I Rode My Bike Today...

I woke up in the middle of the night dreaming about a ride up Blackstar. So... I didn't want to tempt fate and ignore the dream. o_O It was 82 when I pulled off the road near the tree farm, and the wind was blowing pretty good. Huh... Not exactly dreamy conditions, but I pressed on. I felt pretty good, and tried to keep the hamster wheel spinning through the flattish section before the climbing starts. The wind was blowing enough to create a few mini dust storms. The dirt didn't taste too bad, but I was hoping the wind would ease up a little. Nope...

Then... I hammered and kept the heart rate up pretty high the whole way. There were very few sections that I could sit and spin on the single speed today. It was just too windy to get any momentum... The heart rate was up in the 160s and 170s for most of the climb. :gag: My timer said I made it in a little over 58 minutes, but the Strava gods gave me 59:59. It's under an hour for the first time. I'll take it. :thumbsup:

Eating better since the holidays and running on the elliptical has paid off. Shoot... I was hoping to get back to the donuts and Twinkies. :poop:

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Wed'y night ride. Mechanical on the way down mentally. Held it together. Ride over to rock n road. Fixed. Road back to Aliso, dropped 5 Oak, climbed Cholla and had to bail. Not saying that I am getting good on the DH, but I am starting to "get it." Did 5 oak at the limit of control... A couple of times I wanted to slow down, but I just said to myself,"trust the dude who engineered your bike ... Stay in the attack position... And let it flow." A challenging trail on my Pivot 429SL. I love it! New Cholla PR at 4:19, stoked on that!

Another cool thing, I pr'd my climb to Aliso... But I was just relaxing and spinning. That is REALLY cool.

The bullfrogs and coyotes were my only friends out there tonight.

https://www.strava.com/activities/538006196
 
I got out today.......

I was having a very indecisive day. Couldn't decide where I wanted to ride. Knew I needed to get out, just in case it does rain this weekend.

Finally decided on Whiting/Luge...with the plan of doing a second loop through Whiting. It was pretty toasty going up Mustard. Headed over to STT...again it was hot. About 1/2 to the Luge, I made the call to ride up to Cadillac, drop down and go through O'Neill before doing a second loop through Whiting. Just before the drop to the Luge, the temps dropped and the breeze picked up.

STT Above the Luge
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Top of Cadillac
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Started down Cadillac....forgot just how trashed it was....I hadn't been down it in a few years and it was bad then. Found the limits on the Ikon in the loose rocks/baby heads and loose off camber. Couple of close calls. By the time I got back over to Whiting, I only had about 35 mins of daylight left. Chose to call it at that time. Would have been close.

Good day on the bike.

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I typically only ride in the afternoons/evenings. But with rain in the forecast and a dedication to get a minimum of 50mi a week in I switched it up. Woke up early. Ate a grapefruit, hash brown, and coffee hopped on my bike and went on my usual neighborhood hiking trail ride 12mi nothing exciting. Until I looked at Strava when I got home. I set 8 new PRs, WOW what a difference riding in the morning makes when you are full of energy.
 
Faust29 said:
I woke up in the middle of the night dreaming about a ride up Blackstar. So... I didn't want to tempt fate and ignore the dream. o_O It was 82 when I pulled off the road near the tree farm, and the wind was blowing pretty good. Huh... Not exactly dreamy conditions, but I pressed on. I felt pretty good, and tried to keep the hamster wheel spinning through the flattish section before the climbing starts. The wind was blowing enough to create a few mini dust storms. The dirt didn't taste too bad, but I was hoping the wind would ease up a little. Nope...

Then... I hammered and kept the heart rate up pretty high the whole way. There were very few sections that I could sit and spin on the single speed today. It was just too windy to get any momentum... The heart rate was up in the 160s and 170s for most of the climb. :gag: My timer said I made it in a little over 58 minutes, but the Strava gods gave me 59:59. It's under an hour for the first time. I'll take it. :thumbsup:

Eating better since the holidays and running on the elliptical has paid off. Shoot... I was hoping to get back to the donuts and Twinkies. :poop:

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It's a good feeling when you finally break that 1:00 mark. Then you will start thinking where you can save another couple of minutes here and there...then seconds. How fast CAN I actually do it?

Nice job.
 
mtnbikej said:
It's a good feeling when you finally break that 1:00 mark. Then you will start thinking where you can save another couple of minutes here and there...then seconds. How fast CAN I actually do it?

Nice job.
Click to expand...

Thanks... I'm going to take another crack at it soon. The wind had to add a couple minutes yesterday. I'm thinking 57 flat with the same effort minus the wind.
 
I love this weather and since it wasnt raining hard, just misty, I decided to hit MTT yesterday. I was the only there and was in full on spiritual bliss riding in the clouds, God, nature, me and my bike. For me it doesnt get much better. Parts of the trail are overgrown so each time I brushed up on a bush, I would get full on drenched. As I approached the summit I realized that going back down the trail was not going to be the best idea, since I was completely wet, so I decided to take the road GMR down. First time I have done this. Wasnt bad except that I was freezing my ass off. Luckily I had some extra layers on for the descent. Took a long WARM shower when I got home.

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I am also fond of this weather, wish I would have done a bigger ride today but I didn't know what to expect... I still did 11 miles at Santiago Oaks land only saw one other rider. Got my ars out of bed around my normal 4:45am wake up time and fiddled around until around 7 and pedaled off just when the sun was breaking through some clouds. The weather was great, it barely sprinkled on me and the dirt was not too wet at all.

It just poured here in Orange so not sure about a ride tomorrow, perhaps I need to go pay a visit to Holy Jim in the morning... :sneaky:

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Wifey was going to Walmart and asked if I wanted to go but luckily Rusty had a better idea so we got out of it. His plan involved stretching his legs and getting moms bike dirty so off we went.

First Rusty had to show off his finely honed hunting skills...
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Then up the canyon we went. Shhhhh don't tell mom we got her bike dirty...
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And it poured down rain on us but who cares we had fun...
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I woke up this morning and looked outside....it was dry. "I'm going for a ride".

Had breakfast and looked out once again...still dry.

Geared up and and walked out to the garage....it was all wet.

Screw it, I'm going for a ride. Misted a little bit and the ground was wet, but it stopped and dried up . I saw that it was expected to rain at 11:45 so I had to knock out as much as I could before then. Well the dirt was dry. It was damp in a few places and the traction was great, but no mud, no ruts, no puddles.

Ended up hitting almost all the trails....missing only Old Goat and Chutes Ridgeline.

Finally started raining on me about the last few minutes in the park, then got poured on on the way home.

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Hmmm this one is confusing. I rode a bike today(the Ripley my wife repoed last week) but it was mostly on the road. Not sure if it's my bike or my wife's but I wrote the check for it so I'm gonna call it mine for now. Today is her birthday so I thought I'd give her the gift of silence and vanish for a few hours. Being as Castaic has a special kind of super sticky heavy mud that won't wash off your bike I opted for mostly road miles today. Walked out to the garage and had a tough decision of which bike to ride. First was the hardtail with 3x10 & skinny gravelbike tires that should be the best tool for the job(nope that thing beats me up). Then was the trusty Kona with it's worn out tires and 2x10 and superior track record(I kinda feel guilty for not showing some love here). Then was the Ripley with the plush suspension and the 2.35 Hans Dampfs and 1x11(you know the one thats least "road" worthy). Well since the Ripley is going to Kokopelli with me I might as well put as much time on it as possible since it's still new to me.

Then the unexpected happened. On a ride where the first 10 miles are all steep blacktop climbing the bike with the biggest tires and widest handlebars with the least amount of gears killed it. Screw what the suspension bob and geometry charts say Ripley's are great pedaling bikes. Saw two other spandex clad roadies on this climb one of which was fixing a flat tire and the other just got passed like he was sitting on jacks.

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Did a little exploring on this ride to an area Mikie & I have been looking at but haven't made a priority. Since there's tons of pics on this site of my Kona's handlebars I figured I needed to add some of the Ripley's too... Thats the I5 freeway above above Templin hwy.
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This must be the top...
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There were lots of cool rock formations that my phone pics just don't do justice for.
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And then I found some pristine singletrack. It wasn't very long but oh boy was it good stuff with the finale section being a super fun DH section...
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About this time I got a phone call from the wife saying she was perfectly fine but had just gotten rear ended(on her birthday of all days) so I decided to head back home. Got to here and thought about jumping on the freeway to avoid the last couple climbs...
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The rest of the ride was uneventful and involved me spinning like a hamster and then lowering the dropper and going in to full tuck for the decent on home.
 
Hero dirt. Almost. A little too wet for mentally, so ... Birthday to Coyote. Most of Coyote was good, but there were a few sections where I HABd to avoid leaving a footprint. Birthday was goooood. But I had to take it slow to avoid the silt and stay on the sandstone. I was running low pressure in anticipation of hero dirt as the morning wore on. First run down 5 Oaks, I burped my front tire on the stair steps. I am not good enough to try and gap stuff on runs like this ... On my race bike. Crash bam boom. But not over the bars, more like "laid it down". Got up, air pressure seems to be enough to make it down ... "Lean burp" ... Pull to side of trail. Looks like a bunch of dirt got into my rim. Gonna have to clean it out and use my tube. Remove tire, empty out stans. Clean rim inside and out. Grab tube pack (I keep it inside a sunglasses bag so the tube doesn't get nicked, and use the bag for necessary wipe downs). So proud of myself how I am all totally prepared. Get my tube out. It's a freaking 27.5!!!! I am on my 29. I have two completely separate bags for each bike, how did this happen????

FARK! Not enough Stans to reinflate. (I tried anyway) HAB up 5 Oaks. Walk to Jax. No wallet. Implore dude to throw air and stans in my tire. Walk to Sbucks and get the Jax crew coffees.

Bike is ready. No extra air. Wrong size tube, so no funny business. Drop 5 Oaks gingerly, climb cholla at a leisurely pace (a tandem in front), drop stair step. As I am descending, I notice that that front tire isn't seated properly. Quick change of direction after the waterfall "burp" crash bam boom. Laid it down to keep from going OTB. Ripped my shorts and my arse. Maybe 10 lbs of pressure left in front tire. HAB back up stairs and ride home gingerly.

Super bummed about the morning. Was planning a crazy fun ride on great dirt. Instead, my lack of attention to detail derails me. !!!!

https://www.strava.com/activities/541824070

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@StrandLeper glad to hear you took it easy on the trails, and bummer about the burps (what's up with that?). BTW, you can make different sized tubes work in different sized wheels/tires. a 26 tube will easily stretch to 29, and a couple weeks ago I had to borrow a 29 tube off a buddy and folded it over into my 26. Got me down the luge and home though it had a little lump in it :)
 
knucklebuster said:
@StrandLeper glad to hear you took it easy on the trails, and bummer about the burps (what's up with that?). BTW, you can make different sized tubes work in different sized wheels/tires. a 26 tube will easily stretch to 29, and a couple weeks ago I had to borrow a 29 tube off a buddy and folded it over into my 26. Got me down the luge and home though it had a little lump in it :)
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We are all 29 all the time in this household....but I only buy 26" tubes....they are cheaper, lighter and take up less space.
 
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