Bicycling

So, made it to Bozeman, Montana and had to call it quits out here. Flying back to Austin tomorrow. It was an amazing experience nonetheless. Highly recommend doing a tour if you ever have the opportunity.

So, I'm doing this tomorrow:http://www.24hoursofadrenalin.com/ca...ls/course-map/

A friend asked me if I wanted to join his 5 man team a few months back, and I agreed with the intent of getting out on my bike lots and being in decent shape for it. The reality is, of course, that I only got out on my bike about 8 or so times, and am in exceedingly mediocre shape. And at that, I'm actually probably going to be the second fastest rider on our team, as the guy organizing it is in a bit worse shape, and two of the other guys are worse yet. We've got one ringer though! We don't really care how we finish, it's more of a personal challenge and a fun event to participate in.

I figure that our team will end up doing maybe 15 laps in total (24 hours / 1.5 hours a lap), and that I'll personally do around 3 (we're hoping that the two really out of shape guys can at least hack 2 laps, me and the other mediocre guy can do 3, and the ringer will do 4). I haven't ridden the course so I'm not sure how bad the climbs are, which is really going to determine how bad the course is. The downhill sections I'm not too worried about, I'm a decent enough rider at that stuff.

Should be interesting! I will post pictures of my saddle sores Sunday.

Meant to post this a while ago. Bought this off cg a few months back. Since I took this picture I've switched out the handle bars (ergo compact bend style) , the seat(titanium with centre cutout) , and upgraded the shifters (ultegra 2x8 flight deck).

I really love the feel of this bike.

Nice. Why is your seatpost so low?

With new gear : The bike is a little large on me so that's the correct seat height for my leg length. Looks like it was a tad lower when I first got it, maybe because the reach was too long. A shorter stem and compact bend handle bars have made the reach better so it fits pretty comfortably despite the standover being too tall.

It's a beautiful bike. What did it cost you? You got Ultegra 8 speed? Why not 9 or 10 speed since they're cheaper now?

650 for the bike, 500 for new rims and tires (and labor) , 250 for the shifters.

I just replaced the shifters- the right one was nearly broken when I bought it (it was the first gen integrated, supposedly they didn't hold up well). The cassette was 8 already and the crankset is for an 8 speed, and I didn't really want to replace both of those components (especially considering the crankset is dura ace) given all the money I had to put into it already. Still a good deal overall I think--All the other components are 600 tri-colored.

Second pic is sick. Worth riding a frame a size too big to get that classic hunk of Ti. Good job.

Anyone tried latex tubes before? Vittoria ones just popped up on chainlove for $10 each, went ahead and ordered two since all the reviews say they will change your life, and its like half of any other online vendor, and they must be good since they have sold almost 200 of them in 30 minutes.

I went downhill mountain biking at a resort called Silverstar last weekend. It's much smaller than Whistler, but it's got some pretty good shit. One run called Rockstar has about half a dozen pretty decent sized table tops towards the bottom. It was our third run of the day through there, and just prior to hitting that section while taking a break a dude had rode up, chatted briefly, and continued on. I was the last of the group of us, four total, because I ride like a pussy. As I come out of the bushes/trees at high speed after the sequence of jumps I see my bud in front of me dropping his bike and running up to the dude that passed us, who is 5-10 feet off the trail with blood streaming down his face. I slam on my brakes and get my bike off the trail in case anyone else comes flying through.

Poor bastard's bike imploded on him. I would imagine that it was slowly cracking and falling apart for weeks/months, and that the last sequence of jumps did it in. He was a couple hundred feet past where the last landing was, so I guess the frame held together just enough to get him through the jumps. Lucky as hell it did. Where he crashed he was probably going 20+ mph, but that's probably better than it breaking when he's coming down from a 6-10 foot jump. He had some pretty good road rash on his arms and back, a possible broken nose (it stopped bleeding pretty quickly, but fuck there was a lot of blood), a likely broken collar bone, and possibly a concussion.

I think he's going to want to have a talk with Norco:

Aluminum? How old?

Guy in my mountain bike club broke/separated collar bone wrecking at about 30 MPH this spring during a weekend camping trip. Ruined his weekend but mine was fine . I hear his shoulder still looks really fucked up and lacks range of motion, but he opted not to get surgery or something. I don't know, not really tight with the guy, sucks to be him.

It's 5+ years old I think, they don't even make the A-Line's anymore. No idea on the frame material. The guy while he was lying there and I was cradling his head/neck (precautionary on advice of the bike patrol dude) mentioned that there was a recall on the bike for that problem. The patrol took a picture and texted it to his friend who had the same bike, as he was aware of it as well. Dude said he didn't bother with the recall because he's a small/skinny guy and didn't think it was a major concern. Whoops.

While that was going on, a chick had attempted a front flip on a double black run called Prostar and apparently had a spinal injury. Downhill mountain biking is ridiculous.

heh, yup:http://www.bikeradar.com/news/articl...-models-21686/

Norco has received one report of a rider who fractured their collar bone after falling from the bicycle.

Click to expand...

Add another one!

Ao-_sl said:

What a fucking tool. Get the surgery and heal back to full, with out it you're looking at about 90% at best and a shorter shoulder.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I heard second hand but supposedly the story is the doctor said it wasn't necessary but his choice. And now its too late and he's found out he should have done it. Sounds weird, I wouldn't be surprised if his insurance wouldn't cover it fully and he couldn't afford it or something. They say its really fucked up looking still, I haven't seen it. Like I said I don't know him all that well.

Broken collar bone is a super common for mountain bike riders. I think I read one time that it's the most common injury.

Eomer_sl said:

It's 5+ years old I think, they don't even make the A-Line's anymore. No idea on the frame material.

Click to expand...

I'm sure if there is a recall issue it has something to due with the headtube angle combined with the size of the fork creating undue strain at that area.

Either way though, trusting a frame that old to go downhilling seems like a bad idea to me. Every material has its fatigue limits and aluminum especially is sometimes considered a matter of not if but when. The pic looks like AL, not sure how common any other material is for DH bikes actually, are there even many steel or carbon ones out there? There's plenty of AL XC bikes that get used for a decade plus without issue, but DH is another set of stresses altogether. Plus it probably depends how often you ride and how much you put a bike through even for XC.

Weird that they would do aluminum for mountain bikes. Is that normal? I thought steel or titanium would be the go-to-route? That sounds like a rough injury.

It would appear that aluminum is normal, or least that's what Norco, Giant and Specialized use for their DH frames. I never really gave it much thought. Why would it be weird? I would imagine that aluminum strikes a balance between strength, weight and cost that steel or titanium wouldn't. Steel being too heavy and titanium being ridiculously expensive given how fucking beefy DH rigs are.

Aluminum is absolutely the best bang for the buck for any bike actually. In terms of weight/strength/price ratio like Eomer said.

For road bikes to most riders though carbon might seem like the norm because pure weight is placed at a premium that precludes cost more than for the average recreational mountain biker. Depending who you ride with carbon can seem like the norm in XC mountain biking too though.

Ti is amazing but prohibitively pricey for most people, DH or not.

My single speed mountain bike is a steel hardtail and although a comparable aluminum frame would be noticeably lighter, there is no comparison in terms of feel and comfort riding it. Aluminum on trails feels very jarring and chattery once you've gotten used to steel. Steel is also much more durable and you can actually ride a dented tube with confidence or weld a crack. For aluminum, that frame would be done. If AL didn't have the lowest fatigue life then it would be a perfect material, assuming you don't mind the extra weight over carbon and/or the cost is of equal importance to weight.

For a DH bike though, yeah steel would be a fucking boat anchor.

aluminum is de facto standard unless you get into higher end XC rigs. Just in the past few years they started making some AM and DH carbon bikes, but most DH guys still don't trust carbon. Boutique builders like surly etc do build some Steel / TI frames but they are not the standard and I'm not sure anyone makes a steel downhill rig cause that would be heavy as fuck. Nice AL DH rigs can already weigh 40lb+.