I’ve got a bunch of stuff posted on MTBR for sale. It’s stuff I really don’t feel I should throw away. Check it out.
http://classifieds.mtbr.com/showproduct.php?product=23964&cat=
Or at least a new frame. Titus has been so good to me. And they try very hard to do what they can to meet my strange requests. A year and a half ago, I had them build up a 29er hardtail frame for me. I had them put a steep head tube angle on it AND a high BB. Not such a good decision. I thought running 180 cranks would make the high BB work better, but combined with the steep front end….and steep seat tube angle, it made it extremely twitchy. In the slow techy stuff it shined, excelled, kicked ass, etc. I could pedal through any rock garden no problem. But the handling at high speed and trying to corner on loose flat stuff was sketch. I also was quite disappointed with the tire clearance. With a 2.55 Weir Wolf, I had about 1 mm on each side.
This new frame got broken in today with a 5 hour jaunt through our various riding areas here in the pass. I climbed it, did the spin coast spin thing on the flats, and sent it down the rock scree slope on the west side of Mundy’s Gap. Handling was much better. Tire clearance is still a bit tight, but I ran a ragged out Nanoraptor on the rear today and that baby has plenty of room. A neighborhood test ride showed that the Weir Wolf 2.55 fits pretty good with just enough room to spare. It worked suprisingly well.
I had them build this frame with similar stats as the 23″ Specialized 29er hardtail. I’m glad I did it because the front end feels just like my Racer-X. Of course, the rear end is a bit….um…stiffer. Just because you are a big tall guy, doesn’t mean you should try to tighten up a bike to make it handle quicker. Stick to the relaxed angles and it will fit better and handle better. I’m not sure what to do with my other frame. I think it might work really well with a 650b rear wheel. I’ve got one on order, so we’ll see what happens. If it handles really well, I may just keep it.
With the three water bottle cages…all King Ti of course… I’ve decided to nickname this bike Desert Destroyer.
I also had Titus use the Paragon Sliders. These babies are beautiful. While they take a bit longer to set up, you can use a cheesy QR rear hub and not worry about it sliding forward. While I like the Titus interchangeables due to their light weight, I either had to crank the bujeezus out of a crossmax mavic skewer or use a bolt on rear hub. They did a really nice job welding these puppies on.
I ended up breaking my Mr. T starter kit. One of the pins was so loose I could almost push it through the links with my fingers. Luckily the closest shop in town to the trails does the BMX thing and I was able to score a master link.
It’s totally hammering rain outside now. We got some good sprinkles on our ride this morning, but now it is really raining. The trails were in good shape today, we’ll see what they look like tomorrow. Hopefully this will never happen again.
Bad thing about all the rain, besides all the crazy weeds that grow, is that in a few years these suckers will be MUCH bigger.
We saw both of these guys on Thursday. Luckily they were both mellow.
Sorry I’ve been so slack on the updates. Everytime I got on a computer, I either paid bills or just checked my email then moved on. Stops in town were for food or laundry.
My friend said I should make a list of all the trails I rode, but I can’t remember them all.
Here are some of my favorites……
A River Runs Through It - sweet Whistler stunt line…slow …and low…no pictures
7 Summits (Rossland, BC) - full loop on the day…pics below
Larmamie, WY - a network of insane trails just off the rest area between Cheyenne and Laramie - home to the Laramie Enduro.
That place has endless riding.
After Laramie we discovered that we had an extra week, so we went to Crested Butte. The best part about summer in crested butte is the weekly Pinnacle race series on Thursday nights. $16 gets you a number plate, dinner, and beer. And if you win your category, you’ll get a ti King cage like Jen and I did!
Reno-Flag-Bear-Deadman’s is definitely the best. Lots of whoop-dee action thanks to the moto boys and girls. I’ll be back there again soon.
We finished the summer off with a visit to Sante Fe thanks to the guys at Mellow Velo. They ponied up a $100 gift certificate for my win in the SS class at Los Alamos. Pajarito has excellent biking, especially if you like to go the lift served thing. They have some good DH runs and the lift tickets are only $20.
Day 2 did not have the luxury of the float plane. So we climbed….and climbed…and climbed. About 4 hours total of climbing. But what goes up, must come down and the down was pretty epic.
I mentioned in the previous post that we were shouting for bears. Not trying to lure them in, but hopefully scare them away. This area of BC is known for BIG grizzly bears. None of the pack trains we came across had seen any, and while I was hoping to snap a pic of one, not running into one is always a bonus. But we did follow these prints for well over a mile.
Yep. That’s a grizzly bear print next to Lesley’s hand….and her hands aren’t small.
Yelling “BEAR…GO AWAY BEAR” while climbing really gives you a workout. Luckily there were some pretty incredible views on this climb.
Less than half way into our day of climbing we came up on this cabin. It looks a bit scary, but in a big mountain downpour or sudden snow storm, this baby would be awesome.
This sweet panorama is the top of the first climb of 2 for the day.
Then we hit a sweet descent that lasted about 20 minutes or so.
If you look carefully in the pic you should be able to see the single track and some the gang of four on it.
More descending.
This is the looking down at the second climb of the day.
We did a bit of hike-a-biking to top out on our last climb of the day.
Then it was all downhill….which was really great until we hit some blow down that seemed to be in a mosquito nest. That sucked. Literally.
IF you look at a map of British Columbia, look for a small town north of Whistler called Pemberton. Draw a line about 40 miles northwest of Pemberton and that puts you in the Chilcotin Mountains, an amazingly beautiful range that is loaded with single track….that’s not much over 8,000 feet. I think the highest peaks were only about 9,000. We drove for about 2 hours on some really steep dirt roads. It gave the 4 wheel drive a good workout and it raised the temp of the Alison tranny to the highest level I’ve ever seen.
We set up camp on a small lake near the TYAX lodge where we would be taking a float plane flight at 8 am up to Warner Lake. At 8 sharp, we rolled onto the dock and began loading the plane.
After handing over some cold Canadian cash to the pilot, we took off and headed into the backcountry.
The scenery was really intense. No drugs need here. The pilot was really smooth. This de Haviland Beaver was built in 1961. The fleet of Beavers helped develop the BC backcountry into what it is today. They continue to service hunters and backcountry travelers like ourselves. This plane looked brand new. Rumor is that one of these beauties is worth around half a million.
We approached our lake, checked to make sure the wind was blowing up canyon, and banked a hard right in the canyon to make a silky smooth landing.
After unloading the plane, we walked 20 feet up the hill and hopped on insane single track. Yelling for bears almost the entire ride, we ripped scree slopes, blooming meadows, and miles of wooded single track. It seemed to never end, but after 6 hours, we popped out on a dirt road, climbed for about 20 minutes, and wound up back at camp.
Here are some more sweet pics of the ride.
Day 2 consisted of Matt and Lesley taking us up to Checkemus Lake. This is a sub-alpine lake that feeds an insane river. On the way we saw some of our racer pals finishing up the BC bike race.
Here’s Tinker…without his partner.
One of Matt’s buddies….the Dingo…came through and visited with us for a while. He was flamin’ pissed off cause his partner was sucking so bad. He dropped f-bombs for about 15 minutes while he waited on his buddy. He really wanted to go ride with us instead.
Then we headed up to Checkemus Lake. We did some awesome climbs and crossed over the creek that is fed by the lake. There is no dam for this thing. It’s really incredible.
We then got to the lake and took a break near the exit. The water was flowing really fast at this spot.
We then rode out to the end of the trail were I took this great panorama of the area. Unbelievable.
Stay tuned as we will be heading slightly north for a float plane shuttle ride.
Our first day in Whistler was an epic. But not really. We hit a trail called Comfortably Numb….
24 km, but 4+ hours. Unbelievable! I definitely did not take enough pics on this one. Jen got sick half way into the ride and left some gifts for the bears. I did get one descent pic of Jen dropping a nutty rock that was covered with roots.
There were other “standard” style bridges too that kept you out of the muck.
Here’s a great view of Whistler.
We actually finished this ride well under 4 hours. I loved every minute of it.
Our drive from the Cream Puff up to Whistler was very disappointing. We did get to see some really neat stuff, but trying to conserve fuel meant not taking every side trip available to see things that could normally be seen from the main road. What am I talking about? Well, the forest fires in California are/were so bad, that we could barely see any of the big volcanic peaks unless we were right up on them…..such as Mt. Bachelor. My camera has this rad panorama feauture and Jen took this cool one by this lake below Mt. Bachelor.
The highway up to Whistler was insane. It is cut into the base of the mountains and follows the coastline closely for quite a ways. They are doing tons of construction on it due to the upcoming 2010 Olympics. My dad warned me saying that there weren’t any lines, but we hit it during the daylight hours and made it without incident.
So despite not being able to see Helens or Ranier, we had some great views of the Sunshine coast.
Cream Puff!!!! Wow! Everyone told us it would be awesome….and it was. Jen and I duked it out the entire day and she finally dropped me on the last climb. 16,000 feet of climbing. That’s as much climbing as the Gila road stage race….5 days.
Free camping. Free food. Free showers. Lots of awesome food in the feed zones. One feed zone even had a hose running out of a spring. I have no idea what place I got….maybe top 30. Jen was the second female and she really did a great job climbing.
My goal…finish without of cramping. Jen’s goal….finish without throwing up. Mission accomplished. Sub-12 hour. Winner was just under 10 hours.
Here’s some pics from a couple of the awesome sections of trails.
I almost took my camera with me for the race, but I probably wouldn’t have made the cut-off time.
Next stop….Whistler.
We finally made it out of El Paso and hooked up with the Cochiti 100…..which turned out to be a 70 something miler. We got up there about noon and the guys were finishing up their first loop. I think they started way too late. We took off on the second loop around the tent rocks and went out again to try to find some single track out that way. We ended up with 56 miles.
Then it was off to Durango and Cortez. It took us less than an hour in Durango to run into someone we knew and later in our ride we ran into Myles Rockwell….who looked scary fit.
We got a sick ride in around the Salt Lake/Bountiful foothills and around the North Canyon/Mueller Park trails.
Then it was up to the IMBA Summit in Park City. What a blast. I learned so much and took about 18 pages of notes. I can’t wait for our next club meeting. Every afternoon included insanely fun rides on some of the 400 miles of single track around the town.
We are now up in Idaho and headed to Oregon. Stay tuned.
