I certainly haven't claimed to be any good at riding singletrack even though I've been enthusiastically enjoying it on mostly solo rides around a local municipal park with plenty of trails. So why I thought it was a good idea to join in with the intermediate (medium) Thurs night MTB Group ride at Wakefield last night I don't know... I made it a point to use my first night out of the house in two weeks (especially valuable these days w/ the 7 week old ) to get out for a trail ride. I wasn't expecting to join a group but just happened to park next to the assembly area at the right time. Everyone was friendly so I decided to tag along and for some reason opted for the medium group and tore off after them.
I had dropped back to second from the back (NQDFL - not quite dead f'@# last) within the first 100 yards of actual singletrack and had a slow speed 'crash' off the bike pretty soon thereafter. I don't remember the terrain detail (maybe that was part of problem?) but it dropped the chain off the chainring and spun my handlebars but didn't hurt me or the bike. The 'sweeper' rider waited for me to re-compose and we were back off and running though I was now firmly in the DFL spot and attempting to take the obstacles as carefully as possible including hopping off to take any logs bigger than about curb height on foot. I had two other incidents coming off the bike, one going up hill and one loosing momentum on some heavily rooted trail but neither did any real damage. More than anything my stamina was hurting and I was getting more gunshy about bigger obstacles and some really steep short descents on this section of trail. Needless to say I was firmly convinced that I had been overconfident in my joining the intermediate group and starting to think I might detach the next time the group came to a stop. At that point I slowed for a series of obstacles, went around a corner and was completely dropped at a 3 way trail split... the trees had already swallowed up the group and I was exhausted. I could see a larger fire road I knew led back to gentler terrain and I decided to not search for the group and head back at my own pace. Within 5 min though 3 riders from the group came riding up out of a previously un-seen by me trail and enthusiastically invited me to rejoin. I can't say enough about how friendly everyone was and how forgiving for someone obviously out of his league riding along with them. Then the next shoe dropped as I attempted to climb a moderate incline strewn with fist-cantaloupe sized stones (kind of a loose cobblestone) and my chain broke - one of the pin's pulled and dropped to the ground. The sweeper who was with me practically insisted she would walk back (~3 miles) with me but I convinced her I would be fine and she rejoined the group. I was pretty mentally and physically exhausted at this point, we'd been going about 40 min and a little over 4 miles of actual trail riding at this point and I was happy to catch my breath and start walking back. About 5 min later I remembered my chain tool, never used before (I've used a shop sized one plenty) and decided it was worth a try and 10 min later my shortened chain and I were rolling again and made quick work of the smooth double track and paved bike path back to my truck. I had an awesome time, and will definitely get back out there as soon as I can. I think I was as happy about the successful trailside repair as I was embarrassed for not keeping up with the group... a proper balance I suppose. I do have a couple questions for the more experienced MTBer's out there though; -Any good tutorials on taking logs on a rigid, non-fat mtb? -Is there a 'ceiling' from equip perspective on how big an obstacle I should expect to master with this kind of bike? I'm particularly concerned about burying the chainring in a log like an axe and being thrown up and over... Other than the obstacle taking when you can't go around I think the rest is just conditioning and improving my trail vision... and I know I can just slow down and enjoy the trail at a more relaxed pace at any time. This particular trail was reasonably heavy on the log obstacles though and I'm not sure I would attempt it again at any speed till I improved those skills... The bike is my Riv Bombadil set up 3x8, dirt drop's with be shifters and 650Bx2.25 Nobby Nic's. I'm still really liking the dirt drops for control and keeping my weight centered on the bike, my hands/wrists felt fine during the ride and after and I think I was able to distribute my weight to accept the bumps pretty well. Couple pics from the post ride... <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Xz9wZA4Aios/V63VvPxWUzI/AAAAAAAAQtQ/ztCEytJSz5c1sLBc_gep9bTFJe_iDPjEQCLcB/s1600/IMG_20160811_195945894.jpg> <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--Oph6nDntFY/V63V586bbRI/AAAAAAAAQtU/CtkRupGU_54U4FYx_qeEK97CoGDdlrKYACLcB/s1600/IMG_20160811_195930586.jpg> <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LTDnh5SMCJg/V63WCTYlwGI/AAAAAAAAQtY/66xNv5kPQpIcjfNeV4dQUmG--B766gn5gCLcB/s1600/IMG_20160811_195842817.jpg> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
