The Spindle Hosts 3rd Burrito Armageddon Triathalon

Headed over to The Spindle to check out the 3rd Burrito Armageddon Triathalon. Fun times.

I wasn't racing, just wanted to ride a bit ahead of the race and get some snapshots. The turnout was pretty good. As soon as the racer lined up and held their shots over their heads for the start, I booked it to the first stop, El Myr. Yeah, mandatory shot for all racers at the start. It was that kind of party.

I didn't get any pics worth posting at El Myr. The real treat at this stop was the heckling. As everyone tried to cram a whole burrito down as fast as they could, spectators and event staff made them feel appropriately silly about what they were doing. Thin skinned? You're gonna let them break your concentration. Stay focused and channel your inner Kobayashi.

Second stop was Argosy where the riders had to do another shot. I heard is was some kind of Jameson and egg-nog concoction.  Then it was on to the mini-cyclocross track. The heckling continued as the riders navigated in an egg nog booze haze, the burrito from the last stop starting to maybe possibly gurgle a litlle in the old tums. Bonus Level: silly string assassins. 

Final Stop - Elmyriachi. I believe that when you got here, you needed to chug a PBR before posting your final time, but I am not quite sure. I was scoping things out up by the finish and the person handing out the PBRs said "Welcome racer", and I told him I didn't race. He said "Oh I have to give these beers to the racers only." Fine, no worries. The I walked around a bit and when I passed in front of the beer zone again, the guy from before came out from behind the table and gave me a tallboy with an event coozie on it. Very Rad!

I hung out til the raffle was completed then headed out. The only downside is that on the way back to my car, I somehow lost the Burrito Armageddon beer coozie. Now, to most people something like that might be no big deal, but I can't stand losing stuff, so it bothered me all the way into late Monday. Hopefully it will find a good home wherever it flew out of my pocket.  

Trail Review - Trail Creek, Athens GA

Rode Trail Creek Mountain Bike Trails in Athens GA for the first time today, so I'm laying down this review while the ride is sill fresh in my memory bank. This trail is just a short hop from the downtown area, and very easy find. Parking was not an issue at all when I was there.
Download Printable Map Here

My overall first impression is very good, and definitely a bit different than other GA trails I have ridden. To me, this trail is very "bike-park-ish." Each loop is short, and if you are looking for epic mileage this is not your best choice. Head on down to Ft. Yargo if you are trying to clock up your distance stats.

What this trail lacks in single loop distance it makes up for in fun factor by way of some excellent "intermediate/advanced" sections, which are "sessionable." By that I mean that most of the berm and jump sections are set up so that you aren't forced to go all the way to the end of the trail hit them after your first pass. Sometimes you can go right back into the fun sections and loop them over and over. On the really heavy stuff, you do have to follow through a little further, but even the ride back to the top is not very bad. You can access the entry points to the heavy stuff about 1/4 mile from the main parking lot, at the 3 o' clock point of entry off filed 2 in the mao above, then hang a right and you'll be at the start of the two heaviest sections. But let's go through the map trail by trail with my recommendation on how to do this trail the first time.

Orange Crush (orange on map):
To get to this trail, come down out of the parking by field 2 to Trail Creek Street and hang a right. Take Trail Creek  Street until you see the cement path on the left. Hop on the path and talke it all the way to the entry point on the right. Yes I know we passed teh entry point to the Green Trail, but we are going to do that later.

When you get to the trail entry, hop on in and go clockwise. You're going to do a little climbing for the first half, then when you get to the top, the fun stuff starts. You'll see on the map a dotted orange section which is the berms and jumps business. If you aren't comfortable with berms and jumps, just take the other direction. If you take the intermediate section, get ready to commit because it gets fast quickly and it is hard to impossible to back out of a line once make your choices. I had to footdown twice on this section on my first pass, but I also roosted some good lines on the berms and caught a little air. Then when it ended, it was easy to see where you could hook around and repeat the section. This is what I meant about sessioning. I could easily ride just the intermediate section of this trail for like 45 mins to an hour, then call it a day. However, on your first time there, you need to experience more, so instead  of doubling back, go ahead and close out the loop and you'll be back on the cement path where you started.

Green Trail (green on map):
Directly across from the outrance of the orange trail you are going to see an entry point to the Green trail. You can go in here if you want. I did not. I went back up the cement path to the main entrance. Once you pop into the trail, there are a few picnic tables you can chillmode at, and get your thoughts together about how you are going to kill it next time you do orange.

Green trail is almost totally flat. Not a lot to say about it, except that you can always use it as a cheat to get your distance numbers up by doing it 2 or 3x. It's only like a mile long, just like Orange Crush. If you are new to mountain biking and don't want anything too heavy, this is your trail, I mean, when I say it is flat, it is, but it is not so tame that you aren't really mountain biking.

Drive By Truckers (blue on map):
When you finish green, go back on the cement trail the way you came, then hang a right onto Trail Creek Street. You'll go about 1/4 mile til you see the entrance to the blue on the left. Head on in!

You're going to start twisting and climbing. be aware of bikes hauling ass the opposite direction! The rules at this park are that downhill riders have to yield to climbers, but sometimes they can be hauling pretty fast and not have time to get off the trail, so just keep your eyes open up ahead. If you look on the map you'll see a dotted line section of blue. You want to go to the left of this section, because it is a unidirectional intermediate section. You'll go about 1/8th mile and the trail will come back together. Hook around and try the intermediate section! You can handle this one. You can just roll over the jumps or you can go for some air. It is a short but fun section, and again, you could get to this spot and just loop around sessioning the berms and jumps til your heart is content. But today you are going to go back to just do it once and then keep going in the original direction. When you get to the top rightmost part of blue, you'll have reached the top as far as elevation for the entire trail.

So now you'll be going mostly downhill but some of the switchbacks take you back up a bit. The whole way up the berms on blue have been useless to you because you have been climbing, but now there will be a bunch of small jumps and berms that are working for you. This is a nice long section, so rock it all the way til you connect with the yellow/red trail entrances.

BONUS: if you look at the map you'll see that when you get to the intersection with yellow/red, you can also take a short path back to the parking lot so you can get a beer. You might need one for these next sections.

Panic (yellow on map):
Hold tight here you go! This is a sweet downhill section with bigger berms and jumps that you have encountered so far. Although they are larger, they are not terribly scary and you can roll over most of the jumps. But that's no fun. You'll have a few opportunities to catch a little air and maybe scare yourself a little. If you cleared the intermediate on orange, you'll dig this section which is longer.

Eventually you'll meet back up with the tail of red, and at that point the heavy stuff mellows out, but you'll still be cruising pretty quick. Make sure to keep an eye out on your left where the trails come back together so you don't collide with someone from red. Go under the bridge and at the next fork hang a right. This will pop you out onto Trail Creek Street, and you'll see the way back to the parking lot. You can go to the left and get a little extra distance, but I did not do that on my visit. I was anxious to get to the final section. Once you get back to the parking lot, you can easily head right back in and do this again. Sessioning!

Widespread (red on map):
Are yo ready? because this is where it gets real.
This section has the biggest berms, the fasted speed, and the most rad jumps. Take it slow the first time, but there will be spots where you can catch some air very easily. Most of the jumps are not gaps, they are tabletop jumps, but even the ones that are gaps are only slighting gapped, but you still don't want to case it with your back wheel if you try them. You're can go a zillion miles an hour down this section, but remember there is going to be a point where you meet back up with the yellow trail so keep your eyes open for riders to your right as the trails come back together. The finish is that same as red. Take a deep breath and realize that you just did something very rad! Then if you want to, go back up to the parking lot and do it again, and again. Sessioning! While I was there today tehre were some locals that were doing nothing but Widespread, over and over and over, ad they were rinsing it pretty good.

Drive By Truckers (blue on map): 
To close out your first visit to this trail, go to the intersection where blue, yellow and red meet (again) and this time take blue. you'll be doing it the opposite directoin that you did the first time. Take it all the way back to Trail Creek Street. This will give you some extra distance, and you'll get to do the downhill sections of blue that you passed when you were climbing it previously. There are a few rock drop off options that you can try of you want to get really gnarly. I was not in that mode today, and truthfully they may be better for the full suspension crowd.

When you get back to the road, you'll know where you are at this point so you can go do some more riding or you can call it a day. If you call it, you'll be at about 7.5 miles/500ft climbing. That's All! So you can see how sessioning may be to your advantage for fun factor and to get your stats up.

Conclusion:
I love Athens. I love that all of the trail names have to do with Athens bands. I love that I have found a trail that is very different than every other trail in the area, I love that this trail seems like an entry level "bike park" only here you don't have to take a shuttle or lift back to the top, and you do need to do a little uphill business. I can't wait til next Spring when I can go and stay for a whole day. I think you should go with me.

NOTE: You'll see that there is a way to connect the bottom section of the blue trail to the green trail but as of this writing that section is closed so they can build a new bridge over the creek because the old one is failing. The trail stewards straight up said NOT to ride this section and you should listen to them. You can go to the SORBA-ATHENS facebook page for updates on bridge construction and other trail related news.

Big Ups and Bike Together!

Getting Microscopic with Curb Dog Maurice Meyer

Let's examine this classic Bob Osborn photo. You know Bob. He ran a magazine called Bicycle Motocross Action. We can talk about that later.

For now though, let's get microscopic this 1984 photo of Maurice Meyer of Curb Dogs fame, going full on back to basics style with a straight up front endo, most likely at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. That is the end of the obvious stuff.

The first oddity you may see are the brake levers. They look all motocross-ey, like they came off a dirt bike. Let me decode them for you. He is running Dia-Compe Tech 3's, but he has added a few mods. First off is the red plastic tubes that are squeezed onto the lever portion. I had these things on a bunch of bikes. They basically beef up the overall diameter of the actual lever, which makes for a bit more comfortable and thus tighter pull. Next he is running some kind of rubber dust/dirt guard over the top most portion of the lever and the clamp. These accesories probably did come from motocross. Never ever ever seen this exact model marketed to bike riders. Terrycable had something similar, a flexible plastic guard that just sort of flapped over the middle of the lever and clamp.

Working downward we have the CW bars and number plate. I've seen racing number plates used for freestyle by putting your actual name on the front, but this is the first and only time I've seen one used to promote a "crew". Yeah man, SF guys always future forward.

He is riding a Kuwahara racing frame (1984 was just before every company in the world came out with a dedicated freestyle model) and running a Hutch tall headset lock. Maurice gave it a personal touch with the MM initials under the head tube sticker.

The dual color Dia-Compe MX 1000 brakes are an interesting detail that may have snuck past you though. This was a common mid eighties mod where you got a front and rear brake, each two different colors, and took them apart, then reassembled them half one color, half the other. Easy Peasy! If you took the time to do that you probably also took the time to put lubrication between the brake arm contact points, and all of the associated washers and spacers. This made the already strong classic brake set work even better. After a while I started using 900's instead of 1000's. The only difference was the tire clearance, the 900's were smaller. Ah, the good old days before V-Brakes. I hate V-brakes.

Did you notice that he is running a Cycle Pro Snakebelly tire on the front? Ha...he has it mounted backwards.

The whole rig is "pre-potts mod" which means he can only turn the handlebars a certain amount before the front brake arm rams into the frame. Potts, which allowed the front brake cable to route through a hollow stem bolt, and allowed turning the bars 360 degrees, hadn't been invented yet and we were quite a way from rotors/gyros at this time. Don't let that stop you, Maurice didn't.

That's pretty much all there is except I'm wondering if the guy on the PK Ripper behind and to the right of him is Brian Scura. I'm not trying to hate on Brian Scura but he is a guy who was able to make an already "safe" sport so sanitized that...well I don't even know how to explain it. Actually I can explain it but I'll make that an individual post, because this one is already long enough.