Category: cycling

100 Miles, Turtle Rescue, and Rain

Published May 27, 2012

In preparation for Lumberjack 100, the training plan that I’d been following dictated an 8 hour ride today. Erik also had to ride today (but only for seven hours), and we ended up planning to meet at the Clarkston Road crossing of the Paint Creek Trail at 6am. This got pushed to 6:20am as I had to run back home and pick up a forgotten bottle and my shoes (two separate return trips), but eventually we were on our way.

The ride involved laps of Bald Mountain, Addison Oaks, and the Four Corners (Indian Lake, Barr, Drahner, and Lake George), which worked out well and tended to put us back in Addison Oaks right around the times that we were due to mix up more drink stuff. Due to a bit of slacking (and frequent pee breaks) and talking with Shari at Addison we ended up with almost two hours of downtime during the ride, so it was good that we started out so early.

Just after the 7 hour (moving time) mark we were near the cabins at Bald Mountain and Erik headed back towards his car while I started thinking about what I wanted to do for the next hour. With my computer saying I’d already ridden ~82 miles, I got an itch to try and go for a full 100 miles (often referred to as a century). I finished up the lap of Bald Mountain then rode back over to Addison Oaks, as mental calculations told me this should put things at just past the goal.

Despite angry looking clouds and a beautiful front passing over us this morning, we missed getting rained on. Half-way through this final lap of Addison Oaks the skies once again darkened, but this time I wasn’t so fortunate. Heavy winds gave way to drips, and by the time I got back to Bald Mountain a solid rain was falling. This lasted throughout the rest of the trail and for most of my ride back, but ended just as I reached the parking lot, which was fortunate as it made putting things away and changing much easier.

All said, this was a really good ride. I ticked off just over 100 miles, for the first time ever. While tired I still could have ridden more, as my legs were (and still are) feeling pretty good and not too much of me is sore. Reviewing the post-ride data I think I should probably have kept my heart rate a little higher to conform to the training plan requirements, but hopefully things will be fine in a couple weeks.

One odd thing from today’s ride: we kept encountering turtles, some of whom needed a bit of help. Two of them were on roads (and bound to get hit), with one having clearly fallen down a dirt embankment which it wouldn’t been been able to climb. These were relocated off into the brush in the direction they had been going. Three more were found on trails where bikes could easily hit them, but only two of these were moved as one was a basketball-sized snapping turtle (seen above). Finally — and unfortunately — there was a sixth turtle on Indian Lake Road which had already been hit.

Now that I’m home and having finished a large meal from Khom Fai I think it’s time to consider a shower and then bed. I’ve been up since ~4:05am and sleep is sounding good.

Here is the GPS plot and stats for today’s ride: link.

Here’s some photos from today’s ride:

· Erik and the snapping turtle found along the two track at Addison Oaks.
· Detail of the snapping turtle found along the two track at Addison Oaks.
· Another view of Erik and the snapping turtle sitting along the side of the two track at Addison Oaks.
· 101 miles in 08:46:10 of moving time, shown on the Garmin Edge 500. My longest ride to date.
· Gang Gai (red curry) from Khom Fai, a nice post-bike-ride meal.

If you’re interested here’s a few more photos taken during yesterday’s ride on the dunes southeast of Sleeper State Park. This was a fun ride, but I found that I couldn’t keep going in sand over ~4″ deep:

·The Mukluk on some dunes just southeast of Sleeper State Park.
·Sand along the power lines just south of Sleeper State Park. This was too loose for me to ride.
·The Mukluk leaned against an old barbed wire fence somewhere southeast of Sleeper State Park.
·Somewhere along the way I picked up a stick.
·Closer view of the large stick in the frame. It was easy to remove and basically fell out.

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Down the OpenStreetMap Rabbit Hole

Published May 25, 2012

I’ve been interested in making mountain bike trail maps for a while now, resulting in my drawing the official River Bends and Addison Oaks maps. Stony Creek Metropark has some great trails as well, but it’s MTB trail map is unfortunately lacking. It is missing some segments used during races, has some one-way markings that don’t match what’s actually signed on the trail, and isn’t geographically accurate enough to be used for trail planning.

My original intention was to record all of the trail segments at Stony Creek myself using a GPS then draw a map similar to the ones for Addison Oaks and River Bends, but after looking on OpenStreetMap (OSM) I found that most of the trails at Stony Creek were already mapped. Thus if I am willing to license my map in an appropriately open manner I can use this data, saving myself a bunch of time.

Since a few small connectors that I wished to include were missing I headed out to Stony Creek this evening and recorded GPS data for only the missing segments. Most of these were connectors used primarily during races, but as they are passable throughout most of the year I wanted to include them. I then brought the GPX into JOSM, edited the map, and submitted the changes. This is a pretty easy task if one is familiar with basic CAD tools.

While the changes aren’t yet reflected in the main online map, the changes have been submitted and it does show when new data is manually downloaded, so I imagine it’s only a matter of time before it’s visible to the public. I will then use this OSM to make my MTB-specific map, complete with markers for things such as log piles, rock gardens, etc.

I suspect that this ease of editing is going to change my mapping workflow in the future. There’s a very good chance that any new maps which I do will first go into OSM, then this data will be pulled out to generate the actual map. Barring any license constraints, of course.

Looking further it appears that River Bends’ trails aren’t yet on OSM. Looks like I’ve got some work to do there as well…

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PLRA Is Finally Enjoyable To Me

Published May 22, 2012

This afternoon after work I finally headed out to Pontiac Lake Recreation Area to ride the trails by myself. While I’ve been there a few times before with people showing me around, something about the trails there had yet to click with me and I wasn’t sure if I liked them or not. After riding two laps today I was finally recognizing most of the route, and I even had a feel for what was coming up after some parts. With a bit more experience there I’ll be able to do a better job carrying momentum into more climbs and then it’ll likely end up being even more fun.

Today I ended up riding two laps without stepping off the bike, with a parking lot to parking lot time of 1:49:22. This includes all of the optional Hard segments that I know of: the switchbacks about half-way in and the tight / rooty area near the end. Even though I didn’t really feel warmed up until after the triple puke climb on lap two, this ride was really enjoyable. The weather was absolutely perfect, everyone I encountered on the trail was friendly, and it fit in nicely as a good after work ride. I need to head out there more often.

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Group Ride at River Bends and CRPT

Published May 17, 2012

Two weeks ago while out for a quick lunchtime ride at River Bends I started thinking about how it’d be nice to have a group ride there connecting it and the Clinton River Park Trails. So, later that evening I set up a ride for the 10th. Rains forced me to postpone this a week, with today being the day for the ride.

We had a much better turnout than I expected, with a total of 17 people showing up for the ride. A couple people dropped off here and there to head home or because they’d gotten enough riding in, but most of the group stuck together until the end, returning to the River Bends parking lot just as the sun was going down.

Coupled with riding up and back from home and an early lap I ended up getting 36.52 miles in, and just a smidgen over three hours moving time. All of this and the beautiful weather made for a great evening.

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Poopy Creek

Published May 17, 2012

This is one of my least favorite parts of riding outdoors: unexpected encounters with dog poop. Not only is it feces, but being dog stuff it’s greasy and difficult to clean off. I must have picked this up somewhere at Stony Creek last night while riding. After getting in the car I thought it smelled suspiciously unclean in there, but I’d just written it off as sweaty clothes or my nose playing tricks on me.

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Deuter Race Air Lite Pack Leak and Replacement

Published May 8, 2012

When riding I almost always carry a Deuter Race Air Lite hydration pack (photo) containing stuff I may need during the ride. I’ve had the bag for less than a year and recently a leak developed at the bottom of the bladder, right at the base of the outlet’s weld. Deuter bags carry a lifetime warranty, so I submitted a warranty request.

A few days later I had a new bladder in my possession, and instead of sending the old one back Deuter just asked for a photo of the bladder and where it’s leaking. That’s what can be seen above. This leak wasn’t huge, but it was enough that with each ride the bottom of my bag would be wet, occasionally dripping on me. I was more concerned that it would grow, resulting in an unexpected failure leaving me stuck without water.

I’ve been really happy with the Deuter pack thus far, and good warranty support when it failed was a nice bonus.

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Fox Float RP23 Seal Replacement

Published May 2, 2012

This evening, as part of doing a bunch of needed maintenance on the Titus (cables, bottom bracket, shock, etc) I replaced the seals on the Fox Float RP23 rear shock. Using the ~$15 OEM seal kit this was surprisingly easy to do. I followed along with this video from Fox and the actual work took less time than watching the video.

The most difficult part was removing the bottom bushings, but this was pretty easily done by holding them using a bench vise and some neoprene to keep the parts from being marred and gently rotating them while lifting on the shock. Pressing the bushings back into place was even easier, done just using the vise jaws and some more padding.

There is still another evening’s worth of work to go on the bike before I’ll be able to put the shock back on, but everything went well enough that I expect it’ll work fine. I’m more concerned about getting all the drivetrain bits put together and working right.

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Fox Lake Road May Be Impassable

Published April 22, 2012

Yesterday’s ride took Erik, Nick, and I out west to visit an area that we’d only heard about and Erik was anxious to see, Fox Lake Road. I was not disappointed, as the segment between Honert Rd and County Line Rd. / Washburn Rd. was some nice hills in the quite-attractive Ortonville Recreation Area.

Starting out from the Clarkston Road crossing of the Paint Creek Trail we ended up around 69 miles for the day, and a moving time of just a smidge over 5.5 hours. This met my goal, but I seem to have failed to keep my heart rate high enough for some parts of the ride. For much of it (likely while climbing) I had it fairly high, but on the flatter segments (and likely longer downhills) it dropped lower than I should have kept it. Hopefully this’ll be okay… While tired I had enough energy left at the end of the ride yesterday to make a decent effort on the Miller Rd. hills, so hopefully I won’t have problems with next weekend’s 5.5 – 6 hour ride, and whatever comes after that…

Here’s two more photos from yesterday:

· Inside the Men’s changing area at Bald Mountain State Recreation Area’s Lower Trout Lake beach.
· Titus Racer X 29er laying in some leaves along Fox Lake Road when stopping to take a break.

Now, off to Stony Creek to build some single track.

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Marked Bottle

Published April 20, 2012

This evening I finally got around to marking up some of my water bottles with one-third and half marks. Since I frequently mix up two or three hours worth of sports drink stuff in them (typically from Infinit Nutrition) I like to drink half or one third of the bottle per hour. I’d previously guessed at what 1/3 and 1/2 of the volume would be, but apparently I was a bit off. The dent in the bottle must have thrown me a bit.

By the time these markings wear off I’ll likely have these levels memorized and won’t need to redo them.

(Note that this bottle contains enough mix to meet my caloric needs for three hours of riding. Despite being filled to just below the Breakaway Bicycles & Fitness logo it’ll all dissolve pretty readily in one bottle of water.)

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Nupla PA375-LESG Pulaski Axe

Published April 19, 2012

Wednesday evening UPS delivered my new Pulaski, a tool combining an axe and an adz, and commonly used in wilderness firefighting and trail construction. I’ve been borrowing one for the past year or so but I wanted my own, so I looked around and ended up picking up this one, a Nupla PA375-LESG.

Made in the US and available from Amazon for ~$53 it seemed like a pretty reasonable purchase. I particularly like the ribbed handle which should make it feel a bit more solid when used with wet hands.

I also added this photo to the Wikipedia Pulaski article because it previously didn’t have a good photo of the tool’s head; just a man swinging the tool, with the head lost in shadows.

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