2008 Highlights: It's the People, Stupid

Someone once said that "It is the economy, stupid". That is fine, I suppose. But we as bike nuts can be all twitterpated about the latest blingy bike gear or the next great ride. But when it is all said and done and the shiny bike parts are no longer shiny and the next ride is just that...another ride, you realize that what it is really all about is the people in your life, and in this case, your cycling life, that make it all worthwhile.

I met some great folks this year and remade some old acquaintances. But one new person for 2008 has been a real blessing to meet and get to know, even if it is at a distance.




Guitar Ted, international man of mystery. From that fated meeting at the Salsa booth at the 2008 I-Bike to today's relationship as writer-editor, it has been a blast getting to know GT in all his cycling wisdom and knowledge.

I hope that some day we will meet again and ride some gravel road, some singletrack, or just pedal down the street somewhere. Whatever it is, it will be another chapter in what really matters with all this bike stuff.

Bike people.

And that is the final highlight for 2008. May you have a prosperous and happy 2009.

2008 Highlights: Epic/Classic rides

While it may seem like this is just like the Road Trip blog entry, it is different. You can Road Trip to a riding location and have a great time but not do any world class rides. However an Epic and /or Classic ride is one of those routes that folks talk about in excited tones. Mere mention of the ride brings nodding heads and murmurs of agreement out of a group of mountain bikers.

Trail 409, Crested Butte

Porcupine Rim, Moab

Flume Trail, Tahoe

Downieville downhill

WRIAD, Virgin Rim, Colorado Trail, Kokopelli, etc.

Iy may be because of the way it hurts you real bad when you attempt it or it could be that it is so scenic or historical that it deserves the epic/classic moniker. Or it could be the way it has its groove on and how it just simply flattens you with how good it feels to ride it.

If I had to pick one ride this year it would be Thunder Mountain trail in the Red Cliffs area of Southern Utah. Not that long or difficult, it is a 15ish mile loop that takes you through some of the best red rock countryside in town. Smooth, sinuous, sexy and downright fun, the trail will challenge all to get in the groove and flow, baby, flow. The last 2 or 3 miles just may be the most fun I have had on a bike in recent memory...heck, maybe distant memory.

Thunder Mtn. Epic/Classic ride of 2008

2008 Highlights: Single Speeds

"...One Gear to rule them all, One Gear to find them,
One Gear to bring them all and in the darkness bind them..."

Very loosely taken from the Lord of the Rings, with apologies to Mr Tolkien, Gandalf, Frodo, and Middle Earthers' everywhere.

Gears were invented to make cycling better. They allow us to compensate for uphills, downhills, headwinds, steep and gnarly climbs and tired legs. Mountain biking without 27 gears is silly. It would show we have not evolved. It is stupid. It is hard. It is also fun, challenging and addicting.

Just like that Ring of Power, it kinda calls to you and whispers things into your ear. "Come to me and pedal. One gear is all you need. One gear of power. One gear of fun." Your friends will not hear it at first. As time goes by, some will join you on your quest. Some will never understand and as they see the hardened body, the far away look in your eyes and the spittle dried on your chin from the last heart crushing climb, they will be afraid. They will run away from the power of the One Gear.

But not you. You will hold it closely, keep it safe, keep it secret. The One Gear of Power.

My Precious.

2008 Highlights: Road Trip

All packed up with someplace to go.


I love road trips. I have a goal to do at least one a year to ride somewhere new. This year I had planned to head to the Brian Head area of southern Utah and get on some of the stuff like Thunder Mtn or part of the Virgin Rim trail. Then, an offer came up to head to Moab with a group of slickrock newbies. They had never been there, I had, so I was the de-facto tour leader. I had one condition in going, and that was that I would arrange to ride as much of the Whole Enchilada ride as was practical for our group. I had never done that ride before. If that was around when I was in Moab years ago, I bet it was secret or not even blessed by the gov'mint powers that be.



So we were off and the results are here. Road trips are potentially fraught with peril and ripe for discovery. What a killer combo. Road trips get ya out of 'da hood and into new horizons, new trails, new faces. They may be across the state or across the nation, but they all promise the same thing: Come away to me and ride here. Here is where adventure begins.



It is a siren's call.



So, some advice for your own road trips:

• Do enough research to have a good time. You cannot know everything before ya go, but too much ignorance can ruin a trip before it gets going. Maps, good fitness prep, etc.


• Be flexible. Keep an open mind and be ready to change plans or modify stuff to fit the moment. We were planning on riding Gooseberry after Moab, but ended up here as a change of pace. It was a last minute thing, but it was a great decision.


• Choose your co-road trippers carefully. This is not the best time to head off into new and strange places with folks you cannot get along with or are not up to the quest in fitness or ability.

Road trips. Gotta love 'em.

2008 highlights: Good shoes

Earlier this year I finally put aside my trusty old Answer Speeders. The tread was about gone and the fabric at the toes was blown out. So, to replace them I ordered some shoes from an on-line discount store. I guess it was their house brand, but the price was right so I tried a pair. You know the old joke about the Volvo looking like the box the car came in? Well I might as well worn the box these shoes came in as wear these on a ride.

So, I eBayed the discount shoes and hoofed it over to the local bike shop. They happened to be a Specialized dealer, so I tried on a couple of pairs of the Body Geometry mountain bike shoes.



Wow. Those felt good, like someone who HAD feet actually designed them. Actually, Specialized is heavily invested into the Body Geometry concept, that being products that have a high amount of ergonomic technology in them. So basically they are supposed to fit well and feel good, along with supporting the foot and relieving hot spots and unwanted pressure points, etc.

Well, all that aside, I like 'em. They have been consistently comfy and seem to be wearing well. They are quite decent to hike-a-bike in with nicely agressive lugs and a more flexible footbed than the carbon racy-type shoes. These are not the high end ones designed for ultimate stiffness, put at over 100 clams, they are not cheap either. I have the 2008 version of this model.

Perfect? No. I am not too crazy about the buckles. They are kinda glitchy, not always indexing or releasing cleanly. I think I may try some dry lube on them, or, I know I can replace them with the buckles from the higher end versions of the shoes.

If anything, it made me realize the value of a good shoe. Some day I may be able to afford a really high end shoe, but for now, these are getting me down the trail just fine.

2008 highlights: GPS gizmos

I had long ago put aside any cycling computers, heart rate monitors, etc. I really did not care how far it was, how fast I went, etc. It was just me on the bike going riding. It took as long as it took and rides were measured in minutes/hours. It worked for me.

Then, completely unrelated to cycling, I bought a hand held GPS unit for family use and geocaching.

It was pretty cheap to buy and I enjoyed learning about how they worked and what you could do with them. In 2008, I began reading that many cyclists were bringing their GPS units with them on rides and downloading the data to web sites or software programs. It would spit out all kinds of numbers like distance, average speed, elevation gain/loss, heart rate (with the right GPS unit)and more and lay it out over maps like you would see on Google Earth. Now, THAT was cool. I love maps. I used to pour over old maps of the surrounding forest looking for old roads, trails, etc and planning rides.

Better than that, you could share the resulting files with others and everyone with a GPS could re-trace the rides you did. Excellent!

Unfortunately, I had chosen the wrong brand for this kind of stuff. Garmin is the king of the hill for athletic based GPS use and I had a Magellan. Many of the programs do not talk Magellan speaky. Then, I found Topofusion. A free download with option to upgrade for $, Topofusion was written by an endurance bike geek and fellow blogger and it totally rocks.

So now with Topofusion and my GPS, I am a fount of statistics and ride info. I can download a file from the net, pop it into my GPS and, along with some good maps, ride anywhere in the country with confidence. I now know how high, how far, how fast and I can lay it out on mapping software and check it all out.

Nifty.

I don't bring it on every ride. I still prefer to be pretty gadget free, but I always have the option of gathering all that info courtesy of billions of dollars of space hardware and a funny looking cell-phone-type thingy on the h-bars.