AntonioGG

Awesome ride and awesome write-up Cody. Never apologize for a long ride report. I wish there was more. Who is next?

If you ride Walnut at night with your friend Marco and you get separated, do not call out for him.

When you guys go somewhere after the ride, how do you secure your bikes? I'm so paranoid about going in anywhere with my bike on the rack.

Wow Kyle! Great job! Also, I can't believe you can eat all that stuff. Any issues digesting it? If not, I also think you could have ridden it faster.

Asturias is probably my favorite classical guitar piece. When I was about 7-8 my dad took me to see Segovia. I'm sure he played it, but I can't remember it. I didn't now how lucky I was to be there.

Buck's has a take-off saddle box full of Liv saddles and some Giant saddles for $12 for anyone interested. I just picked up one for my son's bike (because 11yo are like fire to bikes and bike parts).

A bit sloppy? I went where my bike wanted to go. It was a bit scary in the first lap. I wondered about the bigger tires. I rode part of the last lap with a guy on a fat tire (I think his name was Phillip) in a 'stache and his tires seemed to just wrap themselves around the rocks and not bounce around. I was envious and wondered how those tires did in the first lap. It is shocking how good the 2nd lap was. My first lap I used a ton of energy because I started at the back (my fault) and there were people in front dismounting for everything (totally OK, I dismount for stuff too) but they were aggressively holding the trail instead of yielding to us still riding. What I should have done is gone to the bathroom right after the start, let things spread out then pass people more leisurely. I burned too many matches in the first lap for nary a boost in time. The 2nd lap felt easy and was really fun and I totally felt like I had a 3rd lap in me. As I was refilling my camelback, I discovered I had left my lights at home. I almost went to get my 2 lap rock but Todd asked if I wanted to borrow some lights. Joe (I hope I got the name right) who was recording data let me borrow his Gemini for my 3rd lap. With only a bar light, my goal was to get to the flat lands before sunset, and only have to worry about the last mile, walking it if I had to. I ended up needing to turn the light on before the steps, so it wasn't too bad. I definitely walked about 30% of the last mile though. I didn't feel my toes from the first water crossing at Cedar Breaks until after halfway home after blasting the foot heater for 30 minutes. I was very worried about my upper body holding up considering how little off-roading we've been able to do the last couple of months, but it held up just fine other than the traps starting to tighten up halfway through the last lap. What really bothered me was my right hamstring: note to self: don't be goofing around the office with your work buds trying to high kick a golf wiffle ball that your buddy is driving with a sand wedge toward you 4 days before a big ride. I normally only do liquid (Infinit) but I found myself not drinking enough. Having learned something from the TdH last weekend, I brought along Skratch labs gummies and bars. That saved me. I was on course for about 12 hours, about 10.5 hours moving time. I had brought enough Infinit for 10 hours. I drank about 7 hours worth. I supplemented with 2 packs of gummies and 2 of the pistachio cherry bars. The gummies are super sour, almost like sour patch kids so they may help with cramps too. The bars are delicious. Best bars out there. This is so much fun and is so different from the other endurance races. I really feel like the miles just tick on by because there is never a dull moment. You can't really zone out until the double track and at that point you're relieved to be done with the rocks (for a while) and are focused on just pinning it to get the speed up. The trail was perfectly marked, very well trimmed. I can't imagine the hours Todd put into it just for the love of the sport. Thanks Todd!

I bought 2 shorts from them while I was at UT and those shorts lasted forever and they were my favorite. I used to go years ago for consumables, but stopped going when their tubes kept splitting down the seam (2 in a row.)

https://northaustinmtb.org

Yeah get a new race, blast the old one with solvent/WD-40 then grease it to keep you rolling until the new one comes in. My Ritchey and Chris King headsets have never had this problem, but my Cane Creek seems a bit sensitive to water. I don't think the seals are as good.

Anita, I thought about that as we were looking for it, but I wondered how fast it would re-connect. I have an Edge 500 so I wasn't sure how fast it can re-connect and what it does when it reconnects. Trying to find it visually was impossible with all the leaves and the bright contrast due to the sun and shadows.

Paint it! Wait...

Nice ride man. Also...WHAT?! They smoothed out the ledges at St. Eds? Just piled rocks or did they chisel them?

Nice JRA!. My pro stand is missing the pin and latch for some reason. I had an extra bolt I have in there that works fine, but it's bugging me.

Take Friday off, do your light ride on Saturday. Thursday shouldn't be a hard ride. Not easy not hard.

My favorite Chris Akrigg video is a Hill in Spain. I like the music too.

What Seth and Cody said +1. This is why I also never do demo rides. I've bought that bike every time. 🙂

@crazyt Send me a PM with your e-mail address. I can give you a free month of trainerroad.

That's what I found too with the Computrainer stock virtual training stuff.

I was thinking of you Seth when I ran into this article this weekend. Good read, good data. TL;DR: Basically says engineering>materials, but there's no arguing Aluminum did really well in this test. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/frame_fatigue_test.htm#info

If ever ARR gets some kind of agreement with all the parties, I'd love to be the trail steward for the trail along Old Spicewood Springs.

I rode down far west and expected to see a few cars. I was shocked! I bet it was more fun than I had riding stupid steep road hills.

@crazyt I meant the free market is failing with respect to wages for non-skilled labor. I'm still in tech for the past 22 years. I think I've been fairly consistent in my arguments for why the "live somewhere else" is a problem--and an expensive problem at that. What are commutes in the bay area like? What about from Pfluggerville to downtown Austin? The people that are being driven out by the gentrification of Austin, where should they go? Should they move their jobs too so they don't clog up the roads commuting? Also, I fully agree with crazyt's points above. And in California the NIMBY and permit process is a huge part of the problem. Strawman alert! OK, so NIMBYUIYBYT I can understand that.

Actually, let's plant a crop!

You guys are all great reasonable people to discuss this stuff with! BTW, TAF, I'll take the "youngster" thing as a compliment. As far as private business employee affordability goes, this is where I think the free market is failing, and we as citizens are failing them. AB, I agree with you on businesses taking more responsibility. We'll all pay for that eventually just in a different way, maybe a more equitable way. I was just reading about the per-head tax that was implemented in the bay area to help deal with homelessness. This is for the tech companies that are creating the issue in the first place. What do you think about that? Interestingly, my company supported this even though it's going to cost us.