Epic Radness! Group rides turned soul quenching shred sessions.

For the last few years now Wednesday evenings have been my mid week easy ride day.  In years past I would focus on getting together a group of beginner to intermediate level riders and tailoring my ride to the riders that showed up.  It was a always fun and a good time, however some part of me felt I was neglecting my own riding psyche.  I would often finish a ride feeling like I still needed more.  More twists, more turns, more climbs and more descents.  That feeling led to last years somewhat successful rotating wednesday night rides.  This year I've taken that idea and added a bit more randomness to it.  Sure the calendar technically has rides that I host on nearly every wednesday but this year I'm sticking to only two regular rides a month.  This has freed me up to ride places like Saratoga Gap, and Santa Teresa more often than I was able to last year.  Combined with the insane growth we've seen in the last couple of years it has become a season of epic proportions.

Coming off of an injury filled year, I started off pretty slow and unsure of myself.  It didn't seem to really matter where I rode I felt slower than ever.  As my fitness improved in the beginning of the season I began trying to push a little harder but it would still be a few months before I saw any glimmer of hope for the season.  It was some weeks back at one of first Wilder Ranch rides of the season.  The ride had originally been planned as a relatively easy going ride with a pretty big group.  Pretty typical for me at a place like Wilder.  There are plenty of fun downhill trails and lots of fun not too challenging climbs.  As our first loop drew to a close I could tell that people were pretty tired already, and may not want to stick with me through the second loop.  However, despite many of the riders peeling off when we passed through the lot I had two die-hards that were up for the torturous climb I had in store.  After a little cool down along the shore we headed up hill on a the totally busted out baldwin trail.  The climb was long and steep but I had decided that my three compatriots were up for the faster pace.  We hit the top in no time flat and were glad to have the majority of the climbing done.  Our second trip down Enchanted was pretty quick.  We all knew that we could just hang it out and meet back at the top.  The ride was finally starting to become more than just time on my bike.  It was transforming into a one of those times you think back to for years to come.  The final nail in the coffin of our simple group ride was the trip down Zane.  I let dean take the lead, still not feeling 100%, but as we entered the rocks for the second time of the day something came over me.  I hit the gas, and didn't let up.  Dean and I rocketed forward, leaving poor Fred, who was beginning to feel the 20 miles we'd already covered.  I hung on his wheel the whole way.  Pushing him faster and faster through the corners.  Bikes leaning and carving though the tight twisty single track made me feel more and more alive with every pedal stroke and every rotation of the wheels.  When we finally hit the end of the trail Dean and I both knew we had just experienced that riding nirvana that we all seek.  It was the start of something awesome.

Fast forward several weeks and several rides... I found myself sinking back into the same familiar rut.  Sure the rides were fun and I was still having a blast with some great new friends.  Still, something wasn't quite the same.  The rides all failed to capture the magic of that Wilder ride, chasing Dean down Zane.  Then Wednesday's after work happened.  We had a group of riders that were all well experienced and strong, despite some of them being new to Santa Teresa.  I was a bit nervous as I had just installed a set of platform pedals onto my bike and was unsure of how well I'd be able to climb, let a lone descend.  I hadn't tried flats in a couple years and had pretty much sworn them off.  The one thing I had going for me was that I knew the trails.  I've been riding STP since I first started riding, Stiles was literally the first technical descent I ever rode or cleaned.  As we headed out it was clear that our pace was going to be fast.  Chaz took off like a rocket... "out of shape" yeah whatever.  We all gave chase though and I was confident that I'd be able to keep his wheel up the rocks.  As we got into our climb up Stiles it was clear that the new comers to the park were intrigued by the amount of rocks.  As we regrouped before hitting the back side of Stiles we explained that we were just getting started with rocks.  The ascent up Rocky Ridge was fun, none of us really worried about dabbing a foot and we really just kept leap frogging each other.  As one of us would stall the others would pass.  It kept going right through the rock garden when the pace picked up again.  Jim, Brad and I started spinning and really pushing fast up the last half of the trail.  When we had all arrived at the top we decided on a firing order, letting Joe, take the lead as he had home court advantage.  Jim followed and we all tried to keep up, but it was no use.  Joe was gone.  Jim and I stayed pretty close despite our vast difference in equipment.  We ripped along the ridge and before I was a quarter of the way through I realized I had forgotten about my shoes and pedals.  I was one with the bike, I knew the trail and was ready for everything it threw my way.  By the time the rocks garden came up I didn't hesitate even for a second.  I just charged.  Slowing only enough to feel in control.  At the mid point Joe, Jim and I stopped to let the others catch up.  We were all smiling from ear to ear.  The ride had transformed into that soul purifying experience that stays with you.  Now I don't know your feelings on God or Mother Nature, but personally I believe that the trails I ride truly are my church.  Riding my bike makes me feel alive, and closer to God than any old building ever could.  Sorry if this offends, but if you're not a rider you're probably not reading this and if you are you likely understand where I'm coming from.  Enough of that tangent though.  This ride has ascended from the routine to the surreal.  Every corner lifted my spirit and the best was yet to come.  We finished Rocky Ridge and were all so pumped we some us didn't even notice the blood and swelling from the relentless rocks.  Moving out we headed back to Stiles for our exit back to the trail head.  It was then that Joe, a Junior in high school, confessed that he couldn't remember ever climbing so much on a ride.  He was definitely more suited for ripping down hill.  His being worn down however set the scene for a descent down Stiles that would be epic.  A run that I'll likely never forget, for in those brief moments I was cured.  My fear subsided and the tunnel vision of speed blurred all but the necessary trail features.  On any other day I would simply let gravity do the work.  That wasn't going to cut it today.  This wasn't just Joe's home turf but mine as well.  Maybe Jim had led out down the hill, but with my new found energy I was going to make sure he didn't loose me.  He never did.  I kept his wheel into every turn and even had to brake a couple times I probably wouldn't have if it was all clear in front of me.  Now if you don't know Jim then you'll just have to take my word for it, he's fast.  He's been riding for years and is now riding a legitimate super bike, built for destroying downhills.  It wasn't easy to keep up with him, but it sure was fun.  Pedaling down that trail and pushing hard into the switchbacks was an entirely new experience.  It was incredible! So incredible that even two days later I'm still thinking about it.  I pushed new limits that day.  Riding with a whole new clarity, and level of confidence I have never had.  I knew that at any moment I could wipe out and ruin my day, but whether it was the grip of the tires or the armor I had worn the whole ride, I wasn't thinking about that.  All I knew was I had found my soul ride.  The kind of ride that makes your muscles ache in new ways from using every piece of your self to power your rocket ship to pure happiness.

Well I guess I'm back.  I'm so stoked on riding right now it's crazy.  If you've never experienced your soul ride then maybe this whole thing will just sound like a bunch of gibberish.  If that's the case then what are you waiting for?   Get out there, and get right with your soul.

 

Getting ready to shred and flow

Two weeks ago now, Trail Head Cyclery held their annual Dirt Demo day at Santa Teresa County Park.  I'll post more about my experience this year later, but basically THC brings out tons of demo bikes and lets you just rip it up on the rocky trails of STP.  It's not free though.  They've come up with an anti-cheapskate policy that keeps only the serious riders coming out for demos.  The entry fee for the event this year was $40.00 which really is a steal when you consider what you're getting.  For starters your entry allows you to ride as many bikes as you want all day long.  Normally people pay as much as $150.00 a day for a single demo bike.  Then there's the lunch of gourmet sausages they provide.  The stuff was great.  Maybe not the best fuel if you're riding, but is sure was delicious.  The the kicker... your $40.00 entry fee is given back to you as store credit at Trail Head.

TroyLeeDesigns X-Fit Knee guards

Of course I had a blast at the demo day, how could you not.  This post isn't about that though.  This post is about what I did with that store credit and then some.  You see, the weekend of the demo also happened to be my 30th birthday, and as luck would have it, one of my many awesome gifts was more money for Trail Head.  I originally thought about maybe just picking up a new pair of shorts or something, but was quickly talked out of it.  "Lookin to protect yourself before you wreck yourself?" Those words changed my mind immediately.  I was greeted by one of THC's sale guys who had just wrecked the day before and was telling me how his TLD pads saved his bacon.  Of course the thought of buying pads to protect my extremities had crossed my mind before, but I'd never really committed to the idea.  Having my wife next to me as the guy described his latest crash sort of sealed the deal, as she always hates hearing about some new gash or bruise I've suffered as a result of my riding.  I started test fitting the different models available and finally settled on the Troy Lee Designs X-Fit elbow and knee/shin pads.  I'll post a full product review when I've had the time to fully test them out, but they fit really nice in the shop.  After fitting and deciding on protection I was about ready to check out when Scott (another THC shop guy) saw me bust out the little red discount coupon from the demo day.  He suggested to me and the guy helping me (really sorry I didn't catch his name) that I look at some parts to really take advantage of the coupon.  After a brief conversation I decided that while my current tires aren't "worn out" they are a bit long in the tooth.

Specialized Butcher 26x2.3 Freeride/DH tire

Tires are a tricky subject.  No matter what application you're talking about there are tires that work well for some and not at all for others.  I happen to be a bit picky myself when it comes to tires.  I've never liked the feeling of having really aggressive tires on both the front and rear of my bikes.  For years now I've run a really aggressive wide tire up front while running a narrower faster tire in the rear.  This led me to look at a couple tires from Specialized.  The Captain for the rear, a faster rolling slightly narrower tire with a tighter knob pattern and the uber aggressive Butcher up front.  I've never ridden the Captain so I'll have to give a review of the tires after some rides on them, but the Butcher was equipped on the Enduro29 I test rode and it just rails.  It's an aggressive tread tire with burly knobs in the center and on the sides.  This tire will mark my first transition into the more advanced tire designs that lack a set of transition knobs.  That means I'll have to really lean the bike into the corners to take full advantage of the traction they can provide.

With the new pads and aggressive tires I think 2013 is going to be a summer of shred.  We're heading up to Tahoe again where the decomposed granite is loose and fast.  New flow sections of Tamarancho are beckoning.  And there are tons of awesome flow trails up in coast towards the Oregon border just begging for San Jose Mtb to explore.  Of course there's also my new found love of UCSC to further explore as well as demo forest and the always awesome Skyline parks.  Something tells me this will be my best year on the bike yet.  I'm looking forward to sharing it with you all.

Off days are part of the game.

Every so often you have one of those days where nothing seems to go right.  For me Wednesday was one of those days.  It started off well enough.  Despite being at work until 5pm and doing my best to fill in for the branch manager, I managed to survive the work day.  The mere fact that I was able to get everything done and be out on time was actually quite amazing.  Usually I get stopped just before it's time to leave and end up having to change my after work plans entirely.  Today I was lucky, and the ride I had been looking forward to all week was looking like a definite possibility.  Little did I know, it was going to be a ride riddled with issues.

I arrived at Passion Trail Bikes, in Belmont, just after 6pm.  That gave me plenty of time to get ready and warm up a bit.  It was going to be my first time riding with the crew from Passion so I wanted to make sure I gave myself enough time to figure out which group to tag along with.  I ended up with a rather large group of 14 riders that was a mix of different skill and fitness levels.  Just my sort of group for an easy ride, as I never feel like I'm pushing to keep up, but I'm also not having to dial my speed back either.  On top of that, the fact that I was just along for the ride meant I didn't have to worry about looking out for people.

We rolled out from the shop around 6:30pm, and right away I knew it was going to be one of those rides.  From the first shift under load the bike seemed to be hating me.  I asked for smooth downshifts and got nothing but noise and ghost shifts.  Annoying considering that the bike had just been into the shop for a week to have a full tune up and new drive train installed.  I tried to keep my shifting to a minimum, but the ghost shifts made it difficult to build up a decent flow on the trails.  Sections that I normally wouldn't down shift for I found I was shifting just to avoid the chance of the bike doing it for me.  No amount of cable tweaking or derailleur adjusting seemed like it was doing anything to help either.  By the end of the ride I would finally figure out what was going on (at least I think I know), but by then my mood would already be soured by the rest of the nights events.

The shifting issues were bad enough, but then to drop a chain on a hard climb effort and have the derailleur completely lock up was a major pain.  I literally stopped dead in my tracks mid climb.  I ended up getting the bike to shift again but everything was still off.  Then while just riding along chatting with some of the guys on the ride I spazzed out and put my wheel right into a ditch, sending me straight to the ground.  I cut open my elbow and scrapped my shin pretty good, but mostly it was my pride that was bruised.  I did my best to pedal through the pain in my shin and lower leg, which within a few minutes of the crash had seemed to feel worse than it should.  Eventually I was able to get my momentum back and started feeling good on the bike again.  I led the charge up some of the hills and was feeling pretty good as we got near the down hill single track that makes riding at the Dog so much fun.  Then I went and messed it all up again.  Literally minutes after pointing out poison oak to some others on the ride, I brushed my forearm right against a huge branch of it.  What a putz!  I had already scraped up my arm running in to various other forms of flora along the ride so I knew my arm had exposed areas that would possibly lead to a nice reaction to the P.O.  I got over it though and kept riding.  As we neared the end of the ride we were heading towards my favorite trail, Rambler to Lower Creek.  It's a great stretch of single track that when clear can be ridden fast, with tons of lips to pump or hop, and plenty of tight corners to really test your skill and nerve.  I blasted through the first half only to come to a screeching halt against a tree when I missed the transition onto a skinny section of boards.  The tree knock my stem and bars out of alignment and launched my Garmin GPS right of it's bar mount.  I rode back to the lot with the bars out of sorts before realizing that I had to go back to hunt down the Garmin.  Finally finished with getting the bike sorted, and mounting my lights for the ride back to the shop, I was alone for my ride back.  It was a pretty depressing two mile ride, but I tried to make the best of it by putting the hammer down and trying to make up some time.  I never caught back up with the group, but they were all waiting for me when I finally arrived at the shop.  The ride had left me in a pretty sour mood, and I didn't really feel much like hanging out for a beer so I left.  Hopefully the next ride will lift my spirits and get me back in the mood.  After all I have Tahoe to look forward to.

Remember the next time you have an off day.  It happens.  All you can do is just move on to your next adventure and hope it turns out better.  After all mountain biking is too awesome to just get discouraged from one bad day in the saddle.  So get out and ride again.

Where the rubber meets the trail.

For the past few weeks I've been talking about needing new tires for my main ride, the Trek Fuel, but it's becoming a real pain in the rear to find straight answers on what's best for our trails.  Walk into ten different shops and you'll likely come out with ten different answers.  Of course what do you expect with such a subjective question like "what tires do you suggest?"  You're bound to get every possible tire around suggested to you, with that sort of question.  So what's the fix?  I'm not sure entirely, as I still haven't made a final decision.

The first thing I need to do, I suppose, is figure out what kind of rider I am.  Do I enjoy faster XC style riding with less technical terrain and some gut busting hills?  On occasion, yes.  Do I want to just haul butt down the hill and try my best to make it down in one piece?  That's another yes.  So looks like I need a tire that rolls fast on hard trails and grips everything from the loose stuff on hard packed trails to the loam in the deep forest.  Great!  So I just need a magic do everything tire.  Where am I supposed to find that?

I asked the guys at the last shop I went into and got three different answers on great "all around tires" but all three of the guys were riders that spent most of their time riding down hill technical terrain in the forest.  I ride more varied terrain than that so those tires may be overkill.  Looking around at the fast guys at the races is even more confusing.  It seems that racers tend to find a tire that works for them and then stick with it, no matter if there's something newer or better out there.  So if I'm a jack of all trades sort of rider, like most of us, I suspect, are what am I supposed to do?  Well thankfully there is a tire called just that.  Well it's actually called the Hans Dampf (supposedly German for Jack of all trades), from Schwalbe.  The only problem is that despite it being called a do everything tire, it's massive and very aggressive looking.  Hardly a fast looking tire, it looks more like the thing you're going to see on some 6 inch travel trail devouring beast not a 4.7 inch trail bike.  Then there's the price tag of $90.00 per tire.  That's a lot of dough to throw down on tires that may be too aggressive for what I do.  They may be great but at $180 for the set it's hard to justify a maybe.  There is the option of just sticking with what I know... the Kenda Nevegal.  The only problem with that is I feel as though I'm selling the bikes potential short.  Sure plenty of people will tell you it's not about the bike (or the tires) but I'll bet that all things equal, tires could easily make the difference between a great ride and one in which you're chewing dirt.

The next problem I face when it comes to this dilemma is that I'm a cheap skate. When it comes to spending money on things for me I make excuses for why I don't do it.  Sure I'll take my wife out, or buy her nice things.  But when it comes to spending money on me it's a whole different story.  I sit and research until I'm blue in the face then when I think I've got it all sorted out I stall and research some more.  It becomes this endless cycle, that lands me in exactly this position right here... Blogging about tires for my bicycle on the internet.  Sure I enjoy sharing my random thoughts with those of you that will listen, but is it really helping me make a decision?  Maybe what I need to do is just go for it.  Stop thinking about the possible outcomes and throw caution to the wind.  Throw down the cash and just ride.  Maybe I buy the best tires I've ever tried and maybe I don't.  Does it really matter?  In a couple months I'll have worn them out and need to start the whole process again.  The end result is still the same I'm still getting out and riding my bike.  Perhaps this concept could spread to other parts of my riding and life.  Instead of sitting and thinking about what to do or what to buy maybe I'm better off just rolling the dice from time to time.

What are you waiting for?