My first RR thread
Went for a ride today. Nice technical XC course in the Dwellingup area in the South West of Western Australia. Started as usual with me being woken up far too early after far too little sleep and rushing around trying to get ready quickly.
After meeting up with the 'group', we proceeded in Legs'es (Andrew from my LBS) souped-up 4wd VAN to the course and got on with it.
Admittedly I am very unfit, and the very first section - 3/4Km of steep gravelly uphill with a nasty...(Legs used the word 'ugly') rock garden and the usual acroutment of stuff to make me get off and walk. (Actually just the hill was enough..)
With every climb, however, there is a descent, (Well, usually) and we progressed through another 3/4Km of nice flowing slightly downhill singletrack with logovers, jumps and other goodies to keep us on our toes.
To cut a long story short, the course was roughly 20Km all up, with 3 big climbs and a lot of jumps, rock gardens and the usual hazards associated with the Australian bush. (eg. Blackboys - I'll tell you about them in a minute) As usual I ran out of water on the way out, and after resting for 10 minutes and scabbing some water off Legs we headed back for the return.
Um, well...the return. As you may know the good thing about 'out and back'-type courses is that you notice a lot of jumps etc that would rock at speed going the other way. Of course, as I am an accredicted member of the 'over-the-handlebars' club, I went as fast as I was able through most of it, getting nice air off most of the jumps and receiving praise for my 'textbook commando-roll' that I performed after landing a 0.5m ramped downhill jump (at high speed) rather badly.
After a couple of gruelling climbs and more sweet descents we finally arrived near the 'ugly' rock garden descent. Not properly heeding the warnings I went at it with my usual 'you only live once' attitude and ended up holding on for dear life and trying not to crush my manhood on my saddle as I bounced down the hill.
I have to say that my brakes are so cool. I love them. The other guys with Vbrakes really struggled down the final section - I did find it hard with Hayes Hydros, (ie. fingers clamped firmly to the grips and hard on the brakes for 80% of it) so it was a good test.
Now for the kicker. On the way down the last section I noticed the ~1m launcher that I passed on the way up. "Oooh! I'd cut some flly sik air off that" I thought, not checking the landing as I usually do, and hit it at high speed. (stupidly high) "Ohhh shiiit!" (My usual 'I'm going to die' exclamation) I landed it rather well, considering the landing was deep gravel. Then I saw the three or four rather large Blackboys (No, not Indigenous Australians - Blackboys are big black and green tree-like things.) in my way. Not having enough time to do anything at all, I ploughed into them and hit something and bounced off something else and so on, then finally stopped with a groan.
After dusting myself off I limped back to my bike and disentangled if from the blackboys, then got back on and completed the last hundred meters or so without mishap.
After that hellish crash I checked out the damage - nothing serious, just a whole lotta grazing up my right arm and right elbow and right side of my chest and right knee and leg and left knee.
During the bumpy ride back I was casually looking at y bike and noticed something near the bottom of the arch of my Manitou Six Sport shox (Yeah, I know, I know.) I leaned forward to try and wipe it off and realised it was a crack. On further investigation it turned out I had really broken it.
Anyway - that's my story of my third XC ride ever, my first broken fork and my worst crash to date.
PS- Can anyone reccomend a 100mm+ travel fork from Manitou (Preferably with a lockout) to replace my broken one? I will be adding cash to my warranty return to upgrade to something better.
Went for a ride today. Nice technical XC course in the Dwellingup area in the South West of Western Australia. Started as usual with me being woken up far too early after far too little sleep and rushing around trying to get ready quickly.
After meeting up with the 'group', we proceeded in Legs'es (Andrew from my LBS) souped-up 4wd VAN to the course and got on with it.
Admittedly I am very unfit, and the very first section - 3/4Km of steep gravelly uphill with a nasty...(Legs used the word 'ugly') rock garden and the usual acroutment of stuff to make me get off and walk. (Actually just the hill was enough..)
With every climb, however, there is a descent, (Well, usually) and we progressed through another 3/4Km of nice flowing slightly downhill singletrack with logovers, jumps and other goodies to keep us on our toes.
To cut a long story short, the course was roughly 20Km all up, with 3 big climbs and a lot of jumps, rock gardens and the usual hazards associated with the Australian bush. (eg. Blackboys - I'll tell you about them in a minute) As usual I ran out of water on the way out, and after resting for 10 minutes and scabbing some water off Legs we headed back for the return.
Um, well...the return. As you may know the good thing about 'out and back'-type courses is that you notice a lot of jumps etc that would rock at speed going the other way. Of course, as I am an accredicted member of the 'over-the-handlebars' club, I went as fast as I was able through most of it, getting nice air off most of the jumps and receiving praise for my 'textbook commando-roll' that I performed after landing a 0.5m ramped downhill jump (at high speed) rather badly.
After a couple of gruelling climbs and more sweet descents we finally arrived near the 'ugly' rock garden descent. Not properly heeding the warnings I went at it with my usual 'you only live once' attitude and ended up holding on for dear life and trying not to crush my manhood on my saddle as I bounced down the hill.
I have to say that my brakes are so cool. I love them. The other guys with Vbrakes really struggled down the final section - I did find it hard with Hayes Hydros, (ie. fingers clamped firmly to the grips and hard on the brakes for 80% of it) so it was a good test.
Now for the kicker. On the way down the last section I noticed the ~1m launcher that I passed on the way up. "Oooh! I'd cut some flly sik air off that" I thought, not checking the landing as I usually do, and hit it at high speed. (stupidly high) "Ohhh shiiit!" (My usual 'I'm going to die' exclamation) I landed it rather well, considering the landing was deep gravel. Then I saw the three or four rather large Blackboys (No, not Indigenous Australians - Blackboys are big black and green tree-like things.) in my way. Not having enough time to do anything at all, I ploughed into them and hit something and bounced off something else and so on, then finally stopped with a groan.
After dusting myself off I limped back to my bike and disentangled if from the blackboys, then got back on and completed the last hundred meters or so without mishap.
After that hellish crash I checked out the damage - nothing serious, just a whole lotta grazing up my right arm and right elbow and right side of my chest and right knee and leg and left knee.
During the bumpy ride back I was casually looking at y bike and noticed something near the bottom of the arch of my Manitou Six Sport shox (Yeah, I know, I know.) I leaned forward to try and wipe it off and realised it was a crack. On further investigation it turned out I had really broken it.
Anyway - that's my story of my third XC ride ever, my first broken fork and my worst crash to date.
PS- Can anyone reccomend a 100mm+ travel fork from Manitou (Preferably with a lockout) to replace my broken one? I will be adding cash to my warranty return to upgrade to something better.