Mountain Bike Bill, The Dirt on the Dirt

Tag: Singlespeed

A singlespeed doubleshot

I don’t ride my single speed much.  I like to think that I ride it just enough to remind myself how much I love my full suspension bikes.   When I went Lake Calvera on Saturday, I brought along the single speed for the post work ride.   Calvera does not beat you up too bad on a single speed, but it certainly adds to the effort per mile equation.  After the trailwork and the ride, I was good and pooped at the end of the day.

It did not take long Sunday morning to realize that I had not been liberal enough with the sunscreen yesterday.  I was not burnt, but a little toasty on the edges.  Just enough to really feel the sun on my face when I went outside.  It was an exceptionally gorgeous day and unseasonably warm in the 80s.  I got quite a bit of the house and family stuff taken care of and around 4pm, I decided to sneak in a quite ride before the day was gone.  So a quite 10 minute drive from the house and I was at La Costa for the second time this week.  I also grabbed the singlespeed on the way out as it was right by the garage door and not hung back up yet.  Ahh what the hell was the general thinking.

 The single speed put a bit of a beat down on me as I was just a little stiff from the day before. I ended up having a good ride and caught yet another good sunset to boot.

This photo was taken of me by my good friend “Ty Mer”.  He does some professional photography shoots on occasion.  You can reach him at

20D Canon Street
Circuit City, CA 92081 🙂

San Clemente Singletrack Mashing

This morning was to be a fairly quick run through the San Clemente Singletracks in order to get back home to see the Chargers  vs Patriots game. (Yes, I know I’m still slacking on getting a page on this place put together)  I was meeting some folks up there but failed to realize they were meeting near the beach end of the place.   I went to the Dog Park start and did not figure out my mistake until it was time to roll.  It worked out well as I had a nice solo roll through a good chunk of the park to warm up with before meeting up with the group somewhere along “no-turns”.    After meeting up with the group it was apparent they were pushing a good pace.  Since I’m still having to single speed things right now, that was exactly what I was doing.  Either pushing or having a good pace.  Considering my current state of physical fitness it was a little too much pushing.  If I keep riding the SS that will go away soon enough.  I rode with the folks for the better part of thier route which included some loop-backs onto stuff I had done earlier in the day.  I’m still getting to know this place and they took some turns that I would not have done otherwise.  By the time I split off from the group I figured I had done somewhere around 15 miles or so and I still had to make my way back up to the dog park from near the south end of the system.   By the time I got back to my truck, my arms and lower back where fried.  Ahhh the joys of single speeding!

 San Clemente Singletrack

-Bill

Back in the Saddle, Bushwacking, and 1FN Gear.

 

Yesterday was my first day back on the bike and it went alright.  The ride was to be mostly a show and tell with Rich concerning a La Costa to Elfin Forest connector that I would like to get legalized and improved upon.   I currently have BOTH of my geared bikes out-of-commission with frame cracks which meant I had to bust out the single speed.   The hills that are required on the ride today are not exactly single-speed friendly.  Now for a borderline clyde who has been off the bike for a couple of weeks it was downright hostile.  I put on my recently “Pushed” fork on the singlespeed and gave it a go.   I have to say that I am thoroughly impressed with the work Push did on this fork.  It felt better than it has ever felt.  I wanted plush, I got plush.  I wanted the Terrorlogic gone….Poof..Done!  The blowoff threshold on the new RLC damper was even better than the one on my other fork.  When the threshold is dialed why down and the fork is locked, it operates like the terralogic was supposed to work.   Mainly no harsh transitions when going from locked to unlocked.   Being that I was on a singlespeed I cranked up the threshold pretty good since I spent a good deal of my climbing time out of the saddle.   Money well spent in my book.


(Note: Fork is pre-push in this pic)

Rich and I made good use of the time getting a good close look at the lay of the land and getting a better idea of exactly where we want things to go.  Part of that meant a good chunk of bushwhacking up a pretty steep slope or two.  I did not think my legs got too exfoliated at the time, but the hot after-ride shower throughly convinced me otherwise.

If we can get this connector approved, it would make for a good day’s worth of riding in North County.  I won’t use the word epic, but it comes to mind.  We are going to discuss the connector idea more thoroughly with the most of the principals during or after the trail day this Saturday at La Costa.   It is way freaking early in the process, and there are lots of potential landmines out there, but I’m excited about the idea. Here is some additional information of the Trail Day as well some of the on-going concerns and talk about the areas.

-Bill