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Perhaps a quarter notch?

smokey kitty goodness

Retirement has its benefits...

Cheap Amazon handlebar light didn't have a 35mm clamp, so I machined an old seatpost clamp and moded to hard mount the light.

I really miss going to the Desert Fests in Big Bend. So much fun. Ride, socialize in the evening, repeat the next day. But I don't miss the 16 hour round trip drive to get there! So a group of us are replicating that experience at Dana Peak on Friday April 9th to Sunday April 11th. We already have 25, mostly SATN riders, that have reservations for either an RV site or a tent site. There are three Friday RV sites left and five Saturday spots left. There are also lots of tent sites available. Just like the Desert Fest, here's an opportunity to see old friends and make new ones. Grab a spot now, decide later if you can go or not. It only costs $10 to cancel https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/232570/availability Or, just plan on coming out for some day riding. Most of the folks that are planning on coming have never been to Dana Peak. So it would be great if those that have been there would come out to lead a group.

Pffft. All you need are a couple of cinder blocks and a flimsy piece of wood to learn to jump!

I wish someone had told me a long time ago. I've been beating myself up for decades over this and now I have a valid excuse.

The only Mezcal I have at the moment. It's a good one.

My next skill is manuals, but only as a means to get more confidence on the timing for moving around for drops, and to do a proper bunny hop. I just watched @gotdurt video in the Brushy Creek thread, 20 times in slow motion for both the drop at EBD, basket, but also the log at picnic. I can do a small drop 50 times and it feels good when I nail it, but there are times when I don't time things right, and it feels worse than if I just rolled it. That gives me pause for the bigger drops. I don't need to do a 1 block manual, just be able to start when I want it. It's similar to a wheelie. I don't need it to show off, but it's definitely given me confidence for going up the taller ledges. If you want to pop up to go up a good size ledge at a decent speed, you better get it right. Recently on a night ride, one of those ledges on 1/4 (snake ridge) got me. The timing was off b/c of lighting (it's totally just like trying to catch a fly ball at night for the first time!), thankfully it was just chest in the bars (or bars in the chest?).

Ditto. Went out on Sun for the first time in well over a year and it was a humbling experience. Only my second time ever riding clockwise. I can see getting a lot better by riding it frequently and learning good line choices, but even then I don't see myself ever cleaning a few of those really techy climbs. Seems once the frustration got the best of me, even the little stuff was tripping me up. Normally the first lap is a wake-up call for a much better executed second lap. This time out though when my buddies bailed after the first lap, I lacked the motivation to go it alone for a second time around. I'm going to make it a point to get out there for several more rides before summer. So much fun bombing down all of the ledges out there!

@mack_turtle I made a set of ramps which Skills with Phil made if you'd like to borrow them. I made them super stout and I haven't finished putting the tail plywood section but maybe this will get me to finish them.

me too. most of my BMX days were spend riding "street" which is very similar to finding the best way to enjoy natural terrain on a mountain bike. the "natural terrain" for BMX street riding is mostly manmade, but riding it in creative ways that for which it was not designed. I didn't really like skatepark riding, especially skateparks with big wood ramps. it was a convenient way to get a lot of riding down in a condensed space, rather than wandering around a city for hours looking for obstacles to ride. my interest in jumping is not about sending massive gaps and doing tricks, i just want to finally conquer my irrational fear of even the smallest jumps. there are a few sets of small man-made jumps here in SATN with 2-3 foot high lips and landings with short gaps. kids will blast over these without a second thought, but I have a phobia of this stuff that I know will feel fantastic when I get over it. I can manual these types of jumps and I would jump them without a second thought if the gap was filled in with a table top, but I can't bring myself to actually jump an itty bitty double. success story: I once rode Cold Water Mountain in Alabama. it's a long climb followed by a really fast downhill. there are doubles built into the downhill segment and I had no idea what I was in for. by the time I saw the doubles, i slowed a bit and manualled the first set, but I was carrying too much speed for that. Just gap-jumped the next few sets, which were not very big, on my SS hardtail with a 80mm fork. necessity pushed me past that fear. my choices were to skid to a stop and probably crash in the process, slow to a crawl and cause a pile-up of riders behind me, or send those doubles. I did that latter and it felt amazing. I have not duplicated that feeling in the eight years or so since then.

Mountain biking means different things to different people. For me personally, it is about exploration, figuring out where a bike can take you given the obstacles that nature has put in front of you. For that reason, I've always felt like manmade jump lines are a departure from what the sport is for me. Don't get me wrong though, watching YT videos of guys hitting massive jumps at Whistler is awe inspiring, and I admire anybody who can pull off those feats. For me though, creating minimal lift using bump jumps off of natural obstacles on the trail is satisfying enough. Mastering drops has been much more critical for me simply because there are an abundance of them on the trails I regularly ride.

You go as fast as you can, and send it!

No offense ..cause it was a tough feature at time of video. BUT. It is almost a foot taller now. I struggle with it now. Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk

Si: Try going up a gear or 2. It seems like most people try it in too low of a gear.

I enjoy Mezcal. I need to get more into it.

Hit up Comanche country w some fellas yesterday. FRR.

Driven by my own nostalgia after reading this thread (and also by all that rain), I went out to CP over the weekend for the first time in what seems like forever. I first rode CP in the 90s as a college student and went out there regularly until about 7 or 8 years ago, when increasing family obligations and convenience/goodness of Brushy Creek trails started to keep me from venturing out of Cedar Park for my rides. CP was great fun, but the climbs seemed more challenging than ever. Sadly, I don't see myself cleaning the Cheesecake Challenge again anytime soon. Thumper and BCGB back trails are next up on my personal reunion tour, and I suspect I will feel even worse about myself as a rider after that. To respond to the original poster's question, for typical Central Texas style trail riding, I would put Thumper, CP, and BCGB back trails in the most difficult category and most everything else, including Double Down, at a notch or two below them.

Lunch date with Emma and the boys!

I never used to be affected by it. This year it's turning out differently. It's like someone opened a faucet in my nose.

Great dirt! And ridiculously high cedar counts!!!! I'll be riding the wahoo. See you guys on the trails in a few months😓

Years ago, I bought my wife a Sig pistol for Valentines Day. I also paid for three hours of classroom/range training for her. *wisdom*

I'm probably missing something here. DD is my favorite segment of my favorite trail system around here, but is there really any controversy with the idea that those other trails are notably more difficult? DD has some really cool and rewarding features, but they can generally be overcome by executing one or two maneuvers at a time. To me, the difference with the other trails is that the features are such that you have to string together many maneuvers in a very short time period to get through them. As an example, EBD is a relatively straight forward obstacle once you figure out the required momentum and timing. However, if there were an obstacle or two just in front of EBD to affect either of those elements, the challenge would be very different. I guess all of this stuff is neither here nor there anyway, and the important thing is that we have so many interesting trails to choose from. Still, it's a fun topic, and for whatever reason, I think many of us just like the idea that we might be riding the toughest trail out there.

I have had my Izzo since August, but have only been able to ride it maybe 20 times. To me it is a really fun bike, splitting the difference between my previoulsy owned Specialized Enduro and my Niner Sir Nine rigid ss. Light and maneuverable, but doesn't get too twitchy on loose descents at BCRT which is my main riding area. One of the things I lost with the enduro was snappy acceleration, to which the Izzo almost feels similar to a hardtail. Only real thing I have had to adjust is the rear lockout for the shock. Will be looking into frame protection for the Bottom Bracket area, as I know I will smack that on a rock at some point trying to ride up some of your local ledges. Bike was a blast on the flowy southie trails and other hilly areas. I am not a guru of bikes geometry or writeups, but like to just get out and ride when I have time.

Hell of a save, of course the nutz probably paid the price.

Speaking of jumping Recently built a small 18" kicker ramp and some small/med drops for the wife to practice on. She wants to get better at jumps & drops and is understandably a little afraid. She was also taught some pretty bad habits at a LIV clinic a few ago that we're still correcting. If you've ever tried to coach a spouse through this kind of stuff you'll appreciate how touch and go it can be😁 Two weeks ago she was confident enough to hit the drop and started getting the hang of sticking the landing. That was until the last go when she got mike tyson'd. Let her left foot slip off the pedal on the landing and ended up with a face full of dirt and grass. She was a bit shocked as it happened so fast and she has always been the queen of slow speed crashes. Seems like she might be better for it having gotten a crash out of the way, and was hitting bigger stuff at RHR this weekend. Time will tell. Went out and dug a bit more so she can face that demon again with a little easier run in. I'm gonna use that little ramp to practice step ups.

Oh shit....It's' on now!

I'm not even sure what happened. I really didn't expect to gain any appreciable new skill at this point. I even said as much either here or Mojo a couple of years ago. I went 18 years not really being able to jump at all--then suddenly it just 'clicked' sometime in mind 2019. I used to hit a jump without doing anything at all, I'd just ride into it, and get surprised when I was bucked. So I never tried anything. But then I just started trying to bunny-hop off jumps at WC, and somehow that worked. Now I try to pre-load + bunny hop and that seams to work out pretty well. I went from not jumping anything, to cleaning most of the WC BMX track (inner), as well as all the jumps at SN and ChristChurch. I'm still not too excited about big lips though, but I can manage the wood lips at ChristChurch. There is this very nice large table-top at about the middle of FRR's Cowabunga. It's very wide, and the right side has a huge lip, and the left side has a flatter lip, level with the table. With enough speed, I can hit the flatter side and clear the table perfectly. But I don't yet dare hit the lip side. Maybe that's the next thing?

I, too, can't jump. Which is kinda funny because I spent my childhood building ramps and gap jumps out of everything. Maybe it's my subconscious remembering all of the pain.

one of these days, I need to learn to jump. I can bunnyhop and I'll roll drops, but actually jumping any sort of double, even a small one, scare the hell out of me. storytime! I rode BMX from about age 13 well into my 30s. I never once actually jumped a dirt double or a real ramp at a skatepark. I carved bowls and small airs on quarter pipes, but never a full lip-gap-landing ramp. I spent countless hours digging at the local trails in Indiana but never jumped anything that was not a table-top. during my sophomore year of college, my roommate was a fellow BMX rider, so we had tons of fun shredding campus late at night and sessions at the local indoor skatepark. I believe it was my 20th birthday (it's cold AF in January in northern Indiana) and we drove to the skatepark. I committed to making a clean landing on the box jump that night, which was about 5.5 feet tall and had a flat top a few feet longer and a curved landing. you had to get speed for it by blasting up a wall ride (curved transition that leads to a impossibly high vertical wall) opposite the lip of the ramp. trusting myself to get enough height on that wall was the first concern. I jumped it a few times and always chickened out, got squirrely in the air, and cased the landing out of fear of landing smoothly, which makes no sense. on a final, committed attempt, I got a little sideways in the air and put a foot out to keep myself from falling over on the landing. my ankle gave out on impact, I heard a boney *pop* and went down. the night was over. a doctor gave me a temporary cast and crutches but I had a lot of walking to do to get around campus. I'm sure it never healed right, but that was 20 years ago. so I have a date with jumping. it will happen some day.

This post nails it for me. Thank you!

Update Have multiple rides on this airliner and can say it's well worth the money and time. Totally calmed the back of this twitchy bike down and made these uber-harsh enve wagon wheels bearable. Was tinkering with volume reducers/pressure on the EVOL shock before the insert to no avail. Now it's back to stock and is just right. Probably gonna buy another airliner for the wife's bike. So far, no leaks, wobbles, valvestem issues, and the 150 gram penalty is worth the confidence of having a more stable ride.

Oh wait ..... this is the Brushy Creek thread! Glorious 1.5 hour lunch ride today. No douchebag encounters that I can recall, but I don't recall much these days. I do recall hitting Rim, PicnicX, Picnic, 1/4, and DD. None of it was too wet to ride, but needs a little more drying time to reach optimal conditions. Couple of inches of water still running through Dave's Ditch. Will definitely be back out tomorrow before we get another round of rain on Wed.

Funny cuz its true Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

It's a different kind of interaction than it is in urban and suburban area, and maybe had something to do with the region (east Texas) as well. I grew up in Phelps (East of Huntsville), and have also lived in Oakhust/ Point Blank, as well as Trinity, and generally the farmers and ranchers themselves are great, usually the nicest people you'll meet anywhere... but those same areas are also full of "white trash", methy types, as well as an obnoxious younger generation. I've had trash thrown at me (including bear bottles), spitting tobacco at me, vehicles trying to run me off the road, diesel pickups that will pass, slow down, then floor it, leaving me in a cloud of black smoke, etc... mostly because they think it's funny, not because of any perceived inconvenience (as would be in suburb and metro areas). This wasn't just road biking, either; as a kid I would ride my BMX bike from Phelps to Huntsville on FM roads in the summers, several time a week, to visit my friends in town... every ride was an adventure. On my commutes to Austin, Jollyville road was the worst, even with the bike lane; no one respected it, and I've had box trucks come within an inch of my handlebars. My last couple of years commuting here I hung the road bike and rode my MTB along 183 instead, riding sidewalks, the foot paths worn along curbs, and parking lots, and I actually cut about 10 minutes off my commute doing that instead of navigating back streets. On my return I would cut through the double track trails that used to be between Avery Ranch and 183, dropping down what is now called "Dave's Ditch" (this was pre-Deception). The nice thing about trails, is that you have the opportunity to be nice to people and interact with them, helping shape their attitudes toward bikes, unlike riding on the road.

Wife and I ended up going to RHR and was able to get in around 17mies. Trail conditions were great and we only saw one guy on the trail and maybe 4-5 others on the greys highway fire road. Perfect weather to be out there.

Definitely worse near metro areas, but that's what makes South Mountain Park in Phoenix such an anomaly, and it also seems to have the highest hiker density compared to other metro parks I've visted. Brushy is its own phenomenon, which I attribute to it's proximity and immediate accessibility to so many surrounding neighborhoods, and the fact that it's the only convenient option for the northern communities. No doubt, I used to commute from Leander to Mopac/Steck on my road bike, but that commute is what drove me to get off the road completely, it just isn't worth it. With that said, I also had a few problems in rural areas too; rednecks can be real pricks (coming from someone who grew up rural).

Building 9:00am Saturday on the new trail (the temp trail name is Bob Ross). Bring rakes, shovels, pickaxes, buckets, gloves, and water.

First time seeing this one from Karbach. Belgian Golden Ale with some floral notes.

You can avoid that road now and take some single track up on that ridge. Not sure it’s sanctioned but it’s cool. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That guy was definitely on the receiving end of the "red tag special". One of the best for sure

That was funny. Here's another good one.

On the upside, I knocked out over 5,000 miles last year. Sadly, ~80% of it was on the road: The new year's resolution for this year is more dirt, less streets.

I think to get down to the really fast lap times at LGT you have to be on the gas everywhere. But IMHO the places where you can make up the most time, are the places you're normalyl the slowest (for any significant periods of time). Since LGT is 2/3rd chunk, then I think these areas are the key to going deeper into the 2hr numbers. This would also match well with Barry's strengths, bike choice and riding style. Anecdotally, I feel its the same reason that SS'rs have had some of the faster times out there....they have to carry speed (through the chunk). And if you want to break it down further then I think the South Side of the lake has the biggest chunk and room for time savings. Almost anyone can go fast on the flats, but miles and miles of cheesgrater will separate everyone. +1 though for the wind comment above. If one was going for a PR or KOM, then it would HAVE to be scheduled around the wind. Later, CJB

Not too long ago. Hoping we have more fun in 21. ✌️.

Most of my worst crashes have been at timid speed (slow). Carrying momentum through sections of trail that intimidate you is usually the better choice.

Dayummmm