Hey, you… yeah, you… riding on the trail and wearing headphones in both ears with your music turned up SO FREAKING LOUD that you can’t hear me roll up behind you and yell “EXCUSE ME” loud enough that I scare away all woodland creatures within a 100 yard radius.
I hope you didn’t think I was too rude today when I made an elbows-out cross country pass on you, but I’d been yelling at you and rubbing your rear tire for at least a solid minute before I resorted to it.
Trails
Southeastern Bike Expo
Saturday evening, I drove from Dahlonega to Conyers. Pandora Radio is awesome. I found this song that you should listen to while you’re reading (warning… contains light use of the “F” word):
I also experienced the absolute worst b******king ever administered from a GPS device when my route took me through every known shopping center between me and my destination. The sheer volume of traffic solidified my hatred of large cities like Atlanta. Memphis traffic is a cakewalk.
When I arrived, I stopped by the expo area to meet up with Mike (my favorite Niner rep ever) and to find out where Dicky & his roommate Chris were so I could find the room I was splitting with them.
Turns out, they were on an extended beer run from which the spoils were a bunch of Sierra Nevada and a 30 pack of High Life. In in attempt to keep everyone else from drinking the non-High Life, Dicky drank as many of the Sierra Nevadas as possible.
The hotel was nice. Apparently, the last people who stayed in the room thought so, also…
Sunday at the expo was a blast. I started out by riding a fridge green Niner WFO. The thing about a 5.5″ travel 29er that I didn’t realize from my previous mountain bike experience is that NOTHING SLOWS IT DOWN. Well, except for a big uphill. Honestly, though (and I’m not just saying this because I love Niners), with the exception of the additional frame/component weight, pedaling a WFO uphill feels exactly like pedaling a Jet9 uphill in the terms of pedal bob. Pretty effing awesome if you ask me… I was both grinning and puckering the entire ride. None of the downhills were appreciably long, but a look back on the Garmin file shows at least two spikes in speed above 30mph. Hey, y’all, watch this!
Next it was a slightly less airborne ride on a Scott Foil road bike. I’d ridden a slightly big 54cm at the shop, but the Scott guys had a 52 in the demo fleet so I could get a feel for how a better fitting bike would handle. I still stand by my statement that it’s the Air9 Carbon of road bikes as far as stiffness and overall badassness. It’s going to be a tough choice between that and the Cannondale Women’s Supersix, which has a geometry that’s closer to my current road ride, but I can’t imagine rides as perfectly as the Foil.
After un-funking myself, I checked out all of the other booths before heading back to Memphis. I was tired. Much truckstop coffee was involved.
Syllamo Thanksgiving #5
Our final day of riding was another easy one- an out & back on the “easy” part of the yellow trail with a lap of the red trail in the middle. Aside from Ryan taking a spill when he handlebar-hooked a vine, it was a pretty laid back ride. The weather was finally trying to be sunny, so the scenery was excellent.
Once we were back, I cleaned up and started with the real highlight of the day (week?)- Thanksgiving dinner. The night before, I’d brined a turkey and prepped the dressing and mashed potatoes, so everything was set for an amazing dinner. Did it turn out just right? Check out the photos and see for yourself…
This concludes the Thanksgiving series of what’s probably the most uneventful trip to Syllamo I’ve had in a while. I’m looking forward to better weather on my next trip… whenever that may be. With prep for worlds heating up, I’m looking at a busy training schedule focused more on bringing the CX pain than negotiating rocks and trail for hours on end.
Hamilton Creek
Yes, again, I’ve been slow to post. Stuff’s been busy, though. My shop is covered up in both winter clothes that need to be stocked and bikes that need to be repaired, and I’ve been riding a bunch (as usual).
Last Sunday, after a night of couch surfing, I found out that my new Nashville friends thought I was a “lesbian biker chick.” After clearing that one up, I went with Dan to go ride a lap at Hamilton Creek. Apparently, whoever thought we’d get along well figured out that we’re both similar brands of crazy.
I like carbon fiber, though, and he’s a carbon hater.
Hamilton Creek is the business. We rode part of the “easy” loop, then headed under the interstate to the “advanced” loop. It reminded me of Syllamo sooooo much- lots of rocks… awesome, wonderful rocks. We got most of the way around before Dan informed me that if you can get 5 or fewer dabs in your first lap of Hamilton Creek that you’re automatically a badass. I’d had 3 at the time, and, according to him, there was only one more difficult spot… which, of course, since he’d told me that, I dabbed, along with the following slightly difficult section. Luckily, I remained within the 5 dab limit of badass-ness. I also fell even further in love with my RDO.
P.S.- When we left to go to the trail, Dan mentioned that the truck needed gas. On the way home from the trail, we were on I-40 when, in the middle of his telling of a story of how his current shop manager swore he’d fist-fight the previous shop employee for the job, the truck began to sputter. We laughed about it and rode the wrong way up an on-ramp to a gas station.
Thus, photo #2 from the “weekend preview” post.
After a little pizza, I packed up and headed back west to Memphis. It’s been a minute since I’ve had such a great time at a race weekend- gorgeous scenery, badass trails, and lots of friendly people.
Nashville Weekend
Just got home from the Crush & Run weekend in Nashville and don’t have time to write a full post right now. However, these two photos prettymuch sum it up…
New Year’s Weekend at Syllamo
Getting tired of reading about Syllamo yet? It’s prettymuch a way of life in the wintertime- the creek is low, the leaves are getting packed in, and the rock gardens are always prime. I had set my alarm for 5am New Year’s Day so I could get moving to meet up with Ryan & Matt, who’d left the previous morning since they hadn’t had to work. However, I ended up awake at 3am, so I decided to get out of bed and go early.
The non-existence of traffic at 4am is wonderful.
I arrived at the cabin sometime around 7:30, had 2nd breakfast, and we were on the trail around 10. We started out on the yellow trail (hadn’t done that one in a while), and moved on to the blue trail. We were all on singlespeeds (32×21 is a good gear out there. Matt brought a 32×20, but was willing to “compromise his sexual integrity” for a 21t) Ryan destroyed climb after climb (and had a flat or two) while Matt killed the rock gardens. I was somewhere in the middle.
Ride time was somewhere around 4 hours. Matt and I (both on rigid forks) were feeling pretty beat up by the time we reached the final climb up from highway 5. Back at the cabin, it was a battle for hot water when everyone hit the shower at the same time. The remainder of the evening was spent eating pasta, grazing on Oreos, and drinking beer (though, I didn’t partake of the Natural Light). Matt pretended that he was Burt Reynolds (you’ll have to find that one in the gallery below)
Sunday morning, everyone was moving slowly. The mood was vaguely reminiscent of the long-ago Metro Volkswagen training camp where we’d all wake up exhausted, but no one would admit that he or she didn’t feel like getting on the bike and riding like hell. The guys weren’t feeling anything epic, so we stuck to the green and orange trails, which took a little less than 2 hours. I decided somewhere on the green trail that I was going to ignore all pain from the previous day and channel the Honey Badger. I bombed down a couple of the Orange trail descents, which was good for figuring out what was possible with the rigid fork (though possibly not so good for the wheels I just built. The damage gets surveyed today). The moved earned me exhaustion and a random nosebleed.
There are still parts of the trails that kick my butt, and sections that make me walk, but those are getting fewer and further between.
Air 9 Carbon- Day 2
Today’s terrain was much more challenging (in both surface and elevation). For those of you that know the trails, I started at the Blue (Scrappy Mountain) trailhead and rode a counter-clockwise loop of the Blue, Orange (Bald Scrappy), Green (White River Bluff), Orange (again), and Blue (again).
It gave me an opportunity to get a real idea of what it’s like to ride a rigid bike on some pretty technical stuff. The verdict?
Nice. Very Nice.
A lot of people have asked for my thoughts on the rigid fork and how it compares to a suspension fork. Well, the best way I can describe it is to compare it to the difference between a surgeon’s scalpel and a chef’s knife. Both are sharp objects designed for precision cutting. If you want to carve your Christmas turkey, the knife cuts straight through the skin, grain of the meat, and joints. The scalpel, on the other hand, is not so good at “straight through” as it is at disecting the meat from the bones in a very precise manner (ok, so I know that’s an odd situation, but humor me here). In either case, the end product is the same- you get your turkey meat off of the bone.
Same with the rigid fork- rather than unweighting the front wheel and letting suspension absorb most of a bump from a rock or other solid object, the rigid fork is so light and fast handling that it skirts over/around the rock with very little effort. The result for me? After I figured this out (it took a good hour of riding on some tech-y stuff), I found that I was actually cleaning MORE of the tough sections of trail- including (near the end of the ride) the entire length of the Blue trail from the Stairway to Heaven (pictured in the gallery below) to the logging road (steep and rocky- I don’t think I’ve ever managed the entire thing before because of some tricky switchbacks and steep kickers with small rock ledges.
How much will I ride/race it? I’m honestly not sure yet. I’m definitely not as fast going downhill without suspension. However, I definitely climb better… which edges itself out in “importance” when racing. Then again, the trail chatter can get tiring to the upper body. I’ll likely switch depending on the situation.
The frame itself is still amazing. It’s so damn stiff- you get the sense that every ounce of effort that you’re putting into pedaling is being transferred directly into moving you forward. I’m in love.
So, here are some photos from the journey:
Syllamo Sunday
I realize that my previous post about Saturday’s ride at Syllamo was rather brief, but it was generally an ordinary (if you can call it that) ride at Syllamo- lots of rocks, some hike-a-bike, and a nice 3 hours of enjoying the singletrack. What made it even nicer was watching Ryan get better & more confident at riding his single speed through some of the rocky stuff (first time singlespeed on “real” trails for him).
Sunday was a fun change from the usual solo riding. We met up with a couple of friends from the Roadbikereview Lounge. The original plan was to ride the Yellow trail, though that was foiled when Scott went face-side down when he got squirrley down one of the hills. He broke a shifter, bar end, bent an axle, and generally roughed himself up in the process.
I’ve done more than one trailside singlespeed conversion out there, so I helped him rig his bike to a suitable gear, and we made our way back to the red trail (much more do-able on a broken-ish bike). After a scenic lap, we drove down to the green trail for a touch more rock garden and overlook (Scott hiked while Ryan, John, and I rode)
Even with the technical difficulties, it was a great morning with friends on the trail. It was a nice change of pace from the usual solitude that comes with riding such an isolated trail system. Looking forward to next time!
Syllamo!
It’s been a while, but Ryan and I are packing up the single speeds and heading to Syllamo again this weekend. It’s been long enough since I’ve ridden there, that I’ve never actually had the One9 on those particular trails. Unless, of course, you count the epic fail that was my attempted Summer ride a few months ago. Still got scars from that one.
Hopefully the green trail logging that I’ve heard about recently isn’t as horrible as everyone says it is. Somehow, though, I doubt that. I’ve already got 1 mile of brush-infested logging area on my adopted 4 miles of orange trail. It was nearly overgrown by May this year. Unless the Forest Service can provide volunteer trail workers with Roundup and a backpack, there’s no way that the logged parts are going to stay clear. I keep saying that I’m going to write an email to someone, but like most other people that complain, there’s a sizable gap between what I complain about and what I’m willing to deal with in order to be lazy and do nothing at all.
At least the fall colors will still be pretty.
Random point of interest: Remember my Formula R1s that were trashed at Fool’s Gold? I ended up sending them in to Formula for repairs. The diaphragms inside the brake bodies had imploded, and one of the pistons needed to be replaced. I asked the tech if there was a different model that he’d recommend for extreme conditions such as those, and he (rahter snidely) informed me that there was no brake of ANY brand that would continue to work when the pads were worn through, and that there would be riders at La Ruta on Formula Brakes.
Uh, yeah.
I guess I should have clarified that what I really meant was “what brake will I be able to service at home following a race of brake pad doom the magnitude of Fool’s Gold?” The damaged piston, I understand- that’s going to happen to any brake once the pad is (literally) gone. The imploded diaphragms? Not so sure that every brake will experience such a malady. I think I’ll put the Formulas back onto my Jet9 since I likely won’t be racing it in adverse conditions.
Speaking of components, I’ve decided that I’m going to be slightly more open minded on component choice when it comes to building my next mountain bike. It’s mostly the availability of some sweet employee pricing on either major manufacturers (SRAM and Shimano), but it’s also a little bit of “hell hath no fury”… I sent a race resume and whatnot to the Grassroots folks at SRAM a couple of times and never got so much as a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” back from them. That doesn’t mean I am automatically a Shimano person now, it just means that I’m willing to at least research the latest/greatest Shimano componentry before I decide what’s going on the A9C that I’m hoping to get in December…
Well, that was random.
Womble Weekend
Before I get started, you should get to know everyone by their proper nicknames.
First, there’s Todd the Antique Gun Show:
Next, Magical Mystery Tour Dave (talk to him if you ever need toilet paper while you’re out on the trail):
Josh the Eye Candy (yes, that’s a crescent wrench in his pocket):
And yes, he gets two photos…
Razz:
…and Zane- a.k.a. “Sandy”
Day #1 started with MMTDave bringing his bike out of the car with a flat tire. The Antique Gun Show apparently keeps an air compressor in his truck, and tried to seal it up tubeless, but it was flat within the first climb/descent of the trail (which also happened to be within the first 5 minutes of hitting the trail). After a couple of attempts at keeping it tubeless, he eventually stopped and put a tube in. I have a hard time getting into the groove of things when a ride starts with halfwheeling leg-ripping contests, so I was happy for the short breaks.
As I previously discovered from my first trip to ride with Todd on the Womble, it’s customary to ride at close to a race-type effort whenever new guys (or girls) are in the group. Eye Candy Josh and Sandy were both “n00bsauce.”
We headed south from Highway 88, crossed the Ouachita River, and continued south on the Womble until we reached highway 298. From there, we hit the road. And more flats. This time, Razz discovered that his rim had a burr in it. It was rubbing a hole in his tire. We eventually booted it and headed up through Sims…
Being on a singlespeed on the road only sucks if you’re the only SS there. Luckily, there were 6 of us. We eventually hit the forest roads and made our way up a doubletrack climb to the Ouachita Trail. On the down side of the climb, MMTDave had another flat. Sandy stayed with him to lend him a tube and supplies, but soon found out that tubes kept in seatpacks for extended periods of time will have holes rubbed in them. Razz also flatted again soon after. I tried to lone my tube to him, and found that it was also damaged from my seatpack.
So, we decided to bail at the next forest road and head back in to Todd’s place for some refreshments.
The remainder of the afternoon was spent telling fish tales and bragging about who could find the most awesome “new guy.” As soon as it started getting dark, I was out cold, and didn’t wake up until the coyotes decided that 4:30 AM was a good time to have a coyote party in the woods… or whatever it was they were doing. I can’t complain too much- at least it wasn’t post-12-hour techno.
Day #2, we were much more successful at keeping the air on the inside of the tires (with the exception of Antique Gun Show). We headed north up the Womble and, after some sweet hike-a-bike, hit the Ouachita Trail on top of Round Top
The descent was awesome- a little rocky, a little flowy, a little fast… something for everyone. We eventually made it back to where we’d left the Womble and made our way back south to where we’d started
Apparently next weekend will be “battle of the new guys.” My entry into the horserace is Matt, who is visiting Todd’s next weekend and will likely blog all about it once he’s home and out of his coma.
I’m trying to have the carbon cross blinged out and ready for Cyclocrunk, which starts tomorrow night (don’t click that if you’re offended by rap music and/or cleavage, in which case, you should probably get off of the internet right now). Considering I haven’t trained at ALL for cyclocross this year, I’m hoping that no one shows up, lest I get my butt kicked.