Complaints and Grievances

My ankle still hurts. I decided to bike the bullet and go riding on Friday anyway. Then my ankle hurt more, and I was frustrated. See, I got used to the speed and ease of road riding while in Maine, and I forgot that I'm a fairly slow mountain biker. This compounded with my inability to do 3 turns in the Don at speed. It doesn't matter how much I tell myself I can do it, how many run ups, or how much I end up yelling at myself afterward, I end up coming up to them at speed and slamming on the brakes, nearly doing an endo instead of just going round them. I know I just have to do each one once and they'll never be a problem again, but when I'm in my own head and there's no one else around to push me, I just end up getting up and walking. Then, no matter what, the rest of my ride is shitty. I just want to get home and go from post-ride beer to post-ride lash. Solutions? I'm open to suggestions, but I think I may have to spend how ever long it takes at each spot and just hit them over and over 'till I do it. Or I have to ride with someone else who will push me to try those things that scare me. Due to the crap outcome of the ride, there are no pictures to share.

To placate my frustration, and further deteriorate my ankle, I'm planning on going on the 120km Canada Day ride on Thursday. I think that it would be good to soothe my fevered ego a little bit by going on an exceedingly long road ride. I'm also buying some parts for my road bike in the next couple days, specifically a new saddle, dual-pivot brakes, and new wheels. The new road-bike plan is to upgrade to 8- or 9-speed STI and continue riding. Then, buy a new(er) frame next season and switch over whatever parts I can. Fun stuff.

In other news, I went to see Ted Leo and the Pharmacists on Saturday. One of my favorite bands with one of my favorite people. Ted Leo has a penchant for rambling anecdotes which provide a connection with the band beyond the music. When asked why he was wearing a Ghana t-shirt the day that the Black Stars beat the U.S. team, he said "I have profound respect for the U.S. Men's national soccer team, but, you know, Ghana is my team from way back." Priceless. I highly recommend experiencing one of his shows if you have an opportunity. Due to the awesome nature of the show, here is a picture I took with a cellphone camera (sorry).

Trek Across Maine

Well, I did it. I trekked across Maine with my cousin, Claudia, and her friend, Jenn, on the Charlie's Big Wheels team. I didn't really doubt my ability to ride the distance, 100km (~60mi) per day for 3 days, but I never would have guessed that I could do it at an average speed of about 28kph (17.5mph) on a 30lb steel road bike with 28c tires. I actually really enjoyed the experience. Not only did I get to ride with a great group of people and raise money for the American lung Association, but I got to visit the beautiful state of Maine with a cousin who I never see. Here's what it was like:

Day 1: Started off in Sunday River at the top of a mountain road. This had the potential for some incredibly fast riding, but I was still convinced that I was going to ride with my cousin and her friend and not leave them behind. Mosquitos were out en force biting at every possible inch of exposed skin. The biting would have been greatly reduced by speed on the bike, but alas my cousin and her friend are slow. Before I started riding I had made a point to myself that I would not ride with my cousin's ex, who originally convinced her to do the ride. Logically, about 25 minutes in, I found myself riding right next to him at what we both thought was a snail's pace in our little rings and middle cogs. I don't think that either of us broke a sweat before the first rest area 40km in, but we did arrive way before Claudia and Jenn. Oops again. From that point, I ended up separating a bit from the others and averaged around 25kph for the rest of the day. The University of Maine at Farmington was our host for the first night, providing sleeping accommodations in the gym and horrible food for dinner. I did manage to sneak some beer (I hate 21-year-old drinking ages with a passion) and meet the rest of the team, many of whom did not previously believe that I existed.

The bike parking on the first night:


Day 2: Started riding with Claudia and Jenn around 6:15. My ancient Vetta saddle started showing its poor design for long rides almost immediately via a very sore ass and numbness. After about 20 minutes of riding some of the guys from the team caught up and I picked up the pace to ride with them. These dudes were on some pretty serious machines all carbon fibered, Mavic Ksyriumed, Ultegrad, and Dura-aced up. Obviously, this meant that I had to keep up with them, legs be damned, but I soon found that with a little drafting, the weight of the bike makes very little difference. It also helped that they slowed down a bit to let me keep up. Managed to average 32kph for most of the day, right up until the last 15km, when I got dropped on a hill, then dropped my chain. After some goofing around with the chain and help from 2 of the guys from the team, Cory and Scott, I got going again. The second night was at Colby College, which was much better than UMF. The food was incredibly tasty, and the Exes dad (one of the riders) had some incredible home-made beer which I enjoyed with pleasure. There was one particularly good darker ale brewed with jalapenos that gave it a fantastic kick along with the taste of the beer. I really wish that this was available at the Beer Store, because it makes for a hell of a post-ride beer. Perhaps I need to add brewing to my list of hobbies...

Day 3: Woke up with my ankle in all kinds of pain, but I figured it was fine to ride on. Got a bit of a later start but I ran into the guys from the team at the start, so I rode with them. We ended up hooking up with a bunch of people from the team along the route. The rest stops were pretty close-spaced, so I never ended up feeling less tired. We also rode slower because we tried to keep as much of the team together as we could as we rode to the finish. About a mile out, we started riding much slower and 4-abreast, then finished as a team in style. Then, I nearly collapsed as my ankle screamed in pain when I stepped on the ground...shit. I hope this isn't any grievous problem, but it's not going away, so we'll see. Claudia and Jenn finished an hour and a bit later, though I didn't get to see them finish, because I was busy trying to find and group our bags for an easy pick-up from Jenn's fiancee. They had a great time on the ride, too. Both of them got much more comfortable on their bikes, and I hope that they continue to ride into the summer.

The three happy finishers:


Verdict: I had an awesome time on the ride, and I would definitely consider riding again next year. Considering how easily I managed to keep up on my steel bike with wide wheels, I've started to consider what some upgrades to the bike, or a complete bike upgrade, would do to make riding faster or easier. I've already bought a new seat and some dual-pivot Tektro brakes. I'm trying to get in touch with someone who has a bunch of Shimano 600 parts (including 8-speed STI!) for sale on Pinkbike. Hopefully, I'll be able to give this bike a whole new lease on life for about $300 (a ton of money, considering I only spent $160 on it originally). At some point in a few months, when winter sales start, I might even look into getting a 1-inch threadless headset and carbon fork to modernize the bike even more. Unfortunately, due to my ankle, I doubt that I will be riding mountain or road this week or before I see a doctor. In the meantime, I get to think about bikes and bike parts. And a name for the road bike...

A last one:

Lazy Legs

God, I need to ride. I managed to get out twice on my road bike for quick rides over the weekend. I keep telling myself that it's all because I'm going on the 3-day, 300km Trek Across Maine this weekend with my cousin in Maine. It's not good to exert for a while before a long ride, right? Like 3 or 4 months, at least. This will actually be the longest ride I've been on since freshman year of high school, and I'm excited to try out touring again (except with support vehicles taking my bags).

The road bike is much less interesting than Aretha, doesn't even warrant a name. It's a late-80s Fiori Roma that I bought for $160 at the beginning of the last school year to have something better than the Schwinn Ranger 2.6 that was my previous daily Toronto steed. This wasn't actually supposed to be the bike I was going to ride on the Trek, I was going to bring a Specialized Allez from home. But when it came time, I decided I could only afford to bring one bike back here from home and Aretha obviously had no contest. So, I'm riding the 28(ish)-pound, 12-speed, semi-indexed Fiori for 180 miles over three days. Maybe in a week it will deserve a name. Or I will have to have ass-replacement surgery. Either way, I'll write about it here.

Don't give me that look, I can feel your look.

World Cup Fever

I spent about 2 hours on Thursday night installing new brake discs and a new rear brake cable. Plus I oiled the rest of the cables and dialed in the brakes just so. Then, I did a 3-hour ride after work on Friday. Man, it was fantastic having brakes which weren't squealing and still stopping properly; however, I noticed that the cones on my rear wheel are loose and I don't have a cone wrench to tighten them... Not good, Ilan, not good. But, I digress. I tried out a new direction on that ride: when I got to the top of Rim Job the second time, I hung a left and descended toward Eglinton. I ended up getting spit out onto the Summerhill paved trail, and had to ride all the way to the cricket lot to find the trails again, next time I hope that I'll get a chance to try a different turn at the bottom of the trail and see if I can't meet up with the river trail somewhere.

I also crashed for the first time since starting to ride the Don, and smacked my hand on a root. For some reason that made my fingers go numb. The crash was pretty tame, I just took a steep left turn way too slow and slipped in the soft earth. The Don Valley trails can be pretty visually daunting to someone who hasn't had experience riding them; almost every corner looks like if you fuck up, you're going over the edge in a steep dive to the valley floor. I'm going to start focusing on sections of trail that I find difficult and hitting them over and over until I can get used to riding them, especially tight, steep turns. Most of them are bermed, so I know it's just a matter of getting over a mental block which prevents me from careening myself through them.

I actually ended up yelling at myself at one point in aggravation because of my fright in one particularly steep section. I know it's not conducive to riding improvement to get angry at oneself, but alas I only have so much patience for my own mental bullshit. Argh, maybe I'll try yelling encouragement next time in an effort to channel frustration. To make up for that, on the last mile or so of paved trail I have to ride to get home, I made a point of keeping up with a roadie who definitely did not intend to have a muddy mountain biker on her tail. She upshifted and got into the drops, and I still stuck right to her. Finally she slowed down and I passed with a little bunny hop. Am I a show-boat and an asshole? Probably, but it did make me feel a little bit better...

On another note, Toronto has decided to conspire against my plan to go on an epic ride this afternoon by raining heavily. Instead I stayed in and watched the U.S.-England World Cup game (oh dear, what a pity). Now it's 5PM and I haven't showered or really done anything productive with my day yet. Might have to make a trip to Mountain Equipment Co-op and get some 29er tubes, might have to do it on my road bike, too since it must feel so neglected as it's been relegated to the dusty corner.

No pictures from my ride, but I'll try and get some soon.

Introductions

After that abbreviated first post, I thought I would introduce myself properly.  My name is Ilan, I am an avid mountain biker and an intern at ProFile Industries in Toronto.  I have finished three years as a mechanical engineering student at the University of Toronto, but this is the first time I've been in Toronto for the summer or with a bike hence the excitement over riding in the Don Valley. 

My bike's name is Aretha.  She is a Soul Cycles Dillinger with a Rockshox Reba Race fork riding on HEAVY Deore/Mavic 317 rears and Deore/noname fronts.  She is currently set up with 1x9 gearing via SRAM X5 mech, Avid BB7 discs, a Selle Liberator Ti saddle, and a bunch of cheap Sette bits.  This bike has a special place in my heart because it was the first bike I ever built up by myself, just over a year ago.  Since then I've worked in a shop (Community Bikes in Santa Rosa, CA) and put many miles and a few races on her.  I believe that it is about time to do a good upgrade on her parts, as money allows, which I will discuss here. 

I also went riding again today.  I only went for about 2 hours and not so hard, so I'm nowhere near as sore as yesterday.  Today I rode for a bit with a fellow named Andrew (or lime green Specialized Stumpy M2) who rode much closer to my pace than Tallboy and Racer X did yesterday.  I also bumped into the UofT mountain bike team, though we were going different ways.  I hope I'll be able to ride/race with them in the future, seemed like pretty chilled out guys. 

A little more about me: like I said yesterday, the Don has made me feel like riding for the first time all over again.  I learned how to ride in Annadel State Park in Santa Rosa, CA, which has very smooth, flowy trails.  On the other hand, the Don has some real gnarly technical stuff, with features everywhere.  I was definitely not prepared for this, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.  I've only really started to learn some of the core skills required for faster biking.  The one I've finally perfected is looking ahead at the trail instead of my front wheel.  Today I started to get over my fear of falling off ladder bridges.  I have a few things I'm planning on working on over the next few months which I think will make riding much easier and more interesting:

Leaning turns

Wheelie

Bunny hop

Sideways hop

Manual

Fear of falling

Nose wheelie

Fear of death

Backflips

(might try that last one first.)  So, now you know a bit about me.  Here are a couple pictures of me biking today.

A New Hope

*Note: I decided to move my blog here from Tumblr 3 posts in, this was actually written 7 June 2010

Dear Internet,

Today is a day for firsts. It was my first time mountain biking in the Don Valley in Toronto, ON. Analysis: it was technical. Not knowing where the trailheads were, it took about 45 minutes and two lovely individuals named, erm, Santa Cruz Tallboy and Titus Racer X. They invited me to join them and proceeded to take me on the most technical ride I've ever been on, and even allowed me an excruciatingly slow pace, with some wise words and wisecracks. They embody the camaraderie I love in mountain bikers and I could not thank them enough for their trail hospitality. Now I feel like I know a few of the trails and have a whole new set of goals as a mountain biker.

Which brings me to another first: blogging. I've never done it before, but I think this will be a good place to talk about my progress in mountain biking and about bikes in general. However, I'm tired now and I think that I will go to sleep and talk about myself more tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll also remember my camera in the future and take some pictures. If anyone reads this and lives in Toronto and mountain bikes, and would like to do some evening/weekend rides with a former "intermediate" rider reborn as a newbie, please let me know.

I leave you with a picture of my bike, after the ride and a bath: