technology sector was about convergence. Cameras were just starting to find their way into phones, and the guys from Blackberry, who made email-only devices at the time, wowed everybody at a tech symposium when they placed and received phone calls on their prototype devices. Convergence was such a big deal that when I interviewed with Microsoft, they wanted to know what I thought the three big trends were in the tech sector, not including convergence.

Fast forward to today. I was running a few minutes late for work, so I dialed in to the conference line for the day's first meeting. My iPhone paused the podcast I was listening to automatically when I placed the call. I was on the phone for a few minutes before arriving at the office and walking into the conference room.

I ended the phone call when I got in the room. And my podcast resumed playing. On the external speakers that were loud enough for everyone to hear. And because I work for a security company, I have to type in a five digit code to get back to a screen where I can actually control the iPod, which takes some time. The podcast I happened to be listening to was Mormon Stories, and it happened to resume playing an interview with a sex therapist talking about some of the "issues" she has treated.

If you don't have an iPhone, you don't have to worry about broadcasting the words "his desire not being too dominant..." as you walk into a conference room. I'm not sure that's such a bad thing.