Anything Goes – Page 5 – The Ramblings of MTBBill

Big Laguna Meadow Cruise

The weather was pretty freaking awesome this past weekend out in the east end of San Diego County. It was a wonderful time to head out to the Laguna Mountain Recreation Area for some playing around on the Big Laguna trail.

BLT-16JUN12-BNN-23

While just a few days away from the offical start of summer, there was plenty of green and patches of wildflowers here and there.

BLT-16JUN12-BNN-05

While riding technical stuff and challenging yourself is always fun and exciting sometimes just getting out on a nice sliver of singlerack in some beautiful countryside good for the soul. Such was the case of on this day.

Tasty Beer from Alpine Beer Company afterwards does not hurt either!

Arrrgh….Swabbies get yer CPO Jersey

Okay so quite a few of you know I spent a couple hundred moons or so kicking around in US Navy. Wither you have already joined the ranks of the quitters like myself or you are still the country’s good work at the pointy end of the spear, here is a jersey you members of the Goat Locker might like. Some active duty folks have put in a good chunk of work with primal to get this custom jersey put together.

The front view

The back view.

“NAVY” is printed in nice and big letters on the yellow side panels. This will allow all your Army buddies to know exactly what happened when you shred past them on those downhills. (At least if there is a bar at the bottom the hill)

If you dont know what size you wear in the Primal apparel line check out their handy dandy sizing chart.

You can order these jerseys directly from Primal from now until March 9th. Orders placed by March 9th will be delivered the week of May 21st. Like most custom orders, they need to get a minimum order together the make the deal go through without someone taking in in the shorts

Here is the link for the Men’s Jersey and here is the link for Women’s Jersey.

I already have mine on order. Even if you are not interested pass this along for those that maybe.

I had to get one as it matches one of my bikes quite nicely.

Good Question – My Travel Case

So I got a question in the email yesterday that I thought the answer would be worth sharing.

Don Maneth wrote:

“…I know you travel with your bike a ton. Which travel case do you use? Do the airlines accept it as recreational equipment for an additional charge? Typical fee?”

Well Don, I have traveled quite a bit with my bike and I would be glad to pass on some of my observations.

The Luggage:

The travel case I have is a Trico Sports Ironcase. I have been quite happy with the one I have have since 2005. It was first called into action for a trip to Copper Canyon in Mexico but it has been used for trips to the East Coast, Japan and the Pacific Northwest. When I first bought mine, I got it as part of group buy deal that run me $200. These days it retails for around $329. I will say this about the case. I have yet to have one of the airline baggage gorillas damage this case or the contents.

Packing these things are pretty particular and the TSA nearly always want to take a look in the book. I have gathered this from the numerous times of getting the “We looked in Bag” note from the TSA. I typically mention at the counter that the arrangment of the stuff in box is pretty particular and I would like to be prsent for the TSA looksee. It typically depends on the airport you are at wither they will accomidate the request or not, but I pack the box with the thought of this happening in mind.

Notice that my lightweight short-travel XC bike will fit with the fork still in the headset. With my longer-legged and slacker geometry bikes (6″ and 7″ travel forks) I have had to remove the fork from the headset. If you have to do this I highly recommend that you take a piece of string and runn it through the head tube and tie all the bearing/headset bits together. Also place any spacers back on the steerer tub and screw the headset cap back on to make sure the bits don’t go off an unplanned adventure.

The Airlines and Luggage Fees:

The only consistent thing about the airlines (particularly United with whom I do most of my flights through) is that they are inconsistent. You should however plan on paying the worst case scenerio costs which are steep. The Ironcase box along weighs 31lbs so unless you have a road bike (and since you are my site, I’m assuming we are mountain bikes) you are going to be over 50lbs. Being over 50lbs makes your luggage overweight. Being over 70 lbs puts you in the excess weight catergory. My Intens Uzzi (7.5 ” travel go do stupid stuff rig) weight in at 34lbs toss in a helmet, shoes, and multi-tool to put thing back together and you break the 70lb threshold. Here is an old story about getting my Tricocase packed under 50lbs

United currently can hit you for a Special Item Fee (currently $100) as well as overweight fee ($100 if between 51 and 70lbs, $200 if over 70lbs) This is for each direction! So that plush downhill couch could cost you $600 bucks for the trip. I have only gotten smacked for the special and the over 70lb fee once. I moved enough stuff around after that to get the box under 70lbs. I have sometimes gotten as lucky as to have the box just checked as regular luggage for no special fees whatsoever. More commonly I have often only got charged the Special Item Fee. It all depends on the airport, and the person at the counter. Being nice and cordial, calling them by there name on thier badge, and generally doing the social engineering/Dale Carnigie thing may help to keep you from getting both of you ass checks slapped while the airline has thier way with your wallet.

Alternative Shipping:

USPS: Big thing here is you have to get the weight under 70lbs and you can not let the width go beyond 10.5″ (This is part you sandwich down with straps) $107 each way for a shipment for San Diego to North Carolina and will typically take 8 days. For you folks that have access to military bases, USPS ships to all the military bases and you can ship through them parcel post on the cheap. It cost me just $68 to ship my bike to Japan once. Once, I missed the fine print when it said it could take up to five weeks to get there. They meant it!.

UPS: For this type of box, you will be paying for billable weight (96 lbs) versus the actual wieght. $170 each way for a shipment from San Diego to North Carolina and will typically take four for days. This is a fairly good way to ship, but you should call ahead to the local UPS store you are going to go through first as some stores and less educated on thier polices than others and may balk at the case.

Don’t use bike luggage: A carboard box and bubble wrap weighs a lot less than 31lbs. This could get your package down under 50lbs to reduce your airline luggage fees but it could also make your bike more likely to get damaged enroute. Particurly if bike gets handling by this gal or this luggage chimp. If you are going to go the cardboard box route, I would suggest talking to your local bike shop and have them set aside one of thier boxes after thier next incoming shipment.

The Renting Equation:

Sometimes bringing your own bike is the obvious choice, for a whole slew of reasons. However often times I have to weigh my options when it come to the cost. Some of the things I think about when it come to renting are: How long am I going to be at my destination; How often do I expect to ride; What kind of riding am I looking to do (what kind of bike do I think I’m going to need); what are the cost of the rental offering at my destination.

Rental Costs: In most places you are going to be paying a premium for a a full-suspension bike that is not of the department store genre. $50-90 a day is not uncommon. Hardtails are cheaper but you are most likely looking at $25-30 bucks a day. Now for you folks who have access/priviledges on military bases the Outdoor Recreation Centers typically have hardtails for rent at the best rates you will find anywhere. You also need to factor in the time required to go get the bike and return it. So if you want to grab and afterwork ride, you really need to rent it the day before and you may not be able to get back to shop prior to closing. You may have to rent a bike for two days just to get in a full day of riding particularly if you want to go someplace that takes a bit of driving.

Riding Style/Required Bike: A lot of my travel biking is work related these days. When I am on “The Man’s Dime” I typically ride more more within my abilities. I would feel pretty bad if I jacked myself up out on the trail that impacted by ability to do my job. So with that it mind maybe a hardtail is all I need and then maybe I will just rent a full-suspension bike for just a day or two if I want to go do some more aggressive type riding.

Here are a few of examples:

#1. A couple of years ago I was going to be in the Seattle area during the summer for six weeks. With the long days I expected to be able to get in at least one ride during the week after work and one a ride on Sundays. I was also contemplating a run up to Whistler for a couple of days should the job go well and were ahead of schedule near the end. So at least 12 outing and maybe some downhill fun bonus days. $50/day rental x 12 days = $600 bucks. Okay I’m taking the bike.

#2 I had a four week trip to Japan coming up. I was mostly going to be riding the local trails on the Muria Pennisula where the Yokosuka naval base where I was going to be working. Once again I was planning on two bike rides a week, but know that it was nearing the raing season that might not happen. Additionally, there was some talk with some folks I know there of a potential trip to the Fujimi Panaorama Downhill MTB Park. I could rent a hardtail on the base for $130 for a month (killer deal) and it runs about $100 to rent a full blown downhill bike and the protective gear for the day Fujimi. $230 was a no-brainer I left my bike at home.

Closing:

Just get on a bike when you are somplace out of your normal haunt. It is good times for sure. Airfare luggage fees and short length trips make it really tough to justify the cost. Then again luggage is typically a reimbursable buisness expesnse 😉

La Costa Stroll

Rancho La Costa Preserve is really close to Casa Del Bill so it is often on the menu you when I only have time for a quick fix of dirt. Despite its close proximity it had been sometime since I last rode out here. It seems like Elfin Forest, Lake Calvera or Daley Ranch had been getting more play as of late.

Some nice new trail markers can be found throughout the trail system.

Strolling up the switchbacks trail

Flag at the top. There was some drama a couple months ago as the flag up here (which was put up with permission of the land manger) kept getting stolen by some unpatriotic Jack Ass. It is awesome that we live in a country where even the idiots are free to express thier views in any manner they are willing to accept the consequences for. Too bad the Jack Ass was also a monumental coward as I’m quite certain the general public would have expressed themselves in a manner that he would not enjoyed. I’m thinking getting your ass whooped with a flag pole is adequeate consequence.

Dumbassness aside the trails were in fairly good shape and fun as always. Vista Del Mar Trail goodness above.

A Rising Sun Ride

Work has me in Japan for a few weeks so it was about time to get out and hit the trails. The fall weather here is pretty nice so I opted for a crack of dawn ride as my Saturday midday was already booked up. The previous day had been remarkably clear and tomorrow was supposed to be overcast so I was hoping to catch a window to see Mount Fuji at dawn on top of Ogusayama the tallest peak on the Muira Peninsula near Yokosuka. It was still pre-dawn when I rolled out of the hotel at 5AM but not by much. The ride along the city streets was really quite and almost surreal. It was pretty much just me and the cats along with couple of early risers like myself.

The street riding to the trails is mostly uphill the entire way. Before long I turned off the primary streets to smaller and smaller secondary streets as things became more rural and I started passing little family farms. I was nearly to the dirt trails when the rising sun joined me on the ride.

In 2004, I spent the better part of year living over here and I rode the Ogusuyama trail network numerous times so this place is kind of like home away from home dirt. Fall is just thinking about starting here so the colors are not happening yet but the leaves on some of the trees are starting to get a little sparse so views occur a little more often. This typically reveals just how steep some of the hillsides are that the trails cut across.

I made pretty descent time to the top of Ogusuyama, but there were some distant clouds so Fuji was in hiding. So while the planned far-view scenery was not to be had, the nearby stuff was pretty awesome as a clearing near the top of the mountain was flush with flowers.

After the stopping to smell the flowers break, I opted to continue heading west down the other side of the mountain to the Segami Bay side of the pennisula. The trail I took has a lot of fun flowing sections but it makes you work for them as thier are some really rooty sections that require all of your bike handling attention. If the roots alone were not interesting enough the soil in this area is mostly clay and with the rains a few days prior the bare clay sections had traction qualities that are best described as “I Can’t Believe Its Not Butter”. There were many times along this trail where I’m sure my facial expression would be best described as being that of a “terrified smile”.

Below is one of the sections that was just blissfully fun.

Eventually the trail came out on a tiny litte street about the size of the golf cart path that feed to a series of other streets each a little wider than the last until I came out onto the main two-lane street down by Segami Bay. I did a bit of flat-land street riding to connect up with a another street that would turn into a fireroad that would take me back up into the Ogsuyama area. Before getting back into the climbing gears, I had to grab a bit of morning coffee. The vending machines over have canned hot coffee which are simply awesome. I am big-time addict of these coffees and being able to grab a quick fix on a ride is pretty awesome. Coffee Crack in a can — Good Stuff!

After getting my coffee buzz on I was climbing back up the mountain. The grade was a bit steep in spots and it felt good to get some burn in the legs. Once back up near the top of Ogusuyama I took a different set of trails that would take me to southeast and down into the community of Kinugasa. As I rolled off the trail I was quitely in the town which was fully awake now with lots cars and people fluttering about getting their day taken care of. It was a little bit taken back by it at first due to the juxtaposition of the sleepiness of the streets a few hours ago. From there is was quite a bit of street riding back to the hotel and before long I too was fluttering about getting the rest of my day taken care. I think I am going to have to do another rising sun ride before I leave Japan.

Server Issues Resolved

Some of you may have noticed this past week that my site was down for about 12 hours.

My Internet Service Provider suspended the account because my site was overloading their server. Appears I had a configuration issue with an automated backups program that caused some expontential growth of the number of files on the server. Normally there is around 40,000 files associated with MountainBikeBill.com on the server. The error reached critical mass over the holiday weekend and the number of files grew to around 185,000. Evidently those kinds of numbers are frowned upon.

Techno babble, blah blah blah, yada yada yada…… end result is I got the mess is all cleaned up now.

You may resume your previously scheduled work diversion tactics 🙂

How Many Bike Does One Need?

How many bikes do you have? How many bikes to you need? Well now, those are a couple of serious questions that simply can not be answered simply. Yes these are some of the things that keep me awake at night. Don’t ask me why. I don’t why. These are just some of the stuff that floats around between my ears from time to time. There are a multitude of sects in the tribe of bike riding tribe. I think the largest group is the one bike – because well I got one bike crowd. These folks are not really tied to having just one bike, but that is what they have. There may of course be “The Old Bike” (or part of it) hanging from the garage rafters but for the most part they are the one-bike folks.

Then there are the one bike purist camps. I’m not even going to go into the the sub-group of the one bike – one gear folks. It is not that they could not have another bike in the stables, they only want one bike. I have to admit that I like the concept of one bike and the simplier (and often more challenging) experience of riding in a one bike world. I even know a guy who rides a rigid singlespeed fixie. He even rides it on some gnarly trails, bottom line is the guy has mad skills to do such a thing.

Me, well I think I am in the more reasonable group (okay not more reasonable, let’s go with more common). I have multiple bikes. There is the XC Full-Suspension rig, the hardtail, the singlespeed, the old long-legged bike, the new long-legged bike, as well as a couple of frames waiting to be pressed back into service. Yep, plenty of bikes in my garage. Bikes are like a good handcrafted beer. There are plenty of great ones out there and what kinda of person would not like to enjoy all different types of the them. I mean I love a good IPA, but you know I also like Imperial Stouts, Porters, and all sorts of other yummy beverages. Some days I want reach for that Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin Ale but then there is the Dogfishhead Squall IPA. Or maybe its the Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout, ohh I know the Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale. They choices go on and on and on over the tasty dark malt beverage horizon. A couple months ago Bicycling Magazine did a piece on Sam Calagione, the owner of Dogfish Head Brewery, discussing his love for brewing and cycling. He made a comment about the microbrewing competition out there that I thought was really awesome. “…I embrace it. Craft-beer drinkers are promiscuous–I drink plenty of other beers.” Well I think mountianbikers much like craft-beer drinkers (amazing how many mountainbikers are also craft-beer nuts) are a promiscuous bunch as well. If we can get away with it, for the most part, we will have more than one bike.

Such was the case this past Sunday, not just about beer, but about bikes. Sure I have a brand new UZZI that I am complete digging, but Santa Cruz was having a demo day out at Lake Hodges so I felt the urge to see what the new stuff was from these guys. Santa Cruz and BikeBling were putting on the event together and when I got there they were doing some hustling to keep the 30 demo bikes rotating with sizable of pool of folks looking to get onto the latest two-wheeled Santa Cruz creations.

Of course with any such kind of MTB gathering in San Diego County, some of the usual suspects were on the scene and lots of chatting occurred about bikes, trails, potential roadtrips and even some of the latest craft beers to hit the market. It would have been a good morning of socializing even without the new shiny bits to galk and paw over. So how many bikes do I need and how many bikes do I own? Well the answer that question in the simplest of terms in I have have one more bike than I need and one less bike than I want.

Shaking down the UZZI

So I got my brand spanking new UZZI out for a shakedown ride recently. The orginal plan was hit up Iron Mountain and Ellie Lane but with early moring rain, the plan shifted to Anderson Truck Trail in Alpine.

The boys at BikeBling did a mighty fine job with the mechanicals as it was shifting flawless right of of the gate and even under tension. (A feat which I often miss the mark on a bit requiring lots of trailside tinkering on the first ride) I was bit leary about going to the 10 speed drivetrain as I like the idea of having only one drive train type to worry about (9 speed). Between mine and the kid’s bike it good to have some commonality on the logistics side of the house. Well it did not take long into the climb to notice the marvels of the 36-tooth cog in the back. I’m sold on it already and I did not even have to try out the 22-36 granny ring setup yet.

My last two longer legged bikes had Fox 36 TALAS (160) airsrung forks up front and I really liked being able to adjust the travel down to make long or steep climbs easier to deal with. This bike has the Fox 36 Vanilla (180) coil sprung fork without the travel adjustment. It will take a bit of getting used on some of the climbing bits with this longer slacker frontend as a bit more body positioning is going to be required a steeper bits. It was so freaking nice to have a VPP suspended bike back under the saddle. This bike climbed exceptionally well for it weight without any of the dreaded energy sapping “bob”.

When it was time to turn the bike down the hill that was when this bike really came alive. The bike is so stinking plush and it only took a few rock rolls and drops to get sold on the coil fork.

I stuck to only the small air bits while getting acquintted with how this bike handles. This bike is pretty confidence inspiring so I got a feeling I’m going to get myself into trouble with this rig at some point. It’s gonna be great!

The trail overall was in about as good as shape as it ever gets so it was an absolutely great day to be out testing a new bike.

My the time it was time to head back down the main run, I had a pretty good opening day feel for the bike and I had one heck of fun descent back down the hill. There was some hooping and hollering on the way down. A mighty fine shakedown run with the new rig.

The MBB Mobile is Dead!

So this past Tuesday morning on my way to work some dumbass in a 1986 Chevy Astro Van decided the red-arrow was a suggestion and decided to make a left hand turn across three lanes of traffic that had the green light. Mr Dumbass left me with with no options and I clocked hit at about 30 degrees from head on at about 50 mph. My truck pivots along the front of the van and slides sideways out the intersection and into a large metal pole that holds up all the signals light and thens proceeds to come to a rest about 30 feet past the intersection in the bike lane.

There might be a few of the W

Hmmm the drive shaft looks a little out of place.

It might buff out 🙂

That rear wheel does not look to be pointing in the right directions.

The good news was that I had barely a scratch on me and got away with just a concussion. It could have been a lot worse. Damn that was good truck that I all tweaked out for road trips. I plan on getting another one pretty much just like it. Doctor’s orders are no mountain biking for two weeks. I might have enough to catch up on some things with the rest of the website.

Iron Mountain and Ellie Lane

I had been needing a little Iron in my diet so a ride out at Iron Mountain near Poway was in order. This place is pretty popular with the hikers so if you are going to ride out here you need to plan to be real patient and mind your trail etiquite as you will certainly have plenty of interactions. That is one of the reasons why it is best to do this ride on a weekday. It has been some time since I was last out here and I was quite shocked to see some of the maintenance that was done to the lower half of the Iron Mountain trail. There were lots of sections were most of the rocks has been either removed from the trail or buried in decomposed granite. While it may make the trail smoother in the near term I think it will cause more erosion problems in the long-term than it will fix. There were some sections that had been needlessly widened and debrushed to the point where they may never recover as the vegitation that stabilized the soil has been removed.

Luckily the upper half of the Iron Mountain trails has not been touched (yet) so the iconic rocks and technical features of this trail are still intact. The trail can be quite exhausting on the way up and on more than one occasion I had to stop and catch my brest breath. I felt like a boob for not being able to clean some of the sections that I have handled in the past.

After a nice break at the top it was time to play on the way back down. The chunk of this trail is always a challenge and we sessioned our way back down the trail.

Steve working an interesting line.

One of numerous gnarly switchbacks.

Steve taking a roller

After the Iron Mountain trail we hooked up with the Ellie Lane trail. I had nearly forgotten how much of a grunter it is get get up up the first saddle where the downhill chunk-o-rama starts.

Once over the first saddle on Ellie Lane there was some high quality chunk to tackle on the way down.

Steve taking on an interesting line. After the first chunky descent were would have two more grunt/hike-a-bike sections before the final technical descent of the day. By the time we got down I was feeling pretty worked over but stoked to have got in some solid technical riding.

From there we had some mellow cruising to loop back over to the trailhead where….

the marvels of modern MTB frame designs could be really appreciated. This Santa Cruz frame features a built-in bottle opener!