Mud Fetish

Driving over to Huntington State Park in Bethel early Saturday morning I was listening to the Dead Channel on Sirius when they started playing Shakedown Street. How fitting, my shakedown ride on the Fixation get's a send off by the Dead. There is some schweet single track at Huntington as seen in the picture above and then there is some not so pretty single track evidenced below.

There is a mud wallow on the blue trail and as you can see it's pretty ugly. It's something I plan to fix during a NEMBA Trail Maintenance day but it may have to wait till the winter because this area is thick with poison ivy. What I want to do is find as many flat rocks as possible and armor this section so at least bikes can get through without tearing up what is already pretty torn up.

The Fixation performed really well. I had no mechanicals and the only thing I need to work on is the chain slack. One thing I found and I think I need to play around with the gear(s) is that the underside of the chain splaps the bottom of the chain stay. I think it might be the 18t and the promiximity of the bottom of the cog to the back of the drop. The further out it is, my guess is that you will get more slap because the chain is moving closer to the stay. I will have to try a wrap first.