At the Sea Otter Classic 2013 we had the opportunity to try out a SRAM XX1-equipped bike featuring the new 1×11 drivetrain.

Our impressions were recorded in real time in the attached video review, another in our On The Bike Reviews. We rode a SRAM-labeled Kona 29er equipped with the 1×11. The bike had a 32-tooth chainring and 10×42 rear cassette.

The first thing that threw us was the shifter. We instinctively reached for the trigger and found… nothing. Instead the bike was equipped with SRAM’s patented GripShift — the old motorcycle-style twist shifter.

We hadn’t ridden GripShifts since they first came out in the early 1990s. We tried ‘em on a couple of bikes and gave up. The response was slow, cable action was delayed, mis-shifting was common and in general — although we loved the idea — they didn’t deliver.

We stayed with SRAM drivetrains, in part because SRAM worked better than Shimano, and in part because we were a little tired of the Shimano monopoly. Whatever.

Over the years, we hadn’t paid much attention to GripShift.

On our tests of the 1×11, though, we soon came to like the gripper. SRAM has done much to improve the action and response. But there was another factor.

When you’re dependent on only the rear cassette, you find yourself flipping through multiple gears much more often. Without the front derailleur to rely on for step-up or down gearing spreads, you often want to jump two or three cogs at a time.

We came to think we should seriously consider this matchup for using 1×11 gearing, which our next bike will have.

One caveat: Troubling negative feedback on GripShift in MTBR.com forums. Some riders are reporting failure. Some have asked SRAM for a response. So far, nothing from SRAM.

That’s too bad, because 1×11’s success may ultimately rely in part on GripShift adoption. We will be monitoring this as the season proceeds.

Back to the 1×11 test.

We found the rear derailleur to be smooth and responsive. Not much more to say there. It shifted as it should. We haven’t found any huge leaps in derailleur technology since index shifting, really. Refinements, yes. But let’s face it, if the gear changes precisely and quickly — which it does for nearly every brand of derailleur — that’s plenty good enough. Performance often is far more dependent on cable adjustment, tension and action.

The ride with a 1×11 is almost spooky quiet. Despite taking stutters at speed and tossing the bike around under us, we never experienced a single whisper of chain slap. When we checked the chain stay, we found it unprotected, unmarked and un-nicked. This setup lacked any chain tensioner or guide. The chain just doesn’t move around.

Our experience was confirmed by several months-long 1×11 users. Most started with a chain guide of some sort, but soon abandoned it as not needed.

What we really liked about the 1×11 had to do with … NO shifting!

With 1×11 of course, you lose the front derailleur and front shifter. And cable. And housing. (You even lose the chainstay protector, whether it’s a Velcro fabric or stretch tape.)

It’s like a whole chunk of stuff goes away, and you don’t have to worry about it any more.

The drivetrain as a result is going to be lighter. Because SRAM has made XX1 its new gold standard, the machining, weight and finish of the 1×11 is nonpareil. The stuff is really well made. (Again, they absolutely need to address the GripShift question.)

That leads us to the second part of our 1×11 experience. At Sea Otter we asked everyone from Pivot founder Chris Cocalis to the dude on the carbon Scott 27.5 (650b) from Los Angeles about how they liked 1×11. To a person, they all raved. They unreservedly gave it one thumb’s up — one, because that’s all you need with just a single shifter.

We had heard early rumors of chain fatigue and breakage with XX1, which made some sense given the amount of spread in an 11-cog cassette. Most feedback was that there’s less stress on the chain because it isn’t always having to hop back and forth among front chainrings.

We’re persuaded enough by experience and feedback to be eager to equip our next bike with 1×11. In the meantime, we’ll monitor the rumor mill and try to get a response from SRAM on GripShift issues.

This year’s Sea Otter Classic 2013 was as good as they come: Gorgeous warm sunshine, tons of riders of all ages, lots of racing excitement and vendors and spenders. We got to demo bikes to our heart’s content, talk with lots of bike folks, check out all the new equipment and ride the big loop.

What more could a bike fanatic ask?

Here’s the official race recap provided by Sea Otter, day by day. If you couldn’t make it to Monterey for this year’s fest, at least you can enjoy it vicariously here.

Congrats to Seattle homie Jill Kintner and U.S. standout Aaron Gwin on their big wins in the Downhill! Jill took double gold, also winning the dual slalom on Saturday.

Race results.

At the Sea Otter Classic 2013 we had an opportunity to test ride two new 27.5 bikes: the carbon Bronson — Santa Cruz Bicycles’ latest and one of the showcase bikes of Otter this year — and the Pivot Firebird, modified for 27.5 setup and announced opening day at the festival.

[Note we use the term "shootout" advisedly, given our limited time on the bikes. This was more bb gun than OK Corral.]

At 26 to 27 pounds for 150mm of travel, the Bronson build was impressive, including ENVE wheels and Maxxis Hi Roller tires along with full XTR. Our bike had a 2×10 drivetrain, although the Santa Cruz booth was displaying the same build with a XX1 (1×11) drivetrain on a Medium it said tipped the scales at 26.5 lbs.

We admittedly couldn’t stretch the Bronson out on Laguna Seca’s fairly docile singletrack. But the ride was long enough to tell us a couple of things.

The geometry of the Bronson — 67 head, 73 seat angle on a Large — felt a little more upright than we’d like. This is a personal preference of course, but we didn’t feel like the Bronson would be at its best riding aggro, mountain bike park or downhill. It felt closer to an XC bike. Perhaps that’s the crowd Santa Cruz is aiming at, although the aggressive tires indicated otherwise.

The bike climbed better than a 26-er but not nearly as well as a 29er. It felt as you’d expect, a compromise between the two. Although to our mind it was closer to the 26-inch experience than the 29-inch.

On downhill stretches, particularly fast sections, we wanted more travel out of the Bronson. Weirdly — and this could be related to suspension, the geometry, the amount of travel or just our own head games — we’re wondering if the 27.5 category isn’t better suited to longer travel. Just throwing that out there. It’s not a theory we found support for among a few 27.5 riders we interviewed. But to a rider, they were in the 5-8 to 5-10 height range. We run 6-0 and have long monkey arms.

To confirm our theory, the Pivot Firebird 27.5 felt more comfortable to us. You sink down in the 6.6-inches of travel as with the conventional Firebird. But the bigger hoops and slacker angles (66 degrees via a Pivot custom angled headset on a Large, 71.5 seat angle) give you a new dimension of versatility, speed and handling. For a taller rider, the Firebird 27.5 actually adds a noticeable degree of stability and centered-ness.

This all held true despite the Firebird being heavier, at 31.5 pounds, and aluminum, not as responsive as carbon. But neither of those factors count for much when you point the rig downhill.

The caveat being that we only rode the thing briefly around the midway, doing mostly stutter stops and starts, wheelies and track stands. Having lots of fun, but hardly testing it. Pivot did not have a build ready to take out on the trails. (Pivot offers an extensive demo program and expects to have Firebird 27.5s ready to roll in mid-May.)

With all that said, we admit to not quite getting the 27.5 category. It feels like half a loaf. If you want the advantages of a larger platform, why not go to 29? The only rationale that makes sense to us is rider height. There may be a sweet spot where 27.5 is just right for the shorter among us who find 29ers too angular. For someone our height, it may not be dramatic enough to warrant the commitment to a whole platform.

For another view on the Bronson, check out Francis’ take on MTBR.com. Francis found more plushness to the Bronson than we did. It’s also worth noting he’s 5-8. But he had considerable more time on the Bronson than we did, and puts it in the context of other 27.5 (650b) bikes. (It omits the Firebird, however, having been written before the 27.5’s release.)

Of course, it’s not the purpose of the movie to burnish mountain-biking’s image. But we didn’t want to let its portrayal pass without defending mtb either.

It may be that Aron Ralston, the climber who got himself into a mess in Bluejohn Canyon west of Moab by simply neglecting to tell anyone where he was going, is the kind of guy who:

1. Rides without a helmet. In the movie, James Franco (who by all accounts gives a tour de force performance) is shown cruising across the desert in a baseball-type cap. It may well be that Ralston chose not to wear a helmet. But it’s something almost no mountain biker would do, simply because the risks are so great.

We’ve spent a lot of time riding the hard rock of Utah and can’t remember any time we saw a mountain biker out on the trails without a helmet.

2. Rides an outdated bike. The kind of Rocky Mountain hardtail shown in the film was a decent ride in the 1990s, but mountain bikers in the past decade went almost exclusively to dual suspension. Especially around Canyonlands, where suspension really shines in rugged trail slickrock country.

You do find hardtail holdouts from time to time, and maybe Ralston was one. (The argument for a hardtail is fewer things to go wrong, break down, etc.) The incident took place in 2003, when hardtails still popped up now and then. But we’ve been riding in Moab and vicinity since the early 1990s and by 2000 the scene was mostly full suss.

3. Rides with a backpack better suited to 50-mile hikes than mountain biking. Ralston’s orientation was to rock climbing, so his pack probably reflected that more than biking. No mtber is going to want the big, bulky thing that “127 Hours” shows on his or her back in the southern Utah desert.

4. Rides without gloves and other bike equipment. Again, maybe Ralston did so and the movie is accurate in that regard. But it doesn’t make for a very astute rider in the perilous back country.

5. The header Franco/Ralston takes could’ve been more realistically staged. We’ve seen lots of mountain biking crashes, and been in more than a few ourselves, and this one — where Franco flies off the bike for no apparent reason, having struck nothing or otherwise forced out of control — looks dumb. Franco, or his stunt double, lands neatly on his back. It’s a great way to crash, but hey, you don’t get to select technique when you go off the bars. That’s why all the broken ribs and separated shoulders.

Is any of this really germane to a film which is actually about getting stuck while rock scrambling? Probably not. It also may be the case that the trailer oversimplifies the film itself.

But if you’re a mountain biker watching the film, you may find yourself wincing at its characterization.

To the film’s credit, if everyone comes away from it with greater resolve to tell loved ones where they’re headed the next time they go out on a long ride — well, our other points are just nitpicking.

The next day it was time to think about heading back to Seattle. But not before we got in a rollicking tour of Sun Mountain — the Sun Mountain Race Course.

Sun Mountain reverie: A standout 2010 season.

Time was when Winthrop was a prime Washington State race destination, with spring and fall events on the calendar year in and out. Not so much any more. The cross-country race scene is pretty anemic, and in the fall at least the early winters kept infringing on rider comfort. The annual Methow Valley Mountain Bike Festival, now the Bike and Film Festival, has dropped racing from its calendar.

But the course is still in fine fettle. You follow the signs from Winthrop up to Sun Mountain — there’s a famous lodge right on top by the same name — and park at the Chickadee Parking Lot. (You can park at the Lodge higher up if you like, but the riding to and from the lodge is nothing special.) From there you’ve got lots of options all around the mountain on really nice, flowy trails. We decided to head up Thompson Road, a medium-steep fire road that rises all the way to the top of the ridge. After a short leg burner we turned right onto Overland Trail and were on our way.

Usually in late September and early October the trails around Sun Mountain have been pummeled to baking flour, but not so this time out. Rains the week before, and an unusually wet summer overall, had left the trails tacky and packed. We zipped down Overland, crossed over to Rodeo, hooked up with Black Bear all the way around the north side of the mountain, did a short stint on Patterson Lake Trail, doubled back via Rader Creek (the wrong way to go on Rader, the fastest trail on the mountain, but what the heck, we were just out for a ride), climbed up Thompson to the top and then came down some gnarly unmarked trails to the Inside Passage and back to the car.

From above: It felt as good as it looked. (Generated by MotionX-GPS and iPhone.)

It’d been at least a decade since I’d ridden Sun Mountain, and I’d forgotten what a hoot the trail network is. It was especially fun tailing Jim, who’s done countless races there and knows the trails like the veins on the back of his hand. Jim literally rides like he’s on a rail, flying around corners, ripping down G-outs and flitting up switchbacks. Most of the time I was happy just to keep him in sight.

You can pretty much ride the whole network in two to three hours. It’s a lot of fun and is a great workout. It’s not high-altitude, above-the-earth’s-curvature type stuff, but you get bucolic views of the valley and can easily navigate around occasional foot traffic. Winthrop is such a cornucopia of monster rides that it’s easy to forget the more modest Sun Mountain in the equation. But our romp was perfect capper to a great weekend — as well as the 2010 high-country riding season. Already we’re making plans for next year — Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Oregon. But always, always, Winthrop will be there, right in the middle of the mix.

[Distance: 15.6 miles / Elevation gain: 2,101 feet / Maximum grade: 10.4 percent / Time, including pondering Year 2010: 1 hr, 45 mins]

Mount Rainier atop East Tiger Summit

The re-route will provide mountain bikers with additional mileage, 500′ more vertical, and a single-track connection from the actual summit of East Tiger to the west (upper) end of the Preston RR Grade Trail.

The trail opening represents a huge stride forward for mountain biking on Tiger, the Seattle area’s most popular classic cross-country riding area. Only three trails are officially open to mountain bikers — Preston, Iverson and Northwest Timber. Despite year-round trail maintenance, they suffer from over-riding due to lack of enough overall trail access to carry demand.

Courtesy Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance.

“If all goes well, there’s even more to come,” said Glenn Glover, Evergreen’s executive director.

The addition of the new trail sets up a challenging loop — riding the fire road up from the east summit parking lot off Highway 18, taking the connector down to near the trailhead onto Preston and then completing the Preston-Northwest Timber Trail loop back to the parking lot. Riders will reach 3000 feet elevation (an additional 500 feet) and add about a mile of singletrack to their ride.

Parts of the existing East Tiger Mountain Trail connector, a short but steep and technical descent, will be rerouted in sections to ameliorate erosion and improve rideability. The rest of the existing trail will remain closed to bikes.

The new stretch is a testament to Evergreen’s outreach efforts to trail organizations and land-management agencies, in this case the state Department of Natural Resources and Washington Trails Association (WTA). Opposition to mountain biking from one hiking group, the Issaquah Alps, has kept new trails from being added for years. But management agencies are increasingly considering mountain biking to be part of any trail-use equation.

There’s also growing political support to make Issaquah a mountain-biking destination akin to Whistler, B.C. and Oakridge, OR. The proximity of Duthie Hill Mountain Bike Park and Grand Ridge have focused regional attention on Issaquah’s mountain-biking prowess.

Evergreen, as part of the agreement, will maintain the new connector as well as step up its stewardship of Preston, one of the best downhill runs around but subject to severe erosion. The Alliance will hold a series of winter work parties starting Nov. 7. DNR is supplying an excavator and $7,000 worth of materials towards the effort, Glover said.

Further enhancements may be in the offing on Tiger, including trail connectors between Preston and Northwest Timber, alleviating the need to ride fire road sections. Such a connector — informally referred to as the Silent Swamp reroute — would create a monster singletrack ride from the East Summit all the way back to the parking lot via Preston and NWTT.

A project to install two bridges and connector trails in the Silent Swamp corridor — a lush but underused hiking trail over the years — has won rave reviews, Glover said: “If WWRP (Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program) funding gets approved, this will be a funded project. We’re tremendously excited about the possibilities.”

A Tiger Mountain ride review.

Evergreen’s guide to Tiger.

Congrats to Cam Zink, an old guy (24!) with a lot of metal in his body, who pulled off the first-ever “Slopestyle Slam” by winning (the return of) the Red Bull Rampage after taking home gold at the Kokanee Crankworx in Whistler in August. Zink also won Red Bull’s best trick comp. This is the equivalent to baseball’s Triple Crown and tennis’ Grand Slam, winning the top titles in the same season. Zink won Rampage with a 360 off the monster ramp. The drop itself was intimidating, but pulling a 360 (full rotation) at that height requires precision timing and contact control. Interestingly, the progenitor of the Big Drop 360, Darren Berrecloth, finished third despite a trick 3 of his own.

Cam Zink on podium. (Courtesy Red Bull Rampage)

Full results.

PinkBike has nice highlights video.

Tiger Mountain's own Luke Strobel.

For race run I was in the start watching the rain fall. Not that rain is bad, mud is fun, but not being able to see is my least favorite thing ever!!! I suck at pulling tear offs, and forgot to do it in the one spot I needed to, and rode tentative. Oh well, main thing yesterday was riding aggressive and not braking, but it is really difficult to do in such conditions. I had a good time, but not that speedy of a run compared to what I was capable of. Saint brakes were working too good:). I still took a top 10, which is actually decent for my first year downhilling. For sure need to build up my tolerance to full runs and speed in rougher conditions.

On balance, Jill had some bad luck with the draw and the weather. But Mont-Sainte-Anne is a crusher of a course, too — even if it’s dry! The fact she did so well in a discipline she is still learning attests to Jill’s versatility and grit.

In other results of local interest, Seattle-based Evil took down the silver in the men’s downhill with a smashing run from B.C. standout Steve Smith. It’s been awhile coming for Smith, who’s had some luckless days as well. But this time it all came together — congrats to him and the gang from Evil — including Smith’s teammate on Evil, Issaquah’s Luke Strobel, who was impressive with 16th in the men’s final.

Sam Hill, former World Cup rainbow-jersey winner, won as world champion in the men’s category and Tracy Moseley won for the women.

Full results here.