Fall Big-Wheelin'

After considering a road ride, I have decided to take the 29er on a mixed trails and roads ride. Starting at the bottom of Windy Hill preserve means climbing for the first 3 miles with no warm-up, from 600 to 1800 ft. Despite the recent cool down, it was warm (78F) and few of those really steep pitches were quite brutal. Once on the "ridge", I realized how beautiful fall riding is here. Despite the trails being dusty, the views were nice, the tall grasses are all either dry yellow or gone (means no pollen for me allergy sufferer), the poison oak is almost all red and thus easy to recognize, and mainly - no fog.
I felt strong and tried to climb in the middle ring standing up. To my surprise, that's where the big bike really came alive and the rough rocky trail was nice absorbed by the big wheels with 35 psi in the Kenda SB8s. The problem is that I can hammer standing for like 5 minutes at the time, so often I resorted to spinning the granny sitting. Also, the quite worn out rear tire was easily spun out, but not anywhere as easy as on the 26" bike.
Here is a picture from the Ancient Oaks Trail, it is my favorite place to stop for a gel or bar.

The second half of the ride was on a road, getting passed by some roadies, but beating many while doing about 17mph.