Mountain Bike Geezer Posts

Riding Section 1 at LebLast week I blogged about my technical scheme to mark up sections (alternative lines) through rock gardens. I set up two sections at Lebanon Hills later in the week, another four on Sunday, and revamped one of them yesterday after some feedback from Leb Trail Steward John Lundell.

So far, using white chalk to mark the rocks and flags to mark the entrance and exits has worked to set up the sections. It’s easy to move flags and the chalk marks can be removed by rubbing dirt on them.

I’ve not yet gotten much feedback yet to know if it’s working for riders. And it’s not rained, so I’ve not had to re-chalk.

The six videos all start with photos of the sections marked with red lines to make the alternative lines visible. Then there’s a clip of me riding the section.  I recorded the videos using my smartphone mounted on a small tripod, usually placed on the ground. Most of the sections required me to capture video from two or three different vantage points. The upshot of that? You see me cleaning everything but you don’t see a non-stop video of me cleaning entire sections from start to finish. Have I cleaned every section from start to finish? Not yet.  The videos also don’t include any of my many failed attempts and crashes.

All the videos are short, varying in length from 12-39 seconds.  Attach a comment if you’ve got questions or feedback.

Section 1:

httpv://vimeo.com/72477908

Section 2:

httpv://vimeo.com/72478391

Section 3:

httpv://vimeo.com/72616040

Section 4:

httpv://vimeo.com/72619804

Section 5:

httpv://vimeo.com/72620228

Section 6:

httpv://vimeo.com/72620498

Trail work Video

Cottage Grove Bike Park - 4x track construction  Cottage Grove Bike Park - 4x track construction

I stopped by the Cottage Grove Bike Park yesterday to take some photos of the park’s construction.

Chance Glasford, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, Cottage Grove Bike Park

Chance Glasford, his team of fellow MORC Gravity Advocates (a sub-group of MORC), and many other volunteers have made great progress in the past month on the 4x (mountain cross) track. According to Chance’s Aug. 12 blog post titled, The build continues!, they’re almost done:

We had a great build weekend! 32 hours of manual labor later we are 90% complete with the 4x track! Mike, Buck and I put in some serious time this weekend along with some help from a hand full of others!

We are about 5 loader buckets and 3 hours of work short of completing the park! We had a nice group of neighbor hood kids out helping us Sunday…

Other features to be constructed in the park include a tot track for strider bikes, pump tracks, dirt jumps, a slope style course, and a mountain bike skills area.

The next ‘build’ day is Saturday Aug. 24. You can keep up on the details of all the build days either via the Cottage Grove Bike Park Facebook page  or the Cottage Grove Bike Park forum in the MORC Forums.

Cottage Grove Bike Park partyAnd on Sept 14, they’re hosting a big Party at the Park- Cottage Grove Bike Park Fundraiser.

Come join us at the Cottage Grove bike park! Enjoy a silent auction, beer, food, DJ, Bonfire, Bounce house and of course tours of the bike park as it nears completion and raise funds to finish the build!

I asked Chance to take a few runs on the 4x track so I could take some photos and a few video clips. He reluctantly obliged:

Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park

Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park

httpv://youtu.be/QYyVZl5mx3E

Parks

I have a scheme in mind: temporarily mark alternative lines through some selected rock gardens to provide fresh challenges to riders who are bored with riding through them the same way all the time. I’m calling them ‘sections’ since that’s the term most often used in mototrials events.

Leb rock garden alternative line - start Leb rock garden alternative line - finish

I’ve marked these photos with a red line to indicate an example of a short alternative line (viewed from the start and looking backwards from the finish) through a rock garden at Lebanon Hills.

I started thinking about this when I went rocking climbing a couple weeks ago at Vertical Endeavors with one of my sons. He told me that they change some of the color-coded climbs each month in order to keep things interesting for the advanced regulars.

How to mark the lines? Ideas thus far:

  • flags
  • chalk
  • colored stones/pebbles
  • tape
  • washable paint/spray chalk

rocks marked with a chalk lineMy inclination is to experiment first using small colored flags to mark the start and finish of a section and railroad chalk to mark the approximate line through the rocks. I want to avoid doing anything that would bother land managers, make things more difficult for dirt bosses/trail workers, or make riding needlessly more dangerous (e.g. stakes or other markers that could impale a tire or body part).

The sections would be publicized with photos and/or video in the MORC forum as well as via Twitter and Facebook.  Riders would be invited to discuss the sections, brag about their successes, whine about their failures, share photos and videos, etc. And then a month or two later, the sections would be changed to something else. Others could volunteer to set them up.  If this works with rock gardens, then it might be worth trying with other technical obstacles.

To explain a section to riders who discover it while out riding the trail, we could print a photo or two showing the alternative line, laminate them and tack them up on a stake or nearby tree with a little sign that says “Try this!”  We could also put up a QR code near the entrance of a section and link it to a web page with photos and videos. Riders with smartphones could then see what it’s all about.

I ran this idea past some of the Lebanon Hills Dirt Bosses last week and they seemed to like it. So I plan to start the experiment there.

What might the pros and cons of this idea be, especially the possible unintended consequences? Want to help? Attach a comment.

Trail work

I got feedback from Chance Glasford and Jed Olson on my pumping flat ground video that I posted yesterday. Their main advice: learn on my 24-inch Scott Voltage dirt jump mountain bike, not my 29’er. The large wheels make it too difficult.

Griff Wigley, pumping flat groundSo last night I took it out and within 5 minutes, I could feel the difference. And in about 15 minutes, I was ecstatic.  The bike was responsive and it seemed like I was ripping around. I took some video but when I watched it, I was surprised at A) how far from the correct attack position I was; and B) how little pumping I was doing with my arms and shoulders.

I watched Lee McCormack’s pumping flat ground video again and took these screenshots to make myself more aware of both problems:

Lee McCormack pumping flat ground Lee McCormack pumping flat ground Lee McCormack pumping flat ground

He’s really crouched low. And his arms and shoulders are pumping like pistons.  So I practiced for about an hour today and then captured this 45-second video:

httpv://vimeo.com/72081827

As you can see, I’m still not low enough in the attack position.  And I’m just starting to get the timing right on the arm/shoulder pumping motion.  I was doing it right in the first 10 seconds but then kind of lost it after that.  But overall, the difference I felt was huge. There’s no going back. My brain/body memory has it registered. I’m confident that I’ll be able to do the intermediate pump track at Eagan someday soon. And I’m eager to see what happens when I try to apply it in some corners/berms on the trail on my 29’er hardtail.

Learning to ride

I’ve started recording video of my riding to examine my attempts to get better at various mountain bike skills.  I generally prefer to showcase myself succeeding, with an occasional crash thrown in for comic effects. But I decided it might be helpful to blog my attempts to improve, especially if it includes some self-analysis as well as links to other coaching videos that I’m watching.

I first noticed instructors demonstrating ‘pumping a flat surface’ in two videos on cornering, specifically hip flexion:

Simon Lawton video

Darren Butler and Seb Kemp video
Left: See the 1:24 mark of the Pinkbike video by MTB coach Simon Lawton.
Right: See the 1:20 mark of the NSMB video by Darren Butler and Seb Kemp.

And then I discovered MTB coach Lee McCormack‘s blog posts about pumping a flat surface (here, here, and here) where there are lots of pointers and helpful discussion.  He links to a video but it’s in native .mov format on his server. Here’s the YouTube version that someone has uploaded. It’s pretty amazing to see how fast he can get going:

httpv://youtu.be/acYUcAVZlA0

He also points to how Brian Lopes applies the same pumping motion in this Pinkbike video:

Brian Lopes video
See the segments at both the 1:32 and 2:56 marks.

Here’s my marginally adequate attempt yesterday:

httpv://vimeo.com/71976278

I made the round trip without pedaling, but just barely. It seems that while I’m not doing too badly pumping with my legs/hips, I’m not doing enough with my arms/shoulders. And I’m standing up too high instead of being in the attack position.  Back to school!

If you’ve got insights or links to other helpful pages/videos related to pumping a flat surface, attach a comment.

Learning to ride

Griff Wigley, John GunyouI had coffee at the Peoples Organic Café in Minnetonka yesterday morning with John Gunyou, Board Chair and District 4 Representative of Three Rivers Park District (3RPD). I got to know John back in the late 90s when he was head of the Office of Technology for the State of MN. Since two of 3RPD’s parks offer mountain biking (Murphy-Hanrehan and Elm Creek) and since John is a newly elected commissioner, I figured it might be a good time to catch up with him and talk mountain biking.

He completely failed my test questions (‘What is a flow trail?’ and ‘What is a pump track?’). He’s a bicyclist but not a mountain biker so I suppose I’ll eventually forgive him for that. I told him my stories on how I came to learn about both in the past two years. I also alerted him to some of the cool MTB-related activities that have been happening at Murphy (eg. nocturnal mountain bike racing) and Elm Creek (eg. off-road handcycling) recently.

Among John’s many stints on boards and commissions (see his bio page), he has served on the MN DNR’s Parks and Trails Legacy Funding Group. MN mountain bikers are benefitting from Legacy money (eg. Duluth Traverse, $250,000).

John’s quoted in a front page story in the Strib this morning, Chance to enhance Twin Cities parks clashes with cash crunch.

In much more populous areas closer to the heart of the metro area, meanwhile, the pressing need is to expensively re-engineer built-up areas for trails demanded by an aging population eager to bike and walk close to home. John Gunyou, who chairs the Three Rivers parks commission, covering suburban Hennepin and Scott, speaks of “shifting our organization from parks to trails, meeting needs a different way. There’s a huge increase in the use of our trails because of people like me, getting older, but still wanting to bike and jog.”

This is another reason to get him on one or both of the Murphy and Elm Creek beginner MTB trails this year. I want him to see how geezers like us can enjoy these trails, not just paved trails.

See John’s Three Rivers Updates blog, follow @jgunyou on Twitter, and like his Facebook page to keep up on his activities.

Advocacy Organizations

The first time I noticed the words ‘session’ and ‘sessioning’ was in the All Mountain Mondays at Leb message thread in the MORC forum a couple weeks ago.

AJ Peterson wrote:

Just wondering what makes this ride “All Mountain” vs any other ride at Leb? Do you guys stop and session jumps etc?

Dave Tait wrote:

Well, for me, the difference from the “Leb Mafia” group I normally ride with is it’s less of a pace driven ride and a more “hit stuff” attitude toward all the options and jump opportunities. It means hitting a log ride doesn’t require beating a$$ to catch back up and sessioning stuff is an option. Turns out, it’s pretty much the type of ride I do when I ride solo. The pace is still pretty quick but not borderline XC race pace.

Zach Monack wrote:

Doesn’t matter how much travel your bike has, its more how you want to ride it. The pace and style of the ride changes depending on who shows up and what everyone in is in the mood for. Sometimes we’ll stop and session, other times we might just keep rolling. One thing is for sure though, no one is racing to the top of any of the climbs!

I had an idea what they meant but I found a long description by someone named ‘Robb’ posted to Bike198 titled How To Become A Better Mountain Biker; Part 2 – Sessioning: The MTB Art of “Practice Makes Perfect”. Here‘s an excerpt:

sessioning… picking out a small section of trail and doing it over and over again until you get it right. As the saying goes, “practice makes perfect” and how are you going to become a better rider if you don’t practice? No one expects you to be perfect the first time out, so take your time and get it right. The more you do this kind of “redo”, the better rider you will become. Sessioning is the art of practicing and developing your skills in areas that you are not as proficient in. It is simple as that. These skills that you pick up through practicing hard sections of trail carry on into every aspect of riding. This is…by far…the #1 tip that has improved my riding ability and skills. Nothing else I have done has jump started my ability to become a better rider than sessioning.

Clay Haglund at Hillside Park in Elk River Griff Wigley, Clay Haglund Ken Barker at Lebanon Hills

I did sessioning twice in the past week, first with Clay Haglund of MAMB a week ago Saturday at Hillside Park in Elk River and then last Thursday with Ken Barker of LAMBA at Lebanon Hills in Eagan.

Like Dave Tait, I do this often when I ride solo. But like I did over the years practicing my mototrials skills with fellow members of the UMTA, it’s so much more fun to do it with someone else or a group.  And in one of the mototrials schools I attended at the Trials Training Center, the advice was to keep at it until you could clean it three times in a row, as consistency is a pretty good indicator of an acquired skill. Nailing something once might be just dumb luck.

I’ve not yet done the All Mountain Mondays at Leb but I’ll report back when I do, hopefully with better photos than my sessioning with Clay and Ken.

Learning to ride

I took the MORC Mountain Bike Skills Clinic from Jed Olson and Chance Glasford last week at the Carver Lake Park MTB Trail. (See my album of 30+ photos.)

They started the clinic by asking everyone to state what they hoped to gain from it. I said that I wanted a refresher on the basics.  I didn’t really expect to learn anything new.

But I did.

Chance Glasford and Jed Olson Chance Glasford and Jed Olson

Chance Glasford DSC02391

1. The day after the clinic I rode the intermediate loop at Elm Creek. It was much more fun (I could go a lot faster) due to my more consistent use of A) the attack position; and B) proper cornering technique, especially looking ahead in the turn while rotating my hips.  I’d gotten lazy and developed bad habits without realizing it. Watching Chance demonstrate this several ways and then doing those drills at the clinic on a flat grassy field immediately carried over to my riding.

2. The individual coaching I got from Jed on doing a bunny hop resolved a dilemma that I blogged about recently: Why am I able to able to ride over a big rock (lifting the front wheel with a manual, then unweighting) yet I’m not able to bunny hop over a small object like a pop can?

My interpretation of Jed’s answer: when my unweighted rear wheel strikes the rock (or if I hit it with my chain ring bash guard), the impact forces the front wheel down. My unweighting still gets me over it.

Jed OlsonBut since one purpose of a bunny hop is to clear an object without touching it, I need to push the front wheel down with the handlebars after the peak of the manual, while simultaneously unweighting or even ‘scooping’ the rear wheel.  That pushing motion is important. Jed demoed it several times (alas, no photo) and it’s imprinted in my brain. Now I’ve got to go out and do it.

Those two items alone were worth the cost of the clinic for me.

It was great to see the strong turnout for the clinic (19 paid registrations, maximum 20). I hope MORC keeps offering these, maybe offering short clinics devoted to a single skill/technique, eg, a two-hour clinic on jumping table tops, a two-hour clinic on pumping, etc.

Learning to ride Photo album

Lori Reed and Jesse Livingston IMBA Trail Care Crew logo C.J. Smith, Jesse Livingston, Lori Reed, Jay Thompson, Reed Smidt

Lori Reed and Jesse Livingston, the current members of the Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew, came to the Twin Cities last Friday at MORC‘s invitation for a weekend of their education program on sustainable mountain bike trail building practices.  I caught up with them for a bit of socializing on Friday night at Dick’s Bar & Grill in Osseo after their session in Monticello with some metro area land managers. L to R in photo above: Elm Creek Singletrack Dirt Boss C.J. Smith, Jesse Livingston, Lori Reed, Elm Creek Dirt Boss and MORC board member Jay Thompson, and MORC president Reed Smidt.

Jesse Livingston IMBA Trail Building School, classroom session, Monticello MN

Lori Reed Clay Haglund, Lori Reed, Troy David Grieves, Jesse Livingston
They did their one-day IMBA Trail Building School on Saturday for a couple dozen MORC members. The 3-hour classroom session in the morning focuses on:

  • IMBATrail Care Crew Quick Reference GuideTrail building theory
  • Essential elements of sustainable trails
  • Designing a trail
  • Constructing the trail
  • Rerouting and reclaiming trails
  • Advanced trail construction techniques

Since I started mountain biking in 2011, I’ve showed up to help a bit on a few local trail work sessions (2013 sessions here, here, here, and here) but I’ve been mainly a clueless laborer who retreated behind a camera whenever I got tired.  I took this IMBA Trail Building School because I wanted to have at least a beginning understanding of the art and science involved. As a newbie, I came away very pleased with the experience.  I thought their rapid-fire presentation in morning session was well done: lots of photos and videos, a few quizzes, hands-on with a clinometer, and thankfully, no Powerpoint slides of deadly text-only bullet points.

IMBA Trail Care Crew with MORC members Lori Reed and Jesse Livingston

Rhett Williams, Matthew Bailey, Jeff Leech MORC members with the IMBA Trail Care Crew
The afternoon field session was held at the Bertram Lakes Singletrack near Monticello.  After a quick demo by Jesse, we divided up into 3 teams of 8, each led by a MORC dirt boss (my team was headed up by Jeff Leech).  It was very helpful to have the hands-on experience and coaching. I don’t know how many feet of trail the crews created but I think we more than marginally adequate as we finished early.

MORC group ride at Elm Creek Singletrack with Jesse and Lori MORC/Elm Creek dirt boss C.J. Smith

MORC group ride at Elm Creek Singletrack with Jesse and Lori Jesse Livinston, Lori Reed, Reed Smidt
On Sunday morning, a group of us did a group ride with Lori and Jesse at Elm Creek Singletrack led by local Dirt Boss C.J. Smith.  ‘Twas a fast, flowy ride on a gorgeous autumn-like day and a fitting send-off.

You can follow Lori and Jesse on their IMBA Trail Care Crew blog (they have a blog post up about the weekend titled They Still Got It), their @Subaru_IMBA_TCC Twitter feed, and their IMBA Trail Care Crew Facebook page.

See my album of 40+ photos (large slideshow, recommended) or SLOW CLICK this small slideshow:

Organizations Photo album Trail work

Learning to ride Photo album

2013 Rhino Rally National Anthem, 2013 Rhino Rally drumming, 2013 Rhino Rally
The Rhinos Foundation held their annual Rhino Rally (Facebook event page) on Saturday at Murphy-Hanrehan. I didn’t ride, just took photos in the morning. ‘Twas cool to have the event launched with a singing of the Star-Spangled Banner and drumming.

What’s the Rhino Rally about? From their website:

The Rhino Rally is an endurance mountain bike event, raising cancer awareness and financial support for Rhinos Foundation. Riders may participate as individuals or as a team for this five hour challenge. The Rhinos Foundation was established in 1991 to support the fight against cancer and those affected by the disease. Over the years, Rhinos has been supporting families in Western Wisconsin and Eastern Minnesota; touching those touched by cancer.

Among the familiar faces:
Steve Tigner Mike Pierson and Susannah King Larry Sauber
Left: Steve Tigner. Center: Mike Pierson (a MORC Murphy-Hanrehan Dirt Boss) and Susannah King (MORC Secretary). Right: Larry Sauber, among the leaders right from the start.

Larry published a blog post about the event titled Hot Buck, Murphy Rhino Race/ Cancer Awareness and posted this comment in the MORC forum:

"Thanks" to all those that either put on the event, volunteered, and of course the behind the scene trail workers that kept the jungle from taking over the trail (hardly any face slappers on the rain lap)… Like I’ve typed elsewhere, nothing better than riding/ racing your bike for something greater than riding/ racing your bike.  Thanks Rhino people… Cancer sucks.

See my album of 35 photos (large slideshow, recommended) or SLOW CLICK this small slideshow:

Advocacy Events Photo album