redwoods
Active Member
Inspiration Point - Pasadena
It was a bunch of strong, skilled riders. Let me tell you, if you wanna get better at this sport, ride with people who are better than you. These guys are great - we give each other plenty of sh!t, but these are my friends, and they put up with me. That takes some patience, as my wife would be all too quick to point out.
This is a big ride. Our normal route has us doing roughly 22 miles and somewhere between 4000-4500' of climbing. Seven of us to start out at 6:30 to beat the heat: Hollywood Rich, Stef, Josh, Mark (abuck55), Ian (kaboomims), Tom (T2 in our circle), and me. However, our man Stef ended up getting shut out...Ian had picked up a Process 134 form Coates for Stef to demo. All good. Except that in the parkinglot before the ride the bike ends up falling over and bending the derailleur hanger. No bueno. Well, no, none of us has a spare, so we attempt to bend it back and SNAP! No ride for Stef. Bummer - he's a strong rider, and we all felt terrible about it. But we eventually got started around 7 am, and off to the climbing!
Got up to the ruins, rested and ate, and were about to head across to the road climb, when some hikers coming up lower Sam Merrill tell us about a bear coming up the trail. I thought it was going to continue up toward the ruins, so I try going up the connector to the road climb and get around it. The bear had other ideas. When it popped its head over the bushes (not on film) I was about 10-15 feet away from it. Luckily it moves away up the trail, but then it looks back at us as if to say, "Don't even think about following me!" It was a look you don't ignore, and won't forget. At that moment I heard, "Don't go that way." To which I astutely replied, "Not goin' that way." We do get some footage, got pretty lucky that this bear wasn't in a bad mood, and eventually got on with our ride.
[video=youtube;l67HQzUjBoY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l67HQzUjBoY&feature=youtu.be[/video]
Whew!
The rest of the ride was less eventful. Thankfully.
The Dragon performed great. I'd tell you that it doesn't climb as well as the old bike, but I haven't been doing much serious climbing lately, and so that surely contributed to my pain. Half way up Lower Merrill, I decided to unlock the suspension - it was taking more energy to power over the rough stuff on the climb than the susp. would sap out of me. Once I did, life was easier. I did notice that I no longer had 29" wheels, especially on the short, chunky stuff. The smaller wheel transmitted more of the impacts up to me, but I think I'll adjust. Also, the tight turning is different...this bike seems to like getting the front end around a tight switchback early, which I'll have to adapt to. But I'm not worried about it. Those moments when I felt like it was safe to open it up, the bike just came alive. Problem is, this is mostly a high-penalty type of ride, and those moments didn't happen too often today. It's all good.
By the time we got across the mountain to begin our descent on Sunset, I was feeling spent. I bailed at the water tank and headed back to the car, getting roughly 19 miles and around 4000' of climbing. It was a tough but thoroughly enjoyable workout. The others continued on to finish Sunset and hit El Prieto.
The weather was good. Very clear (for a SoCal day anyway); visibility was great. It did warm up pretty fast, but we had all of the big climbing done before the serious heat hit us.
Middle Merrill was very soft and sketchy - we all seemed to feel that it required a little holding back due to poor traction. Lots of dusty silt and sand.
Sunset was actually better, but had a section of loose, chunky rocks. I usually enjoy Middle Merrill most, but this time Sunset was more fun.
Finally, Tops Burgers afterward! We earned it!
It was a bunch of strong, skilled riders. Let me tell you, if you wanna get better at this sport, ride with people who are better than you. These guys are great - we give each other plenty of sh!t, but these are my friends, and they put up with me. That takes some patience, as my wife would be all too quick to point out.
This is a big ride. Our normal route has us doing roughly 22 miles and somewhere between 4000-4500' of climbing. Seven of us to start out at 6:30 to beat the heat: Hollywood Rich, Stef, Josh, Mark (abuck55), Ian (kaboomims), Tom (T2 in our circle), and me. However, our man Stef ended up getting shut out...Ian had picked up a Process 134 form Coates for Stef to demo. All good. Except that in the parkinglot before the ride the bike ends up falling over and bending the derailleur hanger. No bueno. Well, no, none of us has a spare, so we attempt to bend it back and SNAP! No ride for Stef. Bummer - he's a strong rider, and we all felt terrible about it. But we eventually got started around 7 am, and off to the climbing!
Got up to the ruins, rested and ate, and were about to head across to the road climb, when some hikers coming up lower Sam Merrill tell us about a bear coming up the trail. I thought it was going to continue up toward the ruins, so I try going up the connector to the road climb and get around it. The bear had other ideas. When it popped its head over the bushes (not on film) I was about 10-15 feet away from it. Luckily it moves away up the trail, but then it looks back at us as if to say, "Don't even think about following me!" It was a look you don't ignore, and won't forget. At that moment I heard, "Don't go that way." To which I astutely replied, "Not goin' that way." We do get some footage, got pretty lucky that this bear wasn't in a bad mood, and eventually got on with our ride.
[video=youtube;l67HQzUjBoY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l67HQzUjBoY&feature=youtu.be[/video]
Whew!
The rest of the ride was less eventful. Thankfully.
The Dragon performed great. I'd tell you that it doesn't climb as well as the old bike, but I haven't been doing much serious climbing lately, and so that surely contributed to my pain. Half way up Lower Merrill, I decided to unlock the suspension - it was taking more energy to power over the rough stuff on the climb than the susp. would sap out of me. Once I did, life was easier. I did notice that I no longer had 29" wheels, especially on the short, chunky stuff. The smaller wheel transmitted more of the impacts up to me, but I think I'll adjust. Also, the tight turning is different...this bike seems to like getting the front end around a tight switchback early, which I'll have to adapt to. But I'm not worried about it. Those moments when I felt like it was safe to open it up, the bike just came alive. Problem is, this is mostly a high-penalty type of ride, and those moments didn't happen too often today. It's all good.
By the time we got across the mountain to begin our descent on Sunset, I was feeling spent. I bailed at the water tank and headed back to the car, getting roughly 19 miles and around 4000' of climbing. It was a tough but thoroughly enjoyable workout. The others continued on to finish Sunset and hit El Prieto.
The weather was good. Very clear (for a SoCal day anyway); visibility was great. It did warm up pretty fast, but we had all of the big climbing done before the serious heat hit us.
Middle Merrill was very soft and sketchy - we all seemed to feel that it required a little holding back due to poor traction. Lots of dusty silt and sand.
Sunset was actually better, but had a section of loose, chunky rocks. I usually enjoy Middle Merrill most, but this time Sunset was more fun.
Finally, Tops Burgers afterward! We earned it!
