Getting about in the Gravel conspiracy

Ok I am really just posting this here because I feel like the Gravel Conspiracy blog is getting crowded (and I have not written any thing here for a month.....thats a new record for me)

Ok, I have learned quite a bit about navigation using GPS in the last few months.  I am not a expert but I will try to relay some useful info.
First, Garmin Edge units are expensive.  Garmin Etrex units are not. Unless you need the powertap or HRM functions of the Edge units, save yourself about 300 dollars and look at a etrex 20 unit. The eTrex 20 or 30 units also use AA batteries.  This is a huge advantage if you are going out for multiple days and do not have the capacity to recharge your Edge. They are not as slim and trim as a Edge 800 or 705, but serve the same function.
Namely they allow you to load a base map and to navigate preconceived routes.

• Base Map- this is the primary functionality for most riders that like to explore on their bike. Garmin offers North america street maps for about $70 or you can get free maps through the Open Street Map Project (OSM).  Here are the instructions for using OSM on your Garmin. You can download recently updated OSM Map for North America here. You may have to save the maps to a microSD card depending on how much memory your Garmin has.

• You can use OSM on your iPhone GPS when there is no cell signal, however I would be too concerned about the battery life to solely rely on a iPhone to navigate the gravel conspiracy course.  There will be no cell service once we get away from the north shore.

• Creating routes: I have found the most useful free program for creating routes to be Bike Route Toaster  All of the routes for the Gravel Conspiracy were created with BRT.  I also love that it allows you to create cue sheets.  Remember that routes created for Garmin Edge units should be saved as .tcx files, all other gps units will use .gpx files.  Once you have a .gpx or .tcx file that you want to load on your GPS, you plug your GPS into the computer.  Under "My Computer" Click on the name of your device and open a folder called "new files". Drag and drop your .tcx or .gpx files into the "new files" folder.  Thats it.  The next time you power up the device your route should appear on the GPS. Then you just follow the line.

A special thanks to Ted Loosen who took the time to walk me through some of the finer points of routing and navigating with a GPS. 

Stop motion Pro XC Nats

I was playing with my brothers high dollar camera and ended up doing this.

The early bird

I was making rice at 4am this morning, but so were probably 2 billion other people, living in Asia, so I am ok with that.  I whipped up some of Allen Lims rice cakes (bacon free for Butch) and met Butch so we could bust out some early morning miles south of the cities.

I also have been using Skratch labs SDM, and I really have to admit that I feel much more "fresh" at the end of the ride when I am not ingesting tons of calories with my liquids.  I also read the "Feedzone" Cookbook, and the approach that Lim takes is in no way revolutionary.  However, Lim has the "street cred" to make people believe that his ideas function and taste good.  I am in no way going to eschew gluten, but I had a long talk with a doctor (over expensive scotch) about non-imflamatory foods. Rice was at the top of her list for foods that fight inflammation.  Not saying that I understand the nutrition issues, but it gives me lots of things to think about.

PhotoCred: Butch

Anyway, we busted out about a 55 mile loop before 10:30.  It was super calm. so calm that if a car passed, the dust would hang over the road for like 3 minutes. If you stopped the mosquitos would quickly descend. Made for a quick tempo (maybe quicker than Butch liked).  It was a good morning.
I am really starting to dig this Garmin.  It makes planning my ride so much easier.  I have a Drawer that is literally filled with hundreds of google map print outs and tyvek race #'s with cues written on them in sharpie.  I may take them out back and burn them.  It has taken me some time to figure out all the little GPS navigation nuances, but I have been pleased.

Leaving for Idaho on Tuesday.  Going to see the Newest Stamper and hopefully catch up with professional and unprofessional cyclists at XC Nationals in Sun Valley.

Road training

Or not.  I actualy sat down a few weeks ago and wrote out a training plan.  I have a MTB race in July that I did not want to totally suck at, and I felt that having a defined training plan would help me stay on top of it.  I usually only have defined training for really long races or for (running) marathons, and that is usually just so I plot out my taper. 
Herein lies the problem.  I have no top end power, and do not train for top end power or speed.  I can ride tempo for hours, but sprinting? Not so much.  This usually leads to me cramping in races as I get out of my comfort zone early and my golgi receptors start pitching fit about 2 hours later.
Well, to combat this lack of top end training I have taken to the road, and to be real honest it has not sucked as back as I thought it would. 
I have had to go through a couple of of differnet groups to find one that I am comfortable with, and it never ceases to make me chuckle when I watch the dynamics of some of these groups.  One of the things that really bothered me though was the complete disregard that cyclists here in the Twin Cities have for stop signs, and traffic laws in general.  Don't get me wrong, I have been guilty of the ol' rolling stop every once in a while, but this is ridiculous.    
I got yelled at by one group (of old people.... that I had been pulling) when I did not just blow through a stop sign.  The ironic thing was that before the ride the group leader talked about how another group had gotten pulled over by a sheriffs deputy for running stop signs the week before.  I rolled my eyes and bailed on them the first chance I got.
This morning I did a shop ride out of the Omnium Bike shop.  The route was pretty tame, but they have a circuit set up at the furthest point on the route, so we had 3 different race simulations......and it was kind of fun.  There was only about a dozen of us so everybody was jumping at every move.  And it was Fast!
I don't have a ton of road experience to compare it to, but there were several times that 46:11 was just not enough to hang on. Road races in KS were just not that exciting (hey lets ride in a big, flat square for 30 miles!).   I can now see why folks might like road racing.  I still think that it's lame, but less than I did before.

Finally sold the Scale on ebay.  Pretty stoked that I was able to ride that bike for 2 years essentially for free.
Maybe I will purge some other stuff to help fund my next bike.

Dirt Fest 2012 part 2

Rolling the road section back to our campground

Adam Lipinski was slangin pies all evening from his homemade camp pizza oven.  He was turnin out a thin crust every 5 minutes with this oven that was at about 700 degrees F.  Faces got rocked.

Taylor Patterson rocks out the generator powered pinball machine.  The brake levers operated the flippers.

JPatt, Alex and I cruising back from Rays to Lake.

Cliff Jumping on the cruise

Matt and Mary (center) took us on a tour of the trails on the other side of the lake

Then I saw this spectacle of east coast ingenuity.  Single Speed and Full suspension.

Dirst Fest Part 1

This past week I traveled to Pennsylvania for DirtRag Magazines Annual Mountain Bike Festival Dirt Fest.  I have been trying to capitalize on the fact that I can fly Southwest Airlines pretty cheap, and I have been wanting to demo more bikes in more dynamic terrain than what is usually afforded at demo days in MN.  The week before last, the Angry catfish had a demo day at Carver Lake.  While this was a great chance to try out a bike, its hardly the place to put a 4 inch FS bike through the paces.  The trails at Rays Town lake in PA offer the perfect mix of terrain, and there were no less than 10 different demo trucks, so there were tons of opportunities to ride a lot of different bikes and evaluate what was right for you.

Patterson concedes the position of Capt to Matt, instead relishing his role as Rear Admiral.

We arrived at Rays Town lake on Thursday night for the exhibitors cruise around the lake.  I ended up hanging with the guys from Swiftwick, talking about life back in the old country.  

TPatt and Graham counting cans

 I also got to chill with Graham Daniels of Cannondale over many Dales Pale Ales.  I explained that I had never really considered a Cannondale since I was not really familiar with the Lefty.  He offered to pull one apart for me the next morning before the expo opened, just to show me how simple they actually were.

The next morning feeling kind of bleary, I stumbled over to the expo area for my Lefty lesson.  It literally took less that 90 seconds to disassemble the fork for damper service.  Graham showed me that all you really need is the special tool to remove and replace the Cartridge Damper, which is recommended at least once a year.  The next thing I knew, I was on the Scalpel 29 headed up the hill with the Swiftwick guys for some early morning shred session.  We were immediately blown away by how nice the trails were.  The Allegripis trails at Rays Town Lake are not overly rocky, but require diligence since they allow you to carry so much speed into corners and rollers.  I was immensely impressed with how well the Scalpel performed, and how precise the steering was with the Lefty.  Matt, from Swiftwick, was on a rigid bike, but was still just absolutely thrashing it given the fact that he is pretty new to mountain biking. Ended up getting in over 35 miles of single track that first day, and ended the day at Harlan Price's Cornering skills clinic.  Harlan did a really great job walking everyone through the principles of trail riding.  He covered body position, line of sight, plus weighting and unweighting the pedals.  There really was something for everyone.  My only disappointment was that we did not have enough time for some actual trail time.

Harlan Price advises riders during a skills drill.

4 people and 3 tents

No shortage of good reading material in the ol' blue box

On Saturday, I got to use some of the basic skills that Harlan instilled in us, as I got to ride with a brand new mountain biker.  One of Pattersons college roommates, Alex, from VA came up for Dirtfest.  We put him on the Niner Jet RDO.  We practiced clipping in and clipping out a few times, talked about being in the "neutral" and "ready" positions for turns and obstacles, and the kept repeating the mantra "just keep pedaling, don’t stop".  Alex did great all morning, and never had a problem all day.  Its really fun to see people progress as a rider.

Badass Plumber

Patterson lets no demo bike stem go unslammed

Saturday afternoon I did the Rays to Lake ride.  Which was essentially a race paced ride out of the expo area up the road to the top of Osprey trail, then screaming down to the Hydro loop where we were supposed to meet a house boat.  It was sort of like a race in that only the first 30 people that finished would be able to board the houseboat (that also had a keg of Sierra Nevada).  This was also the only time during the weekend that I demo'ed a hardtail, a Cannondale Flash.  I was really impressed with that bike.  As we went up the road to the top I really started to see the flash shine.  It’s a 29'er that really does not start to shine until you put it in the big ring.  I was a little worried when we started down the descent, as I was in front of the group, but once we hit Hydro the group was pretty strung out.  There was only one SS'er that was with me, and I wanted to see how the bike handled in the corners, so I started really punching it out of the turns. I did not know where the boat was going to pick us up, so me and the SS'er just busted out another loop on Hydro.  So much fun on a super fun bike.

Then we started our cruise back to camp, that we interrupted for some cliff jumping and aquatic shenanigans.







More tomorrow.

Foresight

Its a quality that I do not always exhibit, but today as I was getting ready to buy new Hyd. brake lines so I could move the Elixirs over to the Ferrous I thought it might be a good idea to measure before I cut.  I just assumed since I had originally shortened them for the Scott Scale that they would be too short for the long wheelbase of the Ferrous. 
Wrong.
The line length is perfect.
I just saved 40 bucks.
I think that deserves a special treat!