Fixed Gear Mountain Biking part 2

My friend Swoo and I decided to hit the fall bike show which turned out to be a crowded mass of people practically shoving each other for a chance at the best deals. I managed to pick up a pair of cycling shoes to replace my over-sized old ones for $50. Then I managed to get the hell out.

Since the day was so beautiful, we decided to make up for that horrible episode with a trail ride in the Don Valley. I have to say, riding with Swoo is totally different from riding with the Don Rats. Firstly, his fixed gear free-style bike provides some...limitations to the ride speed. The upshot of that is that we spent more time enjoying some of the features in the valley that I usually skip in a mad attempt to catch my riders. We also had time to take some pictures:

The second difference is Swoo rides with a video camera and loves to make edits of his rides.  Thus, we came out with a souvenir:

Don Valley Trails from swoo on Vimeo.

Except for a stupid mechanical where the horseshoe spring on my brakes somehow caught the rotor and made my front brake unusable and one flat, this was a perfect ride.  Not too fast, beautiful day in the beautiful Don that reminds me why I love fall on the east coast.

Thanks for the edit, Swoo!

The Don Rats

Ride with the Don Rats take 2: incredible. More trails I had never seen or accessed before, night riding (without lights, yikes), beers and good conversation. What more could a man want for an evening? Unfortunately, my camera is still lacking in batteries, so I didn't get any cool pictures, but hopefully I'll make a trip through the don this weekend to get photographic evidence of these awesome trails.

An accurate depiction of riding at night without a light

At the beginning of the ride, I asked why there were no published maps of the extended trail system. The de facto leader of the crew, Tim, gave me a roundabout answer that basically amounted to: because we don't want to. As I rode more of their unmarked trails, I began to really understand. The main trail system has been coopted by the city to be a family-friendly walking space or has been washed out by the number of riders who go through every day. These guys have put years of work into their trail building and basically say "anyone who can discover these trails by themselves deserves to ride them. Mountain biker elitism? Perhaps. But the perfection of their work (or what I could see around my front wheel) justified their secrecy.

Anyway, here are a couple more pictures, one from the ride on Tuesday and on of my legs post-ride. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to ride through again this weekend during daylight and snap a couple of pictures.

Tuesday's group

You can't tell, but my right leg literally doesn't have any skin showing
beneath all the mud.

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: