Returning to the Scene of the Crime

I hadn't planned on mountain biking again so quickly. My plan was to road bike this week while my wounds were healing. But, alas, it was too windy to road bike today but too warm to workout indoors. So, I did the only thing I could... I velcroed on my biking cleats, still caked with the dried blood of Friday's incident, and headed back out onto the trail. I did take it a little easier than normal, and, of course, I avoided riding the section that I crashed on. But, I did stop to get a picture. I hesitate to post it because it probably doesn't look as treacherous as I described it, but here it is anyway:

In other crash related news... I took my iPhone up to the Gateway Apple Store on Saturday. They laughed when I asked if it might be covered by the warranty :) Rather than repair, they offered to give me a replacement for the low, low price of $250. Unfortunately, I didn't think to ask if they would give me a price break on upgrading to the 16Gig iPhone until later that day. Oh well.

The swelling has gone down a little on my back, but it's gotten even uglier. I woke up Saturday morning to my entire left side being painted the deep purple of subcutaneous blood. I'll spare you the picture. Several days later and the fringes of the purple splotch are starting to fade to yellow. Although it's still a little tender to the touch, it's more of an annoyance at this point. I feel like I have a big ugly appendage sticking out of my back and side.

Mountain Bike Miles

My fancy new mountain bike has not been sitting idle despite all of the miles that I've been racking up on my road bike lately. Yesterday morning I rode a 30 mile loop from Diamond Fork canyon up and over the mountains into Hobble Creek canyon and then turned around and rode back to Diamond Fork.

The ride was interesting in that it incorporated 3 shorter rides or trails that Rosey and I had attempted previously in the year...

A couple of months ago we rode from Diamond Fork about 7 or 8 miles up the trail to Mollie's Nipple (I swear that's the official name of the geological formation). We speculated that if we continued on that trail that it would continue on into Hobble Creek but neither of us had the energy or water to continue on that day.

The second stretch of trail we happened upon while hiking with Rosey's stepmom Karen in March. We started at Sawmill Hollow in Diamond Fork canyon and ended up hiking to a dirt road in the middle of the mountains. At that time the whole area was still largely covered in snow. I had no idea that the dirt road that we hiked on was actually going to be the same road that mountain bike trail turned into. It was kind of neat to see the same area again without all of the snow 4 months later.

The final stretch of trail was a ride that we did a couple of months back. We had planned on riding from Hobble Creek to Diamond Fork over the dirt road. Unfortunately we were only about to make it a couple of miles before we ran into impassable snow on the road. Ironically, we stopped on the road where there was a 'T' in the road with another trail. We were curious where that trail went but figured that we would have to wait until the snow melted until we found out.

Well it turns out that trail connected to the hike that we had done earlier and then eventually to the same mountain bike trail that we had attempted in Diamond Fork. It was kind of fun to ride all three sections yesterday without even realizing that I was going to be seeing all of these familiar places.

The irony of the ride was that I really hadn't planned on doing it as a 'out and back' ride. I was going to ride from Diamond Fork to Hobble Creek and then come down Hobble Creek canyon and have Rosey pick me up with the car. I was worried that it would be too long of a ride otherwise.

Well, it turns out that the ride from Diamond Fork to Hobble Creek was actually shorter than I had imagined. It was 14.6 miles from where I had parked my car in Diamond Fork to where the pavement begins in Hobble Creek. As I reached the pavement, I thought to myself, "Hmm, I could continue down the pavement and get home early OR I could turn around and just ride back over the mountain to my car. A peak at my elevation profile will tell you which option I took :)

I took a different route on the ride back. I stayed on the main dirt road that connected the two canyons. It was actually a fairly easy ride compared to the ride out. In fact, the last 8 miles of the ride were 'cheating' miles. The dirt road ended in Diamond Fork and I coasted down 8 miles of pavement back to my car.

A New Pet Peeve

As I've been driving around Provo for the last couple of days, I've noticed something that is starting to really annoy me. You see, it's started to warm up a little after a short cold spell and I've seen dozens of people riding through town on their bikes. This should be a good thing right?

Well, what really annoys me is seeing a bunch of people riding around town on full suspension mountain bikes that they never intend to take off the pavement. You can always tell these people because you can see them bouncing up and down on their suspension as they try to propel themselves forward.

Full suspension mountain bikes were never intended to be ridden on pavement for any extended distance. The rear suspension actually makes pedaling less efficient by absorbing some of the down stroke of your pedaling motion. When you are cruising over a rocky and/or stumpy trail, that rear suspension can be invaluable. When you are riding down the street, that rear suspension just makes you look silly.

I think that we have Wal-Mart to blame for this phenomenon. Wal-Mart doesn't really care about selling you the right bike, they just want to sell you a bike. They figure if the really expensive, high-end mountain bikes have full suspensions, then what everyone wants and needs is a really cheap Walmart bike with a full suspension.

Unfortunately, there is no one in Wal-Mart's bike department to help you pick out the bike you really need. So, you come to Wal-Mart to look at bikes, notice that 90% of their mountain bike selection is full suspension and priced under a $100, and you think to yourself: That looks like the bike that I need to buy. This would never happen in a real bike store with competent sales people.

My Special Mountain Bike

I decided this weekend that I hadn't spent quite enough money on bikes this year, so I went out and bought me a new mountain bike. It's a Specialized FSRxc Comp with an aluminum frame, full suspension and hydraulic disc brakes. I'm still acclimating to the full suspension but the light aluminum frame is much nicer than my old steel Gary Fisher that weighed a million pounds and I LOVE the hydraulic disc brakes.

Rosey and I took it out on it's maiden voyage this morning at the Big Springs trail in Provo Canyon. Unfortunately, I don't think that I gave it the send off that it deserved. After tackling the alpine loop yesterday I just didn't have much energy left to do a lot of climbing today. It turns out that the trail that I chose was like the steepest trail in Utah county (probably not literally, but it felt like it today).

We probably only got in a couple of miles before I couldn't take any more abuse and turn around. But then again, going downhill is what mountain biking is all about anyway :) It was actually really fun to cruise downhill on my new bike. I felt like I was able to take it a little faster because of the added stability from my rear suspension. However, even with the new bike, there was no keeping up with Rosey who went flying down the hill. I'm still a little timid when it comes to traversing a rocky trail at full speed. Maybe I'll get more comfortable with practice.