No road bike? No problem!

Ok, “no problem” is a bit of a misnomer. There are actually a few problems with my poor-man’s road bike. The biggest problems include improper gearing, weight, shocks, and geometry.

But all those things aside, dropping a few hundred/thousand on a road bike just isn’t an option at this point. So I did the next best thing: put 700c slicks on my 29′er. It cost me $40 for tubes and tires and bumped my average speed up 5 mph! I guess my Panaracer Rampages were slowing me down far more than I thought.

Here’s a shot of my ungainly new ride:

Ok, an iPhone pic taken at 5:30 am isn’t exactly photographically ideal, but if you use your imagination you can sort of get the idea of what it looks like. It reminds me of Mulan’s horse:

Really big on the top, really small on the bottom.

I fully anticipate that changing out my tires every time I want to go on an off-road jaunt is going to be a pain, but for now it’s going to have to do.

Gitty up!

Gooseberry Gods

Just got back from a short weekend trip to St. George to ride the famous Gooseberry Mesa trail.

Most guide books rate it as intermediate aerobic and ranging from mid- to advanced-technical. That seemed about right. The trail was a good mix of singletrack and slickrock, high chunk and low-flow. Though, I imagine the low-flow was exacerbated by the fact that we unknowingly rode it backwards—thus angering the Gooseberry Gods.

The views were picturesque, the weather was perfect (comfortable with a few layers—mid 40°s and dry), and the company was hard to beat.

But I don’t know if it was just bad luck, or that the Gooseberry Gods had it in for me, but it wasn’t the best ride for me. As I mentioned, we rode the loop backward making for a ride that seemed to have all chunk and almost no flow (and I really like flow).

This was likely not the best trail to tackle without a good tune-up; I found myself with multiple minor mechanicals that, while they didn’t kill the ride, made it difficult to keep moving. My favorite was a loose cleat that didn’t allow me to unclip and caused me to bash my shin on a rock. For a split second I was worried that I would break my leg. But, as luck would have it, I landed on the tibialis anterior rather than directly on the tibia which, I believe, saved me from a break. I do, however, have a nice gash to show off.

Within a few minutes of starting we found ourselves in God’s Skateboard Park taking stabs at some drops and generally fooling around. I took a couple of drops and, while walking up a particularly steep bit of slickrock to try another, slipped and I tore a hole in my knee and my brand-new tights. Let’s just say that that little experience put a damper on the rest of the ride. I was lucky in that I hit soft tissue below the patella rather than the bone because, again, I hit it hard enough to scour ever last bit of skin off and see some of the subcutaneous fat underneath. Hurt like crazy.

But skin heals, tights do not. I was irritated to no end that I had just killed a practically brand-new pair.

In one final attempt to put a damper on things, the Gooseberry Gods saw fit to cause me to forget to charge my camera battery and thus have no pictures for the day.

When we got to the look-out point my mood improved—helped by a few shots of Energy Beans, a half orange, some Gu and a crazy view—leading me to believe that my mood had less to do with the few things going wrong and more to do with low blood sugar.

But, things weren’t all bad. With some quickie calories and some trail music via my iPod, I hit the trail with a new outlook—and cleared nearly every stunt on the latter half of the ride. (And why not? Skin already gone, tights already ruined—nothing to lose, right?

When we arrived at the practice loop our fears were confirmed that we didn’t ride it in the right direction. Maybe next time we won’t bring down the wrath of the gods and remember to ride it the recommended direction.

Cold weather riding

I recently invested in cold weather gear for the off-season and have enjoyed getting out and riding again. What with my old-man hip injury, and holiday eating fests I’ve gained close to 5 lbs and am ready to shed it.

In order to tackle the bitter cold, here’s what I purchased:

Under Armour Coldgear Blitz Mock—$60

Under Armour Coldgear Core Ventilated Leggings—$60

Under Armour Cold Gear Hood-Black—$25

Planet Bike Borealis Fall/Winter Full Finger Gloves—$25

In addition to the above items, I also wear:

• a pair of Marker Basic ski pants (uninsulated)
• a pair of exercise pants
• a fleece pullover
• a wind breaker shell
• a pair of thin glove liners

I still need something for my feet; after about 15 minutes they are two immobile blocks of ice.

The tights and shirt work well, but at anything under 40° I need extra layers. The exercise pants/fleece add insulation and the ski pants/windbreaker provide wind protection. I rigged up a clip (soon to be velcro) in order to keep the pants out of the chain.

I highly recommend getting the UA hood. The last couple of days when it’s been below 10° the hood has kept me toasty warm. No cold ears, no wind problems, no breezes down the neck. It’s rock solid and thin enough to fit under my helmet with only minimal adjustment. Breathing through it is a little tough, but I find that once I warm up I can pull the mask off my face and I’m fine.

The one thing, aside from needing something for my feet, is I need to find a decent lube for cole weather. I feel like I’m always on the uphill and I’m finding that my rear derailer—despite being recently cleaned and relubed—completely froze when geared low.

Now if we could just get rid of this horrible inversion and get some clean air…

2010 Epic

Those tricksters from BikeMag.com recently posted a video of the trail that’s going to be my epic 2010 ride—the North Umpqua River Trail.

(I just hope the snow is cleared out by April.)

Insult to injury

Apparently I’m an old man. What’s more old man-ish than a hip injury? Not much, says I.

The hip injury has come about because I, apparently, have an asymmetrical gait. That puts torque on the soft tissue of my hip joint. Increased running with poor form has lead to a stress injury—a fairly debilitating one at that.  Cross-training is out for a while.

Winter has set his icy claws deep into the mountains and valley. Finding myself not outfitted for cold weather riding has put a rapid stop to riding. My fitness level is spiraling downward at a dizzying pace.

Combine winter to my hip problem and it’s a literal example of adding insult to injury.

Ladies…

At work we have a little inside joke about the word “ladies.” It’s based on Demetri Martin comedy bit that goes something like this:

If you want to sound like a creep, just add the word “ladies” to the end of things that you say. You could be saying harmless like, “Thanks for coming to the show….ladies.”

“Help, I’ve fallen in to a well and I’m trapped…ladies. Come on ladies, it’s like a jacuzzi with really high walls.

Watch the clip here starting at 1:38.

At work, we get a kick out of adding “ladies” to random sentences. It’s a good way to kill tension during dull or stressful meetings. It’s become a ubiquitous part of our conversation; often we fail to consider that maybe not everyone in the room is in on the joke.

Such was my luck when I went out riding the other day. I was in a great mood as we drove up the mountain and unloaded the bikes. (Being in a great mood often leads to my mouth acting before my brain gives permission.)

As I’m preparing to ride a couple of college women drove up and rolled down the window to ask a question.

Before thinking, I said, “Hi, Ladies…”

A millisecond before her eyebrow shot up in surprise I realized that she wasn’t in on the joke and, in that moment, I was the creep.

Mentally slapping my forehead, I extricated myself from the question and let my companion rider handle their query.

Happy to help, ladies…

Ergon team—Porcupine Rim

It’s kind of fun to watch after being on the trail so recently.

more about "Ergon team—Porcupine Trail", posted with vodpod

Ride The Divide Teaser

A feature length documentary about a small group of adventurous mountain bikers who set out to race the longest established mountain bike route in the world.
Traversing over 2700 miles through the Rocky Mountains from Banff, Canada to the Mexican Border.

more about “

Moab, day two

Drew and I decided we’d ride again the following day—new trails are always best explored with someone else. I told him it was his call on what he wanted to ride—I was game for whatever.

He sent a text suggesting Porcupine; his wife would shuttle.

Perfect.

We arrived on the trailhead at the dawn—the exact moment that the sun crested some distant horizon providing enough light to ride easily without direct sunlight. Weather was cool but not cold. No wind. Perfect conditions.

Porcupine is rated 3-5 technical and, for the most part, is a downhill ride when done with a shuttle. The first three miles was broken slickrock, lots of ledges and a general wheelie fest. Actually the entire route was like that.

About 300 yards from the summit I had a small mechanical that required an impromptu derailer disassembly. Soon we were back on track with a working derailer and greasy hands to show for it.

Reaching the top we were awarded an unparalleled view of Castle Valley dropping 1000 feet off the cliff rim below. Pictures don’t even come close to doing the view justice. It was jaw-dropping in every sense of the term.

Andrew and Drew at the top—Castle Valley

From there the trail turned left and down. Because of the technical nature of the trail, however, the downhill was anything but fast.

Drop-off after drop-off followed numerous stairs and ledges. If I had trained for this ride I would have done intervals up and down stadium stairs.

That might not sound like fun to those who profess a love of buff forest single track, but it was fun. Crazy fun. Despite the fact that we both have a pretty conservative riding style, both of us tackled ledges, jumps and stairs that we normally would have walked—and did it over and over and over again. By the time the ride was done, my inner thighs had been beaten pretty badly from coming off my wide seat so many times. I also had a perfect slab-serif X carved into my left calf from a sharply trimmed zip-tie on my seat stay. Other than that, we were injury-free.

Jackass Canyon, (I’m guessing the name doesn’t come from the 4-legged animal, but rather the 2-wheeled downhill animals) was fine, but many parts were just too much for us and we walked a fair portion of it. All that scrambling over rock resulted in a broken cleat, but by that time we were almost down anyway so I didn’t bother to stop to fix it.

All-in-all was a remarkable point-to-point ride with amazing views, sweet downhill and enough trickery to bring may riders to the next level. Maybe next time I’ll do it as an out-and-back starting at Jackass and going to the point.

Porcupine

Typical riding surface on Porcupine

The cliffs

Jump-off point

Moab, day one

I don’t know why, but even though I’ve been mountain biking on and off for 15 years, I’ve never taken the time to go to Moab. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve hitherto harbored no love for the desert. Or that I simply have never taken the time. Or both.

Either way, last weekend was a foray into the unknown.Despite that unknown, it was a wild success.

Originally the plan was to bring the wife and kids as well as Caren’s sister and her family. Her husband, Riley, and I often bike together and he’d been to Moab and knew his way around. But they canceled at the last minute so we forged ahead alone.

Early Friday morning I decided I’d better hit Slickrock right off the bat. You can’t go to Moab and leave Slickrock unridden. I biked the 4 miles to the trailhead. Not a bad ride, but I would have been happier with a shuttle.

Those of you who live and breathe Moab will likely chuckling inwardly at some of my descriptions, but be that as it may I still have to point out that this one crazy ride—unlike anything I’ve ever ridden.

Armed only with the trail description, I wavered while planning on whether or not my six year-old daughter could handle the two mile practice loop. Fortunately I didn’t pursue that thought any further as it would have been an unmitigated disaster. (My daughter doesn’t fall in with the crazy nut-jobs that ride rigid single speeds on purpose—it’s just that’s the only thing she has to ride.)

With Slickrock being the epicenter of desert biking, I was surprised to see that I went close to 20 minutes before I saw anyone else on the trail. The first two riders I ran into looked to be completely new to the sport as both were riding $150 Wal-Mart rides and one was even wearing jeans. I have no idea how far they made it, bless ‘em. Good on them for trying.

Just prior to the beginning of the loop and just after a particularly technical hike-a-bike I was surprised to find someone heading the opposite direction. It was, after all, only a half-hour after sunrise.

“Wow, you done already?” I asked.

“No, this is my first time on the trail and if everything is going to be like this, I’m calling it quits.”

I admitted that this was my first Slickrock ride as well, we talked for a few more minutes and I invited him to ride with me for a little while and see if we could make a go of it.

He agreed and we headed out. Turns out we had lots in common. Both Utah county citizens, both fathers of four, both work on the web (me front-end and marketing, he back-end Java coding), and both were new to Moab biking.

We had a blast. It was nice to ride with someone who has a similar outlook on riding as myself: no competition, easy riding and a healthy respect for the technical.

By the end of the ride we had both decided that, while Slickrock is fun and all, we weren’t huge fans. Forest singletrack has so much more appeal than does rock. I have since reconsidered and want another go at it.

Slickrock Sunrise

Me

One of the many canyons

Drew at the intersection of Slickrock and a jeep trail

Taking the stairs

For me, an impasse

Riding the edge

More to come…