LAJ

Saturday, about 110 miles in. Kind of a weener.

LAJ

I forgot about this one... There's no accounting for some people, even if they do ride a bike.

abshipp 

I had the exact opposite experience on my MTB yesterday. Was slow and rode the bike terribly, even on fairly benign trails. Doesn't help that I've only had 5 rides on it in the last 6 months.

Really wondering how big of a difference new tires would make. Mountain biking is definitely a harder workout than road and I also felt generally out of shape, but the bike just doesn't move uphill. Still riding the stock DHF/Aggressor combo it came with but MTB tires are so dang expensive I'm a little hesitant to just throw that money at it without knowing for sure how it will feel. Road tires are so much easier to pick out

Velo Vol 

It was on the clearance rack.
Thanks. Hopefully I'm at or near the peak I'll need. I really don't want to go beyond 30 mg.

At least I've never gained much weight due to this addiction, so I have that going for me.

terrymorse 

Heat -- personal experience says it's a major factor in cramping.

Last time I did Climb to Kaiser, it was on the hottest day of the year. 92F at the pre-dawn start, and 114F at the finish. I passed several riders who were cramping up. I started cramping on the final climb to Kaiser Pass, and I never cramp up.

Biceps femoris. Mostly used to flex the knee joint.
​​​​​​​

LAJ

DU Pioneers did it again.

Velo Vol 

Getting passed by a tractor trailer on a two-lane road is exhilarating.

DougRNS

there was one, it was in Omaha and it was a size small. No blemish to the legacy.

LAJ

He was rather deliberate in his pass and turn, which was rather odd. I felt like Dennis Weaver in Dual. Sort of.

Trsnrtr

My dad never gained much weight but my mother did. My mother was on it to combat damage from other drugs that she needed for COPD.

Again, good luck.

Trsnrtr

The worst that we've encountered was from Silverton to Purgatory. We were on a tandem tour and a couple got pinned against a guardrail by a passing quarry hauler. Another couple got pushed in to a rock face that paralleled the highway. Scary crap.

In the truckers defense, the lanes had been narrowed for construction but you still can't hit people.

seedsbelize2

seedsbelize2

This is the coolest April we have had in our 16 year stint here.

LAJ

Yes indeed. I wish more people were in that camp.

Trsnrtr

My wife wanted to do a long ride today due to mid 70s weather and light 6 mph winds. She picked a nice flat route directly in to the wind and it became apparent in the parking lot that the weather forecast was fubar. the wind was hitting 10 and gusty. OK, 10 is easy. Let's go.

17 miles later, my wife throws in the towel. The gusts were blowing her everywhere and the headwind definitely sucked. No crops on the Prairie yet to break the wind and her skinny butt was toast. We made a detour to a town to grab some lunch and then take the tailwind home. Tailwind? This was one of those gusty days that felt like a three-way headwind. Other than the stellar companionship and the 70s weather, it wasn't exactly what we had planned on.

Did I mention the nice lunch and stellar companionship?

TMonk

As the speed goes up, the rolling resistance matters more (same w aero). So on tough climbs - not a whole lot of difference. But on flat trail and flat roads, the tires make a huge difference!

And I hear ya on pricing; MTB tires are super expensive. I've slowly rifled through most of Maxxis' non-Enduro/DH options over the years, and discovered the low-tread tires that I like the most. One of the things that I'm enjoying about the full suspension is that my bike is more planted and so I'm finding I have more grip up front, and choosing lower rolling resistance tires than I did with my hardtail, that were too squirrelly before. So that does make the bike faster on flat under steady pedalling.

For low-tread Maxxis offerings, I like Rekon Race and Ikon the most. I used to do a mid-tread Ardent or regular Rekon up front on my HT, but I'm leaving those days behind and going XC up front and in the rear. Haven't tried the Aspen, but have heard good things about them.

seedsbelize2

Food and bicycling. For as long as I can remember, when driving from one place to another(rural) I’ve always enjoyed pulling into a roadside diner for a slice of pie and a cup of coffee. On my tour across Ohio in 2019, this activity was at the top of my list of things to do. Apparently those diners no longer exist. I deliberately sought out an apple dumpling a la mode, in a former tourist town, that became a ghost town in my absence. The basket factory moved out. It was a great treat, but the price prohibited seconds.
Sad!

abshipp 

Forekaster/Rekon F/R seems to be a popular combo for the terrain around here. I just think that the DHF/Aggressor is just way too much tire for the kind of riding I do. And from what I hear the DHF is one of the slowest rolling tires out there. I don't want to go really shallow tread or thin casings since there's a lot of roots and rocks where I ride, but it would be nice to shave a few hundred grams off the wheels if possible. I do know that I absolutely despise riding the bike on anything other than singletrack and the tires that are on it I'm sure contribute a lot to that.

rjones28 

TMonk

Ya Forekasters and Rekons are good middle of the road tires. My bike came with Forekasters F/R but I swapped em out for Rekon Race F and Ikon R. The tires still have the EXO sidewalls so they should be able to handle rocks and roots just as good as any other EXO tire; it's just less tread. I have been slamming low-tread EXO tires on rocky SoCal trails for years with no problems, but I'm also 145 lbs and like everything else, YMMV.

rsbob 

At the three quarter mark in yesterday’s ride I treated myself:


Reward

LAJ

If the wind stays as is, my ride home should be:

LAJ

I have yet to master eating that much at one sitting while riding. I would shake my head in wonderment when riders would sit down at the 200 mile mark and polish off a Whopper, fries and a drink. Brevet people are different.

BillyD

You said that like it’s a bad thing.

LesterOfPuppets

My record mid-ride meal happened on a solo century from Vancouver, USA to Olympia, WA. I'd hit a convenience market at mile 30 had a roast beef sandwich, chocolate milk and a couple fig newtons, then at mile 34 I saw a burger joint and thought to myself "You know I could still eat at least half a horse", so stopped in and ordered a burger, fries and milkshake. I just snacked on the rest of the sleeve of fig newtons 'til mile 66 when I got a salad. Then I felt kinda sluggish and weary 'til mile 85 when I got my second wind, was almost tempted to keep riding all the way to Seattle