2021 Mountain Biking

[Doug Briggs]

I beat the rain today despite a late start.

On Nightmare on Baldy. The trail was totally rerouted, but not renamed, from being a nearly vertical, unsustainable two track to the sweet single track you see here. So Nightmare is no longer a nightmare. This sign is unofficial.

The top of the new trail I've nicknamed 'Broken Wheel' but is officially 'New True Romance' as it starts at the junction of True Romance and Weber.

Someone didn't count their tools.

At the bottom of 'Broken Wheel'. Note the mine on the right.

This spike is sitting on top of a 6x6. Kind of short, but then it was probably for a mining railroad which is small.

 

[Doug Briggs]

As if avalanches weren't enough to be concerned about, now we have mudslides in the Ten Mile Canyon. This is the paved rec path that parallels I-70 from Frisco to Copper Mountain.

Monsoon season has made for some great biking with super tacky trails but today the low spots were holding water forming puddles. The ground has been saturated.

Photos: Summit County Sheriff's Office

 

[AmyPJ]

The monsoon has been a massive disappointment here so far. We did get a bit of a thunder shower last night, but we're still parched.

 

[dovski]

So took the wife mountain biking yesterday at Duthie hill, this is her third time on trails and actually had a coach from Fluidride working with her. I finished our last trail ride ahead of them so decided to kill time practicing drops. Actually took a drops and jump course last week to improve my skills, unfortunately my skills need more work as I took the 6 foot drop too slow and had a very rough landing

ironically I do have elbow pads but decided to leave them in the car as we were just planning to ride some flow trails and xc trails. This is also the arm I had shoulder surgery on last September after crashing while downhilling at Batchelor. Good news is that the shoulder repair has now been load tested and is 100% effective. A few soar muscles and a couple stiches seem to be the extent of my injuries. Will take a 1 week break from riding to give everything a chance to heal and will start wearing elbow pads more often

 

[Doug Briggs]

Ow. Heal quickly.

 

[luliski]

So took the wife mountain biking yesterday at Duthie hill, this is here third time on trails and actually had a coach from Fluidride working with her. I finished our last trail ride ahead of them so decided to kill time practicing drops. Actually took a drops and jump course last week to improve my skills, unfortunately my skills need more work as I took the 6 foot drop too slow and had a very rough landing
View attachment 138496
ironically I do have elbow pads but decided to leave them in the car as we were just planning to ride some flow trails and xc trails. This is also the arm I had shoulder surgery on last September after crashing while downhilling at Batchelor. Good news is that the shoulder repair has now been load tested and is 100% effective. A few soar muscles and a couple stiches seem to be the extent of my injuries. Will take a 1 week break from riding to give everything a chance to heal and will start wearing elbow pads more often

Ouch. But I bet it'll be a quicker recovery than your shoulder injury. Hope you heal well!

 

[dovski]

Ouch. But I bet it'll be a quicker recovery than your shoulder injury. Hope you heal well!

All things considered, it was a 6 foot drop so I got off easy. Will definitely practice more on the smaller drops to perfect my form before attempting the bigger ones again.

 

[Wilhelmson]

Its annoying how much easier a 10 foot drop is on skis compared to 5' on a bike.

My collarbone isn't 100% filled in yet so I had a giant ham sandwich before a nice slow start to some flow trails in VT but went pretty fast.

 

[Tony S]

All things considered, it was a 6 foot drop so I got off easy. Will definitely practice more on the smaller drops to perfect my form before attempting the bigger ones again.

Stuff happens, form or no form. Or maybe I mean "Bad form happens, even after good form." The point is, it's a hazardous sport, even if you're otherwise a sensible person.

 

[Andy Mink]

I'm going through several forced days off. AQI has been in the 2-300 range with very few breaks during the days. Reno is getting smoke from two big fires, the Tamarack south of Carson City and the Dixie between Bucks Lake and Lake Almanor. Hot, dry, and nasty. Keeping my fingers crossed for the fire fighters on the lines and the pilots in the air.

A view of Peavine Mountain. I swear it's there somewhere.

 

[Doug Briggs]

I'm going through several forced days off. AQI has been in the 2-300 range with very few breaks during the days. Reno is getting smoke from two big fires, the Tamarack south of Carson City and the Dixie between Bucks Lake and Lake Almanor. Hot, dry, and nasty. Keeping my fingers crossed for the fire fighters on the lines and the pilots in the air.
View attachment 138543
A view of Peavine Mountain. I swear it's there somewhere.

Yuck. That was us last year. I don't ride when it's like that.

This year it has stayed below 100 most days, thankfully .

 

[Tricia]

I'm going through several forced days off. AQI has been in the 2-300 range with very few breaks during the days. Reno is getting smoke from two big fires, the Tamarack south of Carson City and the Dixie between Bucks Lake and Lake Almanor. Hot, dry, and nasty. Keeping my fingers crossed for the fire fighters on the lines and the pilots in the air.
View attachment 138543
A view of Peavine Mountain. I swear it's there somewhere.

Its a good time for us to be out of town, eh?
Hoping the firefighters get some relief and we get some clean air soon!

 

[Tricia]

So took the wife mountain biking yesterday at Duthie hill, this is her third time on trails and actually had a coach from Fluidride working with her. I finished our last trail ride ahead of them so decided to kill time practicing drops. Actually took a drops and jump course last week to improve my skills, unfortunately my skills need more work as I took the 6 foot drop too slow and had a very rough landing
View attachment 138496
ironically I do have elbow pads but decided to leave them in the car as we were just planning to ride some flow trails and xc trails. This is also the arm I had shoulder surgery on last September after crashing while downhilling at Batchelor. Good news is that the shoulder repair has now been load tested and is 100% effective. A few soar muscles and a couple stiches seem to be the extent of my injuries. Will take a 1 week break from riding to give everything a chance to heal and will start wearing elbow pads more often

That looks wicked.
Any pics of the drop?

 

[Primoz]

Another hot day yesterday, and more is forecasted for rest of this week. My Polar was showing up to +35c yesterday... and it was on steepest section of longest climb yesterday, so I was sweating quite a bit Still on old HT, but it feels good already, even for more demanding trails on downhills. It was pretty short and not really demanding ride (55km and only 1200m of ascend), but I guess due this heat I came back home completely dead.

Luckily there's still a bit of water flowing in those streams next to trail, so I had chance to refuel few times in between. Normally I could make this loop with single bottle (0.7L), but yesterday I spent almost 4 liters on this ride. But it's so hot and there's so little water, that bench came handy so I could sit on that hot sun while waiting for bottles to fill up

Good thing with all this is, that I can still climb for ages even if my legs are shot, as long as it's constant pace, so just before I came home, I needed to check how I would survive these trails, so there were two more loops and extra 200m of ascend there, but it was fun, so it was very well worth some extra climbing

 

[Andy Mink]

Its a good time for us to be out of town, eh?
Hoping the firefighters get some relief and we get some clean air soon!

6am and AQI 252. No walks, no rides again today.

 

[blackke17]

So took the wife mountain biking yesterday at Duthie hill, this is her third time on trails and actually had a coach from Fluidride working with her. I finished our last trail ride ahead of them so decided to kill time practicing drops. Actually took a drops and jump course last week to improve my skills, unfortunately my skills need more work as I took the 6 foot drop too slow and had a very rough landing

ironically I do have elbow pads but decided to leave them in the car as we were just planning to ride some flow trails and xc trails. This is also the arm I had shoulder surgery on last September after crashing while downhilling at Batchelor. Good news is that the shoulder repair has now been load tested and is 100% effective. A few soar muscles and a couple stiches seem to be the extent of my injuries. Will take a 1 week break from riding to give everything a chance to heal and will start wearing elbow pads more often

always happens when you leave the pads in the car! glad the shoulder held up .
I went over the bars hard and landed right on my surgically repaired shoulder last week no worse for the wear as well. scared me how hard i landed on it. been a couple years since the rotator cuff surgery but that's nothing i want to go through again !!!

 

[Lauren]

always happens when you leave the pads in the car! glad the shoulder held up .

Along the same lines..."I feel like wearing a tank top downhill mountain biking is a bad idea**, but it's SOOOO hot out."

**it was

 

[sparty]

always happens when you leave the pads in the car! glad the shoulder held up .
I went over the bars hard and landed right on my surgically repaired shoulder last week no worse for the wear as well. scared me how hard i landed on it. been a couple years since the rotator cuff surgery but that's nothing i want to go through again !!!

The one time I've beat up my knee this year? "Oh, I'm just taking the dog for a ride on logging roads, I don't need to put my knee pads on."

Universe: "Here, try turning in this pile of deep sand as you come back onto the road proper from a Jeep track."

Me: "Oww."

I was wearing them eight days ago when I had my first proper bike-park crash. Insufficient send and poor weight distribution had me landing short and nose-heavy on a (very) small table, managed stay on the front wheel until I hit the next one, and then I hit the ground hard enough to knock my front wheel out of alignment and break the battery off my derailleur (which I didn't notice until two runs later when I looked at the lift line and said, "this would be a good time to pedal up"...but not without being able to shift). Apparently the tabs are a known failure point; I need to work on the repair suggested by YouTube.

Oh, and my knees were fine, despite taking a fair bit of the impact. My shoulder was okay a couple of days later, although I've still got lingering tightness that the chiropractor thinks goes back to a ski crash from two winters ago, but is slowly getting better with more stretching and attention to seating posture while working from home.

 

[dovski]

That looks wicked.
Any pics of the drop?

I would like to say it was something like this

but the reality is that I was practicing my drops and not even on the biggest one at Duthie Hill. Was on the second largest drop bellow and took too slow plus did not pull back enough as I went off so my arms were not fully extended which allowed the tire to twist a little right before I landed. As I said my most severe injury was to my ego and pride lol.

 

[4ster]

Speaking of crashes, I had my first of the year last week over a rock roller/jump I have been over 100’s of times. I guess I took a little different angle than usual & landed with the front wheel slightly turned which twisted & slid out in the super loose sand/gravel. I went down hard & fast & ended up taking the bars across my leg about at the front pocket. Thought I must’ve landed on my phone till a couple days later when the bruise showed up more in the shape of my bars than phone.
Even with my elbow pads on, l still managed to scrape my forearm pretty good but thankfully the bike was okay .

I think I detect a few old scars in there too.

Even though the smoke hasn’t been as bad as some other areas, I haven’t been riding since last week because of it.
Yesterday morning...