Dirt Fest 2012 part 2

Rolling the road section back to our campground

Adam Lipinski was slangin pies all evening from his homemade camp pizza oven.  He was turnin out a thin crust every 5 minutes with this oven that was at about 700 degrees F.  Faces got rocked.

Taylor Patterson rocks out the generator powered pinball machine.  The brake levers operated the flippers.

JPatt, Alex and I cruising back from Rays to Lake.

Cliff Jumping on the cruise

Matt and Mary (center) took us on a tour of the trails on the other side of the lake

Then I saw this spectacle of east coast ingenuity.  Single Speed and Full suspension.

Dirst Fest Part 1

This past week I traveled to Pennsylvania for DirtRag Magazines Annual Mountain Bike Festival Dirt Fest.  I have been trying to capitalize on the fact that I can fly Southwest Airlines pretty cheap, and I have been wanting to demo more bikes in more dynamic terrain than what is usually afforded at demo days in MN.  The week before last, the Angry catfish had a demo day at Carver Lake.  While this was a great chance to try out a bike, its hardly the place to put a 4 inch FS bike through the paces.  The trails at Rays Town lake in PA offer the perfect mix of terrain, and there were no less than 10 different demo trucks, so there were tons of opportunities to ride a lot of different bikes and evaluate what was right for you.

Patterson concedes the position of Capt to Matt, instead relishing his role as Rear Admiral.

We arrived at Rays Town lake on Thursday night for the exhibitors cruise around the lake.  I ended up hanging with the guys from Swiftwick, talking about life back in the old country.  

TPatt and Graham counting cans

 I also got to chill with Graham Daniels of Cannondale over many Dales Pale Ales.  I explained that I had never really considered a Cannondale since I was not really familiar with the Lefty.  He offered to pull one apart for me the next morning before the expo opened, just to show me how simple they actually were.

The next morning feeling kind of bleary, I stumbled over to the expo area for my Lefty lesson.  It literally took less that 90 seconds to disassemble the fork for damper service.  Graham showed me that all you really need is the special tool to remove and replace the Cartridge Damper, which is recommended at least once a year.  The next thing I knew, I was on the Scalpel 29 headed up the hill with the Swiftwick guys for some early morning shred session.  We were immediately blown away by how nice the trails were.  The Allegripis trails at Rays Town Lake are not overly rocky, but require diligence since they allow you to carry so much speed into corners and rollers.  I was immensely impressed with how well the Scalpel performed, and how precise the steering was with the Lefty.  Matt, from Swiftwick, was on a rigid bike, but was still just absolutely thrashing it given the fact that he is pretty new to mountain biking. Ended up getting in over 35 miles of single track that first day, and ended the day at Harlan Price's Cornering skills clinic.  Harlan did a really great job walking everyone through the principles of trail riding.  He covered body position, line of sight, plus weighting and unweighting the pedals.  There really was something for everyone.  My only disappointment was that we did not have enough time for some actual trail time.

Harlan Price advises riders during a skills drill.

4 people and 3 tents

No shortage of good reading material in the ol' blue box

On Saturday, I got to use some of the basic skills that Harlan instilled in us, as I got to ride with a brand new mountain biker.  One of Pattersons college roommates, Alex, from VA came up for Dirtfest.  We put him on the Niner Jet RDO.  We practiced clipping in and clipping out a few times, talked about being in the "neutral" and "ready" positions for turns and obstacles, and the kept repeating the mantra "just keep pedaling, don’t stop".  Alex did great all morning, and never had a problem all day.  Its really fun to see people progress as a rider.

Badass Plumber

Patterson lets no demo bike stem go unslammed

Saturday afternoon I did the Rays to Lake ride.  Which was essentially a race paced ride out of the expo area up the road to the top of Osprey trail, then screaming down to the Hydro loop where we were supposed to meet a house boat.  It was sort of like a race in that only the first 30 people that finished would be able to board the houseboat (that also had a keg of Sierra Nevada).  This was also the only time during the weekend that I demo'ed a hardtail, a Cannondale Flash.  I was really impressed with that bike.  As we went up the road to the top I really started to see the flash shine.  It’s a 29'er that really does not start to shine until you put it in the big ring.  I was a little worried when we started down the descent, as I was in front of the group, but once we hit Hydro the group was pretty strung out.  There was only one SS'er that was with me, and I wanted to see how the bike handled in the corners, so I started really punching it out of the turns. I did not know where the boat was going to pick us up, so me and the SS'er just busted out another loop on Hydro.  So much fun on a super fun bike.

Then we started our cruise back to camp, that we interrupted for some cliff jumping and aquatic shenanigans.







More tomorrow.

Foresight

Its a quality that I do not always exhibit, but today as I was getting ready to buy new Hyd. brake lines so I could move the Elixirs over to the Ferrous I thought it might be a good idea to measure before I cut.  I just assumed since I had originally shortened them for the Scott Scale that they would be too short for the long wheelbase of the Ferrous. 
Wrong.
The line length is perfect.
I just saved 40 bucks.
I think that deserves a special treat!

Strada Fango

Fast Forward:  I had just bridged up to the lead group (on a SS this is something to crow about) about 5 miles into what I thought was a gravel road race.  After collecting myself, I started to pay attention and look around.  I was immediately struck by the fact that everyone in this break was on a full suspension mountain bike. a few minutes later the gravel road race ended as we hit the ATV trails.  That was about the end of my time at the front.  By the 10 mile mark I had manged to pinch flat both tubeless tires at the same time as I banged down the rocky ATV trails.
Stop.
Mutter expletives. 
Start putting in tubes.
Get mocked by the two dudes on the tandem.
Reflect on the irony of that.
Clean up my yardsale.
Chase down the tandem and shout at them.

I managed to move backup through the group, and eventually got in with a group, but the pounding on my hands was pretty demoralizing.  This course had everything. We rode through singletrack, pavement, ski trails, ATV trails, Dams, through a strip mine, and across lots of sand.  It was obvious that the organizers did a ton of work to place all the signage which made it easy to navigate.  There were even some freshly cut ST sections. 
Lots of rolling terrain.  I was a hurting unit when I finished.  It was so rolling that I could never get on top of my 42:18 gearing.  I think I only managed a avg speed of 14 mph, which is way too slow (contributing to my demoralization).
Bottom Line:
Many thanks to the Organizers. 
Don't show up without a geared 4 inch FS bike with 1.9's.  I now understand why Trek sells so many Top Fuels in WI.

Terrrorists

You never know when they will slam on their brakes.
I would never live in California. I don't know that this is California so I will just rely on preconceived stereotypes to guide my judgement.
Never once did it occur to her that maybe she should not have slammed on her brakes in the middle of the trail.  Its not like she wasn't wearing enough equipment to drown Michael Phelps. I felt bad for the guy that ran into her. He just kept taking her verbal abuse.  I would have loved to see John Waller deal with this situation.

I am gonna go hunt some morels with Brutus and the little man.  If some little ol' Chinese lady starts creeping on my mushroom territory I will scream and throw my bike at her. 

Mammoth Gravel Classic

That ride was reminiscent of when I was in high school when I got nominated to participate in a game of "donkey basketball" as a fundraiser for our high school Ag program (I am pretty sure that this fundraising practice is outlawed nowadays)  It consisted of careening out of control, almost getting bucked off (don't doubt my ability to cover some hide), dragging a recalcitrant animal around, and getting the poop kicked out of me, repeatedly while trying to shoot hoops in the gym.  It was incredibly fun, had a ton of laughs, and I was wore slap out when it was all said and done.  The Mammoth Gravel Classic had all of these hallmarks (minus the donkey kicks).

When I rolled into the Cyclova XC shop in downtown Saint Croix Falls, I immediately saw several friendly faces as we got signed in, picked up Gandy Dancer Trail Passes, and shot the bull with Frank and Ben, the proprietors of Cyclova XC.  Got to visit with Wooly Race Organizer Matt Fisk, who was leading us out of town in a Chevy Volt.  Thought that was a nice touch.

Once we we hit River Road it was all business as a ton of people surged to the front, and the group was really zipping along at 22 mph.  Saw multiple Tandems, including the Salsa Prototype Tandem that was captained by Joe Meiser and powered by Jason Gaikowski.  I was really impressed with how Salsa spec'ed it. I also was please to see that instead of using a tandem specific crankset, they ran the timing chain on the drive side on the granny rings.  I saw a tandem at NAHMB that was set up the same way, and thought it was a great idea as there are so few decent, modern tandem cranks.

Once we hit Wolf Creek it was time to move up as the soft sand was making things pretty sketch.  Managed  to stay in the top 30 until we hit 310th Ave when the blow sand really started to pull the group apart.  I managed to stay clear and found myself in the top 5 with Jesse Rients trying to chase down the couple of mountain bikers that got away.  After a couple minutes of watching Jesse ride away, I heard Chad Sova and Barry Tungseth roll up behind me, and we started to give chase.  At the 25 mile mark I stopped for a PBR at the aid station that they so graciously provided.  That meant that Chad and Barry got away, but I had a PBR to keep me company.
Being on the SS leaves me under no illusions about my place in the world.....or at least the peleton.
I managed to catch back up to Barry a mile or two later.  Sova was gone.  Barry and I traded pulls on County Rd O until we got overtaken by the train that Ted Loosen was driving.  Barry and I tagged along for about 7 miles before I popped.  We had just made contact with Sova, but I just was not able to keep up the mad spinning that it took to compensate for the surging as guys were pulling through.  Barry was kind enough to fall of the back with me, and we pretty much occupied no mans land for the rest of the ride.

My thighs we starting to cramp pretty bad by the time we started to hit the climbs right before Luck.  I tried to walk up one of the climbs, but that did not really help.  I was able to spin it out once we hit the Gandy Dancer.  We rode with Jesse for a little while on the Gandy, as he was the only one from the lead group to stop for coffee at Cafe Wren, but we fell back about 6 miles from the finish.  With about 3 miles to go I whipped out the PBR that I picked up about 40 miles earlier, and split it with Barry.  Was a good way to finish the ride.

Was great route that was well marked, and I thought that it was a excellent way for Cyclova XC to highlight the great routes around that area.  Many thanks to all the people that put in the time and effort to make this awesome event happen.

I am not a important person

But it seems like my time is getting pretty valuable. Not enough of it to put my thoughts down on the interwebs.
Made Cookies though.

The right woman would throw herself at you if you have a bucket of these and a half gallon of 2%.

You cant see it below but butch is eating a donut the size of his head.....while riding with a 25 mph tailwind, on a perfect MN day. Happy Easter.


We should have donut hunts on Easter. (Filched from Butches twitter Acct)

God knows about these donuts, he can see them from space.

Katie told Butch she wanted a new back door. We made it happen.

Prepping the new base for the sill plate.
It took us a few hours, mostly due to my OCD and over analysis, but we got it hung.