Jackalope. Mythical Wimp?

I don't often engage in product reviews here. There are a few reasons for that. First, I don't like the conventions that generally go along with product reviews. Second, I am often three or four revs behind whatever is current on any given scene because I am cheap. Third, I generally find product reviews a bit boring.

However, when I have something to say about a product, I figure I best say it. Or something like that.

Back in late March I had some issues with my MuleFut rims on my Trek Farley 6. As part of the warranty, the shop replaced the rear wheel with a Bontrager Jackalope setup.

And it was good.

Until it wasn't.

I rode the bike the first night I got it back on some single track set up with a Nate tire and tubed. All's well. I got home from the ride that evening, popped off the Nate and mounted up a Devist8er 2 UL tubeless. It was such a piece of cake that I couldn't believe it. Pumped it up with a floor pump. Set the bead no problem. Held air overnight. Threw some sealant in it the next day and boom. We're good to go. Headed out to Hunter Creek, a creek that leads to the Knik River and, in the winter, to the Knik Glacier. The creek bed is glacially carved and there are a lot of big rocks. 6 to 9 inch diameter. Challenging riding. I've beat the shizza out of myself and my bikes on this terrain many times. Never had an issue.

This day, though, I did. At some point a rock hit the sidewall of the rim and put a nice and distinct bend in the bead. I later, while riding at low pressure, hit an edge of snow at that precise section of the rim and dumped what little air pressure I had left in the wheel. No biggie, pumped back up to 15 or so and continued on. Good times.

I didn't think too much of the dent in the rim. I was riding hard and there were a couple of good pings from hitting the rim on rock. I was bummed that it bent, particularly given that my Pugs with Large Marge had taken a lot of much more massive hits with no ill effects and even the MuleFut, before going tits up, had rolled similar terrain with no ill effects. But, okay. My bad.

I didn't think much of it until just recently. On Saturday I had to do some maintenance to the bike, so I decided, for some reason, to switch tires on the Jackalope. I mounted up a different tire, put in sealant, and called it good. When I did this, I had to clean up the rim and in doing so did a bit of an inspection of the wheel. All was good, minus the dent I knew about.

The next day I rode the bike on paved bike path to the local high school to watch my son run a race. After the race, I went to head home and as I was climbing a short incline on grass the rear tire blew the bead. I chalked it up to the tire being of a brand/model that in early iterations had some issues with floppy beads, so no biggie.

However, when I got home and remounted a different tire I noticed that there was yet another dent in the rim and the wheel was out of true. WTF? When the bead blew I didn't hit anything, I stopped riding immediately and walked it the rest of the way up the hill. How the heck did I suddenly get a huge dent in the rim?

In my mind it seems like the rim is a bit weak.

This has me concerned. I am hard on stuff and if I have a rim that  bends like a piece of wet cardboard with the lightest of knocks, it's not going to bode well for my long term satisfaction with the product.

That said, the hub seems to be good quality and until the rim itself bent, the tubeless set up was easy-peasy.

And the mat black looks pretty boss.

In Perfect Stillness, I've Only Found Sorrow

It was one of those rides that just beats the crap out of you, but you take it all with a smile because it's just so damned fun.

I love those types of rides. My son and I got one in yesterday. We decided to head down to Hunter Creek and ride the creek bed. The idea was to ride up the creek valley and explore a bit of new terrain. However, the lack of snow this year and my mis-remembering memory of what that side of the creek looked like put the brakes to that plan.

So we decided to just ride around on the downstream side - maybe see about riding out to the Knik river and see what we could see. The general idea was just to do some adventure riding and not worry about anything like getting in miles or anything. Just have fun and enjoy the day.

And that we did in spades. The first bit of riding from the road down the creek bed can be a bit, well, jarring. Lots of large rocks deposited by retreating glaciers don't make for the best riding surface.

However, if your teeth can handle the clacking caused by riding over this surface, you will quickly come to some great crust right now. Crust riding is the bee's knees, the thing that many fat cyclists wait all winter for. Crust is that wonderful state when the snow thaws and refreezes, creating a strong, hard, flat surface to ride on and, unlike other times of the winter, you can ride nearly anywhere on top of the crust. You are not bound by the trails and routes that have been packed down by use, but rather can just go wherever you wish.

Good times.

So we rode the crust, crossing the creek a number of times on snow bridges and just through the water itself. We tucked into various nooks and crannys and kept our eyes open, unsuccessfully, for moose shed.

A few weeks ago I set up an Origin8 Devist8er UL tubeless on my new Bontrager Jackalope rim and had some good experiences with it. Super easy set up and it didn't leak any air at all running at the ~18 PSI I run for commuting. For the crust and rock crawling we were doing yesterday, though, I dropped the pressure way down - sub 5 for sure. I'm not sure how it happened, but on a transition from gravel bed to snow I ended up breaking the bead loose and dropping all my pressure.

Not what I wanted to face. My small hand pump, well, it takes a while to fill a fat tire with this type of pump. But that's what I did. I pumped it up to about 25 to see if I could reseat the bead, which it seemed to, then I dropped back down to around 10 and continued the ride. More rocks, more crust, more gravel and mud and creek crossings and I didn't seem to loose any more air. When I got home I dropped the tire down to 3 or 4 PSI and was able to get it to burp pretty easily and consistently. Something to keep in mind, though I don't think I'll run the Devist8er as my winter tire anyway, so shouldn't be an issue. Though it might be a good candidate for home studding. We'll see.

After the burp incident we headed towards the river, picking up some ATV and bike tracks that headed in the same direction as we wished to go. Eventually we got to a point where we weren't able to continue - two beaver dams and the trail covered with probably three feet of water at the deepest point. Well, we probably could have continued, but I didn't feel like getting any wetter than I was so we turned back and decided to check out some other routes.

All in all, it was some fun riding. Slow, methodical. Fun. It helped that it was a beautiful day for a ride - mid 40s with mostly sunny skies and no wind where we were.

As a quick review of the Trek Farley 6 -

I've had the bike for just about six months now and I've gone back and forth about how I feel about the bike.

It is not nearly as stable as the Pugsley. That is a double-edged sword for the guy who wants one bike to rule them all. The pugs was a joy to ride for commuting because I could load it down and it still just ripped and held it's track no matter what. That ability to hold a line with minimal input from me was appreciated on the trail. The Farley needs much more attention to do the same. As a rider I have to be much more present when on the Farley.

A few weeks ago I had to drop the bike off at the shop - the original rear wheel developed a number of hairline cracks along the nipples. Not good. So I was back to the Pugs as my only bike. I did some trail riding, but mostly commuting on the Pugs while the Farley was out of commission and, while the Pugs was fun, the Farley is much more adept on the trails. The Trek is most definitely a trail bike whereas the Pugs is a bit of a Jack of all trades. The Trek wants to go fast and rip corners. The pugs wants to just plow through whatever you throw at it. The Trek requires a bit more finesse as a rider. I'm getting used to that. Slowly.

What I am not happy about with the Trek is the number of times I've had it in the shop thus far. I've had to have new pawls put in the original rear hub, replaced chains three times, and then the aforementioned rim cracking issue. Not a good track record. The new Jackalope rim seems much more stout than the MuleFut, but it does seem like it has some of the same pawl engagement issues the original hub did.

I know with the newest designs coming out in the world of fat bikes that my Trek is becoming less and less desirable to the masses with each passing day. And that's probably okay. I'm not sure that I am quite so gung-ho to sell it as I was before. And if I do sell it, I doubt that I'll get another fatty, but instead put the funds towards something a bit more trail focused - Maybe something in a full suspension or a 29+ with front suspension and then keep the Pugs for a winter bike. Then again, I think it's more likely that things'll just stay as they are. The Pugs for the kids and for when I need a loaner bike and the Trek for the daily rides.

Only time will tell.

Deep From the Cheap Seats

Life's been rough lately. Lots of work. Lots of tension. Not healthy.

I spend as much time on my bike as I can without foregoing my responsibilities. Some would disagree with me there.

Doesn't matter. It is what it is.

Riding keeps me from exploding. I think.

Yesterday I went for a nice long ride, mixing trails and roads, getting into the woods and alone. There were a few points where I just yelled at the top of my lungs in joy and frustration in equal measure.

I'm frustrated that the freedom I find on the bike, the strength and ability to be just who and what I am haven't translated into the rest of my life. When I am on the bike there is no one telling me that I am wrong. Every move I make is the move I should make, the move I have to make and there isn't the kind of over analysis of every facet that comes so often in my daily life. And I never worry about pissing someone off or worry that I am wrong. And I hate to be wrong. No, that's not it. I don't mind being wrong. I hate being told I am wrong when I'm not. I hate being told what I am thinking and feeling by someone else.

When I'm on my bike all that shit is lifted from me. But I still can't find the words to speak truth to power in the rest of my life. The power of biking seems walled off from the rest of my life in some way.

It's like I am too scared to just step up and do the hard/painful/right thing to ensure happiness because I worry too much that it will cause someone else's unhappiness.

Maybe I need a shrink?

I don't know. I only know that my head is in a lot of places right now and that I've probably ruined a lot of lives through my inaction or my inability to open myself up. More psycho babble.

Maybe I just need to take a day off and use it to ride until the voices shut up?

Entropy

Some days it just doesn't matter how light the bike is, how long you've been doing this, how good of shape you think you are in, the ride is just brutal.

This morning was one of those brutal ones. Started out just feeling a bit heavy overall, like my legs couldn't support me. DOMS is a bitch and I'm dealing with that right now. I took one of the dogs out for a run on Sunday. For some reason I thought I could do three miles after not running for, what, a few years?

Yeah, my legs hurt a bit today. Worse than yesterday.

These are the days when I don't want to be a bike commuter.

Maybe my overall attitude is more to blame. For many reasons I really don't feel motivated to actually come into the office. Much of the work I am doing right now doesn't require me to be in the office and its not like I'm getting input from the customer until after the fact, so why come to the office to work?

Partially it is just to get the bike miles in. Seems silly, but true. I like having the excuse to get on the bike. When I work from home it is too easy to start at 6 in the morning and keep going until 6 at night.

It's easy to think about how nice it would be to not ride on days like today when it seems that I've ripped every fiber of muscle into tiny little shreds and then tried putting them all back together with velcro. Every movement sets off a small rip of flame in my legs.

I know it is a good thing on some level, provided I can get out and run again to start building those muscles up rather than just breaking them down.

But time. Time is the great challenge. There are only so many usable hours in the day and a good bunch of those in my day are used up commuting to and from work. If I did things right, I'd run during the day - say at lunch. But once I get rolling on something, I tend to not want to leave it until it is done. Which means I often don't really even take breaks, just moments away to hit the head and warm up some food to eat while at my desk.

Some days I contemplate getting a car and driving myself to work. I really do. I could, if I did so, sleep an extra hour, still make it to work at the same time each morning, and have an extra hour in the afternoon to use for riding.

I could, but I know that wouldn't happen. I'd end up working the extra hour. I'd end up eating the time in some other way and end up still being pressed and frantic.

What's the saying about entropy? It always gets easier to not change?

I just made that up.

Live at Hellfest - part 2?

Just noticed, my last post was made while listening to the same album as I am listening to right now. Hmmm...

Anyway, here we go...

I figure it's getting to be spring and I haven't posted in a while so I probably should. The death knell of any blog, right? The sorry I haven't posted in a while post. The empty promises to the fives of tens of readers you have that you will do better in the future.

Yeah, I'm a walking cliché. I get it.

Here, have some pictures without context as my way of apologizing. Sorry if you've seen these ones before...

Live at Hellfest....

Let's not talk about climate change. Let's not try to form a pattern out of the weather changes over the last two winters as they can still be considered anomalies. Let's just let the fact that it is raining in February be the elephant in the room.

Normally I don't do much road riding until April and May when the trails are either an icy mess or wet and boggy. Road riding has always been a stop-gap measure for me. Something to do while I wait for the type of riding I want to do to become available. This is probably a large part of the reason I've never bought a road bike. I occasionally enjoy riding on the road, but not enough to commit to it.

Saturday I headed out for what was planned to be about 6 miles of road to the bike trails, another 6 miles or so of trail riding, depending on how I was feeling, and then another 6 miles back home. Instead, I ended up riding 33 miles of road. The plan was to check out the MatSu river park trails to see how they were holding up prior to a meet up ride I'm planning on putting together for the 6th of March. I was hoping that either we'd have frozen dirt with minimal icy patches or, better, crusty, grippy, awesome riding snow over a frozen base.

Maybe my expectations were way off, but in the end, I didn't even get onto the trails owing to the fact that the amount of ice getting to the trailhead was enough to convince me that unless something changes weather-wise that the idea to lead a bunch of folks around the trails after dark is probably not the brightest idea.

Then again, the rain we're getting might help. Or maybe not. Two weeks is a long time this time of year and conditions can and do and will change.

So, the trail riding idea was a bust. But I wasn't ready to turn around and head home yet. I really needed a ride of some sort, needed to get my head straight. Besides, I wasn't looking forward to heading home and going back to work. So I headed east and south along the MatSu river, riding against the wind, enjoying the feel of speed and the sound of rubber on clear asphalt.

Sometimes that's just what a person needs - some riding that allows the mind to completely disconnect from the body and just wander. Riding trail is a feat of uniting the mind and the body -knowing exactly where in space and time each part of the body is and making the adjustments needed to keep the body moving in the right direction. Road riding allows the mind to wander, to disconnect from the body. It's a great thing in that way. But not something I want to do all the time. And, according to some schools of thought, something I should never do on the bike that I've got.

This is a strange thing to me - the fact that people will, when they hear that I ride one bike only and that it is a fat bike, without prompting or provocation, tell me just how much more efficient I would be and how much more fun I would have if I bought the right kinds of bikes for riding different surfaces and terrains. I need a road bike for road riding, a full suspension mountain bike for single track, an XC bike for riding the farm fields in Palmer, and a commuter bike for commuting. They tell me I should only ride fat in the snow or on the beach.

My response is always the same - I often can and do ride all of these terrains in a single ride - how am I supposed to carry four or five bikes with me on a ride? I'm the type of guy who, even if I could afford and if the wife would allow me to have multiple bikes, wouldn't have multiple bikes for the simple fact that I spend so much time getting a bike to feel just right that the transition to another bike is generally quite un-fun. I'm still getting used to the Trek over the Pugsley, six months later. I don't feel, yet, that I know the bike well enough to really push it to the limits. That takes time for me. Jumping back and forth between bikes just isn't something I enjoy. Just like with cars. When we used to have two cars in my family, I always had a hard time transitioning to the car I didn't drive all the time.

I guess I am a man of habits.

So, having a different bike for every type of riding I do is just not in the cards. And I've spent a lot of time thinking about the types of riding I do and what type of bike best covers all of them. I'm coming to the realization that maybe the 29+ platform might just be that one bike to rule them all bike for me. I don't know. Haven't actually ridden one, but I'm thinking about it.  I think that the other option for me is to get a set of 29er wheels for the fatty so that on days like today, with the rain and the ice, I can have a set of studded wheels. In the summer I could throw on slicks for commuting or knobbies for trail riding.

I don't know. For the last few days I've had this sense that something is not quite right, not quite there. And this feeling manifests itself in a desire to shop or eat. Weird.

I don't normally think too much about my bike and whether it is the right bike for me like I am doing right now. I wonder if it's all connected? Maybe I'm having some early mid-life crisis? Maybe I just need some drastic and

transformative change in my life? Who knows?

Maybe I just need some trails to ride so I get out of my head a bit?

Maybe some moonlit miles will help clear the funk away? 

Sunset

I kept saying I was going to write more for the blog this year. That's obviously not happened.

I just don't have much to say about riding stuff right now. I've been doing some riding and have had some great rides and some not so great rides. I've crashed and I soared. But as I've done before, I've focused my riding to where I don't stop to take photos or try to take mental notes so that I can write about the ride later.

And it is February, which is a hard time of year to ride. Especially this year. Sometimes it is too much snow that makes it hard to ride. Or too much cold. This year it is lack of snow and temps that turn everything icy and slick overnight and wet and cruddy during the afternoon.

I went out to the MatSu Greenbelt trails this weekend for a ride and it was such a mixed bag that some of the riding was a blast while other bits was absolutely gut wrenching. The access roads in the farm fields and along the powerline were icy and slick as hell while much of the single track was awesome tacky riding. Except for those south facing parts of the trail where there was a clear shot to the sky. Those sections were luge track. Then there were the blow downs. I took Root Bear to the north east out of Bear Berry - the old part of this trail - and there were numerous trees down and debris all along the trail from the last wind storm. In the end I had to stop many times just to pull sticks out of my der or my wheels.

In the end, the riding couldn't have been that bad as I spent nearly three hours out there killing the trails.

Anymore, though, those are the rare occasions. Usually when I am not at work right now I can only get an hour or two, tops, away. Between grading papers, kids' activities, and putting off the work around the house, I just have a hard time getting the time to get out there.

Or maybe it is more of a motivational issue. That's probably the case. I usually do have a slight downturn in my riding in January and February. The vacation time I take in late December and Early January leads to some great days of riding without the worry about work and such. Then I get back to the daily grind and it just gets hard to get out there on the days off.

As of now I have no epic rides planned for the spring and summer, but I do want to get in some good, long rides. We'll just have to see what's the what. Hopefully some good stories will be shared here again soon.