MtnBikeRiders.com

This weekend MtnBikeRiders.com headed out to El Moro (aka Crystal Cove State Park).  Priscilla, RL and I were joined by our friends Dan and Gabe.

We started at the Ridge Park entrance and headed down Redtail Ridge to Rattlesnake.  The first part of our ride were primarily descents.  There were different levels of downhill through fast fire-roads, singetracks and technical sections.

Reaching the bottom of the canyon we climbed out to the middle section of Mach One. From here is another fast descent on a fire-road, hence the name Mach One. Reaching the speeds into the 40mphs was not a problem.

We started our real climb up “I Think I Can”.  This was a long grind up… It’s interesting how some of El Moro’s trail names live up to their name.  At some point the climb got the best of Gabe.  No shame in that as from my understanding this was his first “real” mountain bike ride.  Reaching the top of this trail, we rested for a bit before another climb up Moro Ridge.  This was a gradual climb towards to top but not as steep as I Think I Can. 

We were almost there…  Reaching Missing Link we headed westbound on another singletrack where it eventually it took us to our starting point, then back to our cars.  This was a good ride.  We had our fair share of climbing and descents.  Below is a video of our descents through several segments of El Moro.

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  Here she is, a few tweaks here and there, soon she will be ready for racing. Some of the tweaks had to happen for me to be willing to enter this rig in a race. The V-brakes did not play nicely when jamming down some regular single tracks that I know like the back of my hand. Luckily the MonoCog 29er is disc ready, I installed some Shimano SLX Hydraulic brakes font and rear, very Nice braking action.

The stock chain snapped after mashing though a sand pit at Whiting Ranch with less than 200 miles on it. After trying to patch the chain with the help of friends and their 9 speed chain links to no avail I walked back to the truck. I got home and cut a SRAM 971 {My Favorite} chain to size, I soon realized this rear sprocket was not set up for a 9-speed chain {or 3/32″}.  It was sitting on top of the sprocket teeth.

 I started thinking do I put a BMX chain {or 1/8″} on or a more common 9-speed chain that can be fixed with the help of geared riders if I run out of supplies on the side of the mountain. I wanted to stay with a chain that I know will last at least a 1000 miles doing SS duty. The SRAM 971 chain wasn’t going anywhere but the rear sprocket was tossed in favor of a SURLY HD 20 tooth sprocket.

When I went to change the rear sprocket I tried a new tool out, Pedro’s Trixie Fixed Gear Multi-Tool [$25.00] while shopping in the store I Goggled this tool on my phone and the first site that pops up is our friends at Bike Commuters, some more detail here   http://www.bikecommuters.com/2009/07/06/review-pedros-trixie-multi-tool/. The rear hub has a small splined free wheel with a track style lock ring that needs a hook wrench {Pedro’s Multi-Tool} to be loosened with the help of IceToolz http://www.icetoolz.com/icetoolz/index.php chain tool supplied in my toolkit.

Most recently; 50 miles on new chain and rear sprocket and no problems, lets hope for another 1000.

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  Have you ever lost the adapter that lets you convert a Schrader style pump head to fill your Presta style tubes?

I did, many years ago. I have not bought any adaptor since, I simply used what ever I had to just get some air in the tube. This is what I did. {Keep in mind you will need compressed air for this.}

First I took apart a Papermate pen and used the middle section {1/4″ poly tubing will work as well}, I pushed the pen body on the end of the blow gun. To fill depress the presta valve with your finger to loosen the seal, then slide the pen barrel over the valve and fill with air to desired hardness of tire. I find it easier to add a little more air then you need, as it is very easy to adjust your tire psi with presta valve as many of you already know.

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