iRide

I’ve always dreamed of being able to have some sort of bike skills course at my own house. I’m pretty certain every mountain biker would love to be able to hit up some fun without ever having to leave the house. Some people have been fortunate enough to make it a reality. Unfortunately, I’ve never had enough property to be able to pull it off. Until now.

Since the day we moved in to our new place, I knew it had LOTS of possibilities. There’s plenty of available space in the yard to put several skill building features in.

I pulled up a Google Earth shot of our property and did a few quick edits to show what I’m working with:

The blacked out areas are areas we won’t be able to use. The other colors show where I have available space. The “red” section is about 50′ long, as is the ‘blue” section. The “yellow” and “green” sections are both 75′ long. Starting at the “red’ section, you would then flow into the “blue”, then the “yellow” and then the “green”. The “red” section is at the highest point of the yard and you continue to loose elevation very gradually all the way down to the “green’ section.

The “red” section is pretty narrow and will basically serve as a run-in to pick up speed to hit the rest of the course. It’s higher elevation makes this an ideal starting point.

The “blue” section will be able to hold 1-2 features.

The “yellow” section has the most promise. Besides being 75′ log, it is at least 10′ wide throughout. I’m thinking a ladder-bridge drop and/or a “skinny” will work great there since it has a gentle downward slope.

The “green” section has lot’s of promise too. I’m thinking a teeter-totter or log roll will fit pretty well.

I’ve been talking to Sean about it this past week and he’s been keeping an eye out for free wood/logs and such to make it happen. I’ve been doing the same.

Today I drove past the local fire station and saw that they had a bunch of tree trunk sections cut up and stacked along the fence at the edge of the property. I stopped, got out and rang the bell. One of the firemen came to the door and I asked him if the trunk sections were free for the taking. I said I had a backyard project and they would work perfectly. He said I could take whatever I wanted.

I went and got dad’s truck to haul them in, grabbed Dylan to help me and went back to the fire station. I was thinking it should be pretty easy since the trunk sections were all about 2′ in diameter and all about a foot high. Boy was I wrong!!! It would appear that the tree(s) they cut down were made of lead and not wood. Wow they were heavy!! I’m guessing at least 200 lbs each. So much for my dreams of a 15′ long log roller.

I was able to muscle 2 sections up into the truck though. I took them back to the house and immediately set them up in the “blue” section. Even though I could only bring two pieces back, it makes for a fun roll:

The very pronounced hump on top of the second, rounded log makes it a little bit tougher than without, but it was really fun to hit. And of course, I had to break it in:

I’ll be sure to post more as we build it. Until next time, seek your bliss.

Ride lots…

So you know I recently sold some bikes and acquired a new one. It’s a Santa Cruz Nomad. It’s sick. It’s awesome. I’ve always wanted one. Now I have one. Cue “Celebration” by Kool and The Gang!!

I picked it up from Bicycle Warehouse where it was getting new shift cables ran and then J and I headed over to Lake Calaveras to break it in. Lake Calaveras isn’t a hardcore trail by any stretch. But, I haven’t ridden there in forever, there’s newly built trails there I want to explore, so I figured why not. Joe was nice enough to show Jeremy and I the new stuff so we set off.

The Nomad did awesome!! It felt a little too plush. It turned out I was running 40 lbs less psi than I should have been–more on that later. Anyhoot, before too long we came to a pretty tasty rock garden I have seen only in pictures before.

So what’s the best way to get through this??

Why with this of course!!

The rest of the ride was fun too. I couldn’t believe all the new trails!! The Nomad felt a little too plush, but still rode great!!We rode for a couple hours and I had a blast. When I got home, I decided I should check and see how much air pressure the rear shock was supposed to have and I found out I was running it about 40 psi too low–which is why it felt too plush throughout the ride. I know, I know–I should have checked that before the ride. Oh well. I guess when you’re as good looking as I am, being smart on top of it just wouldn’t be fair, right?? Right??

Anyway, throughout the week, Joe and I were thinking about heading to Vail Lake Resort out in Temecula. It’s known more for the Cross Country bike races it hosts, but it also has some cool DH trails too–perfect for breaking in a bike like the Nomad!! Neither Joe or I had ever ridden there, but Joe knew Italo from MTBlocos and he knows the trails really well. Joe asked and Italo was nice enough to show us around.

We arrived early (to try and beat the heat) and set out. We headed up the “Ambulance Access Road” that wasn’t too steep. When we got to the top, we took real flowy trail back down called Dragon’s Lair. It was pretty cool, not too technical but was enough to get the blood flowing. Dylan did really well too–even though he was only on a 4″ travel Trance while I was on a 6″ travel Nomad and the rest of the guys were on 8″+ travel bikes. I believe he only walked one section of that trail!!

Before long we were back at the bottom by the cars and everyone grabbed their armor so we could go do battle against the DH trail. We decided to ride/push our bikes up the DH trail instead of riding the fireroad back up. There were no other cars in the parking lot, so we knew we wouldn’t run into anyone riding down. Plus, this would give us all a chance to scope out the trail first–as we were heading up–and see what we were in for on the way down. A good idea given the technical trail we would soon be on.

Heading out:

The first real feature we got to was a ladder bridge that was purposefully built pretty off camber. Italo hits it:

The steeds:

There was an easier, more level ladder bridge above the off camber one. Dylan wanted to get in a bit of practice while we were stopped, so he’d have a better feel for it on the way down.

Not quite halfway up, a look at the route back down:

And the push up goes on…

…and goes on:

Dylan was getting worked from pushing his bike up such steep hills, so Italo kindly offered to stay with him at about the halfway point, so Joe, Dennis and I could go all the way to the top. Super cool of him!! The three of us continued on. A look back down:

Finally we got to the top. I didn’t get any pics of the descent back down. The trail is pretty narrow without a good place to stand for pic taking, plus I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the DH. We got down to where Italo and Dylan were waiting in no time at all and we continued on. Dylan only walked a couple sections, but hit both ladder bridges. We were all really proud of him!!

After that, we pedaled over to the top of the BMX/jump course so we could finish up the day on that.

Everyone eyeing up one of the huge gap jumps at the top:

When I say “huge”, I mean HUGE!! At least a 30 footer:

Needless to say, no one was feeling stupid brave enough so we just continued down the main track and ended up back at the cars. The temps had been climbing all day, but we had a cooler full of ice-cold Gatorade waiting for us. It tasted SO good!!

So, the verdict on the Nomad?? AWESOME!!! I don’t mind saying some of the sections of the DH course had me in “full pucker” mode, but the Nomad soaked them up just fine!! I can’t wait to see what she does next!!

Until next time, seek your bliss.

Ride lots…

After last week’s fun ride up in the Laguna mountains and our first time on the awesome new Los Gatos Trail, J and I decided we wanted to hit it up again real soon. So we decided to wait all of one week and ride it again today. We were actually able to talk Tom/NappyT/fellow founding STAT Crew member into riding with us–his first ride in quite some time. I got a text message from James last night asking if we were headed up and if he could join. The more the merrier, so he met up with us at Tom’s and we all piled into my car for the drive up. In hindsight I should have gotten a picture of all 4 of our bikes on my roof rack. Nothing like driving around with well over $10,000 in bikes on your car!!

The weather was awesome and we set out. We ran into an acquaintance or two–which is always nice–and had a good ride out the Big Laguna Trail/BLT, out to Agua Dulce, up to Chico Gatos Ravine and eventually the Los Gatos Spur Trail. There are a few new features on Los Gatos–added since our ride there last week!!

We sessioned a few of them, though I didn’t photograph them (more on why in a second). I did verify with pictures I took just last week that the new stuff was built since then.

There’s a couple new log rollers towards the beginning. There is a new roll/up-and-over right after the flattest log/trunk roll. In this freeze frame from a video we took last week, I confirmed that it wasn’t there then. The new feature goes up and over this log I marked and there’s another small one immediately after.

You can see the edge of it in this pic:

And yes–those are horses in that pic!! While we were hitting the new feature, 2 equestrians came down the trail. I REALLY wanted to question them on why they felt it necessary to ride Los Gatos, even though the sign at the top discourages it and that they have a gabillion other trails to ride. I knew it wouldn’t do any good and would only give them a negative view of MTBers, so I kept quiet.

Overall it was a good ride though. I hit a couple things I didn’t hit before, which was cool. There’s a long tree trunk log roll that I finally sacked up and rode.  James got a vid of it. After watching it, I realize how lame it looks having J and Tom spot me and run along side me. I asked them to and was thankful they did–as I didn’t feel much like taking a nose-dive off the log. Next time I’ll try it without the spotters. For now though, I think it looks kind of lame. Who knows? You be the judge:

Log Ride

I got a pic of the steep log roller from last weeks ride/post. The camera view in the video doesn’t do a good job of showing how steep the angle is, so I got a pic of it:

Now for the reason we didn’t take many pics: James/Quaestionis had a bit of a spill at the top of Los Gatos and suffered an Open Dislocation (Google “Kyle Orton” for more details) of his right ring finger. He also broke something in his hand–so said the text I got when he was done at the E.R. It looked kind of gross–like he had a “free-floating grape” on the top of his hand.I have yet to get all the details, but he did tell me he is now sporting a cast. We did stop to hit a few things, but the main objective was to get back to the car as quick as we could so he could get to a doctor, so we didn’t mess with pics too much. Although he did pull out his camera to take a vid of me riding the longest of the trunk rolls. What a trooper!!

Here’s a few random pics I took throughout the day:

Can you spot the bikers?

All in all though, it was a great day of riding on awesome, scenic trails with great views!!

Now then, to explain what my last post was all about–

So I’ve been wanting to do a sort of consolidation of my bike stable for awhile now. I got the Yeti awhile ago and it served as my main ride for over 2 years. During that two years, I built it up from a somewhat light weight trail bike, to a pretty beefy trail bike. It started at around 28 lbs and ended up at closer to 32 lbs. Now 4 lbs may not seem like a lot, but when you consider that 4 lbs is about 15% of the bikes weight, you realize it is significant. With its burlier build, I took it on rides like Noble Canyon and Ted Williams a lot–rides that are tough on bikes. As a result, the frame broke twice. Yeti was always cool and warrantied it just fine, but it’s really not meant for this type of abuse.

I built up the Niner and fell in love with it. It is a very capable back up bike and really fun to ride. I’ve also always wanted a Turner 5-Spot and I acquired that late last year. Over the next few months I proceeded to make it lighter and lighter and now it is sitting at 28 lbs. Given the terrain at most of the trails I ride, this is a perfect bike. So, I ended up riding it primarily and the Yeti has been sitting and collecting dust.

During all of this, my freeride/downhill bike Haro has been sitting even longer than the Yeti. It has an awesome build and is fun to ride. But, at 43 lbs it has a very specific purpose–to be pointed downhill and let loose like a wrecking ball on wheels. Given the lack of agressive DH trails in the area, I never rode it either.

So I have an awesome trail bike in the 5 Spot. I have a fun trail/back-up bike in the Niner. Then I have the overly-heavy-yet-not-designed-to-be-thrashed Yeti sitting and collecting dust–as well as the too-much-bike-for-me Haro collecting dust as well.

I decided to sell the Haro and use the money to buy a burly, yet not too heavy aggressive trail/All Mountain frame and transfer the Yeti’s burly parts onto it.

I sold the Haro on Craigslist and was able to get a great deal on a barely used Santa Cruz Nomad frame. It turns out that my friend Joe had a co-worker who was selling it and I got it for a steal!!

I got it Thursday night and built it up/swapped the parts over last night. Now, I just have to drop it off to Tom the mechanic at Bicycle Warehouse next week, so he can run new shifter cables. After that she’s done and ready to ride!!

Lookin’ mighty fine for a crappy cell phone pic:

The Nomad is a 6″ travel bike that us built burly enough to take jumps and drops without cracking/breaking, all while still maintaing a relatively low weight to make climbing and general trail riding still doable. It only has an inch less rear travel and a half an inch less front travel than the Haro–all while being over 10 lbs lighter!!

I can’t wait until she’s finished and I can take her on her maiden voyage!! I’ll be sure to take lot’s of pics. Until next time, seek your bliss.

Ride lots…

More info to come soon…

Ride lots…

It was a great 3-Day holiday weekend!! Saturday was the awesome trip to the Laguna mountains and trail goodness. Sunday we went over to P. Mark’s house for a barbecue, horse-shoe tossing, games and socializing.

Today, Dylan and I got up early, picked dad up and headed off to Santa Rosa Plateau for some trailification.

SUV + Roof Rack + Mountain Bike = HOLLA!!

We got to Santa Rosa and decided to head up the “Slaughterhouse Trail”. I’m not sure why it is nick-named that. It should be called Poison Oak-house. The first and only time I had ever ridden it before was Labor Day weekend last year–and I ended up getting the worst Poison Oak rash I’ve ever had because of it.

But, dad and Dylan had never ridden it before and I have since discovered the awesomeness that is Tecnu, so we gave it a go. We all enjoyed the trail and tried to avoid the Poison Oak as much as possible!!

Dylan on Slaughterhouse:

Dad on Slaughterhouse:

Dad and Dylan coming in to the main SRP trail network:

We then came into the main SRP trail network and had a great time. The weather was pretty mild and there was a decent breeze.

After a little while, we put Dylan in the front and he turned into DYLAN THE HAMMER yet again. At times, it was all I could do to hang on to his wheel!! I managed to pull out the camera while riding and get a pic of THE HAMMER in action:

At one point, he bombed down a hill faster than I expected him to and started to drop the hammer yet again when it flattened out. Problem was, he flew right by the turn in the trail we were going to take and was already out of ear-shot by the time I realized it. Luckily, he looked back eventually and realized he had to ride back.

After the ride, we all hosed down with the Tecnu spray I keep in my car. I also washed down with the big vat of Tecnu body scrub in the shower when I got home. Here’s hoping I don’t see any PO rash over the next couple days!!

Later, we had an awesome Labor Day barbecue at mom and dad’s. My compliments to the chef…who was your’s truly manning the grill!! I didn’t ask dad if he wanted me to grill, I just stepped up and did it. LOL.

When we got home, the boys wanted to toss some horse-shoes. We got a good game in before it got dark.

Dylan preps the pits:

Spencer throwin’ down:

What a way to finish off the weekend!! I can’t believe it’s already over!! Thankfully, it’s only a 4-day work week this week.I’m tentatively planning to head back up to the Laguna’s and re-ride what we did on Saturday.

Until then, seek your bliss and plant new seeds.

Ride lots…

After the craptacular ride I had up in the Laguna mountains a couple weeks ago, I was chomping at the bit to get back. I was also looking forward to it because I was able to get Dylan’s bike all squared away last week and this would be his first ride up in the Laguna’s. I’ve been wanting to take him up here since the first time I rode here myself. The trail is awesome and the scenery is spectacular. He’s grown into such a strong rider these last couple months I knew he’d ride strong enough to have fun without being wiped out.

I was able to get the 5 Spot repaired from its issues that ruined that last ride. I also picked up some blingy new pedals. The pedals that were on it were totally trashed and I’ve been eying up the new Azonic 420 pedals. They come in a variety of colors, including Red, so that’s what I went with. Might as well go for a matching color, right?

Our main goal of the day was to find and ride the new Los Gatos Spur trail that I’ve read and heard a lot about. I got some directions and we set out. We started from the Penny Pines trailhead and I could just tell it was going to be an awesome day. The weather was very mild and it was a beautiful day. We put Dylan out front and he was flying right away. I reminded him we had a long day ahead of us and he toned it down a little. He really enjoyed the trail though and was riding well. I didn’t take any pics of the BLT trail. I’ve posted many of those in the past.

We took a wrong turn once or twice but didn’t care. We were just out to have fun and at least we were on mountain single track. It’s hard to care if you get turned around under those conditions. Back on trail, we were heading up Agua Dulce when Dylan started to get a little fatigued. We took a break towards the end and I got my first pics of the day.

Dylan stops for a Clif Bar and a rest:

Awesome scenery:

The Spot in all her glory:

J, me and Dyl:

Token handlebar shot:

Over the river and through the woods…

We finally made it to the Los Gatos Spur trail. After reading the trail signage, we knew right away we were in for a good time!!

It starts off with the techy stuff right away with the “Lincoln Logs” feature. I got it after a few attempts:

Failed attempt–sorry for the cursing:

Lod Gatos Lincoln Logs first attempt FAIL

Made it:

Los Gatos Licoln Logs success

The next log feature looked harder and sketchier, but wasn’t too bad. The video does it NO justice though. It was pretty steep:

Los Gatos steep log ride

There are lots of really narrow log rides on the trail and I wasn’t feeling them. That’s OK though–it gives me something to shoot for. I did hit the “easiest” one though:

Los Gatos \”easy\” log ride

Followed by Dylan!!
Dylan rolls the easy one

Before too long, the Los Gatos trail came to an end. Wow was it a good time though!! I almost can’t believe that a trail that fun and with all those techy features actually sits here in San Diego. I will definitely be coming back soon.

We headed back out the main trail to the trailhead and to finish off the ride. We ended up running into Noble Canyon/BLT legend Steve and his friend Mark. Steve was working on his latest crazy trail feature. He was just putting the finishing touches on it when we rolled up. It was just beyond crazy. Super hard to pop up onto. He went after it anyway. I have a pic of it a little further down. Wait ’til you see it.

He made a few attempts, trying to get it dialed in:

Steve\’s new craziness, attempt #1

Steve\’s new craziness, attempt #2

The lip was just too sharp, so I helped him move another log/tree trunk perpindicular to it, so at least he had a rounded adge to work with, instead of a square one:

New and improved, attempt #1

Attempt #1 with improvements

He almost had it, so he went for attempt #2 and nailed it:

New and improved, attempt #2–nailed it!!

After that, we went on our way, but not before I got a pic of our rides, all lined up:

All in all, it was a great day. No mechanicals this time. Dylan’s first ride at BLT. Cool new trail in the Los Gatos trail–all that in awesome weather.Thanks for coming along!! Until next time, seek your bliss and plant new seeds.

Ride lots…