June Bug

I was remembering just now that we pumped up tires pretty close to max just before starting the ride, because, of course, it was all going to be a nicely bladed road and all smooth sailing. There was some smooth sailing but lots of variety to keep things interesting. Washboard sections of road were the worst; hard on hands and wrists, even when standing on the pedals. Ergon grips were helpful.

Yup, a super cheap 29er hardtail frame that fits just right is out there somewhere for you to find. What size frame do you ride? Also, not exactly on topic, but when we stopped at the Chamber of Commerce office right on the square in Mason to pick up a county map, they had individual county maps for all the counties in that part of Texas. These maps show all the roads in the county, although it doesn't specify which are dirt and which are paved. We got Blanco Northern Burnet County Northern Hays County Kerr County Kimble Lampasas Llano Mason Menard San Saba They are free if you contact the Chamber of Commerce in any of the towns in the county. They are published by Texas Trails in Llano. Planning to put together some great rides on dirt and ranch to market roads, and maybe two to three day credit card tours on same. The area between Fredericksburg/Llano/Mason has little B&Bs and cabins popping up out in the middle of no where. There's also an almanac of Texas showing every current road and it's status, from major highways to dirt roads. Whole Earth Provision Co might carry it, sometimes REI has it in stock. All good tools for planning a (relatively) local adventure.

Yesterday's ride on the James River Rd south of Mason: graded dirt, uneven bedrock, sand, loose dirt mixed with small rocks, a bit of rutted dirt from recent rains, washboard surface that almost bounced me off my pedals and everything in between. We saw feral hogs, many does and a spotted fawn, fat Angus cows/calves/bulls, a rattle ssssssnake, little cottontail bunnies hop hop hopping along, a jackrabbit, a wildflower hanging on here and there, blooming cacti, beautiful limestone bluffs, gorgeous vistas, a wide river we didn't cross and met a local guy checking his gates who brought his six best friends: 5 border collies and a small-ish poodle. None of them barked at us -- not one sound. Crusty's ride: gravel bike (carbon frame, dropped bars, disc brakes), WTB CrossBoss 35 x 700 tires with tread. Me: rigid Ti hard tail with Maxxis Re-Fuse 700 x 40 tires (smooth, no tread) mounted on 29 rims, MRP carbon fork, Surly handle bars with a super swept angle. I've use this set up for dirt roads, gravel, path touring, commuting. Don't let the simple word "gravel" make you think that a gravel ride will always just be smooth packed dirt or caliche on a bladed road; things can get rough. A rigid 29er hardtail with 40 x 400 cc tires mounted on 29er rims is a de facto gravel grinder with minimal cash outlay. For rougher roads, a 1.9" (remember those?) 29er tire with low tread (Maxxis CrossMark?) would be ideal. Ride the setup, see what you like (don't like) and contemplate where you want to go from there. Again, old school 29er rims (narrow interior width) are perfect for mounting narrow tires. Do you want to do dirt road/path/rail-trail touring at some point? I hope you do. That's long days in the saddle with varying loads. You can self support with camping gear or credit card tour. With this, you'll have some long days in the saddle, so comfort is paramount. You may want to take that option into consideration with whatever setup you have eventually. "gravel" is like opening a door. You might think you're opening a door to a small closet, but when you turn on the light, you've entered a new bike dimension with amazing vistas and endless possibilities for day rides near Austin to rocking multi-day tours on maintained dirt roads/paths/rail trails for days on end throughout the west and southwest and other parts of the US. Craters and Cinder Cones route River Road Ramble Great Allegheny Passage Bon appetite!

I remember the revelation when I first rode the Proflex. Then another revelation when I swapped out the Flex Stem for a regular suspension fork on my Proflex 856. Then huge revelation when riding the zippy and fun Titus Racer X! Even huger revelation riding a 29er for the first time at a demo. Then additional revelation when we realized that the early iteration Gary Fisher 29er was a clunky tank, and got better 29ers. Also, disc brakes. Mind blown. It seems people are getting injured less these days with advances in mtn bike frame geometry, but I could be wrong. That said, I'm sorry I ever let go of my fist mtn bike, a red steel Specialized Rock Hopper, in the (mid?) 1990s.

Heavy shower moved through the Walnut area this afternoon, Wednesday, July 3rd.

Did a loop backpack awhile back that involved climbing Engineer Mtn. There's a slot that you climb out of to get to the ridge leading to the peak. There were various people climbing that day, and just after we'd climbed out of the slot onto the exposed ridge leading to the peak, some people pointed out the static electricity crackling underfoot, on our clothes, and in our hair. We all backtracked STAT and sheltered down in the slot until the danger had passed. There were dark clouds to the north, but nothing particularly ominous overhead and it wasn't raining, but the danger of a lightning strike was still high. So yeah, just pay close attention to your exposure to lightning anytime after noon during July and most of August.

Thanks for the link. That is indeed a fascinating article. Amazing that between the satellites, motorcycles, helicopters, airplanes, mountain top RF relays, and all the crazy production action over the course of a day, that they manage to make it seamless for the viewers.

You beat me to it! This is such exciting news and I'm simply still in awe. Big shout out to Chumba for sponsoring her, and to Patagonia for hosting her talk. She must have smelled the barn and put on the afterburners to crank out that distance overnight. Well done, well done!

Alexandera is 110.4 miles to Antelope Wells! She should be done tomorrow. Wonder if she'll pedal straight through to the end! Hope someone is there to meet her -- like the Chumba folks. ETA: Will try not to think about Alexandera riding on the access road for I-10 at 9 at night right now. The route uses I-10 to jog a bit back to the east before turning south to Antelope Wells. The closest person to Alexandera must have gotten hung up in Silver City and Alexandera now has a 36 mile lead. If things stay as they are, tomorrow she will be the next finisher behind Ryan Simon, first female finisher, 2nd overall single-speed finisher. As noted above, it will be interesting in the morning to see if she stops tonight or just powers through to the end. Also, really like the timing of this. The person I'm following on the Tour Divide will be all wrapped up and then, Viola!, the T de F gets underway on Saturday. To whet y'all's appetite, there will be 30 categorized climbs with five mountain finishes, but only 54 km of time trialing. Froomie and Geraint Thomas are out with injuries; anything could happen. It will be interesting to see if Bob Roll (Bobke) has a larger role in commentating. Paul Sherwen, Phil Liggett's partner in commenting on road racing for 35 years, passed away of a heart attack at age 62 last December.

I typo'd in my original post. Cuba is on Hwy 550 (not Hwy 555) between Bernalillo and Farmington. It's a bit of a super highway these days and goes right by the turn off to the White Ridge Bike Trails. We've used Hwy 550 three or so times to drive back and forth to SW Colorado; smooth sailing on a 4-lane highway with minimal traffic.

Ryan Simon will finish today -- he has only about 50 miles to go. Alexandera is moving right along after a five-hour nap and will be in Silver City this evening. It looks like she stops about 1 or 2 am, sleeps for four to five hours, and then is right back at it -- consistently cranking out about 140 to 150 miles/day.

Wow, Ryan Simon is single speeding along and is only 25 miles north of Silver City! Alexandera is about 120 miles north of Silver City, still consistently moving along at (typically) 8 mph, knocking out 140 to 150 miles a day and sleeping 4 hours/night. She's been truly solo for a lot of this race; no riders are anywhere close in either direction. However, Evan Deutsch is now about 4 miles back.

Thank Thanks for this and ordering today! My once white Pearl Izumi sleeves are now a dingy gray and kinda baggy and they're also hot and clammy. ETA: There's a Columbia Factory Store at the outlet mall in Round Rock + IKEA* is on the way. If they have them, I'll try them on. There's a lot of confusion on the sizing ("fits small") but the web site doesn't give any other helpful info on choosing size. The options are S/M and L/XL. Otherwise ordering from Ridenfool's link to Backcountry. IKEA* is a forced march with meatballs two thirds of the way through, and air conditioned, so win-win, if one considers being in IKEA any form of winning. Also, Weather Underground shows a high on Wednesday of 85 with more rain.

Have fun and report back!

Alexandera is about 240 miles ahead of the next woman rider, Zoe Chauderlot. Four riders have finished, and Tony Lesueur finished just now. The next rider is still over 90 miles away.

So here's the deal. This guy writing the review was in southern AZ with extremely low humidity. It sounds like on a long hike, the fabric did work to some degree. Also, from my experience working outdoors in the summer in SW Colorado and SE Utah, the low humidity is sucking moisture out of you; technically, you're sweating, but you'd never now. At some point in humid Austin, the evaporative cooling just won't work as the temps climb into the high 90s. That said, Academy Sports and Outdoors has some of the Columbia Omni-Freeze shirts.

Tour Divide Sunday a.m. stalking report: Ryan is now just behind the Phillips 66 gas station in Grants and he may have briefly stopped in at the WalMart Super Center just prior. Alexandera is stopped and getting some nap time in the absolute barking center of nowhere on the Navajo Reservation; elevation there is close to 7,000'. Quite a slog to Grants. Although there is no dramatic mountain topography, this is not flat country -- there could be a lot of cumulative elevation gain as you roll along. Also, hadn't even considered wind as a factor until just now. High of 84 today in Grants, with afternoon thunderstorms and a west/southwest wind up to 10 mph by tonight, when it's out of the north (good). The roads look like pavement or maintained gravel. Nate Ginzton has also finished. TAF, I can't imagine having to turn around and ride back to Silver City! I'm guessing that Antelope Wells is not an amenity-rich locale. 7:00 am Mountain Standard Time update: Our girl is up and on the move at 8.6 mph.

Pics of Alexandera and her racing set up here: Chumba Cycles: Alexandera's DKXL, TDR, CT Singlespeed Stella Titanium 29er Note the small brown tarp under her sleeping bag. That's her shelter.

5:21 pm: I know, I know, creepy and stalker-ish, but Ryan Simon is at the Shell gas station in Cuba, NM, which is in front of a large McDonald's. Will he get a Big Mac or roll on with a gas station burrito under his belt? Tonight they'll be a long slog across the Navajo Reservation. Next checkpoint is Pie Town, almost 200 miles away, but he'll go through Grants, NM on I-40 about half way to Pie Town. Getting down into much lower elevation ~ 6,000 ft. The overall leader, Chris Seistrup, will finish this evening in a few hours.

Alexandera is at the checkpoint in Abiquiu (Georgia O'Keeffe, RIP) and should pass by the north side of Valles Caldera today or tonight. The next checkpoint (Cuba, NM, 77.7 miles away on US Hwy 550) is the home of El Bruno's Restaurante y Cantina. The green chile burrito at El Bruno's would probably stop all forward progress, so guessing she won't stop for dinner.

At my house near Braker + Swearingen, we had only a few drops of rain yesterday (Thursday evening, June 27) from the storm that seemed to drench everything south of here. So extrapolating that WC missed the rain as well. Did at short ride at WC around 4 pm yesterday (Inner and Outer Log and the flow trail) and saw only one puddle. Everything else was dry or dry-ish.

Valles Caldera is amazing and high elevation. The opening scenes of the TV series Longmire were filmed here. When we were there (4 years ago?) it was managed under Department of Agriculture. The trails we wanted to ride had been closed due to damage from a recent rain storm; the folks at the ranger station had a big van w/ bike rack they used to drive people here and there inside the preserve. They dropped us off on a dirt road and aimed us in the right direction for a nice ride. We turned around when the dirt road turned into a bulldozed track with razor sharp obsidian everywhere. I was really concerned that we might slice a tire open. The ranger folk said they'd find us on our way back and give us a ride back to the ranger station, which they did. It's now managed as a national preserve under the National Park Service. When we were there, only anglers with a reservation to fish in a specific area were allowed to drive private vehicles into the preserve and I suspect not much has changed. Worth a visit and bring your bikes. Also, Jemez Hot Springs are on the way.

Wasn't it amazing? However, now I feel my riding style is slow & uninspired, so but I'm going to try to add in some rhythm into my laps at WC. I noticed that the riders were always pumping for speed on single track. The 10-year-old grommets at Whistler were beyond astounding. I had to find Big Water on google maps. It's in southern Utah, on Hwy. 89, just north of the Arizona border and not too far from Page and Lake Powell. This was the downhill footage on dark gray slopes that included insane tricks on giant boulders and slabs of rocks.

Found this post on bikepacking.net from Josh Kato about the incident that ultimately led him to abandon his Tour Divide attempt:

Alexandera is rolling into Del Norte about now (5:18 pm Austin time), and the section from Del Norte to Abiquiu looks wicked bad in the good parts and brutal everywhere else. Ryan Simon is about halfway through to Abiquiu and Live Tracker shows his elevation as slightly over 11,000'. Hard to tell but I'm wondering if some of this is single track. He's climbing up to the 3500 m (11,482') contour now and it looks like he'll be at that elevation and a bit above for awhile. It'll be damned cold once the sun goes down and there are some rain showers rolling around.