Adrenaline Fix: My Introduction to Downhill Mountain Biking

Long before I was a cyclist, before I ever threw my leg over a 29'er or a road bike, I was a downhill skier first and foremost. In my later teen years I got into freestyle skiing. Big jumps, big drops, and most importantly shredding downhill fast. I pretty much stopped skiing after my sophomore year in college, but I still dabble from time to time, at least once every other winter, I still have most of my chops. My number one problem with being an East coast skier was that the season was short, and being in PA, I was too far south to really get the snow for great skiing unless I wanted to travel. I moved around a bit and ended up in the South for a while and didn't do much skiing at all during that period of my life.

When I returned to PA, I picked up road cycling, and then eventually XC mountain bike racing and trail riding. I always related descending on a bike to skiing. the mechanics of executing a good turn is the same as it is on skis. Yet even with my background, I never had decided to see just how close the two were by trying downhill mountain biking.

My friend Jon was an experienced Downhill and Freeride mountain biker and was guiding me through the process of getting comfortable with the new style of riding. I had taken him out bikepacking for the first time a few weeks before and now it was his turn to show me something new. The one of the best things about not being cliquey as a cyclist that you get exposed to some many new and different things just by hanging out and exploring other riders' interests. Actually, scratch "cyclist" and "riders" from that sentence and replace it with "people." The point is, get out there and try something new, it makes life more interesting.

Jon getting rad. Really rad.

Mountain biking disciplines these days seem to be broken up by the ratio of climbing to descending and the weight placed by the rider on which end the bike is most optimized for. XC mountain biking for instance is very climbing oriented. XC bikes are designed to handle technical climbing very well and are very reliant on the skill of the rider to descend through technical terrain. Trail bikes are more balanced bikes for this same sort of riding, with a little more emphasis on descending. They have a little more suspension travel than an XC bike and slacker geometry to make them handle steep rough terrain on descents a little better. All Mountain/Enduro bikes and riding are descent oriented, with even slacker, longer travel bikes, up to 6" suspension travel. These bikes often have lock-outs for the suspension and are still quite capable of technical climbing, though not ideal. The most descent oriented discipline of mountain biking is fittingly called Downhill.

Downhill mountain biking is typically lift served or shuttle served riding and is done on similar terrain to downhill freestyle skiing. The most common bikes have at least 8 inches (200mm) of travel front and rear, dual crown forks, and extremely slack geometries. Compared to other bikes, they just soak up small bumps and impacts. They do it so well that you actually need a fairly decent sized feature to get them off the ground. They are extremely heavy, many weighing in at over 40 pounds and extremely unpleasant to impossible to climb on. Downhill trails are typically either designed to be ridden at high speeds or is extremely rough and treacherous. We get plenty of rough and rocky on my home trails so I focused on riding the flow/freestyle oriented terrain, which adds difficulty with features such as jumps, ladder bridges, drops, wall rides, and tight turns with generous berms.

An advanced downhill trail

The same trail section from the top.

I borrowed a downhill bike from a friend and we loaded up the car with our sleds and lit off into the rising sun. I had never had much experience jumping bikes or 'hucking' as downhillers call it. Big drops and ladder bridges made me nervous and I wasn't even sure if I was going to be able to get air on a bike without crashing and burning.I was pretty nervous actually.

Up before the sun for mountain bike adventures

Are we there yet?

We got there and suited up, got our lift tickets and headed for the top of the mountain. I was excited, nervous, and loaded up on caffeine, which was not helping. I would soon find out that nerves were unjustified.

Full-face, check. Goggles, check. Attitude, check.

My first run I rolled over all the jumps without catching any air just getting a feel for the bike. I was initially kind of uncomfortable with how much was going on with the trails. It was one berm after another, into a table, to a drop to a small set of whoops into a steep bermed turn, etc. At the end of the run there was a set of three ladder bridge progression drops. the smallest one was only about a 1 foot drop, the medium one was about a 2 foot drop and the big one was about a 4 foot drop. Then next to that was a 'real' drop that was about 8 feet to a transition. For my first 3 runs I hit each progression drop, the final of the three hitting the four footer. Jon hit the 8 footer right off the bat, and I was pretty impressed. I didn't think I'd be hitting that today. We did a couple more runs and  we played around a little on some wall rides. Here's Jon showing me how it's done:

When we got to the bottom, I asked him, "How much harder do you think the 8 foot drop is than the 4 footer?" He responded "It's pretty easy, you don't need a lot of speed or anything, you just have to stay to the right 'cause the landing is a little messed up on the left side. Why, are you thinking of hitting it?" I told him that we'd see. I hit a few tables and was now feeling a lot more on top of my game, popping off of bumps in the trail, riding some of the elevated ladder bridge features. My skiing skills were definitely transferring over. I rode down to the deck for the 8 foot drop with Jon and we scoped it out and he explained to me how to hit it. He told me to wait so he could get to the bottom and take a picture of it. I watched him hit it from the deck. I was still on the fence. Another rider came up and scoped it out and then decided against hitting and rode away for more practice at the progression drops. I couldn't blame him. It looked really scary from the top! I decided to roll up to the take off and just get a feel for it and stop, I rolled up and told Jon I was just scoping it again. I forgot to tell him I was definitely going to hit it and rolled back, turned around, and rolled it!

My heart was pounding in my chest but as soon as I was in air I felt completely natural. I had done this exact thing hundreds of time on skis, many times from much greater heights, but doing it on a bike was a little different. On the landing instead of the harsh slap of skis on snow and sucking up the whole impact with my legs, the 8 inches of front and rear travel swallowed up the impact. It felt downright gentle compared to hitting something like that on skis. I got down to Jon and excitedly asked "Did you get that!?" and he replied "No man! I thought you bailed when you stopped at the edge the first time!" I was a little disappointed, but we could always get more pictures next time down since it was at the very bottom, right by the lift, we could hit it almost every time down the mountain. I did hit it again, and again, and again. On the way up the lift, he said "I definitely didn't expect you to hit that today! I'm stoked that you tried that!"

We kept hitting the trails hard was getting more comfortable with higher speed and I took my first tumble, I was glad I had knee pads on. I messed up a wall ride and went down, but I escaped my crash unscathed. I broke the zip tie holding the brake line to the fork so I had to slowly roll down to the shop and get a new one. After a few more runs the rear brake on the bike I was borrowing from another friend had a melt down, and we couldn't fix it on site, and didn't want to pay the mechanics to fix something that I could fix at home, so I rented a bike for the rest of the day.

The rental was set-up much better than my friend's bike for me and there was an immediate improvement in my riding. The rental had a lot more pop than the previous bike and I found myself getting a lot more air and having much better take offs on tables and step-ups which was awesome. Suddenly I was jumping off the lip of one berm directly onto the next berm, The rental bike's suspension set up was a revelation to me compared to my friend's bike. I was finding flow where I previously though the trail was too busy and was having fun catching some bigger air. I started feeling a lot more comfortable in the air and was hitting more stuff instead of just rolling over it.

It rained briefly, twice, in the afternoon giving us an opportunity to stop for some food and chill for a minute while trails dried out. After the second shower the place was deserted. Everyone had left thinking the rain was going to last longer I guess or the trails would be too muddy, but after two runs the trails really firmed up except for a few muddy spots and we had hero dirt pretty much everywhere else and the place pretty much to ourselves. The weather was the nicest it had been all day after that with clear blue skies ready for us to launch into.

I spotted a ladder bridge drop and and pointed it out to Jon. It was maybe a little taller than the 8 foot deck drop, but it had a better landing. The added degree of difficulty came from the long ladder bridge that you had to stay on to get out to the landing of the drop. I asked him if I should try it. He said the trail that led up to that was really cool and that it wouldn't be much harder than the deck drop so we tried it out. I had found a new favorite trail that was basically an intermediate jump line at the with about 6 or 7 table tops and a few assorted other jumps at the top of the mountain and then a swoopy super steep bermed section that lead into a few more small jumps. Then we bombed down around hit the new trail which was a cool swoopy berm section with a bunch of step ups and then we got to the ladder bridge drop. John went first and got my picture as I dropped in.

Then the next run I got an awesome photo of him on it. I'm seriously as excited about how this photo turned out as I was about nailing the drop.

I think that photo probably best captures what our day was all about. We were just having a blast. I can't remember the last time before that I had such a flood of adrenaline going all day. I loved it and I'm lucky I don't have a bike park nearby. I'd be even more broke than I am now. For our last couple of runs we were just crushing it. We tried one of the more gnarly rock and tech oriented trails, and I almost OTB'd a full on downhill bike, which is not an easy thing to do, but I was astonished at how crazy gnarly and rough the trail was and how well the bike handled it. I have a lot of experience with rock riding and I think that helped too. After that trail I told Jon that we could stay away from that stuff and stick to the 'groomers' and he was just fine with that. We shredded a few more runs, but my legs and forearms were taking a beating. Downhill is very physically intense and great workout. It will really test your grip strength and will let you know if you've been skipping leg day. So after 25 runs we called it a day and packed up and headed home.

I'm so glad that I let Jon talk me into coming out and trying Downhill. It's a completely different experience from the XC/Trail riding that I normally do and I think I'll be making a few more trips to bike parks this summer. Downhill is great for developing a flowy riding style and awesome for working on bike handling skills and body position. I can't wait to go back again!

Escape Velocity: Cooper's Gap

This past weekend my friend Jon and I were planning on going up to ride Cooper's Gap. Cooper's Gap is located in Rothrock State Forest in PA and is comprised of about 35 to 45 miles of some of the best single track on the East coast. The trail system was recently designated as an IMBA Epic and is the location for several XC and Endurance races I plan on doing this season. The problem I faced was that Jon, while a much better technical rider than me, was not ready for the kind of all day epic this early in the season that would be required to show him everything I wanted to show him. With that in mind, I remembered a sweet campsite accessible only by foot or bike and proposed that we try bikepacking out there. Not surprisingly, having just received the Revelate Designs frame and saddlebags he had ordered a few weeks ago, Jon was up for it.

The plan was to leave a bit early from work at Earl's Bicycle Store on Saturday and head up there with enough time to get about 20 miles in, then camp out at a really scenic campsite I had found at the end of Beautiful Trail. Here's a quick tip about trail signage. If there is a sign on a fairly remote trail that says "view" and points with an arrow off the trail, go check it out, you'll rarely be disappointed.

View

I made up a route on a Purple Lizard Map, but it was mainly a suggestion not a rigid plan. I just wanted to remember which direction to ride certain trails in, having been out here only twice before and only once without course markers.

Note the very precise and professional language.

So we had a plan and got all of our gear tuned up the night before. Rylan probably would have come with us, but his wife wanted to go ride this weekend and that was an opportunity he could not pass up. We all stayed a little late on Friday night and got the rigs ready.

Bike Shop Work Party!

I got a new Brooks B17 for my El Mariachi Ti on the same shipment as Jon's bags, so I mounted that up and hoped for the best. My last Brooks saddle took a long time to break in so I was prepared for a sore butt when we got back on Sunday, but my fears turned out to be unfounded.

Pictured: The Best Saddle in the Universe

Midday Saturday we left the shop for Cooper's Gap. We stopped and got some supplies along the way and then got to riding. When we arrived, quickly got our rigs loaded up and off we went! The first trail we took was a short connector to Dutch Alvin Trail which we rode from the top down. I wanted to give Jon a chance to get a feel for riding a loaded bike on single track. Dutch Alvin is very buffed out and has a lot of twists and turns but not a ton of rocks or super technical roots so I thought it would be a good chance for him to make the adjustment. He was pretty surprised at the trail. Most of his PA trail riding was done in Bald Eagle State Forest which has a decidedly more technical and primitive character, so to find something so smooth and fast was nice change. After that though, we rode back up the gravel road to where the car was parked and ducked into Peep Trail, which promptly reminded him we were indeed still in PA.

A weeeee bit sketchy.

 Peep trail was a pretty gnarly climb and I walked a lot of the last section the last time I was out there on my singlespeed. With gears, it was all much less difficult even though my bike probably weighed 3 times as much. Peep Trail is a pretty technical climb, and a really fun descent as we would find out later in the day. At the top we pedaled a little further up to the vista on Kettle Road and took a break to have a snack while I went over the importance of eating on long rides.

Kettle Road Vista

After we ate, we went up and over the ridge to Sassafras Trail and we took that to the top of the ridge. We decided to take the trail on the left when it split and ended up on a pretty crazy steep downhill section. It would have been a lot more fun on an unloaded, much more slack geometry bike. There was a strong smell of hot brake pads when we got to the bottom. It was definitely worth it though because it spit us out at what is probably my favorite trail in PA right now, Sassafras Extension. Sassafras Extension rips and swoops and dives through the forest, eventually bringing you down to a small stream, which you cross back and forth over a few times. Punctuated with a few rooty sections to keep you on your toes, this trail is chock full of flow and leaves me grinning ear to ear every time I ride it. The ferns haven't grown up yet, but once they do this trail is just incredibly beautiful. I wish I had picutres, but I'm always too in the zone to even think about stopping and taking any. I'll have to borrow a go pro camera sometime or something.

After a rip of a descent, climbed back up to the car via Shittaka Trail and took the high route up to Kettle Road so we could ride down Peep Trail. We stopped at the car to grab some bug spray. If you are ever in Cooper's Gap area, bring bug spray that repels ticks! Cooper's Gap has tons of them. We headed out after that to that connector trail we used to get to Dutch Alvin, but instead this time we bombed down into Lingle Valley Trail. Talk about a rush! That trail is straight up crazy. So technical of a decent, but fast and fun. Lots of steep sections and rocks, roots, skinnies, and insanity. We rode it to Bear Gap Trail. There was a lot of hike a bike here. We were both on 1x10 drivetrains and the bikes were starting to feel a little heavier at this point. We hiked up bear gap and then rode all of Chicken Peter Trail out to Conklin Road. Chicken Peter Trail is a really neat trail, it starts off on the first half being a pretty smooth and fast trail. The second half is a lot of big slabs of rock that are somewhat technical but pretty cool to ride. At the end of that we crossed Conklin Road to Beautiful Trail, which again is rocky and techy and we rode that out to the aforementioned "View" trail marker. We hike-a-biked up there where our campsite waited.

We have arrived.

Darkness settled in quickly as we were setting up camp. Jon was stoked to try out his new Vargo titanium stove and cook up some ramen noodles.

Unpacking camp.

I got a camp fire going and put on some warmer clothes before setting up my sleeping arrangements and chowing down on a sandwich I had brought.

I got my bed ready for the night. the weather was nice, if a bit chilly in the evening and morning. My sleeping gear consisted of my NEMO 40 degree sleeping bag, my full camelback bladder as a pillow, my Static V inflatable sleeping pad, an old rain fly from a tent as a make shift bivvy sack all on top of an old shower curtain that served as my ground cloth.

Luxury.

You may notice the giant void to the left of my sleeping arrangement. That's a sheer cliff, so in a way, we were doing some bike mountaineering. You'll see it better in the pictures from the morning! We both ate and went to bed. I slept well.

In the morning we were up with the sun.

Shaking off that groggy morning "I just slept on a rock" feeling

Bears did not steal our bikes or our breakfast.

Pictured: A mess.

More mess.

Ahhhh, fire! It was so cold in the morning!

Jon was planning on having clif bars for breakfast, which wasn't going to work. So I shared one of my super secret energy cakes with him. I packed two just in case and it proved to be a wise move.

Super Secret Energy Cake: 660 calories

In the not so wise move category. Jon cooked his ramen the night before with unfiltered water, it remains to be seen if he boiled it (he doesn't think so) or if there will be consequences for this. Giardia is a son of a bitch...so I hope not. Good luck with that bud, hoping for the best here.

It was another beautiful spring day. We rode down Deer Tick Trail to the road and rode up Coopers Gap to the car and dropped off our bikepacking gear to hopefull get some light bike shred time in, but Jon's knee was acting up, so we cut things short after 20 morning miles. We rode SassyPig and Pig Pile trail and then Flat Road Trail back to Sassafras Extension (again, it's that awesome) then back up Cooper's Gap Road again and called it a day.

Jon said he definitely wants to do more bikepacking. I knew he'd like it from the start, so I have another person to get out with now. Coming up soon we're going to do a fat-bike camping trip and Rylan will be coming along this time. This trip was just what I need to get my stoked up for the upcoming riding and bikepacking season. I can't wait to get back out there!

Long Term Review: Salsa Fargo

Photo by Brett Simpson 2013 - http://www.brettsimpsonphotography.com

So I've put more than a 1000 miles on my Salsa Fargo now. I've lived out of it for multiple days at a time. I've ridden it on just about every type of terrain I would choose to ride on it. I've raced it. I've toured on it. I've done a combination of the two. Short rides, long rides, in between rides, recreational rides, commutes, and pretty much every other kind of ride you would try on a bike like this, and probably some a lot people wouldn't. Now it's time to pass my thoughts on this workhorse bike on to all of you!

First off, lets go over the specs of the bike. The bike is a slightly upgraded Fargo 2. The only modifications I made to the stock spec were to replace the SRAM Apex shifters and Avid BB7 Road mechanical disc brake calipers with SRAM S700 road hydraulic shift levers and disc brake calipers. Yes, the ones that got recalled. Currently they have been replaced with SRAM Force 10 speed shifters and BB7S road mechanical disc brake calipers.

Specs:
Frame: Salsa Fargo - steel
Fork: Salsa Fargo Fork - steel
Wheels: Stan's No-Tubes ZTR Rapid rims built up on Salsa Hubs by Formula
Disc Brake Rotors: Avid Clean Sweep G2 rotors
Disc Brakes: SRAM S700 Hydro Road (currently BB7S)
Shift/Brake Levers: SRAM S700 (currently Force)
Front Derailleur: SRAM X9
Rear Derailleur: SRAM X7
Crank: unmarked SRAM X7 crankset
Seatpost: Cane Creek Thudbuster ST 27.2mm
Saddle: NOS 70's(?) Brooks B5N (same shape as current B17N)
Fender: SKS ShockBoard
Pedals: old Shimano pedals I bought off my buddy Rylan for $10, not sure of model.

So that pretty much covers the meat and potatoes of the build. I really really like hydraulic disc brakes (who doesn't?) and so when I had the opportunity to run a set on a bike with an offroad dropbar and still have integrated brake/shift levers, I couldn't resist trying it. Even though they were recalled, I have almost nothing but positive things to say about my experiences with them and eagerly look forward to my replacement set. The Force/BB7S combo gets the job done, but I yearn for my hydros every time I use the mechanicals. the only tricky thing about them was setting up the SRAM X9 front derailleur with them, as they are designed to work with a SRAM road front derailleur with Yaw technology. This means they lack a trim position. A little fine tuning, and little bit of cage bending and it worked like a charm though. When I rode the Fargo to The Great Gravel Gathering, it generated a lot of buzz among the riders I ran into, partially because the SRAM road hydro stuff was so new. I have to say I recommend them in this application, the increased power is greatly appreciated when descending on a loaded bike, and the better tactile feedback is welcome in off road riding. Modulation was great and they were reliable as can be for the time that I had them.

If I had to describe the Fargo, I would say it's the perfect bike geek's bike. It doesn't really look much like the bikes that were actually designed for the single use tasks that I used my Fargo for, but it did really well at most of them because it was designed to carry a light load and cover a lot of ground while keeping the rider comfy and happy. I loved commuting on my Fargo, my bags carried the the things I needed for work like clothes and lunch without being to bulky or slow feeling. At the same time, the 2" Continental Race King 2.0 are fast rolling enough to not feel like a huge detriment rolling on pavement, but feel solid enough on rough stuff that you can be confident if you want to take a little light to moderate level single track detour on your way. For touring, the bike handles well with a full heavy touring load and has every mount, boss, and feature you could ask for. I can't really think of a better off the shelf bike for mixed terrain touring in the US. For unloaded gravel riding, I can ride this bike all day long and come off the bike ready for the next day without any weird soreness or unnecessary fatigue thanks to the many hand positions offered by the Salsa Woodchipper off road drop bar. It isn't the fastest bike you could choose, but for big miles, or really really gnarly gravel roads, it's my weapon of choice. You can carry a max of 5 water bottles with mounts on this frame, which is pretty great if you do any rides with limited access to water refills in the summer. I personally prefer a filter and stopping more frequently to fill up so I'm not carrying all that weight. It's definitely a fun bike for bikepacking, which seems like what it was really designed for. It does best off road with a light load. A little weight on the frame seems to actually make it ride a little better on the rougher terrain, too much though and the bike becomes a handful in the rough stuff.

I didn't particularly care for the off road drop bar for single track riding. Here in central PA where I do the bulk of my riding, most of our single track is very rough and rocky, and I felt that I had to be in the drops to stay in control of the bike, which put me too low and out in front of the bike and made it difficult for me to keep the front end of the bike light and resulted in a lot of fatigue.  Overall, I didn't care for the bike for unloaded mountain biking. It felt very springy, and also a little harsh compared to my El Mariachi Ti with a rigid steel fork and riser bar. It also didn't feel all that nimble. It's a different story if you load the bike up with 15 to 20 pounds in a frame/seat bag combo though, the ride softened up a little and felt a little more responsive. I don't normally ride the Fargo for primarily single track rides anymore but I would like to try putting an 80mm suspension fork on it and see how it does.

The most fun I have had with the bike is on really really long mixed terrain bike packing trips. I went on a nice 200 mile ride that spanned a variety of terrain from pavement to single track and I think it was the most fun I've had on a bike. It's really cool to never be held back by the bike when you want to go somewhere. The Fargo is now my go to bike for exploring.  If I ever got rid of my Fargo, it would probably be to upgrade it to a Ti version, as I really like my Titanium El Mariachi. I could even see myself upgrading to a more current steel model with the alternator drop-outs and carbon fork.

Ultimately I can only highly recommend this bike for anyone interested in a bike for bikepacking or mixed terrain touring. The bike excels at this role. It has also become my go to commuter and gravel rig as well.  If you are looking for an endurance steed that will go anywhere you want to go, look no further.

Goodbye Trans Iowa, Hello Trans North Georgia...I've found my A-Race for the year.

Earlier this year I was planning on attempting Trans Iowa as my first ultra-endurance event. Trans Iowa is a 320 to 350 mile gravel road race on some of the crappiest roads in Iowa, in April. Sounds awful...which is why it was perfect. If I plan on doing the Tour Divide mountain bike race, I'd like to build up to it with some truly challenging, but shorter ultra-endurance riding events. So far, all my ultra distance riding has been solo and purely for fun. Last year this culminated in a week in October where I rode over 500 miles in 5 days, with a decent amount of elevation. This was no race, and while I was riding with a lot of other people for a decent portion of it, there was a lack of urgency to the whole thing. I'm looking forward to doing this kind of riding with a group of like minded people, point to point, with the intention of doing as fast as I can. Trans Iowa was to be my opportunity to ride with a bunch of like minded nut jobs over a really long distance in a really short amount of time.

Unfortunately, even though I got my registration in on the first day of registration, before noon, the event had already filled up. Due to the way the event is run, there is no wait list. I fear that Trans Iowa may have jumped the shark and that it's popularity may have out grown the grassroots nature of promotion that gives the race some of it's charm. So it was on to find another ultra-endurance event to cut my teeth on.

Somehow, through one of the many facebook groups I subscribe to, Trans North Georgia was brought to my attention.  The route is 350 miles long across the top of Georgia from South Carolina to Alabama. Along the route a rider gains over 56,000 ft of elevation. This is no gravel race. This off road, single track, awesome, mountain bike ultra-endurance racing. A local rider, tour divide finisher, and friend of mine, Brett told me he thought it would be a great preparation race of the tour divide.  I put in my registration for the race and ended up 3rd on wait list which pretty much assures that I will get a spot in the event. Now I just need to train up to it and get my rig in order.

As far as training goes. My plan is to do what I do when it comes to training to ride far which is ride a lot. I'm lucky to have some time on my hands so this should be no problem. I'm hoping to work my way up to about 70 hours a month of riding by July. The main things I want to do is work some longer mountain bike races into my schedule this year. I definitely plan on doing the Wilderness 101 again in Coburn, PA but I'd like to work in at least one more 100 miler and a 24 hour race. Fitness should not be a problem.

The other side is the field craft of multi-day ultra-endurance racing. I plan to start getting out on over night rides on the weekends as often as possible as soon as possible in the spring. this is the area I feel I'm going to most deficient in. I don't have a ton of experience at bike packing so a priority is going to be getting some experience. Hopefully Brett and I can get our schedules lined up to try to tackle the Pennsylvania North-South bikepacking route. I feel like bikepacking with a tour divide finisher will be a good way to learn some new things about living out of a bike.

As far as gear goes, the major thing I thing I need to look into is a bivvy. I lived in South Carolina for a while I know it's going to be hot in August in Georgia...like really hot, with a humidity of 200%. I'm going to look at past weather during the time period of the event to see what kind of temps to expect and develop a plan for a sleep system. It will have to be light and easy to set up and tear down. I've heard some folks use hotels, I don't plan on it for such a short (in comparision to tour divide) event I can live outside for a week if I have to and I plan on camping at Mulberry Gap which is pretty much at the mid point of the route so I can stop there if I need to. My sleep plan is to not do it as much as possible. In other words, ride until I absolutely have to stop, crash out off the side of the trail for a few hours and wake up and keep trucking.

Bike is sorted, I plan on riding my El Mariachi Ti in geared hardtail mode. I considered a rigid fork, but this is still east coast mountain biking and that means rocky, rooty, and rough. I have my Revelate Designs bags and all my emergency kit dialed.

I'm super excited to start riding in preparation for this, but until this snow lets up, it's going to be mostly fatbiking and turbo trainer until spring. It's going to be an interesting journey, and I'll be posting about my training for this event here, so check back from time to time!

Update: Salsa El Mariachi Ti build

I finally got my Salsa El Mariachi Ti built up pretty much exactly as I want it. I'm so stoked with how this thing came out. It's my dream hardtail and I'm sort of sad there is so much snow on the ground right now, cause I want to take this thing for a real trail ride. This bike is going to be my do it all single track shredder. Allow me to walk you through my build!

Let's start with the cockpit!

Thomson everything! What else is there

I decided on a Thomson carbon riser bar mated to a Thomson X4 100mm 90 deg. stem with a red anodized dress up kit for the bling factor. I just love the finish on Thomson stuff. It's lightweight, stiff, strong, classic stuff.

On those bars I hooked up some SRAM foam contour lock-ons and Avid XX brakes with matchmaker clamp for the X7 shifter (yes, that's correct, shifter, singular, when there is one there at all.). I plan to upgrade to an X9 shifter at some point for the better shifting feel. This bike will be run single speed often, so the geared drivetrain was selected to be merely reliable, functional, and cost effective, rather than light weight and blingy. 11 speed was out off the question because the freehub body would make SS conversion more difficult.

The cockpit was securely attached to a Salsa Cro-Moto Grande fork with a tapered steerer tube with a 15mm thru axle, secured by a Cane Creek 40 series headset, I would like to upgrade to a Chris King headset when I wear this one out. The other bit highlighted in this picture I'm particularly proud of.

My first wheel build, pre-tensioning.

I built my first set of wheels ever for this build. Short of welding up the frame myself, I did everything from scratch on this build, and stay tuned, because that's the next step. The wheels are white 32 hole Stan's NoTubes ZTR Crest rims, laced 3 cross to red Hope Pro II Evo Hubs with DT Swiss Revolution spokes using brass nipples. I finished them off with yellow tape and stan's valves.

I mounted up a Continental X-King 2.2 ProTection front and Continental Race King 2.2 ProTection rear, set up tubeless, of course.

I stuck with a Thomson Elite Setback for my seatpost and secured it with this Salsa Lip-Lock seatpost collar. The red anodizing is a little off from the rest of the red parts on the bike, I'd be lying if I said it didn't bug me a little sometimes. Not pictured is the Fizik Tundra saddle with K:ium rails.

Down below, a Truvativ Stylo 1.1 crankset with 175mm arms hooked up to a RaceFace N-W XX1 style chainring and Shimano XT race pedals spins a SRAM PC-1091R chain.

Out back, the chain transmits power from the cranks to the wheels via a Shimano XT 11-36 Cassette, and shifting duties are accomplished via a SRAM X9 Type 2 short cage rear derailleur when the bick is in geared mode. In SS mode, the derailleur, shifter, cables and housing come off in one piece thanks to the full length housing and the cassette is replaced with a spacer kit and 19 tooth surly cog. White bottle cages complement the white rims.

The rear wheel is secured to the frame with a Pedro's Tulio skewer. I will never forget my multitool again. Also pictured are the fabulous alternator drop outs that allow for proper chain tensioning in SS mode and the highly manipulated chainstays that contribute to the awesome ride quality this thing has.

23.5 pounds as equipped.


I can't WAIT for spring!

Snow Biking Bald Eagle State Forest. First Powder on the Pugsley

In late November on the week of Thanksgiving we got our first snow for the season. I was so excited I left for work Tuesday morning, in the beginning of the storm, on my fat bike, even though there was barely an inch on the ground. It was completely unnecessary, as the weather in the valley shifted to rain and then sleet and freezing rain. While the snow didn't look like much in the valley, up in the mountains of Bald Eagle State Forest it was piling up.

When we got out to R.B. Winter for our Wednesday night ride, there was 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground when we started. There had also been some serious ice earlier and this made some of tight sections of trail through mountain laurel or young pine nearly impassible as it all folded under the weight of the ice and into the trail. Despite the difficulty making progress through the tight sections, when trail was clear enough to ride I got my first taste of what my first winter on a snow bike was going to be like. In a word, awesome!

Rylan on the fire road climb to No Name Trail (yes that's what it is called)

Before I got into mountain biking and even cycling in general, I was an avid downhill skier. I enjoy being outside in the snow and the cold doesn't typically bother me. The thing I like the least about downhill skiing is that there is the down time of the lift ride, or the hike if you are back country skiing. Actually, I preferred back country skiing because the journey to the top was an enjoyable experience in an of itself. My favorite part of snow biking is that there is no down time once you start. You aren't reliant on gravity to supply your good times, though it sure does help! I often realize when mountain biking how similar it is to downhill skiing when I'm not pedaling, you weight your legs to carve through a turn the same way, and you pump and float your way down the trail in the exact same manner. On a snow bike in the snow, the ride is a lot smoother and softer than without the snow. It packs into the cracks and crevices in the rocks and smooths out what typically would be very bumpy technical sections. Trails that were once slow speed technical super gnar take on a new a playful character of flow and speed. Some of the feel of speed is a little exaggerated by the lack of traction and slightly out of control feeling, but you can get moving on the straighter downhill sections and it's a blast.



Thanksgiving morning Rylan, Johny, and I took the bikes out again for a short ride. We had a little more fun just messing about this time and we ended up with some great pictures. The ice on the trees had not melted off yet so there was still a lot of stuff block tight sections of trail. Overlook Trail and Old Tram were fairly difficult.

Old Tram at the intersection of Rocky Corner Trail

Things got a little more fun and continuous once we headed down to R.B. Winter State Park. The trails down there are much more open and there was a lot less stuff smacking us in the face. First we bombed down Boiling Springs to the park.

Boiling Springs Trail

 Then we headed up Old Boundary Trail

I make the strangest faces when riding my bike and being photographed

And bombed back down Sand Mountain Road to Boiling Springs again because it was that much fun.

Then it was time to head down to the beach to have some fun.

Finally we bushwhacked around a little bit before head back up to the Overlook and bombed back down McCall Dam road.

That's how our morning ride went. it was a good time with a lot of picture taking and goofing around.

My impressions of snow biking on singletrack are that it's pretty much the most fun you can have on two wheels in the winter. Going out in a group is essential. When the snow is fresh and nothing is packed down, breaking trail is hard work and it is good to have a few people to take turns with it. Don't believe any advertising claims you hear about how you are going to just float over deep snow on a fat bike. It's true they do a better job than a regular mountain bike, but anything more than 4 or 5 inches of snow is going to be difficult pedaling and going to require new riding skills that aren't needed for other types of riding. The extra effort is worth it as the scenery of a snowy forest is fantastic and all your familiar trails turn into a completely different experience. Give it a try! I bet you'll like it!