Category: cycling

I wanted to post a few of my thoughts about riding single-track mountain bike trails in the dark, with a head lamp:

· While a decent head lamp (like the Nite Rider Digital Evolution I was loaned) works well, having the light helmet-mounted and thus in line with one’s eyes means that shadows aren’t visible in many situations. This is the same as using camera-mounted flash on detailed textured surface and losing the texture in the final image. The result was that I couldn’t tell the depth of many rocks, gravely areas, and roots and almost fell a couple times.

· It’s basically accepted that riding one-way trails opposite the posted direction is okay after dark when done with headlights. Part of tonight’s ride involved going through The Pines backwards. (Videos of this trail forwards are here: 1 & 2.) This wasn’t hard, seemed to flow nice, but felt like a bad dream. It was dark, my field of vision was relatively narrow, there were bright lights dancing around in the distance, and while recognizable the backwards riding made whole trail feel somehow wrong. A couple of times while riding I had the sort of deja vu which comes about when one flashes back to a nightmare where Things Just Aren’t Right.

· Riding in the dark is a lot of fun. It’s a completely different feeling than the normal everything-can-be-seen daylight riding, and I like it a lot.

· A heavy head lamp (like the one I was borrowing) mounted near the front of my helmet made it tip forward slightly on bumpier sections. This was a bit awkward. It might be nicer to use a lighter lamp with a light Li-ion battery mounted on the helmet for balance, although the battery-in-pack setup I used tonight worked great and wasn’t noticeable while riding.

Today Danielle and I managed to make it out to Addison Oaks park, where I did two laps on the mountain bike trails. One was on the normal route, the other was on the race route which includes a newly cut section of single track.

The ride went well, but I find it to be a bit more tiring than Stony Creek, because it doesn’t have as lengthy of sections for catching one’s breath.

On Wednesday when riding Addison I ended up with a crushed slug stuck to the top of my shoe. Today I ended up with one stuck on the down tube, so after driving home I decided to take a picture of it. Enjoy! (Click here for the high res version.)

Today while riding one more go through the Roller Coaster at Stony Creek (after recording videos, to be posted later) I fell pretty hard on the right side, and hurt my shoulder. I was going around a slow-ish switchback and my front wheel skidded to the left and I just went down.

I’d thought the only thing damaged was my shoulder, but after getting back on the bike it didn’t shift right. I just put it on the stand to sort it out so I could ride tomorrow and while it initially appeared to be a cable tension issue, which was wholly possible seeing as I’d just replaced the rear derailleur, that wasn’t it. The bottom of the rear derailleur appears to be cocked inward, and after checking to be sure it wasn’t another broken mounting bolt, I noticed that the derailleur hanger appears to be a bit off. After removing it from the bike and checking it with a straightedge it does appear that I’ve bent it slightly.

When I removed the wheel I also noticed that the rear axel / hub / bearings aren’t turning very smoothly at all. I suspect that when I had to do the half-assed single speed conversion during which the chain would occasionally climb to the next ring there was too much pressure on the bearings, or something. So, I guess I’ll have to fix that before I ride next too. Hopefully it just needs some adjustment and I haven’t destroyed the races.

I need to learn to ride better and stop being so rough on my bike.

Since I’m already buried in working on problems with the server and getting it up and going again I’ll have to put this off for a bit.

Also, in that fall I scraped my leg and bruised my right nipple. I have never before bruised a nipple.

While waiting for Bonnie++ to run (more on this later — it’s not good) I wanted to post about a new bike recently announced by Salsa, an interesting looking touring bike built around a mountain bike-ish frame and 29″ MTB wheels.

For the last month or so I’ve been kicking around the idea of building a new bike for myself, but each time I find myself stuck with either the idea of another mountain bike or something a bit more touring-ish. I have a mountain bike which fits me quite nicely, so I’ve started to think that I should just be content with what I have and let things be. Then, while looking up info on the new wheel that built, I come across Salsa’s Fargo. This bike looks like it’d do an incredibly good job at longer rides and possible commuting, and maybe even some biking / camping trips.

There’s something I really like about the idea of 29er wheels (29″ / 700c), the ability to use wide mountain bike tires, clearance for fenders with 2.3″ tires, disc brakes, etc.

At an estimated $2k (built up) I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford one, but it’s sure tempting to start thinking about one. The frames are supposed to ship in November and the bikes themselves in February. Trails Edge sells Salsa stuff and is (relatively) local… Maybe I should finally pay them a visit…

Today I headed over to Stony Creek and rode the route normally taken by the Wednesday Night Group Ride (Pines -> Snake -> Roller Coaster) in one go, attempting every log pile along the way. I was able to do it, only putting my foot down twice, with each of those two times being at the top of log piles I hadn’t previously ridden over. At the end of that segment I felt like I was about to throw up, but in a good way.

After this I rode through The Pines again, and attempted to ride across the skinny section in the curving bridge. The first time I tried I made it half way before dropping off. The second time I only made it about 1/5 of the way before falling off.

Heading back to the parking lot I decided to ride down a narrow path which supposedly leads to a small lake or pond. It was a bit overgrown (Photo 1 & Photo 2) and part-way down my arm was caught by a thorn, cutting it a bit. Right after this I got tangled in more brush, my bike fell part-way to the left, and when I fell I landed with my stomach on the right end of the handlebar. Oops. Now I’ve got a couple of weird bruises on my stomach along with the cut on my arm.

Other than beating myself up a bit, it was a really nice ride. One thing I noticed is that the crooked tree I’d mentioned before has been cut town. This disappoints me, because it was fun leaning and riding around it. Oh well.

Time to shower and get on with the day.