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A few months ago The Moe took a dive during a DH practice run at Fontana. He took a jump, landed but his bike bucked him off and OTB he went. Little did he know that his fall actually resulted in a REALLY messed up shoulder. He knew it hurt but he didn’t know the extent of the injury since he kept DH racing. Months later the pain got to The Moe. He finally went in and the doctor said that he tore his labral or something like that. That meant surgery, a few screws and orders that he stay off the bike for months.

Well its been a long few months and the Doc gave him the ok to start riding again. When The Moe told me that he wanted to ride the Fullerton Loop, I assembled a Welcome Back Ride with a few Trail Thugs to help him ease back into the joy of riding.

The Moe

Randall Robinson. He has a nick name of “Full Squish.” But that was sooo 2008. I’m assigning him a new name. Randall “Radical” Robinson.

Priscilla “hawtness” Policar

The Dr. is in! Gabe “Dr. Thunda” Preda

I actually forgot his name, so for now, his name is “This Guy.”

Cameron “Mac” McMackin. That’s one cool last name! Can you imagine all the ways you can use that? “McLovin’”, “MacDaddy”, “Daddy Mac”, “Snackin On Da Mackin”, “Mac Attack”, “Mac Mac”…the possibilities are endless.

Andrew “GoGo” Gomez

The Moe felt pretty good during the ride. Though there were times he had to walk some of the hills, he was back in his groove on the descents.

Have you ever heard of that saying, “your bike will go where you’re looking?” Well sure enough, The Moe was trying to avoid the mud pit and look where he ended up.

hmm…I guess 29ers don’t really roll over everything.

By the end of it all, we had an awesome time. No injuries, no mechanicals, just pure fun. We’re glad to see The Moe Back on the trails. Who knows, you may see him at the next DH Race.

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I recently received the Prologo Vertigo Nack to review. I’ve only put about 40 miles on the saddle, so this is just a quick first impression and some pictures for everyone to look at.

Out of the box, the Vertigo Nack looks plain Jane from the top save for the flash of gold on its rear

Out of the box, the first impression you receive is that this baby is light! The Vertigo family has three different variants: Vertigo, Vertigo Max and Vertigo Nack. All are designed for mountain biking. The lightest and most XC oriented saddle is the Vertigo Nack. I don’t have a gram scale, so my office’s postal scale will have to do. It came in at a svelte 5.8 oz which translates into 164.4 grams. The posted weight of the saddle is 163 grams, so I’d call this truth in advertising… a rarity. A push with my thumb yields a decent amount of padding up top, but its the butt’s opinion that will matter.

Mounted on a Thomson post to my Niner AIR9, where this will probably stay for a while

I’m coming from a WTB Rocket V saddle and I was surprised to note that the sizes are similar. The Rocket has a more upward sloped rear end to its saddle as part of the whale tail design while the Vertigo Nack eschews that element. The length and width are pretty similiar with the WTB being a slight tad bit shorter than the Vertigo Nack. I really should get up a picture of the two side by side. I guess that will have to wait until the review.

The rails look like they have a carbon fibre weave (but it may be just for looks) and distance markings, note the red dots, but they are hard to make out. I could barely make them out with my own eyes, let alone get them to show up in a picture

The fit and finish on the saddle is good. The base is made of carbon fibre and kevlar and looks really cool! So cool, that I wish it was the design on top so that EVERYONE would be able to see it when I ride. Oh… vanity! The cover is made of Lorica and the design is low key. A quick search for the word Lorica nets me: a Latin word literally meaning body armour. This doesn’t help me very much but I will be testing the durability of this product with some use over the next couple of months.

The underside of the saddle is pretty. The white “Prologo” against the red/black weave is a nice look

After putting about 30 miles on the saddle the first weekend I received it, I was surprised to find that I was immediately comfortable on it. I basically copied the same clamping angle (got to love the Thomson posts for that!) and location on the rails as I used for the WTB. This put the saddle in a very comfortable position. Saddles, in my opinion, are a highly subjective piece of equipment and as such I was very concerned my sensitive tush wouldn’t take well to the Vertigo Nack. I was sorely (or not sorely) mistaken.

A little more detail of the carbon fibre (look?) weave of the rails

A review will be upcoming after more miles and saddle time on the Prologo Vertigo Nack.

For more information check out the Vertigo Nack here.

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Lightly tensioned chain causes major chain slap noise

Are you experiencing chain slap on those downhill sections or sections of trail that you are not having to pedal? Doesn’t that sound get annoying to you after a while?

If you are experiencing a lot of chain slap, try moving your chain into the big ring up front. When you big ring it, you are essentially taking up more slack in the chain. By taking up some of that slack in the chain you reduce the amount of vertical movement of the chain which thereby reduces the amount of chain slap you hear.

Shift the chain to the big ring to reduce chain slap.

Just be careful when the terrain changes on you. If you are suddenly confronted with a little hill to climb don’t start dumping gears via the rear cassette. First, move the chain from the big ring to the middle chain ring up front then quickly change gears in the rear. Find the gear you need and pedal up the hill. If you immediately start dumping gears, while panicking that you won’t make it up the hill, you may reach the bottom of your cassette before you even know it and now you are cross-chaining! Ask me how I know this.

Of course, the best approach would be to plan ahead. If you see the trail heading upwards, start shifting before you reach the hill and get down into the gear you need so that you can attack the hill accordingly. Then, when it flattens out or points down again, big ring it!

Awww… Music to my ears, or is that the sound of silence?

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Meet my brother Staff Sgt. Randolph (Randy) Policar. He’s in the Army. He’s some sort of Jump Master and he’s also in the HALO programalso known as Military Free Fall..

Part of his daily job is to jump out of big military airplanes high above the skies, around 12,500 feet. He’s been in the Army for at least 14-15 years and has tons of jumps under his belt. One of the things I asked my brother was, “Don’t you get scared or nervous before jumping out?” He replied with a very cool and simple, “yeah.” He then went into great detail how he overcomes his anxiety before and during the flight up to the drop zone. Want to know what he said? “Smile!”

So why am I talking about my brother and smiling. Well its simple really. You see when I first started downhill racing, my nerves would be all messed up. I would get nervous and during my race runs I’d make simple mistakes that cost me time. Since I had this pre-race anxiety, I called my brother for advice. I figured the guy did something far more dangerous than downhill racing. That’s when we told me to smile. It took me a while to get used to the notion of smiling during practice and race runs. But here’s something that I discovered. When I would try to get into the zone or focus too hard, my body would stiffen up, my grip on the bars were too hard and my reaction time was slower. But when I started smiling more, I noticed I was more limber, reaction was way quicker and I ended up having more fun!

Don’t get me wrong, this smiling thing isn’t just for downhill riding/racing. This can be executed when tackling a technical XC trail. Just check out the big smile on Priscilla’s face while racing Super D.

Try it today, try smiling as much as you can while riding, and you’ll see how that translates to your experience.

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