July 19th (Morning)

Well, all of last week I never really hit my “tired and lazy” day (or days). I thought I was going to, but never did… And I think I finally got it today! Yikes, that’s not a good way to start the week. I’m not sure why, but I felt tired all morning, and every hill burned pretty good.

I picked up a new Easton EA70 flat bar this weekend. I have been toying with the idea of going back to my “good old days” of flat bar biking, so I while Taryn was having her birthday party on Saturday, I took the boys around to various bike shops in town. The first shop I went to, I asked the kid if they had any flat bars and he sort of looked at me odd and said “For what?” Ha! Am I really that old? Anyways, I explained to him I ride XC and so he went looking, but couldn’t find anything. He told me if height was an issue, I could lower the stem (flip the spacers out from under the stem and put them above it instead) or even flip the stem upside down (tried that already, didn’t really notice much). The next store at least treated me like flat bars are a viable option (I know they are), but again they didn’t have any. Finally, Spoke ‘N Motion had two, both removed off of bikes that were replaced with risers! Because they were removed off of another bike, he gave the one to me for only $30. Just by glancing at it, I was surprised to see that it seemed as wide as my current riser bar already was. Typically, flat bars are narrower than risers due to strength issues. Anyways, I got it home and measured it and sure enough, the flat bar was almost 2” wider than my current riser (27-1/4” wide). Still narrower than some of the crazy 30”+ wide bars out there, but plenty wide in my opinion.

The new EA70 bar, even in colour-coordinated black, white and red! I know, I’m rather pathetic…

After installing the bar, I went to replace the tube in the back tire with my spare I carry around with me in my seat pack. Well, the air went out of the tire as fast as I could put it in! Yep, I had a nice 1/4” long crack in the brand new tube. By the looks of it, the tools in the pack must’ve rubbed against the tube enough to actually wear a hole in it… Glad I didn’t discover that on the trail! So, I pulled out my almost-10-year-old patch kit, and, of course, the glue was shot and wouldn’t hold a patch properly! Arrrgggg! So, finally, I grabbed an old tube I had hanging on the wall that had no existing patches and threw it on. It seemed to hold air, so far so good. While I had the back wheel apart, I decided to try flipping the tire around as well for better up and down hill traction.

So, back to the ride. Well, first of all the Juniper stretch was OK (slow and tired), and I did make all the hills at the Rose Hill pipeline section, so that’s a big plus for a “lazy” day. I made the tough little climb up from the lower Frolek’s road up to my new trails, but stopped at the top as my tire was really low. So, this tube is actually worse than the one I had in there now… Jeepers! After getting the air back up, I continued on, making the section through the logging portion (which is actually quite a feat). The single-track from there to the Billy Minor South trail was a blast, and the new wide flat bar was really actually quite good. I did notice that I scraped my hands on a few more bushes than normal, but the control was good and climbing was actually pretty stable. Granted, when I did start winding on a climb, I really had to reign it back in from getting too wild…

A bit of my new single-track, just before winding down into Peterson’s Creek. The forest of the dead it seems… This is the effect of the pine beetle all over this hillside.

Going down into Peterson’s Creek was good, I rode the long, steep straight hill that I haven’t done yet (up OR down), so that was cool. Not sure if I felt more confident, or what, but I saw the line and just went for it. That is probably the key for my riding, as soon as I start thinking about a portion of the trail too much, I usually bail…

Back up was tough and long. Basically it is a steady climb from the creek all the way up to the trailer park at the end of Howe Road. But, the ride up out of the creek was good, only one stop at the beginning. I rode through the trailer park rather than the cool trail around this morning.

Hopefully I can pick up a new patch kit and a couple new tubes here this week so I can get back to just riding without worrying about having to pump this tire up. Again, it was low by the time I got to work, so I should probably have to pump it up twice a ride…