Mark's Blog

No photos from the weekend but here is the run down. I got to go up to Hayward/Cable for some trail riding while everyone else participated in a timed event. On Friday morning I make the drive to Quentin’s house and load my stuff into his pickup and then we go and pick up Steve and Ken. I forgot how long of a drive it is to go up to Hayward. Once we get there Friday afternoon we go out and ride the Rock Lake trail. That trail is by far my favorite of the trip. There are a lot of rock obstacles on the course just to make it more challenging. The best part of the trail is a section called Wall Street. This is a section that is a rock wall basically, you climb a slight incline and then take a right and go down the rocky descent. It gets a little steep as you go down the hill. I got behind the seat and thought that I was ready to tackle this section and then get to the steeper part and wish that my seat was lower than it actually was because I felt the rear end get a little light as it went down the hill. The rest of the trail was great as well a lot of short power climbs with a bunch of tight turns and rocks, if I didn’t mention that the rocks enough already.

On Saturday we rolled into Hayward and watched as the 40 was leaving and cheered on anyone that I knew. After that we get to go and ride a trail called Makwa, I hope that is the right name. That trail was 13 miles of tight twisty single track. It was a blast to ride that trail also. After we got to Cty. 00 we turned around and road down the Berkie to get back to the truck. I was not prepared for that ride, total ride time was an awesome 2 hours and 40 minutes. I could have almost rode the 40 in that time.

Sunday, was the best day for a group ride though. It was Q, Steve and I to go and ride the Ojibwe trail behind the resort. That is a close second on the fun-o-meter for me. That trail had a lot of similar ups and downs as the Rock Lake trail. I like that one because it flowed so well and had an awesome mish-mash of rocks and rollers. I found out that in the future I want to invest in a dual suspension mtb for having fun on trails like that. On Sat. and Sun. my back was getting sore from standing for extended periods of time. It was difficult to sit and pedal because of the rocks and roots that we had to go over. I would recommend the trails to anyone that wants to tackle a moderate to advanced trail in Wisconsin.

The trails we road were at least 2 hours long with a few stops to stretch backs, b.s., and tackle alternative trails. To bad that the trails are so far away from here I would love to visit them more often, I think a night ride out there would be awesome but a little bit difficult.

I was all set to go and ride at the cyclocross practice tonight. Then I get a phone call from a friend saying that her tire went flat. I then get to go and look at it and then try to jack it up with the crappy scissor jack and that didn’t work the way I wanted to. Luckily she was only a couple of miles away from my house, so I run and get the floor jack and then I go out to her car and jack it up with a decent jack.

I get it home and then I tell her to call a tire place and see if they have any used tires for her car. Luckily they had some and it only costed $20 each. I get them home and then I start to take the tires off of the car and rim. That proved to be a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. I get two tires changed, by hand, in about 30 minutes. That is the fastest that I have changed tires in a long time.

As you can see by the way the tires are worn that the suspension in the back is worn out. They have way to much negative camber in them and only ride on the inside of the tire.

I am thinking that I am becoming a professional at building GF Paragons.  I got a new frame today and built it tonight in time to get some riding in this weekend.
What makes me think this isn’t a new frame since there are marks in the drop outs from where the quick release clamps onto.

While I was taking apart the ride I replaced the chainring that was bad.

Half way done with the build.

Done with the build. I personally think the black and white is better than the blue bike from before.

I have submitted these three photos to the competition. I hope that I am lucky enough to get in the magazine this time. I won’t know until later in November, nothing like a long wait until I find out.

I was told that I am being to hard on Gary Fisher with the constant ranting.  I would like to let everyone know that I have had two Cannondales in the past with no issues.  Mind you that the Scalpel was a full-suspension but the F900 was a hard tail.  When I had the F900 I attempted to turn the bike into a freeride oriented bike.  I bent three seatposts on the bike and would end up doing 4-5′ drops off of stairs and anything else I THOUGHT I could ride.  That was with a stock set up with cross country oriented everything, wheels, cranks, handle bars, etc.  The only thing that broke was the back wheel axle after I landed a 5 foot drop off of a rock in Moab.  In the pictures below I had someone lace a new wheel because I bent the wheel practicing before we went to Moab for the first time.

I get a Gary Fisher and ride ONLY cross country with no attempt at drops or anything else like that.  The worst the bike has seen was a typical WORS course.  The bike frame failed within 4 months of riding last year.  The frame that I had gotten as a replacement lasted 6 months of riding/racing.  I am not saying that Trek/Gary Fisher is a bad company, I am saying that some of the products that they put out are defective and something needs to change.  They have replaced everything that has broke but the time to replace the broken frames has been TOO long.  I have been waiting for 3 weeks now and the last time it broke I waited a couple days short of a month for the frame.

That is me at the top of the Porcupine Rim in Moab, UT.

This weekend’s trip to Marquette was awesome.  5 of us went to go and ride the south trails in Marquette, I would have to say that the blue loop was my favorite because of the technical nature of the trail.  Wisconsin doesn’t have any trails like that at least that I have been to.  The red trail was a awesome also except for the climb to the start.  That trail had awesome flow and once to the top we didn’t have to pedal a lot to get to the bottom.  I didn’t get any pics while riding, Steve attempted but it didn’t work out.  Let me just say that I would recommend the trails up there to anyone.

I will hopefully be in Lake Geneva for the race next weekend.  I need get my warranty frame as soon as possible.  All I can say is that Gary Fisher sucks.  I will NEVER buy another Trek/Gary Fisher/Bontrager product again.  I am thoroughly disappointed with the performance of any of the products from that company.

Tomorrow is the day I get to go and ride in Marquette with Q, Steve and some other people.  I am excited to go since I have heard nothing but good things about the trails up there.  I hope that everyone has a great holiday weekend and I will hopefully have some pics of the trip to post next week.