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Head 4 the Hills goes bigger

Another successful H4H event pulled off on Sept 18. 97 riders completed the 36 mile pull along the Pembina Escarpment. Youngest rider was 9 and the oldest 65. Everybody had a great time with cookies and kool-aid along the route and the requisite burger, potato salad, beans, pop etc at the end. The farm team was out in force having put in a great grunt before the event to get the trails in condition with challenging weather bracketing the event. Over $50,000 was raised which will bring us close to an 8 year record. The stories of why people were doing the ride along the way made the ride even more meaningful. Phil Derksen, Mel Klassen and Harvey Wall won bikes for their fundraising efforts. John Loewen was second highest fundraiser again this year. Thanks for the encouragement and the strong donations in a year where every dollar counts. Your efforts will help support individuals struggling with mental health issues including subsidized counseling and affordable, supported housing. Thanks for putting us over the top! -James

Head for the Hills postponed to Sept 18

Yeah, that’s right…rain is challenging us again. Altho’ the sun had returned, the Eden Head for the Hills fundraising ride scheduled for Sept 11 is postponed to next Saturday. In both the interests of keeping the trails good and giving riders the best possible experience we give ‘er next Saturday. On the positive side, more riders continue to sign up and gives us all an extra week to raise more funds for a good cause. Check www.edenhealth.mb.ca to sign up. Thanks again to the farm team for the hard push on trail maintenance to date. We’re good for the year.

Representin’ the Farm Team

I’m totally blown away with the the Tinker riders at the Provincial’s!…altho’ I do know how well everyone is riding this year and if you all show up and race, you’ll obviously do well. Everyone from the youngest (way to go Wiebes) to the rest of you. Not bad for the smallest bike shop around!

More World Champs (from the guy who’s actually there…haha)

Marie-Helene Premont flying Canadian colors and repping the Rocky!

In the pits...zero privacy while he's warming up...

Geoff Kabush at the top of the nastiest climb of the day.

Don’t have time to say much but I thought I’d at least share some pictures.
So far i’ve gotten my Freeride Entertainment shirt signed by Brendan Fairclough, Sam Hill, Willow Koerber, Kyle Strait, Brett Tippie, Greg Minaar, Steve Smith, Heather Irmiger and Emily Batty!

EDIT: Now also signed by Geoff Kabush, Steve Peat, Gee Atherton and Rachel Atherton.

Anyone up for World Champs in Mont-Sainte-Anne?!

Kabush winning the World Cup race last year in Bromont.

Whats up guys!

I’ve now made the transition from living in Lethbridge (aka: close enough to the mountains to ride there every weekend) to living in Guelph, Ontario (aka. close to Toronto, meaning there is waayyy to much pavement and not enough bike trails). There is a great group called GORBA (Guelph Off Road Bicycling Association) that does have quite a few trails in the area but they are mostly flat with less that 100 ft. of elevation change. Fast and fun with little climbing…Not bad, but I’ve been spoiled by the mountains!

Anyways…back on topic. This coming week/weekend the UCI Mountain biking World Championships are being held in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Quebec. For me, its about a 10 hour drive out there. I figured that since this is probably the closest I will ever be to the world’s best mountain bikers (and one of the best event venues as well) I should go check it out on the weekend. The only problem is that I’ll have to enjoy this experience by myself…which might suck….

The reason I’m posting this is that I’m inviting anyone and everyone to come and join me there! If you get yourself here, I’ll take care of the rest. I’ll pick you up from the airport, drive you to the event, take care of the food, and we’ll watch the best guys and gals of the sport lay it down for the rainbow jersey!

Hope you can make it!

Jefferson

Stage 2

So we’re done Stage 2, fed and watered and showered. Bikes washed, checked and lubed. I wish I felt as good as my bike looks! The weather was great to ride a 71 km ride. The first half was climbing…again, naturally. We were up at the tree line by the time we were done. Then an insane downhill for almost 30 km! There were some areas that were ridiculous and with the number of riders, there tended to be bottlenecks where there were a bunch of riders, on, off the trail and in the bush…yard sales everywhere. Because Jonny was in the front 20, he missed most of the bunged up issues. The day finished off with logging roads and I had way too many Euros passing me. They’re a breeze to pass on the technical singletrack but they spend way to much time on the road back home. Everybody’s real nice (mostly, with a few primadonnas) and the flow goes good. Jonny did real good again with a 12th place finish. With the UCI accreditation this year, he’s surrounded by racers doing this as part of their point tallies. I’m squarely in 23rd, I think out of a field of 75 in my category left. I felt considerably more beat up today with the stage more than twice as long as yesterday’s. Tomorrow’s another epic day with all the heavy duty climbing near the end, about 40 km into the ride. There’s this thing called the Continental Divide and apparently we’re going to hump over it. Here we go. I hear the weather is epic back home. Makes me think that rain (60% chance for tomorrow) might be better for biking than what you’ve been getting. See ya later.

TransRockies 2010

Yeah, Jonny and I finished stage 1…Fernie to Fernie time trial. We had to seed ourselves based on where we thought we would finish so we started at 10:10 and 10:23 respectively. Jonny is in the big Open Men’s category and I’m in the Master Men’s 40 plus (distinct disadvantage being 54). It basically rained all night and at the start which meant we were in for a mudbath and we weren’t disappointed! Fernie has fairly organic soil so the mud was epic. First part of the stage was all climbing, roots rocks…you get the picture and all on singletrack. Some amazing views when the clouds cleared and the mist subsided. After the first 1/3 we got some fun descending and then more climbing and rolling terrain. I managed to reel in about a dozen guys and got passed by about 4. The field is huge this year with I think over 400 riders. The 30 second staging meant they were going from about 9 am till 2 pm. I was riding alone a lot of the time without the hassle of other riders constantly passing or waiting to pass someone else so I guess I seeded well. I crashed once hard on the first descent…too much fun so going too fast “for conditions”. Long and short, I’m fine but I’m down to granny gear alone up front which means making time on the downhills a little challenging. At the 2nd checkpoint I poured some water and gatoraide over my drivetrain to clean it enough to see what was going on. My cable had slipped up, thus the single gear. On the last third of the ride I had 2nd chainring only. Fun and games. Finally rolled in something like 3 hours 20 minutes. I have yet to check the postings which we’ll do when we go to dinner at 6:30 for the awards ceremony. Jonny did great but again too early to tell where he placed. We’ll keep you posted. Feels good to have the hot shower which was done with all biking clothes on to rinse of the 1/2 inch thick layer of mud first before we got the full benefit of the shower. The mechanics were back from last year and it was good to see them again. See ya later with some pics hopefully…

Got back from the big feed and awards ceremony that went of forever, like they always do. In terms of placing on the first Stage, Jonny is 13th in the Open Men’s (behind the National Champion) in a field of 87. I’m sitting 27th in the Master’s Mens in a field of 80. We”re happy enough.

So off to bed and 71 kms of riding awaits us tomorrow…something like 2100 meters of climbing….blah blah blah.

24 Hours of Falcon?

Is anyone planning to race at the 24 hour race at Falcon Lake next weekend? Either solo or in a team?
Since I’m kinda out of the loop I was just curious to see what the general consensus is.
Unfortunately I can’t make it. I was going to take a few days off to come out for it but when I decided to go to Whistler for a few days that kinda took up any free days I could get this summer.
Cheers!
Jeff

Take the time… Check Your Bike!

Hey guys, I hope you all had fun at the Back 40 race! Since I’m stuck out in Lethbridge these days and couldn’t make it to the race, I figured I would do the next best thing and head out to Whistler Mountain Bike Park and do some fun riding there!

David Janzen, Kevin Neufeld, Rodney Neufeld, Jeffrey Elias (I went a little early!). William Janzen took the picture.

The Janzen brothers along with the Neufeld brothers were heading that direction so I went out to join them for a few days of riding the “best bike destination in the world.” And I must say, I don’t think whoever came up with that title is over exaggerating! I rented an amazing 2010 Rocky Mountain Flatline Pro from one of the local shops and ripped up the infamous A-Line (along with many other trails) repeatedly over the next 3 days. I won’t give you guys a super long story about it…but just know that sometime in your life, you should give yourself a chance to ride there! It’s so much fun and worth every penny of the outrageous hotel prices, rental prices, food prices, lift ticket prices…I think you get the idea..haha!

Rocky Mountain Flatline Pro!! (yes, I bottomed the Boxxer fork a few times!...I'm a sloppy jumper, ok?!)

But, back to my original topic…I actually didn’t want to talk about biking in Whistler…

Recently, I guess I’ve been a little sloppy with keeping my bike properly tightened and in check. A few weeks ago I thought I had bent my large chainring because everytime I shifted on to it, the chain would skip off and back on to the middle ring. I was kinda worried because I didn’t want to replace my chainrings, but upon further inspection I noticed that it was just loose. The little bolts/nuts weren’t even finger tight anymore, so I tightened them all up and kept riding. Then, a few days after coming back from Whistler, I had only lightly threaded my pedals back into my cranks (I rode clipped in at Whistler) and I had yet to tighten my pedals properly…Of course I forgot this, and after jumping off a curb I heard a loud cracking noise and one of my shoes had a pedal attached to it but not to the bike. Now I was really scared…I didn’t want to replace the whole crank arm! But somehow I got lucky and only the first ring of thread broke off cleanly so I was able to re-thread my pedal tightly without any problems. Then yesterday, I went for another ride and while riding I shifted into the granny ring and I heard a loud popping noise, I immediately stopped and saw that 3 out of the 4 bolts/nuts for my granny ring were missing! So i tightened the 1 bolt I had left and shifted manually into the middle ring and resumed riding.

Not my cranks, thankfully.

Before a ride I always do the usual things like check tire pressure, lube the chain, check the fork and shock “squishy-ness” but I often overlook some of the things I just presume to be tight. Maybe I’m the only one that doesn’t check the “other stuff” on his bike often enough, but I figured I would just remind you guys to double check your bike just to make sure. It’ll only take a few minutes and it could save you a few hundred bucks on a stripped crank arm!

I figured I would make a small list of stuff that should be checked (I’ll probably forget something, so feel free to add it into the comments)

tire pressure
spoke tension
side-to-side play in your hubs (wiggle the rim sideways)
brake pad thickness
rotor bolts still all there and tight?
brake caliper tightened properly to frame (rear) and fork (front), centered properly
headset play
fork and shock pressures
cockpit components tight and centered (headset, handlebar, stem, grips, shifters, brakes, bike computer, etc)
seat tightened and centered properly, not past the max extension?
do shift cables pull hard? does the bike shift when and where you want it to?
lube the chain regularly (preferably after each ride)
jockey wheels on derailleur clean? rear cassette clean?
suspension pivots tight?
derailleurs and derailleur hanger tight?
chainrings tight?
cranks tight?
pedals tight?
front and rear quick release skewers tightened properly?