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When the day came to begin the training plan leading up to Lumberjack 100 and do an LTHR test, I balked. I set out to do the test, was having a very bad day, quit, and went home. Then, within the week, I decided that I didn’t want to follow the training plan, sold my entry, and changed my plans so that I’d instead head up to ride the NCT, volunteer, and hang out at the race. Since I liked how riding a lot last year made me feel I still tried to ride a bunch, doing the Fun Promotions 6 Hours of Stony Creek race and a bunch of fun/long rides, but I had no intention of doing anything more at Lumberjack than riding one lap as a course marshall and then hanging out. The obligation of following such a plan for a third year was too much.

Without the stress of months of goal-oriented training before the race I wasn’t stressed about the weather, a training routine, or any of the other usual pre-race things.

Fast forward to early June, after I’d put in a number of long rides, and my friend Nick began teasing me that I was going to purchase an entry anyway, just to get one at a discount. I had no intention of doing so, but then a friend of mine informed me he wasn’t going to use his entry, making me an offer I couldn’t refuse. That was it, I figured I’d give the race a go. I simply planned on heading up to the race, giving it my best, and seeing how it went. If I dropped out after a lap and sat around for six hours drinking beer watching others finish, that’d be fine. If I rolled in at twelve hours, that’d be fine as well. I just wanted to have fun on what I feel is one of the most beautiful trails in the state. I headed up to my reserved cabin at Camp Mana-Pine on Thursday afternoon, got settled in, and Danielle and Roxie joined me on Friday evening.

The day before the race was a constant downpour, but with the sandy soil in the area it ended up being a blessing. I lined up mid-pack at the start, filtering back to the last third by the time we reached the single track. This worked out well, as the trail was well packed by riders in front of me, and my position even resulted in my meeting the person I’d sold my entry to. Sylvia and I rode a good bit of the first half of the course together before parting ways on one of the climbs. Save for a bit of slowness at the start and my being really impressed at the backwards course layout (I like it a lot more) the first lap was quite uneventful until the end. While I really enjoyed the backwards route, it meant that the last five miles involved some of the most frustrating climbing, and in the midst of this on lap one I started to think about quitting. Then, after the long/fast downhill back to the start, I suddenly felt good. I refilled my pack, grabbed some more bottles, and set off.

Laps two and three were also great, with my race alternating between extended periods of riding alone and being with people, most of whom were great to chat with. By this time Danielle had reached the aid station so I was able to stop briefly, see her and give her a kiss, then carry on. At one point I was riding along with a single speed guy (#89) from AUXILIARY Design & Advertising when I slightly overshot a downhill sandy corner (just after Porn Ridge) on lap three fell over. Thankfully it was no big deal, and I was able to get up and carry on without any problems. I rode away from him on a road section, but he passed me when I stopped to pee,  and I didn’t see him again until the end where he had finished 50 seconds faster than me — probably right about the time I was standing at the side of the course.

Just after setting out at on lap three I noticed that I’d done fairly consistent 3:20 laps, and found that if I pushed a little bit I just might, maybe, be able to do a sub-10 hour Lumberjack. Having not finished in 2012 and done 11:03 in 2013, cutting more than an hour off my best time would feel great, so I went for it. I ended up coming in at 9:51:41 and didn’t get lapped by the leaders. My specific lap times were 3:18:05, 3:25:11, 3:08:26, but the first and second lap times both include the time spent in the pit area, because this was before the lap crossing. (According to these times I technically was lapped by the leaders, but I was at the tent after my second lap and watched Christian Tanguy finish, so I don’t consider that a lapping. After my second lap I took time to lube my chain, so this extended that lap even further. I suspect that my laps were otherwise pretty consistent.)

I’m really glad I didn’t get lapped. While it’s not really disheartening for me (those guys are seriously fast), I didn’t want to get in the way. At one point near the end of my second lap I saw Jorden Wakeley’s dad along the trail a few miles before the end and asked him how the leaders were doing. He let me know that they were about ten minutes back, so I began constantly checking behind me to see where they were. With the long/fast downhill at the end, the last thing I wanted to was be in their way during some manner of sprint. But, it didn’t happen and that was great.

Not long after half-way through the race my Garmin Edge 510 once again had issues, losing ANT+ connectivity just as had happened back on May 4th. I took this as a bit of a challenge and went rode, making sure I felt like I was pushing, but not too hard. RPE, I guess. This had done well for me at recent Barry-Roubaix and Iceman races, so I figured I’d give it a go here, and it worked. I finished, I was happy with my time, and I was sore but felt good at the end. This race was (again) the hardest thing I’ve ever done physically, to the point at which I’ve now got some manner of cold/flu that likely set in with a weakened immune system. Still, I loved it.

I really don’t know if I’ll do the race again next year. This year I loved it, but I loved it because it wasn’t the obligation it had been in years past: it was something I went and did because it’s fun and great and hard. I got to hang out with friends before, during, and after the race, I met a bunch of great new people, and I got to spend a day outdoors doing something I love surrounded by beautiful northern Michigan forest. Ideally next year will be the same, but maybe it won’t. I’m hoping to keep riding hard and do even better next year, but who knows what’ll happen… As long as I keep having fun I’ll be happy.

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The failure of the Shimano XT freehub (Y3CZ98040) on the El Mariachi Ti was frustrating, so I wanted to understand what really went wrong. As far as I can tell, the root cause† is a freehub shell that cracked, allowing at least one bearing to become displaced and work its way into the ratchet mechanism. This caused the symptom of the freehub being extremely hard to turn, moving with very solid, thunking sound when forced.

No preventative maintenance would have caught this, and without inspecting the freehub regularly for hairline cracks (a really difficult task) I wouldn’t have known this problem was starting.

The evidence for this is as follows, with photographs:

1. The freehub shell was cracked, which I found when trying to disassemble it. I ended up breaking it in two pieces to get it apart, and there are two visible fractures where it broke: a bright, clean one from breaking it apart today, and an oxidized one from the original failure. (Photos: Oxidized break, new/clean break.)
2. All of the pawls are intact and with sharp edges. (Photo)
3. There is a worn groove next to the bearing race, but just beyond a lip, which leads back to a recess along the center of the pawl mechanism. I suspect this is where one of the small bearings which came loose worked its way towards the ratchet. (Photo)
4. There are rounded, ball bearing sized witness marks in the fixed tooth part of the ratchet mechanism in a location which correlates to where the ball bearing is thought to have settled after settling in the recess. (Photo) There are other, smaller witness marks which make me suspect that even more bearings worked their way into the pawls once the failure really took hold. This could explain how I noticed the failure briefly a couple of times before the hub completely locked.

This aligns with problems reported here on MTBR, and this post from that thread states that Shimano has changed the design and heat treating to address this.

In order to disassemble the freehub I first tried fashioning a tool (flat piece of steel about 29mm wide, 4mm thick, and at least 20mm long: photo) to unscrew it. This didn’t work because I did not have a tool for holding the Shimano splined end, but it spread open the crack enough for me to see what the problem was. I then clamped it in a vice, used a screwdriver to break it open, and then used a wrench and a screwdriver to pry the pawl-holding part of the ratchet mechanism out.

This worked pretty well, and after a bit of degreasing I had a clean part. The only downside is the 2.93mm ball bearings used in the hub (photo), which shot/flew/fell all over my workbench and feet when the hub gave way. It’s one of these bearings that worked its way into the ratchet and caused the failure.

† This root cause is only from my perspective. The proper root cause is much deeper than this, perhaps a human or design error that resulted in improper heat treating or sizing of the freehub body, but that’s further than I can reasonably go; something that Shimano would be looking into. Or, as evidenced by the redesign, already did.

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After Saturday’s freehub failure on the El Mariachi Ti I figured I should check up on the freehub in the fatbike. It’s been behaving fine, but as I last lubed it 2+ years ago (and replacement is very expensive) I wanted to be sure everything was fine.

A couple years back Salsa released the video Winterizing The Mukluk Hub in response to too heavy of grease for winter use having been installed by the factory in the freehubs. This would apparently freeze up, cause the pawls to only partially engage, and then break. Pawls aren’t available standalone, so people were left buying replacement freehubs at ~$90/each. Replacing the grease with something lighter was a very good proactive measure, so as soon as I became aware of this (after my first winter of riding the fatbike, but a light winter) I did so with Buzzy’s Slick Honey.

This hub is extremely easy to disassemble, so checking up on the freehub takes little more than removing the wheel, pulling off an endcap, and unscrewing another cap before pulling the freehub off. The cassette doesn’t even have to be removed, although I did so because makes cleaning the freehub itself much easier.

The Slick Honey held up for around 1500 miles, 200+ hours, and an incredibly wide range of conditions. I believe that bike has been ridden in temperatures ranging from 0°F to just over 100°F. Even today, despite being a bit discolored, it still had its familiar texture and was lubricating the pawls as it should. Regardless, I cleaned out the ratchet mechanism and heavily lubricated it before everything went back together. Here’s to another couple of years!

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Just about a year ago I switched the fatbike to using Q-Tubes Superlight 26 x 2.4-2.75″ tubes with polyester ribbon rim strips to save weight. This worked, but today I suffered a flat at Poto as a result. It turns out that the place where the tube bulges up through the rim holes has decayed, and these eventually fail to pinholes. I’d patched one a month or two ago, and today’s flat was another.

I’m not sure if the issue is simply from stretching, ozone exposure, UV exposure, or perhaps even the soap used when washing my bike. I mostly suspect UV or ozone, but I don’t know enough about failure modes of this material to say for sure.

I still feel these tubes are the best low cost option for lightening up a fatbike, so I’ll end up ordering a few more, swapping the existing tubes, and going for another year. Even at $20/year in tubes it’s still a lot cheaper than going with some carbon fiber rims. Although, some carbon fiber rims set up tubeless (with the Hope Fatsno hubs picked up in November) would solve a whole bunch of problems at once… They’d just cost a lot.

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