Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The climb is worth it

 It's hard to convince beginners that the climbing will pay off in super fun down hill, especially kids. All they see is the suffering. Gage decided that it was all worth it after just 2 min  of the down hill. He was yelling the whole way.  
Even at the very bottom when he could barely pedal he was still having fun. Thank you Jeanie for picking us up at the bottom so we didn't have to pedal all the way home. 

Monday, February 24, 2014

A month of stuff

 This last Month has not been a good MTB month. I did manage to get some riding in though. This last week I hooked up with Eric from Turner bikes in Carlsbad. We rode an IMBA epic called Noble Canyon. This is the top of a section called "Devil's staircase". I don't think Eric will appreciate me posting this picture. I walked just so you know. It's rideable just not worth it. That's a brand new Turner prototype he's smashing on the rocks.
 Noble is the best trail I have ridden in the San diego area.
 Earlier this month I had a heck of a time finding water for Katie on my local rides. Luckily I found this cattle trough. As nice as the weather has been I hope it gets wet soon.
I took Katie out through Deer Creek today. That storm a couple weeks ago helped a lot. No dust and lots of creek water for Katie.
 I finally wore out the Scrub brake pads that I bought last year to try to fix my over heating Avid's. These pads did all I could ask. They stop great, make very little noise, and most importantly cool the fluid enough that I have not bled my brakes in almost a year. Bleeding was getting to be a weekly chore. Now they run great and never fade. I can't recommend them enough. The cooling fins do come unattached after a while but it doesn't affect the performance and they can't come out on there own. Also they are made in the U.S.A. and you can call and talk to the owner if you have any questions or problems. His name is Chris and he is super "Chill" pun intended.  
I wish I could endorse these Mavic C29SSMAX wheels that came on my Pivot 429. I tried to have these serviced at last years Sea Otter. The tech said that they were not maintained well enough. I call Bullshit. The guy I bought them from is obsessive about his bikes and if anything over maintains his stuff. The free hub is basically a disposable part. It uses a plastic bushing that transfers the load to the outer surface of the drive body. When it wears out the whole cassette wobbles. If you don't replace it in time this is what you get. You can see where the teeth from the free hub were eating into the hub itself. I replaced these wheels with another set of Mavic's. This time I got a set of SLR's. These new hubs are supposed to have a different design and address the issues I had.