the future of mountain biking?

An Economic Experiment to see if spending a couple hundred thousand dollars (from grants and taxpayers) can lure mountain bikers to this region to play, eat, sleep, and spend.

This is fresh machine-made trail at Raystown Lake. It doesn't look like much now, compared to what I'm used to, but riding it was a different story. I don't have the vocabulary to really convey how much fun it was riding these new trails. It was the fastest and most intense I've ridden in some time, ....almost road-riding like intensity. Every second, up or down, we were pinning and grinning it. On your toes, weighting the front wheel, trying not to wash out or blow a curve, trying not to get too much air to make that curve just after the landing. Trying to keep up with Withers and Straub was a blast.

[freshly cut, we did not ride the above two sections,....next time. pics stolen from B4's site]

I never thought I'd be a fan of machine built trails. I remember about 10 years ago when Dan Hudson got excited about the new Stephens Trail near Camp Roosevelt in the GW being built with a SWECO machine. I didn't pay that much attention, I just loved the descent off Massanutten ridge, though I used to call that trail the uphill downhill trail. It seems that having some peanut butter in your chocolate and vicy versy is the key to flowable sustainable trails. The new Raystown trails are a perfect example: every 20 yds. or so, is a grade reversal and/or a curve. This means that while you're descending, every 20 yds. you have an uphill roller or a berm to bleed speed. And when you're climbing, you get lots of breaks. It also means that water can't stay on the trail for more than 20 yds. at a time which cuts out the rutting and erosion problem.

The elevation change from the lake to the top of the trail network is about 400'. When we turned our backs to the lake and headed up, it wasn't the type of settle in and suffer climb that I'm used to in the GW and Michaux. There were plenty of rolling dips to briefly recover on. Not the kind of drops where you hate to lose any elevation on a climb, but nice rollers to rest on and get some momo back. These pro trails are built with grades not exceeding 15%, with most only in the 10% range. This means everything is middle-ringable, and very SS-friendly.
Actually, nothing at Raystown was of the settle in type of riding. You needed to be on your game at every moment. There are no obstacles like logs or rocks, there. The biggest obstacle is speed. Speed can kill you there. It's so fast, and there are so many curves, rollers, berms, and whoops that it would be so easy to wash off into the brush or wrap your helmet around a tree. If there's ever a race here, I would expect far more carnage in one day than all the Michaux races combined. It's nutzy fast.
An interesting contrast between these kind of trails and the kind I'm used to is that machine built trails are initially built wider, with a built-in bench cut, and then get narrower over time as vegetation grows in. The singletrack I've worked on in the Forests are usually built by hand, without full benching, narrow at first, but they tend to get wider over time, and slowly shift downhill beyond where the bench should be.

The Raystown Trails are also being built with other uses in mind such as xc skiing. A friend recently remarked that no trail that's good for xc skiing could possibly be good for mountain biking. Well, I now totally disagree. Yea, it's not the same as the GW, Abby, Heaven or Hell, or Iceberg, but it's absolutely as fun for me. Taxpayer Trails are good!!! I hope it succeeds.

the Wilderness in my head

I returned to the Wilderness 101 this weekend. I did the first two installments of Chris' version in 2001-2002, but then missed the next 5 of them. Hmmm, Oliver is 5 years old, coincidence??

I had a good, uneventful race, no flats, no mechanicals, no crashes, etc., but I'm not thrilled with my time of 10:55. I started in the very back and felt I stayed there, riding mostly alone until AS-3 or so when I finally started catching up to familiar faces like Frank and Harry. Funny how my mind works; last week in the blistering Curse, I told myself that the 101 would have to be easier. In the 101, I convinced myself that the SM 100 will be easier.

Looking back at those 01-02 results, I see that in the 2001 race, I was 17th overall at 9:17, interestingly, right behind Harry and Frank. I replaced my derailleur (with the spare I always carried) on the Fisherman's Path after ripping it off on the entrance rock. Would I have been sub-9? Seems absurd for me to say sub-9 anymore.... Jay Duffy won that race by more than 30 minutes with a 7:07. Kuhn-dog was 2nd, Jake von Gettier was 6th with an 8:15. Myracle Mark was 13th at 8:59.

In 2002, I rode the race with my friend Steve Viers who would be my Trans Rockies teammate later that summer. We rolled in with BarryOM at 9:52. Keefer won it that year with a 7:32, nowhere near Duffy's blazin' time. Was Jay juicing the year before?? Harlan was 8th.

So, the course is maybe a bit slower now with some more trail added since the first installments. I'm certainly slower and older, and riding my cheater bike in a race that isn't as cheater-friendly as say, Fountainhead is. My time is about an hour slower than 2002. I guess it isn't all that bad, but I sure seemed slow out there and started asking the questions.... This time the questions were turning into actual discussions in my head. Yet another reason I like doing these with lots of friends around....., they keep you safe........ from yourself.

Rollin' in pedal-file-style with Barry. This was also his 3rd 101, and he and Buchness are also members of the short bus that have done every one of the Shenandoah 100s.

Happy campers, always fun to be around.

Crunch time

Alright folks, it's getting to be crunch time for the funding for the Chambersburg Pump Track we hope to build next month.

Thank you all for your donations so far! I think its especially cool when we get those small donations from peeps that live far from Franklin County, and likely will never ride our track. Number of donors is almost as important as number of dollars. It shows the Boro that there are many interested folks for this kind of thing, and it tells me that we're doing the right thing for the bike community. That this is the kind of bike park we'd all like to have in our downtowns. Thank you all for your support, our cycling community always amazes when called upon. I hope we all get to ride it soon.

Hit the BikeReg link to help us get it done!

songs in my head

I went into the Curse thinking that it might be the hardest bike race I've done, for the temperature, and for my general perceived slowness and aged creakiness. Saturday was wicked hot, and I was tired, stiff and busy all day. Quigley came up to spend the night for the race, and we rode around town a bit with the boyz, and then feasted on Kim's gourmet talents and kicked a couple growlers.

As happens more often than not before these big, early-start races, I couldn't fall asleep despite being tired all day long. Went to bed before midnight after watching some of le Tour. No Zzzs from 12-1, then got up and went down to the couch and some more Tour. Slept a tiny bit between 1-2 until big Barry came downstairs to use the bathroom. He quickly went back up and I saw on the tv guide that the "The Meaning of Life" was coming on at 3:00 AM. Cool, I thought, something to do. Luckily though, I didn't see any of the movie, I somehow slept nicely until 6-ish. I don't think this is a nervous "how am I gonna do" thing, I think it's more of a fear of oversleeping and missing it, or an "I'm ready now, lets wake up and go" thing.

our neighbor Brandon bringin' it

The race was survival pace from the start for me. I hate that wildcat start down Pinch Flat Alley and took my time, passing many friends with their pumps already in hand. I took Abby Trail as slow and casual as I ever have, catching and chatting with Stephanie Stago a bit. Rode Abby clean until I got to Bender, then stopped and hung out with him for a bit sharing some fun until Stephanie rolled up again. I wasn't thinking about Abby or Yellow Ridge, my head was already on Dug Hill and Canada Hollow. Actually, this picture below is what was in my head most of the day. Dreaming about an easy week in Hatteras next month......., with stacked lines like this...

stolen from Surfline

some lowlights & highlights

• Kim and the neighbors brought the boys out for the kidz race and had fun
  
• cleaning those 2 rock gardens on Sting Trail. I hardly ever clean those on a group ride
• lower down on Sting, I brush close to a pine tree, and a thin branch goes hard into my ear hole. way deeper than any q-tip has gone before. and no cottony softness on the end of it. the hearing in that ear went way down for several miles. it's almost back now
• helping EnduroSteve with a flat
• skipping most of the alternate rock and log play lines that I usually hit on these trails
  
• riding into Jake a few times. Last saw him at that dark dark place at the bottom of the Gilbert Road.
• beer with Travisimo and Bender at the last water stop.
• cleaning that super sketch off the powerline. had been in my head all day that I'd just walk the whole thing, but one clean led to another all the way down it. amazing, I even made it across the creek, never done that on a group ride

I thought I had my bungee budget managed perfectly to get me down the sketch, up the powerline, and home on the sweet Campsite-3 trail. When we took that right down Birch Run Road, something was wrong. I must've missed the left cut thru the woods. I must be following arrows from the 10-mile loop? After dropping down Birch Run, wondering WTF, I turned around and headed back up, looking for the easy way in that I most certainly must've missed. Another rider (the guy who was in distress at the last water stop) came down, certain that it was correct, that he heard it in the racer's meeting. OK, turn around and stretch that bungee out a little more before it snaps. Who in the world thought that adding Birch Run > Wildcat to the end was a good idea? I'm sure that person had a throttle.

All day I had Oliver's favorite song from The Band in my head. By the end, it had been replaced with a classic from the Stones Some Girls album. I'm sure you know the song.

Today is lookin' really good though. Just rode with Oliver over to his summer place at Wilson College, and am working at home with a mountaintop finish at le Tour on the tube. I'm starting to enjoy Mondays almost as much as Sundays. Thanks for reading if you made it this far...

rebel invasion

a Friday hooky ride with Nick and Dave from Old Forge.

Nick's plushy fork doing him no favors on the high line.

Crouse stylin' it easy

A soak in the creek and kickin' a growler of Roy Pitz made for a fine Friday.

final Wakefield

The last race of the summer Wednesday at Wakefield series is always a fun affair. Good friends, fast riders, the beer laps at Kilroys, the series awards, and the watermelon. Three and four years ago, when I was one of a few guys on "cheater bikes", I took home some gold and bronze hardware. Last year, I think I reached the podium once. This year, I barely stayed in the top-10.

No matter, I was in a dress, so what did I care? It took a bit of thrift shopping to find the right dress for mountain bike racing. I like a lightweight material, stretchy is good, and of course I'm a sucker for spaghetti string tops. A short or mid-length is good. Long dresses tend to make pedaling and straddling the frame difficult. Since I wore the same dress for the last 2 finales, and peeps were talking, I knew I had to find a new one. I learned a few things about buying and racing dresses:
I am not a Large size, I'm Plus
Thrift stores have very few cute sundresses for guys in my size.
It's weird to ask to try on a dress in a store.
It's best not to wear it to the office the day of the race.
It was hard to tell if the person ahead of you is in your class.
Your wife most likely won't be interested in borrowing your dress.

Pics courtesy of Mr. Voyeur T. Barsi

tachy

Missed the MBM ride last night by about 45 minutes and didn't know where they were headed, so I just rolled my own w/ an emphasis on climbing. Rode some stuff I usually don't ride, and some of it in the opposite direction.

Here's my tach reading from the cableTV climb from Mont Alto

the daily grind

Jay makin' it look like nuthin'.

This picture turned ugly seconds later.

But not as ugly as this.

lucky break

Was finally on my way to ride the new and already infamous Iceberg Trail in the Shed when this happened 10-minutes into the ride on a flat, easy, doubletrack section.

Lucky this didn't happen 5 minutes later on the rocky part of Salamander.
Or, Weds. night at the Wakefield race, or
a couple weeks from now on a certain descent of Wildcat.

At the start of this ride, Jody noticed that he had a bent seatpost that was on it's way to failure too. After my bar broke, Darius called Outlaws Joe & Julie to see if they were coming up the mountain, and they were, and brought along a variety bag of handlebars, stems, grips, and a seatpost. While we waited, we hit the PRBs a bit, and found several sidewall cuts on 2 of our bikes. We booted 4 or 5 places while waiting, then booted one more later on the ride.

As for my On-One Mary handlebar..., it was bought April 2007 and used the new Thomson stem with shims. Shims are supposed to prevent this from happening?

Pump Track donations

If anyone is inclined, we're taking donations for the new Chambersburg Pump Track we hope to build in August. Hoping for a grand party opening dealie the weekend of Teaberry, or in that time frame. The link will stick on the left for a while.

Thanks

the other Tour

A nice shot of Reuben and Matthew posted on this thread

MBM ride

Oliver's summer commute to school

Got in a shorty, almost dawn patrol ride yesterday before needing to be somewhere family social in the afternoon. Rode Buckets-Sand Rd-top of Spooge-Curran-Fire Tower-Turtle and back at the car by 10:30. No camera, no pretty sights, just smooth solo riding.

It's nearly the end of June, already into summer, and I have only done one race. That is so unusual. The Wednesday at Wakefield start this week, for the next 4 weeks. May make some of those since I may need a few more trips to the office soon. But, a look at Kim's schedule shows that I'd need to get someone else to pick Oliver up on 3 of those dates. So, maybe not ...

One of the benefits of this blog to me is to look back at old posts, like this giddy one about W@W last year. Surprised how differently I feel a year later. I also feel some subtle differences in my overall riding starting to creep in.

Two things are for certain, the 101 and the SM 100. Will I be more or less ready for those than previous years?

das pack

Darius enlisted some trail helpers for a project.
We did some work, while the kids pulled a 4-mile walk.

the other point to the day seemed to remedy all the tired feet.

I've been thinking about trying to get a Friday evening 6-Pack Downhill series started in Michaux. Same deal as the H-burger's version. Ride/parade/hike up what you plan to race down, riders go off at 30-second intervals, entry fee is a 6-pack of beer/coke/milk, whatever. Winner takes all and shares all. It's not about the workout, and it's not about the long ride.

I can think of many good downhills to use in the Chambersburg area: Buckets, Turtle, Yellow Hill, Lollipop, Methodist Hill, Blue Blaze etc. I wonder if there'd be enough riders to make it fun? Once a month? Twice a month? Once a year? Of course, I can't even seem to make a regular Weds or Thurs night ride, so I guess I'm dreamin' out loud.

Also thinking about doing it the night before The Curse, but that's kind of upside-down to finish at Big Flat.

Tour Divide

Anyone following this?
Original Cupcake Reuben has been riding up front with Matthew Lee the whole way so far. They have a cool SPOT mashup of the riders' current positions. Their original map failed, apparently as Google changed their API one night recently. Many followers of the event jumped in and created their own map mashups for use on the site. http://www.tourdivide.org/

Had a nice 3-hour tour with Keith today in central Meeshow. These pictures are not of Keith. Good pace, good trails, cool stream at the end.

Southside

4.5 hours of chasing this group up the hills. Felt like we climbed for about 3 of the first 4 hours.

the entrance gate to H or H Trail

After being crushed on the ride, but holding my own in the PRBs, I looked forward to getting crushed again by Oliver and the neighbors when I got home. Instead, we just rode down to the creek in our trunks and stayed right there for 2 hours. Niiiice! Needed that.

lerned something

evening ride with an MBM guinea pig

did not miss the slab this time. Pay attention.

this is one damn fine trail.
next on the syllabus, C****n
and the skinnies

scenes from town

at the ice cream station on the rail-trail

cross-eyed and torched

For the second week in a row we ended the ride with one more single-speeder than we started with. Wonderboy's full-squish SS worked out a lot better than last week's version, thanks to the good doctor. Doctor Tom. Surgeon. Mountain Biker. Singleator porter. A good man to have on any ride.

I did not go to the Hoo Ha as I had told many I would. That plan took a few hours to unravel as one King Cupcake started a mutiny which trickled down into our Hoo Ha group. None of the 3 of us slated to ride down in the Legend's van were super motivated, and it didn't take too much to push each of us to the local side of the fence. The local pot was sweetened for me by the inclusion of some fine northern Michaux trails like Weitzels, Vista, and Canyon that I don't often ride. Was bummed to not see the Virginia crew, and to have missed a chance to ride with the Frederick folk who did their own central Michaux ride today.

Instead, I hung at the back of a long train with my tongue hanging out. I had the camera, but didn't get much chance to pull it out with the pace. Woulda loved to get some shots of the sticky green rocky trail on the way to Vista, or of the nervy high skinnies, or the buff ferns, or the slabs of Canyon. Some real quality trail in there, photos another time.....

scenes from town

a couple blocks from the house

Buzzard Rocks or Hoo Ha?

Don't know what to do this weekend. Haven't raced the Hoo Ha in years, not since the new buff trail was built. Am considering not doing the XXC for once, and going down Sunday w/ Martin just for the regular loop, and maybe hitting the pump track in town on the way.

Saturday is the first quasi-unofficial-not-by-the-book race on Massanutten East, from Veach Gap to Buzzard Rocks. How can I pass that up? There might be very few racers though, and not many friends. Family things that day might make that one either easier to do, or more difficult. Wishy-washy as always when the whole fam is involved.
One thing for sure, I really want to race somewhere this weekend....
Anyone else going for either of these?

Council meeting for pump track

Got it!....

Presented the case for a pump track to the Town Council last night. I wanted to show a video to help everyone better understand what they look and ride like.

I was using PowerPoint and had to figure out how to get YouTube videos to work inside Powerpoint. I also wasn't sure if I'd have an internet connection in the meeting, so I wanted it to fly without that. I downloaded a couple of free softwares, and jumped thru a few steps to get them working in PowerPoint without a connection.

The videos were all too long and would lose the Council's interest, so I learned how to edit clips, and put multiple clips together with music. Got it done in the wee hours, and this is what I showed last night. It ain't gonna win any ESPYs, but it sufficed. We got the approval to move on to the next step!

Today, checking out the site with some of the key people.

scuttled

My giddy plans for an all-day southside Sunday ride were quickly changed an hour or so from the lot on Rocky Ridge. Though I began the day with good kharma, my chain fell off twice, and then this happened upon remount after fixing the second chain drop. It's pretty damn unusual for me to have 3 mechanicals in an hour.

We tried on the trail to get this shard out with my Swiss Army pliers, but instead, we kept breaking off pieces, making it lower and even harder to grab. I'd hoped to put the shortened post back in, and at least ride Mackey Run w/ a BMX-height saddle. That wasn't happening.

I left Lee and Travis, and turned around on Rocky Ridge headed out to the road. I messed around checking out some of the numerous horse-signed trails and double-tracks headed back to Rocky Ridge, trying to at least learn some trails on my solo ride back. Then the drizzle changed to a harder rain, and I stood up the hills, and sat on my top-tube on the descents back to the car. Jumped on the trail to Teaberry instead of climbing Cold Springs Rd. Discovered the different muscles used when you stand and lean forward the whole time.

Back at Teaberry, it was full-on pouring rain. Stripped and changed, then almost felt guilty grabbing beers from Travis' cooler (hey, you insisted...). Thought of them, and how they'd now be at about the farthest point from Teaberry, and at the bottom of the mountain. Wondered about their mental state.......

Had a bit of a time getting the shard out. I hacksawed halfway down the slit, then vice grips grabbed enough bite to pull out. I'm damn lucky I went through this BS a few weeks ago and had a freshly lubed post and all. Otherwise, I don't know if that shard would've ever come out if it was still oxidized in there.

The sky cleared later in the day, and after a 2-minute nap, I took Racer-X and 9 of his small friends (and 2 other dads) on a tour thru town hitting the usual fun spots.

pain train or party train?

tired daddy stretching out his back for a while