Mountain Bike Oregon 2007

This past week/weekend, eight friends and I attended Mountain Bike Oregon.  There were some rough edges for the event, but we wound up having a pretty great time, and some superb riding.  Matt took his new Sportsmobile on pretty much its maiden voyage here, and I slept in the top bunk during the trip - very cush, and certainly nicer than camping.  Some of the others had an RV, and Rich and Barry each slept in a tent.  

On Thursday when some of us had arrived, we did a quick two hours on the south side of the Salmon Creek trail.  This is a really cool trail.  I'd expected something kinda lame, since we could just ride to this, and heard it was just a quicky loop from town, but it was very good!  Very scenic bridge/river crossing bit at the end too.  

Friday was the big epic shuttle of the Middle Fork.  33 miles I believe, about 5 hours +/- riding time.  The chaos began in the morning with a bus ride gone wrong: driver got lost.  What was supposed to be a 1.25 hour shuttle, became 3 hours!  John, our Google Earth guy, used a GPS and the map and got us on the right track, and we all made the ride and loved it.  

Saturday we did the Tire Mountain/Alpine shuttle, which was just awesome.  I was totally knackered on the climbs, but the descents were so sweet!  Lots of long, flowy, fast, tight singletrack, some extreme switchbacks, and just great stuff!  I ran out of water with about an hour to go, which sucked, but oh well.  This was a really great trail. 

Sunday it had rained all night the night before, and was still in the morning, and most of us had to get going, so we just packed it in and headed out after breakfast in the rain (the MBO folks had put up some tents/EZ-Ups, so it was fine).  

A few of us took pictures:

• My pictures
  
• Matt's pictures
  
• Jay's pictures

I rode my Reign for the duration.  It was great on the Middle Fork, but I think I'd actually rather of had my Niner on Tire.  There were some rough spots, but I just love my Niner, and the lower center of gravity.

The Specialized folks were at MBO, and I got to take a quick spin on their new 5" travel 29er.  No doubt about it, that's my next bike - will be getting rid of the Reign for that.

Two Great Rides This Weekend

Matt was visiting for a few days, and we rode on Friday and Saturday. Friday we did Brice Creek, and Saturday Larison Rock. Both were good rides, even if I screwed up and had us do the Falls loop portion of Brice backwards (we probably had to hike 3/4 of the climb).

Matt did a good job with the photos and blogging of them, so check these out:

Brice Creek

Larison Rock

Make sure to check out the photos page - you'll see we rode under the waterfall, and so on.

Also, as Matt said, we know now that we'll almost for sure want to try to get in the Larison Rock shuttle while at Mt. Bike Oregon. I was absolutely hating life on the climb, but the descent was superb, and will be a great shuttle. It's not real long (3.5 miles), so we will be able to tack that on to whatever else we do say on Saturday. Probably a good Saturday will be to shuttle Alpine and shuttle Larison Rock. We may be knackered after Friday's epic, so a couple great shuttle runs will be sweet (Alpine has a few climbs during the descent, but it's probably 17 miles of descent and 1 mile of climbing :)

It was harsh having been off the bike for a couple weeks, and just getting back from traveling, but what a great couple days we had. Matt had also scoped out this great hidden hot springs (we soaked in water up to 108 - or Matt tried the 108 pool, the 106 was plenty for me, and the rather chilly river was fun too).

I also found that that Sport Legs stuff is quite effective (thanks Matt). And, that damn if the lemon-lime Sport Beans aren't awesome tasting (and I think working) when you are seriously bonked out.

I rode my Niner at Brice, and the Reign at Larison. Have the Lyric fork dialed in fairly well now, liking that. Wished I had the Niner on the climb up Larison, but was glad to rip the descent on the Reign. I've upgraded to 8" front, 7" rear rotors on my Reign now (and may go
to 7/7" on the Niner as well), for the long descents here. Makes a really nice difference, as I was getting some fade and such out of the dual 6" I was running before (especially somewhere like Alpine or Crawfish where you're into 5+ miles of continuous descent).

Figuring Out the Percent Grade of A Climb

You always hear about the percent grade of climbs during the grand tours, or other road races. The final climb up to my house after any road ride is a fairly harsh way to finish up a ride, and I wanted to see what it was.

I realized I wasn't truly sure how they determined what the percent grade of a climb was. As it turns out, it's pretty simple, it's just rise over run, or the tangent of the angle. So, you can easily figure out the average gradient of a climb by using Google Maps for quick distance, and Google Earth for the elevations. You don't need addresses in Google Maps, just find the area on the map, and right click to set start and end points. In Google Earth you can just hover over the spot and look at the status info at the bottom to see the altitude (in meters). Using that, I found that the average gradient, over the .7 mile last climb to my house is 9.2%. Not too shabby.

Now go figure out the pain of your local climb...

Brice Creek Ride On Niner

I rode Brice Creek today. This is an excellent trail, and was perfect for what I wanted today. It's on the shorter side as compared to the mtb rides I've done here in OR so far, as I spent exactly 2.5 hours out on the trail, which included flailing around at one trail junction trying to figure out where to go (which turned out to be relatively easy, but I had mis-interpreted the directions I had).

The trail has some nice rocky bits, and superb views, of both the river/creek, and the waterfall. The pictures linked to above show the waterfall, which is cool, because you can actually ride behind it. This was certainly the first time I've ridden behind/under a waterfall.

I rode my Niner today which was wonderful. I just have so muc fun with this bike. Sure, it does float over the rocky bits, or land airs like my Reign, but it's just a ton of fun, and is a nice change of pace.

Drove home, and as I got into town, conversed with the family, and picked up some excellent Mexican at Fina Taqueria, and ate at a park. Gorgeous day too.

Loving the Kent Ericsen ti post!

I've ridden the custom Kent Eriksen ti post I got for my Niner a few times now. It is awesome. It has a noticeable bit of flex to it, which I love because my Niner is fully rigid, and I wanted a bit more help :) It also looks really nice on the bike, as the ti color matches the Niner lettering, and the orange head/clamp hardware fits with the orange paint.

Swiss Stop King/Flash Brake Pads - Phenomenal

If you ride carbon rims (and maybe even if you don't), you should immediately get yourself some Swiss Stop King brake pads! These things just rock. I'm running them on my Zero Gravity brakes stopping Reynolds Stratus DV wheels/rims. The improvement is just amazing (and that is coming off the pads that Reynolds recommended/supplied). I feel that my brakes work equally as well as any aluminum rim combo now.

The pads come in Campy/Zero Gravity, or Shimano/SRAM compatible versions, and come in pairs (total of 4 pads). Unfortunately the Campy version costs $15 more, which I can't understand why, but maybe it's just the "Campy tax").


2007 Swiss Stop Race 2000 Yellow King Carbon Brake Pads for Campagnolo

2007 Swiss Stop Flash Yellow King Carbon Brake Pads for Shimano/SRAM

Custom Eriksen Seat Post

Eriksen Seat Post
Originally 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.