The Big LePowSki vs.Epic Fail v2.0

2 flat tires on a Sunday in Salt Lake City with sidewall punctures in the same day is what you could call an Epic Fail v2.0.  After last friday's Epic Fail (forgetting my bike shoes for a Sedona ride)...I thought these things were out of my system for a while....I was wrong.

JMoneyMillionaire, Handlebarsandwich and myself headed up to SLC to The Big LePowSki put on by Black Diamond and Arc’Teryx.  Saturday morning dawned with blue skies over the valley and mixed clouds over the mountains.  Upon arriving at Brighton, we hung out by the registration desk and stared at the custom Megawatt's decked out in Lebowski graphics....we all secretly wanted them....even though they are like a snowboard.....

After registering....we que'd up and waited for our Steep clinic instructor, who turned out to be Andrew McLean.  In the interim, I suckered myself into demo'ing a new pair of Black Diamond prototype boots which looked to be stiffer and lighter than my current pair of boots....I was hemming and hawing about switching out gear prior to a steep clinic since I wanted to get as much possible out of my time...but then reasoned that I would not get another chance to demo a prototype boot...so I went for it.

As the group boarded the lift, it occured to me that the boots I was demo'ing had a longer BSL(Boot Sole Length) than my own boots...and I would have to adjust my bindings on my ski.  Scrambling for a posidrive #3, the guys at the BD tent went to work with the power tools to get me set up.....the gent with the power tool had not worked on a Dynafit setup before, so I guided him and eyeballed the 5mm gap between pins and heel....which I hoped would be accurate since I kinda needed to stay in the binding during the steep clinic.

Catching up to the group up at top, Andrew wanted everyone to take a warm-up on a groomer which translated into a chinese downhill to see who the slow ones were.  I'm glad we had a shakedown cruise, because I realized the boot was going to take some readjustment on my part with respect to edging because of it's lower height and some funky canting issues(my knees are funky, not the boot)...but I pressed on.  Regrouping back at the top, we booted up a ridgeline at an excruciatingly slow pace while bottlenecked behind 20 other folks doing the same.  Traversing under an avy control feature, we peered over into the steep for our clinic to begin.

After listening to Andrew's instruction to the group regarding quiet upper body technique, I dropped in and got some great feedback on my first run.  I've been aware of an issue concerning what I do with my hands after I make a pole plant which has plagued me the last few years.  As independent instruction often does, hearing it from a different perspective or individual can usually break these cycles...and it did....with my next run being significantly more solid and stable than my previous run.  I continued to reinforce this new technique as well as picking up some hop-turn tips, all before lunch was served.  I can't state how much more confident I felt, not only on the steeps, but moguls as well; all due to what I was doing with my hands after I planted my pole.  Following lunch, we que'd up again for the second clinic of the day....for us, the Advanced Freeride which was conducted by Jamey Parks.

I'm not ashamed to say that I am not a hucker...and other than hucking, I was not sure what a Freeride clinic would teach me.  Long story short....I learned the techniques of rolling into a huck and spotting a good landing for a huck.  While taking B-lines for all but one of the drops, I watched folks grow in their skills and confidence.  While I watched, I became a bit jealous...so I promised myself I'd give it a go despite my body being worn from charging all morning on the Steeps clinic.  As usual, the leadup in my mind was worse than the actual execution.

By the end of the day, we were tired...but very much excited about heading to the party afterwords.  Stopping in at Squatters before the party for some dinner...we also found a few beers we liked...some more than others.....

.....and learned to order bottled beer instead of draft in SLC.

The next day dawned colder and overcast over the mountain....and with one flat tire on the truck.  Not only was it flat, it was a sidewall puncture.  Finding a place open for business on Sunday morning in SLC is tough...but we found one...and they had a policy that prohibited them from selling me only one tire because of liability concerns over my all-wheel drive transmission; they did, however, have 4 new tires they wanted to sell me though. I won't name this place....but it rhymes with "Byerstone".  Exiting said establishment, we found a place that would sell me one tire....Sears.  Salvaging a crappy situation, we headed to Snowbird where we found foggy conditions that left me and JMoney quezzy with vertigo and equilibrium issues both on the lift and on the snow.  Fighting through it with plenty of grumbling....I threw in the towel at 3 while my friends took one last run.  My last run looked like this.

Upon returning to the truck....we discovered a 2nd tire was flat.  So mounting the doughnut for the second time in a day, we drove down canyon only to realize that as hard as it was to find a place to service or buy a tire on Sunday morning in SLC....it was impossible after 5 on Sunday.  So hedging our bets, I bought two cans of fix-a-flat as insurance for the long drive home through the voids on the map...and just filled the suspect tire with air and then made stops every 2 hours for the entire drive home to add more air.  Arriving home worn at 2am in silence and exhaustion I'm sure we all have found Monday to be as foggy as Snowbird was on Sunday...hopefully without the vertigo.

BCT and Cramps

I'm not prone to cramping, but they hit full force on Friday out on the Black Canyon Trail (BCT). Having the capacity to go on, but the sheer lack of energy in your legs because of debilitating cramps in your toes, calfs, quads and......gasp.....horror...your hamstrings is downright rude. Having your body fail on so many levels as to leave you no option but to dismount from your bike and walk uphill defies common decency. Damn you magnesium imbalance!

With that being said, it was not all bad, take this picture as an example. It was shot after I started cramping but was still managing. The photog credit goes to Monkeybutt....proving that "you don't have to be having fun, to have fun." There were signs along the way that my body was not right. I did not uber-hydrate the night before or the morning pre-ride, I conserved my electrolyte drink during the 1st half of the ride....and I was trying to impress folks. There....I've said it, now I'm stickin' with it.

Having joined up with 4 folks off of the MTBR Arizona forum, I proceeded to hammer myself on the 1st half of the ride. Stupid is as stupid does. I am left humbled by the experience, wanting more....I will return. In hindsight, I'll start hydrating for the long rides like I hydrate for backcountry days. I'll drink more fluids early in the day rather than sipping to conserve early. Once the cramps start....all the fluids, electrolytes, saliditos in the world will not get you out of the cramp zone anytime soon. Sure, they'll subside faster with the remedies in hand....but to quote Walter Sobchak, "you're about to enter a world of pain".....guaranteed. Lesson learned....moving on.

The BCT was absolutely stunning. Most of the trail system is pretty new, but the portion we started out on was very new...as in unconsolidated, soft dirt new. Of course, there were some rock gardens where things had yet to fill in from the rains; but overall, this was one sweet piece of singletrack. The amount of work going into these sections is amazing, well thought out, graded appropriately and with a strong eye to sustainability. I can't say enough good things about this trail. As for the scenery, it too was stunning. Flanked by the Bradshaw Mountains on the west and the Agua Fria river on the east; we traversed and crossed several mountain ridges, dropping down to the river twice to cross and in general having a flowy good time. There were some sustained climbs, but the grade was very reasonable. This grade was made possible by quite a few switchbacks which required some finesse to navigate. Lets just say I had more finesse for the first 70% of the ride. The last 30% of the ride the finesse was replaced by desires to be at Rock Springs drinking a cold one.

Last, but certainly not least; my riding companions for the day started out as strangers and ended up all being great folks with whom I look forward to riding with again soon. Overall, we rode 25.6 miles with 4108 ft vertical gained on the day. I neglected to start my GPS until we had rolled down the trail a bit, so the profile is incomplete.

I don't roll on Shabbas

I normally don't miss my morning constitutional, but yesterday was the exception. Since then, I've been a little behind schedule. Yesterday was also my mid-week day of rest, kinda like my bike version of Walter Sobchak's, Shomar "I sure as shit don't roll on" Shabbas. Check out his MySpace page here...who'd of thunk that Walter was 63?! I guess time has rolled by since I first met him. Those two factors left me feeling a little like ole' Walter last night. It was that feeling which greeted me on the ride this morning.

Anyways, I rolled today with the usual loop of Hawes to include Mud Flaps. Sometimes I send that hill and sometimes it sends me...not that it's technical...but when your heart is pounding it out at 97% of your max HR for more than 30 seconds and your balance begins to wane....usually after the 3rd Mud Flap and while trying to navigate a bunch of baby heads floating on top of some nice grunnel; you tend to just want to fall over as a precursor to catching your breath. If it were not for the cholla guarding the 2nd to last mud flap on the right side, I just might choose to fall over...forget the dab...just fall over; but my tingling legs just managed to dismount from the pedals to arrest my fall towards prickly hell. Now before some of you folks get huffy and say you always send that hill and I just suck, you're partially correct. I've only been rockin the fat tire for 5 months now and am still learing the painfull lessons daily.

What pisses me off is that I've been sending that hill more and more lately and it seems like when I do, my HR is somewhere around 183 the whole time. Guess the digestive mysteries of ones inner workings keep us coming back for more. The fact that I'm even bitching about Mud Flaps rather than that tricky, off-camber with drop off, kitty-litter over hard-pack, descending 150 degree switchback on Mine trail; or the slot boulders which always seem to clip my pedals when I've nearly topped out in my climb up Twisted Sister just chaps my hide. That's what I want to get beat by, that's what I live to try again, that's what keeps me up at night with excitement; not the non-tech, pure cardio climb whose only reward is still at least 2 months away on a skin track up a snowy summit somewhere in SW Colorado. You see, after a long ski season; the pure cardio did not bother me because I still had the smell of fresh wax in my garage and I could visualize the benefit to hammering. That tends to get lost after daily grinds through the desert in 110 degree heat, sweating and cursing in the dust. I guess that after 4 months of this heat and cross training and this lengthy rant.....What I'm really trying to say is......I'm ready for the snow to fall.

10.3 miles, 1440 ft elevation gained