Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Waltworks at Interbike


No, I'm not there. I have better things to do, like play with the dogs, ride my bike, and maybe even build a bike or two.

But Nick will be there, racing on his matching (well, the frames match, anyway) Waltworks cyclocross bikes. He's up against some stiff competition, it sounds like, so cheer him on if you're at the race!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Durango report


Well, it was an odd weekend. We drove 6+ hours (each way) to go hit the Durango/FLC collegiate race, and I can't say I'm sorry I went, but it certainly could have been better.

We started the trip off by driving to approximately the midway point - Poncha Springs - where we saddled up and rode up from 285 along the road that parallels Silver Creek up to the Rainbow trail. Rainbow is great - 9 miles of buff, twisty singletrack. Pictured above are Sarah and Eszter about 7 miles into it, with Mt. Princeton in the background. The photo really does not do the scene justice, but it was pretty sweet.

I managed to wash out my front wheel and hit the ground HARD near the end of the ride, leaving me with a nice set of gashes on my knee and elbow and a bruised ego. Those ladies ride fast! In any case, we drove onwards and finally stopped to eat at a fine establishment called The Hungry Logger, which featured perhaps the most incompetently executed wood carving (of a logger, natch) I've ever seen. I was shocked to discover that the menu featured a veggie burger, with green chile strips, no less, and we actually had a decent meal. You could have knocked me over with a feather - we were really expecting standard hunting town fare - salty mush, iceberg lettuce, and blank stares when we asked if an item was veggie or not. The green chile was pretty bland, but c'est la vie. It's not NM.

We finally arrived in Durango and found a place to crash at a CU team member's house. Haven't hung out with the 18-21 year old crowd in a long time, but mercifully they went to sleep by 1am. We woke up at 6:30 ready to go.

Sarah and I headed for the downhill race, while Eszter went to the short track (which, btw, she won). The DH course was interesting - it had been advertised as taking place on Log Chutes, a trail up Junction Creek road that's not technical at all - I was expecting a long, pedally run with maybe a few waterbars or logs to jump over. The actual course, however, was a reclaimed mining road with a lot of babyheads and a fun small double, some loose corners, and lots of praying that you didn't crash at 30+ mph. I think the course was about 2.5 miles long, and people were running 5 minute times - that's fast. Sarah elected to race her rigid XC bike, because she hasn't had enough time on her DH bike this summer to feel comfortable. I raced the big 7" travel bike and got a lot of curious comments about the 29" wheels.

Sarah had a good run and (we think, official results haven't shown up yet) beat a couple of girls. I was having a great run about 2.5 minutes in (I could see the dust from my minute man!) spun out in my 38x11, really raging it (well, ok, by my standards) when I flatted my front tire. Doh. It was really a good course for the 29er - not too much super tight stuff, really rough, and really fast. And yes, the Nevegals failed me, but it's my own fault for running 25psi - I should have bumped them up to 32 or even higher. About half of the men's A (pro/semi/expert) field flatted as well, I'm told, so I'm not going to chalk it up as a defeat for the 29" DH concept. I probably won't make it to Angel Fire for final descent, so the DH bike might have seen it's last competition for the year.

The XC race the next morning was rained out (the trails at Telegraph are pure clay) so we booked it back to the front range and salvaged a ride at Buffalo Creek. I can see why those trails are popular - non-technical and super twisty fun!

In any case, Wyoming is this coming weekend, so I imagine we'll go hit at least the XC race. Maybe the Super D too - I always enjoy those.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Off to Durango!

We're off to do the FLC collegiate race this weekend, so don't expect a reply to your email (or phone call) until Monday.

I'll have full report for all my loyal readers. Meaning, Ed E and Feldman, I guess. You guys need to stop wasting all your time online...

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Bored on singletrack?!?


Something very disconcerting happened to Sarah and I on Sunday - we did a big ~17 mile ride, 90% on singletrack, with great weather, no mechanicals, and no crashes, and we had a terrible time.

How is this possible? Well, Jeffco opened up a new trail called Centennial Cone about 6 months ago. It's a beautiful location, high above Clear Creek canyon, with cool views all around. Feels really remote, too - there are plenty of places where you really can't see any sign of civilization. There's a 2.3 mile singletrack spur leading to a 12 mile loop, 9 of which are singletrack. What could possibly suck about that?

Well, the trail design, that's what. It's relatively flat, with no steep grades anywhere. Ok, no problem there, really, but combine that with a decided lack of twistiness, lots of annoying switchbacks with logs inexplicably placed in the worst possible spot, and such a smooth surface that I often spent 10 minutes without needing or wanting to unweight (let alone lift) my front wheel.

This is symptomatic of a problem I've seen here in Boulder when the county crews build new trails - they think the trails purpose is to get from A to B, when in actuality, the people using the trail generally aren't trying to go anywhere at all. Straight trails suck, first because they're not fun to ride, but more importantly because they're dangerous. Multiuse/multidirectional trails need to have features that keep riders from going too fast, and they need to avoid having too many blind corners (especially if they're mixed in with fast/straight terrain).

Centennial Cone, as it stands, is a disaster waiting to happen, because it's easy to get going 20+ mph on the dead straight, dead smooth downhill sections, and then slam into someone coming the other way around one of the blind turns. It also encourages riders to haul ass like crazy into the (often nigh-unrideable) switchbacks, then slam on the stoppers and skid.

Let me be clear - I have no problem with the fact that the trail isn't technical or (for me) particularly fun. It'll attract lots of beginner riders who are looking for a long singletrack loop that isn't too challenging. But the trail could have catered to those riders AND been much safer and funner with just a few extra twists and turns, and the occasional small rock. Reasonable technical features make a trail SAFER for everyone (hikers, riders, horsie folks) - I wish the folks building trails around here understood that.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Long offset forks and steering "quickness"

I've been reading all about the various new longer-offset suspension forks coming out soon (Fox at 44mm and 51mm, Reba at 51mm, Manitou at 47 or 48mm?) and folks seem pretty psyched. I read a lot of message board posts that go something along the lines of "dude, my bike will steer way quicker! Sweet!".

Let's get something straight - there is no free lunch when it comes to bicycle steering geometry. "Quicker" steering is also "less stable" steering, or "twitchy" steering, depending on what situation you find yourself in. If you want to make the bike react MORE to steering input (ie, make it handle "quicker"), you can do a number of things, but the easiest ways to do accomplish it are to A) add fork offset, or B) steepen the head angle, or C) both. The crucial number here is referred to as "trail", and if you need a basic explanation, you can click here. Higher trail numbers are more "stable" or "sluggish", low numbers are "quick" or "twitchy". Typical trail figures for mountain bikes are in the 65-80mm range. Downhill bikes can get upwards of 100mm, twitchy crit bikes can be in the 40s.

Here's the catch on "quickness", though - if the bike reacts more to you leaning and/or turning the handlebars, it's also going to change course more when the trail surface *causes* you to lean or turn the bars (if, for example, you hit a big ol' rock in the trail, or an unexpected sandpit, or whatever). You can't have your cake and eat it too - a super-responsive bike is going to be a real handful in the rough stuff, and a super-stable bike is going to have to get manhandled through the tight stuff. You've got to look at your local terrain and skills and decide where you want your bike to be on the responsiveness continuum.

You've also got to consider your approach to your riding - do you want a bike that addresses your weaknesses but might hinder you a bit on the terrain that you're more comfortable riding? Or do you just want to suffer on the terrain you don't like anyway, so that you can totally rage on the stuff you're best at riding? For most folks, a middle way is the best option, as boring as it might sound. Just keep in mind that the "quickest" option when it comes to steering geometry may not be the best for you or your situation.

A final note - I am not one of the folks that thinks the longer-offset forks are a great way to get teeny tiny people on 29ers. Honestly, if you have to have an extra 13mm of offset, really long toptube, and slack head angle to fit, you should be looking at a 26" or 650b bike instead. Steering geometry and handling are strongly affected by wheelbase and weight distribution, both of which become problematic regardless of fork offset or toe overlap considerations.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

I am a lazy bastard

I took off monday (labor day), I didn't do squat on Tuesday, and I took off Friday to ride up Rollins Pass with Sarah. Long story short, not much got done on the bike building front this week. C'est la vie. The weather looks to be bad today and tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get motivating to make small steel tubes into larger conglomerations of steel tubes.

So, a few pictures from this weekend's activities. First up, I have been canning like mad - there are TONS of fruit trees in Boulder (mainly apple) which have their fruit just go to waste every year - my father in law probably lets 300 pounds of apples rot on his lawn every autumn. So Sarah and I picked a ton of apples (and got some peaches from Westminster, too) and I made some peach preserves, as well as a ton of applesauce. Here's a shot of the radioactive-looking peaches cooking up. I was amazed at how much sugar you have to use - 5 cups for every 4 cups of chopped peaches! Wow! Next time I'll get the non-sugar type of pectin and try to make something a tiny bit healthier.

On friday, Sarah and I rode up Rollins pass with a couple of other folks from the CU biochemistry dept (they were having a retreat over the pass in Winter Park). I turned around at the pass and rode back to Boulder. Long story short: 8 hours, ~8,000 feet of climbing, ~70 miles. I was so cooked when I got back to Ned that I decided to just bomb down the canyon instead of trying to ride trails back. Sheesh. The picture is from just above the top of Corona lift at Eldora - there's actually a sweet singletrack way to get up the pass if you take this ridge due west.

I was totally spent, but since I was playing bachelor for the weekend, Miguel insiste d that we party. Here I am riding the MIFA on our way out to the bars after consuming a lot of vodka and pomegranate juice. Yuck. At least you get blitzed quick...

Finally, I went downhilling with Feldy yesterday. We got in 5 runs before exhaustion forced us to quit - riding technical downhill trails when you're tired is not a great idea. I accomplished a couple of minor goals - hit the big ~20' tabletop on the old DH course (TNT) cleanly for the first time, and also worked up the guts to hit the biggest set of tables at the bottom near the lift, though I only managed to cleanly land on the tranny on the first and second jumps of the set. The WB DH-2/Groove fork is awesome - I was getting the full 7" of travel, which combined with the big wheels makes me a better DH rider than I really am.

I even got a few comments on the 29" DH bike, though fewer than I'd expect. I guess people just don't look that closely at bikes, because I would tend to think mine would stand out (steel, 29" wheels, big gold "Waltworks" decals) as something noteworthy. Maybe I should have powdercoated it neon green or something. Keystone is open for one more weekend, so maybe I'll try to drag Sarah up there one more time before the season ends.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

WB Magic 100 29" fork for sale

I ordered the wrong fork from WB for a customer about a month ago and I don't want or need it - brand new Magic 100 (29er) fork, disc specific, QR dropouts, new in the box, includes a full warranty. I want it out of the garage before it disappears beneath more random crap and never resurfaces.

$500 shipped to your door, at least if you live in the continental US. Zap me an email if you're interested.

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Cold War Repairs

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