The pedaling wounded.

Well, coming back from this silly Hernia surgery has been harder than I figured.  I sure hoped to be ratcheting things back up by now, but I actually took a week off after some unexplained soreness last weekend.  So, it rained this week for the most part and made it easy to be lazy and off the bike, although I do love riding on misty days.

This Sat I will creep back in with a long bike path ride on one of the hardtails I have, then try again on Sun for a real mtn bike ride.

At about the same time, Ed the Tall twisted his knee doing some physical activity.

He was either:
A:  Running with the bulls in Pamplona
B:  Competing in the World Salsa Dancing competition in Brazil
C:  CIA stuff.  Black helicopters.  Shhhh!  Said too much already.
D:  Hiking and slipped on a rock.

Pick one ya like.  Personally, I would go for the Salsa dancing, but that is just me.  Doesn't he look suave'?  Either way, dancing injury or not,  he is less than 100% and is awaiting the medical poking and prodding to see what he did to himself.  Could this be number three in a series of ACL repairs?  I hope not for his sake.

The bummer is that Fall is some of the best riding we have.  And, we are scheduled to ride an Endurance Event in late Oct, either 45 or 70 some miles.  Hmmm...could be ugly.  How will this turn out?  Dunno.  We shall see.  One thing for sure, we are not likely to be fast by late Oct.

It makes me wonder about doing anything surgery-wise that is not an absolute necessity.  I was trying to get the repairs done before things got worse and I got older.  I imagine it will be OK in time, but I am impatient when it comes to getting back to exercising.  How DO people live a lazy, sedentary life?  Man, that would kill me.

So, if you are healthy and strong today, go do a good ride for those of us that can't.  Ed and I will appreciate it

"Brevior saltare cum deformibus mulieribus est vita", eh Ed?

Dirtbag Bikepacking: A DIY Seat Bag from a compression sack

Well, I finally got around to finishing up the project of making a bikepacking seat bag out of a readily available compression sack.   It came out fairly well, and I hope to put into use by letting friends use it on trips.  I think it could be done better and I would love to keep messing with it, but frankly, it is not worth my time, especially since I do not have a sewing machine.  If I had a hvy duty one of those, I would be more interested in V 2.0.

As it is, I do need to get on making my UL quilt to go over my UL sleeping bag.  I need to take my temp comfort zone up a bit for sleeping and I figure a UL synthetic quilt over my 50 degree bag, combined with a liner, ought to get me into the low 40s at least.

One order of Thunder and Lightning, hold the chain lube.

Last night was quite a show, both during and after a quick ride with JeffJ aka Circus Bear on a Bike.  We have been in monsoonal (monsoonish?) weather as of late.  We get very little of that in my 'hood, although the distant high deserts get it all the time, flash floods, etc.

To begin with, I was astride a new bike that I just had assembled, a 2011 Raleigh XXIX singlespeed with the Gates Carbon Drive set-up.  I am a willing skeptic in that I have been watching belt drives go through all kinds of teething issues and wondering if it will ever meet all the hype.  I hope so, cuz it is kinda cool.  More on that as time goes by.  Another thing that is new to me is a rigid fork.  OOOffff.  How do folks do that as a full time ride?  You really do have to adjust the way you ride.  I always lock out my fork when climbing and just cruising along on my SS, but will open the squoosh valve when things get fast and rough.  No way to do that here.  Lots of elbows and knees getting used here.

The frame sure feels stout and yet has a nice steel feel, but it ain't light, not at the price it sells for.  Not sure if I can live with the fork beat down, though.  I may have to run a squishy fork on there at some point.

At the high point of my ride, since I am still a bit iffy on an SS ride post-surgery, I let JeffJ top out a bit beyond me and I sat and ate some of my wife's killer oat bars.  In the northeast, there was a storm a' brewin'.  On the way home, I had seen huge anvil head clouds rising off the high desert and over the distant peaks of the backcountry.  man, I wish I was up there all bivvied up and in the middle of it.  I sat and watched lightning strike after strike, often with multiple fingers out of the clouds, dance in the darkest part of the clouds just 5 or so miles away.  Hurry up, big Jeff.  Not a place to be in a lightning storm astride a steel bike.

 

Later down the trail and out of the storm's path, we paused to watch the day wind down.  Yeah, it could have been a lot worse. JeffJ contemplates below.

Later that night and into the morning, the gods that dwell under the mountains were up late into the wee hours, bowling and drinking and gaming.  Thunder.  Oh yes, thunder...and lightning and rain.  Sweetness.  Now THAT rocks you to sleep.

More Travel Is Funner

I do not live in a place nor do I ride in such a way that I require a bunch of suspension travel on my bikes.  Heck, I will ride my hardtail SS with an 80mm fork for a while and then, when I get on the 100mm/90mm Epic 29er, it feels luxurious.  There have been some road trips that have made me wish for a bigger hit bike.  Something like Burro Down in Moab, for instance.  But most of the time, I am fine with less.

In fact, I shake my head at the guys on group rides with 6" travel 26ers. Typically I am next to them on my SS 29er...or in front of them..or running away from them.  We just do not have the trails that require that kind of machine as a rule.  SO you end up hauling it around 100% of the time for the 5% of the time you really may need the extra squish.

Silly boys. 

But, lately I have figured something out and it happened in Colorado at Keystone when I was coming down the mountain on the 2011 Speshy FSR 29er, a 130mm F/R 29er FS bike.  A word popped into my mind:  "Playful".  That was the word.  Not fast, although it is that.  Add a few extra inches of stroke to a 29er and you can go fast enough to make your eyeballs bleed.  Yes, I found myself riding maybe juuust a bit faster than I was on a 100mm travel Epic, but what I was doing was riding differently.  I was pre-loading the suspension and lifting off of jumps in the trail.  I was zooming around berms and launching off of roots into rocky sections that would give me pause on the other bikes of the day.

I was playing more.  I was smiling a bit more too.  How 'bout that?  Is that why those guys ride those 6" bikes when they don't need them?  Have I been the 'less is more' Grinch?  Am I missing something?

So I came to a conclusion.  I do not really NEED a bigger travel 29er even though it is a good quiver bike.  The guys that ride those AM 26ers on our 2 hour XC loops don't need them either.  But it may be possible that they are grinning more than I am when riding.  Can't have that.

I don't want to get to the point where I am masking a lack of skills with big forks, brakes and tires.  I think that happens too often when someone buys into the 'bigger is better' deal.  I have said so in no uncertain terms.  And I do have a reputation to uphold as a pedal hardened, crusty old curmudgeon. Big suspension? Phaa! Lots of gears? Meh! On trail I am expected to look like Clint Eastwood squinting into the sun just before he guns you down in the dust.  Ever see Clint grin?  Nah.

The man, on a happy day.  He must ride a Brooks saddle.

So, to see if I am missing out here, an FSR 29er frameset is headed my way, and parts are being assembled and acquired.  I will likely take it on a road trip if winter permits to get it into its element on a bigger trail, but this hardened old XC guy is going to ride the local stuff too, perhaps grinning like a Cheshire Cat.  I figure that if I am in the lead, no one will know.  You know that Clint smiled when his back was turned....after he gunned 'em down, of course.