Our bikes atop Cocktail Rock

A few friends and I went out to San Juan this past weekend to hit the out and back trail. I was and am still nursing a cough and sore throat, but since I really enjoy riding San Juan, I decided to go against my body, mind and wife and ride anyway. This was a bad choice as my ride ended up being a sufferfest for me.

Needed lots of fluids during the hot morning ride

San Juan is basically a 6 + mile out and back. If you have the time/legs, you can throw in an extra 4 mile loop at the top, but we didn’t have the legs this time around. The 6 mile climb was pretty bad the first time I rode it, but this time it took nearly double the time mainly even with the Kona Hei Hei’s granny gear. The sickness left me gasping for air for most of the climb and there was a good 4 miles stretch where I was unable to focus …. even when I was telling myself to focus. I was lightheaded and ready to quit but thankfully my friends kept encouraging me and we made it to the turnaround point in one piece.

Narrow trail + exposed rocks = lots of fun

Too bad, nearly all of us left a little some skin on the trail on the way back down. What is normally a challenging but fun downhill became a myriad of falls for 3 of the 4 of us. It was on this extended downhill section that I decided to test my Sette Strike elbow and knee/shin pads by overshooting an exposed turn and falling off the edge of the trail. I went down a good 10 – 15 feet before friction stopped me and the bike. I decided that since I was performing a review on the pads, I might as well throw in a test of my camelbak’s durability as well. I did this by flipping over mid crash and landing on the camelbak (subsequently, my digital slr).

Any shade we could find, we hid under

The results of the test are that my digital slr is still ok… the padding I put around it did its job… I’ll post a picture of the padding to show you what I do. The Sette Strike pads are continuing to do a great job protecting me from damage. I am SO glad I brought them along. They are totally worth the small monetary investment. Click here for info on the elbow guards and here for info on the knee/shin guards.

Kona Hei Hei climbing the 6 mile switchback

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I’ve got a couple of quick impressions on some items I’m testing. Each one has been on the test bike for about a little over a month and I’ve been able to put in a lot of rides on them since there has been excellent weather here in Southern California.

eXotic Carbon 29er fork, light, stiff & strong

The first item I’m testing is the eXotic Carbon Rigid 29er fork. The bike I’m testing the carbon fork on originally came with a nice steel fork. I’ll always be thankful for that steel fork because it really turned me on to riding rigid, so much so that I did not want to go away from it to ride a squishy up front.

Now that I’m back on the rigid my love for riding rigid has returned. Not only that but because its carbon, the front end is now so much lighter and trail chatter has been reduced. I took it out to San Juan trail and had a great time riding it both up and down the singletrack. I enjoyed the climbs because the carbon fork dropped about 2 lbs off the bike and I could definitely feel the reduced weight at times. As we were resting at the top, I did think it’d be a sufferfest back to the car. Although I did suffer a little the precision & predictability of the fork more then made up for it.

twenty6 dualie levers, very purty, very effective

I’m also testing out a set of dualie levers from twenty6. These are fitted to my Juicy 7’s and they’ve been great over this first month’s testing period. I originally swapped out just one of them so I could compare the difference between the stock Avid lever and the dualie lever. After a few weeks I swapped out the second lever to make things feel the same for me because there is a difference.

I’ve even had a chance to do a crash test with this lever and they not only survived they still look great. I really appreciate that the brakes grab earlier in the lever’s pull and due to the shape, they don’t end up squeezing my fingers when I’m braking hard. With the stock levers I’ll occasionally brake so hard that I have to go from one finger to two finger braking otherwise Mr. Tall would get pinched underneath the lever. With the twenty6 levers I don’t have this problem. One finger braking, which I prefer to do, works fine.

I’ll be putting some more time on both the fork and the levers before I write up a final review. Keep checking back in for more.

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As RL mentioned in a previous post, 7 of us made it out to San Juan to ride the bottom half of San Juan Trail. This trail is my cup of tea. The climbing was not fun but it paid off with a nice singletrack descent that had some technical elements in it including lots of exposure, switchbacks and baby-head sized rocks. As RL mentioned he, Priscilla and Joe decided to turn back because of knee issues, too much exposure and being a great guy, respectively.

Wayland, the 2 Davids and I continued up to Cocktail Rock and after a short respite that included meeting a pair of Sam’s and another dude named Weyland (really small world), the four of us headed back down. 3 of us were on fully rigids while one of the David’s was on a gorgeous deep blue Titus Riddler hardtail.

The foggy weather kept things cool for the 4 of us

Very interestingly enough going down was just as difficult as going up but for different reasons. Climbing was difficult (for me) because of my lack of endurance. I love my local loop, but what it misses is one significantly long/leggy climb, a gasser as I like to think of them. San Juan is an out and back 6 mile up/6 mile down trail.

Elevation map via geoladders.com

Thankfully the first 1.5 - 2 miles were the steepest with more than 10+ switchbacks. After that the switchbacks become sparser and the trail mellows out to a more conquerable 4-6% grade. But, what this 2nd part of climbing lacks in steepness and switchbacks, it more than makes up for it with rocks, ruts and exposure… lots of exposure. Get off your bike and walk across life threatening exposure.

Playing around at Cocktail Rock

Interestingly enough the switchbacks that I had a tough time with ascending were equally if not even more difficult descending. I did discover that I am much better at left turn switchbacks as compared to right turn switchbacks. What surprised me was that for parts of the trail that had “walk across life threatening exposure� on the way up, I mostly just rode through on the way down.

Navigating the singletrack

All of us made it down in one piece (with a few stretch/pee breaks) and of course I had a ticket to greet me. Bummer as I did not see the Adventure Pass signs.

Donning the armor for the ride back down

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