El Salvador
Preparing the Specialized S-Works for the ride from home to the farm.
By home, I mean, riding from my hometown in El Salvador to the Farm which is roughly 45 minutes by vehicle. The terrain is mixed but mostly gravel/clay roads. Downhill from the house to the farm, so the way back will be fun each day.
After being in Iowa all these years, I am slowly beginning to take more and more interest in spending more time back in El Salvador. Though I was born and raised in El Salvador I have lived about two thirds of my life in the United States now. Hard to say I would permanently leave to El Salvador, but I do like the idea of spending two or three months out of each year sometime in the near future in the tropical weather and really moving only by bicycle while there. For now, I will be there for a quick few days.
View from the cockpit of the S-Works.
This Specialized is an iteration from Ron Ultraromance who during Covid shutdown experimented with these frames and prepped a couple of them up for some ATB-ing style of riding. These frames are very light being that these are aluminum, and like Ronnie Romance says, “…tires aired to educated lower pressures make the difference of a comfortable ride versus a ride that will rattle your teeth out, when it comes to aluminum.” (May be a bit off on the wording) but its true, these bikes are so nimble and easy to portage when riding in single-track and you have to walk sections because the trail ran out or a tree or several trees are in the way. While I still love touring on a steel bike, these aluminum bikes, make for perfect local long day jaunts.
The question then becomes, which bike to take? While I thought the decision would be harder, instantly the bikes that came to mind were the S-Works (pictured above), Tumbleweed prospector and the Crust Nor’ Easter. I tend to take the Prospector everywhere and so that one was an easy choice to agree and leave behind this time. After all, I am not camping outdoors, just commuting from home to the farm enjoying a light ride each day in the tropical weather.
The toss-up than, became the Nor-Easter (pictured below) and the Duralcan S-Works. Those two bikes are so nimble! They just ride so nice and are so light! And though the 650B wheel set the Crust provides is much better to cover ground than 26” wheels the Specialized provides I had to go with the S-Works. Crust has made the decision to not make anymore runs of the Nor-Easter moving forward; according to the latest post on the Radavist. Thus, I will hold off on putting the Nor-Easter through the ringer of flying internationally at least for now. Duralcan S-Works frames can still be found, rare but you can still find one on ebay floating around. So should anything happen to that frame, I know I can hopefully take it apart and replace it with another medium.
Crust Nor-Easter
