Tiger Mountain, Seattle Washington

I spent this past week at a customer’s location in Washington state. As painful as it was to take a 6:00AM flight on a Sunday morning, with the time zone change it got me there early enough to have time for a bike ride.

Nice view of the Cascades as I flew in

I did some searching and consulted with some folks on MTBR before deciding on Tiger Mountain as the riding spot. I called a few bike shops and found one that had demo bikes. They had two large bikes in their demo fleet (Yeti 66Rc and a Salsa Horsethief), but wouldn’t allow me to reserve one so I had to take a gamble. If I got there and they didn’t have a bike for me I would have been unable to ride as I wouldn’t have had time to find and get to another place. I have to try to forget that it essentially cost me $30/hour for the bike, but given the mental break it gave me that was money well spent.

The Yeti is a 6” carbon 26er and the Horsethief is a 4.5” 29er. I would really like to try out another longer travel 29er so I was hoping for the Horsethief, but I figured either would be fine. After inhaling a burrito at a small Mexican place nearby (one of hundreds I saw out there) I stopped by the bike shop hopeful to get a bike. The Horsethief was out, so I took the Yeti, complete with a KS Lev dropper post. I took the front wheel off and jammed it into the back of the rental, it was a tight fit, but not too bad.

I had a map of the trail at Tiger Mountain but I was hoping I could find someone to tag along with, I struck out on MTBR, a guy I know in town was busy and I couldn’t find anyone gearing up in the parking lot – solo time!

I have a pretty good sense of direction, and following a map is easy, but for some reason looking at a map, putting it away and remembering the next turn is challenging. I validated my riding plan with a group who had just returned and I was on my way. Right out of the parking lot I took the wrong road – I had TWO choices, someone five minutes ago told me “take the road on the right, then your first left” it gets confused in my head and I take the road on the left. Ugh. No big deal, I quickly realize my mistake and jump on a crossover trail that puts me back on track.

After that slight detour I was on my way up the mountain. While I didn’t really know this going in, the ride is basically a 3,000 foot, 4 mile slog up a maintained dirt road followed by a long descent mostly on singletrack. I met an older guy on the lower road and I talked to him about going up to the top he suggested against it asking me how much time I had and advising that “as soon as you think you’re at the top, there’s another hill, it goes on FOREVER!”.

The parking lot is right on a two lane highway and the road was VERY busy and loud – Seattle-ites getting their nature on I guess. Within a few minutes of pedaling the road noise disappeared and I got deeper and deeper into the pine forest. On the entire climb up I saw only one group of hikers, The solitude felt really good and found myself pedaling along at a moderate pace taking deep breaths of the clean, pine scented air. I forgot about the tough week ahead and relaxed into the moment, taking a few breaks along the way, not because I was tired, but just to enjoy the surroundings and contemplate life.

By the way, if there is such a thing as a real Yeti, this is the forest he would live in, dense, dark and covered in moss.

The old guy was right and the climb did go on forever, but it was never very steep, I was in the middle ring the whole way up and I never felt like I was pushing hard. About a quarter mile from the top of the road climb the trail I was about to descend crossed the road – I stopped and looked up and down the trail – do I see berms? Whoa, this is going to be fun!

It was fun. This is a mountain bike specific, non-technical DH trail, lots and lots of berms and bumps, a few tables and small drops. The lower trail has got to have the most 1-2’ drops per mile of any trail I’ve ridden. I imagine after learning the trail and being on a familiar bike you could really rip down that thing. I had a BLAST, I stopped for some pictures along the way, and again just enjoyed my time in the woods – clearly evidenced by my Strava segment placing (there are more than 800 riders on those segments!).

When I was stopped taking pictures at one point a guy on a 29er HT caught up to me, he was shaking his hands saying it was his first ride on a HT in a long time. We talked for a bit and as we headed down the trail he told me to go first, assuming with this bike I would be ripping it up. He was pretty much on my wheel for the next section of trail. I let him pass on a flatish part and he was off, though I did catch him again on a short dirt road connector climb, it was fun to surprise him like that – he figured he had dropped me hard.

I am terrible at reviewing bikes, but here it goes. The Yeti was really light and it was a joy to pedal up the mountain road, I locked out the front and rear for the road climb, but I didn’t notice much bob even when it wasn’t locked out. I fully expected to notice the 26er wheels but I really didn’t. I guess by the time I got to the trail I was used to the wheels, I also suspect that this being a pretty smooth trail there weren’t a lot of bumps to feel that rolling resistance that I usually notice on 26ers. I did notice the rake on the front end – wow that front tire was waaaaay out there compared to my RIP9.

The frame felt very stiff, no flex whatsoever, much like the RM I tested at NEMBAFest, it didn’t feel plush at all though, and I was surprised at how much of the rear suspension I had used when I looked at the o-ring. There’s probably some reason for that, but it felt different than the more plush CVA suspension on the RIP (it could be the bike set up too). I should really study suspension designs more so I can talk intelligently about them.

The bike had a Kashima coated Fox fork and it continued my dislike of Fox forks. The bike shop spent a decent amount of time setting it up for me, checking the sag etc and I even let more air out of it on the trail (dangerous I know), but it still didn’t feel plush. Ok, I didn’t hit anything huge, but I hit a few jumps that had me a decent height in the air (I’d name a height, but I’m sure I’m way off), the landings were harsh and the fork had barely traveled through half its travel, I feel I really should have used up more travel.

The KS Lev dropper post worked great – though on a ride like this its not needed at all, you ride with the post fully up then drop the post once at the top. It felt a lot like the Reverb on my RIP, the actuator was on the opposite side from my bike leading to me pushing an imaginary button on the right hand side a few times. By the time I was done adjusting I had the post at its minimum insertion line, I guess a large Yeti and a KS Lev post are not in my future.

All in all a great 3 hours in the woods riding a bike, I love this sport! I am going to try harder to get a ride in when I travel for work, it’s a great way to break up the stress of my job and traveling.

Here's the route I took: