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After 217 kilometers my new wheels have proven that 650B is my ideal road and gravel size. I made this discovery with my third Volagi Viaje years ago already. But for the last two years, I rode my latest bike, my Nordest Albarda, on a set of 700C wheels. Such wheels roll well, but they don't like to change direction as quickly as a smaller 650B wheel. I like a bike to be lively and agile. Directional stability can have its advantages, but I generally prefer quick, sharp steering. Switching my Albarda to smaller wheels, instantly gave me that. The bike is so much more fun to ride. Not just when going downhill, but when climbing as well. When riding up a climb out of the saddle, it always seemed like the 700C front wheel was working against me. After putting 650B wheels on the bike, that feeling is gone. The bike now is a better extension of myself when motoring up a climb out of the saddle.

When I built my Nordest Albarda in the fall of 2019, I didn’t spend the money to get all new parts for it. I took the SRAM Red eTap HRD groupset off my Ritte and used the Nox Composites wheels that had been on my red Volagi Viaje, which I had sold. A year later, the bike finally got its own drivetrain components. When I switched to 650B RoadPlus with my third Volagi Viaje, I was immediately sold on the slightly smaller but wider wheels. The Viaje felt way better with 650B wheels. If I weren’t climbing and descending as much, I’d be perfectly happy rolling around on 700C, but in the mountainous Jura, 650B just feels better.

After the two previous weekends, I thought that my fat-bike season had come to an early end. Years past, it wasn't uncommon to fat-bike into May. Last week, however, winter returned in full force, dropping over a foot of snow on the Swiss Alps and 8-10 inches in the Jura. Brown pastures and trees were suddenly white again. I had already washed and packed away my Bike Jacket, so I got it back out again because my studded fat-bike can't be placed inside our car without.

Back in the early days of mountain biking, bike helmets used to be bike helmets. Road cyclists were only just starting to put lids on and there were basically no sport-specific helmets. An XC mountain biker wore the same helmet as a road cyclist. Things have changed a lot in that regard. Mountain bikers today have a huge plethora of helmets to choose from; from lightweight XC helmets to full-face downhill helmets. For the three and a half decades I have been riding, I have primarily owned visorless road cycling helmets except for two Giro Exodus helmets, which were popular mountain bike helmets in early 2000. After those, I owned two Giro Atmos, three Aeon, and one Giro Synthe helmet. All of those are lightweight, well-vented lids you mostly see on the head of roadies.

In early 2019, I rebuilt my 2015 Ritte Snob Disc only to take it apart again to build my Nordest Albarda in the fall of the same year. Then my wife and I moved at the end of 2019 and the Ritte hung on the bike rack in our new basement missing many parts. In 2020, I purchased a SRAM eTap AXS groupset for the Nordest and moved the eTap HRD parts back to the Ritte. Over the course of the year, I bought bits and pieces here and there to complete the Ritte once again, but alas, I never quite finished.