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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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Sixty-Three Gallons of Tomato Sauce

Published May 1, 2011

While riding along Wiloray Ave. this afternoon I saw this sitting in someone’s trash: cans from 63 gallons of Stanislaus’ Full Red-brand Tomato Sauce. I can’t help but wonder what someone was doing with that much tomato sauce.

For today’s ride I set out from home at ~4pm with the end goal of meeting Nick and Erik at Rochester Mills at 6pm. I took the more-difficult to Rochester, heading over to Mound then up 25 Mile to Letica and into Rochester. This route is essentially all paved, but it’s almost all up hill, with a bit of rolling hills along the neighborhoods just east of downtown Rochester. After getting to Rochester at around 5pm I headed north along the Paint Creek Trail knowing that Nick and Erik would be coming from that way. Twenty minutes later I ran into them and the three of us headed back towards Rochester. Erik and I then continued down the Clinton River Trail and just barely on to the Macomb Orchard Trail so he could say that he’d ridden on all four regional rail trails every day for two days straight.

After this we returned to Rochester Mills where Danielle was waiting for me with the car where I had a dry change of clothes waiting. This was a good day for riding, and I only wish I’d headed out with Nick and Erik for their full 60 mile route. After getting to the car I was ready to ride quite a bit more, so I guess the 26.1 miles that I did just wasn’t enough. The full 60 may have done me in, but it would at least have been worth trying. Oh well. At least I got to see the tomato sauce.

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River Bends Line Trimming

Published April 30, 2011

This afternoon Pete and I headed out to River Bends to add a final bit of polish to the new half-mile segment of single track that’s been in development for the last month: line trimming grasses and raking it. Pete ran the trimmer and I followed behind with a leaf rake clearing away debris. Since some portions of the trail pass through stands of grass, this is necessary to mark the trail and scorch the earth so the trail will take hold. The photo above shows one such segment which should now establish itself as bare dirt trail, ready for bikes, hikers, runners, etc.

After we finished this segment of trail Pete left and I headed back out to walk the rest of the trail and clear up things as I could. I ended up removing a number (3 or 4?) trees that had fallen across the trail, with most of them needing to be sawed into pieces before the pieces could be cleared. Unfortunately I also found that a number of segments of the trail is a muddy mess, but that’s no surprise given the recent rains.

I also came across the stakes that Shelby Township appears to be using to mark a new asphalt path that’ll connect the park with downtown Utica. While the construction of this project will impact a good deal of the existing single track in the park, I look forward to it as it’ll make the area considerably more accessible and provided one of the missing-link connectors between Stony Creek and Metro Beach Metroparks.

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Clearance Bike Shoes (2010 Specialized Comp)

Published April 30, 2011

My current bike shoes are 2.5 years old and getting a bit stretched and beat up, so I’ve been thinking about replacing them with a pair of Specialized-brand shoes because I’ve heard good things from a number of friends about how well their Body Geometry products fit. (I’ve also been very happy with their Phenom saddle, another BG product.)

On Friday I stopped into Fraser Bicycle and Fitness to pick up another Feedback Sports RAKK and while there I noticed that they had a number of last year’s shoes on clearance, including a pair of Specialized MTB shoes in my size for 50% off. Being ~$70 instead of ~$140 made it an easy choice. The shoes I ended up with are 2010 Comp MTB Shoe, in brown, size 46. They can be seen above fitted with toe studs, brand new Crank Brothers Eggbeater cleats, and Crank Brothers Shoe Shields.

As part of adjusting them I removed the toe studs and moved the cleats up about 10mm, roughly two marks on the bottoms of the shoes. While I like the idea of the toe studs they make walking prohibitively difficult and I don’t think I’m likely to find myself in a situation where they are needed. I might install them for a cyclocross race in the fall, but otherwise I think they’ll stay off the shoes.

Hopefully I’ll have a chance to try them out for actual trail riding and see how they work. The uppers of these seem quite a bit stiffer than my previous shoes so hopefully that won’t be a bother. I don’t remember what the Sidis were like when I got them, but I don’t remember them being quite this stiff. Hopefully this won’t be a problem.

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Stony Creek Single Speed on New Wheels

Published April 30, 2011

After work today I took my single speed out for a test ride on the new wheels that I built for it. I started at the F parking lot of Stony Creek’s West Branch picnic area, rode up to the top of Mt. Sheldon, down the Roller Coaster, and then back up to the top of Mt. Sheldon after finding other routes that I’d normally ride to be flooded. This wasn’t a particularly long route, but as it was my first single speed ride of the year on hilly single track and I rode it non-stop it felt nice. Having forgotten to reinstall the wheel magnet after rebuilding the wheels I was unable to obtain a distance reading, but I figure it was somewhere around six or seven miles.

During the ride I kept trying to identify some new feel with the wider rims on the new wheels, but I really don’t think it made a noticeable difference. The wheels did work well, and despite my failing to go easy on them they stayed true and seemed to be exactly the same as when I set out on them. No spoke pops were heard, nothing went awry, and they Just Worked™. Maybe I did an okay job.

I still need to swap out the stem for a slightly longer Thomson that I picked up from a teammate a few weeks back and this should make the bike a bit more comfortable, but for now I’m happy. I can ride my single speed again. Yay!

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New Single Speed Wheels

Published April 26, 2011

After ~8 hours of work I have a complete set of wheels for my single speed again. Starting with a dented rim and acquiring parts to do the rebuild I set to learn to understand how to lace the rims and how to finish off the wheels. Having renippled a wheel set before I had a bit of experience with tensioning and truing wheels, but these were a bit different spec and the work was done two years ago, so there was a lot to learn.

I ended up with a three-cross lacing, symmetrically laced on the front wheel and asymmetrically on the rear. This is per the recommendation of Shimano for disc brake wheels, and confirmed by info found at the Disc Wheel Lacing article at PVDwiki. A setup like this is the same as is used on motorcycles, and appears to be recommended by all manufacturers (except Chris King) as the best way to set up wheels. Best I can understand this will allow the wheel to accept lots of load on the front wheel when braking and an even amount on the rear when braking or pedaling.

Once the wheels were done I put the tires and rotors back on and took a brief spin around the parking lot, riding up and down curbs as frequently as possible. I heard one or two small spoke pops, but otherwise they seem all right. I think I’ll end up going for a ride on them then retensioning / truing them on more time, and after that hopefully they’ll be okay.

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Maybury!

Published April 23, 2011

After picking up parts for new wheels from Trail’s Edge I headed out to Maybury State Park to ride the trails there. Most of the trail was fine to ride with only intermittent wet spots, but one section around 300′ long was sloppy, wet, and even difficult to walk around (photo). After my first lap I wanted to ride more, but stopped just before this muddy section and rode gravel / pavement back to the trail head. Along the way I passed the creature seen above, a raccoon who had clearly seen better days.

It was very nice to get out and ride at Maybury again. At first I wasn’t feeling too great about riding there, but by the second lap I’d remembered what I like about it. I only wish I’d been able to ride it a bit more. While I normally don’t mind walking past a messy section of trail, a 300′ walk through soft leaf-covered mud puts a pretty big damper on things. I’ll just have to go back once it’s dried out a bit more.

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