I have a Park like the one above and two of these Ultimates from FeedBack Sports. http://feedbacksports.com/shop/Pro-Elite-Work-Stand-P1C1.aspx Very robust. I like them a lot.
The Pinarello Record? Mine. 1983 team bike. Up until I got the Roubaix, The Pinarello was my road ride. The Roubaix is much more better. Old fat guy gears.
Got out for a ride. Good headwind or bad, depending on your point of view. I tend to think of it as good since it will be pushing my fat ass back up the trail once I hit the hour. <iframe height='405' width='590' frameborder='0' allowtransparency='true' scrolling='no' src='http://app.strava.com/runs/9956663/embed/4c6051ad98b1ef731a4037dbcebc8f7a310aaa7c'></iframe> Nobody to ride with, follow or chase this time. Fast guys were all done by the time I got there.
Second ride for the weekend. This one felt hotter and had to work a bit harder. Could have been the lack of lunch prior to leaving too. <iframe height='405' width='590' frameborder='0' allowtransparency='true' scrolling='no' src='http://app.strava.com/runs/10028641/embed/4acd1eb2bd199895e4c8066d649ca435363afe33'></iframe> I need to try and get home early enough to get an hour or so in a few times during the week. The back is feeling better.
Is it. Various things have kept me off of my bikes this year, so the shiny new Anthem 29er I got had been sitting unused except for a brief excursion earlier this spring. That was on back roads and such. Mountain biking isn't back road riding either. Yesterday was an adventure. I finally got a chance to head out to one of the many trails in the area and did a whopping 7 miles! I've been loosely following Aurelius's trail riding reports, but I think that it is pretty hard to convey the rush and tunnel vision of that first ride down a single track path. I certainly did not appreciate it. Until yesterday. I had not intended on doing a very long distance, so the 7 miles worked out nice. What surprised me was that an hour had passed like it was... well, it was a bit timeless really. And I was also surprised at how mentally tired I was! The road riding that I do, back roads mostly, doesn't require much of me in terms of vigilant concentration. I pay attention, but I can also look around and check out the countryside. Not so on the trails! Letting my mind wander was a quick way to let things get ahead of me. The trail I road was not technical at all. It is comprised of a lot of turns and twists folded into a smallish park. The conditions were dry and firm with very little loose stuff. No monster climbs. No rock gardens. No carnivorous animals. Perfect, just what I was looking for. But there was enough that I learned quick to keep focused. I'm sure that will change as I gain experience and I can resume my usual tourist mode! So that was fun. I don't think I'm going to be up for big miles this year in spite of my earlier enthusiasm. But I got this mountain bike now and maybe I will just work on mountain-bikey things. And the Anthem is awesome.
Ya gotta keep yer head up off-road. Otherwise you get introduced to trees and the other flora and fauna quickly. DAMHIK Glad you had a good time. Now go do it again! M
On Sunday I met up with two instructors from 'Traildogs 101' at the Chuck Lennon trail. One of them, who goes by the nickname 'Flex', actually built part of it. To say that he knows this trail like the back of his hand would be an understatement. Since I'm a pretty fast road rider, I had this crazy notion that if I just rode close enough to keep them in sight, it would compensate for my lack of skill and familiarity with the trail, allowing me to blast through the turns like they do. That illusion lasted all of 10 seconds. :eek1 Once we were all back in the parking lot, I asked Flex to do me a favor and do another run wearing my video camera. If he can go this fast when he's already tired, I can just imagine what the first run must have been like. <object style="height: 390px; width: 640px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CjMW9-DG7Ko?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CjMW9-DG7Ko?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></object>
I've been riding the trails at Santos pretty regularly, and having finally mastered all the beginner and intermediate trails out there, I thought I was ready to tackle the 'Experts Only' red trails. Having reviewed miles of video footage of these trails, I falsely assumed that there was nothing in them that I couldn't handle. I should have known better. I've observed from my own videos that they paint a very deceptive picture of what the trails are really like: steep climbs and descents appear almost as if they're flat, tight turns look like big sweepers, and large roots, rocks, and other obstructions you encounter on the trail are hardly perceptible. :huh Rule of thumb: if you watch a video of a trail to gauge its difficulty, assume that the actual trail is two to three times more difficult than it appears to be on camera. I tried four of the Red trails at Santos, starting with one called 'Sink Hole'. It sucked mightily. From the very start I had to thread my way between trees spaced so close together that my handlebars barely fit between them, and these seemed to always occur at the apex of a tight turn. Between these trees lay a thick carpet of roots big enough to bring your front wheel to a grinding halt. Blasting through them won't work because you'll run right off the trail. Throughout I kept telling myself that the rest of the trail couldn't possibly be that bad because no one in his right mind would want to ride it. I was wrong. Once having reached the bottom of Sink Hole, I decided to retrace my steps, thinking that climbing up the other side might be even worse. By the time I got out, I was so exhausted that I had to find a spot to lie down. I'll spare you my account of the other Red trails except to say that they were all horrible - not always in the same way - but because going through them amounted to a titanic mental and physical struggle. Much like wrestling a gorilla, here's just nothing enjoyable or rewarding about it. You can be glad that you survived it, but it's certainly nothing you'd want to do again.
got a good 1 1/2 - 2 hours in at croom yesterday morning. Was a beautiful 64 degrees when we started. Many many many spiders . I am hoping at least one was radioactive so I may be blessed with super powers. Trails were nice with the recent rains. aurelius - put moonscape @ alafia on the trails that suck list...
Where exactly is Croom, and does it cost anything to get in? Funny you should mention it. That very trail came up for discussion during our ride. One person thought it was great; the others thought it sucked ass.
Croom/Withlacoochee state forest you exit 75 at state road 50 @ brooksville. There are many places to park only the furthest lot in asks you pay $2 per person. yeah great so long as you don't mind carrying your bike up a bunch of steep inclines
Just got punnished yesterday on what was supposed to be a nice 85K ride back to town from out in the sitcks. Jumped on the bike and started bucking a non stop headwind that just would let up. The first 50K were cruel and then the hills started. What a mess.
Wind is such a beatdown. At least you can see hills coming. I suck in the wind. The big diesel guys seem to excell...that's not me. I'm the bum catching a draft.
Ugh, what a grunt. At one point my heart was doing 165 BPM to get me to go 22KPH (13 MPH) it was humiliating.
Anybody heard of them? I've been getting back jnto cycling overe the last 9 months, and am thinking about a new road bike. I like my '88 Schwinn Prelude - chrome moly frame and all, but have ridden a bunch of demo bikes lately. Top 2 for me are the CAAD10 or the Super Six, with the Ultegra package. This website has some "unbelievable" prices. Too good to be true?
Typically, if it sounds too good to be true, it generally is. Other than that, I haven't heard of that company. Did 2:30 today. Despite the mouth breathers in the thread I linked to above, there were no idiots on the road. Some rolly hills, lots of wind, and the realization that carrying water bottles in yer jersey pockets sucks. ...but the Full Tilt Boogie is still a rocketship! M
Good onya for keeping up the fight, Gummee. I can only handle so much and just reading a few posts in those kinds of threads has me clicking the 'back' button.
I know I'm beating a dead horse 'cause their minds are made up and nothing but nothing I'M going to say is going to change it. ...but I'm tenacious enough to think 'maybe just this once...' M
