After a relatively mild spring, summer arrived in full-swing this past weekend here in Phoenix. Tom and I started early (about 6am) but not nearly early enough. We started up Javelina Trail, then joined Mormon and climbed up. The slight morning breeze was cool at the passes, but the temps were climbing quickly. I'd not been on the bike in about a month, so I was sucking badly.. :(
Turned it around at the junction of Mormon/National and headed back down. A quick video after the jump.
Later that day, I took Jaden to the last day of his 3-day Cub Scout Day Camp. I was back at South Mountain for the second time that day.
Lots of sunscreen, water and fun was the order of the day.
When Gregs' 6 year old Specialized FSR bit the dust a few weeks ago, we finally got together for our own version of a bike 'demo' ride.
We hit Trail 100 at night and I loaned him my 2009 Turner DW Link 5 Spot. One ride and he was sold!
After some back and forth on the 'make vs buy' decision, he ordered up the frame direct from Turner Bikes (in California) and it showed up the next day.
Then we spent the next few days emailing back and forth over parts. I also left my 2005 Titus Motolite with him so he had something to ride while waiting for the new frame to arrive, and to get an idea of another mfgrs frame for comparison.
Got the bike built up last Thursday evening:
Hit the trails on Saturday for a shakedown ride on Trail 100 in Phoenix:
Sam pinged me on Facebook the other day and asked if I wanted to tag along for a run out to ride the 'Goat Camp' trail in the White Tanks. Greg and I had already made plans for a dual climb/bike day on Sunday, but when that fell through, I switched plans and met up with Sam at 6:30am for the trek out to the westside.
It's starting to get hot here in Phoenix again. This means early early starts, and lots of sunscreen and water. Today, the breeze out of the northwest saved us. It would have been much hotter without it!
Legs started cramping on the way back down and I ran out of water right at the end of the ride, good workout, but getting warm!
Sorry for the length.. just too much fun stuff/footage to cut here. This is from the Sat. MTBR ride this past March, 2009 in Sedona. Part of the whole 'Spring Fling' series of rides which happens every year around spring break time. Great day to be out riding, party at the Bike & Bean followed. Stay tuned for some fun/hillarity at the end of the vid. The music is from the SXSW 2008 festival, you can catch Artist/Track info in the ending credits... Enjoy! :)
Mike emailed me the other night, said that his neighbor Rick and he were planning on riding the BCT loop, which is not far from his place up in New River. I wanted to see how the new bike would do on something more cross-country in nature, so I dialed down the shock and tossed it into the Honda Element and met them Sunday morning. About 10mins into the ride, I was following Rick down a kinda fast section of trail when my front tire washed out. Murphy's Law was in full effect! I landed on the *only* bed of Cholla Cactus balls in that section of trail. That sucker was hidden from view, like a speed trap near the Mogollon Rim, just waiting for a lamer like me to happen by. Thanks to Mikes flat nosed pliers, I was able to remove the bulk of the spines. The other thing that I was thankful for, was the scrape down lower on my leg? huh? I'd kept re-injuring the same spot, so I wore the kyle strait knee pads and shin wraps for this ride, despite it being total overkill. My knee and lower leg was saved the nasty fate that my upper leg (thigh) suffered.
Caught the incident on video: (low res YouTube and blip.tv versions)
Other than the cacti encounter, the rest of the ride was really nice! Saw lots of other folks out on the trail enjoying the cool, breezey day. Pretty soon, we'll be getting up at O'Dark Thirty for these rides! Harbor Freight Tools and Walgreens have all the supplies you need to deal with cacti! :-) GPS Data for the ride here
Mar 30, 2009
Hawes Loop Trail - Sat
Weather has just been really really nice around here the past few weeks. Greg and I took some time on Sat. for an afternoon jaunt around the Hawes Loops in NE. Mesa. Strapped on the Helmet Cam for a bit of video.. the first run down the Saddle Trail was lost due to no memory card in the camera.. DOH! After that was sorted, we rode back up and did another run down.. it's so fast and flowy, just a fun ride! Link to the Garmin Connect data here:
Got out for a Wed. afternoon ride with Greg (MTBR handle 'steelmonkey') on Trail 100. The idea was to do a loop, then head over to Aunt Chiledas. Ended up getting over there before the rest of the MTBR crowd showed, and ended up havng to head home due to time constraints. Did meet up with Jeff and SuLing and some of the others for a quick hello and some cheap El Salvadorian beers! (thanks Jeff!) before heading home.
Above is a short video of part of the ride.. still getting the latest 'toy' dialed in. Kinda cool, but this GoPro video camera really eats the batteries! I picked up some 1000mah AAA rechargeables to see how they work. I really hope I dont have to buy the Energizer lithiums for this sucker. They are expensive! Garmin connect data here:
Mar 15, 2009
The new 5 Spot first ride..
This new bike rocks. Very balanced, smooth and nimble. Pedals well uphill also. The DW link shines on the gravelly uphills out at Hawes. Still getting the front fork dialed in. ATA is a nice thing to have for 'cardiac' hill! Nice mellow 8mi or so, stopped and took time to mess around with the bike a bit and snap some photos. Link to the Garmin data here: The desert is coming into full on bloom. No snakes out today, but it's starting to warm up pretty good. This is likely the last coolish weekend. Forecast is for 90's by weeks end.. what happened to Spring!? :-)
Props to chollaball and other MTBer's that got out and shored up some of the trail. Could see the results of their handywork, as well as the signage to try and dissuade others from hacking up the water bars.
This is pretty wacky.. and classic. From 1995! dig the lycra and the stuff these guys are doing on the bikes of that era. It's not that long ago.. but 13 years is a LONG time when it comes to mtn bike design.
Here’s the description Eddie posted with the video… “MTB and BMX action featuring Mat Hoffman, Tim Fuzzy Hall, Brian Lopes, Chad Herrington, Eric Carter, Hans Rey, Dave Voelker, Ryan Vanderveen, Todd Lyons, Alan Foster and many others. Filmed in Utah, Oklahoma and California, Hammertime features some of the first MTB jumping including the first MTB backflip. Mat Hoffman riding his motorized BMX bike on the gigantic half pipe is absolutely amazing. Watch Mat launch off a quarter-pipe after being towed by a motorcycle at 55 mph.”
The new bike frame showed last night! I'll have most of the other parts soon, and can begin putting it together shortly! "Fragile.. Must Be Italian?" Nope.. made in the USA!
I tried to get all the differing angles so you could see the latest 'state of the art' in rear suspension Mtb. design. The key is the 'DW' link which is really simple at first glance, almost one of those.. 'why didnt I think of that' sort of things. In reality, it does wonders for reducing the amount of 'pedal bob' (where the rear end flexes, while pedaling the bike uphill?) This means, less wasted energy in moving the rear shock up and down, and more power transmitted to the back wheel. If you head over to the USTPO (US Trade and Patent Office Patent) you can check out the technical info and also read all the gory details here as well :) The guy that came up with this has licensed the design to several bike mfgs, Turner Bikes being one of them. I've ridden many different bikes and designs from a dozen or so mfgs. This was the first one, that really blew me away as far as pedalability uphill, and plushness on the downhills! Thanks to my SNPS coworker Shaun Evans for introducing me to Turner bikes on our weekly rides last year in San Diego!
Feb 18, 2009
Shipped!
15lbs, signature required... What is it!? hmmmmmm, stay tuned
Feb 16, 2009
Presidents Day Celebration (lets go MTB'ing)
Tom and I got out today for some mountain biking on South Mtn. Weather was great with mild temps and not too many folks out and about. Rode from the Pima Canyon trailhead to the Buena Vista lookout, then back down. Each trip to SoMo I 'suck less'. Recently put a Fox DHX 5 coil over rear shock on the MotoLite and it's helped keep the rear end down on the ground. I need to send the orig. Fox RP3 into PUSH industries and have it rebuilt. The pedal platform on the old shock is somewhat shot I think. The ups today were a bit easier, despite the added 1.5lbs in shock weight.
Geronimo trail on S. Mountain (from a different perspective)
Thought this video was cool, in both camera angle and the unique perspective it gave on the ride. It's interesting to watch how the guys front shock reacts! Very cool
I went Saturday for a ride up in the McDowell / Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, AZ. Many of the group were doing the 'Quadruple Bypass' ride. Thus named because you climb up and over 4 passes as you circumnavigate the preserve. I ended up just doing a 'Double Bypass' which was enough for me mileage wise. I need to get out and do these trails more often. They are such a bear to climb up that you get a tremendous workout, even if you have to push/carry your bike uphill for part of the way!
The Garmin 'Connect' website looks like it's gone through some upgrades as of late. Check out this link to the data from the ride that day. You can play it back in your web browser, and it steps through the waypoints and annotates the data. Pretty neat!
The engineer in me loves this kind of stuff, although the truth of the data is sometimes a bit of a blow to the ego!
Jan 17, 2009
i'm fat and i suck
it's definitely sucking!
The finger is pretty much on the road to healing up. Stitches come out next week, so figured there was no harm in finishing up work early on thurs for a ride. Beautiful day out! This was mine and Greg's first adventure into Mtn. Biking in the McDowells. Have been rockclimbing out there for years, but never just hiking that much, nor biking.
The climb up kicked my butt. No other way to put it than I'm fat and outta shape. I love the feeling of being light, fast and strong, but I hate the pain, the starving yourself, the sacrifice to get there. Once you pass 40, the body just doesn't respond to training like it used to. I have to put in a full summers worth of road bike riding just to drop even 10lbs it seems! When I first moved to Phoenix in 1990, I was a 25yr old tub O goo at 185lbs. I bought a Trek 1400, joined up with a local Cycling Club in the West Valley and started riding. By the time labor day of that year came around, I was back to what I weighed in High School (155lbs) and my thunder thighs from running (I ran the 200m/400m, long jump) had morphed into the svelte, shaved and spindly legs of a cyclist. My remote 'sorta girlfriend' at the time, came out to visit after that summer and was amazed at the transformation from March of 1990 to Sept 1990. Of course, my calf muscles had atrophied to the point that I pulled the left one mowing the grass one Sat. but hey, we all have to make sacrifices :-)
Kept it off through the 1990's by throwing myself into rockclimbing. The company I worked for at the time (Honeywell) was far too inflexible with their 'flex' time to allow for enough training to become anything more than a Cat4 road racer, and I had started to tire of the whole 'roadie' mentality anyways. Climbing/hiking with 40lbs on your back nearly every weekend is a great way to stay in shape. Total body workout for sure! I touched 148lbs in 1997 after a two week hardcore trip to Wyoming, climbing in the Tetons, Wind River range, Devils Tower, and the Black Hills of SoDak. Lighter than I was in high school even.. oh why didnt I keep that momentum up!?
Job got more intense, promotions, responsibility, kids etc: and the weight slowly came back on.
165lbs that seems to be my set point okay fine.. that's only 15 over when I was 'hardcore'.. hey what happened? After the first pregnancy I was up to 170lbs! That second pregnancy is hell on the body I tell ya!
Jumped back on the road bike after it had sat in the closet for 12 years. What? there are triple cranks on the front now? 10speeds in back? STI? no more reaching for the downtube? Hmmmm.. Droped 5-8 lbs relatively quickly, but that just seemed to stoke the fat fire for the next round of inactivity. At the height of all my intense travel for work (to/from San Diego weekly) I was pushing 188lbs.
That's a great story problem for my 9 yr old. "If Tim weighed 148lbs in 1997 and now weighs 188lbs in 2008 what is the average weight gain per year?" Show your work and how you arrived at your answer!!!
Made it through the holidays at 178lbs and holding.. maybe there *is* hope afterall!?
Back on the bike.. but I find that I like road riding less and less these days. It seems.. well uh, like a 'workout' (kind of like how I really got burned out on running after all those years of track and field?)
So, I need to get on the Mtn Bike and grind...
Thursday *was* a grind. Of course the two slices of Ray's pizza (I *LOVE* pizza) didnt help!?
Dec 29, 2008
Mountain Biking South Mtn,
Greg and I met at the Cactus Bike parking lot today for a quick couple hours jaunt on SoMo. We rode from there, to the trailhead, then up Mormon to National, then back down.
Rode the sport/tech/long loop at the McDowell Mtn Regional Park Competitive loops this morning with visitors from out of town. Way out of town to be exact, Boston MA and Israel :-)
