STG

Good weekend in St. George. My brother and his wife were in town with my two year old niece and nephew. There was no way I could say no to STG riding and spending time with the twins.

First ride was a sunset cruise around Paradise Canyon.

I opted for flying over a solo drive, so I found myself without bike. DH generously offered his Leviathan — with power meter. How could I say no?

I had to smile a bit at the DH set up. Nothing on the bars matched.

• Two different Ergon barends
• Two different Ergon grips
• One grip shift, one rapid fire
• One v-brake, one disc
• Reba pop-lock, frayed cable on both ends
• A half dozen random zip ties, velcro straps and wraps of tape

“Dave is more mad scientist than even he realizes.”

But underneath it all was a Leviathan, and I had some great fun on a semi-exploratory Green Valley ride. First we rode Zen out and back, exploring a few side options. Then we had planned to ride Stucki, but instead we climbed singletrack (Barrels) past “the Badass”‘s jumps. I followed blind intuition through 3-4 junctions, leading us to a solid rock wash lined with big jumps. I passed on the big jumps, but the descent was a good one.

I joined team 2 Epic for dinner. When I pulled the Leviathan into the garage Lynda nabbed the Powertap off the bars and ran to the computer like a giddy 5 year old. Somebody likes looking at power files!

Dave’s analysis: the ride was “Chillin’ and Drillin'”. I laughed: I think that pretty much describes every ride I do.

It was fun to see high power values after burst moves, but I didn’t have much of a reference. And I was keeping it easy since I knew the next day was going to hurt.

I got to see the whole 2-epic think-tank in process. They analyzed the day’s power files (a road group ride) to minute details, laughing and having fun at every turn. Then they laid out the strategy for tomorrow’s big ride. Dave thought about gearing, Lynda about water bottle placement, I was just hoping to survive.

Dave and Lynda, warming up on the river trail out to the Blakes Climb. This was about the only view I got of them (from behind).

Dave rode fast ahead as Lynda and I warmed up. At some point he said, “I think I see where today’s going…. your timing couldn’t be better, Scott.” I assumed he was sandbagging me (and I’m somewhat disappointed that he wasn’t!!), but instead he had noticed a glint in Lynda’s eye – she was ready to burn. Only later would I notice that they seem to be able to read each other’s minds, leaving me often puzzled, but impressed by the way they work so well together.

MP3 players in the ears, it’s time to rock and roll.

I was sort of surprised to ride Dave’s wheel for the first ten minutes or so, with Lynda trailing just out of sight. I knew that it was only because I didn’t know what was coming. In my mind the climb may as well have been 10,000 feet if it was a thousand. Efficiency be damned, I’d ride with them until I started cracking. I knew I was making a mistake when Dave slowed and I kept the same pace, passing him. Sure enough, around the next bend I saw that we were done with the “breaks” and Dave had been anticipating it. He quickly rode out of reach.

Lynda got closer and closer until she passed me without much effort. Before I knew it, I was alone on the mountain, trying to focus on a rabbit I could no longer see. I never doubted that these two were strong, but now I had seen it for myself.

They waited a bit beyond the end of the climb. We were quickly off riding into a pretty stiff wind. After almost crashing on a brief downhill, I noted the ~8 psi in my front tire. I stopped and snapped this pic of the dynamic duo blasting off into the distance.

STG has some nice scenery. So I stopped, pumped up the tire and ate a few snacks. The climb had fried me, so the flat tire was probably more a blessing than a curse. As I descended further down the road, into the wind, I lost my desire to go further, knowing we’d be turning around to climb right back up. So I went a ways down, figuring they’d catch me as I took a more moderate pace.

They didn’t. I think they rode another 4 or 5 miles past where I turned off, but it gave me an even longer break and more time to recover from the workout — and I needed it.

We descended a new (to them) route, with only one dead-end, as I listened to my tire for escaping air. It seemed to be holding fine, as long as I stopped to plug the hole before I lost much pressure.

Lynda headed home via the bike path while Dave and I returned via Curly wash and 3 Fingers of Death. I was quite happy to learn that I felt good – legs strong, system backing them up. I had anticipated a sufferfest of a return ride, including even the bike path back. Of course, I hadn’t completed the ‘workout’ as planned, but it’s always nice to recover from a meltdown.

I couldn’t twist Dave’s arm into taking the singletrack by the water tower, no matter how hard I tried. At the same time, nothing could have twisted my arm into not taking it.

Back at the ranch, Dave was very gracious in answering my dumb power questions, and gave me a free analysis of the data I had collected. As someone who has been riding mountain bikes my entire sentient life, looking at things from this perspective is pretty strange. The way I estimate things like effort, pacing, fatigue and strength relative to other riders is definitely in question.

“The numbers don’t lie,” he says, not long after questioning his 1000 watt reading. I’m not sure I’m ready to install power meters on all my bikes, but the concept sure is interesting, and I’m sure some support for power related stuff will appear in TopoFusion.

My brother and I went to explore a new area – the Anasazi trail, as a recovery ride. There’s a great piece of trail in the middle that is full of off-trail moves. I got into thinking this was just a “little fun ride” and that I was invincible just playing around on this brief technical section.

Bad mistake. I went off a drop that required manualing, but I didn’t manual. I remember thinking, “I won’t crash” as I was going over, probably preventing a good bail. Dumb crash, dumb bail, but minimal damage — or so I thought. A little bump to the knee was enough to convince me to skip the second half of the ride (across the river at Barrel Roll TH), but I now suspect that I broke a rib somehow.

So I spent the next day resting and visiting, including a fun hike with the twins. It was hard to pull them away from both the creek and the sand pit. For someone who previously hasn’t found kids very interesting, I sure find these kiddos to be pretty darn cute.

On the flight(s) and shuttle home – a real treat, Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life proved an excellent read, and not only because my uncle happens to be a major character in it. I really had no concept of some of the adventuring and big climbs he had accomplished, so it was with great interest that I turned the pages.