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RR - Last Ride of the Hardtail.
Early mornings here have been decently cool of late, so instead of
pounding two cups of joe and reading the Spokane FishWrap, I decided to get one more ride in before I needed the parts to complete the new Fango. The Fango is clamped in the stand, waiting to go to the LBS today for it's first operation - the ever-popular Headset Press-in. The hardtail waits in the cartop rack, not knowing that by this evening, it will be stripped down to nothing but heavy CrMo frame, headset and BB. I'm not going to miss the hardtail - she has given long service, and needs to be either scrapped or reincarnated as someone else's SS. The trip uphill was different this time. Usually, about halfway up, I get off and admire the view, and breathe the fresh air, and just enjoy being outside and alive. Not this time. This time, we just got on and pounded to the top. No ****ing around with smelling the roses - just get me up there, dammit. As I got to the top, my mind flashed back to the AMB-ID Loon Lake Death March, and how I felt with two miles to go, totally out of gas. In comparison to then, I felt great. Now, the choice: A trail I'd never ridden before, newly cut and lumpy-looking. It would be a challenge, I could tell just by looking at the first 12 feet. I couldn't see the rest, but I knew it was all downhill to the car from where I was standing, so "pick a trail that's gonna be the most fun." New trail is not fun on that bike, precisely because it's new and lumpy. In addition, the downslope sides of the trail are often loose, and unexpected front-wheel washouts can really ruin your whole morning. So, older trail it is - my old friend, and nemesis. Roots, rocks, narrow trail between trees (damn wide-set bars) and places where if you don't keep your mo, yer gonna hafta hammer in the granny. Starts off quick, too quick. Too much speed into and off-camber right has the rear hanging out and the pucker-factor high. Reel it in, scrub off some speed, and telling myself "you have a family at home - make it there in one piece." The bike is operating well, as it always has, while the rider is just now getting ahead of it. A short, steep downhill with a nice rock garden comes up. In the past, I've walked it about 70% of the time, because it just didn't "feel right." This time I just blast right down it like I've been doing it forever. It just didn't seem as hard as it used to was. THis trail has three stream crossings over North Shore-style bridges - essentially two 2x6's laid side-by-side over some cut logs drop the rear off the planking, no big deal. Drop the front off, Insta-Endo(tm) with Wetness Action. Even at this time of year, there's water there. But the trick is not in hitting the planking, but in the fact that each stream crossing is essentially a 180-degree turn in the trail, and that the bridge is in a swale, with a steep approach and steep exit. It's impossible to carry speed, because the approach and exit for each bridge is at 90-degrees to the bridge itself. The trail has been widened by cheaters and the approach and exit, but it's still not enough. The first two, I'm in the zone. Drop down, turn, cross, pound out the other side. Seemingly easy, after all those times of creeping and wiggling over the bridges, looking like a total barney. The last one isn't so easy, as "the zone" finds some other place to be. I drop in, and the front wheel promptly washes out on some loose dirt that I didn't notice, I'm still up, but there's no damn way I'm gonna make the planks. I think "hey, just ride the log - no prob." That thought is quickly drowned out by the laughter of my senses returning. OK, no log - looks like a forced stream crossing. Or bath. Or both. The stream is really just a trickle now, with downed logs parallel to its banks. The banks are 1.5-foot drop-offs with roots and ferns sticking out of them, and my mind flashed again to the Loon Lake Death March and a section of the trail, after the burn, that crossed a very muddy area and had a huge, deep puddle. I walked that, because I didn't know how deep the water was, and because the root section just after needed some speed to make it do-able. But the stream crossing was different. I could see the conditions, and knew that if I bailed, I was gonna get hurt. I figured if I could ride part of it, maybe I'd let the bike take one for the team, and I'd escape with minor bruising. Well, that was the plan. It's funny, all these things crossed my mind as I was struggling to keep the bike upright and find a good drop-in point at the same time. Weird, how the mind works... I lift the front just as it goes over the bank, and slide my seriously-puckered ass back as I hope to just land slowly then crash. The front is up too much as I over-rotate, but then is checked by the rear wheel hitting a log. I'm down in the stream bed, which is really more mud than water, and still upright, and in a useful gear, so I lift the front again and pedal, thinking that maybe I can climb the other bank using a small log as a ramp. After all, I got down here, didn't I? I hit the log and the front climbs, I hit the bank and the front climbs some more, my rear wheel is on the log and the front is over the top of the bank, I'm sitting on the nose of the saddle and am in serious anaerobic mode with the legs as I crank the bitch up and over. In smug self-satisfaction, I congratulate myself on being such a MTB stud, cleaning a totally bad-ass stream crossing under duress, while looking damn good. But the stream was not quite finished with me yet - a root leaps out of nowhere and grabs my front wheel, and shoots the bike right out from under me, dumping me right back down the bank, into the mud, face first. I laid there for a bit, to size myself up. I had not landed on any logs or branches or sticks, just mud and ferns and grass. I was filthy and embarrassed, but not hurt at all. The bike lay right where the root had left it, without a mark to show for it. I look at myself, and wish that someone had been there to get a picture. Mud, head to toe. In my nose, in the vents of my helmet, in my shoelace eyelets. Two more miles, cold from being wet, and I'm back at the car. I wonder, as I'm driving back home, what passing drivers think when they look at my mud-encrusted face. Maybe they wonder what the hell I'm grinning about. I'd like to think her last ride was the best one of all. Spider |
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#2
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RR - Last Ride of the Hardtail.
"Spider" wrote in message om... Early mornings here have been decently cool of late, so instead of pounding two cups of joe and reading the Spokane FishWrap, I decided to get one more ride in before I needed the parts to complete the new Fango. The Fango is clamped in the stand, waiting to go to the LBS today for it's first operation - the ever-popular Headset Press-in. The hardtail waits in the cartop rack, not knowing that by this evening, it will be stripped down to nothing but heavy CrMo frame, headset and BB. I'm not going to miss the hardtail - she has given long service, and needs to be either scrapped or reincarnated as someone else's SS. The trip uphill was different this time. Usually, about halfway up, I get off and admire the view, and breathe the fresh air, and just enjoy being outside and alive. Not this time. This time, we just got on and pounded to the top. No ****ing around with smelling the roses - just get me up there, dammit. As I got to the top, my mind flashed back to the AMB-ID Loon Lake Death March, and how I felt with two miles to go, totally out of gas. In comparison to then, I felt great. Now, the choice: A trail I'd never ridden before, newly cut and lumpy-looking. It would be a challenge, I could tell just by looking at the first 12 feet. I couldn't see the rest, but I knew it was all downhill to the car from where I was standing, so "pick a trail that's gonna be the most fun." New trail is not fun on that bike, precisely because it's new and lumpy. In addition, the downslope sides of the trail are often loose, and unexpected front-wheel washouts can really ruin your whole morning. So, older trail it is - my old friend, and nemesis. Roots, rocks, narrow trail between trees (damn wide-set bars) and places where if you don't keep your mo, yer gonna hafta hammer in the granny. Starts off quick, too quick. Too much speed into and off-camber right has the rear hanging out and the pucker-factor high. Reel it in, scrub off some speed, and telling myself "you have a family at home - make it there in one piece." The bike is operating well, as it always has, while the rider is just now getting ahead of it. A short, steep downhill with a nice rock garden comes up. In the past, I've walked it about 70% of the time, because it just didn't "feel right." This time I just blast right down it like I've been doing it forever. It just didn't seem as hard as it used to was. THis trail has three stream crossings over North Shore-style bridges - essentially two 2x6's laid side-by-side over some cut logs drop the rear off the planking, no big deal. Drop the front off, Insta-Endo(tm) with Wetness Action. Even at this time of year, there's water there. But the trick is not in hitting the planking, but in the fact that each stream crossing is essentially a 180-degree turn in the trail, and that the bridge is in a swale, with a steep approach and steep exit. It's impossible to carry speed, because the approach and exit for each bridge is at 90-degrees to the bridge itself. The trail has been widened by cheaters and the approach and exit, but it's still not enough. The first two, I'm in the zone. Drop down, turn, cross, pound out the other side. Seemingly easy, after all those times of creeping and wiggling over the bridges, looking like a total barney. The last one isn't so easy, as "the zone" finds some other place to be. I drop in, and the front wheel promptly washes out on some loose dirt that I didn't notice, I'm still up, but there's no damn way I'm gonna make the planks. I think "hey, just ride the log - no prob." That thought is quickly drowned out by the laughter of my senses returning. OK, no log - looks like a forced stream crossing. Or bath. Or both. The stream is really just a trickle now, with downed logs parallel to its banks. The banks are 1.5-foot drop-offs with roots and ferns sticking out of them, and my mind flashed again to the Loon Lake Death March and a section of the trail, after the burn, that crossed a very muddy area and had a huge, deep puddle. I walked that, because I didn't know how deep the water was, and because the root section just after needed some speed to make it do-able. But the stream crossing was different. I could see the conditions, and knew that if I bailed, I was gonna get hurt. I figured if I could ride part of it, maybe I'd let the bike take one for the team, and I'd escape with minor bruising. Well, that was the plan. It's funny, all these things crossed my mind as I was struggling to keep the bike upright and find a good drop-in point at the same time. Weird, how the mind works... I lift the front just as it goes over the bank, and slide my seriously-puckered ass back as I hope to just land slowly then crash. The front is up too much as I over-rotate, but then is checked by the rear wheel hitting a log. I'm down in the stream bed, which is really more mud than water, and still upright, and in a useful gear, so I lift the front again and pedal, thinking that maybe I can climb the other bank using a small log as a ramp. After all, I got down here, didn't I? I hit the log and the front climbs, I hit the bank and the front climbs some more, my rear wheel is on the log and the front is over the top of the bank, I'm sitting on the nose of the saddle and am in serious anaerobic mode with the legs as I crank the bitch up and over. In smug self-satisfaction, I congratulate myself on being such a MTB stud, cleaning a totally bad-ass stream crossing under duress, while looking damn good. But the stream was not quite finished with me yet - a root leaps out of nowhere and grabs my front wheel, and shoots the bike right out from under me, dumping me right back down the bank, into the mud, face first. I laid there for a bit, to size myself up. I had not landed on any logs or branches or sticks, just mud and ferns and grass. I was filthy and embarrassed, but not hurt at all. The bike lay right where the root had left it, without a mark to show for it. I look at myself, and wish that someone had been there to get a picture. Mud, head to toe. In my nose, in the vents of my helmet, in my shoelace eyelets. Two more miles, cold from being wet, and I'm back at the car. I wonder, as I'm driving back home, what passing drivers think when they look at my mud-encrusted face. Maybe they wonder what the hell I'm grinning about. I'd like to think her last ride was the best one of all. Spider Spider, That was without a doubt one of the best RR's I've read in a long time. Maybe it's because my Marin hardtail is reaching retirement age. Maybe because it doesn't know that I've been cheating on it at the LBS. Staring at Specialized Rockhoppers and Jamis Dakars. Either way, thanks for the trip. Marty |
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