A total of about a dozen people have contributed to some serious trail building in the north end of the Franklins in an effort to provide mountain bikers with some sweet singletrack. This trail will receive its first major test at the 2010 Puzzler. Registrations have started coming in. It’s going to be AWESOME!!!
It seems that I have so much going on that when I get home I don’t want to write. I’d rather do some surfing and laugh at the funny stuff out there on the internet. Yes. I’ve been a bum.
Last weekend was a great weekend and I keep thinking about it so I decided I’d sit down and write a little.
It started with waking up at 5:15 am on Saturday to meet what was supposed to be about 15 “hardcore” mountain bikers for an epic jaunt around the Franklins with a little card playing thrown in to make things interesting. Only 6 people showed up and we went over the rules and route, drew our first cards, and took off into the desert.
A couple hours into the ride we topped out on Mundy’s Gap to pick cards from the baggie stashed on the mountain. Jen was up there pointing out the gorgeous yellow leaves on the small trees that live off almost no water.
I was riding the SS FS with a 32×21 and was able to ride most of Mundy’s. Brent wasn’t far behind and was riding fast enough to force me to ride just a bit faster than a relaxed pace.
We dropped into Mundy’s and I put a gap on him down the rocks. He soon caught back up to me on the road. A bit later I lost him on Upper Sunset as he broke his chain. I kept a smooth pace until running into a large group of hikers that were headed towards the next stash of cards. I started with an 8 and traded it out at the first checkpoint for a king and a queen. While passing the hikers in an extremely rocky section which they were having trouble negotiating, one of the girls in the group asked me “What kind of tires are you using?” My response was, “The biggest I can get.” I dinged my bell a couple of times and thanked them as I passed. Stopping quickly at the next card stack, I had to sit down and think about my card choices. I decided to hang on to my king and queen and took an ace from the deck. I knew my chances of a royal flush were slim, so I started looking for a straight, but after a quick check of the hand rankings, I wasn’t too sure. I held on to the three cards I had and took off for the ranger station to refuel and head to Transmountain Rd. for the climb to Little Moab and Mike’s trail.
I was only about 27 miles in and almost at the 3 and half hour mark. I kept a smooth pace through Little Moab and walked most of the climb up to the top of Mike’s Trail via the rocky road to the powerline. At the top of Mike’s Trail was the next card stash. There were 2 aces in the stack, so I ditched the my queen, took the two aces, ate a bunch as I watched Brent roll up the climb, and then took off down the descent. More rad singletrack and I was back in the park where Ray and Shannon were just leaving for the Redd Rd. trails. I refueled and headed up Mundy’s. The bottom of Mundy’s was quite rocky so walking started early. Rain and cold rolled in, but I was able to avoid anything bad and got by with my vest and arm warmers.
Down the other side of Mundy’s and around a bunch of singletrack rolled me into the last card stash where I picked up a king. Brent caught up to me and I made him work for it through the last 7 miles of trail.
7.5 hours and 50 miles on the day. I earned a joker for finishing on a singlespeed which gave me 4 of a kind…aces. Brent claims to have been on the way to a royal flush, but gave it up due to doubts of being able to pull it off. He said that the card he needed was in the last stash. He ended up with a full house as did Ray…who finished 3 hours later.
The next day was spent building more new trail in Hitt Canyon. We had 5 on the crew again and we were rolling. A brand new rock bar helped us get through a bunch of rocky sections and dress up some sections we had already passed through. After making it through the first drainage on the trail, we really moved fast through completely different terrain.
Suprizingly I didn’t feel completely spent after 7 and half hours on the bike. Working on trail out there is amazing! It’s totally quiet and the views are really nice. We keep getting closer to the pass everytime we look up.
I think I’m going to have a similar weekend again. I can’t wait.
Sorry it has taken me so long to update my blog. Things have been super busy with the scene here in El Paso. This past weekend’s 12 hour race confirmed that we have an awesome scene and it also helped further solidify my reasons for racing. It’s all about helping to put our scene on the national radar. Winning the Breck Epic was to legitimize the trails in El Paso as it was for my own personal goals. The fans at both the Epic and this 12 hour were awesome and I got huge cheers during awards and throughout the event. Mike, myself, and Brent have been putting in some serious time to make the mtb scene here in El Paso better for everyone. I just wish more people would get involved with the grunt work or volunteering with trail building or race marshalling.
I knew this weekend’s 12 hour race would be harder than most people thought it might be. Yes, it’s in my backyard and I know the trails quite well. I ran a 21 t on both bikes. I was hoping everything would go well, but damn…where that wind come from?
The 12 hours of old el paso was a hit! It’s gonna get big in couple more years. It’s gonna be big next year. This year’s event only cost $40 a person. They had food, music, beer, and fireworks. Lots of my buddies were out marshalling the course and the state park guys were making some laps to check everything out.
Here’s how it went down for me. Not wearing a costume…like Brent, I had settle for a longer run to the bike.
The run wasn’t bad, but I definitely need to run more if I plan on doing more LeMann’s starts. I started out on the FS with the YESS tensioner, 32×21, nanoraptors front and rear. The first lap was a bit faster due to a bypass of the first section of single track. I was sitting in about 5th or 6th and moved up to about 3rd or 4th at the end of the lap. I rode the first 2 and half laps with eventual solo winner Adam Hoppe. He was geared and had much more fun on the climbs than I did. First lap was 38 minutes. Second lap was just as fast considering the additional single track….42 minutes. On the third lap, I switched to the hard tail so Jen could let some air out of my tires. I pitted so fast she didn’t hear what I said and ended up adding air.
The hardtail was a bit slower feeling with a 2.55 Weirwolf up front and a 2.3 Exiwolf in the back. 3/4 way through the third lap on the hardtail, I stopped to pee and started to feel some cramping. 4th lap I was back on the FS. I was drinking 2 full bottles every lap. About half way into the 4th lap, my legs cramped so bad I had to get off the bike, which made it worse. I pitted a bit longer the next couple of times through and ate some solid food and took some more salt tabs and sportlegs. Eventually I was taking one or two of either salt tabs, sportlegs, or ibuprofin from lap 5 and on. My pits were still pretty quick with my longest at probably 5 minutes. My lap times stayed around 50 -55 minutes.
On my first “night” lap, I grabbed the hardtail with lights and a helmet with lights. I didn’t want to sit around putting on lights when Jen could do it for me. I ended up not needing the lights as I was able to finish it before it got too dark. Back on the FS I was lit up and rollin’. I love night riding and the laps seemed much faster though my fastest night lap was only 52 minutes. I kept rolling laps as hard as possible and finally stopped cramping on the climbs at about lap 10. Sometime in there I saw that Lenny, my challenger in the SS category, was done and hadn’t left his pit in a couple of laps. I decided to go for 13 laps and finished at 9:30.
My lap count was good for 2nd place solo overall. I won the SS by 3 laps, 2 if you count Karen Rishel who rode well after the 10 pm ending to complete 11 laps. She ran a huge gear on a sweet new Superfly. Props to the solo field. The sign in posters looked to have about 30 spots on them for all of us nutbags.
I had no flats and only came close to crashing once. That was on lap 5 or 6 when I was feeling absolutely stupid with my legs cramping on the descents. My pit spot was probably the best in the race and my pit bitch did a great job even though I rushed through way too many and could have slowed down just a little in order to think things through a bit more and communicate better.
After awards, I crawled back to the camper with my cool trophy and a check for $100. Hopefully this thing won’t rot away anytime soon.
The Catholic School girls (they’re really MILF’s in disquise) brought back memories of high school.
My pit area….you can barely see the trail between my 10×10 and the tent in the background.
I didn’t look nearly this good at 10 pm.
My dog had a field day checking out lots of new smells and being in her natural “race” environment.
As a 200 pounder, I am classified as a “seated climber”. In other words, it is much more effecient for me to remain seated when climbing than it is to lug my giant arse out of the saddle to grunt my way up the hill…thus the need for some sort of rear suspension.
Ever since I started single speeding, I’ve been using some sort of rear suspension. My first SS foray was on a K2 Razorback, but I couldn’t get the tensioner/cog combo to work for me. I gave it up quickly after a banged knee and a shot to the nuts from the top tube.
On my current hardtail SS, I use the Moxey Suspension Seatpost. Since these posts don’t exist anymore and parts are unavailable, I don’t like to spend lots of time on it…..especially since the Cane Creek sucks crack.
So I’ve begun my second foray into full suspension singledom. With the generosity of Renny at YESS Labs, I now have a full suspension specific chain tensioner. My second ride with it was the Horny Toad NMORS XC race which I crushed on a 32×17. I had some skipping, but I’m pretty sure it was related to the slightly worn aluminum cog with a new chain. I put on a steel 21 t for the weekend and rode over 6 hours with it. I got no skipping or popping! I also don’t have a front chain guide or tensioner other than the cateye chain watcher….which I probably don’t need as I’ve yet to throw the chain on it. I did drop it during a night ride when rolling a 20 t after the Horny Toad, but I think my chain alignment was off as I was popping excessively in the rear.
Setup is tedious with this device as there are 5 points of adjustment. The use of almost every allen size on your multi-tool is required. Once set up correctly, it works really well. I really like the fact that it works! I never had luck with the rear deraileur as a tensioner and the stupid little “singulators” don’t work with the lower swingarm being in the way. I have to use those as a push down tensioner which does not allow for any chain wrap on the cog.
The YESS ETR-D has a fixed upper bushing/roller/pulley/thingy that allows for maximum chain wrap. The lower pulley is a standard pulley that is spring loaded with a cantilever brake spring. I found that running the spring with max tension and as little chain as possible provides the best performance. There is a bunch of leeway for adjustment in pulley position and spring tension, so set up may take a bit of time.
You’ve already heard me complain about set up a couple of times. There are some other things that may bug you that kind of bug me. I don’t think this device was originally designed for epic SS rides. I think it was designed for dirt jumpers or park riders who want to forgo gears on their FS bikes. I say this because the thing is noisy. The upper pulley/bushing/roller/thingy is quite loud on the chain. I don’t think it really adds that much friction to the system, but it is definitely more than a sram XO with ceramic bushings. Not being able to remove the wheel hasn’t been a big issue as I’ve yet to flat while using it. But if I were to flat at hour 5 of an 8 hour adventure, it may cause some problems if I space off and lose a skewer spring or nut. I also have only done wheel changes on the work stand, so doing it off the stand may pose some additional challenges. These are the only gripes I have. I think that Renny has something pretty good here and if demand dictates it, some minor changes may help create a product that would work even better for us long haul SS’ers.
This thing will get a ton of use this fall and winter and I’ll be keeping Renny updated. If you are using one for SS XC use, let me and Renny know how it is treating you. Maybe we can help develop one that is quiet and allows for easier wheel changes.
This year’s Horny Toad was as rowdy as years past as a really bad band decided to take the stage at 11 pm and played till 2. They got worse as the night wore on and their bass player dropped out somewhere around midnight.
Here’s some shots from the chainless DH from which I have retired.
It’s tough on our dog here in the desert. She’s a swimmer! She loves hitting the creeks and ponds on our summer travels. At the end of every summer the Mary Tobin Pool, not far from our house, opens up to dogs! $2 and your dog can swim in the pool. We took Luna down on Saturday for well over an hour of hard swimming. Once she figured out the ramp, it was non-stop fetch time. They even had a swim race. Luna raced 5 other dogs. It went a full 25 yards, but Luna couldn’t figure out how to jump in. While all the other dogs were swimming away, I finally threw her in. It took her a second to figure out what was going on, but with Jen on the other side calling her, she straightened out and started throwing a wake. She caught all but 2 dogs to finish 3rd. She got a cool little trophy and stuck around for the podium with the winner Peaches…who was owned by one of the skankiest lookin’ chics I’ve seen in a long time.
Today we went back down, but only had 10 minutes left to swim. She showed every dog there how it’s done. Jen threw the log out to the middle of the pool almost every time and she hauled butt fetching it back. She continued to buffalo her way around on the ramp with little regard for other users. We can’t wait for next year.
Dog Swim from David Wilson on Vimeo.
We’ve been getting some much needed rain. It’s getting the critters out. Jen and I saw a nice size diamond back cruising across Sotol, but I didn’t have my camera. It didn’t make a sound. Nice set of rattles too.
I went out by myself last monday and saw this fat horny toad.
Then I saw this creeper. I saw some more not long after, but I wanted to keep the pace on.
Have fun out there and respect the wildlife.
Gonna have to figure out how to configure the camper for a crib.
I’ve been wanting one of these the first day I started teaching. High schoolers come up with the best excuses. Of course, at my school, they are pretty heavy duty. Examples from last year: My baby was in the hospital…for 15 days. I couldn’t afford diapers for my baby and the courts just gave me custody of my little brother because my mother got thrown in jail and my 24 year old boyfriend lost his job.
Okay. Those are pretty good excuses even though there are a multitude of services for kids like that, but they sometimes don’t know or it takes a while to get things rolling…like a year.
But for the kids that are always whining and crying about stupid stuff, I’ve always told them that I’d be happy to call a wambulance for them. I found one.
This week is going to be fun!
