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

"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