Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Mediocre!!


If anybody is still out there, haven't blogged in a while...have been riding, but...have a new blog of sorts.

Check out the Bronto Blog, this is Todd's and my project:
http://brontobikes.com/blog/blog.php/

Follow more mediocre adventures there!

Friday, May 28, 2010

Dragons, the movie

A little video tribute to Welsh riding and the late, great Ronnie James Dio.

Dragons


It's no coincidence that Wales has a dragon on its flag, and just recently the mighty Ronnie James Dio, legendary singer of dragons and demons, passed away. Well...maybe there is no connection, but anyway myself and the Tachelet Brothers headed up to Wales after RJD's recent passing for some trail riding.

Su-per trails! Maybe the best I've done in Europe. Big mountain riding as it should be. Heaps of climbing followed by seemingly endless singletrack descents. Our first day was to Afan, the most famous of the Welsh riding centers. Multiple marked trails according to different skill levels gave us some choices. We went right for the meat - the W2, a 44km slog fest made up of 80%+ of single track. Heaven! Long descents, technical singletrack climbs, big views, and perfect weather. Awesome day.

After a culturally diverse night (mingling among the Welsh knuckleheads and their terrible tattoos), we went out for another big ride. This time in a smaller trail center, Brechfa. Super nice guy at the Drop-Off Cafe gave us some tips and we headed out for another 40km ride. This time, instead of going up and then down, we went up, down, up, down, and so on. Lots and lots of climbing. But that gave heaps of scrumptious trails, and more diverse terrain than at Afan. It took us about an hour longer to complete this loop than at Afan, and we were pretty destroyed at the end, but it was worth it.

Finally, back (for me) to Cwmcarn for 1.5 hours of 100% singletrack goodness. We got up early as we had a ferry to catch, and were clipping in just after 7am. Peter had hurt his back the day before, so it was just Stijn and me pedaling up the very technical climb. What a fantastic ride! To get so much exercise and thrills in just an hour and a half. Hour and half on the road bike and I'm falling asleep. Mountain biking rules!!

So there you have it. 3 days of some of the best riding I've done. Trails like big west-coast USA trails. Top that off with English beer and Indian food, and you have a pretty ok trip. Except...for the English breakfasts. But you can't have everything, right?


Dio, RIP

UK, here we come!


All those squiggly lines? Trails!


The big blue van saw us through the trip.


Motley crew


One of the rare moments not on singletrack


Some "north shore" features. Clearly I was riding so fast I came out blurry...


The next day at Brechfa. First big climb, Peter breaks a chain


Flowers are pretty


Here we go...


Trails, trails, trails


Stijn getting his groove on


Well-deserved beers at the end.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Ridgecrest, CA



Ah, the desert. Something magical about it. It attracts artists, loners, writers, and lots and lots of military base families. Ridgecrest (RC), California, is no different. I was here on a weekend with Ivan and Jenise, to check out the legendary RC. We had all heard the stories...ah, the stories. I had to find out for myself.

I imagine if you had to grow up there...you might hate it. As my colleague Craig kind of did. He got out as soon as he could and moved to the beach in San Diego. He also advised me not to ride trails above the college.

"Hey Ivan, where we riding?" "Above the college!" Well, we were trying to bust out a morning ride. No time to drive to something epic. And this was the local network of trails, people have been biking, hiking, 4xing, trucking, and squatting here for as long as Ridgecrest has been in existence. I love riding local loops.



Desert riding usually means getting up at the crack of dawn, or slightly beforehand. In September, it can still get above 30 degrees in the daytime. Hot. We met up with one of Ivan's old riding buddies and set out on the climb, stopping shortly thereafter for Ivan's ritual mid-climb stretch.




We climbed and climbed, getting a pretty good view of the valley. After some steep double track rollers, we went onto some new singletrack that was oh so tasty. It was not super long, but long enough for a local loop. Technical, tight, rocky, rocks to play on - everything you want out of desert singletrack.

Afterwards we had a huge american pancake breakfast. Good day.

Admittedly, I look like shit at 7:30am on the trail


Old mines around here. Pick your line carefully.


Some local hessians had built some hugemongous stunts.


Ridgecrest lies down below

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The lummen loop is back!

A fine and sunny april has erased all the mud and the Belgian trails are in fine form.
I dusted off the Spot, everything seemed to be in working order, and headed out for a morning loop with Jeff. Super fun. So nice riding without mud...

Guest rider Jeff with his beautiful ti IF single speed


The next day I went out again, but found a flat tire waiting for me on the Spot. Luckily, the Spooky cross bike was waiting in the wings. Riding cross bikes on single track usually sucks, but this is Belgium so it wasn't too bad. In fact, the Spooky was pretty quick on a lot of sections - very light weight and with skinny tires, I had no problem pushing a 39x17 around for the most part.

There's still more destruction creeping into the loop, seems every few couple months a huge truck or tractor drives in and tears a bunch of trees down. But, some previously blocked trails were clear and all in all I can't complain.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Houffalize WC



Anybody who knows their stuff in mountain biking knows that the Houffalize world cup is the most venerated and possibly oldest stop on the UCI world cup circuit. If you're an American and you come to Houffalize for the first time, walking down the road into the little stadium-like town, with 20,000 people drinking beer and cheering on mountain bikers, it's like you just walked into heaven. Despite what I like to call the worst XC course in history, the racing is always exciting, with many vantage points.

One thing I never understood about Belgium, however, was why they run their trails straight up and down the mountains. It's great for cobbled roads like the Koppenberg, but I've been on so many rides in beautiful forested areas, where I just have to scratch my head and ask, "did they intend to make the most boring trail on earth?"

But enough complaining. The race was fun, the Lachouffe beer was good, some girl won on a COLNAGO and some guy won on a Merida. This is a long, long ways away from Oakridge, Oregon!

Always good crowds at this event

American on a 29er lost to a Colnago. How poetic

German doper almost took the spoils...but faded on the last lap

Best line was on the inside of this straight-down-the-hill-boring-descent

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Riding with really really fast people


After a brutally hard 150+km at the amstel gold on saturday, on a "road bike", I thought it would be a nice morning to go ride the local toertocht in Rillaar. It was close to Aarchot/Langdorp, and was heavily promoted, so the chance that there would be some ok riding was pretty high. And if that wasn't enough, trails were dry as a bone, the weather was pretty damn awesome, and I hadn't ridden on Belgian dirt for months. So I decided to take the Spooky cross bike out on its maiden dirt voyage.

However, when I showed up I saw Kim Saenen (top Belgian racer lady) and a bunch of other people with former national champion stripes on their sleeves. "Oh, really really fast people", I thought, "this might be fun." Famous last words.

Let us fast forward to the first food stop where, having lost a lung and a spleen along the trail somewhere, I decided that 72km of super-duper race pace was not for me, and took a shorter loop home. Yes, it was sprint-from-every-corner, sprint up the hills...bleed from your eyeballs kind of riding. Or it was for me, at least. Most of the people in our group were riding with one hand on the bar, talking to each other, and sipping a cappucino as they dragged me all over the Rillaar area.



Do not let this distract from the pretty awesome (for Belgium) trail riding! Sandwiched between Aarschot and Scherpenheuvel, this tocht had the potential to be either really awesome, or really terrible. Luckily, it was really awesome. Lots and lots of fun little singletrack bits. Better even than, dare I say, the Langdorp toertoch. Technical, fast, tricky, fun.


Anyway. The bike was awesome and it was good to get back on the dirt. Going to need to get me a geared mtb here pretty soon...

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Is Wales a country??



When twenty-ten rolled around, I made a pledge to ride in 3 new countries this year. I'm not one for resolutions and all that, but I definitely want to ride more, and in new places. Meanwhile, I've been aching to ride in wales for years now, from before GG and I had our Scottish adventure. But you can already see the dilemma...does Wales count as a country?

Let's see. They have their own incomprehensible language (with far too many consonants, in my opinion). They have their own national sports teams in international competition. Flag? Check. National identity? Check. Is that close enough? Perhaps I should hold my decision until the end of the year.

This was waiting for me in Wales...


So finally the day had come. I had a free day and was in London. That meant I was going to Wales! About 2 hours from the sister's house in west London, I planned to make a day trip out of it. Wales, like Scotland, has a number of purpose-built riding centers just for mountain bikes!!! Pure genius. The original plan was to hit Afan, a center (or should I say, centre) just outside of Cardiff. An uber-epic 46km loop of single track was waiting for me. Unfortunately, those plans were derailed when the most absurd showing of traffic control ever played itself out, right in front of me. ONE TRUCK turns over. ONE TRUCK. The result? Full stop on the freeway, for all traffic. For two hours.

Now I'm sure there are those among you who are saying, just as I did, two hours? With the engine off? For one overturned truck? Didn't the British build one of the largest empires of all time, stretching to all corners of the globe? Didn't they invent a bunch of stuff like subways and little tea sandwiches? Haven't they produced the two biggest rock bands of all time? The answer to all these questions is yes. But somehow, the 21st century skill of traffic routing has evaded this quaint little island. It defies logic, is all that I can say, having experienced it first hand.

This was my view for 2 hours...


End result - new plans. 3 hours later, I passed the singly overturned truck, and headed to a closer riding center - CWMCARN. Now, I have no idea how to pronounce that, but that's not important. What's important was that it was TOTALLY AWESOME. I can say with confidence that it's the most fun I've had on a mountain bike since August, when I was in Oakridge with the boys. 15.5km of delicious singlerack. So so tasty.

It started with a nice opening gambit, a steep little stair-case track strewn with rocks. After some rolls, it settled into a fantastic and extremely technical singltrack climb right alongside a bubbling brook. Green moss and everything. I had just ridden a road bike for multiple hours the day before, but the goesting was high, weather was perfect, and I was so excited to be on fun trails.

At the top there was a pretty ok view, followed by a peeing-in-pants-inducing descent. Fast, fast, fast, bermed to the brim, and fun. Some choppy stuff as well - part of the fun in riding here was the different terrain, dominated by flat rocks in every shape and size. After some more climbing, more descending, hill traversing, more descending, and more climbing, the final descent brought me back to the parking lot. It was brilliant - a roller coaster line of very tacky soil and seemingly endless berms. Like Whistler for 5-inch bikes.

So yes. Wales basically rocks. English traffic people do not. But I will be back in Wales...there are heaps of trails waiting to be devoured.

The riding "centre" had a pretty nice little cafe and info area


I was rocking the Ibis. Perfect bike. That 160 fork in front was perfect going down.


Huh?


Trail info was comprehensive...


Which way?


Cute little welsh boars guided you along the way


If this doesn't make you horny for your mountain bike, you're hopeless


My silhouette in front of some welsh hills

More from Seattle - Black Diamond



It's shocking sometimes, when you log into your blog, to see when the last post was. March 26. It's been my intention to update twice a week, how did 3 weeks fly by? I hope I've been doing something constructive in that period...

Well, to be honest, there hasn't been a lot of mtbing going on. I've lost the goesting for the lumma loop. I need to go out and build some new features, because as is...it's a bit of a snooze fest. That said, I did do one other ride in Seattle (and rode in Wales this week, that's coming later).

So back when I was a kid...walking to school in the snow every day and all that...the majority of our mountain biking was done out at Victor Falls. Ah, Victor Falls, what sweet memories. Well south of Seattle, up on the ridge above Sumner and Orting, there was a huge forested region that really wasn't ok for bikes, but wasn't prohibited either. A seemingly endless network of criss-crossing trails, we could spend all day out there. Well, Victor Falls is mostly houses now, but the new place is just down the road from mom's house, in Black Diamond.

Yes, Black Diamond. Real America. But the riding is pretty damn good! A vast network of tasty singletrack has sprung up since I last lived in the US. I met Eric and Todd Graham out there (the day before I broke a rib in a stupid road race). Typical Eric was in race mode...but that was fine, it was good to giver' a little bit and burn the legs. And although I didn't know it, this was to be the last ride on the Belgian 29er...I'll miss you B29. We shared a lot together.

Friends. Superbe single track. Fantastic weather. What more do you want?

Eric was in "go" mode all day.


Todd had just finished a time trial on the road bike.


The last photo of the Belgian 29er shredding!!

Friday, March 26, 2010

ZOLDER


When Alex asked if I wanted to do the Zolder toertocht, I thought, why the hell not? I had imposed a mtb moratorium on myself until the trails dried up...one can wash a bike only so many times in one's lifetime. But, ever since I moved to this crazy little country, everybody was talking about Zolder this, and Zolder that. "Did you know Roel Paulissen trains in Zolder?" So how bad could it be, right?


Sad to say, it was MISERABLE. Ok, riding in the dirt with a friend is always ok. But the course. Oef, the course. The picture above is really the highlight of the day. A short little climb where we tested ourselves to see if we could climb it without getting off. We made it.


The rest of the course was like this. Cold. Dirt roads. Muddy. I'm falling asleep just writing about it. To give the organizers some credit, apparently it's a new group putting this on, and there was some reason why they couldn't use a bunch of the normal trails. But still.

Fortunately, the bicycle dinosaur museum was especially powerful today. Look at this! I don't even know what it is, except it's probably almost as old as me. Full carbon fiber with an elevated chainstay. Magura HS-33! And what is with the strange, sea-foam green bar-ends pointing up to the sky, as if to receive special instructions from the mothership?


Here was another beauty. And I'm not laughing at these riders. I think it's cool that they are still shredding belgian singletrack on them. But you must admit...this one is also a little peculiar. The frame, combined with the wheels. V-brakes on a carbon Specialized-branded Rockshox. This was the sexiest bike in Belgium in 1994.


Anyway. Highlights were few and far between this day. But that's all right. Bike wash. Beer. Home to watch a cyclocross race. It was all good.