Niner in the bike shed...

At the moment I am lucky enough to have one of these lying around the shed:



Not that we have a shed that we put bikes in, but...um...OK, we have one that is now socialising with the other 8 bikes in our hallway.

I am giving the steel rig a demo because I am keen on one of the Niner race bikes, the Air 9 Carbon, which is pretty darn hot.

Unfortunately, todays ride on the orange beast was marred by an impending cold/flu, and a battle of constant seat-post slippage. However, despite these few things, the bike handled really well (even though my handling of the bike was definitely sub-optimal...). I like.

Big thumbs up for the nice, compliant steel frame.

The geometry felt okay, too. Its hard to fit a 29er up to someone who rides a 50cm road frame and small MTB. Despite feeling 'high' at the front end (which tends to happen with the big wheels) It handled pretty well, though I am still dubios about fast cornering with a centre of gravity that is X amount higher than a 26" bike...with the wheels at least.