I ended up having a roast beef sandwich. Yeah tomorrow is gonna be fun.

 

So todays ride was fun and fail.

I didn't get to start from confluence like I'd planned because when I tried to get out of bed I woke up my wife and she wanted to cuddle <sigh>. I stayed in bed until it was too late to leave, but still early enough that I was just going to sit around for a while waiting to leave for the 9am start.

I headed up there, had a good ride at first. Randy and I made pretty good time up to Upper Lot to meet the FATRAC guys. A couple of 5-6 person groups were coming down the hill, and the second group was full of guys who weren't paying any ****ing attention. First guy in line was looking at his ***** or something, and not ahead of him and he nearly crashed from being startled when he looked up and saw me. Then his buddies were coming down the trail, they saw me and one decided to pass, so now, where there wasn't much room, there was no room.

I get up to the Upper Lot, go to pop my front wheel up on a curb. When I go to compress the fork to pop up, my tire folds over and I nearly eat ****. I had punctured my tire and it was nearly flat. I go to put in one of my spare tubes and the first one I pull out is a schrader valve What the **** is that doing in there? Luckily I carry two tubes and my other was presta. Of course the intermediate group was leaving so I had to stay behind, fix my flat then haul *** down to catch them.

I catch the group as they get to where connector runs in to FDLT. I have never ridden that section of FDLT that fast (I averaged about 13 mph through that section). It was pretty fun. We start riding and head across the road. As we hop off the road in to that little ditch and go up, one of the riders in front of me got hung up and I was in kind of a big gear. I paused for a second on the hill (stayed clipped in) and as they got over the top I started to pedal. Just as the bike gets moving I hear a loud snap and I suddenly have no resistance in the drivetrain. This causes my leg to smash in to my top tube. Hey, look, my chain is destroyed

Luckily it broke directly adjacent to the power link so I just removed the power link, put the dead piece of chain in my pocket and put the slightly shorter chain back together. I figured at this point, I've gotten a flat and broken my chain, I'm done for the day. So I limped back on the road. My 26 mile ride turned in to 13 :\

My chain:

 

I'm sorry about the ride Matt. It was fun riding with you the little bit we did. I know how it got jammed up on the little hill. The guy in front of me, who had seemed like a squirrel already, came to almost a complete stop at the top of the hill. I had to almost stop to keep from running into the back of him. I had tried to leave a gap, but I had somebody else almost riding beside me as we headed for the dip. That pushed me closer than I wanted to the front guy which gave me no leeway.

The first part of the ride with FATRAC was slow because I got stuck behind some people that were afraid to go fast. I went about 1/3 the speed I normally do on the first big downhill. I finally got by them and ended up riding the last half of the Loop some riders that were pretty strong. I ended up pushing pretty hard to stay with them.

The second part of FDLT has had some major changes done by FATRAC. There are lots of berms and turns on most of the hills now. It is real different. The next time any of you ride there, be careful because some of the downhill's that were fast tricky downhill's now have lots of turns in them and you can't just straight line bomb down them. The people I was with liked the changes. I'm not sure if I do or not yet.

Bert rode back with me to the start on the Connector. I then gave him a ride back to his car. I had a fun ride, I'm just sorry Matt had so many problems.

 

I was really looking forward to riding the changed stuff on the other side too. That was a big source of my disappointment for the ride.

 

Well we will just have to do it next week.

 

So, I was really hurting today hence the not showing up. Ended up getting home at 3:30 AM Friday night.

A few of us are heading to Auburn tomorrow for some more shuttle action. Leaving sacramento around 10:30 or so.

Matt, what is the make and model of your digital camera? The image quality on your photos is real good. Did you use a macro setting on the picture of the chain?

 

I have the Sony DSC-N1. I love this camera - it's one of the only Sony products you'll hear me say that about .

I am still deciding if I'm going to road ride or not. I can't get the tire on my bike to seat so I need to take it to Mike's for compressor use and I still haven't fixed the chain. I'll probably do that Friday :\

 

I've had lots of bad experiences with Sony products. Panasonic and Canon make much better video products than Sony. Sony products tend to work ok for a while, but have short lives.

Now that I think about it a bit more, Panasonic for video, Canon for cameras. Nikon used to make great cameras, but their newer cameras seem to act like Sony products.

 

My biggest gripe with Sony is that they always make the stuff that works with their products proprietary. It used to be a huge pain when I was a computer tech, it's a pain now because, for example, my camera doesn't take compact flash or SD it takes Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo, which is lame. This camera has been with me for three years now - been to Mexico, Vegas a few times, almost every mountain bike ride we've done, a bunch of road bike rides, the bay, Texas, etc. Still workin great. I'm really happy with this one.

 

So let me ask ..

Yesterday on FDLT, just near the connector trailhead, we passed a few guys all hunting. They were pointing their guns in the general direction of the trail. I've seen guys with guns out there three or four times in the past month or so. What the heck?

 

I think there is a shooting range close to there so maybe there is a hunting club in the area. I've seen hunters several times in the area just past where we ride though the big field and come out on a road. One of them asked me once if I had seen any turkeys.

 

Are we riding this weekend? I got a new tire (thank you, Specialized), and a new PC971 chain. I really want to ride the divide loop and experience the changes to the trail. Could we do a connector/fdlt (with second loop if feeling it)? It's gon' be chilly so maybe a 9 AM start?

Also, I may have Friday off. If I do and can do a ride, does anyone want to do Olmstead maybe?

 

I'll let you know later in the week if I can make it. I just got sick and have been struggling. I was so winded on the ride last Sunday and we were shuttling! I'm hoping I won't still be sick come this weekend b/c I have absolutely no energy.

 

What day of the weekend works best for you? I might could do Friday Olmstead also.

 

Sorry, was assuming Saturday. That's the best day for me since my wife is at work all day. She doesn't like me mountain biking Sunday as much now that she's home and awake on Sundays (she used to work Sat. nights and was asleep all day so it didn't matter if I was there or not).