Mountain YIKES!
Sun Jun 10 01:52:37 PDT 2001
Mountain YIKES!
deekayen, good choice ditching the RapidFire shifters. I’ve never run them, and never will. I’ve heard too many problems with them. For trail riding, it’s probably fine. Once you get sand and grit into the nested discs which stop the detents from working properly, misfire-city. Useless. Also, if you drop the bike while riding, your chances of breaking off the shifters themselves are very high. I have GripShift, and I love them. Dialed in perfect, never missed a shift, even when I used to run a Shimano 600 Ultegra road dérailleur on my older mountain bike (the best dérailleur I’ve ever run on a mountain bike, hands-down, is that 600 Ultegra road dérailleur).
Wait until you start doing 2′ and 3′ hops, using small protruding roots and rocks as a launching point. I preload the shock (drop my weight down, 165lbs.), then as it releases, pull up on the clipless pedals, bam! 2-3′ air. Clipless pedals definitely help, and road shoes, none of those soft, squishy off-road shoes for me. Maximum power to the pedals, please.
I have a Trek Y-22 from 1999, and just about the only thing original on it is the frame, rear shock, and front fork. I’ve replaced everything else because I’ve either broken it, or worn it out. I love doing drops, jumps, pretty aggressive singletrack, anything hardcore. I’m on it.
Before moving to California, I dropped some coin on these sweet Race Face cranks and Shimano XTR brakes. I was noticing some “sway” in my bottom bracket when I hammered, and thought it was the frame giving out. I plopped these babies on, rock solid ride again. I gained so much power back in my stroke. I spent the extra dollars and special-ordered the nickel-plated rings to go with it and the linkless chain.
Next thing I replace is the fork. I’m looking into some more carbon parts too, but I’m not yet sold on the carbon seat-posts and handlebars yet. I’ve got GripShift, ESP9 carbon derailleurs, and a nice clamped-down set of Deore-XTR brakes front and rear. Sweet setup, shifting is imperceptibly silent, braking is hard and responsive (not squishy).
I have to think about purchasing another road bike for myself (lost my Specialized Cirrus (not a picture of my bike, but the same bike I had) custom when I moved out of “psycho’s” house in CT). I used to love that bike, and put a solid 40 miles a day, every day, for 3 years on that sucker. I have to think about getting another road bike for myself and get a bike for Erika. Not sure if she wants a road or a mountain bike yet. We’ll have to field-test her on that.
Anyone know of some good hardcore rides in the Bay Area? (Marin, South City, San Bruno) Is there a riding club or anything like that out here?
Jim Henry
In other biking news, I see an old friend of mine, Jim Henry is still going strong | these days, beating able-bodied riders, even though he has only one arm to ride with (He’s on the far right here). He was always an inspiration when I used to ride with him (or when he’d pass me during a long ride). One thing I’ll always remember him saying to me was:
“…hills are nothing more than flats, at an angle…”
…as he sped past me up a hill, and I was huffing to keep up. An amazingly positive person, despite his handicap. Keep pumping, Jim!
Swordfish
I just got back from seeing Swordfish at the local cinema. It was packed, and I mean no more than 5 empty seats left in the place. I just have to point out three things that caught my attention in the first 10 minutes:
“..Axel Torvalds..”
“..number one hacker..”
“..finnish consulate..”
Come on now, that’s just a little TOO lame.
At least they spat out some of the buzzwords I’M used to hearing, ipchains, portmap, sniffer, DS3. Some of it was entertaining, and very Matrix-esque (and in fact, Joel Silver produced both the Matrix and Swordfish), but it had that “Tarantino” feel to it. Interesting plot, “mostly” technically accurate (no uploading a trojan to the mothership with zmodem on a PowerBook from within a stolen alient craft here (ala Independence Day), folks). It’s probably worth the $8.00 or so.
Ok, back to more CVS hackery…the weekend isn’t over yet!