"Bill Wheeler" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I went out for a great ride Sunday. It was fairly warm, mid to upper 30's. I donned the
> lightweight gear and some thermal tights and hit the trails with my SS.
>
> I rode to the trail head instead of driving this time, no need to drive in this weather. Very few
> people at the Landing Road entrance. As I get down into the woods the first part of the trails
> were somewhat hard packed by other hikers and bikers. All the tricksy roots are covered as long as
> you can keep the bike in the middle of the snow packed single track.
>
> It was going pretty easy......until I decided to take a trail that hadn't be ridden yet. It was a
> simple cross cut from the Morning Choice trail to the Ridge trail. The old x-cut had been closed
> some time ago and the new one isn't traveled that much. There was one set of tracks, hiking
> tracks, no bikes have made there way yet.
>
> There was still a good 4 to 5 inches of fresh snow. It didn't look too bad. I was wrong, by the
> time I got through the cross cut from Morning Choice to the Ridge Trail I was sweating and
> breathing pretty damn hard. I'm glad I knew the trail 'cause it was very hard to see the small 6
> to 8 inch diameter logs that crisscross cross the trail. They kind of just look like small humps
> in the snow. As long as you lift the front and hop the back up they present no real problem, you
> just have to know they're there.
>
> It WAS completely quiet, not a sound of another biker or squirrel rustling the now covered dry
> leaves....until the Avids start howling. At first it was just a little squeak then it progressed
> to a full blown wail. This happened once before after crossing some icy streams during a very
> frigid ride. Nothing I could do but easy off for a while....More on that later.
>
> I took the Ridge Trail up to the Rockburn Branch loop. This trail had been a ridden and hiked on
> and was well packed. It's a great loop to ride if you just want to relax a bit. By this time I was
> actually burning up I had to take off the glove and ride bare handed. Next time I'll bring my
> lighter pair along as well as my cold weather gloves. As long as I stayed upright it shouldn't be
> a problem...and I did, and it wasn't.
>
> On the way back out on the Morning Choice trail I come upon two fellow bikers. They obviously
> heard me coming and decided to let me pass. I needed a rest so I stopped and chatted a bit. One
> was having problem with his Times he couldn't seem to get clipped in. The other was just flat out
> tired. He said something about the trail being unridable. What? You must be kidding. "Y'all have a
> good ride" I took the SS up and out with minor problems. I looked back about 10 minutes later and
> they were nowhere to be seen.
>
> All in all it was one of my best rides. Normally this route will take me just about an hour to
> complete. This time it took me 2 hours. It was one of the best workouts I've had in a long time.
>
> On the way home my fronts were still wailing. I began to wonder if it's just because of the
> moisture and coldness. I live near the bottom of a fairly large hill, so on the way down I'm
> riding the front brakes just enough to make a slight squeal, as the squeal goes away I give a
> little more pressure. I'm still picking up speed as the brakes heat up/dry out. Finally I can't
> apply full pressure with no annoying squeal. It was as if I re-seated the pads or just dried them
> out. To see if they'd squeal after they cooled I took another lap to the top of the street after
> about 5 minutes to see what would happen....No squeal....very interesting.
>
> BTW the brakes felt a LOT smoother after I heated them up.
>
>
> Love those brakes, love that bike,
>
> Bill(No MTB Season)Wheeler
Nice RR. I'm surprised I didn't run into you out there. My buddy and I did that same loop and there
was only one set of tracks on the ridge trail, I'm assuming they were yours. It took us about 4
hours to do a 2 hour loop and we were totally wasted by the time we got finished. I could barely
muster the strength to bring a beer to my mouth. Ride on.
Alex