Trail Riding

Andrea

Weekend Excitement!

I’m getting geared up for the upcoming Burns Park Adventure Race Clinic on Saturday. I’m hoping to learn a lot- especially from the “mountain bike skills” portion of the clinic since my tech-riding skills are pretty lame right now.

I plan on camping out Saturday night. Where? I’m not quite sure yet. I was planning on venturing out to the Womble trail, but I’m wondering if my time would be better spent making the much shorter drive out to Lake Sylvia and riding the more familiar forest roads in that area. For one thing, I would have time to get in a run (stop by Pinnacle again maybe?) or ride before driving to west Little Rock for dinner (as opposed to cooking on a campfire). It would probably be better for me as far as conditioning goes since I’m planning on entering the Dirt Sweat and Gears 12 hour in a few weeks. I can also engineer my ride so that I make different loops from the campground, which would allow me to do a “self supported” 5 or 6 hour ride rather than trying to pack all at once for a day’s worth of riding into the wilderness.

What do my readers think? Womble? Ouachita? Sylvia? I’m so conflicted…

Oh yeah- before you answer, just know that I’m going to have all summer to go out that way for other adventures…

Andrea

Countdown to Ouachita

Two more days & I’ll be leaving for Arkansas for the Ouachita Trail 50k. I’m looking forward to getting back on the trail for a long run. Yesterday I had a great “tune up” run at the Lakeland Trails. Short of driving 45 minutes out to Shelby Forest, they’re the best trails for some hill practice. After a quick warmup on the mostly flat blue & red trails, I did a few repeats on the much more technical yellow trail. I felt really good, but held back a bit & practiced my powerwalk on the uphills (in the world of ultramarathon-ing, it’s universally accepted that you walk up long, steep parts). I did, however, let loose on the downhill sections, and even managed to practice grabbing/slinging around a well placed tree in the corner of a fast switchback.

How is it that I can be so incredibly comfortable running down a steep, rooty trail a breakneck speed, but then chicken out when I try to do the same thing on a bike?!

I digress… I’ve got my hill legs back. The race is still going to wreck me, but it’ll be good endurance practice for my next adventure.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention… I’m seriously considering an entry into the solo division of a 12 hour MTB race on May 9th. I briefly tried to find someone to join me for a duo, but she’s already planning on racing solo, so I gave up & decided I should just go at it alone. Between now & then, I’ll have a 50k run, then the weekend of the 25th, I’ll be going to an adventure racing clinic in Little Rock, so I’ll probably stick around on Sunday & head out for an all day epic of some sort on the Ouachita and/or Womble trail(s). After that, I’ll likely just stick to conditioning on the road bike and practicing some tech-ey stuff on the MTB until the 9th.

Anyone who is reading this interested in going to Arkansas on the 25th?

Andrea

If I were on a rollercoaster right now…

…I’d be sitting in the first car with the lap-bar locked down, slowly creeping up the first gigantic hill on an insane set of tracks.

I just got word from the bike shop that my Jet 9 frame is on its way, and all of the components are probably getting ordered as I type this. It looks as if things will begin arriving on Thursday this week!!

Just like when I bought my first road bike, I’ll be heading out to Arkansas this weekend to run a 50k (though this time, it’s the Ouachita Trail 50k & last time it was the Midnight 50k). And, just like last time, I’ll come home so incredibly sore and beaten up that I’ll hardly be able to throw a leg over the bike to take it for a lap around the block!

It’s OK, though.

Weekend after this one, I’ll be going back to Little Rock for an adventure racing clinic. Hopefully I’ll make some connections over there and will get advice (and maybe some company!) for where to go in the area for some good trail riding. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. There are some TBRA XC races coming up, and there’s an adventure race at Village Creek State Park in June as well as a few other trail (running) races to round things out!

So right now I feel like I’m moving through molasses, but hopefully once my bike gets here and school wraps up @ the end of the month, it’ll be the start of an incredibly epic summer. Stay tuned…

Andrea

Jet9 Update

Just got a text message from Karen @ Bikes Plus- my Jet9 frame is set to ship from Niner on Monday next week! Woohoo!

I am wrapping up the decisions on the build up. It’s prettymuch gonna be SRAM-ed out:

Rock Shox Reba Fork
SRAM X0/x9 DRs & shifters (jury is still out on whether I want grip shift or trigger)
Truvativ Noir Crank (2 chainrings/bash guard)
Avid hydraulic brakes
Tires? Not sure yet. They’ll be set up tubeless, though.
Wheels- probably some hand-builts from lacemine29.com

Talk about your champagne taste on a beer budget! It’s gonna be a work in progress as I gather the necessary funds, but it will be absolutely perfect when I’m finished!

Andrea

MTB Update!!!

Big thanks to Karen at Bikes Plus! I researched around online and decided that I want a Niner Jet9 as my badass offroad rig. Even though she wasn’t a Niner dealer, I told Karen about it to see if there was a chance that I could buy it through her. I stopped by the shop today and found out that she’s going through the process of becoming a dealer! Woohoo! Looks like I’ll have it in about two weeks.

Though I am sure that I’ll be building it with SRAM components, I’m not sure what fork and wheels to get. The I9 wheels look freakin’ AWESOME, but the cost would put the build off at LEAST another month, which would suck. I’ll probably end up getting something more practical for now and upgrade to those in the future.

So if you want to see me get this puppy up & running anytime soon, you’ll find someone to buy my Blue Rc7- 54cm: $650!

Andrea

Demo Report

What a day! I set out for Shelby Farms around 9:00 this morning. Once I arrived (via rail-trail!), I did a quick lap of Tour de Wolf. Awesome fun time!!!! It’s sooooo much nicer riding a badass MTB instead of the CX rig. I could have done laps all day, but it was time to move on…

After that, I rode across farm road and under Walnut Grove to the Wolf River Trails (I did my best to stay out of the “no bikes” sections). At one point, where the trail dog-legs across a levee, I made the mistake of entering the next section of trail (a steep downhill with sharply angled dirt banks on both sides) at an odd angle rather than straight on. I somehow caught my front wheel on a small fallen tree on one side of the trail, then lost my balance as the wheel slid down the embankment.

Left ribs, meet tree.

Did you know that your ribs can bend pretty damn far and not break?

I had no idea.

In case you’ve never compressed one side of your ribcage inward, just think of a baseball-bat type sensation. It actually knocked the wind out of me pretty badly, and took a few minutes of just sitting on the side of the trail to catch my breath again. There’s a bit of an abrasion there now- I’ll be sure to post a photo if it gets some nice color to it.

Anyway- I got back up and continued down the trail. Once I got to Germantown Parkway, I went under the bridge and headed towards Greys Creek. That trail is a lot of fun to run on, but it’s pretty lame for riding because the 4-wheeler people have made giant ruts in the trail. So, after about a mile, I turned around & headed back. The remainder of the ride was uneventful. I ended up getting back home around noon for some much needed lunch!

After a little food & rest, I loaded the bike in the car and drove up to Nesbit Park (a.k.a. Stanky Creek). Once there, I rode the White and Yellow trails a couple of times. I felt good! I’d kept the suspension lockout on during most of the Shelby Farms ride, but released it for the rootiness of this trail.

I would have ridden longer, but alas, it was time to get home, clean the beast, and return it to its rightful owner at Bikes Plus. All in all, it was somewhere between 4 and 4.5 hours of riding total. With the exception of the tree-beating, I had a great time. I can’t wait to try out a few more and make a purchase!

Andrea

Demo Bike!

Yesterday afternoon I stopped by the shop to pick up a sweet 29er demo bike. I originally planned to get it for Saturday, but I figured since I’d already planned to be off of work today that I’d avoid some trail traffic by taking it out before the weekend.

So after learning about how to adjust the suspension (holy crap, there are a LOT of adjustments!), I wedged it into my roof rack and headed home. It took a while to get everything set up comfortably. Even though it’s a bit big for me, I ended up swapping the stock seatpost out for a Thompson setback post (luckily Ryan had one in the correct diameter on his CX bike) since the straight post required the saddle to be precariously clamped to the very front of the rails. Because the bike is kinda on the big side, I also lowered the handlebars. I felt pretty weird with them perched above the saddle.
When I took it for a test ride on a short stretch of rail trail behind my house, I was surprised when it felt sort of awkward and loose over the rocks… then I realized that the tires were inflated to what had to be the max possible pressure! Oops. I let a good deal of air out, turned around, and went over the same stretch again, this time to find the ride totally different. Ah….. nice!

So now I’m just waiting for the sun to come out & warm the air a bit before I head out to Shelby Farms. After that, I’ll go to Herb Parsons, Bartlett Park, and Lakeland Trails. Being in good shape is nice. I imagine that taking a bike to every trail in town would be somewhat impossible for a lot of people, but I’m looking forward to the workout :)

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