Mountain Biking - My sunday epic

Sunday I have planned a doozie of a ride for myself. We are going to start our ride in a small town about 5 miles from the trail, which is 18 miles long. It will be a total of about 28 miles in 30 degree weather. I will be on my freshly converted single-speed, and I am 100% single speed mountain bike virgin. I will give a full report if I survive on sunday night. This is going to be the most demanding ride of my life.

if you don't survive can I have your bike?

if you don't survive can I have your bike?

If he doesnt survive, how is he supposed to give you his bike? :rolleyes:

He is going to write his will before the ride. DUH!

If he doesnt survive, how is he supposed to give you his bike? :rolleyes:Gah! Will! Duh! :D

Ah, but what If he ventures off into some unknown trail and is never heard of again...

Well then we'll have maelstrom close this thread and we shall never speak of him or his bike again.

AS promised, the ride report. We started at 1:00 in the small town of Pinckney, where about 2-3 inches of snow had already fallen, and more was coming down as we were starting. After a 5 mile jaunt along the road, past the small town of Hell, MI, we got to the trail access. After 2 minutes on the trail, my chain busted. Sh*t! After a patch job, we got rolling again, and I am just cruising. The 32x18 is perfect for the trail we were on, and I was kicking ass and having a blast! After about 6 miles of trail, we realized how friggin icy everything was. You would be climbing up a hill, then next thing your back tire spins out and you slam to the ground. The weather then started to go south, and the snow and wind picked up. By now, there was about 4-5 inches of snow, but it was light and powdery, so the tires cut it no problem. As we pressed on into our 13th mile total, this being our 8th mile of trail, we are beat. The snow and wind have picked up, combined with some rumbles of thunder and one blast of lightning. Our pedals were completely jammed with ice, and we were soaked and freezing, and my brakes were nothing, and hadn't been for some time. We reached a place where the trail meets another trail, that is a shortcut. Normally, this is just a 2 mile bailout back to the trailhead. We didn't park at the trailhead. We wanted to be different. This was no help, and we were starting to get desparate. We took one trail that leads to a dirt road, which leads to another dirt road, then finally the road we came in on. We took this shortcut (which wasn't much shorter, we just figured the road would be easier than the trail) and soon figured out that the road was just as hard as the trail. There was now about 6-7 inches of snow, and three very tired people. We suffered through 3 miles of rolling, up and down dirt road, which was really 6 inches of snow over ice, and finally reached the road, which, ironically, was right next to Hell, MI. We took the road to Hell! We got back onto the pavement, and started to chug back to the cars, straight into the teeth of a winter storms violent headwind and ice to match, so you got a fine slurry of ice and snow blasting into your face as you were slogging through the wet, coldness of your soaked clothes. We psuhed through this mess for about 3 miles, then took the last leg of the trip, a 2 mile run into Pinckney. We got back to the cars exactly 4 hours after we left. We covered about 20 miles of pure riding hell, with every adverse weather condition possible thrown at us. Rain, snow, ice, lightning and thunder, and we managed 5mph average through it all! We got back to the cars thoroughly drained, but amazed at our own accomplishment. The newly converted single-speed performed extremely well, it powered through the snow without ever dropping a chain or any other problems. This was a real challenge for this group, one of whom competed in the 24 hours of Mohican earlier in the year, and another racer who has been riding for 10 years. I am so exhausted right now, but very happy with myself and my bike! Rock on!

Nice job man...are you running discs or rim brakes? what kind? Did you take any pix?

Nice job man...are you running discs or rim brakes? what kind? Did you take any pix?

He obviously runs rim brakes since he stated that his brakes were "nothing"....

Anyone could barely make it outta the parking lot in my area on a S'Speed, but hey to each his/her own...

Sounds like just one of my many rides. Try 15° temps with 20 mph winds sometime. Good though... ;)

PS. On the flip side, try 96° temps with 80% humidity sometime too.... You sweat before you start riding.

Dude, we get the same weather here, and yes, I have ridden it. Both extremes. Yep, Avid SD7's. There will be a pic on the way, of both my rig and the ride in general, I just have to get it from the dude who took it!

Amazing to think back to the Summer rides during the dead of Winter, huh? (& viceversa)

Sounded like a nice trek.... Hate I missed it! ;)

What generly defines an "epic" ride, 4-5 hours?

Eh, I feel that epic has more to do with the circumstances of the ride. On a good day, many of us would have no trouble doing what I did today, twice, even. What made it epic in my mind was the difficulty of the conditions, being cold with wet, heavy snow and ice. Basically any ride you can tell a good story about.

What generly defines an "epic" ride, 4-5 hours?

I think you need an epic poem, or at least a very long ride write-up.

Hey Trekkie, no matter what you call it.. Im just glad you got out on a ride and shared the details with us...
Ride on!

Chain problems suck.

under what conditions do people's chains break? Should I be expecting my chain to break soon?

Mine was just breaking because I had to shortne it when I did my conversion. Since I am cheap, I didn't get Shimano replacement pins, instead I just used the existing pins. Doing this can (and does) damage the plates (the one that broke on mine was bent outward a little, allowing the pin to pull out of its hole, hence the break). If I wasn't such a cheapo, it would have been solid. So, if you don't shorten the chain at all, you're cool.