Usery Mountains Tonto

 After Last week,

I thought I would go exploring and see if I could find a loop that did not use the sand box that is FS(Fire Service Road) 3554.  

I started with "Lone Mountain Loop South" section.  That way if it was a bust I would just go fight the congestion at Hawes.  It was steep at first and had some techy spots through out.  Enough to peak my interest.  Then I took that to the "Lone Mountain to Bush" trail.   Which was sandy and in and out of a wash.  The wash must have moved because the trail diverged significantly from the Trailforks map.  I found following motorcycle tracks was the best bet.  It is mostly a slight downhill, so that helped overcome the sand a bit.  A fat bike would have been more at home here, I did struggle at times on my 3.0s. Oddly enough a decent single track opened up for the last mile or so to Bush Highway.  I went West a bit to see if a the trail I was trying to ride, came out near the GPS track, the answer was maybe.  But I had to save that for another, day as I was a long way from done.  Partly because I wanted to try the "Salty Basin Loop", you know its cause it's black diamond.  Yea right! For a gravel bike maybe.  Sure there were a few steep rocky climbs and descents, but for the most part it was jeep trail.  The South end even was graded, poorly!  Probably with a front-loader bucket blade.  And actual grader would would have been too long to navigate all the hills and dales and just the general non-straightness of it all.  I found FS 10 AZT/Bypass more technical and challenging than Salty Basin.  If I do it again I will probably skip the "Salty Basin Loop" or find my way along the nearby ridges.  I did little of that at the start of the trail.

I found the North/South part of "Deer Tanks Loop (South) fun and challenging in either direction.  Its a bit techy between wash canyon and FS 10.  I was getting pretty gassed and I new I what I was in for on the "Gold Link Trail" so I popped off the trail to navigate a maze of a neighborhood.  And made my way to Usery park and filled my bottles at the horse trailer trailhead.  I was happy to be on the flats of Blevins, Chain Fruit and Talon, but I knew Talon turned upwards and I was ever so glad to take Talon back to my trail head.  Even the DH with flat turns was fun, Yes George, after 27 miles many of sand I was never happier to be going down Talon form Pass Mountain intersection. 

 https://www.trailforks.com/ridelog/view/110263773/

I left My Heart On Mt Elden

So after the iPhone Search and Rescue extended my Tuesdays ride, I was more tired than I planned to be for this ride. But there were some trails that I wanted to try again and they looped nicely with a couple I hadn't.  It'll probably be next summer before I get another ride in this neck of the woods.

The first time I did Rocky Ridge was in 2016, when we stayed in my cousin Rick's driveway in our motorhome, while we were full timing it.  I revisited RR four weeks ago, twenty miles into a 27 mile ride.  

I was hoping that by doing it early in the ride, this time, that I would have more energy for all that tech that RR delivers.  And while the numbers show me getting within a few seconds of my 2016 total time (my moving time was a few minutes slower, per Strava), I was not fully recovered from Tuesdays extracurricular shenanigans and while I normally don't feel like I need much of a warm up, I think there is something about being at elevation that I have to figure out, maybe a couple short  anaerobic intervals to get that system primed.  Because with less oxygen in the air, the body goes anaerobic at a lower intensity.  But that tank is limited.  Prescription, more LSD rides to increase the output with less oxygen, me thinks, although boring.  Railbeds and canal paths, here I come!

Regardless, RR is a fun challenging trail, better than any game you see advertised for your phone on TV, and gets you to the good part of Oldham.  Other than Elden Lookout road, this is the most direct route to heights of Sunset trail, by bike.  I cleaned more than I did a month ago and was a few minutes faster.  But I am running 3.0 tires now and boy do they make a difference from the 2.6" tires I was running, before.  There was a huge crew doing trail maintenance.  I told them all thanks, one by one as I passed them!

While I did not enjoy any of lower Oldham, four weeks ago, I did like Middle and Upper.  But it is up, up, up.  Not a lot of obstacles to overcome except for the incline and lack of oxygen.  Starts out with little tree cover, but switchbacks it's way upward until you are in the tall pines for some shade from the sun's radiation.  It's a fine line, an edge let's say, staying near the top of your VO2 max, while negotiating the many switchbacks and intermittent obstacles, obstacles that might not be obstacles at lower elevations or on flatter terrain, two different things I assure you!  I passed four riders that stopped to take care of some sort of business.  Looked like they where coming off of Down Under.  A few switchbacks later one of them caught up to me and I let him pass on a hairpin (I should have moved to the inside).  I saw another one later on switchback below, but lost site of both of them. 

Eventually, you cross Elden Lookout road and hop on to Sunset for some more exposure.  The billy goat that passed me earlier, was waiting for his posse on Sunset.  I had it in my head that, if I had energy, I would turn right on Sunset to see how that was and get over 9000'.  It was pretty tough coming down four weeks ago.  Moot point, cause I hadn't any energy to spare.  So down I went, plenty of tech go go along with that side of exposure and I got to with in ten feet of 9K according to my Garmin, before a bit a a knarly descent to Heart.

Going down Heart you get fun speed. That’s why I prefer it over Little Bear.

Heart starts out fairly old school for a more modern trail. It is commingled with the El Viejo hiking trail. So use your GPS. The middle is obviously bench cut, through the red dirt, but that doesn’t take away from the flow of the trail. Not to be confused with a FLOW trail. Red dirt turns to red rocks and you might think you’re in Sedona for a second, the you realize your not and thank the mountain bike gods!  

Connect up to Little Elden at the bottom for a mix of terrain, on your way to the fire roady Christmas Tree trail, to a nasty short Hike-A-Bike on Fat mans trail up to Forces of Nature.  Jeff Lenosky could probably have made it, but not this Jeff.  I have hiked all of Fatman's.  Maybe it would be better, albeit longer and still quite tecnical, to get on Fat man's earlier and come down to this section and miss most of it altogether.  Another time maybe.

Force of nature is always tough and I was tired.  Even so, I made more stuff and hit my pedals less.  Both probably due to the 29plus tires.  The bigger tires raise the bottom bracket to reduce pedal strikes and the larger diameter tires have a better breakover angle.  The larger tires also have more conformity, due to the combination of more volume and lower air pressure.

I finally managed to get in the tail end of FON that, previously I somehow either mapped incorrectly or took a wrong turn and was back on my course before I knew it.  The part of FON that parallels Middle Tier is not ridden much, judging from the condition of the trail and it is tough going at least from East to West.  It is also hard to follow even with a GPS course loaded into a Garmin, as it so splintered that it resembles a spiders web.  I am sure that I did not exactly follow Trailforks GPS of FON, but I could at least see where I was off by yards at the next intersection after it had splintered off.  I rode a lot of it but but I was tired and there was a fair amount of Hike-A-Bike at least in this direction.  

I'll try West to East someday.

I routed Night Ranger instead of Lower Oldham (did I mention that it's not my favorite trail?).  NR is fairly tame and leads to a series of "Connector" trails, to get  you to Elden Lookout road, which I thought would be dirt.  Trailforks, on my Garmin, got confused after the last connector and kept saying left turn in Zero feet.  It would be hard to get lost from here lol.  I saw Quintana trail flash in and out as well.  I couldn't find it later on Trailforks, but it did show on the Trailforks map on my Garmin.  Anywho, I was fine rolling down the pavement, then I noticed a single track on the side of the road and hopped on forthwith.  I wonder if I could have got on it sooner.  Nothing special, but my mental space changed immediately.  The map confuse Social with this Quintana, but like I said very hard to get lost at this point.

The End

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My Most Favoritest Flagstaff Loop Yet!

Getting to Flagstaff to escape the Valley heat for a second time this year. I put a couple loops together. The first one on Tuesday was supposed to be easier to be able to recover for round two on Thursday. Keep it under four hours unlike the last four rides in cooler climes. And keep Tuesday under 8700’ elevation and like 2400’ of climbing. That was the plan.

That mission was accomplished, until I had to go rescue my phone.

This is probably my favorite Flagstaff loop to date. Starting at about 7200’ at the Shultz Creek Trailhead on the easy/green rated trail of the same name . It still felt hard. But I was at the Sunset trailhead before I knew it. What a difference a year makes and not coming off an illness! Shultz Creek is plenty fun and saves some energy for the real climbing later.  Even got a thankyou for the bell, from Mountain Bikers. Then after a short bit on Lower Sunset, take Little Elden trail just past the exit of Full Sail. I’ve ridden this the other way a couple times, once recently. But boy am I glad I put this in section, in this direction . It is an old school trail maintained with modern methods. It’s a super cool woods trail with speed and rough terrain to negotiate. Absolutely a gem. I stopped at the top of Little Bear and conversed with a rider hanging with his buddy. He said it was redone in the last few months. My hats of to the crew and mastermind that did it. While Full Sail is nice and all, that section of Little Elden is just my cup O tea!

After weird set of switchback through an open field you’re back in the woods to start the Little Bear climb. It starts out shaded with a dirt, rock and root trail and climbs out of the tree cover onto a dusty shale covered track with plenty of exposure, with some of that coming at a techy sections. I walked one I probably would make, but the risk reward ratio was a little skewed for my 61 year old bones. There are couple welcome let offs on the climb, to catch your breath a little. You finally climb back into the woods you’re done with the climb. I actually like climbing Little Bear better than going down. I was constantly on the brakes. It wasn’t really fun speed to me. That rider asked where I was going. “Big Bang” I said. “You like to earn it” he said. I said yes. 

But thought I was at the top, not so quick fella, you have more climbing to do up Upper BrookBank. Nice mix of rocks and roots again to keep things spicy, with a nice downhill continuing along Brookbank to Big Bang. It’s nice, because while I wouldn’t call it rolling it’s not all downhill even on Big Bang, it just gets knarlier. It’s knarly on down hill enough that it will pump you out. I walked one drop that was really doable, but I stopped because I wasn’t feeling it. Some really nice slow, medium and fast tech features requiring constant line adjustment. Big Bang dumps you out on Orbit for a nice cool down along with Social back to the trailhead.

Plus this of course! 😳

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Siri Search and Rescue

Big Bang was too much for the pocket of my new jersey. My phone bounced out on an up and over with a right hip check to get the rear tire in line.

That was the short story. So I’m having a great time on probably my favorite Flagstaff loop yet, I get to the trailhead and wonder if my wife’s phone number on my Road ID is current. So I go for my phone and wait what. I had taken off my helmet and gloves. Did I airheadedly put my phone somewhere. I called out for Siri, no response. Ah, OK I’ll start a ride and see if a Garmin Live Track starts. Damn, no luck that means my phone is at least 40’ away. So not likely a trailhead event. I turned on spot so my wife would know I was ok.

As I stood there pondering my next step. A nice older couple, that reminded me of our friends Bruce And Lois, pulled up to park in the shade of the big Ponderosa pine I was under. I asked if I could use their phone to call my wife. She said the mileage on the live track was 16.25. My ride ended at 19.55. Now I had been riding for three and a half hours and was very happy with that and my phone was almost paid for and I have insurance, so for a fleeting moment I considered leaving it. But it would take longer at the Verizon store than to go up and back, never mind the set up. Also I thought I remembered looking at my Garmin around 16.25 miles and seeing that I was at 7400’. The trailhead was at about 7200”. I thought , great only a couple hundred feet of climbing and a little over 3 miles up, no problem. So I head happily along the easy green trails I ended on for recovery to Orbit for some moderate climbing to Big Bang and I was already at 300’. I had wondered how it would be to climb Big Bang, figuring it was too knarly. I walked one steep, I was kinda tired, but good the rest of it was quite fun and challenging. But it was getting increasingly steeper by the time I got to the three and a quarter mark. I was going to say I slowed down, but I was already going pretty slow, to watch go see if my Garmin connected to my phone. Not yet. I got off, not to go slower really but to not fall down the mountain, while I focused on the Garmin and searching for my phone. No guarantee that it was still on. But only a few steps later and “Phone Connected” popped up on my Garmin. Phew! I later learned my wife danced at this point. I didn’t get there a moment too soon as the sun had found a hole in the shade and the overheating warming was on!

I threw it in my Camelback, in the compartment next to the bladder. Which was still cool, as it starts out filled with Ice.

Then just a re-ride back down to the trailhead just 6.15 miles and 764’ latter according to Strava.

BELLS! We Don't Need No Stinkin' Bells! or I Think We Need More Cowbell

My friend George sent me one of these Timber Bells. At first I was very annoyed anytime I had it switched on. It is a great feature to be able to turn it on and off. So I had it off a lot, I thought to myself, "That's why George's other friend took it off of HIS bike" LOL. I have a regular bell as well and am pretty good about using it. Even so, when the trails get busy, riders can sometimes sneak up on me on blind corners and such. So I started using it for high traffic situation. I started to get used to it and am hardly annoyed by it at all, until I am, after a long while.  Then I can just turn it off until things get fast and/or twisty or the traffic picks up.  Then something unexpected happened, hikers would often thank me for having a bell.  Bells can be more audible in some conditions than just saying "on your left", like wind or if the group is talking.  If you are coming up on somebody with earbuds in, then it's a crapshoot.  Which is pet peeve of mine, I mean really, we are out there to enjoy nature.  To me that means hearing the knobbies as they surf the dirt and allows me to hear things that need my attention, like the way the chain is meshing with the gears, other riders or cars when you are on the road.  Reserve the headphones for the gym or the indoor trainer, when you need to placate your brain while doing mind numbing things like pedaling and going nowhere!  On the trail my brain turns on the tunes when I get into a rhythm, it always seems to pick the right song, usually from Tool.  

OK back to the Timber Bell.  At first I did not think the Timber Bell was loud enough, but along with the hikers comments and George saying it was plenty loud, when he came out for a visit, I have change my opinion and conclude that the Timber Bell must throw more sound out wards than toward the rider.  This is a good thing as I can't imagine how annoying it would be if I heard the full blast. 

Along with on and off it has a shmedium setting.  I'm kind of an all or nothing kinda guy, but in really rough terrain, it calms down the cacophony.  The least obtrusive place is next to the stem, however this requires you to take your hand off the bar to flip the switch on wide bars.  Fortunately my bars on my Single Speed are narrow and I can still reach it with my thumb. , for my thumb to reach it.  I had to adjust it forward to prevent my knee from smashing into it on some steep stand up sections.  You can adjust the output quantity somewhat from straight down for the most on flatter terrain or tilt it fore or aft to varying degrees to calm it down on flats, with forward allowing the most clapper action going down hill and less going up, while tilting this mini cowbell rearward, it is more active going uphill.  You can set it for your personal preference, with straight down covering most situations.  As mention before, I had to tilt mine, forward just a bit, for the health of my knee as well as the bell.  

Sometimes the clapper sticks in the off position, when turning it on, usually frees up after a few bumps.  If the trail is too smooth, I just bounce the front wheel a couple times or give it a tap.

I believe I will buy at another one more for the Unit!

Gnome Dragging a Sack

Second ride on 3.0s front and rear.

The umpteenth attempt on the random orange rim failed sitting in the living room, a few days after the first and only ride. But the blue ratchet strap gave me an idea.

So I re-set the up the front wheel. I ditched the Surly nylon rim strip all together and got some inch and a quarter nylon strap. It is very smooth and shinny. It really looks sharp in the orange rim.

The blue strap is a bit thin.  I elected to use almost the whole 10 meters, with four wraps. Yeah, Yeah, yeah it weighs more than a tube, but no tube will hold up to cactus spines and goat heads!  I used some fabric glue on the first and last wrap. I got a kit with a bunch of different shaped punches. For the valve cutout, I used an oval to start and customized the hole with a soldering iron, using the side of dies to smooth out the edges like an iron. This melted the 4 layers of straps together as well. This got me thinking, so I melted two holes, on the start, which is opposite the valve hole, with the soldering iron, to help the glue lock the straps together. Then clear Gorilla tape. A wrap overlapping the bead on one side then one on the other. And a wrap down the middle.  After first inflation attempt with a floor pump, I add another hoping I could set it up with floor pump. That didn’t work. Maybe another wrap of tape or nylon strap would have done that, but I got impatient. Got the strap out barely tight and the compressor seated the beads so quick it surprised me. After all the trouble I had with other iterations. It was still holding air an hour later so I added sealant.

The slow handling I experience when I was tired, was more just me being tired. While not quick like my steeper head angled bikes it's not really much slower than the 2.6 inch tires the Unit came to me with. But the traction was still great climbing and cornering. I cleaned the climb up the Hawes DH without the Bypass. And crawled right up. And continued up Cactus Garden to Lower Gidro. Which my first time cleaning Lower Gidro, because of the confidence the 29+ tires gave me. Now some of the traction may have been due to having new WTB Ranger tires.  As the Maxxis Recons weren't long for this world.  The tread was dry rotted but still holding up somehow.  Oddly enough the knobs were still bigger than on the Rangers.  LOL  After looking at some Strava segments, the Rangers sure don't roll slow.

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CLOUDS! The 29erPlus gods were Smiling on me from the CLOUDS!

One of the main things that concerned me going to 29+ was that I did not want it to handle like a truck.  That is one of the reasons George and I choose the 2021 Kona Unit X, he found for me.  The Unit's 68, is a bit slacker head angle than I normally like, but not as slack as is the trend these day and putting 3.0s lengthens the trail even more.  But fortunately for me, Kona, in their infinite wisdom also gave the Unit a 50mm fork Offset.  Which, I was still concerned that 3.0s would stretch the trail too far.  Initially I felt no truck like handling and only when on the edge, during a couple tricky spot and when I was tired, did I encounter any slow handling. So not bad for my first ride on 29+ front and back.  I think I'll keep the wider, for me, handlebars on.  This way, maybe my body will say hey , with such and such hand position the bike will handle this way.  Cause I am not a gifted savant or anything.

Oddly it felt one gear easier, not one tooth. One gear, weird. But to check traction, in places I would normally have to shift up one gear to drop the torque, to prevent spinning out (which I would routinely do in certain spots), I stayed in the 32/52. Traction was definitely better. Originally I wasn’t going to do Cactus Garden, I’m a bit leery of the random orange rim set up tubeless and wanted to stay closer to car, but after a dozen miles it seemed to be holding up and it was cloudy, so the CG granny gear test was a go and having like a 1000’ in my legs already. Being tired made the test even better. The 29+  is definitely is mo better.  Making the steep gravely transitions, with nary a slip.  On the Hawes DH climb, before CG, I was able to start a line to the left, and got further on it than ever.  Even though I did spin out twice.  But I did make the next transition, that I have only made once before.  SO yea, mo better!

The 29+ also sucked up brake chatter bumps unexpectedly well. I wasn’t running super low pressures either, just 15/12.6 R/F.  My injured thumb, from went I went off in Prescott, certainly appreciated that and complained a lot less.

The chain slightly grazed a few knobs in 1st gear. Tire had a slight deviation. Added just a little tension to the opposite side in that area. Will see next ride.

All in all Great Success!

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