summary:
60 miles
lots of rocks
no crashes (for me)
big fun
long winded useless waste of keystrokes:
Early last week it looked like I'd have Sunday free to do some riding. I
didn't have any fixed plans, but I had talked to a friend about possibly
riding at Tower City in PA the weekend prior. At the last minute, we
decided to head to the beach on Thursday since it was our anniversary and
spend a couple of days there. Good time.
I got home from the beach on Saturday afternoon and saw an email from Joe
that Tower City was on for Sunday. I took a look at the bike and was
greeted with a flat rear tire. Grrr. It was 3:45 and every "local" shop
closes at 4. The closest one is 25 minutes away. My parents live near a
shop, so I called my stepfather and got him to run and pick up a tube for
me while I sped to the closest shop in hopes that I'd make it. I did, so
now I have a spare HD tube on hand. I bought a spare front too, knowing my
luck.
The flat was my own fault. I noticed at Hatfield McCoy that my tire had
spun on the rim and the valve stem was pushed over to the side a few
degrees. I should've broken the bead and fixed it for the HS that I rode,
but I didn't. It didn't go flat in the race, but it had torn the rubber
around the base of the stem and wouldn't hold air. Last time I let that
slide. Put the new tube in, loaded the truck and called it good.
Did the annoying slow drive to TC (no direct route, 3 hours for 100 miles)
and arrived just a few minutes after the guys I was meeting to ride with
(Jim, Joe & Nick). Did a little BSing, got geared up and headed out.
I was thinking about how tired I got during that recent HS, and decided
I'd ride just a little easier this time and see how I did with getting
tired. My 'just a little easier' pace is a little slower than the guys I
was with on the faster trails. Not much, but enough for them to get out of
sight on the 4th gear+ trails. On the tight, rocky trails, I was just as
fast (fast, of course being a relative term) and was really having fun. I
stuck to this pace for most of the day for both energy conservation and
because I wasn't quite feeling 'in the groove' 'til very late in the day.
The fact that I still felt good at the end of the day and rode
faster/harder in the last 10 miles or so tells me that I've found a pace
that works for me... or at least it did yesterday.
We did a bunch of fun stuff including rocky single track, rocky quad
trails and what little not-rocky stuff there is. We spent a little more
time than I'd like on the dusty flat "roads", but you gotta get to the
other good trails somehow. It sucks to be the conservative one (wuss) when
it's dry and dusty, but the coal dust washes off and black boogers are
kinda neat. These guys have a pretty good knowledge of the trails at TC,
so we rode a lot of good stuff and saw very few other bikes out on the
trails. I'm glad to have them to ride with, as I'd be lost trying to find
all of the good stuff by myself - my sense of direction goes to crap in
the woods.
There's a trail at TC called "tombstone" that's pretty relentless
w/rocks... Last time there, I fought with the rocks and wore myself out -
this time I was more relaxed and rode the entire length with no troubles,
smiling the whole way. I don't think I'm riding any better, just
smarter... I'm thinking about relaxing my death grip on the bars and
looking further up the trail, etc. These little improvements are all
relative - I'm still a slow spode, but it's encouraging to know that
there's hope.
As the day went on, whenever we got on the really tight & rocky stuff I'd
go from the back of the pack to up front behind Jim who lead all day. Jim
is faster and smoother than me on that stuff still, and it's fun to watch
his lines and try and learn. The other two guys Joe and Nick (father and
son) are fun to ride behind 'cause they're always roosting all over the
place and like to ride hard/fast. They rode faster than me on all but the
really rocky stuff. They also had a tough day yesterday and each tested
the soil a few times - I don't know why, but both of them fell a bunch of
times, which they didn't do in past rides. Nick had a badly worn front
tire which didn't help things for him I'm sure.
Towards the end of the day, I was still feeling pretty good and started to
ride a bit faster. I finally started to feel 'in the groove' and was glad
to have some energy left to enjoy it. Not much after that, Joe got a rear
flat on his CRF. He and Jim had the tube out and patched pretty quickly,
but after airing up the tube we noticed that the rim lock wasn't being
pushed down. Yep, the tube was under the rimlock. Back off with one side
of the tire to fix that and all was well. It didn't help that it was a 21"
tube stuffed in a 19" tire, but it was installed in a pinch (hah) when Joe
had a flat on the last ride. He's been getting flats a lot lately he
says, so I asked him what he ran for tire pressure. 18 pounds in the rear!
He says they're pinch flats that he's been getting - traditional
'snakebites'. Wow. He's a big guy, but not that big - maybe 250 tops. I
don't know, but that just doesn't seem right.
After the flat repair we rode some more good trail for a bit before
heading back to the parking lot. 60.x miles total and lots of fun. I
really should do this riding thing more often.
Craig
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