No clever title here

extremedave

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
So I read some blogs here and thought maybe I should write some of this crap in my head down. It'll probably be TL;DR, but screw it. Here goes.

Maybe bikes first. It is a beer and construction forum with a bike problem, right? So I've evolved, then come back to the middle. My entry back into biking was my 2011 Trance 26, which I enjoyed but after trying a 29er I liked the overall speed better. I rode flats for years until a complicated trade deal with a member (forum, that is) got me a set of clippy shoes. So I swapped to clipless, which someone please rename because calling pedals you absolutely do clip into "clipless" hurts the logic circuits of my brain. It's like Congressional Oversight.

Ok, so clips vs. flats for a second. Clips: slightly faster, but oddly the biggest advantage is clearance. Rock gardens, narrow gaps, almost anything you need a little room to maneuver clipless has a big (smaller?) advantage. Try to follow @ReggieHammond under the bridge at Stevens on flats and you'll see.

However. Sunday I rode my trail bike with flats again and noticed how much easier it is to corner when you can drop a foot down. Although my background is moto, it's the wrong one, roadracing not MX. You'll put your knee down, not your foot. But in about an inch of snow I loved how easy it was to hang off and slide around. Although I'm not terribly slow DH, I haven't been able to touch some of my older PR's and wonder if it's down to pedal choice, not just getting old and wimpy. Yeah, that's my theory.

So I went from a mid-travel trail bike, to various hardtail 29ers, to a trail 29er, to a XC29er. And now I'm on a 150mm enduro-ish 27.5 tank. Why? Because SSAP ended. It was a true EVENT, one worthy of training for and making sacrifices for. I realized I was training (not just riding) to be in shape for SSAP. Racing the H2H stuff is fun, and I'll always do short track, but once SSAP shut down I really didn't see a goal anymore.

Funny, at Mooch one year Norm was starter, and said to @ReggieHammond, me, and a couple other old farts we were the future of Cat2. I'm barely the future of a good bowel movement anymore, so maybe he was kidding. Burke and I looked at each other and laughed. All this translates to moar MTB instead of road, I barely touched the road bike this summer. I will miss the Epic cause the damn thing could tool down the road at 20mph, making riding to the Tourne and JWoods almost pleasant. The Heckler trucks along but not as spritely. But damn it gets rowdy. If you haven't ridden a longer travel bike in anger, please do so. I'm not generally shy about getting jiggy, but this thing encourages you to get your own personal Semenuk on, daily. Maybe at 48 I shouldn't be trying to get even stupider in the woods, but fun is the point, ain't it? Maybe I'll race again next year when I turn 50, and beat up on grandpa.


Work. After having the same job for 20-ish years I'm now on my third job for 2017. Seniority was out the window, so what the heck. I tried the dealership thing, but it wasn't any fun, so I wound up in the body shop industry at D&M in Rockaway. It's pretty cool and makes me wish maybe I should have switched years ago instead of hanging around someplace comfy.

Everyone says things happen for a reason, but are they always good ones? Various forum members know all the tribulations here, but thanks to @jmanic and @fidodie for dealing with my various neurosis. Having no time into a job gives you the freedom to analytically judge the pros and cons without bias. So far, this has been pretty alright.

Ok, I'm done for the moment. I thought I'd write everything down at once, but I'm tired and there's tiramisu.
 
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Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Glad you landed the jump!

we'll be lining up at short track - bring it!
signed,
Grandpa....
:D
 

jackx

Well-Known Member
This is a nice start to the extreme blog.

A new bike and new job should provide lots of content.

Congrats on the new job!

I had to lookup TL;DR, to see what it meant, so I will definitely see you lined up in the "Old Guys" class if there is one.
 

extremedave

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
We need a good class title, maybe "The Grays."

Wait, you people are insinuating I keep doing this? It'll get boring fast, kids! I'll give it a go.

@rottin' - Jason and Pat both had great input which I appreciated. Although after a few beers Jason's answers start to get a little weird.
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Don't worry...regression to the mean is inevitable, examples in every facet of life and business. And in this context probably pretty good too;) I'm pretty sure both @jmanic and @fidodie can wax poetically for hours on the topic if you ask nicely o_O

Yup, but it boils down to:

...as long as the trend for the mean is directionally correct....
 

gtluke

The Moped
Flats hurt my knees. I did the first half of this year on flats. Maybe I'll try again now that my knee has been fixed.
Putting your inside foot out on a mx bike works because you can bend your outside knee and shove your hips up into the handlebars and weight the front tire. This really doesn't work at all on a mountain bike.
Dropping your seat, with your outside foot at 6 works since it lowers your center of gravity a crank arm length and if you can weight that pedal properly you can gain traction.
The only similarly between me and mtb turning that I can find is that I'm terrible at both.
 

Mountain Bike Mike

Well-Known Member
Flat pedals suck for anything where you need to pedal a lot...

Flats are great for BMX with the exception of BMX racing...

Clipped pedals are great for everything except doing no footers, feet off tricks, stanky leg saves and correcting and or bailing.
 

UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
ok im jealous of your commute...what is it? 112 seconds? :)

Im with you on SSAP...Even tho I felt like it was the easiest race I did all year, it was just such a fun time. BUT! Fear not...there will be an open SS class for our H2H stewart race...So start working on a conversion for your enduro bike.
 

extremedave

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Even though everyone is watching Jim wrestle bears right now, it's time for a quick update and answer some questions.

@Glenn Rides After 4 PM CST - The dealer was a lot of stress for various reasons. Maybe a different shop would be a different result but I couldn't get outta there fast enough. The body shop is a different beast but the general idea is the same, take broken cars and make them not broken again. So far I'm pretty happy there and appreciate the shop taking me on without specific experience. Funny going from a shop that didn't weld anything to a place with every type of welding there is. The shop manager needed to change an older F250 oil pan, so he simply cut out and rewelded the crossmember as it was faster for him to do it that way.

Flats...I'll see what hits me when it gets warmer. Maybe I'll swap around depending on the venue. I have no physical issues running either setup, ironically the place I'm happiest with either is where they differ the greatest: rock gardens. There's a huge difference in control and power with clipless and the clearance is welcome. However that's the place I'm most likely the bail and want to jump out the quickest. Hrm. @gtluke technique aside I think I'm just more comfortable carrying higher corner speed with a foot down. I'll have to experiment a little on some segments I'm familiar with and see what changes if anything.

I have no idea with @rottin' and @fidodie are debating. But carry on.

MC-is that mountain creek? Yes, if so. I had a full DH sled but got all bummed seeing this spendy bit of gear sit unused 95% of the time. Although the "jack of all trades master of none" bike might not be perfect everywhere I'm willing to make that trade for versatility. I'm looking forward to a few lift serve days this summer and the Heckler will be a fun dance partner. Unfortunately I missed a couple nice long travel fork deals here so I have to keep my eyes open for a Pike or Fox 34.

@UtahJoe-it's less than a half mile, Bob busts my balls all the time but when he's running late and needs someone to watch the office it's rather convenient. It's a compromise we dealt with having a family. My wife works in the city and with a kid in grade school someone has to be nearby in case. I agree, SSAP was a really fun event with the party after, plus held at a really good venue for SS bikes. Ain't no way I'm bringing a rigid SS to Jungle or Mooch.

@jackx - challenge accepted!!!

Kid is home. Noisy level all jacked up. Check ya laters!
 

extremedave

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Well I'm laying around miserable with the flu so here's a post. It could be the flu. A coworker was diagnosed officially Friday and work sick policy is "if you're going to be miserable you might as well be here and accomplish something". Except my eyeballs hurt. So this is two weekends without bike and I'm jonesing. Especially since conditions look great. Ugh.

In other news my daughters' teacher took a vice principal job in another district. He's an excellent, dedicated teacher and frankly this kinda sucks as the new sub will be an unknown. My kid is a good student but just like anyone else there's the right kind of motivation for her. Hopefully it all works out but I feel somewhat short changed. 4th grade, if anyone is curious.

We have two dogs and have been using the same vet office for almost ten years. They hired a new veterinarian and the woman was pushy to the point of offensive. Angie ( 140lb Mastiff) is getting up there and starting to slow down. The vet basically made me feel like I was abusing the dog by not doing the long list of (quite expensive) possible remedies. I'm not quite old school enough to be "its just a dog" but I probably spend more per year on their health care than my own. I'm not sure if I'm picking a new vet or just stay away from that particular doctor.

In the trivial category I've been trying to find a Pixar type short I saw years ago (As I now know) before men in black 2. We were talking animated stuff at work and even though my Google-fu is pretty good a coworker actually tracked it down. It's called the Chubb Chubbs and although it's not like amazing I'm happy for the small victories. Kinda like having part of a song in your head then hearing it and figuring out who it's from.

Fin.




This was my latest ear worm

 
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extremedave

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Work is good, the insurance industry is pretty interesting. But enuff about that.

Ok, Windows 10 is a vast improvement but the incessant random updates are killing me. I hardly use my laptop because. Which compounds the problem, because every time I use the laptop it then needs to be updated. Gragggh.

Ima not going to go into the whole lineup but my original Trance 26 popped up for sale again and got me thinking. I've gone from 26, to 29, to 27.5 and now the industry is swinging back to 29. Probably my favorite bike so far was the Epic. Although it certainly had it limits it was just so damn good at what it did. I really enjoyed that focus. Yeah, it ran out of travel at times and certainly didn't encourage bad behavior but man it could boogie.
The Heckler, for example is a bundle of compromise. It's got enough travel to get silly downhill but it's heavy and only gets really fun when you are moving. With the Epic, it was fun to ride the rims off it. Think Miata vs. Corvette on a back road. Both are fun, but one will get you arrested. Maybe that's not the greatest analogy. I did beat my best times on a couple short twisty DH sections with the Heckler though. Didn't think it had the handling to do that but apparently travel trumps handling sometimes.

Speaking of segments, I ran into Big Sean a while back at the Tourne. He hollered at me "damn locals, you know every rock in this place, don't you!?" He does have a point, ride the same trails enough and yeah you'll start to wire the mojo. Makes me think of Seth's Bike Hacks channel where he rode Jungle. His description: "typical NJ uphill rock gardens that only the locals can clear."

With the Epic exiting the scene, so goes my racing. Apparently. I could still do an event at a whim but I worked fairly hard to maintain a lower top ten cat2 level of fitness. It was nice to have that in reserve on a fun ride and I enjoyed it, but the time required to stay that fit ( for me, anyway) is hard to justify. If SSAP was still running, I'd have a goal (and Pat wouldn't be riding my SS). Aside from short track I dunno what might tempt me back to number plates.

My wrists and hands have been pretty sore after rides lately. I'm sure it's due to years of working with my hands and various sports. Doesn't make it suck any less. Was especially bad after Wildcat on the fatbike.

Battery is about to puke. Moar later.

Oh, 92.3 is now a solid alternative station and you can listen online. Major happy dance!
 

stb222

Love Drunk
Jerk Squad
You think the industry is swinging back to 29? Seems 27.5 rules the roost right now. 27.5 + is there, so 29/27.5+, maybe that will save 29?
 
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