My Adventures with Calvin and the Mutants
~ mutesting by Lee Bridgers and special guest, Canadian Calvin "Well here it is, a few words about my mutant.

"First let me say thanks. I came to Moab for the first time 4 years ago looking for something different, something meaningful and maybe even a bit spiritual. I stumbled onto dreamride by chance but now after all the rides, all the experiences it feels like fate (or maybe a raven) had a hand in things. You and Miki have shared so much with me and taught me so much. My life is more complete and I feel like a better human because of that. For me the mutant is a culmination of my whole dreamride experience. It represents the ideals, the beauty and the function you and I have spent so much time pondering together. I cannot express the pleasure that it gives me to be a part of reason you built this ride. And what a ride it is. You achieved exactly what we wanted; the perfect Moab machine. I go faster, I feel safer, and I ride harder than I ever have before. It's kind of funny, but in a way the mutant reminds me so much of the very first bike, my 6 inch salt, that you built for me. When I slung my leg over the mutant a very familiar feeling came over me. But then I started pedaling and that's when I realized that yes, the high bottom bracket, and the seating position were the same as the salt but in the mutant you had added a serious dose of roids. The geometry was simply put, perfect. Now this is a bike that you can beat the snot out of and feel it beg for more. Yes it is heavier but somehow instead of being a hindrance the weight on the mutant only makes me more confident to go faster. It feels so good. I honestly know that I have not yet come close to testing the limits of this very special machine. I can't wait for November to get another shot at it.

"Thank you Lee,
Calvin"

September 4, 2005

---

Calvin came out on the 1st of September for a short vacation getaway and to try out his new Mutant. During his three day stay I guided him on four rides and Miki cooked for him. The first ride began with a shuttle to the top of Fins and Things, a favorite sand and rock slog, slide and slam. The second ride started early evening, a gust-busting grind up to the Castle Valley viewpoint on Porcupine Rim, and the fast, steep and technical descent back down to the trailhead. The second day was spent on Bartlett Wash slickrock. The fourth was secret slickrock many miles from Moab.

Calvin's Mutant is Red. My Mutant is Gold. Calvin dresses in shorts, helmet, armor and jerseys he has purchased from Dreamride, so his clothes are like my chosen mountain biker uniform, which is why we look similar in the pictures. I am older and fatter. Calvin looks better on the climbs. I look better on the descents.

About the clothes, I should mention that we sell products and product lines that, over the years, Miki and I have selected to wear ourselves. If any piece of my biking/guiding/exploring outfit is the slightest bit uncomfortable or calls attention to itself on a ride, I get rid of it, even if I can sell it in the shop. Since we are small, I can only carry the best, . . . well, at least, my learned opinion of the best: Louis Garneau and Nema loose fit jerseys. Louis Garneau socks, bibs, shorts, tights, wind shells, and rain gear. Nema baggies. Dainese body armor. Ultimate packs. Headsweats. Fly and Azonic knee guards. Garneau and Giro helmets. Marzocchi, Garneau and Azonic gloves. Price is never a consideration. Some things are very expensive. Some things are dirt cheap. If it works, it is here. We stock very few shoes, but will order fitted SIDI and Answer shoes for anyone who wants them waiting in Moab when you come out to ride with us. Fins and Things, Porcupine Rim, September 2:
Calvin and I have ridden Fins and Things together three or four times before. I selected it as the break-in ride for his new Mutant because he was familiar with it, it's close to town, and it shakes and stirs the parts nicely. Miki dropped us off near THE downhill run. Out of the gate, there's a sandy, rocky grunt up to top of the run. No warm-up. The energy demands of the Mutant on that first sandy hill were a shock to the system. Calvin lagged behind a bit, probably thinking I was going too fast. I was actually conserving energy. This is how the Mutant works: It conserves energy with speed. At a point where the trail leveled out I stopped to tighten Red's (what I will call Calvin's bike) Chris King hubs, set her suspension, and to control my heart rate. Back on the bikes, bodies warmed up a bit, we began to connect with the Mutants.

As the terrain began to fall away ahead of us and speeds increased dramatically, we hit the first technical challenge, a half-mile of off-camber ax-blades sprinkled and pitted with loose sand. I was, and still am, amazed at how fast the Mutant is on this section. It is far faster than the Ventana La Bruja that was the fastest in our fleet over this sort of "Thing" over the past few years. The Mutant's serious advantages are bottom bracket height, nimble weight distribution, rigid platform and that Fox DHX-5. After the steep technical twisting run through a tight gap between two massive stone "Fins," I stopped to wait for Calvin. I knew he was back there mistaking the Mutant for his Ventana El Saltamontes. I heard him bashing and rolling over the loose baby, daddy, giant jagged mutanthead rocks toward me. He pulled up and said with wide eyes, "I slid around the top of that 's' turn and ended up taking a 'surprise' line. The bike saved me, literally saved me. This thing can do a lot more than I thought it could." This was the first clue as to how the following days would be: Learn to trust the machine. Go fast. Go even faster. Feel the next plateau of performance and, once there, stay within the boundaries of the weakest link in the overall equipment package; the light, fat, tires and XC tubes that allow you to accelerate faster.

What I discovered over the past month, Calvin gradually began to realize--"Mutant momentum." Get the wheels rolling and it flies, crawls and claws up and over very rough stuff, then screams down technical terrain with amazing control. We ended the Fins and Thing ride with a steep 400' ascent on massive domes of slickrock. We adjusted the Marzocchi FR's ETA circuit for short travel, turned up the compression damping on the Fox DHX-5, and dropped into the 22/34 granny gear. Calvin followed as I cross cut the hill back and forth to the top. No pedal whacking! The lungs got a bit whacked, but a rest on top gave us time to get perspective on the distance we had traveled uphill over that bald mountain of sandstone. We hit the road from the Slick Rock Trail parking lot and sped downhill into town. Miki had a meal of duck, wild rice, salad and Pinot waiting for us. We ate, took a short nap, then shuttled up to the Porcupine Rim Trailhead on Sand Flats Road to try to get that good food to come up and see us. It was raining as we departed. Lightning was flashing in the distance. The sound of thunder echoed through the valleys and canyons. I began farting like a civil war cannon.

For those who don't know, the first section of the Porcupine Rim Trail from the staging area on Sand Flats Road to the rim itself, is a real killer. It has literally taken the lives of at least two teenagers over the past five years. This 3 mile section of trail sucks water from your blood at an alarming rate. The technical and physical difficulty create a complete body-mind workout that generates a lot of heat. When the air is hot and dry and the rider is hot and breathing heavy, you have rapid dehydration. Most people, especially the young and stupid, don't know their bodies well enough to understand the effects of dehydration or even recognize the symptoms. What I noticed on this day's ride is that my water bladder got a lot lighter as I approached the rim. Calvin climbed past me and I got a chance to see him improving dramatically as the trail got rougher and rougher. He could tell how close I was behind him be the loudness of my farts.

At the rim, we marveled at the beauty of Castle Valley for a moment. I cut a really loud fart, then we headed back down the rough trail we had just come up. Calvin really found his stride with the Mutant and began dropping high ledges at speed. At one point he stopped and asked if it would be wise to lengthen the wheelbase. Calvin's Mutant and my own, share wheelbase measurements. Though Cal's frame is taller (he has really long legs), it has the same top tube length. The taller frame's seatpost placement put his saddle a tad behind mine in relationship to the rear axle, so I had assumed that we would change the wheelbase at some point. The fact that Calvin was thinking about this meant he was coming to terms with the Mutant, beginning to feel the point of balance. Fine-tuning the wheelbase is a final, though reversable, step to set the bike to your body position and size. It depends on body type and riding style as to whether or not to length or shorten the distance between the axles. Once Calvin's Mutant's wheelbase was in the middle setting, the relationship between the back of the saddle and the rear hub axle was nearly identical to my own in the shortest chainstay setting. The longer the distance between the bottom bracket spindle center and the top of the saddle, the further back the rear axle should be. The idea is to make the Mutant feel much the same to each rider. I noticed that Calvin's weight shifts began to echo my own. If you look at the pictures, it is hard to tell who's who.

The special memory I have of the Mutants' first ride on Porc Rim is the feeling of the rear shock compression and rebound stroke maxing out. There was a moment at the bottom of a particularly rough drop where the DHX rebounded and made me realize that this shock is not only plush, but it is also extremely forgiving at full compression--it has a brain and a heart. Unlike other shocks that go harsh on full compression, the Fox DHX replied with a controlled return that could only be described as "sweet," sort of like a fatter pillow between me and the upstroke. Bartlett Wash, September 3:
Our day at Bartlett Wash began with a quarter mile of beach sand riding up and down the wash for a brief warm-up before we heaved the bikes onto the rock. As with the two previous rides, we placed ourselves right in the action, something I usually do not do, opting instead for a stretch of road or gentle rolling trail to warm up on. But, this was a short trip for Calvin and I wanted to give him the best experience I could in such a short time. Once on the rock we headed out on the upper bands of the Entrada sandstone to get to the bowls adjacent the saddle in the middle of the formation.

I made a bee-line for my favorite wall, something steep enough to create powerful compression at the bottom, safe enough for repeated runs. This moderate wall has a slight ledge that peters out midway on its face, offering an entry point as you gain speed and wheels are forced into the hill by increasing momentum. The first run was like almost everything done for the first time on this bike. This machine makes moderate stuff easy and crazy stuff possible. The next run I went a bit higher on the wall. Once Calvin began to go up and down this bowl he began to praise the bike's climbing abilities and its Magura Louise Freeride brakes. The Maguras are prime equipment for this level of performance. The Freerides give you the choice 7 or 8 inch rotors on the front and 6 or 7 inch rotors on the rear. For Calvin and I, I decided on 7 inches front and rear. Simply perfect. They really stop the bike. We WERE on the edge of a 75 foot cliff drop. Next, we moved out to the western tip of the formation. There is a particularly bumpy solid rock climb that demonstrates the use of momentum and the bikes ability to claw its way up just about anything your lungs can stand. Download the short video at CALVIN CLIMBS THE ICE CREAM CAKE. I am using my Canon Elf just a ways up the Cake. This is harder than it looks. Cal runs 6 miles a day, does a thousand sit ups and hundreds of pushups. He likes to look good. He does. His wife looks better. After the Cake, we headed to Jane Mansfield, a smooth cleavage in the rock with large pits in it. I once met Jane Mansfield when I was 12. She let me pet her little lap dog. Her face was pretty and cute. Her tits were HUGE and speckled with freckles. No holes. She did make you think about holes though. A year later she was decapitated in a car accident. Then Marilyn Monroe died suspiciously after affairs with the Kennedy brothers. Go figure.

This rock version of Jane Mansfield's tits has no lap dog. There is a tad of impending doom there though, especially if you back up to Dolly Parton, a deeper nearby slot that I do not take clients to for liability reasons. Jane is sexier than Dolly though, a picturesque setting pro photographers have been using to entice tourists to Moab for two decades. Jane has made at least one photographer $25K for a single shot. I saw that photo in a magazine, pulled out a 35mm print I took years earlier and, bingo, it was the same picture, different rider, but same shadow, same time of day, exact same location, composition and camera position. Jane is that kind of spot. It shows you ways to photograph mountain bike action. I see this similarity in photograhic aesthetic much more often now, and with much more suspicion. Photographs posted on this website are obviously easily copied if you have a good camera, a good stunt rider and a brain. It is my own fault. I have had a hand in turning Bartlett Wash into a mountain bike destination for themasses, overrun to an extent that the BLM has recently painted white lines on the rock and begun fencing off areas along the rock and around the "campground." When Nate Toone was working with me, we handed out ideas for mountain bike action shots and freeride events at Bartlett to hacks around the world for free. I am not proud to be part of the reason Bartlett has become a zoo, an attractive nuisance, a place Not To Ride. It is hard to keep from giving it too much attention. This is what white people do. So, there we were with the Mutants, bikes designed to ride this kind of thing well. The masses? On this day, Saturday before Labor Day, we only saw two mountain bikers as we were heading down throught the Ice Cream Parlor on our way back to the trailhead. Early birds avoid the worms. Just before the Parlor I dropped below the Mushroom to show Calvin just how effective the Mutant was at sidehilling. Then we hit the better ledges in the Ice Cream Parlor. The Mutant eats these things up. No problem. You can even make mistakes that on other bikes of lesser travel and design would put you face first into the rock. The Mutant is forgiving. Its forgiveness is not without conditions, but that suits its nature as a quick handler with such a capable chassis.

The Mutant likes to drop off of ledges as much as it likes to hit them square on. The feeling at the bottom of a drop is much more plush than a couch. The Marzocchi FR and the Ventana rear end with the Fox DHX damper are amazingly well balanced, both set up for this sort of extreme punch in the gut.

Before we headed to Bartlett we set the wheelbase on Calvin's Mutant a half inch longer at the rear dropouts. This unique feature of the Mutant frame, along with custom front triangle geometry and construction, has made it possible to accurately tune each bike to each rider with much the same handling feel.Chainstay length has great impact on the feel of the bike, especially during "airtime" and at high speed. For years I have been accepting a one-size-fits-all chainstay on rear suspension bikes, and will no doubt have to accept this concept far into the future, but NOT on the Mutant, thank God! For a bike to be able to perform at this level on twisting trail and at high speed over rough stuff, it must put the rider's weight between the wheels effectively. The Mutant frame's custom front triangle and adjustable rear end are best understood by experienced riders--especially when they get on the bike built for them.

At this point on Bartlett Wash Slickrock Calvin was beginning to take full advantage of the abilities of the bike. He did not lag behind me, as on the first day when his confidence was compromised by jet lag and the newer, heavier bike. Now, when he wanted to, he could rip past me at high speed and climb ANYTHING. His early years on an off-road motorcycle were coming back to him. We drove back into town looking forward to a beer, a shower, then wine and another fantastic meal Miki had worked on all day. The glow Calvin always looks for when he comes to stay with us, was now on his face. He was no longer axious or antsy. He was in the Moab groove. I knew that the next day was going to top off his tank of happiness. Secret Slickrock, September 4:
Over the past ten years I have accumulated permit to ride remote rock formations and old mining roads on BLM, Utah State and private lands. The grandfathered slickrock permits have become prized possessions. These areas and those accessed via the Navajo Nation have become my personal private slickrock cycling playgrounds to share with a handful of clients who put up with my politics, enjoy my guitar playing, my wife and her politics, and appreciate what we do for them as guides and logistics managers. Calvin is one of these folks. He has not only been a supportive client, he has become a friend. It was Calvin who insisted I build him the perfect bike for Moab. So, now we have the Mutant, the bike that can really take advantage of the magic rock terrain that surrounds us in Moab. If there is a single client who deserves to visit my favorite secret slickrock, it is Calvin.

No, this area is not a picturesque as Bartlett and I try not to take pictures of its more picturesque side to keep out those who may love it too much. This place is demanding due to the vast area you must cover to get to it and the long rock runs that tire you out once you get there. It offers smooth to radically bumpy sandstone in small to extra large doses. Stop and shop wherever you want. This secretive ride begins with a descent on sand over large imbedded slickrock knobs. At the bottom there is a sandy, sandy wash for about a half mile. This is a favorite obstacle because it keeps the wheenies out. We let the air out of the tires and pedaled steadily until we were onto the rock. Piece of cake. The Mutant's geometry takes sand into consideration, as well as the babyheads that can happen in washes. Most folks will get off the bike and walk it at first sight of deep sand with scattered boulders, but not with a Mutant. The Mutant has wide hard gray anodized Mavic EX729 rims (the lightest, strongest downhill-specific rims in the business) and 2.4 WTB Motoraptor tires (the lightest, grippiest All Mountain tires in the business). At 20 pounds of air pressure in the tires, the geometry keeps the front end light and the rims keep the sidewalls in line to float over sand. You do have to be careful not to smack a sharp edge, but with low pressure, the Mutant is a formidible wash bottom bike.

Once on the rock we snaked around over smooth transitions between the knobs until we were at the rock's highest point. There I sat under a ledge out of the sun as Calvin worked the bowls below. It was another beautiful day on Secret Slick Rock, not a sign of human civilization for hundreds of miles in any direction. Not a road, a trail, a building, a hiker, a puff of smoke---nothing but beauty all around us, just like the peyote song. The only sign we had all day that humans aside from ourselves even existed was the brief roar of a distant jet to the south. This is the thing that tweaks heads on this rock. I don't know if I have never been to another place where you can stand on top of a high knoll and not any sign of civilization at all to a an extremely distant horizon. It is exilarating, and frightening if you are not intimately familiar with the unmarked series of smooth transitions that allow you to get in and out of here without leaving a tire track. Our exploits over the three days of riding cemented Calvin's love of this place even more firmly. Moab and Dreamride have become a good groove for him. He left his Mutant with us for his return with his wife (who already has a Dreamride Fully) in November. Calvin pledged to send some words to be published here, and his personal take on the Mutated Experience in Moab is now at the top of this page.

~Lee Bridgers
Dreamride owner, father of the Mutant

Copyright Dreamride LLC. No material, written, graphics, or photographs on this website, may be reproduced, broadcast, published, re-written, re-edited, or re-used in any way outside of this site without written consent of Dreamride LLC and Lee Bridgers. Use of this site signifies agreement to terms of use.