Barry

Folks on FaceSpace and folks on Strava said yesterday morning was muddy, but last night was perfect. I'll be there for a couple of loops.

These are interesting and kind of counter perspectives. I only have 2017 & 2019 to go by, but based on my data those roll-downs were a little different. I have @AustinBike's 2017 led roll down at 15 miles total, with a 15.2mph average, and a total time of 1:02:57. And I remember @CBaron commenting on the pace being high in 2017. And I have @knifezilla's 2019 led roll down at 15 miles total, with a 14.2mph average, and a total time of 1:11:38. So it was just a little over 8 minutes slower this year. Which is cool for me, since my total time was 27 minutes faster in 2019! I'm not one to make a big report, but I thought I'd share this year's Thumper nightmare. Lately I've come to enjoy Thumper quite a lot. The g-outs are a blast, and the tech is all pretty doable. The only real hard parts are the tight climbing turns...if you're fresh--if you're hydrated. I went into St. Ed's with 1 full bottle and a little left in the other. Knowing the trail angel station would be at Thumper, I proceeded to empty almost one entire bottle on my face and head! It was pushing 90+ degrees at this point, after all. My plan was to mix up another Perpetuem, grab a pickle shot, and refill my water. So imagine my horror when I rolled up to Thumper only to find....nothing. The first 5 or 6 folks to get to Thumper didn't have a water stop available! Sure, they were there...somewhere...just in the wrong spot. So with only a splash of water in each bottle I tried my damnedest to keep my spirits up, but all I could think about was how thirsty and hungry I was. I was able to get some gels down, but without more than a splash of water, they were tough to swallow. And while my spirits were low, my heart rate was pegging, and my legs were cramping. I ended up pushing about 30% of Thumper and somehow managed to exit about 1:06 after entering. I went from being 12 minutes back from the ride leaders, to being 27 minutes back! Thankfully once I exited Thumper, the water stop was there. With cold beer. Cold water. Pickle slushies. And @Hakalugi there to fill my bottles for me and cheer me on. I despise IPA, but that cold beer went down like a can of sweet grapefruit juice. I also don't care for pickle juice, but that slushie was amazing as well. Guess I should have stopped at Bill's!

Indeed! I've been eyeing a Brushy/SN/ChristChurch/Wilco/Behrens eveything loop for a few weeks. Think I'll stick it someplace between EB and DS. Hmmm, it's a little further, but if you really wanna get nuts, maybe consider Xtal Falls as well.

I responded on FaceSpace as well. I plan to be there, and I saw some smoke signals which indicate that perhaps @knifezilla will be there as well.

Thad's 2017 route is (IMO) accurate, but his GPS looks choppy, which is why I didn't use it earlier. Mine is close, but like I said, we skipped Doghead and rode Endo. I think the correct way is to skip Endo and Ride Doghead. Everything else on my (which you quoted) is correct. I have been assuming that, like in 2017, the entire path down to Zilker will be a "group" led ride. In 2017 @AustinBike led the group down to Zilker, and "released the hounds" there. Everyone stayed together until then. @TAF, is something like that happening this year?

I do hate the plastic end cap inserts. My Fat Paw grips have them and they fall out right fast, or get torn up real bad on trees and rocks. I replace them with these cheap things, which are spectacular.

This is the right answer for any grip. This gets me to 30-35 miles of even rough terrain without significant hand or wrist pain. After that, it's going to hurt no matter. I know that I have to grip somewhat harder on sketchy downhill or tech sessions, so on easier sections I'll just lightly rest my hands on the grips. For grips, I like them fat and soft. I use WolfTooth Fat Paw grips combined with ibuprofen .

Yeah, that's it, except add Doghead and minus Endo. It's funny, I don't remember not doing Doghead. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Rain chances are decreasing slightly--there may indeed be a chance for a loop or 2. The earlier the better! If it isn't pouring down, I plan to be there at 4:30 for an early lap.

According to my 2017 Flyby only 5 people did Endo that day...two of which were @CBaron and me. We decided later that it was extra credit. I don't plan to do it this year. And by my estimation, doing Root Drop (black line) instead of the Standard Loop (blue line) shortens the ride by about 0.7 miles. Again, according to my Flyby, only 4 folks went through Root Drop that day. And yeah, it's looking pretty raintastic today. But good for the weekend! Albeit a little warmer than I'd hoped.

Looking at what folks did in 2017, this seems very wrong. I'm not sure anyone did Root Drop. Most folks did the current "standard loop" minus Windy & BMX. This also doesn't jive with the GPX file, which doesn't do Root Drop.

A point of confusion at WC from the file. I went back and looked at what most folks actually did at WC in 2017 and what this file says. I'd like @TAF to weigh in on the official 2019 route. The official GPX shows the route going down Endo and skipping Powerline Flow. But when I look at what most folks did, they skipped Endo and rode Powerline Flow down and up and then crossed the dam. It also shows the exit from WC as different than it was led in 2017. ...wait, is this GPX from before the paved path went though WC?

This was posted on FaceSpace:

Maybe. This ladder certainly leads to a former:

I'm really enjoying both the Peddler's jumps and the new jump line (I've been calling it Jumpin' Jesus...but then I'm a heathen). About 6 to 8 weeks ago I couldn't jump at all. Jumping just never made sense to me, and anything that wasn't a straight drop-off, sent me ass-over end. And that was the case for 19 years. But while playing around at WC's BMX inner jump line, something just clicked, and suddenly I could clean every jump on the inner-most line except for the very last one. And then I went over to Peddlers a couple of weeks ago, and was surprised to find that those jumps looked much smaller than I remembered them in my head, and I could clean everything on the right side (not sure what's going on on the left side, it seems more like a pump track). And then when I found this new jump line last week, sign-unseen on my first run I was almost able to clean the whole line of jumps--I just barely clipped the last one. But then I went back and tried it again, and cleaned the whole line. I'm not too sure how I'd feel about wood lips since I just got comfortable with dirt. Maybe I need to get out to RHR to give them a try. But anyway, thanks for all the work out there! I really didn't expect to learn much new at this point, but these two lines really helped progress my jumping. Yeah, you missed it. It's the single-track in the circle: