Fountainhead With Black Loop, Airborne Goblin's First Real Test

Saturday mornings for the last few weeks have been my chance to get out, hit the trail early and make the most of the extra time the Mrs likes to stay in bed.  I'm definitely a morning person so like to burn off all that extra energy and still leave time to make the most of the rest of my day.

Today I got myself set for heading across to the mountain bike trail at Fountainhead Regional Park on the Goblin, hoping to checkout the early changes that have been completed as part of the black loop redesign.  This looked under threat for a short while however, as during the night it rained quite a bit here in Northern, Virginia, so initially I thought a back up plan might have been needed.  Fountainhead have a Facebook page and they are pretty good at posting early if the trail is going to be closed or not due to wet conditions, waking up this morning and checking in I saw that despite a little rain, the trail will be open!  Excited, so I threw the Goblin in the back of the car and headed for the trail.

It's approximately 35 mins drive to the trail-head from home however as I was on the road a little after 8am, it was a trouble and relatively traffic free journey and despite the damp conditions there were a few other riders there all ready.

Taking it steady through the first few turns I found that the ground was particularly greasy and with lots of damp fallen leaves on the trail, tight corners required an air of caution.  I'm really pleased to say that the tubeless conversion to the Maxxis ardent worked extremely well and the added grip into the corners left me with plenty of confidence to keep pressing on.  I should also give an honorable mention to the climbing ability of the Kenda SB8 on the rear, it really dug in on the climbs and there was almost no slippage when climbing leafy sections, I'm still planning on looking for a replacement though as there a a couple of moments where a last minute correction was needed to prevent the rear from washing out when cornering, but certainly from a climbing perspective there were no issues.

My hopes of checking the new section of the black loop were dashed when I arrived to find it taped off:

The Fountainhead Project's Facebook page has some cool pics of their test rider giving it a go:

Although the new entrance was closed off, thankfully the black loop was still open and feeling pretty fresh I pushed ahead and wrapped up my ride.  I'm really starting to feel a little more confident on the Goblin with the 29er wheels now and definitely noticed an improvement in my climbing and ability to hit things at a little more speed than I could with the Skyhawk 26er, big roots etc didn't pose any problems.  I have noticed a few more pedal strikes as it seems the Goblin's bottom bracket is a little lower but nothing I'm too worried about as I'll learn to refine my riding style even more as time progresses.  There a couple of bike parts that I do need to give a little more attention to though:

• Fork - the Reba bottomed out a couple of times, and as I'm over 200lb I suspect it may need some extra air, I'll also most likely experiment with adding some additional oil. 
• Bars & stem, I ran a 70mm stem on the Skyhawk and with the 660mm bars this was fine, on the Goblin the short stem is great but makes the bars feel really short.  I have a 110mm stem in the parts bin which I'll throw back on to see if it helps until I can get some wider bars.

Anyway, today's ride was great, I always enjoy fountainhead and to top off a fun ride, I even got a new PR on Strava for the green, blue and black loop combo.  Pretty pleased with that as I'm sure given perfect conditions I'll be able to go even quicker next time!