They say the best way to enter the grave is to do so skidding sideways, bruised, broken, bloodied with a shit eatin’ grin screaming that was one hell of a ride. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told that they say.
My bike, and when I say my bike I mean the one that I think about first when someone asks me what type of bike I have which happens a lot apparently when you work in the industry the steed that you board means things, is pictured above. You will notice that the wheels are not attached. What you can’t see is that the cranks were recently pulled, inspected, lubricated and re-installed. The headset creaks to say the least. It’s more of a moan in that begging sense, begging me to not make it go down trails that consist of constant 6″ ruts/drops.
It’s broken. Not in the sense that it should be thrown away or it is unsafe to ride. Nor is it disabled due to a lack of maintenance. No, my poor bike is broken because I rode it and I rode it hard.
The fact that you are reading this post on this blog means you are a bike nerd. I’m sure you have already noticed that my bike doesn’t have a lot of moving parts. In the biz, they call these bikes rigid. I liked Fixie’s term better, full stiffy (or I think it was Fixie’s). The bike has no squishy, high-dollar suspension components that would allow the bike to move up and down underneath me, absorbing all those bumps, ruts and drops that it encounters on the trail. Nothing in the back, nothing in the front. Just stiff.
All these un-moving parts makes for a rough ride, but more importantly it’s hard on everything that is underneath me. Every bump that hits the fork goes straight into the headset up through the frame and handlebars before my arms move and absorb energy. The wheels have nothing but their own strength to keep them from disintegrating. The cranks and bottom bracket probably get it the worse as my weight pushes down on them and the energy from forward momentum is constantly forcing them upward.
I can count on one hand the people who have accused me of being smart, most of them have only done it once.
As I may have mentioned, this past weekend we were in Moab. Our second day of riding was dedicated entirely to the Whole Enchilada. The WE tops out at Burro Pass which happens to be the appropriately labeled photo above. It does this at over 11,000 feet. The trail then goes pretty much downhill. I’m not gonna lie and say it’s all downhill but there is 2,231 feet of accumalitive ascent and 8,360 feet of drop. Yea, I’m gonna go ahead and say it’s almost all downhill.
Some of that downhill is very steep. After topping out at the pass, the trail dropped 1200 feet in less than a mile. As you can imagine, trail is rutted, rough and loose. It continues this way for a while. About the time that you think this is getting old, the trail completely changes and you are dumped out on UPS and LPS. These trails are Goose-ish. Tight turns, sandstone ups and downs mixed with some roots for good measure. LPS drops you into hell.
The Whole Enchilada is almost entirely singletrack. When the LPS ends you find yourself at the top of the Porcupine double track. For those of you who have not ridden this trail, I will do my best to describe it for you. Think of riding down a staircase, that jolting up and down as your bike does everything in its power to buck you off. Now make the staircase uneven so there is no way to get any kind of rhythm. This also means that some of the steps are smaller, but a lot of them are bigger. And this staircase is about 7 miles long.
When you finish this seemingly never-ending staircase, you get the pleasure of dropping off the mesa and down to the river. This is steep, exposed and rocky. And a hell of a lot of fun despite the fact that you are now tired from everything that came before.
I chose to ride all of that on my bike which is why it’s broken. The constant chatter from the rocks and that staircase de-tensioned my rear wheel causing the brakes to howl like they were Avids. I stopped three times to tighten the headset which kept coming loose as it was slammed again and again and again. Repeat that sentence for the cranks/bottom bracket as well.
As I said, there aren’t many people who accuse me of being smart.
To maintain the journalistic integrity that the Mooseknuckler Cycling Alliance is known for, that photo was taken before I was 27 and had nothing to do with the Whole Enchilada.
Truth be told, this past weekend made me question if I could continue to claim that age. The aches and pains I have been experiencing since Sunday make me feel like I may have finally aged. It also made me wonder how quickly I would be skidding in sideways to that pine box (or in my case, oven) because I’m not sure my bike or my body can keep this up much longer.
And then I slowly started repairing the bike and can’t wait to do it all over again.
P. L. and R.
The first three, and only three times, I rode Porcupine. I was 19 and then 20. I rode on a Specialized “team green” M2 hard tail. The third time I cleaned it. The second time the first of many four letter words poached my lips when I cleaned a difficult section, only to crash 13 seconds later as I celebrated…. When I was 21 I experienced a severe head injury (2001) and was told I would never read or write again. I am still working on a full recovery. I am beyond close, says my head—or heart. I am back on a hard tail and craving Porcupine and WE (for the first time) . I can almost taste the experience. Looking forward to living it. Thank you for your inspiration. By the way, all you need to do is ask, but my massage soul sees a 50% off for you and the tough as nails, KB, bodywork from a certain Yoga Soul studio Rachel. One.
A kid we dubbed “Captain Sunshine” once referred to full-sus bikes as “double boingers” and meant it. I guess in his mind that makes yours a zero boinger. Love riding WE and Porcupine, even though I broke my thumb crossing through one of the rocky creek sections toward the bottom one time.