Category: cycling

VooDoo Dambala

Published July 17, 2010

Ever since the Island Lake Bike Demo I’ve found myself wanting a rigid single speed bike for occasional trail rides. After failing to purchase a Redline Monocog Flight 29er I started looking at used bikes on the MMBA Forum and came across a well-equipped VooDoo Dambala in my size for US$600. After driving out to Chelsea to meet the seller and look it over (and eat at Zingerman’s Road House on the way back) I decided to purchase the bike. It’s just what I want, a steel framed bike that fits me with good quality parts at a fair price.

At 34:16 (2.125:1) the gearing is a bit tall for me, but being a standard single speed hub I shouldn’t have a problem fitting a new (and more appropriate) cog. I’ll give it a go as-is first, since my legs are much stronger since my my last single speed experiment, I don’t want to pick a new gearing before really trying it out.

The bike came with the levers set up British-style (front brake on the right) which is common on mountain bikes ridden by motocross folks, but not right for me. Since taking the photos above I switched them around and swapped the Time pedals for Eggbeaters so it’s now ready for a test ride. I still have to get a new saddle and adjust the rear brakes a tad (clean, or perhaps bleed them), and maybe fit some Ergon grips, but it’s otherwise all ready to ride. Hopefully I’ll be able to get out tomorrow to try it out.

The bike came equipped as follows:

Frame: VooDoo Dambala 18″
Stem: Bontrager 90mm
Fork: Bontrager Switch Blade Race X Lite Carbon Fiber
Wheels: Sun Ringle
Seatpost: Thomson
Bar: FSA CarbonPro
Crankset: Bontrager
Tires: Specialized S-Works The Captain
Brakes: Hayes Stroker Trail (Avid Clean Sweep G2 Rotor in Rear)
Saddle: Selle Italia Flight
Cog: Surly 16T
Chainring: 34T
Bash Guard: Salsa
Grips: ODI Ruffian
Pedals: Time

More pictures of this bike can be found here if you are interested: VooDoo Dambala.

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Cock ‘n Bull Ginger Beer

Published July 11, 2010

Here’s a bottle of Cock ‘n Bull Ginger Beer, purchased at the gas station at the corner of Grange Hall and Mackey Roads after Erik, Kristi, and I rode the East Loop (Gruber’s Grinder) at the Holly-Holdridge Mountain Bike Trails, which are more commonly known just as Holdridge. This was a quite challenging (but fun) trail, which took us 2:20 to complete the 15.5 mile route riding at a quite relaxed pace. It has everything from flowing sections of hard pack through the woods to 6′ high piles of field stones and reasonably high log piles. (Photo of Erik going over the biggest of the log piles.)

After the ride (and purchase of snacks) we headed over to Wildwood Lake in Holly Recreation Area and swam for a while to cool off (photo). Unfortunately while out swimming (and taking underwater photos) my supposedly waterproof to 10′ Olympus Stylus 850 SW sprung a leak. The camera started complaining that the memory card’s contacts needing cleaning, and after I opened the memory card / battery card compartment I found it to have water in it. It’s now sitting in a container of desiccant, so hopefully it’ll start working again soon and I can just put it to use as my standard travel point and shoot / bike jersey pocket camera.

Despite our snack of good soda and potato chips, having just biked for 2:20 and swam for 45 minutes we were getting a bit hungry, so the next stop was Union Woodshop in Clarkston, MI. This offshoot of Clarkston Union, one of my favorite America food restaurants, has a menu of great looking BBQ dishes and is some place I’d been wanting to try for a while.

With $0.87 glasses (mason jars, really) of Badass Beer (yes, the Kid Rock stuff, a passable lager) on special during the final game of the World Cup (which Spain won) we each ordered pulled pork with a variety of side items. I chose mac and cheese (ala Clarkston Union) and sweet potatoes (with roasted jalapeno and a hint of maple), which can be seen here along with some corn bread and sweet butter. Typcial of most midwestern restaurants portions were large enough to ensure leftovers. I’ll definitely want to go back there, but the typical 1.5 hour wait on most weeknights may make this difficult. I guess we’ll just have to plan for mid-afternoon on a Sunday again.

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Shelby / Macomb Township Warzone

Published July 4, 2010

One of the few things (besides “free” music and movies) that will elicit civil disobedience in white, middle class families is the chance to use 1.4G (formerly Class C) explosives on the Fourth of July. I really enjoy seeing all the explosions around the area, so around dusk I set off on my bike to wander the local neighborhoods and watch people set off various glittering fires.

This ride ended up being roughly 12.3 miles, which was a nice cap on the day. Earlier Josh (my brother in law) and I had ridden Bald Mountain and Addison Oaks, but after a nice pile of picnic-type foods at my parents house and an unexpected nap I felt like getting back out and riding some more. A desire to watch people play with pyrotechnics provided the perfect reason to do so.

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The REI Garage Sale Is Great

Published July 3, 2010

Today after getting Danielle fit on her bike by Ernie up at Cycletherepy (which went very well and is highly recommended) we swung by REI to pick up some stuff and check out the remains of the Garage Sale^†. While there I picked up a returned Cateye Velo 5 computer labeled “Computer is not working” for $1.93, marked down from the original $20. Looking it over, the only thing wrong with it was that the original buyer had pushed the rubber MODE switch on the back in so far that it was jammed, causing the computer to not function. A few quick pokes with a pin to move the rubber switch back to the hole and everything was back to normal.

I also grabbed a jacket for $29-ish which had been returned because part of the collar was beginning to pill. Marked down from $100, nice looking, and something that I’d considered purchasing at full price last winter I couldn’t pass it up. It should make a very nice early winter / springtime jacket, and maybe something nice for XC skiing.

^† In case you haven’t been to one, garage sales at REI are periodic clearance sales where non-new returned items are sold at huge discounts as non-returnable. Everything is tagged with the reason for return and the age of the item, and prices are typically an order of magnitude below the original price.

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Fall Down Go Scrape

Published July 2, 2010

Today while out riding my bike at Addison Oaks I fell and scraped up my arm. I think I also banged my shin and hip a little bit, all while packing dirt into various parts of the handle bar. That’s part of the excitement of riding a bike in the woods, eh? Good thing the weather was perfect and there were far fewer bugs out than there have been in past days. The rest of the ride, which started at the Clarkston Road crossing of the Paint Creek Trail and went through Bald Mountain, was nice, fun, and generally uneventful.

Here is a photo of the place where I fell. For those of you that know the trail, it was on one of the curves right before the small bridge/boardwalk which has the sharp uphill, banked, right-hand turn after it. Yes, it’s a very basic spot. I just wasn’t paying enough attention and either washed out the tire or got too close to the edge of the trail and slipped into the soft/shrubby stuff.

Thinking back, it’s now been a bit (two weeks?) over a year since the last time I fell at Addison Oaks. The last time was when I washed out the front wheel and left a plug of skin on a screw hole of my other bike’s stem.

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Mountain Bike Trails at River Bends

Published June 27, 2010

Those of you who regularly read what I write and pay attention to biking stuff will know that I will frequently ride at Shelby Township’s River Bends Park, located a scant four miles from my house. In the past few months the MMBA, with me providing representation for this project, has been working with Shelby Township to develop new multi-use single track trails in the park. While the MMBA is a mountain biking organization, the trails we build are perfect for biking, hiking, trail running, and numerous other activities, so we’re an ideal organization to build new trails in a park.

Yesterday we had our first full trail day at River Bends, an event which brought out 15-ish people to help finish off Phase 1 of the trail. A few of us had started work prior to the Trail Day, but yesterday did the bulk of the work. We now have just over a mile of new single track winding its way along a ridge between some existing two-track and the Clinton River floodplane. If you’d like to see a KMZ of the route that we completed yesterday it can be found here.

Now, time to polish up any little quirks in the current trail and move on to thinking about Phase Two.

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Very Lucky Shot

Published June 25, 2010

On the way home from work today a bird evidently got in a very lucky (for me) shot. This bit of bird dropping fell, just barely missing me, and ending up right on the joint between the seat tube and the top tube.

If you’d like to see the route I took home from work (same as the route to work, but mostly downhill), you can find it here: 25-Jun-2010_Work_To_Home.kmz.

I’ve also got two more photos from biking today if you’d like to see them: my bike parked outside work this morning, and my shadow on the Clinton River Trail while riding along somewhere in Rochester.

Now, time for bed. Tomorrow’s lined up to be lots of manual labor, hopefully wrapping up the first phase of some new, park-approved single track trail at River Bends Park.

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Squished Squirrel, Squished Banana

Published June 25, 2010

Riding to work along the Clinton River Trail this morning I happened upon a squirrel, which is not unusual at all, until I ran over it. Typically animals see you coming and do their best to dash off to hide in the woods, but this squirrel, laying in the middle of the 12′ wide gravel path, ducked down, waited until I got within 15 of it, dashed off into the brush, then immediately back out in front of me, running in a small circle twice directly in front of my tire before I hit it. Thankfully only my front tire hit it^†, and when I looked back I caught only a brief glimpse of it ducking back into the brush.

While squishing the squirrel (and throughout the ride) I was apparently also squishing my post-ride banana. While the skin didn’t rupture, a fair part of it was mashed into a nice banana gel which tasted surprisingly sweet and good. It was a bit of a hassle to eat, but the taste made it worthwhile. I think that a bowl of well-mashed banana, topped with (real) whipped cream, and some nice oaty biscuits (HobNobs?) could make for quite a treat.

UPDATE: Now that I think about it, hitting the squirrel felt not unlike the time I hit a discarded banana in the road. A little slick, a slight sliding/rolling feeling, and an ever so slight bump.

^† Front wheels generally have less weight on them, and while I definitely hit a squishy part of the squirrel, there wasn’t a noticeable thump or bump as I went over it, so hopefully I hit a less-essential part and its still alive.

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Felt Demo at Stony Creek

Published June 24, 2010

Despite not feeling up for riding to work I still went to a Felt Bicycles demo over at Stony Creek after work. I’d wanted to try out some of their 29er hard tails and maybe a road bike, and thankfully I had no problem doing either.

I ended up trying out four bikes, a 26″ full suspension, 29″ carbon fiber hard tail, super-light (and expensive) road racing bike, and a single speed coaster brake cruiser, as follows:

· Felt VIRTUE 1: Five inch travel full suspension mountain bike. I didn’t care for this very much as it was far squishier than I would like, but there’s a good chance it simply wasn’t set up right. This was my least favorite bike of the demo.

· Felt NINE Elite: Hard tail carbon fiber 29er with Reba Race fork. This bike fit very well, and I enjoyed riding it quite a bit. It almost makes me want a 29er hard tail; a new bike that I probably couldn’t justify.

· Felt F1 SL: I asked for a 56cm road bike to try, and this $6999 professional racing level bike was the only one available. Being the first drop bar bike that I’ve taken a proper ride on made this quite an interesting experience. No matter how hard I pushed it felt like the bike could go faster, and I frequently found myself zipping down the road quite quickly with surprisingly little effort.

· Felt SLANT: Very comfortable, great looking coaster brake cruiser. This is not a bike to ride far, but just something to poke around a park on and enjoy yourself.

After the demo I took a few minutes to throw a leg over the Felt F75X which Erik had taken for a ride, but as I didn’t really take it anywhere I couldn’t form much of an opinion on it. It seemed really nice, though.

Now it’s time to get some sleep so I can (hopefully) ride to work tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will stick to the forecast and remain relatively nice and rain free.

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No Bike Commuting Today

Published June 24, 2010

As of last night I’d wholly intended to ride my bike to work today, packing it and getting everything ready to go. Unfortunately, when I woke up this morning I realized that I simply couldn’t. My throat is hurting a bit, I feel physically run down, and I’ve got a constant, groggy / spacey feeling. Either I’m getting sick, or I just need a good, long sleep. I’m hoping that instead of being sick the cumulative lack of sleep from the past week, and a whole weekend of not sleeping well has done me in and I just need some proper night’s rest to feel better, but as I’m rather accustomed to working on little sleep I fear it’s actually illness. If I’m not feeling any better soon I may have to call off my plans for the rest of the day.

I just hope that I’m feeling better for Saturday morning for the River Bends Park Trail Day with the MMBA where we will likely be finishing the first segment of new single track trail. Along with some other folks I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past couple months planning it, marking the route, working with the township, and doing initial cutting and clearing of the trail, so I’m really looking forward to seeing this first piece finished.

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