Back In Pink

Back In Pink.

Since this weekend was going to be a little different than normal, I decided it was time for a change up. OK perhaps it was a thread on mtbr about a recent rash (one single incident) of hub failures (again one single solitary incident) that sparked my swap. My DT Swiss 240s hubs have rarely seen nice weather. They are going on 3 years of abuse in wet, muddy, gnarly conditions ranging from cross, snake, xc, gravel, dsg, angry hours, etc... in all types of conditions and have never been serviced or properly maintained, nor have they given me any issues. But I did have two slight slips, or what I possibly perceived as slight slips, the last two anger hour rides. So combine the post (just reading it means it's more than likely to happen to me) with the potential slight slip encounters and I erred on the side of paranoid obsessive compulsion (The slumlordess often suggests I take pills for this).

All cleaned up just in time to get all dirty again.

Since a long epic of the LBL was planned with fellow riders whose track record for successful completions of said long epic ride of LBL isn't so grand, I felt assured that (having just read the post) if I rolled with my faithful bad-ass Hodge made hoops I'd be hiking out of the woods deflated and left behind after a single mile. The track record is such that one of the bad news bears I was riding with made the comment that he was learning where he was on the trail by the extraction points from previous rides. That's not to say it is any ones' fault that causes the epicnessness of the days, but rather the law of sums. The more people involved + the longer the ride exponentially raises the mechanical issue and time on trail numbers. Pick any two of us to ride the same trail at any given time and it'll be incident free. Add a third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth person and you've just guaranteed a long day in the saddle. With history as my guide, I packed heavy. No tool, tube, or chamois cream left behind.

A great day to be in the woods (photo stolen from the crookedcop)

Along the way the creeks were deep and cold and the trail was mucky in random odd low points and even more random and odd uphill portions. One particularly deep and cold creek crossing had us rolling slowly and ratcheting the pedals to stay upright and dry when Scuba Steve pointed out it being a worthless endeavor, for Monster came splashing through soaking the bunch.

As dire as it initially sounds, the big group rides are always the most fun. The heckling and ribbing that takes place is awe inspiring. The constant pace changes and surprise sprints keeps you on your toes. The temps were upper 60's, the sun was full on shining, and the wind was cooling. A perfect day to spend 7+ hours out on the trail and 45 minutes or so mind numbingly spinning on rolling pavement into the cold cloud infested weather to get the rescue vehicle nursing a slowly leaking front tire.

I think it was 3 tubeless riders and 3 tubed riders with one flat from each camp, though the number advantage slipped to tubed riders 3.5 to 2.5. And of the 3 geared riders and 3 singlespeed riders, one from each camp had some drive train issues. So all things were pretty equal for the day. I can't wait until this weekend's adventures.