the anthem

Recently I added a new bike to my stable. I’ve been looking at full suspension 29ers for a while. When I rode the Slickrock trail earlier this year, I had rented a Giant Trance 29er, and I found I liked it a lot. I had ridden the same bike at a Giant demo day about a year back, and I more or less fell in love with it. But when it came time to buy a bike I ended up settling for the Trance’s little brother, the Giant Anthem X29er. I figured I didn’t really need the extra suspension travel that the Trance offered, and would rather have something that’s a bit better at climbing than descending, since I’m not big on fast/technical/rocky descents anyways, so the more XC oriented Anthem seemed like a better fit. But the biggest reason I went with the Anthem was that it was on sale. =P

I took the bike out for a spin at some of my favorite spots in Auburn.

It’s really quite nice out here in late autumn, riding through the colorful tree lined trails makes an already enjoyable ride that much nicer.

I love seeing this sign… it means I’m done climbing for a while. I’m finding that I love it even more on this bike– full suspension is quite nice on these rolling descents.

The trails I like best aren’t really all that technical, they’re mostly smooth flowing singletrack, stuff that my old hardtail was fine at, but somehow it’s a bit nicer on the new bike.

I’m finding that the new bike is great, but it’s not a huuuuuge improvement over my old bike. I do feel faster and more confident on descents, but I feel like I was climbing faster on my old hard tail. It might just be that I need to adjust my suspension better. But all in all, I’m happy with the new ride and am looking forward to growing into this bike. I plan to keep my trusty old Bianchi hardtail too, so if people want to try mountain biking, they can try out my old ride.