Stillwell w/ Gordo - A "Quick-er" Ride - Suspension Bottom-Out

Uh-Oh ... clack, clack, clack-clack.

What have we here?

"Hey Gordo can you see whether my suspension is bottoming out?"

"What's suspension?"

*Never mind* Maybe best to stop and take a looks. Rear shock is indeed 80-100 percent sagged through its travel, and whacking away at the linkage at every root, small hit or bump.

OK, I guess we will not be going round a third time today. Forty-five minutes time elapsed. Would have preferred another go-around but no need to compound whatever damage has already been done.

Good ride though. A lot quicker than last time; and a lot less lost. Lots of fun. There are parts of the blue trail that have great flow and just the right amount of challenges and exertion.

The MPH means little on this graph — except that in comparison with last week's "where-the-hell-are-we?" ... "we're lost" dismount-fest, it was plenty quicker.

What might have been an interesting comparison would be times of top speed. Last week we were trying to make time against available sunlight. For some of the longer sketchy downhills it was a case of "Do I let it go and let it skid and flow, or use the brakes. The dropping sun meeting rising horizon, favored the former.

Plenty of technical parts in this one, and some steep speed killing climbs, not to mention places where we lost flow — or stopped altogether.

If you care about overall times, I guess that's the trade off, technical and steep versus flatter, with more speed and flow.

BACK AT THE VAN
... I see that not only is the seattube pressing up against the bottomed-out shock, but the read-derailleur cable housing is getting crushed between the two.

The shock is not in the "stuck-in-down" position, it just has no air left in it.

Back at home putting the bies to be in the setting sun. I dig out the never-used-before shock pump...lost somewhere in the basement from when I last emptied the van out completely.

Pump it back to 205 psi. It's a Fox, one of the early ones from around 2000. 12 years old already. Test ride. It seems to be holding over kerbs. Guess we'll find out next week how far it can go.

Stillwell "Lost" Black and Blue Trails — "Oops!"

I don't know what hubris spurred this foray into sketchy territory so late in the day, but it got a little "interesting" that's for sure.

Oh yes, now I remember. First MTB ride of the season. Not enough prep.'

Backing out the driveway ...
helmets, check
water, check
Mini GPS, check
camelbak, check
cell phone, nope
spare tube, nope
lights, nope
time to go back and get them ...?

This is just going to be a short ride, right? But we were only going to try to do the Blue. Could do that in my sleep, or so I thought I remembered.

The Blue has a great second/third entry point with one of the best pair of skill switchbacks in the entire Woods. The first switchback is a precipitous drop with a "ledge" in the middle just to keep it interesting. The best thing is to go as fast as possible to build momentum to mount the almost vertical seeming skate park-like half pipe on the other side. Except this is a lot taller than a half pipe and on the way op the other side there are six inch roots and wooden pallet slats embedded in the gravel. Yes, you read that right, slippery grip-busting gravel

That was the intention, until we took a wrong fork at the top of the first blue hill, or was it the second blue hill?

It was one of those memory landmarks you think you know well, and then a minute or two later "Oops, This doesn't look quite right."

Problem was it looked kind of right, so I thought maybe my memory was playing tricks. But I decided to press on and when the ravine failed to materialize, it was soon apparent we were really on the wrong trail. The Black. So I asked Gordo, if he wanted to do the Black and he said yes.

At a certain point in the trail it can become very clear that you are going the wrong way. There were no other riders, but it was obvious these dirt faces were meant to be "gone down" not "climbed up."

So, we pressed on to another familiar point and on some more. Pretty soon I relized we'd just done a loop trail that demanded some really hard exertion. And all we achieved was a good ride, a lot of exercise and ... we'd gotten back to the same "lost" point we started at, but with less daylight left.

No cell phone. No lights, less time. No idea which way to go, but a gut feeling the setting sun was in the right general direction. 2 ATVs sped past through yonder bushes. We stopped and deliberated at a strategic point. This way? that way?

I've found my way out of these woods in an emergency before so, I'll have to do it again.

Almost forget the GPS in my cell phone pouch. No handlebar mount left on this bike - probably broke in a crash. Time to replace. Anyway, the Garmin Edge 305 does not provide much of a map, and the Nav is hard to figure as it seems to tell the wrong direction. but it can lead you to waypoints...if you know what they are. It also provides a "worm trail" and this time it showed we had trailed out, then performed a loop, and were near the beginning of the loop again.

Let's go this way. After a while we came to a large gravel chute and decided to climb it to see what we could see from the top. Houses fences -- the South East corner. An ATV trail. We followed it a short while, then reconnected with the bike trail. We got off the ATV trail back onto a bike trail and connected with a familiar route in reverse that led us to our breakout point!

We decided to forego the rest of the Green trail and double back the way we came, just in case the sun beat us to it, by sinking behind the trees before we no longer see our path to the lot.

The setting sun turned out to be a good instinct. (SW is a good direction home there.)

Gordo sped to the van and claimed victory. Kudos to him he did a great job, never panicked once.

Bikes, Barbecue, dog-walking, golf and spring-like weather in late January

Really can't complain about that. The neck feeling a little better the last two weeks I took advantage of the gorgeous weekend weather to do some maintenance on the bikes before the rust sets in. Winters' damp can wreak havoc on chains. They were dirtier than I'd imagined, courtesy of Gordon and his Uncle Frank's MTB fest in rainy Stillwell Woods' black diamond trails.

A workstand day like this but 40 degrees cooler and no foliage in sight.

And excellent weather for long walks and a quick London Broil on the BBQ.

A little sweet, tangy and spicy.
Olive oil, fresh Garlic, apple cider vinegar, bourbon, garlic & herb seasoning, ground coriander, holy jolokia hot sauce, red iguana cayenne sauce, montreal steak seasoning, honey, soy sauce, and charcoal to provide the smoke and flame grill. K-dog got his burger basted...no way he lets us not grill his nosh, too. The furr-hound has definite preferences.

Missed a lot of the NHL all-star game, but worth it.

Stasis

Stasis - as in the frozen state victims fid themselves in in Star Wars, Star Trek etc. Really the weather wasn't that bad. From about 16-21 F can't complain about the occasional days like that in mid-January, but it's a bit of an adjustment as far sa dog-walking is concerned.

That blob of blue colored "dramatically colder" weather did fianlly make its way here. I guess we couldn't get by the whole winter with 40-50 degree days and the occasional 60+!

Sixty-plus? Yes it was like San Diego here for a day or two. Flowers - pansises - started to come out. Grass started looking greener, signs of Spring. But all that's back in the deep freezer for now. Ice is back on the ponds and its time to get the skates sharpened.

Balmy Winter Walks On

Twin Peaks

Nothing like a good dog-walk with some company along for conversation. Along the way we discussed addiction, the appropriate and inappropriate uses of botanicals and pharmaceuticals, deadly nightshade and digitalis — teenagers are curious about these things — dealers and ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes, multi-level-marketing (not unlike the latter), goons, the Goon show. Lots to talk about all the way, and with 600 ft of hill climbing spread over the 3 miles at the same time — talking and climbing steep hills, climbing and talking, this was double the workout. With a brisk 40-45 degrees day and blustery wind there was no chance of succumbing to the heat. Plenty of stops for dog curiosities. Though probably not as many as Koda might have hoped.

Almost contemplated windsurfing, but with progress recently after a difficult 6 weeeks it seems like there's some healing, so I don't want to risk screwing it up, prematurely.

Re-Conquering "The Hill" on Foot — a lot Easier in the Cold

With neck discs beginning to calm down a little (re-aggravated in mid-November), it was time to hit the hill for a brisk climb to the top, down a bit, and back up to the top again, to get the lungs used to breathing the brisk wintery air — uh oh, someone's chimney up here needs a good cleaning!

This hill is always a bit of a challenge, especially if one hasn't mounted it in a while - but with a brisk, cold North wind blowing, there was no dilly-dallying. Chaaaarge! K-dog was evidently feeling strong, too, and we were up in near record time, (whatever the GPS says--we have to stop for customary doggy sniffing chores and expanded canine territory marking).

So maybe the air at the, er, "summit" wasn't as fresh and clean as expected, at the lofty height of 280' above sea level, but at least it smelled seasonal in a woodburning, chimney-fire kind of way.