Eriksen Seat PostOriginally uploaded by Christopher Bailey I received my custom Kent Eriksen seat post, and have now mounted it on my Niner. This is absolutely a beautiful piece of jewelry, I mean, bicycle component! Check out the picture. At 430mm it's very long (which I needed, or wanted to ensure a longer than minimum extension down into my frame). Another picture on my Flickr page shows the length if you're interested.
June 2007 Archives
I rode Crawfish yesterday, which you can do starting at the same place asBrice Creek. Here's the map. Many say Crawfish is better. I'd seen these pictures of Brice Creek and was eager to ride it. The DoD guys had just ridden it last weekend, but Brock suggested Crawfish, possibly hitting Brice at the end. We wound up not doing Brice, but that was no problem.We did Crawfish as a full loop, but many shuttle to the top, because theinitial climb is 6 miles up gravel road, and took our group 2.25 hours(and I was the first to the top, so you get an idea of the group'sclimbing speed :) Four of us were riding: Brock, Steve, Sarah, and myself.But then the descent just rocks! Best ride I've done so far here.All singletrack, all the time. And, there were rocks! The descenthad full on rock gardens, including a couple uphill sections, and thenjust tons of twisty, sometimes rooted, singletrack that went on for2.5 hours. Superb.Brock and I loved it. Sarah and Steve were not as enthused, asthey thought it was a bit too technical. Sarah commented at one point that we were riding down a river bed, not a trail. Heehee, that was one of my favorite sections! I do love the rocks. We were going to tie in Brice Creek at the end, but everyone needed to get back, and/or was wasted.Total ride was over 5 hours, with 5000' of climbing, 16.7 miles, two broken spokes (Brock), and this was the first mtb ride here where I didn't run out of water!
Did a big ride on Saturday with Dan. We rode the Alpine Trail, which is also the course for the Cascade Cream Puff 100. Of course we only did it once, they do it three brutal times. The ride worked me over! It's 16 miles of climbing to the top, then you do the descent, which has a bit of climbing mixed in as well. All in all, 5260' of climbing, in 32 miles is what I registered. By the time we got to the top (about 3.5 hours for me :(, I was pretty much wasted. I was also out of water, which really sucked, because we had about two hours to go! The Alpine trail singletrack descent is really nice though. Very narrow singletrack, super high quality. It wasn't technical, but it was fast and fun for sure. I used my GPS and posted the map.I am fairly eager to go back to Alpine, because honestly, I wasn't fully able to enjoy the descent. I was out of water, bonked, and so was mainly working to get down fast, not cramp (any more), and so on. It was also raining a good chunk of the time, although mostly the latter half of the climb, at the top where it was fairly cold (there was still some snow left). So, I know at minimum I'll be riding this again in August during Mountain Bike Oregon, and we'll do it as a shuttle, so that'll be very nice.Oh, last bit. This was the maiden voyage on the Lyric fork. It worked great so far. I did notice that it's a bit taller, and I don't have the Flood Gate dialed in, so it was diving under braking and steeper sections more than I'd like. I think when I get the Flood Gate going it'll be sweet, as when I played with it quickly, it clearly has the platform type effect.
Matchmakers: clean bars - rider's viewOriginally uploaded by Christopher Bailey If you run Juicy 7's and X-9's or other compatible combos, you should run out and get some Avid Matchmakers. These create a single bar clamp for both, and clean up your bars nicely. It's a small thing, but it's really slick. This picture shows the rider's view, and it's just nice and clean.You still get a dual-bolt setup, so you can now take off both your brake levers and shifters without removing grips, etc. This shot is from my Niner. Unfortunately the X-9's on my Reign are older and aren't compatible. I will try to resist getting new X-9's simply to be able to use Matchmakers ;-)
Lyric 2 Step mounted on my ReignOriginally uploaded by Christopher Bailey Today I mounted up my new RockShox Lyric 2 Step fork on the Reign. Easy of course. I have to say, as per my previous post, the Maxle is just amazingly easy and nice to use. See my Flickr photos for more pics if you want.
Today was my first exposure to RockShox' Maxle 20mm thru axle/quick release combo. I mounted up my new Lyric fork, and of course it has a Maxle. All I can say is, this is it, this is the ultimate axle/QR I've used! It is so darn easy to use, and it seems to combine all the good attributes of any of the other designs. For example, I liked what Manitou did with their hex-axle, so that the axle wouldn't twist/spin. Maxle solves that because it threads in. Maxle's quick release is trivialy easy and nice to use, and there are no pinch bolts, no tools needed, etc. Basically, all the advantages of 20mm thru axles, combined with all the advantages of a standard QR. I love it. Now I can't wait to ride the Lyric. Maiden voyage will be this Saturday (unless I sneak out sooner).
Just signed up for the August date of Mountain Bike Oregon, an awesome 3 day riding fest. I've started to ride some of the trails in Oakridge, now that I live an hour away, and it's very good stuff. In fact, my first ride there was on the Middle Fork (not quite all of it, as there was still snow at the top), which is a featured shuttle ride for MBO. Anyway, check it out. Matt, John, and Shannon will be joining me so far.