DubSix: March 2006

More on Switzerland's Epic

Ian who joined me on the swiss epic sent the ride details to me via email:

From: Ian
Sent : Monday, March 27, 2006 10:03 PM
To : Bubb
Hey Bubb,

Thanks for the edition to your blog... Here is some more info.

We began our journey from Cademario.
An easy double track with some great views to Arosio di Sotto.
Then it was an easy road ride to Mugena (4km).
We made a horrendeous mistake and took a (2,5km) foot path (Sentiero del Castagno).
We had to place the bikes on our backs to make the ascent easier. Then began the killer switchbacks (1km) to A. Nisciora.

Behind and above us was Mt. Gradiccioli the highest mountain in the region. Rich and I were starving and luckily we found some wild blueberries. A grotto awaited us close by. It was self serve and Rich was overjoyed. Wine, beer and fruit drinks were to be had. We wrote our names in the log and moved on to Magnio (1.5km).

Then we were able to ride to an area between peaks called Zottone.
Then we descended and ascended to Mt. Lema (3km). We stopped at the summit for some pieces of pie and cake and chugged some ice tea and sport drink. Rich tended to my wounded heel with some black duck tape I had which worked famously well.

Then began the switchbacks from hell. The trail became slightly more manageable half way down and then we met up with the road (1km) and hit the town of Miglieglia. (2km) We soon take the road to Breno. (2km) From Breno we hit a downhill and uphill back to Cademario (3km).

Rich and I opened a bottle of wine and now I sit here by myself sipping my glass. I enjoyed Rich’s company!

More from Austria

Big(ger) legs do big(ger) things...

The Americans owned the mountain for a few days and apparently, all the locals knew it. Our German cohorts told us that the everyone knew we were there for a wedding. So I guess they forgave us for singing at the top of our lungs in the streets @ 4am.
30 foot huck

going bigger yet...

finding fun on natural terrain

The bride!

A toast to wonderful times with wonderful people

Bon Jovi, 3am

Right on.

Preach on , brother!

Having already done a solo 24 before, I knew that this event is not about the mega-mileage rides, the high-tech/low fat diet, or the latest titanium, air-sprung, lefty lockout platypus catheter. The bottom line is this: At some point (and frequently after that) you say to yourself STOP! You either give in to this sensible plea or you ignore it like e-mail spam. My secret training program hones my ability to ignore my better senses. carsrcoffins

Austria

6 days in Austria was not enough, I'm suffering massive withdrawal.

Not bike related, but in a sense it was...
Many of my biking friends are crossover ski friends too.
If it wasn't for the fitness my bike has given me, my 3 year hiatus from skiing would have left me w/ little skill/strength on the slopes. Instead of sucking, It was the single strongest moment I've ever had on skis.
I have barely scratched the surface of the potential in these legs, and can't wait to huck in some powder again.

oh yeah, the nightlife kicked ass too.

Epic.... avoided?

I guess I'm just getting old.

On Monday, I threw in the towel after struggling through 10 miles of snow and rode back to the car. On the road, mind you. I dodged a potentially painful solo epic. We all carry our tales of truly amazing anecdotal rides with us everytime we roll -- no matter long ride or short -- and each ride measures up to the yardstick of our Epics.

I was lucky. I had a few rabid biker friends growing up who would do stupid shit and always get us lost. I recall my first true epic: we started in Ringwood, rode through to Ramapo, and rode so far into the trail network there that we found the edge, the end of the woods. Some town in Bergen County, totally ignorant and with no bearings whatsoever. I asked a woman who just walked out of her duplex towards her car, "what town are we in?" When she replied, none of us ever heard of it.

These are our much hallowed and revered rides. We often share Epics with people who are our best riding buddies. Sometimes after the epic, you notice they don't ride with you anymore. I can only think of one* of my epics that a friend mutually shares as one of his.

We started off in the morning just above the city of Lugano, Switzerland, on rental Trek Y bikes. Vintage baby! Begining first on cobblestone switchback roads, we headed up through some local singletrack to some smaller towns and up still to dirt roads. We thought we knew the way. As the path got narrower, it also got much steeper. Here our different pace caused a separation that got wider and each suffered alone. We knew UP was the only way to be going, so we spoke nothing of it and ploded on.

Eventually bikes had to be shouldered and carried, and as the grade increased the trail became a thin footpath. Up and up and up we went, up past the treeline into the grassy slopes.
I was furious at this point, and let my partner in crime know it. Part of it was me pointing the blame, and part of it was me being irrational from being caloric-deficient.

We pressed on and were rewarded with amazing knife-edge singletrack along that ridge a mile away behind & above us. Precariously perched atop bike, a fall to the left would leave you at least 15 feet down (if you were able to arrest your fall on impact) in Switzerland, and a fall to the right would do the same only in Italy. Sweet! I've never been to Italy... Joking aside, we were in a bad spot physically but had to push on. I found wild blueberry patches, and with 15 solid minutes of work managed to scarf down about 1 full handfull. Then we spotted the hut. Oh glorious hut! Stocked with beer, wine, soda & water. We gorged ourselves soda, left some Francs and continued on.

To give you an idea of the scale of the riding over there check out these photos:

Those tiny little tufts of green in the top right? Scrubby trees bigger than me.
Lets zoom out some...

And now some more...

We survived to the top, where the gondola we saw on the map was supposed to be. The problem was, the gondola wasn't running. It was a weekday. Luckily, much of the ride down was manageable, though white-knuckle all the way to the first town.

From there we had to ride road as the sun began to dip behind the mountains. I think in the end I counted 8 towns we had to ride through to make it home, and there were still some hills to face.
You may have noticed the * above. 2 days later during the same trip we did an 8 hour death march (on road, but on the same POS bikes) capped off with the absolutely most brutal climb I have ever done. 45 minutes of hell with blind corners than made drivers ponder the friction coefficient of their tires and the fortitude of their brakes.

A thank you goes out to Ian & his family for hosting me for an epic adventure.

Project Voodoo: Complete.

The Voodoo SS was actually completed almost 2 weeks ago, and has seen a handfull of rides thus far.

Here's Dave and his new SS:

There are 2 issues yet to be resolved, the simplest of the pair is the rear cog.
As mentioned during the initial build, the cog was taken from an old cassette and we chose the 21T over the 18T. Dave is ready to "turn the volume up a notch" and roll with a 20T. I have a Surly steel cog waiting to go in next time i get my tools on the bike.

The second issue is a bit harder to solve. The wheels were hand-me-downs from a pile of scrap parts. A co-worker stripped a Gary Fisher Opie since it has the same frame as the the $1200 Fisher GED and he already had an old Azonic Steelhead ready to donate its organs.
Just for fun, he and some others jumped/rode that poor $360 Opie really hard. The bars broke, ending their fun and saving the rest of the parts from certain death. The rear wheel is hammered. It has a big flat spot in it and doesn't stay in true long, so the rear V-brakes have to be spaced far from the rim. That in turn requires the lever to crush your fingers before the brakes do much work. I have a loaner wheel on deck from my personal collection, but also ordered a Salsa carbon brake booster since the seatstay flex isn't helping matters.

On the rear end the Rennen Rollenlager would not sit flush with the Ritchey dropouts, so we went with the cleanest cheap option...

Surly Singulator

Last year I ran a singulator with little luck in either push up/down springs. Soon after installation, a friend adjusted it for me and stripped the spring out. Why they use a hard steel spring secured in a shallow, soft aluminum body is beyond me. I hate poor product design and this is a good example of what not to do. Worse yet, the singulator is not new on the market and this issue has not been resolved, nor have any of the others. For example, to set the spring tension you must use a cone wrench. On the 2 bikes I've installed the tensioner on, both had recessed or "protected" dropouts that left little or no room to get a cone wrench. Even when I could manage to get tension and then fix the 5mm hanger bolt, the bolt would loosen and release tension over time. To top off the list of complaints, the spring tension was never enough to guarantee a drop-free ride on our rocky local loops. I would drop a chain every ride... until i started using a zip tie, just as pictured in the above photo.
Ghetto-fab, but it works better than the Surly spring.

We contacted Salsa to find a green skewer nut for Dave's vintage rasta Flip-offs. The sent him the part free of charge and threw in a bunch of stickers, including the one over the frame hole (which was first sealed with multiple layers of packing tape).