Monday, May 01, 2006

Eleven hour weekend

Timing was right this weekend to spend huge hours on the saddle. Saturday morning was all about getting schooled by the over-fifty crowd of CCB. Got a bunch of road pointers and coaching of mostly what not to do on a large group ride. I've said it before but I'll say it again..road is much different than mountain. With road you want to stay close and work as a team...with mountain you want to stay far because you never know when the other guy is going to veer into your path to hit some air. I learned allot in the four hours we were out and look forward to learning more this wednesday on the hammerhead ride.


On to Sunday, and the epic that was almost over before it began. Jeff showed as planned, early and with trail bike. Would have been better if said trail bike was in working order.Fixed up the main pivot on Jeff's NRS but could not overcome the fact that he had no headset race on his newly installed fork...good thing that we started early and had all day to screw around.

Fastforward an hour - Jeff's back from his dash to Medf'a and on his I.F. and I on my dually. We roll out the four miles of pavement on our way to hours of rocky technical single track (what I consider to be Epic Black Diamond Biking)

Once on the trail, tension and stress levels now non-existent. We jump the guard rail at Gordon and flow on the thin dirt ribbon of trail...Snap!
At least we now know that Jeff's carbon rail saddle was not trail-rated...keep 'em on your road bike boys.

Now what? Tension now back..Aggravation growing. Trying to keep cool...do we ride back to my house and repair?
Nope, Barry to the rescue. Brought down a seat on his way to play ball with son Matthew. You da man!

We roll on for hours, problem free from there on out. Jeff got a chance to further acquaint himself with the new steel deluxe, riding some technical trail for the first time.

Sun was shining and temps warming up. Tore up ancient line, G Spot, Res Dog, Red Rock and met up with Barry on the backside of B+T's. Once again Barry proved that he was the man! by bringing lunch for Jeff and I.

Barry just could not help himself to the drops..Broken ribs and all.

Bridge with lots of thorn bushes to fall into if you veer off coarse..Would've been nice to have a helmet cam with sound so you could hear my frightened noises.

Doesn't get better than today, even with the amount of broken parts.






4 comments:

jeff said...

it is true, i failed... but i also believe a hardtail can be an ebdb rated machine - depending on who's driving!

wraith said...

YOU CAN ALSO SKI TUCKERMANS RAVINE ON X-COUNTRY SKIS BUT THAT DOES NOT MAKE THEM DOWNHILL, BIG MTN SKIS OR THE RIGHT SKI FOR THE JOB. A 25 LBS TOOL DESIGNED FOR X-COUNTRY RACING MAYBE CAPABLE OF MINOR ADVANCED RIDING IN THE RIGHT HANDS BUT IS FAR FROM THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB. ADD ABOUT 10LBS AND CHANGE SOME NUMBERS AND YOU HAVE A CAPABLE BLACK DIAMOND BIKE.

wraith said...

A GOOD ARTICLE THAT CATEGORIZES MTN BIKES IS MARCH 2006 MBA BUYERS GUIDE (EVERY BIKE HAS IT,S PLACE). A BLACK DIAMOND BIKE IS (A COUSIN TO THE DOWNHILL RACING CHASSIS). THE TYPE OF BIKE ONE IS ON HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE RIDERS MIND SET OR SKILL SET IT SIMPLY DEFINES THE BIKE ASSETS AND WEAKNESS.

Andy, R&D said...

trash talk all you want boys...

lets ride.