Sunday, June 30, 2013

First Ride on the Tallboy! Tiger Mountain

Ok, today was by Divine design. Could not get any better. Have been longing to take the new Santa Cruz Tallboy out for its first official ride. Today was the day. Been many years on my own mountain bike. Hmmm... how do I get ready for a mountain bike ride? Not sure. I'm used to road bikes. Well... the Tallboy needed some accoutrements first. Seat quick release. Bottle cages. Tool bag. All finally on, but took seemingly way too long. Tire air pressure? I dunno. Feels ok. Load up the car. Drive.

Tiger Mountain is about 30 miles from my house in east King county. Its a really awesome, multi-use area for hiking, horse riding and mountain bike riding. I have ridden out there many times, but the last time was probably 12 years ago. It has a lot of single track, true to the Pacific Northwest, a lot of tree roots, rutty, wet soils and plenty of rocks.

I arrive at Tiger and I feel a bit possessed. I am focused. Unload the bike. Click on the sat tracker, check the suspension. Roll out.

The first 2.5 miles are a steep gravel forest service road. Man I am huffin'. It has to be a 10% grade. I stay in my middle ring and get out of the saddle on the steepest parts. What a monster I must be smashing the pedals. Man I am huffin'. Wait, I said that already. After that it levels off a bit and its all gravel road to the top of east Tiger. The last 200 hundred yards are the steepest. Bear down, pump, pump, pump. The radio towers appear and I am there.

There is a nasty little secret to Mt Biking... yah gotta go up to get the fun downhill rides! I hang at the top of east Tiger for about 20 minutes. A few, fellow riders arrive. We have all been puffing.

Time to go. From the top I'm hitting East Tiger Trail Summit Trail, Preston Railroad Grade, NW Timber Trail and a couple forest roads to link it all together.

Ok, so if you follow my blog, you know that I started riding MTBs back in the early 80s. But, for the last 10 years, I have been on a hiatus and have not ridden nor had any durn fat tire machine. My cycling has been devoted to road biking and touring (recently). The minute I pedal down the first single track on Tiger... things are WAY different. First... there are now 29" tired MTBs as well as 26" tired (27.5" too, but the jury is still out on this tweener size). My Tallboy is a 'two-niner' as they say. The trails feel different too. Much more oriented to flow and pump vs sheer technical single track.

So, I pump, I flow, I brake, I chatter, I navigate, I balance, I get technical, I squeeze the seat with my legs, I keep the eyes pealed... man this is fun and damn challenging. I get off-beat, out of rhythm, dab the foot, bump my ass on the seat... grab the brakes. I take a break... this is hard work. But absolutely fun and exhilarating.

In my younger days of mt biking... I felt pretty skilled and adept at riding. I don't remember fear or even moderate concern coming into play when I rode the more technical trails. Yesterday... was a bit different from back then. Yes, concern. Yes, some fear. But, I am older now and do not have that "balls to the walls" mentality anymore. Heck, my balls were deflated a few years back! Older age has set in.

Lastly, since we're talking about age, the route definitely beat me up. Ten miles of technical single track with rocks, roots, creeks and steep slippery pitches, mussed me up pretty good. At times, I felt I needed a kidney belt.

Enjoy the photos!

Highway 90 Issaquah, heading east to Tiger


This is a satellite track of my route.


Here is the Garmin Connect plot.








Time for a selfy!



This kid looked in good form. Grinding away.



Mount Rainer



What else can you do with a picnic bench?









Oh boy. In my day... we had no 'Warning Signs' on the trails! Interesting hiker yield to bikers! I like that!


Looking west toward south Puget Sound











Why not another selfy!














Saturday, June 22, 2013

I have forgotten just how heavy and slow a loaded touring bike can be...

Well... I'm 13 days out from leaving on this summer's grand tour. And, it has been 13 days since I last hopped on a bike. Today, a ride was necessary for so many reasons. I have been slacking on the training. I road the Flying Wheels metric century 13 days ago (felt really strong) and to reward myself, promptly went on a five day motorcycle ride into eastern Oregon with some buddies. Works been busy too. All of a sudden... I have forgotten how to keep my momentum up for the big ride. And, now... this week, I am heading to Boston for work. Ack! So, today's ride was crucial. What did I do? Well, the Seven is being put away. Its time to do some tour work. I loaded up the Burro and headed out. This was the shake down ride- to see how the bike is working, how my new satellite tracker will 'track' and more importantly... how prepared I am to be sloggin' long distances.

The Burro has been put away most of the winter. But its still set up for touring, racks and all. I put on the touring paniers, added some gym weights, a couple choice rocks from the garden and headed out to do the Seven Hills of Kirkland route (the REAL seven hills, not the metric century, which is 11 hills).

The first thing that happened to me, just a few pedal stokes in, A BIG SMILE just came across my face. I was riding the Burro on a tour again! The smile would soon turn to a grimace at the first hill. This bike is heavy. Ahhh, yes, takes me right back. You move slow on these machines. Its apparent I'll need to recalibrate the daily time in saddle on the tour. Yes, 10-12 MPH is a safe estimate. It also makes me believe that I really need to lighten up my load. Just the essentials.

So, here is the Garmin Connect data for today's ride.

And here is the Spotwalla of the new satellite tracker data (Delorme InReach SE)


Here is a silly pic of the bike with the weights that I used to simulate a load. Must be 30-35 lbs there!




And here is the token bike next to sculpture pic!


Cheers!



Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Back to my roots - back into mountain biking!

So after a long hiatus from the mountain bike world, I am back in. I started my 'grownup' bicycle riding in 1981 with the purchase of a mountain bike. I had just graduated from High School and was totally into my car ('70 Ford Mustang Fastback), cruising northern California towns on weekend nights, and flipping pizzas to make living. At that point, I had likely not been on a bicycle since I got my license to drive and all of a sudden - what would become the biggest revolution to bicycling, mountain biking came onto the scene. It all started in Northern California in Marin County with the founding fathers Tom Ritchey, Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze and Charlie Kelly modifying old klunker bicycles to be able to be ridden over dirt roads and trails. So, I got the mountain bike bug.

These guys came up with the Repack Road Down Hill Race (the first ever mountain bike race) and the race was so named because the route was so steep (1300 feet in less than 2.1 miles) that at the end of a race, the coaster brakes were so blazing hot, they had cooked the grease out of the rear hub and the hub needed to be repacked!

Here is a pick of  a rider (George Newman) coming down Repack in 1976. See the bike? Old klunker, modified for dirt. This started the entire mountain bike world we have today!


If you want more history on Repack Road - here is a link.

Repack Road History

Here is a magazine cover from 2009 with Charlie Kelly, Gary Fisher and Joe Breeze... GODFATHERS of DIRT!



Please check out these links for a good history of how these guys and mountain biking got started in Marin county on Repack Road. Good stuff!

Mountain Bike Hall of Fame

Charlie Kelly website

So... my first bike was a 1981 Bianchi Grizzly. Mine did have a seat however.


In 1982 I moved up the ladder a bit and bought a Specialized Stumpjumper frameset and transferred the components from the Grizz to the Stumper.


I road this beautiful machine for about 4 years and then for some reason wanted an aluminum mountain bike since that seemed to be all the rage at the time. So I bought a Cannondale.


Pretty cheesy color scheme! Mine was a nice baby blue actually.

So, I had this aluminum fascination going on and it seemed quite exotic and I loved the big tubes look. So, my next bike was again al-yoo-mineeum and I bought a Klein Pinnacle! Oh man Klein was the bomb for me back then.


I had the Klein for about 10 years, well into the period where front suspension was becoming common place and 'hard tails' were de rigueur! So I sold the Klein and needed to jump into the next phase and it indeed was a hard tail... a Rocky Mountain Vertex.


I rode that bike up until about 2006 and never really felt very comfortable on it. It just felt a little twitchy. So, I sold it and moved into the road bike phase of my by-pedal hobby.

So, fast forward to 2013 and this is the new machine in my stable.



Its a full suspension 29er XC machine from the venerable mountain bike builder Santa Cruz!

So after the road bike-slash-touring season wraps up and I do the Vines to Bitterroots tour... I'll kick off my summer of XC riding! Yes!




Saturday, June 8, 2013

Flying Wheels Metric Century Results

Well... here it is. Today's results. Did the FW Metric Century. I am very excited over my results. I averaged 17.0 MPH and I was riding solo (so no pulling/drafting off a riding buddy). My last 'quick' metric century was the Skagit Spring Classic and I averaged 17.8 MPH and had a side kick riding bro to help with the pulls. Not too shabby today! Yah know... I usually ride the century (100 miles) but my days of slogging it out for 100 miles are probably over. Yah, its the cyclist's holy Grail, but I am gravitating toward shorter distances, yet at a higher pace.

Cheers!


Zero Dark Thirty - Flying Wheels Prep

Today is the Flying Wheels ride. Put on by Cascade Cycling Club. Routes are 24, 45, 65 and 100 miles. I usually do the century version (100 miles) as my season peak ride, but this year I need to 'peak' a bit later in the season, so I am only doing the 65 mile ride. And there are some hills thrown in as usual. The vertical gain for the 65 is about 3000 feet. But- at the last 17 miles, there is a punishing 3 mile climb at 7-9% grade. The screen shot below is from the website for the ride and this is something new this year - they are warning riders of the climb. "You have been warned" they say. No doubt the climb is a bugger and comes pretty close to the end. But, that just adds to the fun right?

Anyway- time to get moving on the day. Gotta eat some major calories, load the bike and go ride. I'll post an update later.

Cheers!