Killer bicycle ride

I am once again recovering from a twenty-four hour stint on Labor and Delivery – oh joy! But, as per usual, I have the payoff of getting the next day off, and I have used it well.

I didn’t bother mentioning it before, but as it is germane to the current topic…

Toward the end of my last training ride I was headed in a general homeward direction and decided to hit some singletrack that I haven’t ridden for quite some time. It was great! It wound around through the hills until connecting into the top of the “switchbacks” trail that I ride almost every time I go out. Reasoning that some downhill switchback practice would surely be in order, I started descending the trail.

You couldn’t ask for a nicer location to practice riding down switchbacks – they are for the most part really tight turns and not true switchbacks. As a result, its fairly easy to get down them – just drag the back wheel, shift your weight over the bars and steer around with the front wheel. Works great nearly every time! A couple of them are too tight for this technique and more advanced methods must be employed (such as getting off the bike and dragging the rear end around, for example).

All was proceeding nicely until I allowed the front wheel to slip out from under me on one of the tighter corners. In an instant the bike fell over, slamming down to the right-hand side. This would have been a complete non-issue except for the fact that the end of the bars landed full-force, squarely in the center of my right foot.

Certainly my SIDI boots and thick socks soaked up a bunch of the blow, but despite all that protection IT HURT!!! BADLY!!!

As always, I took quick stock of myself – determining that despite the pain, nothing was broken. I’d just have to jump back on the bike and “ride it off.” Which I did.

I even found a new stretch of singletrack whose existence I was completely ignorant of. But by the time I got home the pain in my right foot had not diminished at all. I pulled off my boot – all seemed well. A bit swollen perhaps, but nothing obviously wrong beyond what you would expect when you take a good hammer-blow to the top of your instep…

To cut to the chase here, I wrapped my foot up tightly for most of the next twenty-four hours (which I spent on Labor and Delivery as you will recall) walking very slowly and with a pronounced limp. I suppose everybody around the hospital has gotten quite used to seeing me limping, since it occurs rather often, and nobody even asked what I had done this time.

My bound-up right foot. Note the manky old Birkenstocks that I have worn daily for the past ten years…

I’m not ashamed to say that my greatest fear for the last few months of training rides has been that I would have some stupid accident complete with an injury that would once again rob me of my chance to ride in Romaniacs, or plague me with pain while I’m out on the track – preventing me from riding up to my potential. Thus far I have felt like it was just a risk that I had to live with. A guy has to train after all. What are you supposed to do?

Well, with nine days until I fly out for Sibiu and already sporting an aching, swollen foot, I made an executive decision. I doubt very much that my riding skills are going to improve drastically over the next week or so – so I am going to leave the dirt bike in the garage and focus on pure fitness training on my bicycle until the event.

Today I put that plan into action. I suited up in my Lycra and hit the road. I climbed almost all the hills within ten miles of my home. In total I rode 64.9 miles and climbed 4600 feet (104 Km and 1400 meters). Needless to say, the workout was excellent – far better than I could ever get on the dirt bike. I just can’t wear myself out like that on the motorcycle, its too dangerous.

So my plan is to just keep racking up miles on the road bike until go time arrives. I was planning to do this anyway, but due to current circumstances I’m starting my “recovery” phase a few days earlier than I had meant to.

As an aside, since getting home from the ride today my right foot feels great! Doesn’t really hurt to walk any more and the limp has almost vanished. I’m not sure why the ride should have been particularly therapeutic, but it somehow did the job!

I’m not complaining!

My number is 325

I just saw the starting list, and most of the starting numbers have been assigned. I will be 325.

My new silencer tip arrived, and was summarily installed:

Good as new!

I mounted the smokestack up and headed out for a great four-hour training ride. I hit all my usual hotspots and then headed out cross-country to another area with some nice steep hillclimbs about ten miles from my usual stomping grounds.

But before embarking on that journey I tackled another of the “mental obstacles” that I had been wrestling with. In “the gymnasium” there is one rock in particular that I have been eyeballing for months. It is a big slab of stone protruding from the ground at a rather steep angle. At its highest point it is about as tall as the bike’s seat. It is really just about perfectly situated for a good, trials-style splat/hop move right up and over. But for some reason, this rock just made me nervous and I have shied away from tackling it. The approach seemed too loose, the drop-off on the backside seemed too sketchy, whatever… I would slink away from it every time muttering to myself that I need to ride that thing before I go to Romania.

As you can see, it isn’t that big of a deal. Yesterday was the day. I started hitting the left-hand side of the rock which is slightly lower, and was able to climb right over with zero problems. I repeated this perhaps six times – until it didn’t seem like that big of a deal any more – then went for the money, hitting it squarely in the middle. Rather anticlimactically, I zipped right up and over exactly as I should have done long ago. But I had quite successfully psyched myself out over this one rock – never mind the fact that I have surmounted bigger, uglier rock climbs on many occasions without so much as a second thought. Somehow I had let this one rock grow taller and sketchier in my mind. But no more! I hit it perhaps six more times before declaring victory, and moving on to other training.

I travelled over to the other intended riding zone and set to work scaling the steep hillclimbs to be found there. The area was created when a sizeable portion of the native hillside was scooped away to provide space for the constructions of an industrial park. At its back edge the embankments are tall and steep, probably 50-60 feet high and right around 45 degrees. They remind me of somewhat smaller versions of the hillclimbs found near the start of Erzberg. The dirt seems to be slimilar to Erzberg as well – loose, sandy and peppered with stones. I spent a good hour there climbing them every way I could imagine. Only one line avoided conquest – one where a rockier layer of dirt was exposed about fifteen feet up the climb. This created a small vertical face right where you need to be hammering the throttle in order to maintain sufficient momentum to get all the way to the top. The face would launch the bike upward – just a little – stifling all the lovely forward motion I had previously obtained, leaving me to founder a few feet higher when wheelspin was no longer enough to shove me further up the grade.

Not all bad, this gave me the chance to practice a little bulldogging as well as riding down the face of the hill.

Great ride today

First off, click here immediately to see pictures of the first prologue obstacles being constructed! Ultra cool (as long as there is no rain).

Ok, now that is out of the way…

I hit moon rocks again today with the goal to practice climbing and descending big hills. Mission accomplished! I more or less did laps up and down some of the hairiest hills out there. I had no big problems and increased my comfort level with coming down long, steep, loose grades. There is one very steep, nasty hill that I left alone by virtue of the fact that I was again riding solo. No need to crash hard and lie in the baking desert sun for hours and hours before (hopefully) being discovered… If I can get out there again with a buddy I will definitely give it a try.

I have ordered a new silencer tip from FMF, it should be here early next week. I attempted to remount the stock silencer but was rebuffed. When I had my ailing expansion chamber revived by the local KTM shop (read: had the dents blown out) the contour was altered just enough that it is no longer compatible with the stock unit.

Thus, I was compelled to endure repeated comments like “Hey dude, you lost your muffler…” every time I stopped to talk to anybody. A burden I was only too happy to bear.

And if you were looking for a solid reason NOT to ride without your silencer tip in place, here it is. No – the bike ran just fine, No – sand and dirt did not get into the packing, and No, the spark arrestor police did not drop in to give me grief. It turns out that during some of those long, nearly wide-open hill climbs some pretty hot exhaust comes out the end of that thing! Toasty enough to melt some of the plastic on the rear mud guard and burn right through my pull-strap! Without the tip in place to direct the stream of blistering hotness a bit downward and AWAY from the body work, unpleasant things begin happening.

Check it out!

Not what I consider “major damage” but I’ll wait for the new tip to arrive before my next ride!

One last thing…

I suppose its just human nature at work that I occasionally find myself feeling really down and inadequate when I contemplate what its probably going to be like out in the mountains of Transylvania. This usually occurs when I haven’t been able to get out on the bike for a while. I start asking myself “what am I doing?” or “how can I hope to compete with the other guys who will be there?” Then I get out and ride. The sun emerges from behind the clouds of despair. I feel confident and strong on the bike, I ride the way I WANT to ride. I climb the big hill. I tackle the rocks. I roost hard out of a tricky corner. Whatever… It just feels good! And suddenly I’m saying “OK. I know I’m not going to win or anything, but this is going to be FANTASTIC!”

Leatt 3df update

I now have a few rides in with the body armor and its going pretty well. I wanted to make a few comments about how the Leatt armor performs.

Overall I’m really pleased with it. It’s very comfortable and wicks sweat away in reasonable fashion – keeping me cool enough to ride on hot days. It’s definitely hot to wear, but its a fair trade for good quality protection.

The shirt is cut long enough to tuck down into the pants securely so that the rear hem isn’t always riding up as I feared it might.

As I hoped, the big spine pad is easily removed allowing my Camelbak to fit properly. It is also easily returned to service when I’m not sporting the hydration pack.

There are little loops of elastic on the shoulders that are intended to be hooked over the “shoulder pads” of the Leatt neck brace, holding the brace down tight to the shoulders. Initially I didn’t think these were going to be very functional as they have to pass through the collar of a jersey to engage the neck brace. Once I got them properly situated (required a mirror to do this myself, an assistant would be a big help) they worked as advertised. Occasionally I am annoyed by a creeping brace, this seems to take care of the issue.

My one gripe has to do with the little “U”-shaped channel on the back that engages the portion of the neck brace which extends down the spine. It is made from soft rubber and attaches with Velcro, but not very securely. When I pull my jersey down over this piece it catches on the material and wads itself up 100% of the time. I’ve had to have somebody else pull the back of my jersey down over this thing to avoid extreme annoyance. [Addendum: turns out this little piece is supposed to be removed entirely when wearing a neck brace – I didn’t look closely at the little icon stamped right on it…]

Overall, I am quite pleased with the Leatt 3df armor. I think it will serve me well both here at home and over in Romania.

Seems like something is missing

Got out for another great training ride today. Further testing of the new body armor is going well. It fits comfortably, is reasonably cool and seems to provide adequate protection when taking a spill. I haven’t really wadded up hard (and I hope not to) but the usual minor crashes that are par for the course get soaked up nicely by the high tech foam padding. As a result I come home without the usual scrapes and bruises I am used to. Can’t argue with that!

The construction area where I do a lot of practice riding is in a real state of flux. Trucks are coming and going frequently during the daytime hours leaving behind new and exciting obstacles to ride. One entire section was bulldozed flat recently, which initially seemed to be a real downer – it had been a very interesting spot to ride. But on further inspection some good new stuff was now available.

To wit… This lovely, near-vertical face was scooped out of the hillside! Tons of fun! The first time I hit it was nearly a disaster – the bike leapt nimbly to the top while I tumbled down backward. Fortunately the ground is fairly soft and sandy, no harm done.

Just a few yards away from this, a steep, loose hill climb presented itself. Its probably right around the forty-five degree mark (if not a hair steeper) and also fairly unstable and sandy. The bulldozer left a two-foot tall berm at its base that I had to blast through before I could try climbing the hill, but once I punched through the fun began! The climb is not especially long, maybe a bit over twenty feet tall but it makes for good practice – climbing and descending. I didn’t get a picture of it, but you can see where it is in the first photo, it’s just to the left of the big rock pile, the start is hidden behind the big pile of dirt.

I worked over my usual areas, the switchbacks, the ledges, the gymnasium, as well as the new stuff in the bulldozed spot. I found a few other challenging new lines here and there along the way. I’m generally feeling pretty good about my bike skills, and think that I’ll be ready to go in a couple of weeks.

When I turned toward home, I noticed that my bike sounded a little different – a little snarlier in the exhaust note. It reminded me of a car with an exhaust leak. A cursory examination of the expansion chamber and silencer revealed no holes. Hmmm…

When I got home I noticed this:

Mystery solved…

In addition you can see that my trusty Dunlop 739 is pretty much dead. It has given up its life in valiant service. I think I’ll try a Sedona 887 next. The boys at tuBliss said that it works just as well – some even like it better than the Dunlop. As an added bonus the Sedona tire is about thirty dollars cheaper. Sold!

The final countdown

Wow, time is getting short!

Twenty-three days before the event starts! (Twenty-one days before I fly out)

Crazy!

I’ve been doing as much training as I can, trying to push my fitness a bit further over the next two weeks before I coast in for the actual event. Meaning that I’m going to reduce the intensity of my workouts over the last week of June, to make sure that I arrive in Sibiu fresh and ready to hit it hard over there.

I have incorporated some real stretching into my routine and it seems to be helping. I have stretched  before, but never with any real effort. I would do the usual “try to touch my toes” thing for ten seconds before or after exercising, and surprisingly – I’m still rather stiff and inflexible. Who would have guessed?

Following the accident, my hips and lower back seem to have stiffened up considerably. I can walk or run without issues, but I can feel the tightness when I swing my leg over the bike for sure. This has gotten somewhat better over time, but I haven’t really focused on improving my flexibility as much as I should have. In the back of my mind I have been fearing some kind of crash that causes me to do the splits or some other maneuver that my body just isn’t “bendy and stretchy” enough to handle – and a loud, tearing sound echoes through the hills as I literally tear myself apart…

Well, aside from pain relief I am gaining a sense of confidence from increased flexibility that I’ll be better able to soak up whatever nasty spills I might take along the way.

I have deliberately avoided running at all costs, and I think my knee is feeling better. It isn’t cured yet, but I think there is some real improvement. On the recommendation of a friend who is also an orthopedic surgeon, I went to a physical therapist and had ultrasound iontopheresis performed on my ailing bursa. It essentially consists of having my knee rubbed with an ultrasound probe coated with gel that contains some steroid. The high-energy ultrasound drives the steroid into the tissues where it can go to work calming any inflammation present. This provided a very strange, buzzing sensation but was completely painless. My knee felt more sore than usual for the next twenty four hours, but now seems to be somewhat improved. The physical therapist said I should go back for perhaps half a dozen more treatments. I’m not sure I’ll be able to squeeze that into my schedule, but I’ll give it a try. In the mean time, I’ll continue my steady diet of Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen to keep things under control.

The Odyssey (Reno – Tahoe Odyssey, that is…)

I mentioned that I had been training to participate in the Reno-Tahoe Odyssey. This is a 178 mile relay race starting in Reno, tracking through the mountains up to Lake Tahoe then back down to Reno via Genoa and Carson City.

I decided to participate because A) it sounded fun and B) I assumed that it would be a good motivator to get out and increase my fitness. These were only partially correct.

The Odyssey was fun. But mostly it was painful, stressful and exhausting. I did get into a pretty good training routine and ran more than I have ever done in my life. This was cut short when I suddenly developed anserine bursitis (painful inflammation just below my right knee) two weeks before the event. It became too painful to run at all and my ability to do other activities was significantly limited – not what I had in mind.

I took it easy and the bursitis was beginning to resolve – until the actual race. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Teams competing in the event consist (usually) of twelve runners divided into groups of six. Each group has their own support van that delivers runners to the start of their assigned legs of the journey, supports them along the way (food, water, encouragement, etc.) then picks them up and drops off the next runner when the leg is competed. After six legs, the runners in the other van take over while those in the first van get a few hours of recovery time. This whole process repeats itself three times over the course of two days. Most teams take somewhere around eighteen to twenty-four hours to complete the entire course.

It sounds reasonable enough, but it actually ends up being a rather miserable experience.

First off, I’m really not a runner. I never have been, and now I’m pretty sure I never will be. 

I offered to take the rotation that starts with what is arguably the most difficult leg of the entire course. It is eight miles long, ascends 1500 feet over an unpaved mountain road, and due to the terrain, has to be completed without the aid of the support van. On the plus side, this is Dog Valley road which I have ridden many, many times on the dirt bike, it runs through some very beautiful scenery and I knock out the hardest leg right off, then everything should be easy – right?

Well, no.

Due to manpower shortage at work, I had to take Labor and Delivery call Thursday night in order to have Friday off to run the race. In perfect form, I was kept up working almost the entire night, and arrived bleary and yawning at the starting line.

Once the adrenalin got flowing everything was fine, and in fact this leg went quite well for me. I completed it in reasonable time and with minimal pain or discomfort. I handed off the “baton” (actually a bracelet) and jumped into the support van.

This is where things start to get ugly. We follow along as the other runners in the van complete their legs and then travel up to a campsite we reserved. Here we had about four hours to kill while the other van-ful of runners complete their legs. So five or six hours elapse before we climb back into the van and start it all over. During this time muscles and tendons have begun to tighten up and become painful and everybody is just kind of tired despite trying to catch a nap during the lazy afternoon.

I didn’t start running my second leg until around 10:00pm. It was dark and the fresh mountain air was getting quite cold. I covered the first two of my assigned 3.5 miles with ease before the bursitis came on with a vengeance. By the time I arrived at the exchange point I was slowed almost to walking speed. As soon as I stopped running the pain and stiffness seemed to increase exponentially. But since we have to continue supporting the next runner, there is no time to do some stretching and “walk it off.” I hobbled into the van and away we drove. A few hours later (a bit past midnight) the other van took over and we headed for a strategically placed trailer in which to rest up before our final series of legs. By this time I could hardly lever myself out of the van, let alone walk due to the pain and stiffness in my right leg. Things were looking grim for my final, five-miler.

I took a handful of Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen before finally getting to sleep at about 2am. Less than two hours later we were up again, getting dressed and lacing shoes onto our sore feet. Remember –  I’ve had very little sleep over the past thirty or forty hours, which was doing no favors for my level of enthusiasm. On the other hand, the meds had helped my knee quite a bit and I stretched my hamstrings out as often as possible while the first three runners knocked their legs out. By the time my turn came up, I felt like I just might be able to pull it off. It wouldn’t be the fastest five miles ever run, but I could probably do it.

My final run consisted of 2.5 miles of uphill followed by 2.5 miles of downhill. I figured that as soon as I reached the summit I was home free, I would just coast in to the exchange point with gravity footing the bill. Unfortunately for me, it turned out that gravity was not my ally in this instance. Running downhill seemed to exacerbate the bursitis in a particularly effective way, and by mile four I was walking along with a pronounced limp. It was really demoralizing to be passed again and again and again, while I staggered on.

At long, merciful last, I arrived at the exchange point and flopped into the van – painful, smelly and exhausted. But at least I was done with the whole affair. My wife and I agreed that we had NO desire whatsoever to participate in the Odyssey again. EVER!

But the mind is an incomprehensible organ whose machinations are truly beyond understanding. Barely twenty-four hours have elapsed since the end of my suffering, and already another attempt at this wretched event doesn’t sound like such a bad idea… We will see… We will see…

For the time being I’m going to focus on my final preparations for Romania – and getting my knee healed up. I’ve got a month to do it in.

 

 

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the riding gear I’ll be taking with me to Romania. As previously mentioned, I have pants, jerseys, boots and gloves all ready to go. I went ahead with my plan to order a solid orange Shoei VFX-W. Upon its arrival, I obtained a handful of stickers from the Reno Envy store (since I am hijacking their name as my “team” name for the event) and put some on. Here is how it looks:

As you can see in the pic, I have mounted my helmet cam up. I used the “stick-on” mount than Contour offers, so the camera can be removed fairly easily. I don’t expect to wear the camera much during the rally, probably just for the prologue and maybe the finish on day two – the “factory ride.” I haven’t had a chance to test the camera’s view angle yet. Unfortunately, you only get one shot at it when slapping the sticker onto the side of the helmet, so it will just be what it will be. From what I can tell from the aiming lasers, it appears to be more or less ok. Probably not perfect, but good enough.

I have also gotten a pair of the Klim Tactical Pants to wear under the riding pants, they have some high-tech pads on the hip, thigh and coccyx areas for a little impact protection. Additionally the ankle-length spandex-like material provides a nice, semi-slippery interface with my knee braces. Usually I end up with raw spots at the brace’s contact points despite the built-in padding and velour surface. The Klims solve this problem completely.

I have worn them on my last few training rides and they seem to work beautifully – very comfortable and the pads even seemed to fend off the rocks during a little spill I took last time. The weather hasn’t been especially hot around here lately, so I’m not sure how they will feel in the sweltering Romanian summer, but I think they are going to work out fine. I’ll probably order a second pair to take along.

The last bit I’ve been pondering is some different upper-body protection. I usually wear just my elbow guards and Camelbak and call it good. This is very comfortable and has offered reasonable protection in the past – the Camelbak has been used as a landing pad on many occasions and the elbow guards take a solid beating nearly every ride. But this arrangement leaves my shoulders and chest a bit vulnerable. I have been thinking about trying the Leatt 3DF:

It should obviously work well with my neck brace and provide a bit more protection about the old torso. I think that I would just remove the big spine pad when wearing the Camelbak to cut down on bulk and heat, but it would definitely be there for the prologue. They are a bit pricey, but I do have a little cash to burn in the Romaniacs savings account, so I think I’ll give one a try.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless bearings…

(34 days until Red Bull Romaniacs #10!!)

About three weeks ago I was out for a bicycle ride and I could no longer stand the squeaking noises coming from the rear wheel. Up until that point I had assumed that all the racket was produced by a chain that was reaching the “golden years” of its service life. It seemed that a generous application of lube to the links would quiet things down for a bit, but the squealing would always return before the end of a ride.

Enough!

I pulled off the rear wheel and set to work installing the shiny new chain I had purchased a few months earlier, but had never “gotten around” to installing. This went smoothly and perhaps fifteen minutes later I re-installed my sexy Rol rear wheel and took a quick run up and down the street to enjoy the riding solitude I would now be enjoying…

No dice…

The squealing was undiminished by the new chain, if anything it seemed more pronounced.

I pulled the rear wheel off and gave it a brisk spin while holding the hub between my fingers. The REAL problem was immediately obvious. The hub whined and squeaked and felt as though the bearings were packed full of sand. At one point the bearings actually bound up and the wheel didn’t spin at all.

I’m no expert at bike mechanics, but I’m pretty sure that ain’t how its s’posed to be.

To shorten the tale, I partially disassembled the hub and every bearing I could turn seemed to be completely roached. I contacted Rol regarding my pitiful situation. I had read glowing reviews of the company’s customer service and my expectaitons were high. Indeed they were met when the owner of the company (Sean) called me on my cell phone to discuss the problem. He assured me that there is no way the bearings should have gone out so quickly and that he would be happy to send a new cassette body (with fresh bearings installed) as well as a new set of the sealed main wheel bearings – all free of charge. On top of that he would foot the bill to have the new bits swapped in by my nearest competent bike shop.

Perfect! Doesn’t get better than that!

We discussed logistics a bit further and decided that we would cut out the middle-man (myself) and just have the parts sent directly to the bike shop to be mated up to the wheel, which I would drop off the next day. The phone call was on a Thursday and it was expected that I would be up and running by the beginning of the next week.

I was unable to get the wheel to the shop for another couple of days and I emailed the shop’s contact info to Sean at that time. No problem, should be riding by the following weekend at the latest.

A full week passed by with no word from the shop. I dropped in and asked if the parts had arrived. Not so much.

Another email, then a voicemail on Sean’s cell phone finally did the trick and the bits were successfully delivered and crammed into my wheel. A full two weeks after the process began.

The fresh hub/chain combo is heavenly! The shop lubed the hub internals up with high quality grease and mineral oil and the pawl noise when freewheeling is almost nonexistent! Shifts with the new chain are lightning fast and buttery smooth. All’s well that ends well…

But I am left with kind of a love-hate relationship with the customer service experience. On the one hand, Sean totally did me a solid and hooked me up with the needed parts completely at his expense. On the other, it took two weeks and repeated nudging to get this to happen. If I were a big-time cyclist this could have been a major setback to a rigorous training schedule (though a serious cyclist would probably have a spare wheel, or even complete bike on hand in the mean time). Fortunately for me I had been focusing on running during this time – to prepare for the relay race coming up this weekend. I wouldn’t have spent much time on the bike anyway. My impression is that Sean probably gets a lot of email and my paltry communication was lost in the shuffle. Once I got myself on his radar I got taken care of right away.

Bottom line: I love the wheels. The bike feels better than when it rolled of the showroom floor. I suffered no real slowdown in my training as a result of all this hoopla. The only way I could really complain is if the new bearings croak on me prematurely as well. That would seem to indicate a real problem with the wheel design, and not me. But for the time being, I’m happy!

The latest

Things are coming along nicely. Ben and I got together for a great ride last Thursday. As usual it came together unexpectedly and at the last moment. I had the day off due to serving a twenty four hour sentence of Labor and Delivery call the previous day/night. Ben had already informed me that he would be busy all day at work – no shot at rideage. In desperation I shot him a text to see if anybody he knew was headed out for the day. He answered back that the workload he had been anticipating was actually scheduled for Friday and he had suddenly found himself free for the day.

We met up at his house and were joined by Jay, another buddy connected via the vast web of the Reno medical community. We have ridden together before. He is another fast guy with plenty of racing under his belt. It’s always a workout for me to try to keep up with these guys, but that’s just what I need!

The sun was shining and the temperature was a bit hot, if anything. Four days of rain had preceded our ride and the dirt was near perfection! Moist and grippy almost everywhere. Being a desert, there were spots where the sandy soil had already begun to revert back into its usual near-powder consistency.

We followed miles of good flowing single track over Peavine’s lower slopes, descended a long, sketchy, trackless hillside, crossed a little stream and climbed up the opposite side of the valley to hook in to some better-established trails. After following them into the trees we peeled off to run the “private” singletrack that Ben and his pals have cut in over the last year or two. It’s tight and technical with lots of rocky hills to ascend and descend, slimy logs to cross and tight groves of trees to negotiate. I’m not exactly sure what species of tree they are (manzanita I think) but they produce lots of low-hanging branches that appear thin and spindly, but are remarkably stiff, sharp and tenacious on closer encounters. I came out with a few big red welts where the jagged end of a branch had tried to rip right through my skin.

Overall I felt really good about my riding. Ben and Jay are faster than I am, no question. On the more open sections of trail they would gradually pull away from me, despite my best efforts. They didnt completely drop me, but the gap between them and I would continue to grow. But when we hit the gnarly spots I think I more than held my own.

I think the practice on the trials bike is turning out to be quite helpful. The little bike is so nimble and easy to ride, I found myself pulling off moves on it that I would have shied away from on the big bike. But having gotten the feel of some bolder tricks, I could transpose them over fairly easily.

For example, I went out for a training ride yesterday afternoon. I hit the switchbacks (rode them as flawlessly as I ever have) and made my way to the concrete washout. The washout is a lovely pile of irregular blobs and broken slabs of concrete in the middle of a nicely groomed gravel yard. Using the technique of lofting the front wheel as I ride over irregular rocks, ruts and bumps, I found that I could attack the pile of rubble with a great deal more confidence, taking longer, higher lines that I would have chickened out on before. This technique isn’t new, I just learned to do it better on the trials bike.

Same thing a little later in the “gymnasium.” I rode a ton of new lines yesterday, climbing up and over boulders and up lichen-covered walls. They were lines I had seen before, but never had the confidence to actually try. Where I had been “reasonably confident” that I could pull off some of these moves, I would always wimp out at the last moment. After proving to myself in a less threatening way that it could be done, I was able to push myself much harder. I could spot a line over an obstacle and ride it confidently before doubts could creep in and talk me out of it. While Graham Jarvis need not fear me, I think my rock-garden skills are pretty good!

On another note, I wired the last pile of cash over to Dougie yesterday. Everything is paid for now – entry fee, bike, service, tires, mousses… I just need to take some spending money to cover anything else that might come up. At present I think I have spent right around $6500 total.

I noticed that there is a small crack in the “jaw” of my Airoh helmet. It doesn’t appear to affect structural integrity, but I’m thinking about throwing down for a new lid. I’ve got over a year on the Airoh, and it has been great. I’m thinking about picking up another Shoei, however in solid orange. Should look sweet with my red outfit.