Super D Race!

So this past weekend, August 7th and 8th, was the Sub-9 Super D at Brown County State Park. Saturday was practice and a pre-race clinic and Sunday was the actual race. It was my first race and I was really glad I did it. Even though i had ridden the course numerous times, I did two practice runs on Saturday. For my practice runs, I was on my XCR just for kicks, but I ended up actually riding it on race day, even though I had originally planned to ride my Peace. My first practice run I rode to the technical spots and walked them to see if I could find a good line. Usually I just find a line on the fly when I ride the trails. I am really glad I walked those spots though, because on my next practice run, I followed those lines and it felt really good. For the 5.5 mile course I clocked ~30 minutes on my second practice run at close to race pace. On race day, I was nervous and made a few stupid mistakes that I didn't make in practice. Mistakes included, I clocked 28:59 for my official time which made me happy! There was also a speed trap on part of the course and I hit 26mph which was only 4th slowest through there and was as fast as the overall winner. I met some pretty cool people at the race and saw some really cool bikes. I really want to race again. It was nice not worrying about consequences and just trying my hardest and pushing myself.

I ended up not wearing the armor in the race, as you can see in the pictures, but I am going to start wearing it a bit more often when I am really pushing myself.

An update!

So I haven't posted up here in a while and I think it is time for an update and some pictures. Last monday the rear shock mount bolt on my XCR sheared in half when I pulled it out of my brother's truck at a trail head. Fortunately there was an old-time hardware shop nearby with a good selection of bolts. I gave the guy my sheared bolt and he found me a replacement within a few minutes. The new bolt is 12.5 grade which basically means it is the strongest bolt known to man for its size! I remounted the shock in the hardware store parking lot and headed back to the trail. Its holding up well!







I rode at Town Run Trail Park in Indianapolis for the first time yesterday. It is a great trail! It is fast and exciting. You can make it as easy as you want or as hard as you want with ladder bridges, some nice drops, log crossings, and even a gap jump! I will definitely head back to it in the future, and if you are ever in the area, I suggest you give it a try!







This coming Sunday (6 days from now) I have my first ever bike race! It is a Super D at Brown County State Park and i am excited. I have never been in a race so I am a bit nervous as to what to expect. I plan on using my Peace 9r SS, but I will have my XCR with me as well just in case. Even if I don't win, I think I will have a bunch of fun. I will post up some pictures and video when that is done.







Here are some pictures of my bikes because I said I would:






I couldn't seem to find a newer picture of my XCR but I will get a video up too!



This is a drop at Town Run Trail Park. Total vertical distance is about 8', but with the transition it was about 4' (when I hit it anyway).

Sette Ryde suspension seatpost

So I got the seatpost in the mail last Thursday.





My first impressions? This seatpost is awesome. I love the "set-and-forget" seat clamp which basically lets you set the angle of your saddle, while having seperate clamps for the rails of the saddle. It allows you to change out your saddle or move it forward or back without messing around with the angle at which it sits.

The seatpost also has a handy bit of markings on the back to let you know how far into your seattube the post is so you don't have to worry about trying to find the magic position if you move your post around a lot. It also has a sticker on it that says not to use it improperly.







The lockout adjust is clearly marked and easily adjusted with a 3mm allen key. It takes just over a full turn to completely lock it out or completely unlock it. The hole where you insert the allen key aslo has a little dust cover which is just a ruber flap, but sits in there pretty securely. It should stay in there quite well while riding (unless you crash or something).

As soon as I opened the package, I threw a saddle on this baby, opened the lockout fully, and sat on it to feel the squish. It was above my expectations. For only having 3/4" of travel, it feels extremely plush and feels like there is more travel than there really is.

Actaul testing: Here I must disappoint, I am afraid. I won't be able to use this seatpost (at least not the one I got) as I have broken it. How did this happen? Well let me go back to when I installed it in my bike. After I finished playing around with all the shiny features, I pulled my old Thomson Elite seatpost out of my bike so I could throw the Sette into it and take it for a quick ride. Alas, that never happened. I mounted my saddle to this seatpost and lied it up with my steat tube. Being 27.2mm just like my Thomson, I was excited that I wouldn't need any spacers or anything. However, when I put the Sette post into my seat tube, it went down a fraction of a mm and kinda got caught so I smacked it a couple times with my hand. It went down about 2" which is about half of the minimum length needed in the seat tube. I still couldn't push the seat post down easily so I smacked it a couple more times, thinking it just needed some persuasion as it is new. Well it didn't budge past those first two inches. WTF? I decided to pull it out and make sure things were OK. Bad news bears, I couldn't pull it out! No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get it to move the least bit, not up nor down. This was pissing me off! So I pulled out my trusty rubber mallet and tapped the underside of the saddle a couple times to try to get this seatpost out. Nothing. I continued in this fashion with a bit more persuasion but I wasn;t able to get it to move at all. At this point, Ididn't care about salvaging the seatpost so much as I just wanted it out so I could ride my bike at all! After trying different things, my dad suggested I use a car jack to pop it out. So, I put a board on my top tube and a board on the botton of my saddle and started cranking. Of course a freaking car jack is going to push that sucker out of the seat tube, I was ust frustrated I hadn't thought of it before. Well, it didn't work. I ended up cracking the board under the saddle and and just bending the seat post backward. At this I pulled the jack out and sprayed liberal amounts of WD-40 into the seat tube to try to loosen the seatpost, but it has been two days of spraying WD-40 and still I can not get the seatpost out. I have decided to drill through the seat post and insert a length of steel and try to "screw" it out of the seat tube. If you have any advice to solve my problem, please share!

I did figure out that the problem is that the Sette seatpost was just a fraction of a mm wider than the 27.2mm it was supposed to be as I began to see metal shavings when I was trying to pop it out of the seat tube. I am not sure if all the Sette Ryde seatposts are that much wider or if QC was on lunch when mine came down the line, but I don't think I will bother ordering another one which makes me a bit sad as I was extremely excited about this. I would reccomend this seatpost, however, if you are aware that it could be slightly oversized and your seat tube is also slightly oversized. Otherwise, don't spend the money.

The beginning!

So I have been wanting to keep track of my mountain biking and all my pictures and videos and I was inspired to do a blog. Just some quick info to get the ball rolling: I am 21 and I live in Bloomington, IN. The mountain biking scene here isn't as big as you would think being so close to Brown County State Park and all the trails in and around it. Either way, I love mountain biking tremendously and wish i had gotten into it sooner. As of now, I have two mountain bikes and I love both, but I am looking at getting another this fall. Right now I have a 2001 GT XCR3000. It was my first real mountain bike and has shown me what trail riding is about. It is almost comppletely stock except for saddle, grips, cables and housings, wheels and tires, crankset, chain, and pedals which I guess makes it pretty much not stock when I look at the list. My other bike is a 2007 GT Peace 9r. I bought the peace last winter because I wanted to try single speeding and 29er wheels and I got a steal on it on ebay. The only stock things left on that are crankset, headset, and seatpost. Although, earlier today I purchased a Sette suspension seatpost to see what that is about. For $25, I figure I don't lose a whole lot if I hate it, but if I like it then awesome! I don't know if I have any recent pictures of my XCR so I will wait to put pics of the bikes up when I do get some.