RR - "I guess you ride your bike pretty hard"
(RR - ride report)
On Wednesday, I rode Heil again; it's a trail with a *lot* of loose rock. My bike was ghost shifting like crazy -- on every ring, in every possible combination, the chain just wouldn't stay put. I guess I should count my blessings, though, because the random shifting never caused me to dab (the terrain, on the other hand ...). I joked with my riding partner that I must have accidentally bought the "automatic" version of my bike!
Anyway, I had the shop guys take a look at it. They found *three* things to fix -- a bent derailleur hanger (okay, that's pretty much standard on my bike), a broken barrel adjuster on one of the shifters, and a stiff chain link. Shop guy Jim says, "I guess you just ride your bike hard."
My riding is far from extreme. But I do have a knack for banging loose rocks off my drivetrain. The barrel adjuster -- that part is weird. I haven't had a full blown fall in a while, but maybe I just hadn't noticed, or maybe I did it when I had my bike upside down to put the front wheel on. I guess beating up my bike is just my superpower!
I have another super power; my recent riding partner is the latest to notice it. I went ahead of her up a long climb with plenty of loose rock. At a stopping point, she said she would take the lead, because "I wish I could ride this technical stuff as slowly as you do, but I just don't have the skill! I need to use momentum!" *laugh* She's not the first to comment on this supposedly awesome super power, but of course it's just that I'm a hill slug (was, in fact, wearing the jersey, although it was obscured by my camelbak), so I have had to learn to balance while moving at a glacial pace.
There was also a women's ride organized by a local mountain biking advocacy group, the BMA. Their ride leader was a woman riding a rigid single speed. This on a trail where even full suspension shakes you up pretty well. Naturally, she also had mad skills. They took the same direction we did, including the new loop, just completed, that I'd never been on before. It's less rocky than the rest of Heil, but more technical in the sense of switchbacks, tight spaces between trees, closely-spaced boulders, etc. Anyway, I found myself trying to catch up to my riding partner with the leaders of the girls' pack just behind me. Kind of like a fox leading the hounds, I felt. They assured me they were fine riding behind me, so I kept up ahead of them for a while, huffing and panting (and riding over some stuff I might have been tempted to walk the first time round) while they chatted sociably on my tail. I actually kind of liked listening to the banter. The cool part was when I went down a slightly technical short bit, and the ride leader just behind me said, "Nice line! So nice, I'm going to take it, too." I got a little puffed up hearing that =)
Another neat little moment was on the climb -- my ride partner and I, both women, were approaching a spot where an off-limits jeep trail intersects the ride, and then there's a brief steep and technical climb just after the intersection. A guy was riding ahead of us; he looked at the technical bit, stopped, and let the two of us, who were moving at a pretty good clip, actually, go right past him. I think that's the first time I've ever had a guy see me coming and decide I should go ahead of him =)
Overall, very fun ride, and my bike is all fixed up now.
