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.
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