Social Dirt

Most Saturday mornings since I was thirteen I have meet up with a small group of riders, who over the years have become my friends. We start our ride from a car park close to the mountain bike trails at Gap Creek Reserve. Most of my training rides are over two hours of pedalling and 98% of my training rides I am riding by myself. So this ride is a nice easy ride where I can socialise and muck about with a few of the other riders.

These riders aren’t super men, some ride a couple of times a week. Even my father attends these rides and he is 60! Occasionally the main rider who sort of runs the social ride brings out his downhill bike and I have seen him ride the 18kg downhill machine up some slopes that I have seen people push their carbon cross country bikes up. For me it’s an easy ride, for some it’s a good Saturday morning work out.

I feel it is important to have this ride to slow me down and refresh my attitude to cycling. One can slip into a training mind where you feel like you are forced to get onto the bike and train. This ride makes you jump on your bike and makes you want to feel the dirt under your wheels and grin ear to ear as you pump a jump, bunny hop over dips in the track and flick out dirt as your tear up a berm.

Today we were riding down a trail called ‘Lost’ and we came across a natural jump/dip and we did some gremlin work to set up a small jump with sticks. I didn’t feel comfortable attempting it but a couple of the other riders who come from a downhill background gave it a whirl.

                   

 

Deadly Waterbars

On Wednesday I was out riding around Gap Creek in the morning with a couple of mates. They are both fairly skilled with their mountain biking handling except one, who has only really been doing it on and off for a year or so, but we were out for a fun relaxed ride.

We had been riding for about a hour. Riding up and over Mt.Cootha and back up past the Channel 9 broadcasting station. The plan was to go back down in the reserve and do all the single trail that surrounds the park. Rolling down the fire trail which I think is known as Three Sisters, this is a fire trail that leads you down past a turn off that leads you down to a road which takes you back to The Gap. It also takes you to the top of a fun trail called Dingo which I think would be classed as an advanced track due to early tricky rock garden climbs. 

My friends and I started to descend and I was just mucking about drifting my back wheel all over the place trying to kick up dust, and in general be and idiot. Since my mates were coming down close behind me I stopped fooling about and started to descend fast. That’s when I heard a voice and I looked back see my mate almost cartwheeling down the fire trail heading towards a tree. I had already turned around and started to ride back to him as he was collecting him self on the ground.

Bad news, he had a huge gash in his leg and pretty scratched up hip. He was lucky not to do any more damage then he had. He couldn’t really move because he was pinching the skin together. I had to ride down Dingo and drove up to the road where it meets the fire road he was on. I had a first aid kit but I had rung a surgery and they were happy to clean up his wound which was a relief.

What had happened is that he was descending just fine but he was approaching one of the waterbars in the road and he slammed on his front breaks to slow him down. As he was doing that his rear wheel bucked while it was going over the water bar sending him flying over the handle bars.

Just a bit of riding advice with waterbars. They are a fantastic and simple way to keep fire roads where they should be. Allowing the water to run over them and down in the bush. A natural gutter. They are also turn a boring fire trail in one where you can jump off the water bars or even pump your bike down over the other side increasing your speed. But if you’re a beginner or don’t fancy on jumping them and want to enjoy descending this is what I can advice you to do.

• Weight over your back wheel (This doesn’t mean standing up on your pedals over your seat, I mean stretching your arms out and getting your weight over that wheel)
• On approach to the water bar, try to lose all your speed before you get to it
• If you do panic just use the back break, this won’t send your weight flying forward
• Gently squeeze your breaks (also known as to “feather” your breaks) on and off to maintain your speed properly, if you slam them on it will give you less traction and control.

My mate also managed to dent his frame and destroy his break leavers!

No sealant?

I was out at Gap Creek trails today. Just doing a easy ride around on the single trail. My Dad was riding with me, he had the day off. We were cruising along some trails and I was starting to descend down some switch back sections when I heard the sound of air leaking out of my front tire. Turning the wheel to find the air rushing out of my front tire on the ridge of the tire. Naturally I rolled the wheel forward and down towards the ground to let the Stans sealant fill the hole. I inspected the hole and it wasn’t big at all. The puncture was about the size of a needle. I rolled the wheel back down towards the ground and tried to get some dirt and surface area around the hole to see if it needed assistance to seal up. Again no luck. Time for a tube. I pulled off the tire to replace it with a tube to discover there was no sealant in there. I had put at least two cups full of Stans sealant in a few months ago and it had seemed to of disappeared. It’s a mystery still. Any how taking out the tubeless air valve I whacked the tube in and I was on my way. My legs were feeling pretty good after the long weekend of racing and traveling. It was also nice to tone down the intensity of the training ride and the length. Tomorrow I am taking a couple of mates around Gap Creek and show them an awesome time. I will get some snap shots of the trails tomorrow. They are feeling nice under the bike.