The 29er Touring Experiment – riding Sichuan Singletrack*

Today Cara chilled out her sore, weather-beaten feet (and blistered fingers and nose!) while I headed out to sample some Sichuan Singletrack. Rick, a Chinese mtber we’d met in one of the many bike shops we’d traipsed around over the last couple of days, had offered to take me to Long Quan, home to the Chengdu’s thriving mtb scene.

Meeting up in the morning, we worked our way across the city to its outskirts, via the usual chaotic, everyman-for-himself cycleways (shared with the odd wayward car and even bus), and a concrete tangle of bicycle underpasses. Then it was a 21km, bullet straight and billiard flat ride out to Long Quan, a town that sits at the base of a range of small mountains, criss-crossed with singletrack and popular both with cross country riders and downhillers. There, we met a couple of others from the local club; Zhao Hang, who worked in the Trek bike shop, and Deng Jian Jun, a student at the Sports University. Rick’s a software engineer for Intel, and was riding a tricked out Trek hardtail – Fox Talas, XTR, Race Face etc… – which he’d worked out had set him back a hefty 4000 US dollars. A fortune in Chinese terms – and in the UK for that matter. The others had a blinged out Giant NRS and a Voodoo. So some nice kit all round. Looking a little out of place with my dragon ‘protection spirit’ stickers and assorted tassles, I was on the fully rigid, Rohloff-ed On One Inbred 29er: 15 kilos of Yorkshire/Taiwanese chromo pipework and Deutche engineering.

Whether touring or mtb’ing, the 29er rolls on, man.

I’d spent a lot of time pouring over what bike to take touring in China, and for our jeep-supported trips in the Indian Himalaya this year. In a world where 26in wheels have become the standard for bicycles, I had a few theories that led me to take the plunge and bring the 29er over my usual, tried and tested Thorn tourer, despite the lack of 700c parts in Asia. Firstly, I was expecting a lot of corrugated roads in Tibet, something which big wheels cope with particularly well. As it happened, most of those we rode on the Tibetan plateau in Yunnan and Sichuan are now in far better shape than they when I was last there. So the advantages were less noticeable that I’d hoped, though some back to back testing with a 130mm steel hardtail, on some rough tracks in Northern India, showed how surprisingly comfortable suspension-less big wheels can be. The other main reason was that I was hoping to ride some singletrack on our travels. From my outings at home, I’d found that even with a steel rigid fork, the Inbred coped surprisingly well with pretty much anything my modest skills could throw at it – again thanks to those big, all-munching wheels, especially when shod with fat 2.2 tyres. Plus, there’s no suspension to dive when the going gets steep, and as a result, there’s much less of that ‘over the handlebars’ feeling. Lastly, despite the belief of many a 29er naysayer (most of whom have yet to actually ride one), the Inbred’s surprisingly agile and, perhaps most important of all, simply great fun to ride (-:

So by bringing a rigid 29er, I aimed to have both an easily maintained, comfortable yet suspension-free bike that I could tour on (thanks to an equally big wheel trailer from Polish Extrawheel to carry baggage, solving the 700c spare conumdrum too), and still be able to ride, in a relatively uncomprised way, any technical singletrack we came across. Today would be a good test, as the bike was set up in touring mode, running heavy duty kit, a super-durable but hefty Schwalbe Marathon XR at the back (weighing in at close to a kilo), and a wider, relatively smooth yet gripy Halo Twin Rail 2.2 at the front.

Fast and flowing singletrack separated tiered fields.

Enough about bikes. How was the riding? Luckily, the conditions were perfect for non knobbly rubber. Dry, fast, dusty: not a pool of mud in sight. And they were superb trails too. Wending their way on narrow slithers of footpaths between peach trees, up and over lips of land, past thickets of bamboos, through small farmholdings, and down uneven, spiralling stairwells of stone slabs, via tight and techy switchbacks. After lugging all our gear behind us like anchors for weeks, it felt great to be enjoying the freedom of mountain biking again. The guys were certainly handy on their bikes. Rick’s only been riding for a year, but once he’d cranked out those forks out to 140mm there was no stopping him, while Deng Jian proved himself as a climbing whippet.

In the middle of it all, I had one of those “This was just what I hoped I’d end up doing” moments. I far prefer meeting up with locals than ticking off the usual tourist sites – there was no other way I would have found myself here in this quintessentially Chinese countryside, or delving down various atmospheric backstreets in pursuit of indy bike shops. And I love the way a passion for bikes transcends language, culture and country. Once we’d found that blissful moment of singletrack nirvana, it didn’t matter that I barely spoke a word of Chinese – we were all experiencing the same sensation, and loving it. We shared spills, rerode nadgery sections, smiled after the best bits, and stopped to take pictures or just enjoy the views.

Heading down to the lake before lunch.

And to top it all off, the bike coped admirably. That’s not to say I wouldn’t have liked to have my ultralight Scandal plugged in with a set of Rebas. But given the fact that I can load the Inbred up with 20kg of luggage and head off into the hills, or strap it to the roof of an Indian bus without fretting unduly, I was very pleased. The 29er had proved its versatility, and I’d had the chance to ride some trails I might otherwise have missed out on. The loop came to an end via some smooth, narrow singletrack that wrapped tightly round a lake, high above the calm waters, before descending sharply into the scruffy suburbs of town – which like Chengdu, is in the throes of development. We headed for the glitzy, modern centre, past a long row of outdoor pool tables, two guys sleeping – yes sleeping – across their motorbikes, a gathering of trikes loaded up with melons, and a man with three old televisions tied with string to his rear rack. Our post ride lunch was a Sichuan feast of five or six dishes – for the princely sum of 20Y per person – about 1.3GBP. We then took it easy on the ride back to Chengdu, belching contentedly, before peeling off to our various destinations, having covered a good 60-70km or so.

Post ride refuelling. The same the world over.

Actually, maybe this one was a bit better than I’m used to at home…

Thanks guys for a great ride – maybe I can return the favour one day, and show you some Bristolian Singletrack. I think you’d like it (-:

The Sichuan Singletrack boys.

*to any non-mtbers/bikers who might read this blog (ie parents), singletrack is perhaps the grail of mountain biking; an offroad trail that’s less than half a metre wide, whether it be buffed smooth or mined with rocks. Narrow and involving, at its best it’s about being in the moment, and stealing glances at beautiful scenery all around.

As a last note: 29er posts seem to pick up a few hits on this blog. So I’ll try and do a more thorough report on how the Inbred, and its wheels and tyres – the main source of concern when touring with big wheels in this part of the world – fared when I’m back.

UPDATE: Like exploding rims…

And back again in touring mode…