Actual riding and such from the weekend

Saturday I was a very motivated individual. The Pie and Fajita were leaving town for Florida, and I was bound and determined to make the most of my bachelorhood. A ride in the mountains was on order.

all ride photos from facefriend and real friend Blair

From L-R: Sam, Chico, Rob, an unreceptive me, Johnny Nutsack, and Leanne

We showed up at "the mounds" for the classic Wilson's Loop not to be named with names or mentioned in specifics for unnameable specific reasons.

It was one of those beautiful days in the NC mountains that fill your lungs with clean air and your eyes with views of wonder. I have no pictures of either.

Instead, this is Rob.

He's getting super amped for the wreck he's about to have in front of me on a trail that we dare not speak it's name. It was a fabulous wreck that left him rolling around on the ground moaning as he assessed the damage, a scene that I was on the other end of about two months ago.

The wreck started somewhere around here:

And he finished rolling and tumbling well beyond here where I found his patella:

Rob was sore, but that was about it. No major damage done to his bike or body.

Leanne's wreck (which I did not witness) on the other hand...

It was one of those days. Riding Wilson's Creek at the height of the leaf covered trail season is always a bit of a dangerous activity. I've never had my butt so puckered coming down the steepest part of Sinkho.. Ahhh, am I allowed to mention that trail by name? I can't remember. Either way, I had my ass literally on the rear tire as I let the front wheel roll through the deep leaves while underneath the multi-colored foliage carpet there were roots and rocks that threatened to lodge my saddle into my abdomen.

Great ride indeed, but somewhere near the end of the ride my derailleur hanger bent, and I was left with a semi-shifting shifty bit. While the shifting on the X9 2X10 stuff has been awesome I've had a hell of a time with the chain dropping off the front rings. I've been trying to get to the bottom of this issue for some time, and last night I was desperate enough to seek information on the problem over on MTBR, but unfortunately it's not a warranty situation so no one's looking at my thread.

Sunday I was on my own. Without a family to plan my day around I found it hard to get out of the house. I messed with the rear tire on the Meatplow that wouldn't hold air (I mentioned this yesterday), and couldn't get this already sealed at one time tire to seal once more. I ended up trying the lazy man method for sealing tires; jack up the pressure and go for a ride.

I headed over to Sherman Branch in order to get the Stan's juice flowing and also because Sherman is close to Jerry's house. Jerry has the DAG-1 (Derailleur Adjustment Gizmo), and the Superbeast was going to get some attention after the ride. Once I got to the trail I realized I had a relative idea just how fast I could go on the Superbeast, so why not get a time on the Meatplow. Starting the loop with close to 40PSI was bad. Mid-ride I found the tire to behave normally, and by the end of the ride it was starting to roll around on the rim. Hardly ideal conditions for a time trial, but the time was still close to my geared time, and I found out that I'm gonna have to attempt to seal this tire with some actual purposeful effort. It was flat before I went to bed that night.

After the ride I went to Jerry's place, and he broke out his DAG-1.

First, a measurement of the norm...

then to the back of the bike...

and the top side of the wheel.

Hooray! Bent significantly in two planes. I'm pretty sure this happened when the chain dropped and went into a Cracker Barrel puzzle shape on me going down Sinkho... oops. I'm sick of dropping chains in the rough. Jerry showed me that he could get the chain to drop just by dropping the rear end of the bike on the floor from about 1.5-2 feet off the ground or by flicking the rear derailleur. Meh. I'm starting to remember why I hate gears. I don't want to admit it, but George's Shredward idea is sounding very tempting.