Alistair,
... that road trip I did was pretty amazing, once I was west of the Mississippi I was riding at least a few times a week. Mostly I just stopped into bike shops and had them tell me where the best trails were, I spent a few weeks in Colorado (Ft. Collins, Colorado Springs--Jess showed me around, and Boulder). I spent 2 days riding around Moab too, freaking loved it. Did a few rides in Montana, a lot more dirt bikes on the trails there though, but pretty fun stuff. Then I spent 3 weeks or so in Seattle with my college buddy who works at a bike shop now--we did some ridiculous rides, 1500m climbs, 2 hour descents, etc. Their definition of "smooth and flowy" makes me shit my pants. There are some solid riders in these parts, Nomads everywhere. I love that bike, I'm definitely keeping it, it's perfect. I'm still not quite worthy of it's descending abilities though. It feels so much like my hardtail when I'm pedaling, I can keep up with most hardtail riders on the uphills, but then I forget what the thing is capable of on the downhills. My friend has a Nomad, with a slight upgrade in components(8in travel fork), but not far off from mine. He rides as aggressively as he used to do on his downhill bike that weighed about 7kg more. I saw him take a 2m (vertical) gap jump and almost overshot the landing because everyone else on huge downhill bikes were telling him to build up a lot of speed to clear it! So I look to him as an example, 1m is about the most vertical air I can stomach at present--and only with a long run way in front of me (because I'm a "poosy" as they say). So I'm holding the bike back a lot on the downhills, it's something I'm looking to grow into in the coming year (I can ride all year round in Seattle too). At least I can climb strong, and have people say "DAMN, you can keep up on that downhill bike?", until they ride it and feel how light it really is (I usually just take the compliment and street cred and don't offer the test ride). I've been riding the skinnies a bit, and trails with all kind of dropoffs, kickers, gaps, etc., I'll probably end up buying a full-face helmet and more armor, slowly becoming more of a downhiller, I was hoping to bitch about pedaling uphill, but I can't use the "heavey" excuse with the Nomad, it's a great climber, even technical climbs I can rip it up. So I'll have to send you some pictures when I get my skills down and the weather clears in the big mountains. The bike has been awesome, I can ride everything (and more) than I want. So that's my review. Here's some pics from Moab and Colorado. Hope everything is going well ... Give everyone my best,

~ian "escro dawg" mcmorran
Seattle, Washington, USA