changin' stuff

So I'm a little freaked out over that broken handlebar a couple months ago. I used a Fubar for a while, but it kept slipping, so I over-tightened the faceplate bolts and already started to crimp into the aluminum bar. Then I put on my old titanium White Brothers DH bar, which required 2 shims to bring it up to the 31.8 of my new Thomson stem. It slipped as well, and I got concerned with over tightening after TimmyD's broken faceplate problem at the 101.

Looking for stronger and/or thicker bars now. They don't seem to be made in the funky swept-back style I've gotten used to over the past 3 years. Maybe when Jones gets his new ti H-bars out,........ if I feel like plunking 4 bills??

I got Merv to order this Truvativ bar and I also have my eye on this cro-moly AtomLab one built by a BMX star who used to work at the shop with Quigley and me back in Lake Ridge in the 80s. He moved to Cali and started making bombproof parts for the jump and DH scene. A cro-mo bar built for dirt jumping and downhill certainly oughta be enough for my situation. So I'll be rolling the SM 100 with a new bar, the 4th bar that's been on my bike this week.
And when I wasn't wearing out the torque wrench on the 4mm bolts all week, I was changing rear tubes and trying to find a mysterious thorn that I got on the Weds. shakedown ride...., the first ride on a new tire. I guess it wasn't much of a shakedown ride if I've since replaced the bar, chainring, chain, and put in 2 more tubes. I guess I'll have plenty of time tomorrow to see what works... better start packing now....

typical

So, I wake up today, the day after vacation and see and read this.

"My rating for this morning assuming that the wind continues to stay off-shore & the swell continues to be at waist height. We have the best conditions we have had in about 2 weeks. The on-shore that the OBX has experienced for the last 4 days has finally switched & is now off-shore. I would check it out right now!"

This is one of the main reasons I took to mountain biking so quickly in 1987. I can ride anytime I want.

Hatteras pics

the shots I get with a 5-yr old point & shoot

one of Kim's favorite eateries, John's for fresh fried seafood. try the dolphin basket

The surf wasn't great, not at all. Not one single day of easy waves. Winds at 20mph out of the east-northeast really chopped up the surf for many days. Of the 8 days there, I caught at least something every day but one. I could bike down to the end of the street, and then walk to 1st jetty at the lighthouse. Did that for a few low-tide dawn and dusk patrols. One session I was the only one out at the lighthouse. That's a sure sign that either the surf really sucked, or 0630 was too early for everyone else. I did get some decent waves that session, with only one fisherman around.
Quigley came in Friday night and we got out a couple times at the Frisco Pier, and once at the house in Buxton. All 3 sessions were pretty tough, hard waves to paddle into. He caught some waves, and got worked pretty hard too. Said something about 100 miles on a mountain bike being easier than an hour on a surfboard.....

apparently, motorcycle flats are a lot more complicated than mountain bike flats. a wood screw controlled the next several days of our friend's life.

always worth a go out

ferry crossing

catch the glassy evening low tide before the next few days 20 mph NE winds rip the surf apart.

Hatteras 1

Arrival evening, the tide was a little too fat with some easterly chop. I went out anyway at the house and it was better than it looked. A few other guys in the lineup, and I caught a few short moments of face time.
Was hoping for a low tide glassy session at dawn day 2, but it was already (or still) choppy and fat when I checked it at 0630. Followed my formula from last year, and waited for the tide flip and hit Frisco Pier where the wind was more offshore, but with very small gutless waves breaking on a chest-deep sandbar about 100 yards offshore.

If I planed my longboard up to speed, and got just right in the best spot of a wave, I could grab a second or two of open face before the whole section spilled into foam. Gutless, but at least worth a paddle. A lot of paddle for little. Serious, skilled surfers wouldn't have been caught dead in waves like this. Only a few old guys like me out.

more of the future?

These are plans I found last week on the MORE site of two public bike parks, both with skills areas, freeride features, xc singletrack, and pump tracks.


I like the look of this future too. This is the kind of stuff that will keep me riding into old age. And it will be fun riding this stuff with Oliver and his friendz,... until they're old enough to not want the old man hangin' around anymore.....

Ski areas have been into this game with lift-served freeride and downhill parks for some time now. For some reason, I never bit into that scene even though I do like to go downhill. But these kinds of parks intrigue me, a lot. These look like they could be fun for hours at a time, especially if the kid is into it too. Not that I think anything like this will be coming soon to a venue near us, but I like the looks of it all the same.


Now, for yet another kind of future. This is a trail in the 'Shed. This is a 2-mile trail that I could ride back and forth on for 3 hours and be perfectly happy. And perfectly wasted afterwards.

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?