Category: cycling

Permanent Trail Marking for a One-Day Race

Published May 21, 2011

Apparantly the promoters of the Back To The Beach Half Marathon and 5K see fit to apply permanent spray paint to rocks, roots, and ruts along the route of a trail race. Yes, this one-day race has now caused much of the two track trail at Stony Creek to have nearly every mildly exposed non-dirt element on the trail to become a blaze orange eyesore.

The photo above was taken this morning when Pete, Mark, Bill, and I headed out to The Pines in Stony Creek to fix up a bunch of the muddy holes that developed during this especially wet spring. Using a mix of park-provided gravel, fill rocks, and a small amount of cement (as a light binder) we scraped out the mud holes, added fill, mixed in the scraped out mud, topped it with a light dusting of cement, raked it together, then tamped it firm. After settings up for a few hours these segments are now dry and hard-pack dirt, and should be much more resistant to washing away / turning to peanut butter in the coming years’ spring rains.

After the trail work I headed home and washed the Titus, then set back out on it towards Stony Creek to meet up with an old friend and coworker Jeff, who was there for the day with his son. The two of us rode a lap around Stony Creek’s main road, then ended up at West Branch Lot C, where Danielle (and a bunch of other friends) were at (or running) the Michigan DNRE’s Becoming an Outdoors Woman mountain bike class. After hanging around there for a while we retired to Rochester Mills Brewery, which I accessed by way of a bunch of single track, including The Pines to check out the sections we’d worked on this morning. I’m quite happy with how they came out, and I think they’ll go a long ways towards making the trail year-round ridable.

After Rochester Mills I headed towards home, racing the front that brought tonight’s rain. All said, this was a 39.75 mile ride over 2:47:22, for a moving average of 14.25 MPH. This is my fastest average time of the year, and the earliest ride last year of similar length and average speed didn’t happen until June, and had much more of it’s route along the relatively flat Paint Creek Trail.

UPDATE: Turns out that this may be spray chalk, but as I couldn’t rub it off a rock with my foot I’m hesitant to believe that. Or maybe it’s a long-lasting chalk. If this gets cleaned up / goes away within a couple weeks I’ll feel a lot better about it and take back harsh statements made about the use of long-term marking for a one-day event, but if markings I’ve seen other places in previous years are any indication this stuff will be visible for months.

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I Like This Bike

Published May 20, 2011

Today was the Salsa El Mariachi‘s first trail ride, and it went well. Riding all the single track at Stony Creek and the two hardest climbs was great, and the rigid fork played a huge part of it. Being fully rigid and a single speed this bike feels completely different from the Titus, but in a good way. It fits me better than the VooDoo Dambala did and is the most comfortable rigid bike I’ve ridden. While not something that I’d set out for 40 – 60 mile rides on (at least not as it’s currently set up), it’s really fun on trails and I can see myself riding this quite a bit.

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Salsa El Mariachi: Built

Published May 20, 2011

After work today I tore down the VooDoo Dambala and cleaning the parts for assembly on the Salsa El Mariachi frame. After the parts were disassembled and cleaned, after another five hours passed (including a break for dinner) this pile of parts turned into the bike you see above. It’s currently fitted with the rigid fork, but at some point in the future I’ll probably switch to the squishy Reba. For now I figure it’d be nice to get back to having a rigid single speed to ride, especially now that I’ve got some nice, reliable, wide-profile wheels.

I’m still waiting for another Carnegie’s Bar to arrive from the UK for this bike, but in the mean time it should do just fine with the FSA CarbonPro that had graced the VooDoo. There’s also going to be a bit more fiddling to do to get the saddle position right, but I think everything in a good starting place for now. With any luck I’ll be able to get out to Stony Creek tomorrow and try it out.

I’m really happy with how the look of the bike came out as well. Without really trying I ended up hitting a blue/shades-of-grey color scheme. While I’m not interested in spending an inordinate amount of time color coordinating a bike, I do like it when everything falls into place to have something nice looking. And here I was questioning the blue color of the frame at first…

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MPHD Coating the Salsa El Mariachi

Published May 18, 2011

After work today I set to coating the inside of the Salsa El Mariachi frame with Amsoil MPHD . After removing the Alternator dropouts (PDF) I cleaned off any remaining grease on the bottom bracket shell and head tube and liberally fogged the tubes with the corrosion protectant. Tubes were done one at a time with the frame slowly rotated afterward, then once all tubes had been treated I hung/propped/laid the frame in all manner of positions to try and ensure that the protectant evenly coated all of the internal surfaces. After a number of rotations I hung the frame to with no tubes horizontal and headed off to get some dinner.

The frame continued to drip and dry, and after arriving home I was able to remove much of the residue left on the frame with isopropyl alcohol and a paper towel. I hope that the MPHD will dry sufficiently over the next two days so that on Friday evening I can assemble the bike. Tomorrow evening I plan on disassembling the VooDoo and piecing together the major components (crankset, wheels, etc) so that come Friday I can properly build up the bike. Perhaps then on Saturday I’ll be able to go for a test ride out at Stony Creek.

The photo above shows the frame after the initial applications, but still with quite a bit of spill-over in the rear of the frame, on the newspaper spread on the garage floor, along the down tube gusset, etc.

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Bald Mountain and Addison Oaks are Wet

Published May 18, 2011

After work today I met up with Jon at the Clarkston Road crossing of the Paint Creek Trail to ride Bald Mountain and Addison Oaks. While Bald Mountain was a bit wet Addison was so wet that we skipped the second half (and most fun part) of the trail. Still, it was nice to get out and ride some single track, particularly something other than Stony Creek. This isn’t to imply that Stony is bad, it’s just the local go-to single track and it’s nice to have a bit of variety.

The photo above shows one of the wonderful new maps at Bald Mountain State Recreation Area. The story I’d heard is that the old park manager was retiring and didn’t do much his last few years there, but when the new person took over he started making all manner of positive changes. I’m not sure how true this story is, but within the last year all of the (previously terrible and generally useless) intersection signs in the park have been removed and replaced with new, high quality maps. Kiosks like this also have been put in place, and now Bald Mountain has a nice feeling of being-cared-for to it.

Here’s two more photos from today, one of a fallen tree which someone has formed into a sketchy log pile (note the chainring marks) and the other which is impassible for a typical rider. Also, here is a GPS plot that Jon recorded of tonight’s ride. Note that heart rate is definitely not mine.

Tonight’s ride (per my bike computer) ended up at 23.66 miles, 2:03:14 moving time, for an average of 11.56 MPH, with a maximum of 26.56 MPH.

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New Bike Parts!

Published May 15, 2011

Earlier today I purchased the parts pictured above to build up into my next bike. They are used, but this seems like a decent deal on what should become my next bike building project. I rather like my VooDoo Dambala, but I’ve had my eye on the Salsa El Mariachi frame for a while now, particularly because of the swinging dropouts. When a deal offering a slightly used frame, matching rigid fork, Rock Shox Reba suspension fork, and headset appeared on the MMBA forum in my size I jumped on them, and soon I hope to rebuild the VooDoo’s parts (including the new wheels that I built) on to this frame.

For a total of $730 I ended up getting the following parts:

· Salsa El Mariachi Frame, 18″ / medium; very well cared for (only one small scratch in the top tube).
· Salsa CroMoto Grande 29’er Fork, a rigid fork designed to be used with the El Mariachi.
· Cane Creek 100 Headset, a standard, high-quality cartridge bearing headset.
· Rock Shox Reba Team 100mm travel fork, a perfect squishy fork for this frame.
· Bontrager Duster Wheelset
· 2009 SRAM X-9 Derailleur

The price for the frame+forks+headset was $650, but I also ended up with the derailleur and a used wheel set (another $80) that I’ll put on the VooDoo before selling it. I’ve also got a set of Race Face Deus cranks and bottom bracket en route via a super deal at Wickwerks. I’ll be setting the rings aside for later use on the Titus and using the cranks+bb along with parts from the VooDoo to build up the frame. I’ll then find parts for the VooDoo and build it into a bike to sell.

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Heritage Park Bridge

Published May 14, 2011

Yesterday while hurriedly riding around before the rain I happened over to Utica‘s Heritage Park to check out the new bridge. My last post about this showed just some bare concrete footings, but now there is a quite nice, wide bridge. Once Shelby Township has finished with the asphalt path through River Bends there will be a solid, safe route from Stony Creek all the way to Metro Beach. There’s still a bit of work that will be needed on a frequently flooded crossing under Van Dyke, but everything takes time.

Here is another photo of the bridge as seen from one of the approaches, and this amusing pipe that’s been in place long enough for a tree to grow around it.

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Giro Rivet Gloves

Published May 12, 2011

For most of last year I rode wearing a pair black Giro Rivet gloves in size XL. These unpadded and super-vented (note the mesh along the sides of each finger?) gloves are what I prefer for warm weather riding. Last year after setting up for the Addison Oaks Fall XC Classic I left them on my bike rack and drove off, losing them. They were a bit worn at the time and I figured that other gloves could replace them, but with it getting warmer here I missed them and swung by RBS yesterday to pick up another pair and I’m quite glad I did. They fit just like I’d remembered and left my hands comfortably cool while riding Stony Creek last night.

Speaking of Stony Creek, a week ago while riding with Kristi I stopped along the paved path on the east side of Sheldon just north of Stony Creek High School and trimmed back the shrub which normally overhands 40% of the pavement. As the nice weather rolls on the shrub seems to get larger and larger, resulting in a need to swerve around it while riding past. It appears to be located at a relatively unmaintained section of land, so I figured that cutting it back wouldn’t upset anyone. A photo of it from a week ago can be seen here.

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MOT on Mother’s Day

Published May 8, 2011

This morning, to visit my mom on Mother’s Day, I hopped on my bike and headed out the Macomb Orchard Trail to Richmond. Danielle later met me there with the car and bike rack and after visiting for a while we headed back to my place.

This ride was the first time that I rode the MOT the whole way through Armada and didn’t use 33 Mile Road as a bypass around the gravel part of the trail. Previously I’d been unwilling to ride on the loose, poorly chosen gravel lining the path but this year it seems to have packed down into two tracks of something mostly ridable. Unfortunately horse hoof prints (essentially 1″ deep pock marks) were left all over much of this hard packed area turning the surface into washboard, thus the choice was to ride on rough but hard gravel or sink into soft gravel. Had I been on a bike with a suspension fork and a more forgiving frame it probably wouldn’t have been so bad. Today’s weather was also outstanding, save for a ~12 MPH wind out of the northeast.

The photo above was taken in Armada along a loading platform at what appears to be an old train depot. Upon rolling into Armada I was most struck by how similar it looks to Dryden along the Polly Ann Trail, specifically the buildings along the old rail route. In both places the rail trail spills out into a larger gravel area, along which lies a long white building with a loading dock on it, a grain silo, and some access roads.

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Michigan Bike Demo at Island Lake Recreation Area

Published May 7, 2011

Here’s a photo of a Slingshot Ripper at the Trail’s Edge booth at this year’s Michigan Bike Demo. Unfortunately, this bike arrived at the demo too late for it to be ridden as a demo unit. This is disappointing to me, as I would have loved to try this modern piece of retro tech.

Unlike last year the weather was nice, with cool temperatures, sun, and a breeze making it a great day to be outside. Like last year I was able to try a suite of bikes on the demo loop, many of which I was surprisingly happy with. The bikes I tried were:

· Salsa Muklua
· Niner Jet 9
· Giant XtC 29er 1
· Specialized Stumpjumper Comp 29er
· Specialized FSR 29er (of some sort, with a Brain shock)
· Niner Air 9
· Surly Pugsley

Of these, the medium Specialized FSR fit me the best, and was a surprisingly comfortable bike to ride. I also really liked both Niners, although the Air 9 was a bit too stiff for me. The fat tire bikes (Mukluk and Pugsley) were also both a lot of fun, but by their design I had to constantly pedal, as simply coasting slowed me down. I think that throughout most of the ILRA demo loop I didn’t even have to bother braking on these two bikes as I could just time my coasting so that I was never feeling that I was moving too quickly.

Danielle came along today specifically to try out some of Specialized’s woman-specific bikes. These tend to have a shorter top tube for the typical woman shape, and of these she found herself very comfortable on a medium Safire Expert. This is a very nice trail bike which would do her well, but unfortunately it’s $4700 MSRP. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to use the geometry info from this bike to find something more suitable for her and either pick up or build a new bike that she’s quite happy riding.

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