The North Shore: Fromme

I got into Vancouver yesterday around 2 after writing all those blog updates.  I went to the Cove Bicycle Co shop on main street in North Vancouver to seek riding advice.  I also got to look at some Cove bikes, a North Shore classic.  They have an interesting lineup, including the STD, the hummer, the dirty sanchez...you get the picture.  I noticed their bikes seemed on the burly side.  A little sign of what was to come.

I'm really skipping over my riding at Galbraith, which was great, but the North Shore outshined Glabraith.  There were some nice gaps and drops at Galbraith, some very tight xc trails, and some good woodwork, but my hands weren't feeling great and I was riding a little sketch probably for that reason.  Don't get me wrong--it'd be a great local mountain but it was outshined.

An xc ladder at Galbraith:

Flowy:

Holy technical steeps and woodwork!  Yesterday may be my best ride ever!  It was hard to take pictures because the forest is dim, but I tried.  To ride Fromme you have to park on the street in the residential area below the hill.  As you enter the woods you see this sign:

You can't actually shuttle up Fromme, but you can shuttle a little ways up.  I rode up for a bit, then took a blue/black trail for a north shore warmup.  It was fun, with lots of ladders and some rooty, rocky, wet stuff.  Then I rode/pushed my Perp up to a triple black diamond, Air Time, just to look.  Air time was filled with rotting wooden kickers to relatively flat landings with 15-20 foot gaps.  There were some kickers to nowhere--the trail seemed beat and not cared for.  This is due (I hypothesize) to the fact that you have to hike Fromme, so many 'freeriders' have moved on to Seymour I think.

A kicker (oof on the landing):

A drop, about 15x15 feet, with a pretty skinny landing.  I'd ride it if there were other folks around:

from the ladder:

I also took a look at Espresso, a single black diamond:  Here's the entrance.

After checking out Air Time and Espresso I hiked to the top of Seventh Secret, a trail recommended by Cove.  As I was mentally preparing for my ride down, a group of three Vancouver riders lined up at the same trailhead.  One prepared with me, we talked, I asked if I could ride with them, and we were off.

Seventh Secret was a great advanced level warmup trail.  There were steep pitches (nothing I found scary), some moderately wide skinnies, and some fun drop options.  At the end there was a HUGE log ride option.  It looked like it cut out a lot of trail so I passed it.  We popped out on the road, and took Pipeline, a fun, faster, recently cared for, intermediate level trail.  After Pipeline we rode the hiking trail for a bit to a hidden trail near Ladies Only.  The drop in was sketch.  I was trying to follow the locals ahead of me, but I had to stop to look at a few sections before I rode them (after nearly going over the bars on one wicked steep roller to sharp left hand rock turn).  This trail was the technical crux of our ride.  After bombing through a gnarly section without stopping to pick a line, I stopped to take a picture.

First you ride this wooden turn:

Then you drop through this chute of roots:

GNAR!  A little fuzzy on the picture but at least you can get a sense of the terrain.  I haven't seen anything this steep since Plattekill in the Catskills.  Thank heavens I've ridden Plattekill, else I would have surely pood my pants and crashed.

The secret trail joined Ladies Only and we cruised out to the road on some techy steepness with skinnies.  I love techy steepness AND skinnies.  From there we hiked up for five/ten minutes, and took a new trail, Natural High, down to the neighborhood road.  Natural High was a nutty built trail with many optional skinny/roller/teeter totter lines.  There was one teeter-totter that went sideways.  You get on, get past the fulcrum, and it pivots right and down to drop you into a transition that's about 45 degrees off from where you were when you got on.  I tried to spot my landing as soon as I got on, and successfully rode the weird teeter.  Sweet!  I gotta build one.

I was very thankful that I have ridden trails this steep at Plattekill and skinnies at Shindagin.  Without that I would have been far less prepared.  As a trailbuilder these trails were inspiring, but I could also see how much work some sections must have taken.  The rock armoring is bomber and must be difficult especially with as little soil as there is.  Galbraith had great, plentiful dirt that made me jones for a mcleod.  

I got food at a grocery store and drove to Deep Cove where my new riding buddies recommended I park to sleep and have breakfast in the morning.  Good recommendation!  I was not harassed and my breakfast was great!  This is a picture I took this morning on my way to the breakfast place (where I am now).

I dunno what I'll do today.  Khaled (one of the guys I met) may be headed to Whistler on Wednesday, so I think I want to do Wed/Thurs for Whistler.  I will either take today off, do another North Shore ride, or go ride Squamish.  I think I'll go ride Squamish, but I'm worried if I plan to ride Squamish, then I'll do two days at Whistler, and I'll definitely want to do another day at the North Shore...too much riding....

NW trip!

I am in Canada now.  I rode Galbraith mountain near Bellingham, WA yesterday.  Today I ride Vancouver's North Shore.  Tomorrow I ride near Squamish, and then I ride Whistler and the nearby area on Wed/Thurs or Friday.  Then I head south back to Seattle to hang with Jeff, then I head south to Portland to hang with Brittany, then I ride the McKenzie river trail, Black Rock, and hit the Boise bike park on my way back to Driggs.

Gotta go ride!  I'll post up with pictures and such later.

metal!

I often surprise people by my fondness for heavy metal, Mastodon in particular.  This summer I didn't watch much tv, but when I did it was Adult Swim on cartoon network.  I've always liked cartoons.  One of my favorites was a show called Metalocalypse, which follows the life and times of a hugely popular, powerful, and wealthy band called Dethklok.  There are five band members in the show (only four in the real band I found out two nights ago).  They are goofy, childish characters that play violent music to adoring fans that are often left dead or maimed by the band's mishaps and performances.  My favorite part of the show was almost always the music.  Here's an example.

Cartoon Network told me that Dethklok and Mastodon were touring, but I had no internet and was slow to check tour dates.  I found out a few days ago that they were playing in Portland on the 2nd and Seattle on the 3rd.  I couldn't make the Portland show, but I could make the Seattle show.  Then I could also ride the NW which I have wanted to do for an honest 6 years.  The trip also gives me the chance to visit Jeff and Brittany in Seattle and Portland, respectively.  Lots of driving, a little more expense than I'd like, but an opportunity to do a lot of stuff I want to do.

After driving through Seattle traffic to Jeff's and taking the bus from there I made it with perfect timing.  The show opened with High on Fire (not so good) and Converge.  Converge may have been ok if the lead "singer" would quit yelling randomly over the band's otherwise good instrumentals.  Most metal I just don't understand...

I was stoked for Mastodon, but when they started, I didn't recognize the tunes.  I asked a fellow fan next to me, "Did they come out with a new album?"  He said, "yeah, Crack the Skye, where have you been?"  oops.  Thats what I get for living in Driggs and having no internet.

Their new stuff was ok, but lacked the energy of their classics.  I thought maybe it was just because I didn't know the music (which is very important), but the crowd just wasn't as excited as they should have been...was anyone moshing?  It seemed like Mastodon band members were taking voice lessons--moving away from the rough, gravely vocals of their past to some crazy new harmonizations.  That's cool and all, but they didn't really do a great job.  As one of my favorite bands I hope they figure out where they're headed.  They did play some classics, and the crowd responded appropriately.  The vocalist/bassist seemed pleased and a little relieved by the crowd's response.  My neck was sore from snowboarding, so I had to kind of take it easy, which sucked, but I managed to have fun regardless and got to the front-ish.  This did mean I had to charge through the moshing crowd and kind of hug the front line.  I only got knocked over once, and was immediately picked up.  The crowd was still kind of lame.  At the Atlanta show everyone was dancing and moshing and having fun.  Here it seemed that folks were more fearful and some people at the edge of the pit were throwing defensive punches.  I called one guy out on it after he got me near the kidney.  Running into people, pushing, and dancing is totally cool with me, but if you're standing on the edge of the mosh pit hitting people that are getting shoved into you then you're a tool.  If you don't like people running into you then move back.

Fearing I would surely worsen my sore neck if I were to continue my shenanigans for Dethklok, I took a seat.  Their performance, matched with video from the show and some original, was stellar.  Bummer about the sore neck.  I'll look for dethklok and mastodon's future tours.  

Day 1

The next time I would hike the 'ghee, I'd be carrying a snowboard.

On September 29th, Chris and I had a great ride out Teton Canyon to the boy scouts camp.  We were just dorking around, and it was a great ride on which to finish the riding season (in the valley at least).  On September 30th, it started to snow.  

This is the morning of October 1st.

Michael's house and backyard (the pump track is back there).

The valley, with the big holes in the distance.

I wondered how much it snowed at the 'ghee, but I had no snowboarding gear so i didn't care that much.  I was hanging out at the coffee shop doing stuff on the internet when I overheard someone say "20 inches" talking about Targhee.  I clarified that they meant that Targhee had 20 some inches of snow.  They did.  I texted friends to inform them.  

Then Chris called, said that he and Dino were headed up to go snowboarding and that he had extra gear for me.  SCORE!  I hauled over to Dino's place.

On the drive up the hill, we noticed increasing snow depth.

Oh SNAP!

We were prepared to dork around, but not to do legit hiking, lacking primarily in board carrying backpacks and water/beer.  We got three half-mountain runs.  The first was rough.  I was borrowing a 156, the shortest board I've ever ridden, and it was a powder day with no base.  I hit lots of rocks and fell over a lot.  The subsequent runs were much better.  We stayed on better pitches and I had the hang of the little board.  All in all, a fun day 1, but I'm not ready to stop riding my bike!

Chris and Dino

Dino (a wind and geothermal energy entrepreneur)

hiking

The next day:

Chris texted me today (October 5th) to let me know it was still snowing.  Indeed, snow is in the forecast for every day forecasted.  shit!

hiking the 'ghee

I didn't know how behind I was...

I still need to at least put up pictures from hiking Targhee for mountain biking, pictures for day 1 of ski season (hiking Targhee for snowboarding), talk about the metal concert, Seattle, and riding in Bellingham.

I hiked Targhee with a mountain bike on two occasions after the lifts closed.  The first was with Chris, and we wanted to ride the new sticks and stones which I had gone through after the last rain and tamped, smoothed, and perfected.  I knew it was going to be prime, and it was.  

Here's Chris hiking up the connector with the Tetons in the background.

This is Mary's Nipple to the left (also visible above), Mary's Saddle in the middle, and then Peaked mountain (pronounced Peak-Ed) on the right.  The mountain bike trails are in the basin between me and the base of Mary's or so.

Here I am coming down the rock turn about 1/3 down the new Sticks 'n Stones.

Here's Chris leaning into the biggest, baddest berm on the mountain (I'm proud of our work on this one):

Here's another view of the berm.  It ends in a lip that transfers you down the hill.  Much to my pleasure, it rides nice.  This was the first time I built a lip on the end of a berm, and I was worried it wasn't going to work out right, but I stuck with my gut instinct on the line and BAM!

It's amazing how much I learned about building trails from the practice I got this summer.  I see trails completely differently now.  I understand how the bike interacts with the trail much, much better, and I know what is needed to build sustainable trails.  I also know how important it is to do things like remove vegetation BEFORE you build a feature (something the crew was not good at and made more work for me).  In my spare time I think I'm going to sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and try to come up with a more scientific approach to modeling mountain bike trails.  I think by treating the tread surface as a tube (inspired by mariocart for Wii) you can get a good idea of what sort of trail/berm lines will ride with flow.  There have to be a lot of variables, too: rider velocity, line selection, other trail features, and personal preference all play a big role in trail flow, but there has to be an underlying principle that makes a trail flow, where in this case we're talking Andy Williams style lines (lots of turns).  What I want to know is this:  can I mathematically back up what I believe makes the perfect entrance and exit (allowing the rider to carry speed) for an Andy Williams style bermed turn?

Uh...tangent.

Here's chris hitting another feature I'm proud of, but this is part of the reason my finger joints hurt.  It's a rock lip that steps up over a bunch of rock pavers.  You can go around to the left, ride straight over the lip, or hit the jump.  So far the gap is good.  It's totally case friendly as long as you don't plow your nose into it, and if you hit it just right the landing is mostly rock.  The gap is about 8 feet at the most.

Basically we ended trailbuilding on a high note for me at least--building a fun intermediate level feature filled trail.

OK moving on.  About a week later we hiked with just about the whole crew: Me, Chris, Zach, Taylor, Dippy, and Michael.  Fall colors!

Taking a break at the top of the trails with Mary's in the background.

Dippy coming into the berm:

Chris airing it out

I dunno why everything is underlined... It's bugging me, and I can't figure out how to turn it off.  You'd think I'd know this by now...

We had a great run, and it would be our last.

canyon adventures

The other night Zach expressed a desire to shoot his guns.  We weren't sure where to go, but decided to go into the canyon with some rice and shoot some dinner (Zach was to shoot the dinner).  Chris came over, and, despite a foot injury from bike jousting, decided to come along.  I brought the air rifle.

We parked at the end of teton canyon road, and the lot was crammed.  A bride walked by, and we asked where they intended to be wed.  As if they were afraid we might try to join them, the wedding goers replied "up the trail somewhere."

Chris, Zach, and Indica.  

We walked in a couple of miles, found a suitable marmot hunting ground (far enough away from the wedding) and a suitable campsite, and then saw something big moving on the far hillside.  It was brown, and appeared quite large.  We all believed it to be moving.  Chris declared, "Damn, that's a big bear."  I thought it looked like a moose.  Zach didn't have his glasses and couldn't really weigh in, but he strapped his .45 to his belt regardless.

Filled with excitement of the possibility of a good large animal sighting, we hugged the creek to move out of the wind path to the creature, then came up the hill to get a visual.  It was a rather large stump.

Disappointed, we went back to camp, set up, and went hunting.  Zach walked silently ahead of me as I jumped around on rocks.  I heard no marmots, but something was squeaking uphill--likely a ground squirrel.  We were not opposed to eating such small rodents (I need to build on my chipmunk story anyway).  Zach, hearing the squeaks, carefully unholstered his revolver and took aim at an opening in the rock pile.

He motioned to me that there was a critter, and stood silently for some time.  Eventually, something squeaked above him, and he relocated.  This time he was quick to the draw, and took one shot before collecting his prey--a squirrel.

Zach headed down to clean the squirrel in the creek, and Chris and I followed at our own pace.  We reached Zach to learn that the squirrel had weird white specks on his abdomen--a diseased squirrel would not make a healthy snack.  We buried the squirrel, and moved on to fishing.

I have always wondered if Teton Creek had fish this high up in the mountains.  Today we found out that it does!  Chris spotted fish, I saw them too, and Zach took aim.  He missed a couple of times, missed again with the .45, and Chris and I left to build a fire.  As we walked away we heard him unload three rounds into the creek.  Despite semi-automatic weaponry, Zach came back empty handed from fishing.

We had a nice fire, ate lots of rice, and crammed into a tent when it started to rain at 3 in the morning.  I was pleased that there were no rangers waiting for us at the trailhead.  I felt conspicuous with an air rifle strapped on my pack after a night of shooting handguns in a wilderness area.  I'll be sure to check the wilderness regulations before we go shooting in the canyon again...

downhill race!

Before I agreed to work trail crew this summer, I told Andy (my boss) that it would mean a lot to have the day off for the downhill race planned for the end of the season.  As it was, I had to work for Targhee's first ever downhill race, but it was pretty relaxed and Andy let me get my race runs in (thanks!).

The downhill course starts at the top of our advanced trail, Buffalo Drop, where the expert riders have the option of hitting the "big" drop on the mountain--a 6 to 15 foot drop depending on how you hit it.  The landing is great, and there's no gap to clear, so it's a pretty safe drop, I've been hitting it all year, even on the hard tail once.  Buffalo drop ends at a mid-mountain junction of all the trails.  It used to continue, but the lower section was and remains closed by the forest service due to nothing in particular except a power grabbing forest representative.  Technically it's a drainage, but there's no water (ever) and the trail surface is rock (most durable surface out there).  So at the juncture you hop on the lower section of Sticks 'n Stones, about half of which we built this season.  The lower section is very rocky, has some great off camber rocky sections, good slow technical spots, some fun gaps, and finishes with a fast jumpy section.  It's a great trail.  Then you have about a mile of fast drifty road to crank out before you hit the finish.

My hands have been hurting, and I tried to take it easy as best I could before the race.  They didn't feel great but were good enough to hold on.  I took a pre-race run for course inspection after practice was done, and i was riding well even with 30 pounds on my back.  

I intended to set a solid first run without crashing.  Ride the way I always do, pedal when I can and be smooth.  Buffalo drop was smooth.  I started losing my front tire coming into the drop (never come in so fast or had such a loose entrance), but managed to get the bike under me before I went off.  On Sticks I dropped my chain a couple of times, but recovered without losing more than a couple of pedal strokes.  Kept it together, pounded out the road as best I could, finished, and lay down.  On the loudspeaker Andy announced the fastest time so far-- 7:19.

My fastest time held up through all the first laps in my category.  Ed posted a faster time in his category (older) and really good bicycle designer Lance Canfield posted a 7:10 in his category which would remain as the fastest time of the day.  My second run was not so good.  I blew one corner and dropped a chain in a major way (I really need a chainguide to race...).  I posted a 7:25, and was edged to third by a 7:15 and a 7:10.  It's my best result ever, and I'm stoked just to have avoided crashing.  I'm historically quite bad at not crashing in dh races, but managed two crash free runs!  I got a summer season pass for my efforts.