Great ride today despite by busted ass bike. Things were a little slow going in the beginning uphill section mostly because of severally over brush hanging over the trails and a bunch of sketchy muddiness. To make things more fun the plant life hanging over the trails was still very wet from morning dew, I guess that was sort of refreshing in spots though. I also started having my dreaded chain suck problems while in the middle ring before too long. I still suspect it's due to a bent big chain ring, but we were unable to fix it so I was stuck using the small ring for the remainder of the ride. That didn't turn out to be too bad, though I did end up doing a lot of cross chaining which I generally avoid doing. Once on top of the ridge things shaped up nicely and we had a nice ride setting a fairly consistent pace with no more mechanical stops. We did session a couple of things shortly, but for the most part kept moving. I cleared or at least attempted several stunts that I didn't make or didn't even try last time through, including at the bottom of one of the fun downhills where there was a narrow bridge (more like several 2x8s laid across the rocks) across some water that was fairly long and had some turns on it. I made it across in one try which made my day. I'm not going to go into details about the exact route as it's pretty much the same one we did last time, and Greg will have the GPS track at some point. We did have to double back at one point due to severe flooding across the trail, but that was only a short detour and I think the trail we ended up on was pretty cool too.
Towards the end of the ride we ended up having a few BS sessions, we discussed the upcoming ski season, past and future MTB rides, and the meaning of life. We also did a bit more sessioning on some stunts including climbing up the little roller on the last part of the trail before it joins the paved path.
Unfortunately at some point I managed to tweak my rear wheel pretty good. I think it was when I attempted to bunny hop a small log and ended up landing my rear wheel right on it, thought it could have been from popping of the little mound at the end of the aforementioned roller. I didn't notice until Greg commented on it's wobbliness on the way back to the cars. It's bad enough to not turn freely past the brakes. In my attempt to see if it was fixable back at home I ended up breaking two nipples so now I'm going to be down until I can get to the bike shop and get some parts and advice. I definitely see a new, beefier wheel set in my future though.
Towards the end of the ride we ended up having a few BS sessions, we discussed the upcoming ski season, past and future MTB rides, and the meaning of life. We also did a bit more sessioning on some stunts including climbing up the little roller on the last part of the trail before it joins the paved path.
Unfortunately at some point I managed to tweak my rear wheel pretty good. I think it was when I attempted to bunny hop a small log and ended up landing my rear wheel right on it, thought it could have been from popping of the little mound at the end of the aforementioned roller. I didn't notice until Greg commented on it's wobbliness on the way back to the cars. It's bad enough to not turn freely past the brakes. In my attempt to see if it was fixable back at home I ended up breaking two nipples so now I'm going to be down until I can get to the bike shop and get some parts and advice. I definitely see a new, beefier wheel set in my future though.