Charlie193

17 minutes ago, Chardog said:

Please stay off when trails look like that.  If tires are leaving Mark's they are damaging the trail

Not sure if this is general advice, or specific to my post. Just wanted to be clear- I wasn’t riding today, I just thought I’d check the conditions on foot, then share them as people seemed interested in conditions over on the R&I thread.

Just went for a quick walk to bmx loop and windy loop at lunch. Arrived at some fairly wet spots pretty quickly on both, although bmx loop hadn’t seemed too bad until the puddle. Didn’t have time to look anywhere else.

I think I’m happiest with flats because I’m more familiar with them. I switched to clipless recently when I found my old Nike Poohbahs, after a brief previous switch to clipless, quite a while ago. It’s been fine on trails I know, but I’ve recently tried some new-to-me trails on clipless, then on flats, and I’m much happier on flats if I don’t know what’s round the next corner. The only answer is that we should all go back to toe clips.

Someone has pulled up a little clump of rocks, if you’re heading down SP Slalom Run and take a left before the creek, after the little root step just after the turn. Couldn’t see any that had obviously been uprooted to put them back. Don’t remember them being particularly terrifying either.

I’ve had a 125mm PNW Cascade with external routing for about a year, and around 300 miles. It’s been great so far, no issues at all and it was easy to install.

10 hours ago, Teamsloan said:

Wait...I'm not the only 26er?

I've still got 26" wheels, hopefully not for life, but definitely until I get approval to throw a good chunk of our budget at a new bike, so it may well end up being for life.

Just went to WC for a stroll at lunch. Only made it to bmx loop and windy loop. The parts of those trails I saw were reasonably firm for the most part, but with a couple of muddy patches here and there.

The short climb up from the creek on windy loop had a little water flowing down it, and was pretty muddy at the top. 

Not sure about the other trails- ran out of time.

I don’t have one, but they are listed in bicycle sport shop’s rental fleet- $45 for a half day, if you’re looking for a test ride.

Thanks for the advice everyone, and thanks to Teamsloan for the ztr flow rim! Finally managed to get out on the bike today for the first time since getting a functioning rear wheel again. All is well, other than my loss of fitness.

6 minutes ago, notyal said:

I never realized that Lake Austin is the city's only source of drinking water. Confession: I've peed in your drinking water.

The city also has an intake on Lake Travis, it’s ok though, I’ve peed in there too.

Absolute bargain:

https://austin.craigslist.org/bik/d/1980s-peugeot-canyon-express/6729669128.html

4 hours ago, mack_turtle said:

The person I confronted today contacted me. He said he rode into the trail to check it out to see how muddy things were, didn't get very far, then turned around. I saw him on his way out. chances are, he didn't do any real damage. no big deal in this case.

however,

a) duh, of course the trails are muddy. it rained yesterday just like it rained every other day for the past week. no need to check if the trail is muddy- it is obvious. just stay out.

b) don't respond defensively when someone confronts you for doing (or even appearing to do) something stupid. I did my civic duty for the mtb community by confronting someone for riding muddy trails. you're welcome. "I don't need a fucking lecture from you" smacks of defensiveness.

Maybe I was a bit hasty with my wanker comment then- apologies. Think you’re right about the reply though. Most of us probably don’t like being told what to do by random people, but if he was aware that people don’t generally ride in the wet here, and that you were trying to keep the trails in good shape, it would have been as quick to say that he just confirmed the trail was unrideable and turned around, as it was to tell you where to go, and ride off in a sulk. To each their own, I suppose.

No harm in posting- there are plenty of people in town who are wanting to ride their bikes just as much as this wanker, but aren’t because they’re reasonable people who don’t want to screw things up for everyone else.

Of course, if he already doesn’t care, or is too stupid to have figured out what he’s doing is out of line, he probably won’t be changing anytime soon, no matter what.

2 hours ago, deadtokevin said:

I think Teamsloan is its rightful owner. I will double check after my ride tonight

No worries, just thought I’d check in case you had only given one of two to someone already.

5 hours ago, deadtokevin said:

I have a 26" white Flow EX rim in my garage you can have

If you do still have that, that’d be great! Is it 32h?

Thanks for the suggestions! I had been planning on keeping my current set-up of Hope xc hubs and Hope m4 brakes- I realize they're pretty old now, but I still like them, they've been rock solid, and they were the first big upgrade I made to my bike, so I'm kind of attached to them. I'll definitely consider being a normal person and just buying a wheelset though.

My old mavic 717 rim is dead, and no longer produced, so I'm looking for a new 26" rim, which doesn't seem to leave me with a huge amount of options. So far it looks like mavic 719, stans flow, and spank spoon are available in that size. I think I've read quite a few positive reviews of stans flows, does anyone out there have an opinion on the other two, or something else entirely? I'm just looking for a general trail rim  for an xc bike, doesn't have to be super light though, as I just ride for fun. Thanks.

Charlie

17 hours ago, gotdurt said:

Ha, Ganderson and I were there that day.

Edit: oops, my bad, we were at Russell Park. Regardless, how'd someone that unstable get hired on to begin with? There has to be indicators, even when she's calm...

Hiring someone who looked like an older version of Arnie’s woman disguise from Total Recall was always going to be a high risk strategy.

I live south, and never make it up to Lake Georgetown, apparently this was at Cedar Breaks though, and it sounds like this lunatic works there.