Mountain Biking 2020

[AmyPJ]

Where's the PugSki sticker?

We have assorted snowmachines and an IH Scout along our trails. I haven't stickered them. :-(

I need to pack some in my pockets for next time for sure

 

[nay]

Is that sand as slow as it looks?

Moondust is interesting. It rips fine at surface level, is like sand when it gets deep, and deep ruts at about the wide of 3 bike tires.

Makes those corners a treat, but oddly you just get used to it...

 

[Tricia]

Where's the PugSki sticker?

We have assorted snowmachines and an IH Scout along our trails. I haven't stickered them. :-(

Let us know if you need more stickers.

 

[Doug Briggs]

Moondust is super fine, like a powder, assuming we are talking the same thing. Not grit, but literally an inch or two of powder. After a rain it becomes super tacky tread. At altitude (low humidity) it returns to moondust within a day. The change in composition is like riding a different trail.

 

[Doug Briggs]

Let us know if you need more stickers.

Thanks, I'll put some in my pack for those moments. I don't usually sticker things I don't own unless they are already plastered with them, though. AFAIK, the snowmobiles and 'Harvester' are virginal.

 

[nay]

The action pics from the enduro are here for anybody who wants to take a peek:

Photos: Steamboat 2020 | Revolution Enduro

revolutionenduro.com

 

[nay]

My non-action pics from Day 2:

The calm aspen forest climb.

Upper Grouse stage 6 start.

Soda mountain ride and hike to Stage 7.

A bit of downhill fun along the way. The riders get stretched out in here...all alone with your thoughts...

Finally up to to start of stage 7. Only 4K down to stage 8 on lower Grouse.

Zirkels in the distance. That’s a lot of snow still for this elevation.

And then no race day pics, too whipped. So some lower Grouse from the pre-ride.

And that’s a wrap.

 

[scott43]

Moondust is super fine, like a powder, assuming we are talking the same thing. Not grit, but literally an inch or two of powder. After a rain it becomes super tacky tread. At altitude (low humidity) it returns to moondust within a day. The change in composition is like riding a different trail.

Does it slow you down? When it's sand around here similar to what that looks like, I'm dropping at least a gear, maybe two... On a long ride it's a killer..like a 10mph head wind constantly..

 

[nay]

Does it slow you down? When it's sand around here similar to what that looks like, I'm dropping at least a gear, maybe two... On a long ride it's a killer..like a 10mph head wind constantly..

Not really if it’s just tread depth surface level like this sitting on top of clay:

When deeper it’s a lot like sand - you have to be careful railing into deep patches and it’s boat anchor on climbs.

One small step for man...

 

[Doug Briggs]

@scott43 , what @nay said. ^^^

 

[AmyPJ]

Does it slow you down? When it's sand around here similar to what that looks like, I'm dropping at least a gear, maybe two... On a long ride it's a killer..like a 10mph head wind constantly..

My experience is that compared to tacky hero dirt, yes, it’s slower but it’s nothing like sand. But man does it make for a noisy drivetrain.

Different subject: I finally cut my bars from 780 down to 750. I feel more power on the climbs (chest more open maybe, core more engaged?) and feel a lot more centered during the descents. Bike feels more playful and maneuverable. I think there’s a fine line where you can’t lean the bike as efficiently in corners or to maneuver through stuff with bars too wide.

 

[nay]

Bar width is directly related to rider size. At 6’2” my “chart width” is about 820mm. 800 feels really good - I’m tall but not a lot of shoulder width for my height.

780mm is huge fior a smaller rider. Here’s a rough guide to width - obviously one size doesn’t fit all, but for say a 5’2” woman rider you get a 670mm optimal starting width. That’s a far cry from ‘slap 800mm on every bike’.

Lee McCormack's Guide to Finding the Handlebar Width Sweet-Spot - Pinkbike

Legendary skills coach, Lee McCormack, explains how and why to set your handlebar to the perfect width.

m.pinkbike.com

I tend to agree with the underlying concept of fitment expressing your bigger muscles and core as opposed to stressing smaller muscles and joints. It’s sort of like big skis - they have to be big to you, not just ‘big”.

 

[AmyPJ]

Bar width is directly related to rider size. At 6’2” my “chart width” is about 820mm. 800 feels really good - I’m tall but not a lot of shoulder width for my height.

780mm is huge fior a smaller rider. Here’s a rough guide to width - obviously one size doesn’t fit all, but for say a 5’2” woman rider you get a 670mm optimal starting width. That’s a far cry from ‘slap 800mm on every bike’.

Lee McCormack's Guide to Finding the Handlebar Width Sweet-Spot - Pinkbike

Legendary skills coach, Lee McCormack, explains how and why to set your handlebar to the perfect width.

m.pinkbike.com

I tend to agree with the underlying concept of fitment expressing your bigger muscles and core as opposed to stressing smaller muscles and joints. It’s sort of like big skis - they have to be big to you, not just ‘big”.

Super interesting! That formula he has linked has my perfect width at right around 705. @utskier, who is 5'11", is spot-on at 780mm. He also does talk about how the core (bigger muscles) is much more useful with bars that fit (usually, narrower than stock.) I can see why bars come wider--they can be cut. The PB article that lists several riders and their preferred bar width shows how wildly it can vary, and yes, 780mm is too wide for me.

Funny, I was thinking of the correlation between wide skis and wide bars in "feel". Cutting my bars down made me feel like I was on a pair of 80mm under foot vs. 105s on groomed snow.

 

[Lauren]

The PB article that lists several riders and their preferred bar width shows how wildly it can vary, and yes, 780mm is too wide for me.

I found this list pretty interesting...especially how the female riders don't really coincide with the calculation of the other article. Lee McCormack's story noted about his multiplier:

"These numbers are almost identical to the median and average rider heights/bar widths in Richard Cunningham’s story. The bar widths are relatively wider for the female riders — but they are not ordinary people!"

None of the pros are "ordinary people", male or female. I find it odd (or maybe off) that the male multiplier matches up to pro riders relatively consistently, yet the female pro riders are all riding wider bars. Are female pros riding bars too wide for them? Or has he underestimated the ideal width for female riders?

 

[nay]

Are female pros riding bars too wide for them? Or has he underestimated the ideal width for female riders?

I suspect it’s casual bias that the average male rider is more “like” a pro male rider than the average female rider is “like” a pro female rider. Or maybe pro riders are pretty much pro riders - certainly they are all dialed.

Lee also has a reach/stack formula “rider area distance” (RAD) and he pretty much says that the new long and slack geometries are creating bikes that are too long for everybody for the same basic reasons as expressed in the bar width article.

My new bike this year - Stumpjumper Evo size S3 (there are two sizes, S2/S3 or long and longer) - has a 495mm reach and also a relatively low stack height. I’m 6’2” with a decent ape index and felt like I needed a much longer bike, but I did develop serious left shoulder pain after about a month.

Shortening the stem from 50mm to 40mm and increasing handelbar rise from 27mm to 35mm made all the difference in the world. It seems nuts that a few millimeters make that much difference, but dialing in RAD was a real issue for me.

Lee McCormack's Guide to Bike Set-Up - Pinkbike

Lee McCormack tells you what he thinks the most important measurement is when setting up your bike.

m.pinkbike.com

The frame is still long and slack, so this is ideal, and a pretty common set of adjustments on a bike pushing the edge of modern geometry. Handlebar rise is another topic - bikes often still come with lower rise bars to supposedly express their “trail” handling nature, but this can lead to suboptimal RAD, especially if you ride a lot of technical downhill and end up feeling like you are falling over the front of the bike.

Good stuff to work with if you have pain on longer rides or persistently.

 

[Joel]

Yesterday morning I went up Towers again. My plan was to make the top but the smoke from the Grand Junction fire was pretty noticable. My nose still bugs me. I made it a bit past Carey Springs and came back down. The last group of pictures was on Towers going up, these are from Carey Springs and Saw Mill going down.

Bright and early, only one there, was about 5:30AM, like last time.

The rest of these are just shots on the way down.

Another fun ride. I was planning to get some soaring in this week as well, but the fires kind of ruined that, but OK, more bike riding..... as long as I can breath.

Joel

 

[Ron]

Bar width is directly related to rider size. At 6’2” my “chart width” is about 820mm. 800 feels really good - I’m tall but not a lot of shoulder width for my height.

780mm is huge fior a smaller rider. Here’s a rough guide to width - obviously one size doesn’t fit all, but for say a 5’2” woman rider you get a 670mm optimal starting width. That’s a far cry from ‘slap 800mm on every bike’.

Lee McCormack's Guide to Finding the Handlebar Width Sweet-Spot - Pinkbike

Legendary skills coach, Lee McCormack, explains how and why to set your handlebar to the perfect width.

m.pinkbike.com

I tend to agree with the underlying concept of fitment expressing your bigger muscles and core as opposed to stressing smaller muscles and joints. It’s sort of like big skis - they have to be big to you, not just ‘big”.

Wow! this is pretty spot-on for me. 780; which is exactly where my bars are after some trial and error. I sometimes will slide my hands in a bit depending on what Im riding but I love the wide position on the descents.

 

[AmyPJ]

I found this list pretty interesting...especially how the female riders don't really coincide with the calculation of the other article. Lee McCormack's story noted about his multiplier:

"These numbers are almost identical to the median and average rider heights/bar widths in Richard Cunningham’s story. The bar widths are relatively wider for the female riders — but they are not ordinary people!"

None of the pros are "ordinary people", male or female. I find it odd (or maybe off) that the male multiplier matches up to pro riders relatively consistently, yet the female pro riders are all riding wider bars. Are female pros riding bars too wide for them? Or has he underestimated the ideal width for female riders?

I suspect he is underestimating the idea width for female riders. The calculator he uses would put me on 703s, which would feel like a kid's bike to me. I would hazard to guess that there is a max/min where on either end you are going way too far outside (or inside) of the bike's geometry, if that makes sense.

I did the push up position to guess where mine should be, and came out at about 730. I decided going from 780 to 730 would be way too drastic, so went more conservative. I need more downhill time on the 750s, but I CAN say that they feel a lot better than at 780. Strava is useful at times-when I start spotting a trend in my ride times on trails I've ridden hundreds of times, (they are slower) then I start to wonder what's factoring in. Since I'm on a new ride every year, and this year it has all new geometry, I knew it'd involve some trial and error.

On a totally off topic amusing note, the trails in our hood are stirring up some of the residents who live along the perimeter of the area, and now have a trail uphill from their homes that runs along the perimeter. Mind you, I understand where some of their frustration lies, but trails as a whole are a GOOD thing and increase home values. (As if we need that in our area right now.) I mean, first world problems. Anyway, the segment that runs along the back of the homes has been given names--"Peeping Tom" and "NIMBY".

 

[Ron]

"Peeping Tom" and "NIMBY".

 

[Ron]

part of that calculation is based on upper body strength, so you cant go entirely by height calculation.