Vintage One: 20 years of Mtn Bike passion and counting.

Dancing with Cacti

2012-01-31T21:18:00.000-08:00

It began with an email from KT the Man. He was headed to Arizona for an endurance race and wanted to know if was interested. I had followed some of the Arizona Endurance Series on the net for some time and I was eager to come down and do some grass roots racing through the prickly pear. The Antelope Peak Challenge was a 115 or 65 mile loop on some new sections of the Arizona Trail. I was not up to the long one, but I figured I could stretch and make the 65 mile version. So, we were on!

The last two weeks leading up to the event were not friendly to me work schedule and weather wise. Two straight weeks on call for work and the first rain of the season kept me to local loops, no long rides. Still, it would have to do and I counted on all those recent hard SS rides to get me by.

I had to decide what bike to ride. It was between the Epic 29er with the carbon wheels or the Carve SS I have been riding for a while now. I was really liking the SS and since I was thinking about doing the WRIAD on an SS, I figured it would be good to see how this bike treated me over a longer, harder day. So, the SS it was. I had just received some new wheels that would have been sweet to roll on, but I did not have enough time to burn them in after installing them. I have one rule above all when it comes to new gear/bike changes before a critical ride: Never go into battle with an unproven weapon. So I changed only one thing...the grips, stealing the most excellent Ergon GA-1 grips off the Blackbuck. Those are the best I have found for SS work on long days. I considered changing tires from the Geax TNT AKAs to some TNT Saguaros for extra grip in the desert conditions, but the pics I had seen of the trail made it look pretty smooth. The AKAs are fast, good sized, and they were already on there. SO, I went with the AKAs, something I regretted a bit later.

I also had a new hydration pack to try out. It was much too big for the day's requirements, but it was light for its size and comfy to wear, so I figured I would give it a shot. Osprey makes great stuff and I have loved owning the tried and true Talon 22. This Escapist 30 was a bit bigger than the already big Talon 22 and was more suited for bike use, having tool organization features.

The morning came and we loaded the camping gear into KT the Man's adventure van and hit the road toward Tucson. The drive is about 9 hours and we talked about bikes, clean diet changes, bikes, riding, job stuff, life issues, and bikes. Soon enough we were across the border into AZ.

Rolling in to the camp area, we set up and prepped for the next day. The trick was finding a cactus free zone to set up a tent. Man, this is an unfriendly country. Wearing sandals would be crazy around here. I had a new GPS that I was breaking in, although I had tested it a bit before I left. I would have liked to have proven it further, but it was either go with it or not go at all. So I played with that a bit, checked over my pack set-up, and then hung around a communal fire pit, talking with some of the racers that were camping here. Friendly banter and talk of the route and past rides ran their course and then it was time to hit the tent, enjoying the new inflatable camping pad I had bought last year. Super comfy and packs small too.

I was awoken by the noise of the 115 miler folks leaving at 05:00 in the cold and dark. Brrrrr. It was cold enough at 06:30 when I rose to meet the morning. KT the Man fired up his antique Coleman stove, the kind you have to fill with Coleman fuel and prime before you light it...have not seen one of those since I was a kid...and tea with some trail mix got me ready to roll.

GPS on...check...pack ready....check...last minute clothing decisions and we were off on the 'neutral start'. However, the neutral start was decidedly un-neutral to SS riders. Too fast for me right off and I dropped off the back into the stragglers. The 6.5 miles of dirt road led us to a highway and then about 10 miles of pavement, uphill into a cold wind. I pulled a lone lady along for a while till she dropped out of the draft and I ended up riding with 2 other guys on SS bikes all the way to the next turn onto the dirt.

Clothing layers were adjusted as the sun was making the 40-ish degree temps fade away. It felt good to be on dirt again and the Arizona Trail began here. I posed for a pic in front of the sign and did not realize until later that Antelope Peak, the distant point on the horizon, was our 'maypole' that meant the turnaround point of the race. If I had seen that at this stage of the race I would have been...oh what is the word...oh yeah, 'dismayed'.

Dropping onto the trail I was reminded of that tire choice again, and I was already wishing I had opted to swap for the more aggressive Geax Saguaros. The trail was off camber, loose, and covered with small broken rocks and cactus pieces. Tons of switchbacks required a bit of tip-toeing to stay rubber up, but I was still catching and passing folks on geared FS bikes. It was warming up and the miles crept by. It was slow going but I was happy to have chosen the SS. I was riding a lot more than I would have expected, pushing on the steeper, loose hill sections. The Carve SS Pro was treating me well so far and I just dig the way it turns pedal input into rolling up the trail. Singlespeeds are so cool and great singlespeeds are even cooler.

The sweeping vistas were tough to appreciate unless you stopped. The trail was lined with more kinds of cactus then I had ever seen and it took all your concentration just to color between the lines. Going off trail would have been very bad.

I was in the back of the pack and alone most of the time, but I would leap frog with a few guys over the course of the day. I was feeling really strong and riding a lot of the winding trail-ups. I also noted a bit of pre-cramping feeling in my quads and that worried me, so I began to push a bit more, leaving some money in the leg-bank. Unfortunately, before the day was over I would end up overdrawn. This section of the trail was pretty new and anything but buff and I was not always clear on the route, getting off course twice until the GPS and a bit of poking around and backtracking got me back on trail. At one point I was at a cattle gate crossing and met up with two riders. I had been looking at a distant peak, thinking that it could not be Antelope Peak as it was very far away and it was already 01:00. Just then one of the riders pointed to the peak in question and told his buddy, "That is where we are going". REALLY? Oh jeepers!!!!

The backside of Antelope Peak...finally.

About, oh, 40 miles into the ride the leg cramps began to hit me. I could not push hard, so I would dance on the pedals until I felt the legs going south, then I would push for a while...pedal...push, etc. The sucky part was I was feeling really strong other than that. My energy was great, my back felt great, the SS was working sweet, but I could not hit the GO button. Sucks to be me. Leg cramps are my Waterloo...always have been.

At about 50 miles it was 5:00 and I had about 45 minutes of daylight. I had a head light with me, but the last section of trail was described as very hard to follow and that was in the daylight. By now there were times I was having issues even walking. I never absolutely locked up solid, but the threat was always just under the surface. I was also pretty much out of water, having about three good swallows left. I had gone through 100oz in the Osprey pack plus 5 small water bottles.

That was enough to sway me into taking the bail-out option at mile 60 or so. The trail turned right and I stayed straight ahead on the dirt road to camp. I was very grateful for that smooth piece of road...not flat, but if I died there at least I would be found before the buzzards got me.

I rolled in to camp just at dusk, signed in, and headed for dinner. What a day. The rest of the night we hung around the fire in our camp, sharing time with the locals and the event organizers as they waited for all the riders to come in. The last 115 milers, two guys on singlespeeds, one nursing knee issues, came in at 10:30 at night having left at 05:00 that morning. Oh man...that is a long day.

The next morning we set out to ride the 24 Hours of the Old Pueblo course as KT the Man and Nicette, our lady of the group, were set to race the team 24 hour in a few weeks. We rode about 12 miles of some of the flowiest, funnest singletrack in the desert. SO THIS is where they hide the fun trail out here...right next to our camp site! What a contrast to the previous day's trail! Still, it is all good. The trip was great, the company sweet, the ride was hard, and the deed was done.

The Carve had been a perfect companion. The tough Geax TNT casings never flinched on the rocks and the Geax sealant inside kept me flat free...I KNOW I ran over cactus many times. The new Osprey pack was too big for this trip, but was never uncomfortable and had a pocket for everything. The GPS was awesome to have and the new eTrex series from Garmin looks ready made for endurance nuts with the AA batts and easy to use features. The Fluid endurance drink mix in the bottles kept me very well energized but even with Elete in the water reservoir, I still battled cramps. Bummer. One of these days I will figure that out. In the meantime, thanks to the organizers and to the hard working folks who cut that Arizona Trail out of the desert.

I will be back.

Rain ride.

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

Hoops of joy.

2012-01-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

Where have all the long cranks gone?

2012-01-20T07:17:00.000-08:00

Mourn their passing.

Back in the day we used to have quite a few options in crank arm length and for us tall-ish guys and truly tall guys, a step up from a 'normal' 175mm crank arm to a 180mm crank arm was a fairly common deal. It makes sense to me...longer legs can use longer cranks. Shorter legs can use shorter cranks like 170mm ones. They make more than one stem length or frame size, right?

Now it was always assumed that a longer crank meant more power applied to the pedal stroke. Scientific tests seem to point to this being un-true, but that is not really the point of using them. Sometimes they just feel better or work better for the rider spinning them. When I moved up to 180s about umpteen years ago, it took a while to get used to the increased pedal circle, but after that, and some sore legs, I liked how the longer crank allowed me to stay in a higher gear and turn a slower RPM. I am a diesel by nature, not a gerbil, so I found that the slower cadence fit well with the demands of high torque-in search of traction-long climbs on bad roads mountain bike riding.

Then this testing gig comes along and NO ONE specs 180mm cranks on bikes off the showroom floor, not in any mainline brand anyway. So I get used to spinning 175s on all the test bikes and only keep the 180s on the SS scoots. Fine enough. I adapt. Just shift down a 1/2 gear or so and off you go.

And even I have some mixed feelings about longer cranks on an SS. When the RPMs are high, the 175 is easier to spin and they are also easier to get around the TDC position and onto the next downstroke. But here in the digital land of So Cal and its mountains, we spend so much time far underwater on a typical climb that the 180 crank comes into its own, giving me more leverage on that slow and torturous downstroke at 10 RPM. Still, given the option, I would run long arms on the SS for sure.

But now, just try and find a big box brand crank for an SS in 180s. Man that is getting hard. Is there even still an XT version or just XTR? And SRAM does not even offer a single MTB crank in 180s except the Stylo OCT SS crank and that, from what I have been told, is fading into obscurity too. Forget about FSA or Raceface or such like.

So that leaves us with older stuff we scavenge from EBAY...sweet XTR or something...or the little guys like White Bros or Surly, E Thirteeen, etc. And often that means running a square taper BB or putting up with someone's idea of the new mousetrap (like the Surly or E Thirteen) and discovering that it is not all that well thought out.

So why in the world can I not buy an SLX or X9 level or XT or XO level 180mm crank? And beside that, why so few dedicated SS cranks? Well, if you are a manufacturer or a product manager for a bike company, slapping a one size fits all crank on a bike, especially when no one is really likely to care anyway, is a slam dunk decision. It is likely what I would do too, if that was my job.

Then you add in the fact that the big guys seem to have no idea what to do with singlespeeders and any thoughts they might have for longer crank arm options, and you have a tiny, carbon wrapped over aluminum perfect storm of events that is stealing our easy options for a longer lever.

Now I like options and at least here, we have less than we used to. At least, that is the way I see it.

It's a date

2012-01-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

March 31st. WRIAD. One ride. One gear. One hundred miles or so. Pedal little grannygear, pedal.

Back to the Canyon.

2012-01-09T11:36:00.000-08:00

A while ago I was able to finally get to a semi-distant trail that promised miles of relatively unused singletrack, or at least uncrowded miles. What we found was a great trail, limited in scope mostly by our time and leg limits. So this time we came back with more hours in our pockets to dole out, but the same old legs to do it with. Navy Mike on his SS Jabberwocky, FFW with his newly minted Superfly 100, and I on the Carve Pro SS.

This trail is a real stunner and is very singlespeed-able for a strong rider. We ended up with 27 miles for the day, and we were pretty worked by the end. In the last few climbs, I was actually cramping up in between my shoulder blades from pulling so much. However funny that was to experience, it paled in comparison to the swoosh-fest that defined many sections of that trail.

For the beginning miles, I was struggling with line choice, bike control, mind control...flow was not happening. But by the end, 5 hours later, the mind was well in hand and so was the bike. Flow on! The Carve is turning into a real contender for my heart. The ride is very decent for an aluminum frame and the pedaling performance is top notch. Handling is much better now with the short term Fox F100 set at 100mm, not 80mm, and it was all I could have asked for on that trail ride.

I am still fighting poor picture quality out of the iPhone 4 ever since the iOS upgrade, but that just makes me want a real camera even more. But, here are a few shots of the day.

Burro Down.

2011-12-28T07:18:00.000-08:00

I don't typically care for POV videos of bike rides. I get bored or dizzy and the music usually sucks. The stuff that Mike C does is awesome...he is an artist, but this vid really is a cut above most and it took me back to a classic of all classics in Moab, the Burro Down ride. Technically speaking, The Whole Enchilada refers to riding to the trailhead and THEN down the trail back to town...that is an epic day. But in any case, whatever you call it, it is a great ride. A couple of years ago we did the ride from Hazzard down but this begins higher in the Aspens of the La Salles at Burro Pass. So have a look and enjoy. Makes me want to ride Moab again.

The Whole Enchilada: Top to Bottom - Moab, Utah from Phil Shep on Vimeo.

Well, that stirred the 650B pot

2011-12-19T14:48:00.000-08:00

Always controversial, the subject of wheel size and what is best. My blog was picked up on MTBR and I made the mistake of commenting on it...should have just stood back and watched.

MTBR post

Some interesting comments from Walt at Waltworks on what is possible with 29" wheels and longer travel. I have seen his, what looks like Ventana based rear FS, steel frames before. Very creative. And Devin Lenz has had the PBJ out there too. So in this case the small guy works around the issues of stuffing it all in there. I know the Lenz stuff works very well , I have no idea how the WW stuff is in FS but Walt is a pretty smart guy, so I imagine it is good too.

But. That is a long ways from being a viable solution to the bigger bike makers woes, that of getting 29ers to make sense and behave in bigger travel designs. His point that if a small guy can do it, then the big guys should be able to as well may be true. I am sure that they have smart guys too and engineering resources that a garage guy can only dream of. But the idea of bigger travel 29ers may not scale up well when it needs to work across a broad range of suspension designs and drivetrain components. It may well be that, at the end of the day, when the prototypes are built, ridden, broken, tweaked and re ridden, that they may not be all that good, especially when you have to face the wrath of the bean counters who forecast sales numbers. The thing is...is it WORTH IT?

Maybe not for any real numbers of bikes, but maybe for a small builder like Lenzsport. Meanwhile, Walt had some thoughts on big travel 29ers.

So the thing about 650B and whether it is the solution to getting the biggest wheel reasonable underneath you on a real AM/DH bike may well be the real deal, even if it is not the biggest wheel we ride. We shall see.

SS stands for Singletrack Singletrack

2011-12-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

Three of us took off at 0-dark-Thirty and drove a couple hours North to a trail I had been told about for a couple of years now, but had never made it to. The Kern River trail offers 20 miles of singletrack goodness as it follows the contours of the hillsides above the Kern River in the Kern Cyn.

Well, I finally dipped my toe in the stream of dirt and it was good. We sampled about 15-16 miles of it as an out and back so we could plan a longer ride later in the Spring. Wanna' do 40 miles of singletrack? Wow. That would be a good day.

We, myself, Navy Mike, and Tony the Tiger, all were riding singlespeeds. I had a new scoot to break in, the Carve SS Pro, all 23.25 pounds of it. Speedy, yes? Yes.

When we began, it was in the mid thirties and frost was all on the grass. After one hour of climbing, we caught up with the sunrise and things warmed up nicely. The trail was really nice for singlespeeds, although the grades took a toll. A bit of pushing took care of the real soft, steep sections....pushing, the other SS gear...and we moved along smartly. Only one crash that I wish I had a pic of. Navy Mike ended up upside down and mousetrapped by his bike like a big bear trap on his leg, keeping him nicely wedged into a rock pile. I would have snapped a pic, but I though he was hurt since he was not moving and I ran back up the trail to recover the body. Not dead...just laughing and needing a helping hand. Oh good. No place to land a helicopter on this trail for an airlift.

We ran into a group of riders about half way back to the truck, three of them on singlespeeds too. One straggler rode up to us as we were talking, looked at me and said, "Hey, I watch your videos on You Tube! You are Grannygear!". Wow, that was kinda odd. I declined an autograph or picture opportunity and rode on, living legend that I am.

Great day despite the cold start and yeah, we will be back for more. I may even sign an autograph next time.

650B - Finally a reason to exist?

2011-12-18T09:01:00.000-08:00

When I first heard about 650B, I figured that it would replace 26" wheels at some point, but I did not expect 29ers to be so quick to take over XC duties, basically making 26ers antiques as far as a hardtail or shorter travel XC/Trail applications. That rapid acceptance killed any momentum that 650B had gained.

26ers are done...stick a fork in 'em (to paraphrase a bit...sorry RC). But where is 650B?

650B seemed to die on the vine as an XC app, offering less than the full bennies of a 29er wheel and only slightly more than a 26" wheel, but vastly complicating things for a bike shop or manufacturer who had to stock a whole bunch of new SKUs. Then, tire selection, fork options, etc, never happened in any real numbers. Brands that made 650B bikes were few and Haro dropped them, leaving, what, Jamis?

So here we are in 2012 and 29ers are poised to take over the hardtail to 120mm XC/Trail bike world. But the clamor for bigger travel 29ers has been loud, even though it may be a small group doing the yelling. 130mm and above seems to be a place where the complications of a 29" wheel and tire really start to be a bother. Forks get tall, swingarms and wheel bases get long, front ders get in the way, wheel are heavy and a bit fragile, and a true DH ready 29er tire is heavy. Want a 6"+ travel 29er that is ready for heavy trail use? You have one choice in frames (Lenzsport) and hardly any forks or tires to match.

But, 650B may be the solution to all that. If the biggest wheel that makes sense for any application is the right one, then 650B as a 'big wheel' for AM/DH may just be the niche it was looking for all along. It could allow frame designers to fill all those needs into a reasonable package as far as keeping things tidy and manageable. It would allow for a lighter and stronger wheel/tire combo (well, it could...when they make them) compared to a 29er, but still give a bit more of that big wheel feel to the bike.

I dunno...I bet it will happen, but it will take a major player to believe in it and forge the initial cost, then the middle players and smaller builders will follow suit, Will 2013 be the year of the long travel, 'big wheeled' bike, even if the wheels are only somewhat bigger?

I think so. Ready for a 150mm travel 650B bike? I might be. Sounds like fun.

New motto: Ride the biggest wheel that works for you.

Roots

2011-12-14T10:41:00.000-08:00

Ya gotta' know where you came from, so I present the original singlespeed rider. We have not come so far after all.

Darwin got it pretty wrong, but in this case....well, I wonder?

The grateful dead ride

2011-12-11T18:14:00.001-08:00

Saturday was my 'rising up from the dead' ride after the plague visited my sinuses for a few days. The drugs were working miracles and I was either going to enjoy a ride or die trying. I sent out a few invites for a singlespeed only ride on a local trail that is a crown jewel of the forest. The oak trees up there are not the typical Live Oak that stays green all year, but these trees turn color and drop their leaves in big drifts of clutter that gather in all the sweeping corners of the trail, or, at least they do that just as soon as they are done placing acorns on the rest of it. So what you have then is a stratified layer of detritus that is deadly and lovely all at the same time.

The loudest thing in the forest was our tires rolling through the leaf piles and the occasional "brrrrraaaaapppp" of one stuck against the tire like a paper boy's bike laced with playing cards. Well, that and our SS induced wheezing and breathing and panting.

It ended up just being Navy Mike and I as all the others were unable to come out and play. It is great to ride with someone that is at the same level of ability and fitness as you and has nothing to prove. We rode-pushed-rode-pushed-rode until we were close enough to the top to call it good. And it was good. Out of the wind, under the oaks, in the sun, on the grass. We were unhurried on purpose.

Not dead...just rusting. New steel and old steel.

Singlespeed 29ers are just amazing beasts of conveyance. I never tire of the challenge and the rewards they offer. I never tire of the amazing creation I get to ride them on, this earth. Flawed as it is, it is a special place. Today was just a couple of old guys on simple bikes in a lovely place on a great trail, and we had the good sense to slow down and enjoy it.

Yeah, that could happen way more often than it does and it would be ok with me. Label me alive and grateful, not dead yet....just resting.

Elves in the garage and keeping up with Santa

2011-12-09T09:38:00.001-08:00

Been bike building again. I swapped the fork on the bikepacking Lenz and my wife's 29er. I have the new SS test bike 95% built up with some things old, some things new, some things borrowed from other bikes, and a fork that has blue stickers on it. Perfect.

The garage has become a loosely organized bin of bikes, bike parts, tires, wheels, forks...oh my. The box of hydration packs alone is big enough to be a small row boat. My cup runneth over.

So what do you do? Get a bigger cup? That is the typical response for today. Accumulate. The only good thing is the next thing. More is better.

Hmmm...too much or not enough?

Fah! If it were not for the situation I am in for the time being, I would have two bikes. A 29erSS and one bike with gears and FS. No spare wheels. I would be looking for deals on tire sales, not packing them into milk crates in the corner.

My natural man tends toward complication and I need to remind myself to keep it simpler. It helps that I can pass a lot of this stuff on to those who need stuff, stuff that I have too much stuff of. Keeps me from being too stuffed with stuff. And really, that is the way it is supposed to work anyway. We should be conduits of our gifts and blessings to those around us who are in need. None of this goes with us in the end and none of it really belongs to us, in that we did not get any of this stuff completely on our own.

One of the neat things about Christmas is the gift giving. I know it gets beat on as crass commercialism and it does burden the lesser fortunate with the guilt of not being able to give as they would like, but it allows us a scheduled reason to give, even if that is only a little.

Giving is far underrated. I think we need more of it. Pure, unadulterated giving; ourselves, our talents, our possessions, our surplus. Christmas, where the ultimate gift of all time is recognized as hittin' town, gives us a reminder or excuse or prodding or whatever, and lets us participate in, and receive in turn, gifts and well wishes from those we know and love.

I was shopping for the wife and buying some cuddly, snuggly things to keep her warm in winter (no, no jammies with feet in them, although she would wear them if I could find them) and I realized I was truly enjoying picking them out and thinking how she would receive them, enjoy wearing them. When I got back to the car, I called her and said, "I sure like shopping for you". I realized I hardly ever do that. Budgets, busyness, boredome...who knows. Life tends to lay down the trump card and bends us down under the weight of the daily grind.

Christmas changes that for a short time and I am grateful. So I need to decline the bigger cup option and pour out a bit of that overflow to others. And I really have too many tires anyway.

I sure want to see the look on my wife's face when she opens that gift bag of 29er tires. Man, will she be surprised. Merry Christmas, sweetie.

Check out these elves...nice bit of charity work, it seems.

Character

2011-12-08T06:54:00.001-08:00

Brought to you in a non-bike moment cuz there is more to life than pedaling. There are tiny bunnies and truths to be spoken.

Another Six Hours

2011-11-27T16:19:00.001-08:00

Last spring I had a crazy idea. Host a ride that followed a solo endurance race format in a loose way by doing a set course over and over till we ran out of time. I laid out a local loop that was pretty much ten miles even and took me an hour at a moderate but steady pace. I made it fun...some singletrack sections...and not too hard with non-techy climbs and about 1000' of elevation change per lap. We roll by our trucks every lap so re-fueling is easy.

I had a group start time and a closing time of six hours later and no one could roll out past that time. I ended up with a few nut cases that came along and a couple of us made it to 5 laps within the allotted time. Six laps would mean a less than one hour per lap average and I knew I could not do that, but I figured if I came in with 30 minutes or more to go, I would look at a 6th lap, finishing over the 2:00 stop time.

Did not happen. I pulled in at 5 minutes before the bell and called it good enough. Maybe next time that 6th lap will happen, but it still made for 50 miles and according to one guys stats, 1200' per lap, so about 6k' of climbing. That will have to do. We had pretty good headwinds and that slowed the ascents a bit but made for blistering fast downhills, even on the singlespeeds.

We began with 8 of us. One guy was shooting for 4 laps as that would have been more miles on a MTB than he had ever ridden. He made 3 laps and still set a PBR, but just barely. One very fit lady joined us and she was recovering from some wear and tear repair on the hamstrings, so her pace was moderate but she still got in 4 laps. Two other guys did the 4 laps as well.

Ed the Tall and Navy Mike brought out the singlespeeds. Really? Man, I should have done that too, but there were two things holding me back...I needed to get some ride time on some carbon wheels I am testing and honestly I am not sure I could do 5 laps on a singlespeed. Hard to say, but I was hurting at times and was in energy conservation mode a few times...hard to do that on a singlespeed.

I was trying a new endurance drink by Fluid and used that as my primary source of energy. I ran with one bottle per lap mixed two scoops per bottle. I had a 2/3 full 70oz hydration pack with Elete in it as well and a few of my oat bars stuffed in my pocket. I want to find a liquid based product that keeps me fueled, even, and prevents cramping. I was pretty happy with the way the Fluid Performance worked. I felt very even and did not get any blood sugar issues, something I struggle with. I ate 4 of the oat bars squares (not very big...two bites each) and that was it for the 6 hours of nearly constant riding at a fast pace. I did get some hints of cramping at lap three, and I think I underestimated the amount of water to bring as the dry winds and warm-ish temps tended to dry out the bod pretty good. At one point I took the squeeze bottle of Elete and put two shots of the additive straight under my tongue. I swear that did a miracle and gave me no hint of cramps again for another two and a half hours of pedaling.

Ed the Tall ran out of water due to a spilled supply jug and pulled the lug at 4 laps, but he was holding a one hour time per lap. Man, he is strong. He does not say much or brag or talk smack...he just rises out of the saddle and lets the cranks turn while the bike moves forward out of sight. Ed is my hero. I have enclosed a picture of Ed below, or at least the way I see him, in the spirit of the old west.

Navy Mike is becoming a monster on that new SS of his, a monster I created by selling him the little steel beast. When he began the ride he had legs like this guy below.

When he finished the five laps into the wind on that SS, his legs looked like this.

Yep. All true, I swear. The home grown 6 Hour is a fun thing to do and I bet most areas near you can support it. Keep it fun but hard, let everyone shoot for their own goals, and then go grab Mexican food or a brew sample...or both. Be careful about the singlespeeds and leg muscle thing though. That is gonna' cost Navy Mike a bunch of money in blue jeans.

Thanksgiving morning.

2011-11-27T16:07:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving morning dawned cool and overcast and I joined a ride up a nearby canyon that KT the Man hosted. There were all kinds of people there.

Old guys on singlespeeds...

guys who used to be really fast...

Bicycle Bettys...

...and a bunch of other folks. Looking around you would think it was an Ibis Bikes only ride as it seems the Ibis Demo van was in town. Neat bikes. We all headed up into the clouds in search of singletrack.

The Old Guy on the SS beat me to the top...the Guy Who Used to be Fast still is (some things never change), and I rode up talking to Bicycle Betty and KT the Man. I have known some of these folks for over 20 years and that is a lot of pedal time. I was thankful to be there, if only for part of the ride (family obligations) and it was good to see old friends and be on a bike. Great combination. I am always thankful of what I have been blessed with and I know from where all blessings come. May I never forget.

Obligatory hero shot....

Home Grown Energy Bars

2011-11-25T17:14:00.001-08:00

OK... for all those folks I know that keep raving about the oat based energy bars we make (and I share on-trail), here is the recipe.

1 C Brown Sugar (Splenda brown as option)
2/3 C peanut butter (your choice here...organic,,,JIFF...whatever)
1/2 C honey. We are lucky enough to have a honey house nearby
1/2 C low fat butter
2 tsp vanilla
3 C quick cooking oats
1/2 C coconut (shredded)
1/2 C sunflower nuts (I like the salted ones)
1/2 C raisins or craisins. I like the cranberries better.
1/2 C flax meal
1 C semi sweet chocolate chips or carob chips if you like.

Heat oven to 350 degrees, grease 13x9 pan. In large bowl, combine brown sugar, peanut butter, honey, butter, and vanilla. Blend well. Stir in remaining ingredients. Press mixture evenly into pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely, cut into bars. Ride. Eat. Be happy.

We got mountains.

2011-11-21T07:40:00.001-08:00

One thing we have in spades in So Cal are mountains. Ok, not Fourteen'ers, but still, we got some pretty good hills to ride up and over. Most of them are criss crossed with fire trails (dirt roads) that allow access for wildfire fighting or whatever. We have singletrack too, but there are waaaayy more fire roads than true trails.

This last Sat a group of pilgrims set out on a loop up and over one of those mountains that split the boys into two partitions....a slower paced group that began at the base of a serious dirt climb and a faster group that I was in (hey, every train needs a caboose) that began 6 miles lower and connected things with a paved climb out of town first. The idea was that we would all summit at around the same time so there would be little waiting at the top. Good thing too as it was full on clouds up there on the ridge and likely in the high 30s for temps. Brrrr.

But the slower group got a late start due to a late arrival of one rider (who turned around early in the ride...well thanks a lot...make us late, then leave). So we ended up passing them not even half way up the 2 hour climb. Not a good sign. The fastest of the fast were long gone now and were nowhere to be found at the top of the main climb. It turned out that one of the guys was a bit under dressed and was feeling the weather up there. We waited for a while at the top...maybe 45 minutes, till we could not wait anymore...too cold. We completed the ride by running 8 miles of ridgeline in the clouds and then dropped down 5-ish miles of singletrack.

A chicken burrito later at a Mex food joint, and no slow group. I called JeffJ who was coming off a head cold and a month or so of little riding, and I got a broken reply on the phone before the call dropped: "...halfway down Gridley...legs...locking up....feels like I might....throw-up...*click*" Oh my. Not good.

We were planning the rescue mission when we saw the entourage coming back into town. JeffJ (in the blue windbreaker) looks like he is smiling in the pic. I think it was a grimace that stuck there...kinda' like the Joker on Batman. But it is amazing what a plate of Mexican food will fix and in the end, things worked out just fine.

We got mountains here, by George, and we ride over them on occasion.

"You Must Like Pain"

2011-11-20T08:03:00.001-08:00

"You must like pain". That was said to me in a recent email after I announced a 'Six Hours Of' ride in the local trails. Simple idea. We all begin at a set time, ride a one hour, ten mile loop as many times as we can, coming by our trucks every lap for re-supply, and we cannot begin another lap once the clock hits the beginning of the sixth hour. Fun loop, too. Hard, but not too hard and good payoffs. Really, just a fun way to train a bit and see what that kind of experience is like for those who have never done anything like that. At about 3 hours, then 4 hours, then 5 hours, it does begin to hurt a bit.

I had plenty of time to think about the 'loving pain' comment as I was chin deep in a multi hour hill climb this past Saturday. This 5 hour loop begins with a 6 mile paved road section, pretty much all uphill to one degree or another, then hits it hard into the dirt and just goes up....and up...and up. It was maybe 40 degrees at the top and cloudy and we were all pretty cold as we traversed the ridge line toward our 5.5 mile singletrack descent. It was a very painful climb and suffering abounded.

I am planning a ride next year of the White Rim in Moab. The WRIAD covers 102 miles of dirt road in remote territory in a day. Pedal, little mtn biker. Pedal. It will hurt, I suspect. I can't wait!

So now I am considering the comment made by the person, himself an experienced rider, and wondering if it is true. Mountain biking is hard. Yet I do not go out of my way to do hard things by nature. No Everest ascents or runs across Africa. You won't see me on Shark Week. However I have to admit that I embrace the more difficult aspects of riding a bike over longer distances and such, although I am certainly on the moderate end of such endeavors by many people's standards. So what is the deal?

I think is it more complex and yet simple than just a pain fetish. I am a mountain biker. I love being all that that encompasses. And folded up in that knobby tired wrapper is a healthy dose of pain and suffering. It just goes with the territory. And the territory is exceptional. The big climb into the clouds we just did looked down on hundreds of folks who were scurrying around the valley floor doing their busy things, looking up into the clouds we were in and thinking, "sure glad I am not up there in all that weather". Honestly there were times I wanted to be warmer, but I would not have traded places with them. There were times I wanted to have the climb over with, but I would not have skipped it to stay where it was easy, down in that valley with the coffee shops and heated cars.

I guess what it comes down to is that I like the view from the saddle more than any other view I know of. And that view is a fine one indeed. From slow, plodding efforts that lead to vistas and high places to blurry ones where gravity is pulled and stretched as we slingshot along with the laws of physics firmly in our jersey pockets.

And, I guess that is that. Mountain biking is hard but rewarding and it is that balance of sweet and salty that has captured my heart for over 25 years. The pain is not something I seek, but just comes with the territory. I do admit that I enjoy the looks of non-riders who, when hearing about a recent ride will look at you like you are crazy. "You rode up there? On a bike? Pedaled up there? You are nuts!"

Maybe I am, a bit. But I think I am smart. God's grace has allowed me to participate in a great sport for many years now and has kept me fit, younger feeling, and happy. It gives me goals and rewards me with great friends and great experiences.

And the pain part? Well, OK...I like it just a little.

Could it be?

2011-11-18T17:50:00.001-08:00

I knew it was somewhere and then, while cleaning out some old files, I found it; a folded piece of yellow, lined paper with hand written, faded blue ink on it.

26 min. 40 sec.

From S/S to S/S

Ridge Rte

This simple message is haunting me. Taunting me. Smackin' me down. That note records a time trial result I used to do on a local road. It is a pretty constant 8 mile climb and in earlier times I ran it with a heart rate monitor and a cycling computer to train with...measure myself against.

I long since stopped using a heart rate monitor and I have no use for a cycling computer, so I kinda lost track of any measured times. But I still ride this, especially on the singlespeed, and I have a pretty good idea how long it takes me. Let's say 50 minutes, a bit less on the road bike. 50 minutes. Fifty. Five...Oh. Not 26 minutes and 40 seconds. Not even close. How can that even be?

Well, the other day I did that ride again and kept the pace up as fast as I could manage on the SS. Yep...50 minutes. So how is it possible that I used to be...what?...twice as fast? No way. I would need a scooter or something. So I am left with the only real possibility...I wrote it down wrong. I remember it being 46 minutes 40 secs.

Now I know that I am not the rider I used to be, but I don't think I am that much slower. The other day I rode up The Beast, another local hill climb, dirt this time, that is a 3-ish mile butt kicker of a climb. I did that in 40 minutes. That is as fast as I ever have done this climb, at least as I can remember. A local fast guy I know who used to be a top ranked Expert/decent Pro racer said he did that in 30 minutes. Wow. Well, if that number on that yellow note is right, and I used to be that much faster, then in ages past I should have been able to do The Beast in half the time it took me the other day. Never happened.

So I really want to think that I wrote that note wrong. Otherwise I used to be really fast and I sure don't remember it that way.

Mad Scientist at work

2011-11-09T07:51:00.000-08:00

I am creating again. I am elbow deep in metal shavings, silicon bits, wire, and JB Weld. It is time for another set of LED bike lights. I made a set of bar lights and helmet lights a couple of years ago when LED DIY (Do It Yourself) lights began to be turned out by hobbyists all over the country. At the time, a high end set of bike lights was typically HID based with a big batt pack and very expensive parts. But the LED changed all that and allowed for smaller batts and smaller and lighter lights with looong burn times. LEDs are very efficient that way. And they were embraced by a few brave and curious folks and so the 'modding began. Human kind loves to tinker and improve things, do they not?

So, at the time the new commercial LED lights were still darn expensive...$250.00 or so...so I built my own set of bar/helmet at a cost of $130.00 all in. Yes, they were not as slick as the store bought ones, but they were bright and simple with a high/low bar mount that put out 400 lumens on high and maybe 30% of that on low...good for climbing...and a helmet light that was a one-button clicky 200 lumens deal. Both were built from those little 5 dollar flashlights you see on the counter at the auto parts store, gutted, and then stuffed with high power LEDs, drivers, and wires. The batt pack was 10 AA rechargeable cells.

But LED technology has moved on fast and even the batteries have taken huge leaps in size and capacity. So the new lights will be at least twice as many lumens and will be half the weight. The new Cree XML LEDs are more efficient (less Vf) AND put out more lumens per mA then the ones of a year ago. The batts will be half the size and just as powerful. Sweet.

The funny thing is, I can do it cheaper if I just pulled out the credit card and hit the Buy Now button. Yep, now I can buy a commercial/premade light cheaper than I can build one. Thank China for that one. The Magicshine shown at left, and others that have followed, have been a game changer allowing you to get at the 800 lumen range for 80 bucks or so all included...charger, etc. The thing is, the cheapest components are often used here so long term may not be the best results, but hey, if you get two seasons out of it, then you can just pick up the new version for even less, most likely.

So why should I build? Well, it kinda is like building your own bike from parts rather than buying it whole. You typically spend more in a custom build unless you really get some bro-buddy or eBay deals/steals. I get this light to be just the way I want it within my own limits of construction, at least. No lathes or mills in my garage, so I am using square alu tubing and scrap I had around the garage. Some work with a cut off saw and file, JB weld, some Lexan from the scrap pile, and wire scavenged from work from the toss-it bin, then add in some store bought components and hopefully I will be in the light zone with a new torch set that I made for myself.

And really, that is the real issue here. I made it myself and for some reason, that appeals to me, even if it does not make practical sense.

Now, if I only would get an answer to that ad on Craig's List for a laboratory assistant. I thought folks were looking for work?

Wanted: Laboratory assistant needed for a local Mad Scientist. No prior experience needed, but must be shorter than I am and have the inability to look me in the eye when I speak to him. Groveling may be required. Hunchback optional, but is a plus as is being bi-lingual in Hungarian.
Apply here with qualifications and any references. Address reply to 'Master'.

Magic Carpet (Fibers)

2011-11-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

Now that's a top tube!

Carbon Fiber...often derided as Carpet Fiber...is here to stay for cycling products. No doubt there. But the last year I have been able to ride three bikes, all full suspension, both in aluminum and carbon frames, and the difference has been quite striking. Each time the pedaling response and the overall chassis feel has been noticeably superior.

Now I am on the 'Half-Caff' carbon front/alu rear Camber Expert 29er and the difference is there too. It just pedals 'lighter' then the scale says it should. And stiff too, from end to end, no doubt the 142+x12 back end is helping.

I am somewhat conflicted in that carbon is quite a nasty bit of chemicals and such in the making of it. I am not a hard-core Greenie, but even I am not so crazy about this part. Then the cost is high and likely to remain so unless you want to buy China Direct. And, it breaks. The shadow of fragility hangs over the carbon component like a shroud. But I think that is fast becoming a thing of the past. Everything can break (and will). I have broken alu frames. I have seen plenty of broken steel frames. Ti can break too and does. And, carbon can be repaired.

So it becomes a bit of a gamble. Carbon is really good at hiding warts under a skin of beauty...hard to see how well the lay-up went and such what. But the bike guys that do this well seem to have a very strong track record of longevity and I think that, unless you have a track record of bike abuse and breakage, that carbon should be fine for most folks.

I know it sure is wooing me and winning me over ever time I pedal one of the little dears. It has me wondering when the right carbon fiber SS frame will come along and tempt me over to the dark side.

Magic carpets indeed. They only had one gear too. I will pass on the monkey option, though.

The more things change...

2011-11-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

...well, the more they stay the same.

Lately some really cool stuff has been coming though the garage. Carbon wheels, carbon bikes, etc. And I will tell ya', carbon when it is done right is a real game changer. Last weekend I did a pretty big ride with the carbon wheels on the Epic and they are pretty amazing.

You know what I miss the most right now? My singlespeed. Crazy huh?

Then, when discussing the possibility of a WRIAD ride next year, I was talking about it with Ed The Tall and I casually mentioned that many folks do it on an SS. "Really?", he said? I could see the wheels turning.

And it brought out from the shadows of my mind that I really would like to do it on an SS as well. Silly me. I worry that my body may let me down. Gears and full suspension help a lot when it comes to avoiding a beat down. But the SS always amazes me as to how well it can cover ground. I swear there are times on the trail that I am going faster than a geary guy and not working as hard. Over and over again, if you compare my times over a typical ride between SS and geared, I am the same nearly to the minute. But there is little grace there to tired legs. No cruising gear. Just a pedaling gear and a walking gear.

Then there is the punishment to the low back. I avoid geared hardtails due to all the sitting and pedaling and most hardtails these days come with oversize seatposts. Whap...whack...smack to the back. But could I make it work with a very compliant post, a good saddle and a low pressure tire? I would sure like to find out.

I just think that it is funny, when I could be riding a uber-bike or when I am considering doing the longest MTB ride I have ever done, I find myself drawn to the simplest bike I have. I do have one consolation though. I am building up another SS, just to make it even harder to choose.

WRIAD on the brain

2011-10-26T20:58:00.000-07:00

WRIAD: White Rim In A Day. The 100+ mile loop in the Canyonlands Natl Park that most sane cyclists do with SAG over a few days. Other not so sane riders do it in one shot, pre-dawn to dusk.

Photos are from this blog here.

The route is not terribly difficult from what I have read. The elevation gain is moderate at, IIRC, 5K' or so. And it is not really all that technical. But 102 miles offroad is still 102 miles and 9 to 12 hours in the saddle is not something to take too lightly. It is remote with no water or supplies over the course and no cell phone coverage. The weather can play into the time it takes to complete the loop and when you are so far in, keeping going is just as good as turning back. Mechanicals need to be dealt with. No easy way to get out of there.

Still, it is well traveled as far as backcountry routes go and the jeep road (no singletrack) is well marked and easy to follow. The scenery is like one postcard shot after another. It is quiet that far out in the Canyonlands. Moab and the surrounding areas are magical in many ways and you can look around and feel like you are the only man on earth.

Just one man, all alone, who has a long ways to pedal.

I am intrigued.

The Rise of the 'Everybike 29er'

2011-10-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

I was running down a rocky, rutted trail in Southern France after just enduring a short but intense ascent up a dirt road overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. We had gotten to that point by way of a few miles of back alley riding around town. I enjoyed the tight and responsive ride of a sample bike I rode to the trail head with nary a pedal bob or sluggish feel. Then I had saddled up on a carbon FS and ridden the dirt section of the ride enjoying a bike that pedaled really well and was quite light despite the XL frame and less-than-Gucci parts spec. This one climbed very well and I remember thinking that I could race this bike just as it was.

Now I was on this roller coaster of a downhill ride on a longer travel feeling FS 29er with moderate trailbike angles and thinking that it was almost as good as the Specialized FSR I have on long term test, but it was more agile. This would make a great medium to light/heavy trailbike and would do likely 90% of what the FSR does.

The thing was, it was all on the same bike. The townie ride, the fast climb, the tricky downhill...no bike changes. One bike, in this case a Specialized Camber Evo, a Euro spec bike, but comparable to a Camber Expert Carbon for the most part. Carbon main frame, 110mm of front and rear travel, 70* HT angle, decently short chainstays, good tire clearance, bigger front rotor, nice 2x10 SRAM build. Lock out fork and Propedal. Fast but strong wheels.

And it occurred to me that 2012 is seeing the rise of the Everybike in the 29er world, that being a nearly do-all scooter that is light enough to race but tough enough, long enough (travel wise) and slack enough to trail ride. It is a 29er bike you can take nearly anywhere and be good to go and that has not been the case until now. Last year the Santa Cruz carbon Tall Boy caught my attention as a bike that, when run with a 120mm fork, was a pretty good do-all bike. Light enough, stiff enough, capable enough. Only 100mm of rear travel, but that was not too much of a deal breaker.

Now this year we see the promised Ibis Ripley, something my buddy that works at Ibis called a "Quiver Killer". There is the Camber I was riding, the new Lenz Mammoth just announced, perhaps the Salsa Horsethief, and others to come. So what makes a great Everybike? Glad you asked.

Light weight - Not crazy light but somewhere in that 27lb or less range in a XL. 25lbs would be a great target to shoot for. Now that is a number pulled out of thin air a bit, but at that weight and with good wheels, it begins to pull itself along nicely. Some aluminum bikes will not get there. Some will. The Lenz likely will as Devin is a wizard at whittling frame weights down...not sure about the Horsethief or the new Yeti SB95 but they are strong contenders. Perhaps with the right parts. But, in this case, carbon is king and the better Everybikes will be carbon and not cheap.

Enough travel - 100mm is not enough. 130mm is perhaps too much. 120mm is likely the sweet spot for the Everybike, but the overall balance will count for more than just the travel numbers.

The right spec - Parts need to be prudently chosen to keep the bike responsive and wheels need to be very good. Tires cannot be a weight weenie 2.0 but on the Everybike, you can always change tires for the occasion.

The right geometry - Just a bit slacker is better for an Everybike. Not way into the 60*s, but 71.5* HT angles ain't gonna do it either IMO.

Now if you have a few 26ers in your garage, then you likely already have one of these 26" Everybikes. Something like a carbon Stumpjumper or a Yeti 575 or maybe even a Ibis Mojo SL. It is a bike that you can run on the weekends with your buds and still hang in the Team 12 hour before you head off to the Bike Park to ride the 'Blue' rated trails. Not brilliant at anything, but very good at everything.

The Everybike 29er is here now too and they are gonna' sell a ton of them.

Leaving is Verboten.

2011-10-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Well, the time in France was over and we bid adieu to the soft winds and soft sand of the coastline, loaded up in the six speed diesel mini-van rental bus, and drove to the airport at Nice. In the airport I enjoyed a crazy good chocolate muffin and a cappuccino and waited with the others for our flight to arrive. The flight status board showed our plane on time at first, then 15 minute delayed. Then 30 minute delayed. Then it got worse. The loudspeaker told us that there were issues at the Frankfurt, Germany, airport and that we might be quite late for our connecting flight. We only had 90 minutes to make that plane change and that was looking grim.

The cool thing was hanging with Gary Fisher...yes, the Gary Fisher...at the Nice airport as we waited. I have met Gary before on several occasions and I am always glad to see him. Aside from any controversy on what he actually did or did not do as a founding father of Mtn Bikes, he was and is a bike nut of the first order and is a smart and creative person. If you ride a bike, he is your friend. Gary, we sure are glad you came along when you did. Thanks for all you do and I sure miss your name on the downtube of a Mtn Bike in BIG letters where it belongs.

Finally on the tarmac in the plane, we were once again delayed by the removal of three drunk passengers. And their luggage. Oh my. Quite tardy arriving at Frankfurt, it was obvious that our plane home was long gone. There was a pre-strike meeting for all the ground crews that service the planes, so very few flights were moving. Some lucky folks made it on another flight that afternoon, but not this little soldier. Nope. Seven hours and multiple lines later, I was re-booked on a later flight the next day and headed to a hotel courtesy of Lufthansa. Well, how about that? I had actually figured I would be sleeping in the airport, but the hotel room was a welcome relief.

The next morning I was headed home on a 747-400 double decker nicely stuffed into economy class. I had been away from home a long time and I was feeling lonely and vulnerable. I was drawn to a girl next to me. Her big eyes caught my attention and her wonderfully shaped ears spoke of fine breeding. I missed what she offered...a warm touch, soft breath, playful kisses, a wet nose. Gotta have a wet nose. I have to admit it...I stole a few looks and shared some meaningful glances between us. I think she liked me. But I felt the pangs of guilt for the lady I have at home. That lab/greyhound mix just would not understand my airplane 'fling'. So, I left it at that, turned back to my iPod and drifted off to sleep feeling lonely still, but virtuous. What happens in Germany very nearly stays in Germany and I was headed home.

Vive la (in)différence

2011-10-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

Ah, yes...the French waiter. We had many meals in France, some really good, some really bad, but on the average the food was quite tasty. But the service was, ahhh...unique. There was a pattern that repeated over and over. We would be seated and wait. Drinks would be ordered. Water was not a given. You had to ask, and even then it was likely to be bottled (not free). If you did get it in a pitcher or caraffe, it would not be refilled when empty, no matter how long you sat there. Ice with your drinks? Not likely.

Then, after quite a while, food orders would get taken and written down, typically on a little pad of paper like here in the US (or maybe on a PDA looking thing). Now waiters here, even in the normal restaurant, will write the orders down so that they know who gets what plate when it is delivered. I have never been a waiter, but there must be a system they use.

Apparently that has never made it over the 'pond'. The food would eventually show up and the waiter would ask, in French of course, who had the [insert some French words here of mystery] platter? Heck, we could barely read the menu to know what we wanted much less pronounce it an hour later. So this comedy would proceed meal after meal. Order with vague clarity...search for meaning at food delivery time. It was amusing and annoying all at the same time. The only thing that would have made it better was for the waiter to be a mime. Marcel Marceau, where are you when we needed you?


"No, Monsieur American customer...I have no idea what you ordered, nes pa?"

The other thing I noticed was the, well, not rudeness really, just indifference. You out of bread? Need water? Want your plates cleared away? "I do not care, nes pa?" Apparently. Tons of impersonal attention going on here. Truly odd. In one eatery we made an error in ordering and ended up with an extra meal of pasta. No biggy. We will take it back to the guys in the mechanics truck. I asked for a to go box. You would think I requested the Holy Grail. Really? Maybe they do not do 'take-out' in France.

The nice thing was a much more relaxed approach to the meal. They took a long time and no one seemed to be in a hurry to get you out of the table space. Kinda' cool and I wish that was more common these days. It does make for long lines for the next customer though.

So all in all, one can expect food equal to a fine eatery and service equal to a bad cafeteria. Does the government run the food services? Very civil servant like. In France, Burger King says "Have it our way". Want to know where all the French waiters were trained? At the American Department of Motor Vehicles. I could go on, but I feel the need to be ignored and pay for the privilege. I am heading to the Post Office for a cappuccino.

I am an island

2011-10-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

In the US, unless you are at an airport or Disneyland, you typically hear English spoken. Of course there is a huge Latin population and other groups from far-away lands who live here, but by and large they tend to speak English too at some point. In fact, English is the defacto language for most international travel and business.

The end result of this has had one unfortunate by-product. We as Americans tend to speak only one language...English. To be bi-lingual is usually due to having an ethnic background where the parents speak another language or you were raised as a youth in another country, etc. But largely, linguistically speaking, we are a rock, we are an island.

In Europe (and in Israel too) it is very common to proficiently speak several languages or at least be decent conversationally. I guess some of that is the close borders that make it easy to have move between countries. You can travel thousands of miles and never leave the States. Why else? Not sure. Maybe it is more of a world awareness. Maybe the educational system...dunno.

In any case, it is a bit of a smackdown every time I travel and realize that the waiter at my table speaks French, German, and English. In Israel it was Hebrew, Arabic and English. Me? Stoopid American. I can just fall back on the old stand-by...talk sloooowly and loudly in bad English like some Steve Martin comedy and gesture accordingly. That always helps annoy the locals.

Most of what I know came from watching movies and TV. The funny thing is, I have a pretty good ear for languages. I just never put in the effort to learn one. Island living does that to ya'. But, I think I need to change that. I don't buy into the "I am a citizen of the world" stuff. I am a citizen of the US. But I think I need to get off the island more.

It's the little things.

2011-10-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

Things seem to be smaller in Europe...condensed...like they were left out in the rain or something and shrunk. Cars, houses, roads, beds, bathrooms, elevators...all kinds of stuff. I suppose that comes from having limited room to grow as a country (typically). I mean, there is nothing here like the US of A's wide open spaces where those deer and antelope play.

And I imagine some of that is simple economics. Fuel costs (typically diesel) abroad can be significant. Small cars make sense in heavy traffic and narrow roads. They cost less to own and are easy to park, etc. I like this actually. It flys in the face of the V8 behemoths that typically carry a soccer mom and her nubbins around town. I never saw any lifted Powerstrokes with license plates that said RVRLIMO, etc, getting 10 miles per gallon on a good day. The cars there are cool looking too. Like the Peugeot in this first pic and the new World Car version of the Ford Focus (second pic) we get here for 2012 (no diesel option though).

The elevators seem to be Lilliputian too. This was how big the one in the hotel was. The first pic is the floor area and the second pic is looking down with my feet against the back wall. That is not a room to tango in. A good size phone booth would make this seem roomy.

But you know, I like the smaller approach. We are tuned to wide open living and it is slowly or not so slowly catching up with us. For decades, bigger was better, so we were told. I think, in reality, we were upsizing the emperors new suit and the tailor is now handing us the bill.

Pardon me American lady, is that your butt or a snow plow?

2011-10-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

Average French 40 year old woman.

der·ri·ère also der·ri·ere (dr-âr)

The buttocks; the rear.

[French, behind, from Old French deriere, in back of, from Vulgar Latin *d retr : Latin d, from, of; see de- + Latin retr, back; see retro-.]

Yeah. We are an obese nation or culture or people or whatever. We are fat, on average, and getting fatter. Along with that comes climbing rates of juvenile diabetes, high blood pressure, early joint failure, heart disease, etc.

Fat, fat, fatty.

I was at a stateside restaurant with the wifey (who is a knockout at post the big five-oh) and noticed a family next door that was made of three generations. Grandparents (I assume here), parents and grand kids. All of them were dumplings. And, sloppily dressed ones too. Poor kids...what do they know?

In all of France, including a few hours of people-watching in a public area, I saw two overweight ladies. Two. And they were just plump, not obese. I saw a few men with bellies, but nothing that a bit of time on a stairmaster would not fix. I never have seen so many 40s, 50s, and above ladies who had kept themselves up. They were just 'trim'. And they actually could move along under their own power at a good clip, none of the fat person, bad knees, ankles, out of breath death march I see in the US.

Very attractive. And the French dress well too, guys included. I liked that. Americans are very casual dressers. I am not suggesting we go back to Ozzie and Harriett and wear suits, ties, and pearls for dinner at home, but a bit of care and style is a good thing.

Shame on us. I am not sure if it is the diet, the portions, the culture or what, but it was striking. Oh, I am sure that in some areas of Europe that weight can be an issue, but not what I saw in that part of France or the time I spent in Germany. I never saw a fast food food joint in town anywhere. No supersized sodas full of high fructose corn syrup. Food portions were moderate most of the places we ate and people seemed to eat more often, but have less of it.

My first day back at work I was in the supermarket and out of the 5 women that were in line ahead of me, 3 were very overweight, not to mention the cow in the moo-moo at the dairy box.

I know this. If I ever need to find a new lady in my life (God forbid), I may just have to shop overseas. Wanna' know one reason that America is falling behind in the world? They are out of breath.

Vive la France...Vive la Derriere.

So this is France?

2011-10-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

Looks like Santa Barbara, CA, to me. We were in Côte d'Azur along the Mediterranean coast of France, but it looked like a nearby seaside area I am familiar with. Very cozy and easy going, the soft winds and softer sand were seductive. It is France after all, so one would expect that.

The hotel was very nice and quiet and the whole area was in the off season, so even traffic was light. If it was not for the race venue going on, I bet it really would have been sleepy there.

There were some oddities though. The elevator had a button that said floor '0' (zero). Well, now...I am not sure I want to press that one. Kinda twilight zone-ish. I was looking for Rod Serling every time I hit that one to go to the lobby. Yeah...'0' equals 'L'.

Then there was the language thing that made some signs kinda' interesting. There was the one that apparently told of a public plague involving dogs. I guess the French finally figured out the fleas/black death thing.

Or there was the restaurant that proudly advertised it specialized in poisons. That was to fight off the plague, no doubt.

Then there was this image on a menu board in a restaurant that amazed me. It is an ad for a soft drink called Orangina. At first I thought it was topless which would have made sense since the beach next to us was. In any case, it struck me as truly odd in a very French way.

That was only matched by the service van on the ground at the Frankfurt airport that had ASS written on the side in large letters. Really? They carry that around in trucks now? How about that. In the US they would need a bigger truck to carry the average load of ASS around and that will lead into my upcoming post. Why are French (and German too), ahhhh...derrieres...less wide than American ones? My thoughts on that remarkable observation later.

"Qu’ils mangent de la brioche"

2011-10-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

Or, as it is loosely translated, "Let them eat cake". That quote is attributed to Marie Antoinette, but it seems to be unlikely that she actually said it. In any case, the saying was in response to a supposed 'princess' that, when informed that the French peasants had no simple bread to eat, suggested that they eat "brioche", or an enriched pastry (cake). The saying is now a symbol of the upper classes ignorance of the common man's plight.

But for me, it points out that we in America have Dunkin' Donuts. Europe has awesome stuff like this pic from the Frankfurt airport. Seriously? I mean, this would be a CRAZY fancy pastry/deli/bakery shop in the US and this is just in the airport for cryin' out loud. Fabulous pastries, ham and cheese croissants, serious coffees...ah...cafe'....etc. Israel was like this too.

None of it is crazy sugary sweet either. No jelly filled, fried dough here. But wow, was it good. I came to find this commonly across the countries I was in and it was in stark contrast to what I am used to seeing. Yeah....I ate there. I mean, how could I not?

That is when I found out how the Euro is unfriendly to the dollar. Oh well. What cost, that cake, eh? Vive la brioche!

France or Bust: Off to Roc d'azur

2011-10-13T04:53:00.000-07:00

Airports promise the romantic in me that they are portals to adventure. They deliver to the realist in me long waits, hassles, and odd restrictions. Nevertheless, and despite the disparity there, I continued to hope for the best as I signed up for another go around in the pursuit of far away places.

Perhaps the worst part about airports is that they inevitably place you into an airplane. Those noisy, flying germ tubes are such a bore. I am not worried about dying or anything so dramatic, I just hate that I cannot get up and escape the crying child, sneezy woman, or snoring guy with too much ear hair. Just how much ear hair IS too much anyway? Not sure.

Anyway, I do like looking out the windows as the earth rolls by, but when the flights are 11 or more hours and all you see are clouds or ocean or darkness....well, that sucks to be me.

In this case, I was sucking all the way to France by way of Germany. Neat places to go...awful way to get there. So, for a while I will spend some time blogging about the recent trip, Europe-ness, odd things, and being an American in the land of fromage, mimes, and long dinners.

Left LAX in the rain. Hello Lufthansa. Or should I say "Guten Morgen"

Cloudy in Frankfurt too. Yet another plane.

Plane shrinkage. In Europe everything is smaller. The Germans love the efficiency and the French find it easier to ignore.

Yet another beer can dream?

2011-10-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I seem to be locked in this Sisyphean task of becoming happy with riding an aluminum hardtail, and of course, a singlespeed at that. Another new frame arrived that will be getting built up for duty, but what I usually do is strip the existing SS and move parts over. This time I am working on a ground up build as I want to have both bikes up for the duration.

This is the new frame, a 2012 Specialized Carve Pro SS. You won't see it in the Specialized website for USA and I actually cannot find it on any other country I checked, but it must exist as I have one. Pretty, too. Striking black and white motif and the tapered HT and hydroformed tubes are very stout looking. Notice the lack of chainstay and seatstay bridges? Also notice that there is no crimping of the chainstay at the chainring area?

This frame is kind of the next step up from the old Rockhopper SS frame I tested last year. I liked a lot about that 'Hopper SS frame: The spit shell eccentric BB, the long top tube, the handling, the short back end. But the frame simply was not refined enough (too flexy) to make it a great SS choice, especially when the ride was only so-so as far as compliance. However, even with the under-built chassis, it still pedaled very well and accelerated nicely.

So that brings me back to Sisyphus and that rolling rock of his. I know that an SS frame should be a pedaling monster in that you want great transfer of power when it is stoked along. Oversize and shaped aluminum tubes can provide that easily enough, but I really am smitten with the smooth ride of steel. But steel can be heavy unless it is really expensive steel, like the recent Spot Rocker. So here I am with the new Carve Pro SS, hoping that I will get great power transfer, lighter frame weight, and...hope hope...a decent ride. They claim to have designed compliance into the rear of the frame and it looks like that may be true. But I also have a plan...if the center of the bike is hard core, soften the edges a bit.

Specialized woke up corporately and spec'd 27.2mm seatposts on the hardtails I have seen for 2012. That is sooo smart as a nice 27.2mm post will go a long ways toward softening the blows up through the saddle. Then, run a WTB Pure V saddle. Comfy, yet firm, and with a rear kick to it that allows you to unweight a bit and still put some power to the pedals. Then, a decent fork...maybe even 100mm...not sure yet. But at the bottom end, I am going to run some 2.25 tires or bigger and at a max of 25psi. That ought to make a difference.

The Geax Saguaros will fill that bill for now and although they are a bit of a weight hit in the TNT casing version, the benefit is an ability to run at lower pressures and still have the tire casing retain decent handling manners, unlike less stout tires. They also are pretty tall and roll like a ghost. We shall see how that works out. Can I get an alu bike to give me that better than steel response and steering and yet not pummel me into submission? We shall see. I think that between what the Big S did in the design lab and what I will do is going to be a good combo. I know this frame looks darn fast and fun, if a frame can do that. If not, then there is always carbon if I can find a carbon SS frame that I think is right for me. Most are too race oriented, like the Stumpjumper Carbon SS and the Niner Carbon. So, I go into this build with renewed hopes of a better all around bike for my needs.

Me and Sisyphus. We are such romantics.

Baker's Dozen

2011-10-03T21:26:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness. 13. I would never have believed it. What a year. Glad they are not grizzly bears. Last night was a two footer crossing the road and tonite was a youngster (a coooold one) stretched out on the trail. Maybe the cooler weather coming in will encourage 'denning up'.

Feeling Sheepish

2011-09-26T07:55:00.000-07:00

Well, while many parts of the country are seeing Autumn come in with cold nights and frosty mornings, we in So Cal are still in the 90s and hoping for a feeling of Fall. It really does not begin till October-ish, but the other morning did offer us a deep marine layer (fog or low clouds) and right about 50 degree temps and misty-ness. Now in the Midwest that would be tank top weather, but here, well, it is an excuse to break out the wool. Now I really did not need the wool, but it felt good to wear it anyway and pretend. And maybe, just maybe, the donning of spun animal fur will encourage the onset of Fall.

Ya never know.

Sheep's clothing courtesy of Buff Headwraps, EWR jersey, Ibex 3/4 bibs, and Swiftwick socks.

Make it an even dozen?

2011-09-25T07:56:00.000-07:00

The rattlesnake count goes to eleven. This must be Texas.

The things you see...

2011-09-24T16:33:00.000-07:00

...when you are on the road.

Brothels, legal ones. I find the whole idea both odd and disgusting all at the same time. The whole concept of pulling into a parking lot, walking in, and pulling out the VISA card to pay for jolly time, then going on your way....well, that is just bizarre to me. However, there were always cars in the lot. Wonder if they would like their pictures on the net? Likely not.

John 3:20

New International Version (NIV)

²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.

But if that is not enough, there is always a museum for the kids. Yes, there was a tour bus there and tourists. Amazing. But not quite as much as the transvestite hooker on the hotel elevator in Vegas. Imagine Nicolas Cage in a dress and wig. Oh yeah.

So with that, I will leave you and leave the road trip with this pic that has to be the best sign for the Ladies Room that I have ever seen. Beatty, Nevada, you crack me up.

The Lonely Road

2011-09-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

I am drawn to them like moths to flame. I see them, winding off valley floors into hidden canyons and high mountain passes. Often just barely there, suitable for horse drawn wagon, foot travel or a good bike, they seem to ring back through time with the sounds of jangling team harnesses, mining rigs, lumberjacks.

Lonely roads. They inspire me and intrigue me. I want to go there, wherever 'there' is. Let them take me on a journey that few others bother with now in our modern and fast paced lives. Sadly, I am all too often one of those hamsters on the spinning wheel of life. Lonely roads require time and a conscious disconnect from the tyranny of the urgent.

We need lonely roads and unseen places that call to us, if not in our lives, at least in our imaginations.

Living the elevated life.

2011-09-22T14:08:00.000-07:00

I was standing in the coffee shop behind a middle aged woman in shorts, Teva sandals, and a fleece sweater. Her calves were killer, shaped and sculpted from years of hard efforts in one sport or another. The couple at the near table in the Columbia jackets were reading the local rag and having a hot tea, but looked like they had just come in from a run in the morning showers. A shaggy beard there, more fleece and down vests over in that corner, tan skin, little fat, no make up. Helmets on the hat rack. Organic coffee and a tip jar for the local Barrista who just may be a budding wanna be pro snowboarder waiting for the next flurries to begin.

Mountain towns. Gotta love 'em. Man I miss that vibe. It is the same in many towns I have traveled through. Any place that offers that combo of outdoor life style and elevation seems to draw in a similar class of folks. It is hard to tell the stratum of wealth as they all seem to dress the same. Patagonia clothing here is not just a statement of a Gold Card, it is a practical choice. Only when the parking lot shows a Range Rover or a busted up Subaru do the layers of money show.

In the coffee shop though, all caffeine seekers are equal. The parking lot snobbery can wait a bit. Fresh scones and rainforest approved beans first.

I could fit here quite nicely. Durango. Crested Butte. Tahoe. Idyllwild.

I could live the elevated life. I even liked the coffee.

Pedaling Uphill

2011-09-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

After the lift assisted madness of the previous day, one of the guys I was with suggested we opt for some XC stuff instead of popping for another lift ticket fee of near 50 bucks. Well yeah...save money, pedal uphill, ride new trails that are not part of a big, sculpted gymnasium? I am all in.

So that idea spread and we put together a series of trails that were just perfect for what we were looking for. Some of the boys were hurtin' for certain due to the cruel elevation that steals the power from your legs, but they made it happen anyway.

We began in sagebrush and pedaled into a lakeside camping area and waterfall. My fav day so far. Real mountain biking IMO, even though it was not all that epic. It was sweet though.

After that we broke for lunch and then went back to the high desert on the other side of the highway in search of a trail that dropped into a deep canyon. We never found the trail head, so it turned into a sand fest of desert roads that ended up pretty much nowhere. Demoralized from all the sand and running out of time and energy, the group headed back to the cars and called it a day. Of note was my 29er with the big 2.35 tires at 25psi. I barely even noticed the sand and it really got me thinking about a fat bike as my next acquisition. I really think that would be a fun scoot and would open up areas like this to biking. Sand? What sand?

The next day will see me pointing toward Vegas, but I plan on getting there on some back country roads. Time to see some more new countryside.

A Ticket To Ride

2011-09-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

It has been years since I was at Mammoth Mtn and the bike park there. Likely the late 90s at best and more likely the mid-90s. And I do not huck. So, the thought of getting into the lift ticket thing had me a bit nervous. I do not even own a set of pads (well, I do now, but that was an apres Mammoth acquisition).

So here I was, pinning a ticket to ride on my FSR, the biggest travel 29er I have at 5.5 inches F/R, and getting ready to 'session' the mountain. I had mounted some new tires I was testing, some 2.3 Geax Sturdys, that looked burly for the pumice covered trails, and that was about as much as I had going for me.

I took the gondola up and the ground dropped from beneath me. I am not all that crazy about those gondolas. I actually prefer the lift chairs that are more open. Maybe it is the enclosed feeling, but I get the impression that they would bounce and roll nicely back down the mountain if they fell off the cabling. At least the chair would just wad up like a big lawn chair with me in it and get it over with. More dignity but less style points I guess.

The first trail was a pretty easy run off the top of the mountain which still had snow on it and was 45 degrees and windy. Off the backside, the trail wound down toward warmer climes but was, well, kinda boring but scenic. I suggested that we up the ante a bit and was pointed toward another trail for the next lift run.

Oops.

I should have kept my mouth shut. Now I am a pretty decent technical rider for an old XC guy, but this was an eye opener. I would be pulled to the side looking at an oncoming trail feature and have two grommets pass me and cruise down it like it was flat. Well, nuts! So I made it and some of it was really fun, but also scary. I was using ALL the travel the bike (and me) had and then some. I felt kinda naked and I think a bit burlier bike and some body armour would have helped me feel better about things. Still, it was interesting. It was also a chance to catch up on my daily prayers.

A bit of grace here was appreciated. Thank you.

The next run(s) were on trails that split the difference between too easy and too hard. The Momma Bear trails were awesome and the Sturdy tires on the FSR were killer, floating and digging in. Big wheels are such a great help in poor trail surfaces and the combo of big wheels and wide, aggressive tires was made for the day.

I know I need to get back up there and do that some more as I need to push and stretch myself a bit every so often. Trails like this will do that for ya. And I have to use those new pads I got.

Maybe I do huck every so often, but I would not want to earn a living that way.

Road Trip 2: Riding begins

2011-09-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

We stopped on the doorstep of Mammoth Lakes and rode/shuttled the Lower Rock Creek trail. 8 miles of downhill trail creekside in Aspens and such. Pretty sweet. This trip I brought the FSR 5 incher with some new tires that I hoped would float over the pumice of Mammoth (old volcano, 'ya know). So, it begins. Time to pedal and go "wheeeee!".

Phil, the mad scientist organizer of the trip.

2.3 inches of crazy 29er rubber. Geax Sturdy.

Old guy looking somewhat stunned and less than intelligent. Pretty much normal for me.

Road Trip

2011-09-16T07:28:00.000-07:00

Hitting the long road to adventure, then Interbike. Hwy 395 bids me welcome.

Finding the sweet Spot

2011-09-06T21:11:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been riding this bike almost exclusively. The Spot folks sent out a test bike sporting the latest iteration of the Gates Carbon Drive system, that being the new CenterTrak. So far the belt has been trouble free and solid except for one minor but annoying issue, but I will save that for later.

This is about steel. Nice steel. Nice steel tubes. Nice steel tubes as used to construct a bicycle frame. It is not secret how I feel about steel 29er singlespeeds. A cursory search of this blog will bring up a few missives on my thoughts about that. However, it had been a long time since I had been on a really nice steel frame, that 'nice' as it is used here, meaning a more expensive blend of higher end, thinner, lighter, and more manipulated steel tubing. I have been on a few $500.00-$600.00 dollar retail frames and they have been just fine. Sure, they are kinda heavy, but they do the job pretty well, well enough that I was not sure if spending twice as much+ for a frame like the Spot would really be worth it.

And after riding this for quite a few hours now, I think it is. I think there is enough benefit to make it worth the step up in duckets for a frame like this.

Now that phrase, "worth it", is, I admit, controversial and vague. No one needs a $1500.00 steel frame unless they are truly unique in size or conformation and custom is the best option. So really, what we are talking about is not really proof of worth, but rather a reasonable return in performance over and above the lesser priced brethren I have been pedaling.

After all, it is not half as heavy, twice as stiff, twice as smooth.....etc. It is only twice as expensive. So what do I think I have gained? Well, it is just a little bit stiffer at the BB, just a little bit lighter on the scale, just a little bit smoother over the trail, and just a little bit spunkier when pedaled hard. Just a little bit.

But I will tell ya' that "little bit" goes a long ways when you actually ride it. The end result is enough of a gain to make each ride 'that' much nicer. Nothing dramatic, but noticeable, and in a world where we spend $300.00 dollars on a saddle or agonize over the latest linked suspension design and whether it solves the mysteries of the universe, a simple steel bike with one gear and just a bit nicer overall ride is enough to make me smile and wheel it out of the garage, choosing it over more than a few other fancier scoots.

It is indeed, a sweet Spot.

Is 120mm the new 100mm?

2011-09-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

Well the Ibis Ripley that I mentioned in the last post sure has been controversial. There are lots of folks boo-hooing about the steepish geo of the bike once the numbers were released. The 71* HT angle seems to mark it as a long legged XC bike more than a Heavy Trail/AM thing like a Mojo might be.

It seems that Ibis has focused on keeping this a bit tighter than that long awaited 'Mojo 29er' was imagined to be. That, and the non-Ibis looking design will keep this out of the hands of many Ibis loyalists I bet.

So what we seem to have gotten is a swipe at the Tall Boy more than anything, but this year there are more and more bikes coming out with 120mm F/R travel. The Tomac Diplomat, the Trek Rumblefish, the Specialized Camber (at 110mm), the Salsa Horsethief and I am sure many others. I opined a year or so ago that 100m was the sweet spot on 29er FS bikes, the point where you could do almost anything in moderation and have a balanced bike through it all.

But with the light and likely good pedaling Ripley, well, maybe we are seeing the needle swing towards 120mm as the new sweet spot. Maybe. We shall see.

Either way, the choices for 29ers is getting pretty wide now and there should be something for everyone here pretty soon.

Letting the genie out of the lamp?

2011-08-31T08:05:00.000-07:00

Regarding wishes come true:

A few months ago I was thinking this: What is Missing. The idea being that there is nothing in the 29er FS market that hit all the buttons for an All Trail bike if you also wanted light weight. Basically, like the old blog said...an Ibis Mojo 29er with less travel.

Well, it has been no secret that Ibis has been working on a 29er FS even if they did do it kicking and screaming along the way (seems that they are not...or have not been...ardent big wheel fans). Here it is.

It is, at least at first glance, just what I wanted it to be. If the geometry is 'in there', then I just may have to begin saving up big time cuz a CF Ibis is darn expensive. But, I could trim the quiver a bit, eh? This could replace the Epic AND the FSR and be as light or lighter than the Epic is. Hard to argue with that one. But that cost is daunting. Well, you can't have it all. Light...strong...cheap. Pick two, as they say.

Time will tell, but I am stoked and I bet more than a few companies are looking at this one through squinted eyes, wondering if they should have rubbed that magic lantern just a bit harder.

Al-a-kazam.

Living the Low Life..

2011-08-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

...Or "How I am learning to love being dropped".

The area I ride in is not typically that steep or super-techy. But every so often there are times when it makes a lot of sense to get your weight back behind the saddle or taste the wrath of gravity. In the early days, we had a product called a Hite Rite. It was a simple spring that, when you were riding along and needed a lower seat position, allowed you to open the seat post clamp quick release and push the saddle down with your body weight, then close the QR again. Opening it up again allowed the spring to pop the saddle back up and off you went. I still have one of those in a box somewhere.


In case you need to be convicted about your descending.

However, as time went by and everyone got in a weight weenie state of mind, we ditched our QRs and just went to single bolt clamps. So much for the Hite Rite. And, I basically learned to ride steep things with the saddle up. No biggie 99% of the time.

So fast forward about 20 years and here I am, still not dropping the saddle, although baggy shorts (when I wear them...which is not often), are an incentive to drop the saddle or get caught up in the web of crotch material and die. But a new product has arisen in that time that really is the logical evolution of the Hite Rite, something basically referred to as a 'dropper post'. They give you a multi position option for lowering the have a bar mounted control so you do not have to ride with one hand to enable it, and pop the saddle back up to normal whenever you are ready to go. A bit heavy and sometimes mechanically challenged, the dropper post changed the game and no one with an all mountain or heavy duty trail bike would be caught dead without one if they had their druthers. I basically ignored them.

So about a year ago I was sent a Specialized Command Post to try which is Specialized's version of the dropper post. The product manager was pretty stoked about the bennies of the post and how it transforms some aspects of riding. I was skeptical, but I mounted it on the Epic Marathon and gave it a shot. It did not last long on there. One, I was bummed at the thought of adding any weight on the bike. Two, when I did drop it, I felt out of balance, like I lost some control of the bike. Three, well, I really did not need it.

The Command Post came off and went back into the box.

A year or so later, I am chasing the rabbit of a Global Marketing wonk down a trail in Colorado on a new FSR 29er with 5.5" of travel and a dropper post on it and I have one of those 'light bulb' moments. On that trail, littered with tight turns, root drops, etc, and with all that travel in the suspension that encouraged speed and daring, the dropper post was once again back in my mind as something worth having.

And now, as I have been on an FSR of my own over the last few months, the Specialized Blacklite dropper post has become indispensable. Really, I would not want to ride this bike without it.

Of course it makes sense that for rough and fast trails, getting air, etc, the nature of the bike is accentuated by the ability to get the saddle down and out of the way. The bike becomes a big BMX-er then, and you can soak up bumps with the knees and, of course, get behind the saddle and then quickly back over it again. It encourages fun and a 'stunty', playful feel that I do not get, say, on the SS hardtail with 80mm of travel.

The high life. Now it's up....

...now it's down. Low and loving it.

But the other day I was dropping down a typical So Cal singletrack, steepish, loose, rutted, and bermed in the turns. I did not really need to get behind the saddle...not that steep...but the dropper post allows you to get LOW. And, I am here to tell 'ya, LOW is where it is at. The ability to lower your body weight on the bike in turns and downhills is golden. In fact, I think many times when we used to get behind the saddle on steep parts, what we really wanted to do was get lower, we just did not know it. getting lower allows you to stay centered on the bike and retain better steering, where being totally committed to be behind a raised saddle takes away too much steering and braking control.

Think about this. If you could flip a lever and turn you bike into a recumbent, where you were seated at just above the BB level, you could stay right in the middle of the wheels and never go over the bars. So getting low allows for your body weight to be centered and low AND you can still get behind the saddle and have the option of scratching your butt on the rear tire if you need to. I actually (despite the pic above) seldom use the full 'slammed' position, but the 'cruiser' setting is about perfect.

I predict that more and more XC Trailbikes will be spec'd with dropper posts. If I was at 100-120mm+ of travel and I had any pretenses of rough trail use, I would find it hard to run sans a dropper post. It really is that good. For a pure XC race bike? Well, no need for that on a groomed race course like the Leadville 100 dirt road race, but for something like the Breck 100? Oh yeah. That I can see.

I also predict that there are other old dogs like me who will begrudgingly try a dropper post and learn to love being dropped. Who would have thunk it?

The week in review.

2011-08-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

Clif Bar sent some new flavor samples. Mojos are awesome with a glass of cold milk.

Some new products are getting wrung out. The 2012 Camelbak Charge LR and the White Brothers Loop 29er fork.

The HDR on the iPhone 4 still continues to impress me. Morning sky giving way to the day.

New Filters in the photo program

2011-08-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

Well the App Store must have sweetened the pot during the last bunch of app updates and I found a new group of photo effects. Some are pretty interesting.

This one is Film Stock. Pretty cool. The Spot Rocker taking break. I was not tired at all.

The end of the day.

2011-08-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

The Red Mtn Overlook & Camelbak Charge LR

No Bikepacking Allowed...sort-of.

2011-08-05T11:28:00.000-07:00

After watching this very cool video, it brought back to me the painful reality that I have gotten in zero meaningful bikepacking trips this year, other than one early outing to try the new tarp shelter.

SO for me, this pic symbolizes the whole thing: No bikepacking for Little Grannygear. Sigh.

Part of it the fact that it is darn hard to get anyone committed to doing it with me. Yeah, talk is cheap and that is all I get...talk and promises. "That sounds like fun! I would like to do that sometime..." And just when is 'sometime', anyway? Later on then this year, it would seem.

Bikepacking is a decent solitary endeavor, but it also is better with two, both for safety and sharing the experience. In the meantime, I will keep refining my kit. I need to get a warmer yet light bag and I think I am a good candidate for a quilt. I am pretty sure I can do it from an inexpensive down sleeping bag re-sewn into a quilt. I saw this on the net and it was already in the back of my mind too. Someone beat me to it. If I could get a good enough deal, I would just buy one all done, but criminy they are costly. I want it to be under 2lbs and good to 30 degrees. I have the bivy, so that takes the rating into the high twenties and that is good enough to me.

The next big thing is a better sleeping pad than the old 3/4 Thermarest I am using. A good pad is $$ too but I appreciate more pad comfort these days as the bones grow older. No dashboard/windshield guards as sleeping pad for this guy. No thank you.

I still am looking for some CF pole sections about 4' long that I can cut and sleeve to rid myself of the center pole set-up on the SilShelter. I know how I want to do it and it should work really well, but I need to get the material and CF is perfect. I have the ti tent stakes now and the rigging worked out pretty well for the tarp. I still need to get a piece of Tyvek for a ground cloth and that is just a matter of ordering it off of ebay, etc. No biggie. Then I am pretty set unless I want to cook hot meals or tea and that will mean a ti cup and UL stove.

Of course, the irony of all this is not lost on me...that being the act of buying and refining gear that I am not using. Well, I have been ironic before, so nothing new there. The bad thing about being in So Cal is the summer is not so great. Hot, dry, and buggy, Spring is short and really Fall is likely the best of all. So, in some ways, I look for better climate or higher elevations to do this stuff.

Well, I will press on following that tiny dream and make it happen at some point.

An excellent night.

2011-08-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

The forest trail begrudgingly gives way to our upward progress, pedal stroke by stroke, noses dripping sweat and forearms straining. Single speeds and single tracks, especially at altitude, take their pound of flesh for the right of passage so we stepped onto the butcher's block and let the cleaver fall where it may.

What fell away in hunks was weakness leaving the body in the form of pain.

The pain produces a reward that is a great buffering agent. The top, the view, the cruise. The flow.

One good friend. One good gear. One good ride.

An excellent night indeed.

Last Week's Roll Call in pics

2011-08-01T08:08:00.000-07:00

Last week was more of the same in the middle of a mild So Cal summer. Mid week local loops, a road ride (gasp!) Taco Friday, and one good ride on the weekend with multiple snake/lizard options and lots o' climbing.

Yes, I do have a road bike. An old, steel custom frame that I just recently upgraded to 8spd. Cutting edge stuff here.

Along the road ride, this stood out as a humble marker of time's passing. Reduced for the web here, the iPhone4 takes some surprisingly sharp pics with nice color and contrast.

Taco Friday ride, Ed the Tall actually can still ride a bike after a lot of personal challenges lately. Riding a bike is cathartic.

Tacos with Dean the Machine and Ed the Tall. Everyone gets a name.

Been testing a couple of Lezyne packs lately. Excellent organization and well worth a look if you are hydration pack shopping.

Snake number 1. A friendly country cousin in the form of a 2.5' Gopher Snake. We also saw two Horned Toads but they were too fast for the lens.

Got trail food? Clif Bar rocks. Also, been playing with the HDR camera setting on the iPhone4. Like this pic, it can really sort out the contrasty images.

Sat's ride was a 12 mile climb to the high point of the Angeles NF Backcountry. The views were just alright ;).

Eric the Red. Viking, mtn biker, all around good egg.

Hard to see here (in the blue circle) was the surly relative of the Gopher Snake we passed earlier. He...or she...slithered off to look for a fight with a smaller adversary. How can anyone NOT know the difference between a 'good' snake and a 'bad' snake? This bad boy looked all business.

Out on the Epic again. Crazy good all day bike unless it is really rough out there.

iPhone, how do I love thee?

2011-07-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

Let me count the ways.

I am a late adopter by nature, hardly ever being on the cutting edge of anything, especially techy stuff, but I knew that when I did dump my 'dumb' phone for a smart one, it would be an iPhone. I am such a Mac head that there was no way you could get anything else into my hands.

So, I waited. I am on Verizon, so that hurdle had to be overcome. Then that happened and still I waited til the dust settled a bit. Or, more than a bit. But finally, I knew that I was missing out on features that are important in my situation such as mobile email and access to social networking.

Plus, I figured I would have fun with it too. Well, I hit the big bulls eye on all accounts. Not only has it been excellent to be better 'connected' to the ways we communicate these days, for good or bad, there are features on that iPhone4 that are just so cool. The great camera, the Facetime, all the 99 cent apps (no, I have not purchased Angry Birds, so stop asking), etc. I used an inclinometer app the other day to check HT and ST angles on a bike. Crazy. How much does a digital, stand alone tool like that cost? More than 99 cents, I bet. And the list goes on.

So, of course, I had to search for the perfect case to protect it and I am testing some of that which I will talk about on The Cyclist Site.

In the meantime, the iPhone rocks. I was talking to another user the other day and he said that every time he gets an app that adds productivity to the phone, it is like "getting another 10% of value to the iPhone purchase". Indeed.

Now, if I can avoid dropping it into the toilet like I did my dumb phone, I will be just fine.

Week in review: Shadows, Snakes, and Taco Friday

2011-07-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

SS Blackbuck

2011-07-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

In repose.

Bike folks are cool.

2011-07-14T21:17:00.000-07:00

The other day JeffJ and I had the chance to hang out with these folks in their spacious and cleverly hidden fortress of solitude.

The occasion was a sneak peek of the 2012 line of nicely machined and highly polished gear for bike freaks like us. That is all secret stuff that I cannot talk about until later this year or they will cut out my heart with a highly polished tire lever.

But beyond all the schwag and marketing gab was a bit of an inside look at a bunch of guys and gals trying very hard to make very good things that we will want to buy, use, and enjoy. And along the way to doing that, they are making a living, raising families, paying bills, and, as much as humanly possible, riding their bikes.

There are some very cool people in the bike biz. Bikes are very cool, and bike people, it seems to follow, are, more often that not, very cool people.

And that is one of the best things about bikes...the bike people...the people that dream them, design them, make them, sell them, ride them and live them. It would not be the same without ya.

If Less is More, is More, More?

2011-06-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

I have always thought that the best thing about 29ers is that they do more with less...less travel, less gearing, lesser tires, etc. See the rise from the ashes of the hardtail as a viable mount for proof of that.

But lately I have been riding this beauty around the hills and valleys of So Cal and something interesting has been happening. I am having a LOT of fun.

What has really surprised me was how much I am using this bike. I was a bit conflicted when I began to build it up as I was not sure how much I would use it. I am not the type to collect expensive things I do not have a purpose for. Seems vain and wasteful. So I figured that I would use this bike a few times a year for harder, more techy rides, road trips to Moab, etc. Now I find that I am riding it several times a week. Huh...imagine that!

Now first off it makes me feel better about building it and not having it sit around. Secondly, it has opened my eyes to what big wheels and some more suspension travel can offer, IF it is packaged well. the FSR weighs right at 31lbs and that makes it at least 4 lbs heavier than any bike I own. It pedals really well, has a nice compact back end so is agile, and the slacker HT angle and longer wheelbase is something that you get used to in short order. In fact, after riding this, I always feel like other bikes are too short and nervous. But man, it is a hoot to ride on any trail so far, at least pointed down. I did struggle a bit on a steep climb on singletrack where the slacker HT angle and higher h-bar let the bike's front wheel hunt and peck a bit, but I think I could get used to that and compensate.

But other than that...I love pedaling it around. It is geared low (22x34) on the granny side so I can sit and stoke along on long grinds and the de-tuned Mini Brain rear shock keeps everything buttoned down. The slacker HT angle and longer travel makes anything but the smoothest trails a playground. Bounce off of that rock, wheelie over the gap, preload the rear suspension and turn the trail into a pump track. Sooooo fun.

And now I see more peeks into 2012, one of them being this 130mm travel Kona Satori.

Looks pretty similar in intent to the FSR, eh? This is what Kona says about the bike's priorites:

"The inspiration for the bike came from our US sales force, many of whom are die-hard 29er lovers, all of whom are extremely skilled bike handlers who like to push trail and rider limits. The design brief was to make a slacker (head tube angle is 68°), shorter, longer travel (130mm) dual suspension 29er that could find that sweet spot between plush travel and aggressive geometry, without sacrifice climbing efficiency and trail quickness. It’s purposed specifically for those who ride on rough, rolling, technical terrain where big wheels and longer travel enables you to lay to waste anything in your path."

Lay waste. Cool. I am still on the fence about whether biggie travel 29er bikes...150mm and more...are something that is too viable, but maybe I just need to ride one to have my vision broadened a bit. But, I am still surprised how very close I am to making a bike like the FSR my #1 rig. I wish it was a bit lighter. That would take $$ in adding parts like an upper level SRAM 2x10 driveline instead of the heavier Shimano 2x9 bits I have on there. I already have carbon bars and great wheels run tubeless. I would not run a smaller tire or give up the Command Post, so really it comes down to new and expensive shifty bits or a carbon frame....and there is no carbon framed FSR...yet. I bet there will be for 2012.

And add in the rumored Ibis Mojo 29er that will certainly be carbon and at least 130mm, the new Kona announced recently, the gracefully aging but a bit out of step RIP9, and the DW Sultan and there are a few bikes in this vein to chose from. If you can afford a carbon version when they are out there to buy, or do not mind riding a 30lb bike all the time, then a long legged bike like this is maximum fun-time on trail.

Another level down is the Tomac Diplomat, a rumored Bigger Mama from Salsa, and the Intense Spider, all said to be at 120mm. Will 120mm-130mm be the new 100mm? Will 80mm bikes just go away, even for racing? The new JET9 RDO carbon is set for 100mm rear and tuned to a 120mm fork iff'n ya' wanna'. Tall boy too.

I said in the past that 100mm or 4" was the sweet spot for a 29er FS in that it is enough to still feel very fast pedaling but still ride pretty rough trails in comfort and control. If that is true, that 100mm is the 'sweet spot', then 130mm just may be the 'fun spot'.

In fact, I bet that soon 120mm will be the bottom end of XC bikes that are not a race specific model and will be competing for trail space on the weekends against the Kona Satori and the FSR. I am wondering if 120mm will be the new sweet spot? Could be. I need to try one to find out.

In the meantime, if a blue and black blur passes you on the trail and the rider is giggling like some adolescent at the cartoon matinee, it might be me. I would have said hi, but I was having too much fun to stop and chat.

Snakes a plenty.

2011-06-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

And the Rattler count continues. 8 it is.

Lift that bale...tote that barge.

2011-06-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

Remember when we used to plan on carrying our bikes on pretty much every ride? Or certainly push them? This was back in the mid to late 80s and the trails were often less traveled. Plus, we were able to go places as mtn bikers that are closed to us now and many of those back country areas were just too steep to ride up or down. In some ways, it also reflected the tech level of bikes at the time. Brakes, tires, suspension, etc, have all evolved to let us ride where used to carry.

So you pushed. And, you carried. No biggie. Part of the deal. There was even a name for it: 'Hike-a-Bike'. We had padded straps (portage straps, they were called) that bridged the nose of the saddle and the top tube and provided a somewhat comfortable place to cradle your scoot on hike-a-bikes. On high end bikes like Ritcheys, there were even braze-ons for those straps. JAAND made (and still does make) a storage bag that sat in the corner of the TT/ST and gave you a carry spot and tool options. Most frame shapes won't even accommodate those now.

But that is OK, because we don't push or carry much anymore. At least, not around here. And that is too bad. The act of pushing/portaging typically means that you are on a bit of an adventure. It could mean that you are so dead tired that it is your only option, but that is another thing altogether. However, the times you need to get off the bike and move ahead anyway will bring you to places that most mtn bikers will not go. Too steep, too remote, too hard.

We actually pushed/portaged the other day on a ride and it was interesting to see the response of the riders. Some grimaced, some smiled. Some questioned the entire process and others just pushed, accepting the deal. It is what it is...whatta'ya gonna' do? Push and carry.

Steeper than it looks.

I cut my teeth on this type of ride experience. My mentor was an adventurer and we just crossed off every line on the map on and off of our bikes. A 1000' portage was just another day out on the bikes. We got tough and we saw places that no one else we knew ever wanted to go on bikes.

I don't do that much anymore, but the other day reminded me that it is something to be dealt with, and, if not enjoyed, at least accepted as part of the experience. We are, after all, mountain bikers and mountains cannot always be ridden on, but should still be traveled.

Meanwhile...

2011-06-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know...just what face of the earth did I fall off of..off from? I was slammed with reviewer/tester duties and used up all my words on that effort, then I jumped on a plane and sat there for 13 hours till I landed in the Middle East on vacation. More on that later as I edit 40GBs of video clips and 500+ photos. Yeah, I know. See ya in a month or two,

Meanwhile, in the herpetology dept. the snake count continues. Another rattler last night during a jet-lag recovery ride. Seven is a nice number.

The Flower That Fades

2011-05-10T07:48:00.000-07:00

"The human life is like that of a flower: it blooms and is beautiful for a time, but inevitably fades and withers away. By contrast, God is eternal and will never die or fade away. " 1 Peter 1:23-25

Yesterday the cycling world heard the news of the death of a pro cyclist competing in a large stage race, the Giro d'Italia. During a fast descent on one of the road stages, Wouter Weylandt crashed at speed and died from his injuries. I did not know him...never saw him race that I know of, but still we are diminished by his death, for as cyclists and fellow mortal creatures, it reminds us of the brevity of life and the uncertainty of tomorrow. We non-pros ride hard and fast too, although I never approach the stuff that those guys do. But any rock on the trail will get it done. We don't need a 50mph descent to die.

I answered the cell phone for the wife last night, then handed it off to her. It was a friend from her Jazzercise girlie group. My wife is not an emotional person, so when I heard her breath draw in, saw her face change, and heard her exclamation, I knew it was not good. A common friend's husband had been killed in an off-road accident. No details...just the news. RJ was gone. Just like that.

I had only met him a few times, so I was not really a friend, but my wife and his wife knew each other quite well. Nancy and RJ had been married nearly as long as we have...30+ years, and that is a long time to have a happy relationship with another person. A long time. I can barely imagine the loss felt by his wife. Having just celebrated 32 years of marriage, I thought of putting myself in her place. I don't like that place. It is a lonely place.

We get up each day and go about the things we do without much thought to the end of our days. It has to be that way. To be continually aware that every moment may be our last is potentially terrifying. That puts some folks behind locked doors in search of a therapist. The problem is, the therapist is just as terrified when it comes down to it. They just keep that emotion pushed down and away under a stack of textbooks. A death of someone close forces that emotion to the surface where we deal with it for a time, then push it back down again under the weight of other matters...work, play, bills, plans, expectations. It never really goes away though.

Yet, there is a blessing to that awareness of our mortality. It is a recognition of a profound and undeniable truth - that we begin to die the moment we are conceived and there is an expiration date printed on our life like a bar code. God has the code scanner and the date is non-negotiable. I have no idea what mine will scan....maybe today. I am grateful for every day, every moment, every pedal stroke, every person that enriches my life. I do not desire death, yet I do not fear it as I know God holds my breath and the breath of many that I love.

And that will have to do till then.

The Snake Count continues

2011-05-06T07:53:00.000-07:00

Buzz-tail numero six the other night. Simply amazing, really. And it is not anywhere near over yet.

Saying goodbye -or- "Not dead....just gone to Texas"

2011-05-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

'Special K', as she will be known, the resident chica in the group of otherwise hairy, sweaty, and manly men is pulling up stakes and heading to another country. Texas. Pretty sure that is not really a part of the US of A, but I could be wrong. They seem to be an independent bunch down there, those Texicans, so you never know. Personally, I would just as soon be dead than be in Texas, but at least she is heading to the Austin area which is a hot bed of cycling. It seems like there are a goodly amount of trails and races there, so I hope that 'SK' finds another great group of welcoming folks to ride with.

She rode and raced this somewhat ancient Giant Iguana SE that needed a new fork, new headset, new BB, chainrings, had rim brakes that somewhat worked, and had the oddest saddle I have seen. But it never held her back. No excuses. Just ride. Some guys I know could take lessons there.

We will miss her quick smile and humble ways that always left the ego and whining at home. We will also miss working on her bike which always needed something or another, lending her chainlube, tires, shifter cables, ahhhh...well, I think we will miss that. :)

Just recently she popped for a used Niner RIP 9. Big wheels, FS, slacker angles...oh my. It showed the talent within as she was pretty much shredding the local trails and running away from a lot of 'da boyz' on that blue scooter. My last memory is from the night she had the RIP out with some borrowed (of course...'Special K', ya' know) go-fast wheels and tires on it. She was on my wheel all the way up the climbs and then, taking the lead on the DH, went about the biz of showing us her heels. Mercy. We created a monster. I was pedaling along, grinning and giggling as she opened up a gap between us, thinking that Texas is in for some trouble.

You go girl.

On behalf of the 17:30 Crew, we will miss ya. Fair winds and sweet trails to ya'.

Snakes in the Grass

2011-04-13T18:16:00.000-07:00

And there is a lot of grass. This has been a remarkable year in one way...the amount of poisonous snakes I have seen while out riding this Spring. The tally so far is five. Five rattlesnakes all in late March or the month of April. That is crazy! I can go an entire year and see ZERO rattlers but the average is likely one or two. To see five is waaaay wierd. In fact, last night while I was riding I saw a 2-3 footer stretched across the road in one canyon and a friend was riding an adjacent canyon and saw a different, but equal in size, rattler. 2 for 1 night. I am thinking that this sign on the left should be standard issue on trails this year.

On another ride a buddy was riding in another semi-local area and one of the group stopped to set up a photo session. He laid his bike trail-side...right on top of a coiled rattler....nearly squished him with a crank arm. The buzzing gave his heart a good jump start.

I am not sure what to think, but I am pretty sure it is the Obama Administrations fault. Or maybe the Teachers Unions. Not sure, but they are in the news lately, so why not? I am not really afraid of snakes. I will pick up non-venomous ones on occasion and shoo gopher snakes off the trail. I will even stop and look at rattlers, etc. But I have to admit that I am thinking way more about where I put my foot off-trail or even when I am stopped on-trail for that matter. Like this fella, I am getting snakes on the brain.

I am considering a plan of action.

One: Stay inside. I have never seen a snake in my house therefore I am good to go on the windtrainer. Think of the savings in front tires that never wear out! Being outdoors is overrated anyway. After all, it is a big, scary world out there. Home is sooo safe and cozy. And there is a refrigerator.

Two: Go roadie. I get to avoid the grass and I have the added advantage of never having to take my hands off the handlebars to wave at other riders. Also I will never be bitten on the nose as it is always pointed up. Lucky roadies.

Three: Nice accessories. I hear that snake skin makes swell belts, etc. Turn this into a profit thing. When it rains, make lemonade...or something like that. Here snakey snakey....baby needs some new shoes.

Four: You bite me, I bite back. Turn the tables on 'em and put snake back on the menu! Grilled, BBQ, snake sushi, stewed, broiled, boiled, fried and sauteed. It's all good. Perhaps a new line of rattlesnake energy bars. Lots of protein there.

Five: Become a lawyer. Snakes never bite one of their own.

Six: Run this rear hub. I figure it sounds just like a snake so they will be confused and not sure what to do. As well, I could run a Hope hub and let the freewheel noise deafen the snake before I even get close to him.

I also have proof that snakes will crawl over to a parked car and let the air out of your tires so that they can ambush you. They bite through the valve cap into the schraeder valve. Another reason to use presta valves on your cars as snakes do not have thumbs. Don't believe me? It did not happen unless you got the pic. Besides...why else do they call a pinch flat a 'snakebite'? Case closed.

Know your enemy.

Feeling out of place today?

2011-04-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

Like you just don't fit in? Is it difficult to soar like an eagle when turkeys surround you?

It could be worse.

"Please...please...have pity. Take me out of here and away from these ugly...things."

It shouldn't outta' happen.

2011-04-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

Imagine you are at the counter of your auto tire store purchasing new rubber for the family wagon. The counter guy shows you a few tires to choose from and then asks you what wheel type you have on you car. Not size...not material...is it a TLR rim or a Stans? Mavic UST? Then based on that, he mentions that you may not have perfect luck with tires A or B, but should be 'OK' with tire C even though it is not suggested. After all, he and his buddies have run that tire on your wheel type and it has been OK so far. If it does not work out, you may, he warns, roll the tire off the rim when entering a steep driveway ramp or have issues with keeping air in it.

Right. No one in their right mind would accept that. Not on a car, not on a motorcycle...not on anything. Except a bike. Specifically a mountain bike. But that is the crazy situation that we find ourselves in today. There are several approaches at what makes for a tubeless rim. UST, Stan's BST, Bonty's TLR, and others that either license one of those or have their own idea of what works. Then the tires are a big bag of snakes as well. Some are 'tubeless ready', some are 'tubeless rated', some are not suggested as tubeless (but are ok to use...wink...wink...we are just keeping the lawyers happy), etc.

Ridiculous.

Today I was riding down a rutted, steep trail and enjoying the fun of that, playing by going in and out of the rut, weight back over the saddle, front brake on...when the rut closed out on me and I had to transition left across the face of the trail. That loaded the front wheel a bit at an angle and *POP* went the weasel as the front tire blew off the rim. Seriously? 30 psi, barely past a jogging speed and a very moderate loading of the sidewall was enough to endanger my health. I was blessed to keep it together and ride the rim to the side of the trail, but...it could have been otherwise.

It was a tubeless rated rim and a non-tubeless (but blessed as "OK" by the manufacturer in a personal conversation) tire. It mounted up well enough and gave no indication of trouble till it just failed.

That should not be able to happen.

There needs to be a standard or system or rating or SOMETHING that ensures parts play together well or do not play together at all. And we should have the expectation that it just works and unless we do something really dumb like run silly low pressures, etc, it should not come off the rim unless we are so far along on the course to disaster, that a crash is just inevitable.

This dance of whether the tire will seal or not, ghetto tubeless, tubeless rated vs tubeless ready (what does that mean anyway?)...this just needs to end. And no, I am not convinced that UST is the answer either or at least so far the potential of it it has not been realized.

SO now I am back to wondering if the things I am supposedly OK to do are safe to do. And, there is a lot at stake here.

I don't accept that from my car tires and I should not accept it from my bike tires either.

End of the Week Wrap-up

2011-04-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy week and one full of wild weather swings. Late last week it was in the mid eighties and this week it was snowing in the local mtns. Still there were a few things that stood out:

Beware of snakes in the grass...and other places. A new record of the most rattlesnakes spotted in a year was set in the last month. Three so far, all in April. Crazy. It will be a bad year to be a field mouse.

I have been trying to keep up with bike reviews and I had the chance to toss a leg over this baby below. Is it fun to ride a 22.5lb 29er hardtail? Yes, yes it is. Even with 1x10, it just flew up the hills. And yes, that is a bamboo and carbon fiber bike, the bike equivalent of a Woody wagon.

JeffJ and I set aside a day to get out and and do a series of local moto trails that drop off of a high ridge in the National Forest. The weird weather came in and changed that a bit, but we still got half of it done. It was not without its difficulties, though. I was stoked to be on this ride. I had not ridden here for a while and one part of the planned big figure eight had not been ridden in years, having explored it when I was writing a MTB Trail Guide book with a friend. We parked and began unloading the bikes and then I heard JJ utter a sound that never brings good tidings. "Oh Nooo", said Jeff. I froze and said, seemingly with some odd knowledge of impending doom, "you forgot your helmet, huh?" Yep. DUUUHHOOOH! Jeff had done the classic 'I swear I had everything' move and left his brain bucket at home. I had extra shoes with me, but no helmet. I did that once too and I rode anyway, but this would be no trailride to be sans helmet.

Emphasizing to JJ that there was NO WAY we could do this ride without that bit of armor, I was pretty depressed, realizing that we did not have the time to go all the way back and then return, so we would once again miss out on a ride that got us out of our backyard a bit. Then JJ remembered that, in a nearby house where he had been doing some work (belongs to a common cyclist friend), there was a helmet sitting around. Of course, there was always chance that no one would be home and we could not get in.

Off we went on our fools errand after reloading all the bikes and keeping our hopes up. There was no one home, but we found a window unlocked. OK, then! JJ slid the window up and just looked at me. Oh...you are suggesting I do this, eh? Well, JJ is not a window sized guy unless it is a sliding patio door, so in I went, hoping that no po-po (or neighbors with guns, including the 'Cat Lady') were watching. Yep, there was a helmet alright, but it looked like it belonged to a teenage girl. Good luck, Jeff. Out the window and back in the truck...back to our parking area with JJ adjusting the helmet to fit his decently large head. It sat somewhat comically on top of his bean, but at least it was not a pink helmet. Thumbs up! We are good to go.

The climb was about an hour long and as we topped out, the wind was raging and the temps were dropping fast. Jeff looked bundled up like an eskimo with a very petite helmet.

So, not really wanting to face the wind and storm clouds coming in, as the ride still had about 800" of elevation gain left and a long trail ride on the exposed ridge, we cut the ride short and dropped into the nearby trail. Yeah, we could have been all manly, etc, but we were out to have fun, not be all epic and everything. We were on some great FS bikes, JJ on the Anthem X 29er 2 and I on the FSR. It was the second time I had taken this bike onto a trail that really was more fun on a scoot with some travel and a slacker HT angle. Bouquet Jumps, as it is called, is a moto trail that is constructed with one big whoop after another. They laid down interlocking concrete rails and then covered them with dirt so the motos climbing up the 1000+ foot ascent in around a mile and a half would not chew it up. It makes for a hoot of a downhill on a bigger travel FS bike.

This was just what the doctor ordered for the FSR. I am not really a high flyer, so I kept it close to the ground, but man you could really get in trouble on this trail with some pretty big air.

After we celebrated at the trail bottom, we brought the helmet back...once again in through the window and back out like safety minded, bike riding thieves in the night. A post ride chicken burrito at Chronic Tacos and life was all good.

A Giant kind of day.

2011-03-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

Puddle Jumping.

2011-03-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

Remember when your mom told you to quit jumping in the puddles? Mom did not have a single speed.

Streamlining and Refining.

2011-03-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

This winter I spent some time working on accumulating some new bikepacking gear. First was this: A bivy sack from REI.

It is pretty well water resistant and with the bug netting over the face, is something that you could use as a shelter all by itself, although obviously it is minimal and the netting is not ready for rainy conditions. It weighs right at a pound. It also adds warmth to whatever your sleep system is and I always sleep cold. I did wonder if I would find it claustrophobic and I was concerned about condensation building up inside. It would require a few trial runs.

But, what I liked about it was the options it gave me. You know how the wise outdoors-person uses the concepts of layering their clothing to get a system that is flexible and versatile for all conditions? I can use this bivy all by itself with a summer bag/quilt and be bug free. I can add a warmer bag and bring my clothes inside to heat up a bit and I can use it in a shelter for increased warmth or for protection when I camp in this:

The Integral Designs Silshelter. It gets mixed, but mostly positive reviews, and was on sale at REI for 100 bucks. With the most excellent return policy, I was not worried in case it did not work out. What appealed to me was the more than typical tarp coverage and the light weight. It is 1 pound and packs up into a ridiculously small stuff sack. I do not care for the center pole, but I will work on that and it needs a lot of staking if you want it to be storm/wind tight. Otherwise, it really sets up with 6 stakes and has tie off options for overhanging limbs, etc. So this gives me another part of the layering system. Tarps are better in hotter weather as they ventilate well but should be storm tight if pitched correctly. We shall see. The obvious issue is the lack of a floor so a light ground cloth is a must and the crawly things can get ya. The bivy will stop that in cooler weather and for summer I will attempt to make up a bug net for the Silshelter (they sell one all pre-made for the Silshelter, but I am cheap and dirtbaggish...think Walmart).

Now here is another thing. Say that my tent weighs 3.5 pounds...I think that is about right for my one man set-up. If I am using a tarp at one pound, a bivy at one pound, a ground cloth, and some tent stakes (more than my tent ever needs), then I am right at the same weight as the tent, so why bother? Well, the tent is all or nothing. Yes, I can bring just the screen fly and poles but that is only good for summer and even then, high altitude summer camping can bring rain showers, yes? I can bring the storm fly to be safe, but there we are, back to all or nothing. I can use just the storm fly and poles and make a tarp option out of it but the storm fly on my tent is pretty heavy. And, in both cases, I still need a ground cloth (footprint) to protect the tent.

So I have that layered system....I hope....that gives me more options. Now it was time to try some of it out. I picked a local canyon and watched the weather forecast. We went from 80 degrees to chances of rain in a day or so but I figured that I needed to know how it did in the rain anyway. I grabbed a cheap 4mil plastic painters sheet and cut it into a ground cloth. I packed my old North Face down bag...too bulky, but rated to 20*...and headed out into the evening.

I found a spot under a tree...not a good idea in the rain...that was out of the way and set-up camp. One thing about a tarp is there are subtleties that are not present in a pre-configured tent. You need to get the staking and such right to get the tension and shape of the structure right and that is easy to do on my front lawn...harder to do in the uneven grass of a meadow. So much fiddling ensued until I had it pretty well ready to occupy. In went the ground sheet, sleeping pad, bivy, bag. The sleeping pad is an ancient Thermarest inflatable that has served me well but I found out that the surface of the pad against the surface of the plastic groundsheet had a nearly zero coefficient of friction...think Pigs on Ice as applied to sleeping.

So, the pad went inside the bivy, stealing some stacking room, but the bivy was stable on the plastic sheet under it. A bit of time reading outside the shelter then inside with my headlamp gave way to nighttime and sleep. I slipped the bivy sack over my head and zipped up the enclosure, placing the netting basically over my face. Interesting. If you are claustrophobic, avoid this. I am not, so that was fine, but it did not allow for a very fresh air feeling when breathing. I was surprised how the mesh inhibited that. I was getting some condensation right at the head area from the breath there, but not much. Eventually I unzipped the netting section and slept inside but uncovered at the head to feel fresher air.

I also played around with the quilt concept by opening up the down bag but keeping the bottom zipped into a pocket for my feet. Actually, the bag only has a 70% zipper anyway, so that pocket is always there. Inside that bivy, that set-up was awesome and I slept very comfortably into the low 40s. I want to explore the quilt approach more this year.

So, about midnight it began to rain. And rain. And rain. It rained all morning. At one point I switched on my light and took stock of my situation. I reached out from under the tent and readjusted the side stakes to give me more of a slope for a drip zone, but I did have some water enter the tarp right at the center pole. I am not sure if that came from inadequate seam sealing on my part (I sealed the tarp before use) or it was sneaking in where the two front flaps overlap. Still, it was a small puddle but unwelcome none the less.

By dawn the rain had moved on. I stayed dry and had no more issues with leaks anywhere. The inside wall of the tarp was as wet as the outside from condensation, but it never rained on me. I had the sides of the tarp down pretty low and the flaps closed, so that did not surprise me. However, inside my bivy it would not have mattered if I did contact the tarp sides as the bag would have been protected. As far as condensation inside the bivy, that was very minimal and I cannot imagine camping in wetter weather, not where I live. I only had some spots on the down bag where the shell had dark spots on it, but the loft was intact.

So, there were a few things I learned:

My ground sheet was too big and too slippery. Too bulky too. I need to cut it so any water getting into the edges of the tarp or dripping in just soaks into the ground and does not pool up on top of the sheet. I had it 5 feet wide...2 feet would be better. I will replace it with something else at some point. Maybe Tyvek or something.

Staking is everything on a tarp. Practice and get good at it. In spring, the ground is soft but in summer it won't be so I ordered some of these: Titanium tent stakes. Bomber and light too.

The pole solution: The Silshelter was designed to either be tied up to a limb for the main support or use a hiking staff as a center pole. Great if you have a tree or a hiking staff. I typically have neither. So I needed a center pole (maybe two) option. I wanted it to be light and cheap...dirtbag, remember...so I looked around for a suitable material. I found it in the form of carbon fiber golf club shafts. I will take some pics at some point, but basically I cut the heads off, cut them to length and then in half for storage, sleeved them, and pinned them together. Voila...light, strong and $3.50 to $5.00 each at the Goodwill center. They are only sooo long, but typically tarps sit low to the ground. I bet that fishing poles, ski poles, and who knows what would work too. I also am looking at ways to eliminate the center pole with an a-frame of two very light weight sectioned CF poles and an elbow join. We shall see. I would like to gain back some center room.

The Silshelter has one thing I fought and that is the two front flaps that make the vestibule. They are a challenge to get taught, overlapped, and staked down when you are inside. I need to figure that out, but I have to wonder what the makers had in mind when they designed such an odd arrangement? More thought required here on my part to come to terms with this.

But, all that said. it was a success in that I stayed 99% weather tight, warm, and secure in conditions that are above what I would typically expect to be in. Only high winds would have made that worse and hopefully I will get the set-up better as I go along.

More refining to come as I get a better ground sheet, look at lighter quilt options, and build some bug netting. Fun stuff.

Be the windshield.

2011-03-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

Windshield...meet bug.

You know the old adage..."sometimes you are the bug, sometimes you are the windshield"? Yesterday morning I was trying to get ready for a morning ride with my wife and her cronies. It is a very casual pace, so I often add some extra credit laps to the morning. I wanted to take the SS out, but I needed to replace the torn front tire and the chain as it was pretty worn. Neither of those things are too hard, but it seemed like everything was fighting me. By the time I got it done, I was running late and that ruled out a pre-lap before I met with the Sunday AM Cruisers. I headed out anyway and got a ways down the road before I found my rear tire to be a tiny bit low...forgot to check it. Off the bike...out with the pump...etc.

Then, when I did finally get on trail I was just off my line in every corner, so-so on the climbs, and just basically living a bug's life in search of an oncoming piece of curved and tinted safety glass.

Well, that sucked.

So, about 02:00 in the PM, I was enjoying the extra time in the day after the 'Spring Ahead' time change. I thought about an afternoon nap after the wife and I had made a car run to the local Honey House to grab some of the bee's finest work. Instead, I suited up and pedaled out again, this time on another bike, the Epic Marathon.

I really like my SS, but the Epic is still the finest ride I have in the garage. I always love riding that bike. But when I have to rotate between perhaps 4-5 bikes to get the testing duties done, I never get in-sync with any one bike. Every time I ride is a lesson in 'getting to know you' all over again and sometimes that sucks.

This time out none of that mattered. The tired legs did not matter. The narrow handlebars, different tires...none of that mattered. The hills gave way one by one as I ignored the pain and when the first loose, blind corner in the singletrack rushed at me, I bent my elbows, leaned forward behind the glass and pitched the bars over, expecting any minute to meet an oncoming insect. I shredded that trail.

Bug...meet windshield.

Do you ever ride?

2011-03-08T20:21:00.000-08:00

One might ask that of me lately, with all the pontificatin', prognosticatin' and soap box blabbing. So yes, yes I do and to prove it, some pics from the last few rides.

First up was a dash in between the rain storms that seemed to be hitting every weekend. The FSR was baptized by fire on the trails of Rocky Peak in So Cal. It worked pretty well and once I get used to all that travel, I think it will be a hoot to ride. It was great few hours out with the gang.

The FSR gets to a trail worthy of the blue bandit....Hummingbird Trail, Simi Valley, Ca.

Hard to tell how steep and rocky this is, but it is a fairly techy trail.

Next up was a 5.5 hour mini epic with Kevin aka Superman. He is a great guy to ride with and is one of those nuts that show up for a long ride with a jersey and two water bottles. Me? Pack, snacks, water, extra this and that, tools, windbreaker, leg warmers....just in case, ya know. Never needed them. Sigh. Spring is coming soon, but a bit of winter still clings.

The Epic gets to get out and play for the day.

Snow up top in the shadows

Looking across two forest zones...Angeles to Los Padres

Yep...spring brings the critters. This one wanted to be left alone. I concur.

The old road bike got a bit of new parts. New/used wheels courtesy of JeffJ, 8spd cassette (better than 7 spd freewheel stuff...yeah...I suck at road bikes), 8spd bar end shifters from an old drop bar MTB from the 90s, and a saddle from Bontrager. A stem adapter let me use an MTB stem and dump the quill stem. Goodbye 120mm...hello 80mm. Yeah, it was not a great fit before. Better now.

Handmade steel Curtlo, circa mid-nineties.

I have been enjoying some most excellent tasty bits from Clif Bar. Lovin' the salty, nutty goodness of the Mojo Bars.

The right Mojo adds color to your world.

What is missing?

2011-03-07T12:57:00.000-08:00

This is. The Ibis Mojo HD. It has a carbon fiber frame and makes for a pretty light build, has enough travel for nearly all trail conditions, pedals well enough to climb for hours, and pretty much is darn close to an all around package for the weekend warrior as one could dream of. Well, it is not really missing since you can go right out and buy one....unless you want one with big wheels.

Then, fuggit' about it. You can't have it, not because Ibis does not make one...they don't...yet...but you cannot have one because NO ONE MAKES a 29er like this. This occurred to me as I was riding with a guy that works for Ibis and we were talking about his Mojo. It was an HD 140 built up with moderate but nice components. It had 140mm of travel, was pedaling up the paved road we were on with hardly a unwanted wiggle from the DW link rear suspension, had a beefy Fox fork, a slacker head tube angle for all around trail fun, and weighed 27lbs.

You can't buy that type of bike in a 29er. The closest thing right now is a Santa Cruz Tall Boy and it is lacking in travel and over zealous in the HT angle department. Riding the recently built Specialized FSR points out how much fun a slacker HT angle and more travel in a good pedaling 29er can be, but it has very nice parts on it and it still weighs 31 pounds. Too heavy for an all around everyday bike for where I live, but still fun on the right trail.

There has been a lot of noise about more and more, bigger and bigger travel 29ers but I still have my doubts as to how many riders will embrace that. But I bet a ton of them would ride a 27lb, carbon, FS with great suspension manners, relaxed handling and 120+mm of travel. If someone will only make one. 26" FS bikes have gone through a refinement process that brought them from shorter travel, steeper angled designs to 33-35 pounders that were waaay overbuilt for the average Joe to something like a Ibis Mojo or carbon Specialized Stumpjumper 26er.

If I were to pick a next direction for 29ers to go, it would be that-a-way. But so far, no one has asked me. Till then, in my opinion, something will be missing.

The point of diminishing return?

2011-03-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

A recent ride on the Specialized FSR 130mm/5" travel bike brought something into clarity for me. I have been a bit of a skeptic regarding the movement towards bigger and bigger travel 29ers. My long standing motto has been that "29ers do more with less". That is immediately apparent in the first few rides on a hardtail 29er or even a rigid bike. In fact, the 29er, IMO, has completely saved that type of scooter from near obscurity as purely a XC race thing or a casual putt-a-rounder, WallyMart bike. The custom steel frame builder that does MTBs should thanks the gods of big wheels daily for breathing life into their business in a big way.

I had forever signed off on anything that was not FS in 26" wheels. It just sucked to ride it off road. Now, I love my steel SS hardtail and I even enjoy geared hardtails again. Who would have thunk it?

And that magic that the big wheels bring to the trails also makes a lesser travel FS enough for most of the folks out there, truth be told. 3-4" sure feels generous when you are gittin' it down a fast, bumpy trail. But, is that still as true when the travel gets to 5"? 6"? More? Does the big wheel begin to lose some of its advantages, not that it stops rolling as well or loses its ability to corner faster or stability goes away, but rather are there other factors that begin to encroach into the 29ers advantages that take some of the shine off of the apple?

A recent ride on a 5" travel 29er brought that to mind. Now this bike is not billed as an AM or DH bike, but rather a XC/Trail bike for rougher trails. The downhill I was on was a 3 mile path of mostly sandstone and dirt with lots of ruts and odd angles worn into the rock over the ages. Is is a complete hammer fest on anything without suspension and the ledgy and edgy surface make it a challenge to ride a clean line at speed. I had two true AM 26" bikes ahead of me. They were both sporting big forks in the 6" range with 36mm stanchions, 20mm thru-axles, stout tires, maybe a coil rear shock, and head tube angles at around 65* to 67* I suspect.

I figured it would be possible to stay with them on the FSR, being that I was only giving up an inch of travel and I had the Big Wheel Mojo going for me. After all, I regularly keep up and haunt 4-5" travel 26ers on smoother singletrack when I am on my hardtails, and even on the SS for that matter.

I got dropped. See ya. Well, actually, I was keeping them in sight but losing ground until I took a shot of mud in the eye and had to stop to deal with that....can't ride like Popeye all squinty and all.

So what happened? A few things come to mind:

Rider issues? They were simply better than me and I was lacking the skittles to keep up. That could be, but that was the only place all day that happened, so although they certainly were very good riders, so am I. Still, there is this factor to consider.
Bringing a knife to a gunfight. 130mm of travel and a 69*-70ish* HT angle do not an AM bike make, no matter what size your wheels are. The 26" bikes were built for this type of riding. Burly singlecrown forks, stout tires, lighter (or as light) but stiffer wheels, HT angles that get you feeling better about high speed chunk...etc.

Were the bigger wheels helping? I am sure they were to some degree, but it was not enough to close that gap when the trail REALLY demanded the whole package the other bikes had. It was not the ace up my sleeve that it is on smoother trails. Huh.

In fact, there were times when things got really intense that I felt that the big wheels were working against me as much as they may have been helping. That trail required rapid corrections on (and sometimes IN) very rutted, bomb-cratered rocky surfaces. In this case, how much was I giving up to the naturally more agile and easier to pick up and turn 26" wheel of the AM bikes? Maybe not as much as I think, but I bet there was something going on there that I never even feel on a smoother trail.

So, what would happen if I get on a 29er that really was built to be a big wheeled version of the bikes that ran away from me on the devil's highway that day? There are not too many of them right now...maybe 2 I can think of. And there is really only one tire to choose from, so if I had one of those bikes, maybe I would have dogged them all the way down. I sure could have used a slacker HT angle and a beefier fork. I was using all the travel I had and I could feel the fork 'twanging' as I stuffed it into ruts in the corners. But I would not have gained any agility, and more likely I would lose some. As well, the bikes those guys were on were nearly as light as mine was. A true AM fork and Dissents on wide Sun MTX rims or Gordos or whatever, plus the beef in the frame would be a heavy bike. What would it take to toss that around at speed? Would I be able to run through stuff that they have to tip-toe around with those tiny wheels as thus negate the increased mass there? Maybe.

Like this Lenz Lunchbox?

I know that this guy thinks so and he is certainly in a position to know. He is one of the main players pushing for and riding on this kind of bike done up in big wheels.

So, what is the point here? Not too sure, but I think there is a place where the 29" wheel really, really is better, and that is where it allows a rider on a simpler, lighter bike to ride with more confidence and carry speed like a mad man on the average trail, whatever that may be. I think that the advantage may begin to narrow a bit as the intensity of the trail demands a bigger, tougher, stiffer, slacker, hammer.

One thing for sure though, we have not seen the limits of where 29ers are going in this direction. If the weight can be held to a reasonable place and the components like forks and tires become readily available, then I just may get a chance to prove myself wrong and I am always ready to give that a try.

T.R., have I told you lately...

2011-02-26T22:13:00.000-08:00

...that I loved your bikes? But, sadly, it was an unrequited love. When I began riding MTBs, there were two brands that I remembered as being prized above all: Ritchey and Fisher. Gary Fisher was still doing some fillet brazed stuff like the Mt Tam but was moving fast toward outsourcing to TIG'd assembly line frames. Tom Ritchey's work was the I-Ching of bikes IMO. The Timbercomp was my dream bike. I even loved the name. It sounded like something you would want to just disappear on over the horizon, dashing and dancing through the Aspens.

There was a local guy that was the Ritchey 'dealer' and he would do these CRAZY big rides back then...50 to 100 milers when we could barely ride ten miles. He was a small 'g' god. Even the production P23s and P21s were very cool, even though they were a bit racing focused for me.

But now we have this: The Ritchey P-29. Oh baby.

There is a lot of controversy right now on an MTBR thread on just how pure and authentic this is since it will be made on some assembly line instead of being birthed by hand by Tom Ritchey hisself. Bah. TIG is just fine. Brazing is nice for artisans and allows for some give and take in tubing spec, but really it is not an issue. If Tom actually designed the tubing, and the P-29 is not the realization of some quirky idea that 29ers need to be sporting some super steep and quick handling geo, etc, then this thing will be at the top of my wish list for a steel hardtail.

Why?

Well, for one it is just drop dead gorgeous. Some bikes just look right. Some do not. No odd bent top tubes like some broken backed camel, no weird angles or twisted sister tubes...just pure triangles of graceful steel.

I hope that TR, at this point in time, is not just a bandwagon jumper for the 29er parade. If he has been on big wheels (and I think he is a pretty tall guy), then I have to believe that he knows how to do it up right. He sure has the pedigree. I learned more about bike/frame design in 30 minutes of talking with Joe Breeze then I had learned in years of hanging around other folks. These guys know what is going on down there and why.

Pure emotion. I love the fade color. Man, that just takes me back. And somewhere in the back alleys of my psyche is a signpost that says "Ritchey Parking Only. All Others Will Be Judged Accordingly."

I will never have a Timbercomp, but the dream just got a bit of a B-12 vitamin shot just seeing the P-29.

Gabriel, come blow your horn.

2011-02-25T13:27:00.000-08:00

With apologies to angels everywhere....

It all started with a heroic pic shot by JeffJ of a local buddy on a ride recently. It began like this...

...and ended like this. Voila'. The god-like (little 'g') pose deserved some, ahhh...inspired photochopping to reveal the Hermes within. In Photoshop, just select the layer and apply the 'Reveal Deity' filter. Eezy-peezy.

Now, as seen through the skilled lens of JeffJ, the Ansel Adams of the 29er world, I bring you the next revelation in 'more than meets the eye' photography.

First, you strike a pose....

...then select the layer and apply the 'heavenly vision' filter.

Huh. Who would have known?

This is what you do when it is raining and looking like snow in So Cal. Hey, it is better than Oprah!

Memory Lane.

2011-02-23T08:19:00.000-08:00

A pic of my first sweetie...no not the wife...the first MTB....a Nishiki Cascade circa late 80s, I think? Saw this posted on a forum and it sure brought back memories. Mine had Bullmoose bar copies and I think roller cam brakes F/R with no chrome fork, but the odd three-pulley SunTour rear der is there and the frame color is right.

The bike shop sold me the wrong size (a 23") so standover was horrible, but I had a blast anyway. I had it a year or so and then upgraded to a Schwinn Paramountain frameset and custom build. I have no idea what I did with that Nishiki.

The wrong gear for every occasion?

2011-02-21T18:17:00.000-08:00

I am thinkin' again and it is likely to lead me to an odd place. I actually rode my road bike this weekend. It is a bike that most of the time languishes in the rafters on hooks, but every so often, it gets rolled out when enough time has gone by and I have forgotten how much I dislike riding it.

I really can't blame the bike too much, it is just a few parts and some set-up issues that I do not like, but it is a buzz kill for me. The frame is actually pretty sweet. It is a hand built steel bike, all mini brazed by Curtlo Cycles, and is a mix of RC2 True Temper tubing with an MTB OX-3 TT for a down tube. I figure it was built in the mid 90s. It is parallel 73*, 59cm square, with an aluminum SR Prism fork. I bet it does not have 1000 miles on it. Maybe not even 500. It actually is a very nice riding bike and it just over 20 pounds.

But the parts are killin' me, mostly the shifting and the cockpit. It has bar end shifters and 7 speeds with a Shimano 600 front crank. That is fine....I like bar end shifters well enough I guess, but I had the wheels built with some cool Bullseye hubs that were left over from my first custom MTB wheelset, pre-Shimano Hyperglide, as I had the hubs just laying around. The hubs are light and smooth, but the rear hub takes a thread-on freewheel and the Sachs/Aris 7 speed never indexed right with the Shimano shifters. It sucks. The H-Bars have a crazy amount of forward bend and hardly any flat up top, so I look like I am time trialing all the time...the hoods are almost useless as a place to rest your hands. Not helping this is a stem that is likely 1.5" too long.

And every so often (every time I ride it, about 15 minutes into the ride) I think about upgrading some parts, but the cost of a new rear hub/wheel, the shifters, at least a rear der, maybe a front too, then getting a stem for that old, threaded 1" steerer and new bars....well, it just seems so expensive for something I am not sure how much I will use. Would I be better off just grabbing a new, close-out road bike? Maybe carbon? No soul there, but lots of zip. Ah, I don't know? I really like the classy old girl at heart...steel is pretty nice, especially a good custom one.

SO...here I am thinking about all this and, as I stood out of the saddle, pedaling that 39/23 gear that the 7spd allows for, up a long uphill grade, it kinda came to me. How hard would it be to singlespeed this bike? Do people even RIDE SS road bikes besides fixie hipsters? Maybe. But it is NOT flat here. Quite the contrary. But I have come to love the SS off road. I wonder if it would be the same on road?

Or, as Guitar Ted remarked, "It would have the wrong gear for every occasion". Yeah, that could happen too.

But it would solve some things for me. It would be cheap to do. An ACS freewheel is 20 bucks. The bars I can handle...and a new stem...well, there are adapters to get a quill type stem to convert to a threadless version so I can use things I have sitting around. I have shims if need be.

It might be fun. Well it WOULD be fun, I am sure, but would it be practical? Maybe not for group rides where I would get dropped on the flats or the fast runs out of the canyons. But it could be VERY cool for long, solo or coup'la buddies-type training rides.

Of course, I may find that it simply will not work with the hardware I have. Not sure yet. If so, I will likely hang it back up and let it sit there another few months till I forget again why I hate it and wheel it out one more time. Insanity has been described as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That applies nicely to my road bike and I.

Lead to where, exactly?

2011-02-17T18:20:00.000-08:00

I was recently alerted to a 'think piece' (not sure if it is an editorial as it is not credited) in the April 2011 issue of Mountain Bike Action magazine, page 20, (may not be on the stands yet) that is titled "Lead Instead of Follow". I will not try to copy all the text here, but I have to comment on what I think is a poorly thought-out and misguided proposal.

The basic idea is that, due to the great strides made in technology on MTBs, and specifically the longer travel 'downhill' bikes, it has allowed them to be ridden beyond the typical trail conditions that the average MTB can handle. This has encouraged illegal trail cutting on public lands in order to keep the thrill level up, being that the typical user friendly trail is "not fun to ride" on a DH (Downhill Bike). So, in order to police ourselves, we should allow enlightened individuals to decide what just exactly a DH bike is and then mandate that a head tube badge or label be affixed on the bike to declare it fit only for racing courses or dedicated DH trails. We are urged to do this before the guv'mint does it for us.

Seriously?

I want to touch on a few specific points and respond.

Certainly technology has enabled bicycles to be ridden in terrain that is far beyond what would have been survivable (or practical at least) just a few years ago. I can see how that type of capability can lead one to look 'off course' for terrain that gives the rider an adrenaline shot. That happened when the typical Jeep 4x4 trail rig grew into a tube chassis rock buggy and drivers were emulating the comp guys on public lands.
The article makes a statement that the issue arising from this is not user conflicts on multi-use trails (as DH bikes are not ridden there...too boring basically), but rather it is individuals creating new and un-authorized trails that give them a hard-core experience. In response to this trail building, land managers will react by closing trails to all MTBs regardless of the type of bike it is.
So it is upon our shoulders to label these 'type' of bikes appropriately so that they will be...well, not sure exactly...labeled as for competition only or for dedicated DH trails only, etc.
This will keep the government from making those decisions for us.

There is more, but that is the gist of it. So let me think about this a bit. For certain, technology has leapt forward to where the modern MTB has great brakes, suspension, tires, etc, and is strong and amazing in what it can do in the hands of a good rider. But just how do you decide what is a DH bike for Comp only? Is it bigger brakes than 'normal'? Bigger tires than 'normal'? Slacker angles, slammed saddle, shorter stems, wider bars? Is it 6" of travel? 7"? 8"? I have seen guys riding terrain on a hardtail with a stout fork that I could not ride on a Knolly big bike. Is that a DH bike now, a HT with a 120mm fork and beefy rims? Is it what it can do or what it 'is'?

The author suggests that the govt cannot be trusted to accurately label a DH bike, nor can the manufacturer or the Land Access agency (IMBA, etc). Rather, it should be judged by a jury of its peers; folks who show up for trail building sessions and grassroots MTB efforts. Well, I am qualified then, based on my past experience, to label your DH bike as not suitable for public use on open trails. Do you want me doing that? My "definition and identification" of what is a DH bike would not agree with others just as qualified. I guarantee it. Who decides who is on that panel of Illuminati? What standards do they use? I have to disagree with the statement in the text that it would be a "not too difficult task". Pretty grey area.

Who enforces this new exclusionary ruling? Will there be a ranger standing at the trailhead looking for labels? Then what? If 150mm of travel is too much, can I reduce the travel on my fork and be OK to ride? There is no way to enforce it, and if there was, what is the penalty? A fine? What? Is there a code for this? We have enough rules and laws now that cannot be enforced. Will you be the one to tell me that I cannot pedal my DH bike down a flat trail with my family just because I want to ride it (even if it is not "fun"). Trust me...somewhere, someone will take this as a 'qualified' reason to keep you off a public land somewhere. I mean, "can't you read the label, son?" "Says right there that this bike is only for...yada yada..."

Will the bike makers want to market something that I cannot ride down a normal trail or dirt road, but only on a race course or dedicated trail? How many riders live near one of those? Who can make them put the badge on the bike when it rolls of the factory floor? Congress? Can a dealer sell one and be held responsible for it being improperly used?

A label like this only benefits the lawyers. Think that some trial lawyer would not love to represent the 'victim' of a multi-use trail user conflict that was harmed at the hands of a rider on a bike labeled 'for competition only or dedicated DH trails"? Oh yeah. Payday.

So then we are expected to believe that land managers will respond to all this 'responsible thinking' on our parts and rise up to build us dedicated DH trails. Create a need and fill it, I suppose. What a vision. I am skeptical. The bikes already exist. The trails do not, for the most part. A label will not change that as far as I can see any more than labeling a street motorcycle the same way would result in road courses being paved in the town near you.

"What is the alternative?", it asks in the end of the article? Well, as always, it just comes down to responsible behavior. That, common sense, and courtesy. And you cannot legislate that.

We have too many labels already.

Redemption.

2011-02-14T15:02:00.000-08:00

Saturday's ride was all about redemption. The last Ramble Ride darn near destroyed me, both physically and emotionally. The two rides during the week that followed were uninspiring to say the least. To say the most, it had me wondering if the party was over. As you get older, you wonder when the bell will ring signaling the call to take up the walker. I wonder what a 29er walker looks like? I bet the bigger wheels are better on sidewalk cracks.

Even Senior citizens like big wheels.

Well, maybe not quite that, but an aching back, lead legs, and pretty much zilch for zip had me wondering.

So this Sat's ride was a bit of the known and some unknown as I was scouting out the next Ramble Ride. The first loop is a 20 mile section of the forest that climbs for 10 miles on a mix of fireroad and singletrack and it is not an easy putt. It is one of my favorite rides, but it tests you. I have several bikes I could pick from at the moment, but I chose the steel singlespeed that I am testing. Why? Well, for one, I have yet to spend quality time with it. This ride absolutely is all that and more. For another, I love riding my SS and this one is my favorite yet. And finally, it would be harder that way. I had something to prove to myself, I guess.

I needed to know whether or not I should be walker shopping.

And, I am happy to report, I can postpone my walker for another day. I felt strong all day and rode like the hills did not matter. I restored my faith in my abilities and proved once again that I absolutely love riding a singlespeed 29er, especially a steel one.

So here is a toast to long climbs, narrow, acorn covered singletracks, simple steel bikes, and one gear. And lift your glass a second time to postponing the inevitable...keeping the walker at bay for a little bit longer.

More carbon fiber thoughts: Going Above and Beyond

2011-02-10T11:50:00.000-08:00

So, if you have a material and a way of using it that can bring tremendous creative and engineering choices to the table...such as unique shapes, fiber alignments, 'butting' or wall thickness profiles, 'tuned' ride characteristics, etc...at a level that is very difficult with a metal construction, why just stop at a frame that is normal in every way but the weight to strength ratio?

That thought came to mind as I was riding the CF Breezer Cloud 9 Pro that is on test at 29".com. It is light, it is quite stiff laterally, it rides reasonably well, and seems to do what it was intended to do. But can it be more? It is, after all, just a hardtail.

Look at this bike for instance: The Chiru Pulse 29er CF HT being talked about here.

Copied from TNI.com -

"Chiru Bikes founder, Pierre Arnaud, tells us that “The specifics of a Chiru bike is Comfort, Power transfer, and Reliability. We have specifically worked on the comfort of the PULSE, the seat stays design enables to filter high frequency vibrations from rugged trails.” Here are some bullet points on the frame….
-Asymetrical chain stay for optimum power transfer
-Carboflex 50 seat stay for high frequency vibration filtering.
-Multistandard bottom Bracket- (Fits 68 mm Bottom Bracket, fits GXP, BB30, PRESS FIT, Excentric BB for single speed)
-Tapered Headset compatible
-Handle bar protection plate
-Anti derailling device (This device is under development, the eyelet to fit it can be seen on the down tube )"

What caught my eye was the seatstay design and the goal of tuning the ride to be absorbent beyond a normal HT bike. Will it succeed? I don't know, but I applaud the attempt. It seems to me that with all the lauded bennies of CF that exploring this type of compliant 'tuned ride' is well worth the trouble.

When you hear someone say that a frame rides well or is compliant...what that means is, while some materials do not transfer high freq vibrations and have natural 'damping' qualities, CF being that material (although it also makes it feel a bit wooden and dead...hence the lively ride of steel, etc), compliance is flex. The frame is 'giving' in response to some force acting upon it.

There is good flex and bad flex. Bad flex is a frame that will not hold a line or cannot keep the wheels in line under hard riding. That sucks up energy and handles poorly. But good flex can make a bike feel like a living thing on the trail, something that well made steel bikes have in spades. SO the trick is having the right amount of flex...or...the right KIND of flex to get the result you want.

The Giant alu HT I have IMO rides a bit softer than the CF Breezer...it is a small difference, but it is there. That is nice to sit on. But I can get that rear end on that alu frame to twist like Chubby Checker, and not in a good way. The price paid? Likely so. That steel SS I am on trumps them all...it is just smoove...but it is heavier than the CF frame by 3lbs. That is a lot of grams. And it pedals quite well, but not at the level that the CF frame does.

Truth be told, a well designed, round, butted tube is pretty hard to beat all around, but it sure seems that it is no match for the complex shapes and profiles of CF frames. So when I see something like this Chiru, it makes me think that CF has hopes of going beyond just being lighter and stronger and stiffer, but actually noticeably smoother and lighter and stiffer and stronger too.

I want it all. But can I have it my way with a CF bike, or is that just limited to Burger King?

"hold the pickles, hold the lettuce..."

I still think that at some point, the ultimate soft tail will come out of this that will give me all that I want and I think that design will finally be made the better mousetrap because of CF and what it can do. But until then, I wonder if Chiru is on the path to the better "firm tail"?

Is Carbon Fiber the answer?

2011-02-08T08:49:00.000-08:00

And if so, what are the questions?

I have been a bit of a CF (carbon fiber) skeptic, based mostly on past performance and some recent performance of one brand of bike in particular. But a recent conversation with a bike company owner that is making inroads into CF frames and components was interesting in the absolute statements in the discussion. He said that a well built CF frame will last waaaay past the life span of an alu frame of the same type. Not just as good or maybe as good, but speaking to failure related to fatigue cycles...and that is the typical killer of alu frames...CF was so far beyond that as to be impossible to break due to just pedaling it to death. Basically, the thought here is that it is beyond the ability of a human powered motor to ride it long enough and hard enough to get beyond the fatigue failure point. Then we looked at a new CF handlebar they have coming to market and he said basically that the CF bar was so much stronger than the alu version that it was just off the charts....lighter, too.

Now taking crash damage out of the equation, that is a pretty strong statement and came as a response to my musing that I like a metal frame because I tend to keep my bikes a long time. The reply was, in that case, that CF is the material of choice for guys like me too and not just a one season, race day frame.

Now, like any material that bike frames are made from, the devil is in the details. Just because it is glue and cloth stuck together does not make it Kryptonite. His comment was assuming a well engineered and well built frame that did not try to be the lightest and/or cheapest thing out there on the market. If there is any one of the materials that require intense QC, it is CF. They all look good on the outside, but the insides are where it all comes together. The way the bladder works to keep wall thickness and shape correct, the quality and alignment/layering of the cloth, the heat applied, etc. And I am a complete novice and may have not gotten even the terms right, but just about anyone can pick up a dozen sticks of steel and get a reliable steel frame. Even alu is easy. Just keep it to thick pieces of tubes, stick it in an oven, and it will do fine, pretty much. Ti is a bit trickier.

So there really seems to be a minimum standard here. Remember the old adage: "Light, Cheap, Strong...pick two."? That really seems to apply to CF over any other material. It sure can be light. I am riding a CF Breezer 29er HT in an XL size and the frame weight is purported to be 2.5lbs. Wow! It also pedals like nothing else I have ridden that was not CF. According to the previously mentioned bike company owner (and others), it sure can be strong, if they are to be believed. I was talking to a buddy that works for Ibis Cycles and I asked him how CF has been for them as far as warranty or failure on the well liked Mojo and Tranny bikes. He just flat out said it is not an issue and they rarely see a failure, even under very hard riding conditions. Sure, stuff breaks, but they have no more and likely fewer issues than if they were making alu versions. Their frames are not cheap, but they are lasting and lasting.

Another thing I hear from product mangers is how CF will never get that much cheaper due to the high level of labor and time involved in making it. It is easy to pop out thousands of expanded 'beer can' alu frames one right after another and robot weld them in fixtures. CF is hand made for the most part. And, since I want my CF to last and NOT break, I am sure looking for a builder who had someone perform the due diligence of proper engineering and QC all along the creative process. I also assume that all that QC attention takes time and money. That leads me back to the adage of "...pick two".

Most of the CF is coming out of China. And now, direct to the consumer from the manufacturer, are CF frames that are are light and cheap...really cheap. Some of that cheap is from eliminating the middle man...I get that, but ya gotta wonder who is looking out for the end user here? Ibis is looking out for the Ibis bike buyer. Niner is looking out for the Niner bike buyer...Specialized, Giant, Breezer, etc. Who is looking out for you from the China-Direct factory? Will they answer the phone, and if so, what would you say? Can you talk to the product manger? Scary? Maybe so. Time will tell.

However, if the cheapy CF frames do hit all three of the points in that adage, then watch the big dog's prices fall on CF frames. They will have to just to keep the informed enthusiast on board.

But, I digress. I still love my steel SS. It is not costly, it is smooth riding, fun, and will last for years. But this new CF frame I am on is impressive. It rides very well, not quite like the steely, but not harsh at all. It is at LEAST 2 lbs lighter. That is a lot. It pedals like nothing in steel can do, IMO. Crazy responsive and just rock solid at the BB. It has shapes that can be tweaked to get just what the designer wants in the way of performance. And, as long as I do not punch a rock through a tube or chain suck it to death, it may outlive me. I bet it will outlast the alu HT frame I have 10-1 based on the amount of flex in the alu frame I see and it is probably lighter still. Flex kills alu.

Crazy. And hard to ignore. I already would prefer a good CF h-bar. I trust them. I sure see the bennies of a CF frame (I can't imagine racing anything else but CF) and a may yet come to trust them.

So, I still have questions. But more and more, CF is providing the answers.

When you really want to bring it all with you...

2011-02-07T19:51:00.000-08:00

I bet it even has a Starbucks coffee holder.....somewhere.

San Fran Ramble post mortem.

2011-02-06T20:11:00.000-08:00

Sat was a stunning day in February. It was the kind of weather that 3/4s of the US would like to have but does not. And on that note, 11 brave souls struck out for the 2nd Ramble Ride, the San Fran Ramble, so named for the way it criss-crossed San Francisquito Cyn. We staged out of Castaic.


JeffJ gearing-up. It was a clyde friendly day.

My ride for the day...the Breezer Cloud 9 carbon 29er.

I was uncertain of the exact mileage, but I expected it to be over 30 and under 40. I got that right...barely...sort of. I also figured on 4-5 hours to complete. Missed that pretty much completely, but it was a friendly pace. I like to make Ramble Rides 'no-drop' events if possible. The route began on the local backyard trails and roads and kept climbing for another 6 miles or so on fireroad. That was a bit of an energy sucker as it dropped nearly as much as it gained and by the time we found our connector road to the next section, we had lost 3 riders to time constraints.

And then there were 8.

Typical So Cal ridgeline fireroad.

A bit of pavement brought us to the next climb. This bit of uphill was made easier by the paved surface and is a Dept of Water and Power access road. It climbs above the site of the St Francis Dam disaster, one of the worst calamities on California history. We were a good couple of hours into the day at this point and about a third of the way along.


Road work.

Gates in So Cal have a hard life.

At the top, we re-grouped at a small reservoir. Everyone was still feeling pretty good, myself included, so the pace was moderate and conversation was happy. One cool surprise was the appearance of KT the Man, and old friend and super MTB rider. He was the pace leader for the day.

The Magnificent 7...KT the Man makes 8>>>

KT the Man is also a scoff law. Caught in the act.

A few more miles of easy climbing into a wide valley brought us to the high point of the day and let us enjoy a motorcycle built singletrack that rolled and dipped across whoopdies and loose rock, taking us back parallel to the way we had entered. That connected to one more section of singletrack, this one even better. It followed a ridge line and was quite fast and narrow, having taken the shape of a tiny bobsled run from years of moto use. It really was the best part of the ride, fun wise.

JeffJ, grinning and riding.

Sometimes you really did not want to turn right. On the edge of a biiig drop.

I was noticing that I was beginning to feel a bit tired here. My back was getting a bit beat up from the hardtail and a very stiff seatpost. I was out of any kind of performance drink, so I was running on just water and Elete. Some of the group was running strong though. I had always wondered how Kevin did it...he always looks good, always is fast, and seems, well, more than a mere mortal. Then, as we were watching, something amazing happened. Jeff was taking some pics as Kevin took a classic Greek pose.

Looking very manly, but....

Then...it happened. The clouds swirled in. The sky darkened a bit and the true nature of the man was revealed. Behold, Hermes the winged messenger of the gods. Ahhhh...that explains a lot. Kevin has a new name.

The truth is revealed.

At this point, KT the Man took us a bit off the intended path. I asked him if he was sure that this trail converged to the main road. "I am positively sure", said he. He has such a trusting face. How could I say no?

You know how sometimes you just know you are going the wrong way? Yep. But why does it always seem that you go the wrong way downhill! This was a fun hill to go down. Not so fun to go back up.

What goes down in error, sometimes goes right back up in misery.

Back in town, and back on the right path, we stopped off to re-supply at a stop-and-snack. We were about 36 miles into it by now and had been going for over 4 hours. JeffJ was having back issues and called for the SAG wagon. I was not much better, having been beaten into submission by the Marquis De Sade seatpost and CF hardtail. We pretty much took over the front of the store. Sorry about that.


Still bravely smilin'. The worst was yet to come.

From here, we hit a couple of miles of pavement and then turned off onto a dirt road that I knew existed, but had never been on. It connected to the local trail network we began the day on. I don't know what the bulldozer driver had in mind when he graded this road, but it was not providing a gentle grade for tired mountain bikers. Man, it had me off the bike and pushing. It was then I knew I was failing slowly but surely. I was out of gas, flat...broken...frammeled. My back muscles were completely peeved at me and even pushing was difficult. I was even fighting leg cramps, something that hardly ever happens anymore. I was very glad to have a 22/36 on this bike. A 20/38 would have been nice.

Finally I made it to the singletracks that we began on, but I was in so much pain, I could barely navigate the creekbed. Every bump shot arrows through my back and I was whining like a little girl.

Finally we were back with right at 40 miles and 5 3/4 hours under our belts. I made a couple of errors. I have not been on any longer rides lately, mostly just after work night stuff....nothing over 3 hours. I was thinking I could get by with basically just water and electrolytes and I really do run better on some kind of performance drink like Carborocket. I also underestimated that last bit of ridiculously steep trail by the water tank...the Trail of Tears...The Bataan Death March...Armageddon.

Well, OK, I am sure with fresh legs it ain't no biggie, but I was waaaaay past fresh. I was firmly on the day-old rack like a bit of stale bagels. KT the Man rode up it like it was flat. He rocks. Even Hermes pushed. I guess having wings on your helmet is not all that it is cracked up to be, huh big guy?

It was a great day on the bikes, the company was stellar...not one whiner among them...and the trails were just for us to enjoy. We never saw another soul once we left the local loop.

What is next? Not sure, but I am enjoying the Ramble Ride idea. I guess it is time to get out the maps and plan Ramble #3.

High Fiber Diet

2011-02-02T07:50:00.000-08:00

Mmmmmm...tasty and so good for you, too.

Single Minded.

2011-01-30T20:48:00.000-08:00

The last week was full to the top and overflowing with early mornings, long days, and packed schedules. Saturday was a 04:00 to 21:00 hour day. No rest for the weary.

But Sunday. Sunday was a quiet morning. Breakfast cereal. Devotions and contemplation. Then wool. It was a morning for wool, singlespeeds, and singletrack. And a single minded pursuit of pedaling over God's earth as it prepared for rain.

Ramble Ride #2

2011-01-27T11:18:00.000-08:00

A while back I came up with an idea. It floated to the surface of my brain like the triangle in the Magic 8 Ball (look it up) and there it was. Ramble Ride. The idea of a Ramble Ride, to recap, was to string together a series of smaller rides into a bigger loop that includes some bike path or road work to connect the dots, then schedule in a twinkie stop at a watering hole. Pace is friendly. Ramble Rides are 'No-Drop' rides.

Sounds innocent enough, but the Sierra Pelona Ramble #1 is deceptively hard. 36 miles and enough climbing to work ya. I was looking for another route for #2 and I had 75% of it figured, but I could not connect it up. Then, recently a buddy led a ride onto some private property he had access to. At the end of the ride, which ended up on National Forest land, I ended up discovering a road that I thought had been lost to a housing development. I had ridden it years ago, but now, finding it to be still there opened up a route to complete the loop. Oh Baby! The Ramble Ride #2 is on!

I love the concept. It takes some creativity, lets you get some bigger rides by stringing together the combos, and feels more social with the snack stop, etc. I think this one will be around 35 miles too, but will not have a ton of elevation gain. It re-connects me to some old stomping grounds, lets the new folks see more bits of the countryside, and gives me something to look forward to.

Even before I have this one ridden I am thinking about Ramble Ride #3. Fun stuff.

Tom Ritchey: Faith, compassion, bikes, and coffee

2011-01-21T09:40:00.000-08:00

Don't know much about Project Rwanda? Or the character of the man who began the project? One of the founding father's of MTBs talks about forgiveness, compassion, opportunity, and the power of the eternal, human soul.

http://projectrwanda.org/news/tom-ritchey-pedaling-home

I need to meet that man someday. God bless ya, TR.

PS: The Timbercomp rocked.

Baggies or no Baggies?

2011-01-20T07:45:00.000-08:00

That is the question. Whether tis nobler to wear the skin tight lycra or drape on da' bags? Hmmm. About 3 years ago I traded in my lycra for baggies and since then, I have worn either a combo short/baggy or a separate short/board short thingie instead of just the regular old lycra riding short.

I came to love the pockets, not so much to carry things while I ride, but just to put my car keys in, cell phone, etc as I am putting around after and before a ride. And, the extra protection is kinda nice for brushy trails or falling down.

But there have been a few times that I would default back to just lycra for whatever reason and something would tickle my brain a bit, something just at the edges of my sub-conscious...I felt faster without the bags on.

Huh.

So, for most of this fall/winter I rode in nothing else but the most excellent set of bib knickers that I had ever worn...see more here...and just recently, with some Jan temps in the high 70s, I slid into some short/baggy combos and went riding. Ahh....hmmm...I felt...well, dowdy. There is a word for ya.

Do bag ladies ride MTBs? Not sure. I felt less than sleek. I felt cumbersome and not fast. Now I doubt I was actually slower, but who wants to feel slower, regardless?

This may take some adjustments to my kit and I doubt it will be cheap. Used baggies, anyone? Sightly worn by a bag lady on a bike. Bottle not included.

Musings on Running a Bluff and Gunfighting

2011-01-12T08:56:00.000-08:00

For some strange reason, I have gotten a reputation in the local area as a fast guy on a bike, something I find very amusing, cuz I am anything but that. First off, I never was fast, even when I was young, and now that I am getting older, I am certainly not going to change that much. So I am not sure where this comes from, but I think many of the young guns that I ride with are just too new to know what really fast is. So, for now I am running a big bluff. Call it MTB Poker, if you will. The cards I am holding may not be a winning hand, but I am crafty, sneaky, experienced, and downright dishonest as to what I may or may not have up my sleeve. No short sleeve jerseys for me...I need all the 'luck' I can get.

So I will continue the game as long as I can, hoping that a good poker face and a carefree disposition will keep 'em wondering. And, every so often I will get a winning hand as the fates allow. Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while, ya' know. That lucky hand, a singlespeed, and the mean look in my eyes will have to do to keep the young guns from calling my bluff. It proved itself for many a grizzled and bent cowboy in the past and they only had one gear on them horses too.

Riding a singlespeed has a tremendous psychological effect on the young guns. It makes them wonder what you have tucked away in the waist belt that is just under that long coat of yours. It worked for Clint Eastwood...it works for me. Just imagine showing up to a gunfight with a single shot pistol. It makes an impression: "I only need need one bullet to kill you", it says. Hah. Gotta love that. Even if I am not quick to the draw, I have the emotional edge going into the fight.

You just know that Wyatt Earp was a singlespeeder. Look at that handlebar 'stache and steely eyed look.

Wyatt Earp March 19, 1848--January 13, 1929

"Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything."
Wyatt Earp

Amen, brother Earp. Amen.

Information Is Power and the Race to the Bottom

2011-01-11T11:20:00.000-08:00

A recent event on a 29er based website was amazing to watch. A press release went out about a new carbon fiber bike frame from Europe. The pricing reflected a premium product, near $1800.00. Two years ago, that would have been a marketable price, though still high, but CF 29er frames were priced at that level for the most part, if you could get them at all.

Then, over that last year, something changed all that. There are not many places where a CF bike is made. Pretty much all of them are overseas/Asia and a lot of that is now in China. Aside from the major players like Specialized, Giant, Trek, etc, who may have special arrangements and proprietary molds/specs/designs, basically anyone with a checkbook and a marketing plan can ring up China and order their own branded CF frames. How many do ya' want?

Now that is still not all that remarkable, but what happened next is...the Chinese factories began offering these CF frames direct to the end user for a very cheap price. It was not at all unusual to see a frame that was identical down to the frame bosses, etc, offered for a third of the cost of the original frame as was sold by the company that developed the CF frame initially. This could be the EXACT same frame...or maybe not, but it was something that I am not sure that bike companies expected. Now I have not seen a complete copy of a Specialized Stumpjumper Carbon S works and I doubt you ever will. But if you were the kind of small to mid size company that shopped from the catalog of CF frames that were somewhat pre-designed and expected to have a certain profit margin in that product, you may just have the composite rug pulled right out from under you.

That brings up the original mention of the thread about the Swiss offered CF frames and what happened there. The post was made, the readers let out a collective guffaw at the inflated cost over what was offered here for a huge discount, and the raspberries rang out over the innerweb. The challenge was thrown out to the company marketing the Swiss bike..."tell me why I should pay that much for what looks to me to be the SAME product?" Good question.

Lesson number one: "Information is power". The internet empowers the consumer in ways that companies are struggling to keep up with and anticipate. The end result of this example? The Swiss bike will be re-priced before it is even launched. Wow. That is remarkable.

Lesson number two: "The Race to the Bottom" has begun. And, I am not so sure that is a good thing. Follow along here for a minute. A bike company spends money and resources to develop a CF frame and have it manufactured by a Chinese company. They expect a certain financial result from their efforts. Customers enjoy a quality frame with a proven warranty and or dealer network with support in case of any issues. The pricing of the product reflects all this assumed cost and all is well.

Now the Chinese (in this case, anyway) begins selling what looks like a very similar product both in style and performance for a 50 to 70 percent discount direct to the consumer. It may not be the same frame. Was the product cheapened in any way? How much QC was actually put into this? No one knows for sure. But that cheap price will entice many to buy them anyway. Now the consumer is empowered and the other companies will have to prove their worth to justify the increased cost of their offerings, but if they cannot forecast a reasonable enough profit to make it worth their while, they may just pass on developing anything further. Now the consumer still can buy a cheaper frame, but do the smaller companies still offering the CF stuff have the resource dollars to continually refine the product?

Not likely. That is not good for the consumer.

Race to the bottom=Walmart CF bikes? Shudder!

Will it happen that way? Maybe not. Maybe the quality will be very high for all those bargain bin frames. But I always remember something an engineer for a very significant American company told me after they had exported all the technology and intelligence to Asia for their manufacturing: "They (the Chinese) have no trash cans." Meaning? Well, what we may reject for our standards is just fine for you to buy directly from the 'Perfect Joyous Butterfly' factory in the Land of the Dragon.

And, if the cheap frames begin failing and the customer experience is not that high after all, and the cost of improving that requires an increase in costs to make up for that...we will likely see an upswing in pricing from the direct sellers too.

Either way, what once was looked at as a 'premium' product...that being a CF MTB frame...will never be the same now and may just become a commodity to the lowest bidder.

New bikepacking gear: A 'Layered' Shelter approach

2011-01-04T20:54:00.000-08:00

I wanted to re-do my shelter for the next season, so I have been spending tons of time on the inner-web trying to come to terms with what I wanted to end up with. Right now I have a very nice REI single person UL tent that is very good at what it does....keeping me out of the elements without weighing too much. It is a very secure, quite comfy (but not expansive), 3 season tent. It has an inner wall section of mostly mesh that clips/hangs under a pole arrangement, and a storm fly goes over that combo. But, there are some things that bug me.

If I want to have any sense of full protection from precipitation, I needed to pack the storm fly. In fact, even if I want much wind buffering, I need to do the same. So, even though it seems tempting to just pack the inner layer (mostly netting with a floor) and the tent poles, I tend to hesitate for high mountain trips, even in summer. In the spring and fall, the winds can really rip down our local canyons. So I end up with the whole shebang, even if I do not end up needing the storm fly.
The same amount of insulation from the elements also insulates me from the outdoors I chose to spend time in. How could I get to more of an 'open' feeling without just laying out in the open?
I would like to trim weight and gain some overall packing efficiency. That whole tent deal nearly takes up my entire CDW seat bag and part of my bar bag.
I wanted to add some flexibility. You know how the concept of layering works so well for clothing? Well, I wanted to have that kind of layering kit for shelter as well. From a desert summer night to a high mtn spring day, I wanted to be able to tailor the kit to meet the needs of the ride.

So, I thought and read and compared and thought and came to a four piece arrangement that hopefully will do what I want for nearly any situation while bikepacking.

Tarp
Bivy sack
Bug Net
My current 50 degree UL bag and a warmer option I am still working on, perhaps a UL quilt to be homemade one way or another.

The tarp as a shelter is as old as fabric, I bet, and is a very smart way to get out of the elements. The new silnylon, caternary cut tarps are light, tight, and versatile. The best thing about a tarp, besides the light weight, is the ability to remain connected with the outdoors yet still be covered up a bit. They ventilate well and can be lowered to be storm friendly if need be. They are roomy, too. The bad things? Well, there are no floors or complete protection from the elements, so crawly things can get ya'. You can pitch them against the wind, as long as the wind does not shift around and blow into the opening that tarps typically have. You need to stake them out and tie them down effectively or they will suck. My tent is the same every time...no brainer to set up, even without tent stakes.
Tarps are not cheap. You can get a budget tent cheaper than a really good tarp.

A bivy sack is basically just a shell that looks like a sleeping bag without the insulation. It is a barrier between you and the elements with your sleeping bag or quilt inside. As simple as it gets, the appeal is in the minimal weight and complete protection for the crawlies and the elements without hauling a tent around. Many racers, like in the Great Divide Race, will just roll out a bivy sack and sleeping bag and deal with the tight confines and potential for condensation. You are not gonna' change clothes inside one very easily, so get used to baring your skivvies as you dress yourself. If you are claustrophobic, it may not be for you. They also tend to 'rain' inside with condensation build up, depending on how well they ventilate or what fabric they are made from. Some of them are over 200 bucks as well.

A bug net works great with a tarp as either a drape or an enclosure. I plan on making a net enclosure for use under the tarp for summer use in hotter weather and leaving the bivy at home.

I already have the 500gram UL bag that is pretty good down to 50-ish degrees (and below with clothing or a liner, etc). I need to decide on whether a quilt is for me or not, and if so, I think I will make one, either from synthetic insulation and sewn fabric, or from taking a budget, down sleeping bag and converting it. I want to get comfy into the mid to high 30s as far as temps. No snow camping for me.

So far I have added two pieces of gear:

The Tarp - The Integral Designs Sil-Shelter. It was on sale at REI for $99.00, regularly $140.00, so that was a good price. It does require a pole on the inside to support it (unless you are under a tree...not likely for me in my area) but it is roomy and has a 'door' of sorts so I can get more windbreak out of this than most tarps. We shall see. I still need to get a ground tarp and some cord to stake it out, and then get a lightweight center pole. That is one thing about tarps as well...they seem really light until you add the ground cloth, stakes, cord, etc, then they get close in weight and pack size to an UL tent. Still, they offer a much more open camping feeling that no traditional tent can match and I think I will shed about a pound of overall weight with the bivy and tarp combo...even more with the bug net and no bivy.

The bivy was an REI product as well. At $90.00, it seems to get good reviews and has a mesh panel over the face, preventing you from feeling toooo enclosed...I hope. It comes in a 'tall' size and has two zippered vents on the sides. If I really want to travel fast and light, I could use this and my 1 pound UL bag and it would all fit in a big hydration pack.

For now that is it. I will look at making the bug net and the quilt (if I decide I want a quilt at all). I think it is a good start on the path to a 'layered' approach to a bikepacking shelter system. When I get it all figured out, I will highlight it here and on The Cyclist Site in the Bikepacking Series section, weigh things, etc. Then, the best part....trying it out!