Kidderminster Muni ride with Phil - sandy hills vs 150mm cranks

At the Kidderminster unimeet yesterday me and Phil went out for a muni
ride, only the second chance this narrating beginner got to ride with a
seasoned muni-er. Our difference in courage shows straight away. I have
661 4x4 skin/knee pads on. He doesn't.

His intention was to try and retrace the route taken when BUC10 was
held there. He got his muni out of his car boot, well it was half a
muni as he swapped the saddle and seatpost from his trials unicycle. I
then picked up my muni to place in his car boot, but I didn't know the
route was within riding distance. We both mounted and within two
revolutions Phil dismounted to fine-tune his seatpost height. One more
short revolution and another adjustment later, we were ready to go.

Our first obstacle is the speed bump, we haven't even left the car park
yet. We turn left and ride at a steady pace further into Blakeshall
Lane. The tarmac has a very slight uphill gradient, and it's proving to
be a perfect warmup for me. One car passes us, travelling in the same
direction as we are, the narrow road means he drives past really
slowly. Was the driver doing that to be careful, or did he/she slow
down not believing what he/she was seeing? We ride past a house with a
family gathered outside with our backs to us, a potential audience
missing us.

It felt like ten minutes on the tarmac, a shame I didn't look at my
watch as time seems to fly when you're riding. Another car passes and
we have to ride up onto the flat grassy bit to make room, and the first
UPD comes as I fail to turn the tyre tightly enough to make it.
Eventually we turn left and voluntarily stop with the first challenge
of the offroad. In front of us is a steep downhill country road, trees
either side, with a bend to the left. But what frightens me is the road
surface is nothing but semi-wet packed *sand!*

I'd never ridden sand before so it took me some courage to ride into
it, but a few seconds into the track things are turning out relatively
fine. The downhill slope and the mega resistance of the sand combine to
make it hard but interesting work, my eyes scanning up and down
frantically even without the shaking of the saddle. The sand giving way
under my weight made me think that scanning the terrain wasn't that
much use, but as well as the double track made by the huge tyres of
tractors, horse hoof prints are the main thing to watch out for.

Round the bend of this track and I see in the distance the sand track
turned to mud, with a huge flood at the bottom of this downhill. The
next UPD comes as a deeper horse hoof print stops my tyre dead. I
attempt a remount, I get on okay but the tyre seems stuck like glue and
I fly off forwards. Two more remounts fail so I have to push downhill
some of the way, getting rather embarrased as Phil rides away into the
distance. Another remount succeeds, but only ten revolutions or so
before my tyre stops dead again. I have to walk to catch up with Phil
as he stands beside a muddy track running off into the trees.

We take this opportunity to find out how many miles we'd done so far,
his GPS on his shoulder strap proudly boasts that we've done 27
miles... Oops! He forgot to reset it before leaving the school.

To my relief, the route doesn't take us through the flood. Instead we
walk a few metres further down to the flood and discover another track
heading into the trees. This one is sandy too, but it's nowhere near as
deep as the downhill we just tackled. He rides, I follow but UPD on a
very brief uphill. Again the sand gives me problems on remounting, but
I persevere and eventually get going, the patchy sand covering hides
smooth red rocks underneath. I overtake a waiting Phil just before a
muddy patch, who discreetly takes a picture of me as I pass. He's
looking for landmarks that he saw before when attempting this route
previously. As he fills me in on the potential delights coming up, two
horse riders pass us and they comment "It must be easier to you to
control those than for us to control these."

I walk around the muddy patch and have to get out the way for Phil, who
remounted while my back was turned and negotiated the slope going round
it. There's no more sand from this point and no UPDs on this bit, but
Phil's speed leaves me behind and he's stopped beside a rather steep
mountain-bike downhill track, again he discreetly takes pictures. He
seems to remember the track and speculates that the uphill should be
just around the corner. A short ride on, there it is, leading out from
the trees. For the first time, Phil walks the trail with me as the
narrow muddy singletrack with steps is just too steep. We reach what
appears to be the top; there's certainly a nice view looking beyond the
little bits of wooden fence.

After a short rest we continue up the singletrack, it's not quite as
steep but still steep enough for me to walk it, to my amazement Phil
mounts and powers up it. It gets less steep, but this muddy singletrack
is right on the edge of an open 30 degree steep slope. I do try to ride
some of it, but am stopped by a tree who's bizarrely shaped roots stuck
up within the middle of the trail. I would have attempted all of it, if
the precipice hadn't been there! The single track ends at the top of
the hill with what looks like a dead end made by a wooden fence, but a
tiny gap lets us through to the summit. Two people pass us, other than
an ordinary Hello there are no comments.

While we rest, my attention is fixed briefly by an underground water
reservoir (well that's what the sign said it was) behind a metal fence.
Phil seems to remember that this was definitely part of the route he
had in mind, but since we diverted left off Blakeshall Lane early, we
had actually done the route backwards! My mind fantazises what would
have happened if we did do this route the other way, coming down those
partly walked steep singletracks would be a blast if somewhat
dangerous, and the initial sandy track *uphill?*

There are no more gradients and no more sand, ahead of us is a dead
straight road track, trees either side, with mud in places and I see in
the distance two horse riders pass the other end of the track, they
seemed to look very familiar. The riding is straightforward, but a
couple of flooded bits to ride around and I don't make it round one of
them. Around a closed barrier, we reach the end and we find ourselves
back at the road, with those horse riders disappearing from view once
again.

As we wait for them to go further down the road, we have a discussion
on his white-rimmed muni. I speculate his better riding performance
partly resulted from his own muni. He has a 3" tyre, mines a 2.6". He
has 165mm cranks, mine are 150mm. Curiosity sinks in far enough to
briefly swap unis and ride a few metres. I expected his lower pressure
tyre to be hard to ride, but the longer cranks compensate for the
increased rolling resistance easily. The bigger circles my feet are
making feels awkward, as my 661s clout the big tyre several times.

We swap our munis back over and ride the narrow road back to the
school, the tarmac being absolutely effortless compared with the sand,
mud and steep sections we just did. Within a couple of minutes we pass
by the sandy track marking the beginning of the loop. There seems to be
suddenly more traffic on this quiet road than usual, the occasional
passing points giving a variety of strategies to deal with it, from
riding quickly into a passing point before the car approaches, to
already being in a passing point and slowing right down, trying not to
wobble too much.

As the downhill gradient subtly increases the school comes into sight,
a minute later we turn off and ride back to the car park. We take
another look at the GPS, it reads 29.5 miles. Phil ends up having to
guesstimate from the display the distance we covered, he reckoned about
3.5 miles. I've ridden that distance on smooth trails in about 40
minutes, but the terrain and frequent rests meant that our ride took
nearly double that.

1 hour 15 minutes. But if Phil didn't have to wait for me...


--
gkmac

\"it's a marvellous thing to see, someone in full flight on the
unicycle.\" - stuart maconie, radio 2
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Sounds like fun. If I had been there I may have come with you. Then
there would have been 2 xc beginners. Maybe I'll bring my new xc
machine next time - although it's still a bit dodgy to freemount.

Tell me, do you still wave your arms around frantically to keep your
balance (as I do) or have you mastered the holding onto the front of
the seat with one hand thing? I'm practicing it, but when it gets bumpy
I usually need both hands.

Cathy


--
cathwood

Say no to unicycle genre discrimination! - MrBoogiejuice

http://www.chuckingandtwirling.co.uk
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Like this time last month, my plan for the weekend was a unimeet on
Saturday followed by a fairly epic mountain bike ride on the Sunday.
This time however the plan actually worked; today a friend and I were
out in the Brecon Beacons, in the biting cold temperatures and
extremely poor visibility from the dense fog.

It was a great change from yesterday; our unimeet muni ride took place
in bright sunshine along tracks so dry the sand was loose and difficult
to ride on in places. The temperature was just right too; low enough to
avoid sweating but not too cold to stand around and have a natter.

There are some nice trails in those woods. We only scratched the
surface with our fairly simple loop of 3.8 miles; lots of singletrack
was in evidence branching off our trail between the trees and up into
the narrow valleys. We crossed the downhill track we played on at the
BUC; as we crossed half way down we could see bikes flitting between
the trees further up the hill. We stood out of the way, but they never
came; they must have followed one of the many trails to a different
destination.

Off road, I don't think tyre pressure has much bearing on the rolling
resistance of a tyre. Both 3" and 2.6" tyres leave a similarly sized
track behind them; on trails like this most of the resistance will come
from displacing the mud or sand rather than from dragging the rubber. I
love the 3" tyre for its ability to absorb rocks, roots and bumps with
ease; whenever I change from the 29er with its narrower, harder tyre to
the muni the feeling of suspension is hard to ignore as you glide over
bumps instead of having to steer around or brace for the hit.

Agreed, though, that 165mm cranks take some getting used to after
riding with shorter cranks. When I first tried 170s I hated them; my
knees were complaining and I was going nowhere. Whether the 165s are
any different or I've just got used to them I don't know, but the
feeling of your legs flailing around so much passes after a while.
They're not so good for spinning along on the flat or avoiding pedal
strikes, but I like the extra power up short, sharp hills and the
leverage for technical downhills.

Phil


--
phil

"Cattle Prods solve most of life's little problems."
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Thanks for your contribution phil. I'd forgotten to write how nice the
weather was, clearly my mind recalled the more detailed things.

phil wrote:
Agreed, though, that 165mm cranks take some getting used to after riding
with shorter cranks
...
They're not so good for spinning along on the flat or avoiding pedal
strikes, but I like the extra power up short, sharp hills and the
leverage for technical downhills.

I chose the XC version of the KH 24", which has 150mm cranks, mainly
because my ideal muni rides would cover a lot of distance, as opposed
to steep gradients or technical stuff. I did know at the time that
uphills would be more of a struggle as a result, how much of a struggle
I don't know as I've never tackled hills with 165mm cranks. As for
slowing down for downhills, I'll probably buy a brake

cathwood wrote:
Tell me, do you still wave your arms around frantically to keep your
balance (as I do) or have you mastered the holding onto the front of
the seat with one hand thing? I'm practicing it, but when it gets bumpy
I usually need both hands.

I'm not sure. I rarely hold the seat, but I don't wave my arms about
much either. The park I ride regularly is all bridleways so there isn't
really much of a need.

There was one time at a junction of 3 gravel tracks, the unwalked
central bit of the junction was very lumpy mud that had frozen hard in
the frost. I had to ride over the central bit as a walker plus his dog
was already on the smooth bit. That's the last time I distinctly
remember having to hold the saddle, it was difficult but I did make it
through.

The only time I regularly hold the saddle is on my Wednesday park ride
when it comes to dealing with a short but sharp uphill on a gravel
track. Needless to say I still haven't made it up this hill in one go,
not because a bump causes a UPD, but because my strength runs out.

I wonder if I should buy some 165mm cranks...


--
gkmac

\"it's a marvellous thing to see, someone in full flight on the
unicycle.\" - stuart maconie, radio 2
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gkmac wrote:
I wonder if I should buy some 165mm cranks...


I've got a pair of 165s I never use. They're only cheap steel ones but
you're welcome to them if you want to give them a try. Actually,
having said that I think you've got a fancy KH hub, so they're not
going to work (mine are square taper) - oh well.
I swapped to 152s a few months ago and now I've got used to them I
prefer them to the 165s. Most of my riding is cross-country rather
than really technical (although it can get pretty rocky) so the 26x3
with 152s is a nice compromise between speed and cushiness. There are
certainly some climbs I can't quite do that I may be able to do on a 24
with 165s or 170s, but not many (I think most of the muni climbs I fail
are more down to technique than gearing). The extra clearance of the
26" wheel and 152mm cranks is a nice confidence booster on singletrack
or rocky stuff.

When I first (mis)read your post I thought you'd ridden 26 miles (29.5
with 3.5 off for adjustment) in 1h15m
Phil can be quick but that's just silly! I was about to ban you both
from the Dartmoor weekend...

Rob


--
rob.northcott

'Dartmoor Muni Weekend'
(http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46116) - Last
weekend in May 2006
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gkmac wrote:
I did know at the time that uphills would be more of a struggle as a
result, how much of a struggle I don't know as I've never tackled hills
with 165mm cranks. As for slowing down for downhills, I'll probably buy
a brake
I'm not sure. I rarely hold the seat, but I don't wave my arms about
much either. The park I ride regularly is all bridleways so there isn't
really much of a need.
...
I wonder if I should buy some 165mm cranks...



Learning to hold the seat makes way way more difference than crank
length differences. It really does. With a bit of practice, you'll be
able to ride up all the hills in Norbury Park. In Epsom, you're in a
fantastic area for the sort of riding you're planning to do, long fast
rides, the hills are packed with great riding. It's almost certainly
one of the best areas in the country for technical cross country
riding. There are a few singletracks that it'd be nice to have longer
cranks on, but unless you're taking on the really scary trails 99% of
the riding round there is fine on 150mm cranks.

Joe


--
joemarshall

my pics http://gallery.unicyclist.com/albuq44
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