Category: cycling

…and then there was a bridge!

Published April 11, 2011

Yesterday I’d expected to do a bit of trail work with some friends, but after posting publicly on the MMBA Forum an unexpectedly large group of volunteers showed up to help out with a new segment of trail that I’d flagged. The result of this was that most of the new trail was roughed in, accomplishing roughly 75% of the work needed to finish this new half-mile segment of trail.

A lingering piece of this trail’s construction was a bridge over a narrow (but very wet) area, and today Mark Senyk picked up the wood for it, and he and I were able to place it this evening. With a few more evenings worth of work I may be able to finish up this segment of trail and get it ridable. One end of the bridge still needs more dirt to further bury it and there’s a bit of raking / vine clearing / brush clearing to be done, but it won’t be very long until this segment can be opened.

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Ridable Trails!

Published April 10, 2011

While River Bends made for decent riding earlier in the week today’s beautiful weather and rumors of good conditions at Stony Creek convinced Nick and I to head out to ride some trails. Danielle joined us, then split off at the beginning to go find her own route on the two track.

We ended up riding all of the single track, and all of it was in prime condition. It was slightly tacky to try, and there were only a few very small muddy spots, none of which caused difficulty. Nick had no problem repeatedly dropping me which caused me to push myself a bit harder than I was ready for, but that’s probably a good thing overall. It helped make for an excellent ride.

Now, to try and finish off River Bends before the sun sets… Also, here is a photo of my Titus and Danielle’s Motobecane 29er on the back of my car.

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New Trail Work Saws

Published April 6, 2011

Last year I purchased this bypass lopper from Corona and I’ve been very happy with it, so when it was time to purchase a small(er) hand saw I went with one of their models. This afternoon two new tools arrived, the Razor Tooth Raker Tooth Saw – 21 in (RS 7160) (seen above) for serious trail-work sawing and the Razor Tooth Folding Saw – 6 1/2 in (RS 4040) (Photo) to keep in my backpack for small jobs. These were purchased as a replacement for the Sven-Saw which I left behind on the trail after Erik, Nick, and I cleared some serious post-storm deadfall from River Bends.

I’d considered buying another Sven-Saw as it was quite convenient to carry in my backpack and only pull out when needed, but the setup/teardown made it a little difficult to use, and the cut depth limitations inherent in a bow saw occasionally caused problems. I’m hoping that this saw, particularly with its raker teeth, will be perfect for most of the trail-side sawing that I have to do.

Since the 21″ Raker Tooth saw doesn’t come with a sheath and its blade is quite pointy I decided to make one out of some salvaged Coroplast. While not as durable as a dedicated holder, it should suffice to keep things safe from it in the trunk of the car and keep me from cutting myself while carrying it.

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Dented Salsa Delgado 29’er Race Rim

Published April 5, 2011

Originally I was going to post this photo of the sun setting over River Bends, taken while out on my first proper trail ride of the year, but then I dented my rim while screwing around in the parking lot post-ride and thought that it would be more interesting. More specifically, I tried hopping over a curb ad moderate speed (~10 – 12 MPH) and did it wrong, slamming my rear wheel and all my weight into the curb. The impact was both felt and heard as a resounding metallic TWONK as one sidewall folded in. Surprisingly the tire didn’t pinch flat nor blow off the rim.

After a rather unpleasant day at work I headed home and found myself with just enough time to quickly eat some cereal, change clothes, and dash up to River Bends for a first trail ride of the year before the sun set. So, I did. The trail is pretty much ready to ride, with only a few small slick/muddy spots which aren’t too difficult to traverse and which shouldn’t damage the trail. I pushed myself a bit and am already a little sore for it, but it felt really good. Riding trails is something that I really missed over the winter, and even being limited to the ~40 minutes that I was able to ride, my head felt clearer and all thoughts of broken things at work (and effort required to fix them) went away. I need more of that…

…and I guess I need to rebuild my rear wheel.

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2011 Trail Work at River Bends

Published April 3, 2011

Yesterday afternoon Jon Boughner and I headed out to River Bends to do some trail work. We ended up finishing all the major points that I’d wanted to hit:

· Rerouted the return loop entrance to make it flow better and not involve any sharp downhill turns. This should also eliminate a user conflict area.
· Rerouting a quick (and blind) uphill near the seasonal loop split-off. While ridable, this hill would catch some people off guard and would likely end up full of brake bumps after a few years. the new section should flow much better.
· Moving or marking (for later cut-out) any downed trees. There were only two that we couldn’t move by hand!
· Bench cutting a few previously built sections which needed a bit more work.

While out there we also ran into Pete and Mark as they were riding through. They stopped and helped us with a bit of the initial work on the return loop entrance reroute, and then test rode it to check that it flowed sufficiently. Later on, Mark returned with his friend Brad on another ride and they were able to do a few test rides of the second reroute, but unfortunately this route was still a bit muddy and they left a significant rut through the center of the trail. Thankfully we were there to stomp this section flat before it has a chance to dry in that bad shape.

The rest of the trail is also still fairly muddy so I won’t consider it ridable until the rain stops and things can dry a bit further, but it’s definitely coming along nicely. It’s pretty much set for now, and I can begin thinking about a bit of expansion that I’m hoping to do.

Here’s some photos from yesterday:

· Jon Boughner standing on top of the new return loop entrance to River Bends.
· Mark Senyk and Brad riding through a brand-new reroute at River Bends.
· Me (Steve) standing on a reroute at River Bends which eliminates a steep, blind uphill.
· Another photo of me (Steve) on the hill-eliminating reroute.
· Pizza cutter rut left in fresh mud at River Bends.
· Detail of the fresh rut at River Bends.
· Jon Boughner standing on the new River Bends return loop entrance.

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Still Muddy…

Published March 27, 2011

As expected local trails are still spring-time muddy and unsustainable to ride. I managed to access a short spur of single track that I knew would be safely passable and used it to connect paved areas today, but that only wetted my appetite. While I live in a decent area for being able to take off and ride relatively safe routes, I’m getting a bit tired of the same-old paved areas. I can’t wait for everything to thaw and begin drying out and becoming ridable again. Unfortunately I guess that thawing will involve more water, like here which was dry and passable last weekend.

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Wormsign!

Published March 20, 2011

While taking the trash out tonight I saw worms crawling along the pavement. This is a good sign, as it means the ground is mostly thawed and thus off-road riding will be possible soon.

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Finally, an Evening Ride!

Published March 16, 2011

After a long winter I think it’s finally going to be time to ride soon. Tonight found a group of us riding along the Macomb Orchard Trail from it’s start at Dequindre up through the bridge at Van Dyke and then back. Total was around 22 miles, but since I’d ridden around the parking lot a bunch beforehand my statistics are a bit off from what the ride itself entailed. Still, it was great to get out and take advantage of the nice weather.

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Updated River Bends Map

Published March 13, 2011

After a bike ride this afternoon I decided to (finally) update the River Bends trail map so that it’s more usable. Besides adding more asphalt and a better key I cleaned some things up, added the park’s address, and changed the trail lines to dashed pieces. These dashed lines should make the map more readable when printed in black and white, and the addition of the river, railroad tracks, and more road should make it easier to tell where one is when riding along.

In the future I’m going to consider adding in the Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal and maybe tweaking the route a bit. Maybe there will even be some more single track to add by that next time, too…

Click the image above or here for a PDF of the map: River_Bends_13-Mar-2011.pdf

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Banananuunlingonberry

Published March 8, 2011

Today I found that Ikea’s Lingonberry concentrated drink mix can easily be combined with some water and one banananuun-flavored nuun tablet to make a decent tasting impromptu electrolyte drink. Having run out of HEED this past winter and wanting to go on a reasonable length ride today I needed something calorie-iffic to drink, but I wanted to be sure it had a few electrolytes in it as well, since I tend to sweat a lot. Well, this did the trick.

I’ll still probably pick up some HEED or possibly an Infinit Nutrition product for normal riding, but at least for the next few rides this should suffice. (During normal riding I like to have my CamelBak full of water and a bottle of something sweet on my bike. I can then sip the water when I’m thirsty and drink the bottle of whatever throughout the course of the ride to be sure that my blood sugar stays sane and I don’t bonk.)

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