Monthly Archives: March 2017

St. George Utah / Porcupine Rim Issues

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That is where I’m at.  Vincent has some computer work to do here this week.  St. George is an interesting town. I’ve only been here once, for a day, so I didn’t get the lay of it much.  But, I’m sure I will now.

We drove here yesterday.  I didn’t drive.  Both Vincent and I had “issues” riding Porcupine Rim Trail on Saturday.  Vincent dislocated his ring finger, like really dislocated it, going over a cattle guard, through a fence, with wet tires.   He did it pretty early, up above the normal Porcupine descent, where there was still snow.   So he was having trouble holding onto the bars.  And still is.

I fell nearly at the bottom, right before the trail turns to singletrack by the river road.  I was following Vincent and went off a small, maybe 1 foot drop, but Vincent’s rear tire moved a loose rock over and I landed on it with my front wheel.  And I got crossed up and high-sided onto my left side.  At least I think that is what happened.

I was going pretty fast and slid on mostly rock.  Incredibly, I didn’t lose too much skin.  The downside is my left shoulder isn’t working too well.  The worse part was having to ride the last 10 miles back to Moab.

I’ve been icing it and taking a bunch of ibuprofen.   I should probably get it looked at, at least a picture of it.

KU advance to the Sweet 16 yesterday fairly easily.  At least the last 6 minutes of the game.  I was reading the score on my phone on the drive.  It was close most of the game and the final score didn’t really show how close it was most the time.  The next round is in Kansas City, a real home court advantage for Kansas.

How about Coryn Rivera winning the Trofeo Binda race last weekend?  Pretty big result for her. I’m going to miss watching her win all the US criteriums this year.  She has been racing forever, but is still young, so should go and experience the European scene, not that she hasn’t dabbled in it some already.

Okay, I’m going to take Tucker out and let him run some.  Then dismantle Vincent’s tandem so he can send the fork and shock off to get repaired.  I probably should figure something out with my rear shock too.  And maybe get my shoulder looked at.  Guess it is a busy day, kind of.

 

Porcupine is pretty technical. I was riding this stuff pretty well. But guess not so good on the more wide open, faster stuff.

There were a bunch of people riding unicycles down the trail. I have no idea what that is about. They have disc brakes. I assume it would take a really long time.

Most of the trail is along the edge of a canyon. Sometimes it is just narrow and off-camber.

Nice views from Porcupine Rim Trail.

A guy rode by with a 50 tooth cog on his rear. I would have just used a smaller front ring.

My elbow is alright even though it didn’t look that good initially. It is really my left shoulder.  This is taken in a mirror.

Tucker exploring a stream in Moab.

Bike wash at a hotel in Moab.

Someone was selling this stuff at a rest stop on I-70 in Utah.

KU box score.

Sunrise this morning in St. George.

 

 

 

MTB Design and Preferences

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I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not at the forefront on knowledge of all the “new designs” of MTB’s.  I only race them a few times a year and most of the races that I do you could get by on a MTB from the 1990’s.  The longer, not mountainous races in the midwest don’t need a big movement full-suspension bike normally.

I saw a few comments on a few posts about how “ancient” my dual suspension bike looks.  “My stem is too long.” “My bars are too narrow.”  “Bar-ends.”  Etc.

There is a real difference between bikes you want to race and bikes that you ride around.  Jimmy Mac told me a long time ago that he thought one of the reasons that MTB racing, at a National Level, was suffering was because the bikes that are fun/great to ride aren’t the same bikes that you would want to race.  I didn’t know enough about it to understand back then, but do now.

The bar width thing is a preference.  I can’t, and don’t want to, ride super wide bars because some, or many of the races that I might go to around Kansas, super wide bars just don’t fit. Plus, I don’t need them.

I was at Ned and Todd’s (Overend and Wells) Grand Fondo last year in Durango and I saw John Tomac.  I hadn’t seen John in a long time and he was telling me about his son and motorcycle racing.  Anyway, he looked at my bike and said, bar-ends, I need to get some of those.

I climb on bar-ends.  I don’t understand how riders get power while standing up without them. I do understand that wider bars give more leverage, but you aren’t using the same muscle group.  I tell you that a road sprinter could not go nearly as fast without the hands and arms being in the position they are.  Flat bars hinder off the seat climbing and accelerating.

I could go on and on.  I love my Eriksen  and might mess around with position a little, but it is never going to look like a enduro bike with a $400 dropper seatpost and a super short stem.  I might get a bike like that, I’ll just never race x-country on it.

On a side note, Vincent is shipping his fork and shock off to DirtLabs in Longmont to get tuned. These are off his tandem.  He’s sending my rear shock too.  I hear those guys are pretty much best in the business.  Guys that focus on one thing usually end up being that way.

From Kent Eriksen website.