ECR off-road impression. To follow up my earlier first impression on the Surly ECR (see here goo.gl/r5AkV2 ), this morning we sent the newly built, less than 24hrs ECR to eat some mud :D ok, before that, I must admit I am not a off-road rider nor mountain biking expert, only cycled some of the bad road in my tour, so whats comes below are only my opinions and mostly from touring perspective. - good stuffs first, the 22x36 granny is really a significant booster for climbing, some pretty steep slopes can crank up pretty effortlessly. Id imagine with fully loaded, that would translate into slow cranking instead of pushing in many looooong climb ascend. with this granny, Im pretty confident it can reduce lots of pushing in hilly places like Laos :) that 2 extra tooth is no BS. - 29x3 tires, there was a 50m++ of sinking soft mud section on the trail, the other 2 mtb with 2 tires sank in and I still can crank thru pretty effortlessly. so, that extra 1 tires width really matters when it comes to sinking road, be it sand or mud. also, the larger contact surface give me more confident negotiating corner and crush thru smaller pot holes or bumps. - the frame is very solid, I have not noticed any flex nor funny sound, but alas, todays trail is mostly muddy+grass, cant really push the ECR to the extreme bombing. Ill update you guys later see if it can survive the Hell Road of Spiti valley ;) - due to the general purpose of the Knard tires, its a bit slippery in soft, half dry muddy road. the well spaced knobs also self clean the tires pretty well, if you dont have a front fender, be prepare to eat lot of mud :D - to be frank, I still not really happy about the stock RD, this machine is design to tackle various rapidly changing terrain, but Deore is abit clumsy to my liking. or would it be the problem of the MicroShift thumbies?? I dont know, the gear shifting experience up to now is so so only. I find that the MicroShift does not have same handling 手感 as the Shimano thumbies, I prefer the SL-BS79 feels. or may be its just me :P hmm.... maybe Sifu Akmal can help me further fine tune the gear system later. ok, thats all I have for now, given the rather short period to test, I may not fully get used to the new bike yet, anyway, ECR is perform way better than I thot and I have has high expectation for it on the coming Himalaya challenges, hope the ECR will replace my LHT as adventure touring rig. (if for general looooong haul touring, LHT still my first choice, nothing can touch that...yet) Pic featured Encik Tarek splashing thru water. He put up a short trailer movie, you can check it out here youtu.be/_MyQzEscdio
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 12:16:56 +0000
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