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Your bicycle, memorable rides, stories etc

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LAN_403

Tesladownunder

Tue Apr 25 2006, 04:00AM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

Part of my relative absence from 4HV has been my training for a personal distance acheivement. Since my car died in Sept 2005 I have been cycling to work and the fitness has been going up, the weight going down and a whole lot of my health parameters have improved.

Yesterday I returned from a 24hour ride and covered 340km. I have an old mountain bike which when fully loaded with food water and supplies for the trip weighs 23kg. Conditions werent ideal with a lot of drizzling rain. Also fatigue from lack of sleep hit me harder than I expected and I had to have a couple of 1 hour sleeps. Once on someones driveway and another on a picnic bench. It's amazing how well you can sleep on a hard surface if you are tired enough. Waking cold, stiff and wet at 5am is not much fun though.

Sadly though I didn't complete my intended distance of 374 K to return to my home town so had to get picked up 30K short of my target when I hit the wall.

There's always next year....

Any other cyclists out there?

Peter

Cesiumsponge

Tue Apr 25 2006, 04:21AM

Registered Member #397 Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 12:56AM
Location: Western Washington
Posts: 125

I actually threw about $400 at my bike to repair and replace components. It's been on the forum before years ago in nonfunctional shape. It's been converted from downhill to freeride, but sadly I've had no time to purchase protective gear and drive to any good trails. I will still keep it around as I'll eventually get to it (perhaps this summer). They don't make Deemax rims anymore and various other components which are a tad dated, but still plenty good. I do not understand the concept of buying new Shimano XTR components every year.

ragnar

Tue Apr 25 2006, 09:24AM

Registered Member #63 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:18AM
Location:
Posts: 1425

I've got a little (well, I've been too tall for it for months) bicycle I use when the trains aren't running or where there's no public transport. It's useful for getting around the central coast, and generally beats walking anywhere by 10x.

My longest journey was probably from the upper north shore into the city... Don't know how many kilometres... maybe 25?? Lots of uphills and downhills though.

No, I don't wear lycra. ^^

I generally don't just ride for the hell of it.. I ride to get from A to B.. which is sometimes difficult if there's nowhere to lock a bike... one way trip, trains involved etc... I've yet to "go camping" on my bike =)

Shahn

Tue Apr 25 2006, 10:14AM

Registered Member #210 Joined: Sun Feb 19 2006, 08:25AM
Location:
Posts: 26

I do a lot of DH MTB riding, have been now for two years but did XC beforhand. I have a nice NZ made DX/Free Ride bike with all the top '05 componants (will try post pic soon). I have ridden in several 12 hour relays with 2-5 team members around a set course, usually 8-30km long. We are doing the 24 hr this year though so a bit of a step up and will need a good couple of hrs battery light each too, good fun!!!

Steve Conner

Tue Apr 25 2006, 12:50PM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Wow, congratulations TDU! I heard you were training for the 24 hour bike ride.

I have a mountain bike that I built myself around an On-One "Inbred" chrome-moly frame. I recently got Hope hydraulic disc brakes for it which I had been wanting for ages, but I had to wait for my old wheels to wear out

I had a brief try at street BMX in my early twenties. but I was no good at it and quit after a couple of really painful crashes. They recently built a skatepark and some nice dirt jumps in my neighbourhood though, and I've been getting back into it. I don't have a BMX any more but it all seems to work fine on a mountain bike. I should really use a full-on freeride bike like CS's, but they're pretty expensive, and mine seems fine as long as I don't try anything too stupid.

The longest ride I ever did was about 80km, about half off-road and half on-road, but these days I mostly just commute to work which is about 5km each way. I should probably change the nobbly tyres for street ones, but I couldn't be bothered changing them back when I want to go off-road at the weekends.

I do sometimes wear lycra, but I make sure never to get photographed in it. :P

bunny-hopping a crate on my old MTB years ago

Shahn

Fri Apr 28 2006, 03:28AM

Registered Member #210 Joined: Sun Feb 19 2006, 08:25AM
Location:
Posts: 26

My Baby

1146096366 210 FT1630 Keewee Cromozone Mid

Ben

Fri Apr 28 2006, 04:26AM

Vigilatny
Registered Member #17 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 02:47PM
Location: NL
Posts: 158

I have this bike, except stock. (AKA without prostate rending seat and with manitou fork)

Part Scavenger

Fri Apr 28 2006, 12:15PM

Registered Member #79 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 11:35AM
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 673

Dang Peter, you're looking sharp! Keep up the good work!

I've got a mountain bike (as I live in the mountains, Ouachitas I think). I've never done anything long distance, 8mi at the most probably. My favorite thing to do around here is to drag my bike to the top of a hill and go as fast as I can down it. It's really fun, you've got to miss all the trees, the hills are covered in about 1/2" of leaves making it really slippery, and sometimes you've got to jump logs on the way down. On one of them, you've got to make sure you stop short enough not to fall in the deep end of the pond.

Sort of like a redneck skate park I guess. Currently, I've stripped out gears 5&7, they're missing half their teeth, I didn't even know you could do that. I broke off one of the handles awhile back, and bent one of the wheels also(not sure how I did that either). I really need a new bike.

If you want to ride through the woods for distance, it's challenging because of all the big (slippery) hills. It's great because you really have to know how the hills and valleys work to decide where is the best place to take the hill, and there's always obstacles such as downed trees, briars and creeks (or c'ricks, he he.)

Avalanche

Fri Apr 28 2006, 12:45PM

Registered Member #103 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:16PM
Location: Derby, UK
Posts: 845

I used to go down the local dirt jumps a few years ago, that got me into mountain biking.

I built up a GT Karakoram on a limited budget, mostly from second hand parts. It wasn't an ideal frame for what I used to do (jumps, downhill) and I eventually broke the frame at the headtube. A shame really, because it was a nice light frame, great for XC.

My most memorable experience with that particular bike was probably what finished it off, we were hanging out one night and there was a good kerb with a lip on it, and a decent run up - and with enough speed, you could clear the whole road. Well I really went for it one night, 30mph, cleared the road, but smacked into a 'give way' sign, and sent a national lottery sign flying also. I took most of the impact on the pole of the give way sign, and had a massive bruise about 300mm long right down me for days. It was a few weeks after that I noticed the frame had gone, it started off as a hairline crack which I thought was just the paint, but it just got worse.

After that, I started riding an old bike again, and took it down some trails at a place called Cannock Chase. On one particular downhill section, I hit quite some speed, before the trail got really rutted. The brakes hardly worked, and at that point it felt safer to simply get off the bike into the bushes. Which I did.

At about the same time I joined 4hv, I bought a GT Avalanche (hence my name) and I've done just over 1000 miles on it so far. No damage yet either, I've calmed down a bit, although I did get up to 41mph off-road the other day, on a very nice trail near to me.

Part Scavenger

Fri Apr 28 2006, 12:49PM

Registered Member #79 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 11:35AM
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 673

1000 miles on it so far

Man.

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