Lycra vs. Lava

And the winner is... Lava !

Ya gotta respect the lava. It is unyielding, spiky, dangerous stuff. I've heard many lava pain stories, involving cracked bones and shredded tendons. So as I was grinding up one of the lava field climbs, and the way through began narrowing, the fear of flesh-ripping should I lose momentum and tip over caused me to unclip a foot as I neared the top corner. On the other side, a short slope descending into much smoother stuff. So I pushed off, planning to clip back in after I'd rolled the last bit of lava chunks. And then without warning, my front wheel jammed into a depression between two rocks, and I began a slow but certain pivoting over that front wheel, powerless to stop it as one foot was still clipped in. All I could do was brace for impact, as my body arced over the front and slammed hard into the even harder surface.

Several intense points of pain as I untangled myself from the bike. Right knee gashed nicely on the outside - not too much blood, but a view of white tissue through the rent skin. Left hand throbbing, but only sprained. Right pinkie finger flaring in pain - possibly cracked (those things break easy), but still able to flex it. Hmm, only 15 minutes into the ride, what should I do ? All injuries appear to be superficial - the knee is most problematic, but pain is minimal as is the bleeding, and it seems biomechanically sound. So all I've got here is a sh!$#@!load of pain - so I can keep riding - it's just mind over matter, right ? So on I go. The left hand is the only thing really painful, which I don't get, since it seems to work OK. I stop and peel off the glove - OK there's the problem, a large flap of skin has separated from the palm. Doesn't look too bad - keep going.

Manage to fight through it and actually have a good time, though I'm more tentative on the technical sections which is not good. Finally after an hour or so, the knee starts throbbing. I have to get off the bike for numerous bridge crossings, and walking on it is very painful. Hmmm, maybe it is more than superficial ? Soon the pain is traveling up to my hip. Starting to get concerned now - maybe I've nicked a tendon or something. Finally after an hour and a half of this, I decide to turn back. Blah, blah, the pain gets worse and worse. Soon I'm mostly pedalling with one leg. Back at the car, down a couple of Ibuprofin [hmm, maybe should keep some of this stuff in my pack - what's that thing you're supposed to carry around - a Primary Helper Kit or something ?]. OK, let's drive to the clinic I guess, for some bodywork. It's an hour drive, and the vitamin-I has kicked in nicely. The clinic is empty and I get first-class service. The knee gets stitched up - after the doc spends a while extracting dirt and small rocks from the wound - let's add bandages to the Kit next time too. Finger is X-rayed and not broken. Palm is cleaned out (ouch), and taped up.

Pic one week later :


OK lessons learned :
1) This one I already knew, but unfortunately made exceptions to : don't one-foot it through possibly dangerous crap - just walk the bike onto level ground before remounting
2) Ibuprofin - a few of these in the pack would've been good for another 20 miles easy
3) Bandages. Ok pain you can take - a minor bloody wound isn't going to kill you. But inviting dirt and other crap into your body with the broken seal of an open wound is not good.

That's it. Only 1 day off. I was lucky, or unlucky as it were.

Rip9 Test Ride

Whenever I ride my 29'er (DosNiner soft-tail), I am amazed at how it surgically carves turns at high speed, and how easily it gets up chunky climbs with the big wheels. But after a 50 mile ride on it, my butt is sore for a few days.
When I get on me 5+5 full suspension rig, my body is thankful for the extra cush, but the handling is twitchier, and at 32lbs vs 25lbs on the other bike, it takes more energy to crank it up the hills.

So it would seem that a full suspension 29'er might be the best of both worlds, and it was with great anticipation that I borrowed the shop demo Niner Rip9 for a day.



Picked it up the day before, and got in a quick checkout ride around a familiar loop. The first thing I noticed was that it took a bit more energy to drive this thing up the small climbs than my DosNiner - I was always dropping to the granny ring on stuff that I middle-ringed on the other bike. I was sure that the gearing must be different, but a tooth-count when I got back home showed it be the same as my other 29'er. The other thing I noticed was it did climb well over rough-terrain - and in some cases better than the 26'er (as does my other 29'er). It was also nimble on tight switchbacks.


I tweaked the geometry a bit, and next day headed up to Oakridge to meet CWS for a ride up Middle Fork Willamette trail. I'd heard from someone that this was a great trail - well it was nice meandering river trail, but nothing too exciting. The Rip9 handled great around the many tight-steering corners. But again had the sensation that this bike takes more energy to push along the flats and climbs. Descending, it was great. So a mixed bag. And that's about it for the review as it (and you all) have grown tiresome.

Last race / cross

I guess I should fill in some words here ! Way back on Sep 9th or so was the last race I did. I hadn't raced since early July, and was having a blast just riding for fun, with the occasional lunch-hour training sessions thrown in, such as the Awbrey Butte Climbing Star : 5 different steep climbs up that Butte, 6-8 minutes long. I wasn't going to do the race, but then I was curious how it would feel, since I hadn't trained nearly as hard as last year. So went up to Ski Bowl, where the familiar race trails are starting to get boring. But this time they added a nice little twist : every lap (and there were 3 of them), near the end you got routed down a 'downhill' trail, with big rock drops and other treacherous features. This was tough on the soft-tail, and I think this was the first race where I consistently bottomed out my fork. The 3 laps were all a bit different, so race turned out fun.

There were 11 in the 40+ Expert class, which was great. 2 new guys, and 2 'fast' guys, so I figured 3rd was possible. However 1 of the new guys turned out to be faster than the 'fast' guys, turning in a time over 10 minutes faster than the other regular fastest dude. And the other new 1 was not too far behind. So I came in a respectable 5th.


Then I did a couple of cross races in dusty Bend. Cyclocross is fun, except for the fact that you have to get off your bike and run over objstacles, and you do lap after lap of the same course. Hmm, but that's the whole point of the sport - oh well I guess I'm not too into it. It's a good workout though, certainly better than running the treadmill in the gym. The first race I did pretty well. The second race I couldn't get motivated what with the repetitiveness of it all, and I faired poorly. The 3rd one I did lap-counting volunteer - part of the bike shop sponsorship requirement. And there was 1 more which I just didn't bother about. A lot of poeople are nuts about it here, and will travel 3-4 hours to get to a race where they compete for 45 minutes. Not me - I'd rather get my money's worth with a 3 hour mountain bike race. But there is a cool social scene I hear - beer gardens and live music.

Log Ride