My Side Door

Over on MTBR I posted this ride report.  There’s no sense in re-hashing the whole thing here, so just click on over.  Yesterrday (and why I’ve waited this long to post here), they posted the results. Of 30 finishers in my category, I finished 27th.  That doesn’t sound great, until you consider how many DNFs there had to have been.  I mean look at the pre-race photo with nearly everyone starting.  I figure close to 100 started, so that means something like 50  or so must have DNFed.

That makes me a feel a little better.  I’m still pretty stoked to have finished.  That was a tough ride.  I’m somewhat glad my friend Chris didn’t go with me.  He wasthinking the 41 might be all he could handle, and I’d have done that with him.  The 41 would have been no challenge (at least to finish), while the 52 had me concerned through the first quarter of the race that I might not finish.  Plus, the only part I got lost in was a section that the 52 does differently than the 41.  What fun would it have been, if I didn’t get lost like everyone else?

My bike, on the other hand, is feeling the effects of age.  Both my front and rear wheel are basically shot.  So this week, I did some research and settled on a set of Industry Nine wheels.  These are the new “latest thing” in chi-chi things for your bike, and so, of course, I need a set.  Unfortunately it’s going to be a while.  Speedgoat says 6-8 weeks before they are in. 

To the untrained eye, these probably don’t look all that special (aside from the red color), but looking closely, you’ll notice that the spokes attach to the hub in a very different and unique way.  Well, not that unique, because the Mavic CrossMax wheels attach similarly, but compared to a “standard” hub, these spokes are unique.  A standard spoke attaches to the hub via an eyelet that requires the spoke to have a J-bend at the end.  The spoke slides through the eyelet, and the J-bend allows the spoke to make the 90 degree turn it needs to.  In order for the spoke to be strong enough to be bent and still take all of the stress it has to, the spoke is thicker.  High end spokes are thicker at the ends, and then thinner in the middle, but they still suffer from breakage at the ends, due to the bend.

An advantage with the Industry Nine hub, is in the weight savings they can have, at the same or even higher strength, in comparison to a traditional hub.  With no J-bend, the spokes can be a bit thinner, making each spoke lighter, while still providing the same or higher strength.  That alone is a huge benefit.  But another benefit of the Industry Nine hub is in how quickly they engage thanks to their internal pawl design.  My CrossMax’s engage after about 8 degrees of wheel rotation.  On technical climbing sections, that’s very noticable, and at times a bit frustrating, as you lose some of your stomping power waiting for the hub to engage, especially while trying to get over a tricky rock or ledge.  If you wanted better, Chris King makes beautiful hubs with engagement in 5 degrees.  For over a decade, they were indeed the King.  But now Industry Nine has come along and done them 2 degrees better, with engagement in just 3 degrees.  Oh, and these new hubs are even lighter than the King hubs…simply amazing.

My only concern about the new hubs is that I can’t get the rim I wanted to lace them to.  That would have been a Mavic XM 819.  Why that rim?  Because it’s a UST rim, and thus well suited to going tubeless.  Instead, I’ll be learning how to get the equipped DT XR 4.1 to hold air without tubes.  DT provides a tubeless kit, which I’m getting, and hopefully it works better than I’ve read from some reports.

The final bit of fun, required by the new wheelset, is that these are disc brake wheels.  My bike has always had V-Brakes, so along with the new wheels comes new disc brakes.  I chose the Formula Oro Puro disc brakes, because they are light weight, and they have received nearly perfect reviews from everyone that’s ever used them and offered up an opinion.  The Formula’s are a relative newcomer, just like Industry Nine, so I guess I’m on the bleeding edge with regard to my new brakes as well.  Hopefully all installs well, here in a month or two.

For now, I’m going to focus on a bit more road riding.  I took the Orbea out for 45 miles yesterday, and a brief 26 miler today.  I like riding my road bike, I just don’t like riding it while having to share the road with cars.  Yesterday’s ride felt very good.  Much better than the same ride from 3 weeks ago, so it looks like I must be getting a little bit more fitness, which is certainly nice.

I’m leaving Phoenix within an hour to ride the Tour of the White Mountains. I’ve decided to give the 52 mile distance the go, assuming the event will let me register for it when I arrive (since I’m still not registered). I figured what the heck, you only die once.

I’ll have my new camera. Hopefully I catch a decent photo or 2.

Ok, the Tour of the White Mountains is just 5 days away, and I still haven’t selected a distance.  Unless my friend Chris Z goes and does the 52 miler, I’m leaning toward the 41 miler.  Right now, I’m feeling more concerned with finishing the event than pressing myself to my limits…although I don’t exactly know why that is.

Last weekend I got 2 nice training rides in.  The first was Pemberton to Windgate Pass.  I’ve been looking up at Windgate Pass almost daily since it was built, and every attempt at making it to the top from the West side has failed.  So I tried it from the East side, via Pemberton, and while the final 3/4 of a mile is anything but ridable for a normal human, after riding 10 miles to get to that point, I wasn’t about to give up with the top in sight.

Sunday’s ride was out at Usery Park, doing the Pass Mountain trail.  This trail is listed at just 7.1 miles,but somehow it took me 2 hrs to complete.  Imagine that pace for 50 miles?  Fortunately Pass Mountain isn’t representative of the type of trail we’ll see next weekend.  What it is, however, is a total body workout.  That trail will test your balance, your nerve, your upper and lower body strength, and darned near every other skill necessary to be a good mountain bike rider.

Here are some trail side photos I took with my new Canon SD870is (click to enlarge):

If you are at all interested in what’s going on at Interbike this year, the guys at Speedgoat have got a spectacular blog running this year.  I’m subscribed to their blog, and have been blown away with all of the great industry info they’ve been publishing.  I think I’m most interested in more news about the new Pivot, which is a new bike built by Chris Cocalis formerly of Titus.  Since I ride a Titus Racer-X, custom designed by Chris himself, what he’s doing with the Pivot has definitely caught my attention.

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We went up to Pinetop this weekend, so of course I brought my mountain bike.  Without a truck of some sort, I needed to ride directly from our house.  Not a problem, but it did mean I wouldn’t be able to ride any new trail stretches, just places I’ve already ridden.

The basic ride plan was to ride the Country Club to Los Burros connector to Los Burros, loop around, and then come  back.  That’s roughtly 25 miles.  A snag developed before I even got going when I realized I’ve left my mtb shoes at home.  Determined to get a big ride in today I put on my hiking shoes and set out.

The weather at 8:15am was absolutely perfect.  Temp around 60, cloud cover, no wind, and dry conditions.  It just doesn’t get any better. 

The trip up the connector went well, and I arrived at Los Burros at 9:15am.  It’s pretty much all up hill to that point.  Once on Los Burros I was able to ride the trail in it’s best condition: dry.  No mud, no rain.  Riding went well on Los Burros, until I found a sign that said, “Short cut 2″ and “Los Burros 6.5″.  On our list trip around Los Burros, I know we went down the short cut, which peeled 4.5 miles off the 14 mile loop.  That does explain how we did 14 miles in 90 minutes while slogging through the mud….we only did 10 miles. 

So I went the long way, still feeling pretty good.  But 2.5 or 3 miles later I just bonked.  My stomach started growling, and I was very low on energy.  Every incline had me wondering if I had enough to get back.  I started dreaming about Clif Bars.

I dug deep, and did make it back, but the 14 mile Los Burros loop took 2 hrs to complete, as I finished that section at 11:15am.  With 5 or 6 miles to get back to the house my saving grace was the classic, “it’s all down hill from here”.  Or at least, it’s mostly all down hill.

 Today’s ride has me seriously questioning the proper ride distance for the Tour of the White Mountains.  Today was less than 30 miles.  Can I really do 52 miles in 3 weeks?  How much will some breakfast, Gatorade, and energy bars contribute to success? 

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m thinking about riding the Tour of the White Mountains on October 6.  Actually, I’m more than thinking about it, I’m fairly committed to it.  The next big question is what distance to go?  The choices are 41, 52, and 66 miles.  The 41 and 52 ride routes I have ridden much of, just not all at once.  The 66 adds a section I’m not familiar with.

As a single day’s ride, I’ve done 35 miles a number of times.  I’ve also done the 24 Hrs in the Old Pueblo twice, and in so doing logged 87 & 122 miles in a 24 hour period.  What I’m having a bit of trouble gauging is my current fitness level.  I feel about as in shape as I was when I did the 122 miles as part of a duo, but possibly better.  At that time I really wasn’t in great shape.  The next year, when I did 87 miles as part of a 4-person team, I was definitely in better shape than I am now.

I talked with Chris Z about it today, and he seemed up for the event.  He’s done a number of longer road rides and noted, “66 miles on a mountain bike is a long way.”  Well, yes it is.  But the TOWM is on relatively tame trails.  At altitude for sure (7000+ feet), but nothing remotely technical.

For now, I’m inclined toward the 52 mile distance.  It offers some single track I have yet to ride, less forest roads than the 41 miler, and an added climb in the beginning to get me thinking, “Will I be able to finish?”, in the first 10 miles.  That’s what these events are all about.  Finding a way to finish.

My family and my brother Robert’s family came up to our house in Pinetop for the long weekend.  It’s so relaxing up here, it’s tough to ever want to leave, and it makes us wonder why we don’t come up even more.  Our Pinetop house is at ~7000 feet, so temperatures are fairly cool.  It’s surrounded by tall ponderosa pine trees, and backs up to the tenth green of Pinetop Country Club, so temperatures are rarely much over 85, and this weekend, I don’t think the temp was every much over 75.

Robert and I went to ride the Country Club loop trail on Saturday, but unfortunately it started raining on the first go-round, so the plan to ride it twice (clockwise and counter) was cut in half.  That’s life during the Monsoon in Arizona. 

Earlier we had gone to the local Indian Casino and played in a poker tourney.  Robert was the first one eliminated, choosing not to throw another $30 at it and re-buy.  I lasted to around 15th place out of 35 or so, which was basically horrible, considering how weak the field was.  Still, at times you need to get some cards, and when I had cards, I just didn’t get the right action.  And when I got action, I had some brutal suck-outs against me.  Oh well.

Today, Robert and I decided to ride a bit earlier (around 2pm), hoping to get ahead of the afternoon Monsoon.   That seemed like a good plan, except it rained again right as we headed for the trailhead.  The light rain ended about the time we started our ride, but we rode through a bit of mud on the flatter sections.  The ride plan called for a ride on what I had heard was the White Mountain’s premier trail:  Los Burros.  Reviews were mixed, but I was hoping to finally find a trail up here that was enjoyable and repeatable.

Los Burros is a 14 mile loop.  The early mud had us both thinking we may have made a mistake attempting a ride, but alas, what mud there was wasn’t really that bad, and the ride turned out to be pretty good.  The scenery is nice, and the single track is truly special.  It’s that narrow single track that you just so rarely see any more.  Because of this, I did my very best to stay in the track, even when there was a little mud, rather than ride in the grassy track adjacent to it at times.  Riding in today’s conditions was certainly borderline.  I worried we’d damage the trail, but I really don’t think we did.  Much more rain though, and it would have been inconsiderate to ride.

As to the trail itself, I’d liken it to Pemberton in McDowell Regional Park.  A long loop, but for the most part a casual ride.  There were a couple of tasty sections, but they were short to be sure.  It seemed like we climbed for 10 or 11 miles, only to give back the elevation in a tremendous hurry.    One stretch of trail did work my lungs hard, even if it didn’t work my legs.  This is the first steep section of trail I’d found, here in the Pinetop area, so I was happy to find something that presented at least a bit of challenge.

The tour of the White Mountains uses all of these trails, plus some forest roads and more, which is a ride in early October I’m seriously considering.  The big decision would be which distance to attempt.  At a minimum I’d go for the 41 miler, but the 52 and 66 miler also seem appealing.  I’ve got until 9/8/07 to register, so I best get my act in gear and decide.