The Mountain Girl and a few friends, Chuck, Patrick and Darrell, competed in the Berryman Epic Mountain Bike race and instead of a race report, I decided to show you a bit of the race, from the view of my helmet cam.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The Berryman Epic
Robin's Great Helmet Cam Adventure
The Mountain Girl and a few friends, Chuck, Patrick and Darrell, competed in the Berryman Epic Mountain Bike race and instead of a race report, I decided to show you a bit of the race, from the view of my helmet cam.
The Mountain Girl and a few friends, Chuck, Patrick and Darrell, competed in the Berryman Epic Mountain Bike race and instead of a race report, I decided to show you a bit of the race, from the view of my helmet cam.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Show Me St Louis Interview
This Trek Mountian Girl and her Rock Racing teammate Chuck were interviewed by Show Me St Louis. The interview aired on October 15th Program. Watch the video below.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Mountain Bike Double Crown
The weatherman said that it was going to be a beautiful day on Sunday, so this mountain girl decided to meet a group of friends to do what we call a Double Crown. We start at the Mound in Weldon Springs, ride to Lost Valley, ride a lap of single track, then head back to Hamburg trail, take it to the Katy trail and ride down to Klondike park, where we do a lap of Hogsback and then head back to the mound the way we came. Total mileage, 35 miles.
The day starts out great, but just 30 minutes into the ride Zane has a flat, luckily Chuck had an extra tube and the flat was fixed in no time and we started back on our way.
We were flying through the single track without incident, until…. Going down a long decent where there were some rocks and roots we were dropping off of, I suddenly feel my front shock bottom out, then I feel my tire getting squirrelly. I yelled to chuck who was ahead of me, “I think I have a problem with my tire”, just as I said it, we hit a tight switchback, still descending at a fast pace and my bike goes left while my body flies over the handlebars to the right. Good thing Patrick was right behind me, camera ready.
So since my tires are tubeless we tried to figure out how I broke the seal on the rim. Chuck said it was from having crappy thin walled tires, but I think it was a series of fast hard drops. We tried putting air in the tire and spinning it to get it to seal, but the Stans just kept bubbling out, good thing for me I had a tube and with a little help from the guys, it was fixed quickly, so quick that I still hadn’t realized how hard I hit the ground, but once back on the bike I could feel the affects of the crash. Of course that didn’t matter, I planned to ride no matter what hurt.
Off we went and soon we were back to the big hill that gets us out of the woods and back onto Hamburg trail. We made it up the hill and Mike and Zane had to get home, so they headed back to the mound, while Chuck, Patrick, and I headed for Klondike. On the way to Klondike we found some pretty interesting stuff. First we found a beer mug on the side of the trail. Chuck stuffed the beer mug in his pack and said “This trail mug will be great for after ride carbohydrate recovery beverages”. The ultimate in recycling.
Just past the beer mug we came upon a pair of boxer shorts, we are thinking there was a party of sorts out here the previous night. We always like to leave the trails cleaner than we found them, but this was asking too much. No one was going to touch these.
When we made it to Klondike we stopped just before the massive hill going into the park, there we all pulled out our Honey Stinger Rocket Chocolate bars and ate them, then we headed up the hill. When we hit the road we saw one of the French cars, you know, like the one in the cars movie who owned the tire shop. I think I could have beat that car in a race, it certainly didn’t look fast.
We hopped on the Hogsback loop and rode the tough technical single track, over the roots and along the rock ledge, then down to the tight hairpin turns, where there was a sign warning us to proceed with caution.
The sign was on the uphill side of the tough single track, it would have been nice if they would have warned us from the other side. No worries though, Patrick, who always crashes made it through without a scratch. We made it out of the single track and back onto the Katy trail. We rode the miles of slight uphill to Hamburg trail where the uphill becomes steep and long. Of course we couldn’t take it easy because Chuck saw someone in front of us, and couldn’t stop himself from trying to catch the guy.
So Patrick brought his adventure cam and took most of these great shots, so that we could record this day in history. It was of course, the first time my Top Fuel had been wrecked or had a flat tire. By the way, I’m going to put different tires on my ride before we attempt an 8 hour Berryman Epic in a couple weeks.
The day starts out great, but just 30 minutes into the ride Zane has a flat, luckily Chuck had an extra tube and the flat was fixed in no time and we started back on our way.
We were flying through the single track without incident, until…. Going down a long decent where there were some rocks and roots we were dropping off of, I suddenly feel my front shock bottom out, then I feel my tire getting squirrelly. I yelled to chuck who was ahead of me, “I think I have a problem with my tire”, just as I said it, we hit a tight switchback, still descending at a fast pace and my bike goes left while my body flies over the handlebars to the right. Good thing Patrick was right behind me, camera ready.
So since my tires are tubeless we tried to figure out how I broke the seal on the rim. Chuck said it was from having crappy thin walled tires, but I think it was a series of fast hard drops. We tried putting air in the tire and spinning it to get it to seal, but the Stans just kept bubbling out, good thing for me I had a tube and with a little help from the guys, it was fixed quickly, so quick that I still hadn’t realized how hard I hit the ground, but once back on the bike I could feel the affects of the crash. Of course that didn’t matter, I planned to ride no matter what hurt.
Off we went and soon we were back to the big hill that gets us out of the woods and back onto Hamburg trail. We made it up the hill and Mike and Zane had to get home, so they headed back to the mound, while Chuck, Patrick, and I headed for Klondike. On the way to Klondike we found some pretty interesting stuff. First we found a beer mug on the side of the trail. Chuck stuffed the beer mug in his pack and said “This trail mug will be great for after ride carbohydrate recovery beverages”. The ultimate in recycling.
Just past the beer mug we came upon a pair of boxer shorts, we are thinking there was a party of sorts out here the previous night. We always like to leave the trails cleaner than we found them, but this was asking too much. No one was going to touch these.
When we made it to Klondike we stopped just before the massive hill going into the park, there we all pulled out our Honey Stinger Rocket Chocolate bars and ate them, then we headed up the hill. When we hit the road we saw one of the French cars, you know, like the one in the cars movie who owned the tire shop. I think I could have beat that car in a race, it certainly didn’t look fast.
We hopped on the Hogsback loop and rode the tough technical single track, over the roots and along the rock ledge, then down to the tight hairpin turns, where there was a sign warning us to proceed with caution.
The sign was on the uphill side of the tough single track, it would have been nice if they would have warned us from the other side. No worries though, Patrick, who always crashes made it through without a scratch. We made it out of the single track and back onto the Katy trail. We rode the miles of slight uphill to Hamburg trail where the uphill becomes steep and long. Of course we couldn’t take it easy because Chuck saw someone in front of us, and couldn’t stop himself from trying to catch the guy.
So Patrick brought his adventure cam and took most of these great shots, so that we could record this day in history. It was of course, the first time my Top Fuel had been wrecked or had a flat tire. By the way, I’m going to put different tires on my ride before we attempt an 8 hour Berryman Epic in a couple weeks.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Trek Mountain Girl & Rock Racing's 15 minutes of fame
Trek Mountain Girl and her Rock Racing teammate were interviewed by the Suburban Journals and made the newspaper. See the article at the link below.
http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2010/10/04/madison/news/1006cvj-hobby.txt
http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2010/10/04/madison/news/1006cvj-hobby.txt
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
The Great Ride Weekend 2010
The Great Night Ride
What a great weekend it was in the Midwest, finally some cool weather and a perfect weekend for riding, both mountain and road bikes.
On Friday this mountain girl held a Night ride out on some great single track, that the Gateway Off-Road Cyclist built and maintain in Edwardsville, IL. The gang met at the airfield at 6:30 and headed out for about 30 minutes of hammering before it got dark. We stopped and turned on headlamps and went back for more.
Those trails look a lot different in the dark and obstacles you can usually get through in the light, become very ominous. You can just ask Patrick about that, those hanging vines were not being very nice to him in the dark. I was up front a lot of the ride and kept hearing loud thuds and then someone saying hold up Patrick is down. Patrick wasn’t the only one though, I think the vines got everyone at least once. Good thing Patrick had his Honey Stinger Rocket Chocolate bar, to give him energy to finish the ride.
We had a few new guys that saw the trek posters at the Cyclery & Fitness store and came out to ride, a good time was had by all.
We road for 2 hours then ate pizza and drank beer, well I had diet coke, and best of all Trek picked up the tab, Thanks Trek.
Mark had to take the XTC in to the shop for some surgery after the ride, so I’m thinking if it doesn’t make it, there is a Trek Superfly 100 in his future. It was a great way to finish up the week. I have had many emails asking when the next ride will be. I will be setting up a ride for November, I’m thinking Indian Camp Creek.
The Windy Century
It wasn’t enough to just have a night ride over the weekend, not while the Midwest is getting it’s 5 days of the year that are not too hot or too cold. So what did we do, we went out for a metric century ride. We started with 11 riders, 4 dropped off at the 40 mile mark due to some other commitments.
The rest of the gang finished up the metric century, then headed into Mike’s house for some of Rob Rongey’s famous pulled pork, along with Amy’s (Mike’s wife) hospitality and some cold drinks. We had a great lunch.
Christi had a birthday the day before the ride and wanted to ride her age, but we said, why stop there, I mean 29 miles is just not enough on such a nice day.
The three diehards, Mike, John and Shawn went out for enough miles to make it an American century, while the rest of us wimped out with the excuse of other commitments. I, myself, went home to get some chores done. I had my vitalsox on and they felt so good I didn’t want to take them off. They have really been helping me deal with my foot issues. So after a shower, I put on a clean pair and put me feet up for a while before starting those pesky chores.
As soon as I got a break from the mundane I ran out to Mills Apple farm for a hot apple pie,
I hate to burn all those calories and not have a way to put them back on.
It was a great ride, can’t wait for the next one.
What a great weekend it was in the Midwest, finally some cool weather and a perfect weekend for riding, both mountain and road bikes.
On Friday this mountain girl held a Night ride out on some great single track, that the Gateway Off-Road Cyclist built and maintain in Edwardsville, IL. The gang met at the airfield at 6:30 and headed out for about 30 minutes of hammering before it got dark. We stopped and turned on headlamps and went back for more.
Those trails look a lot different in the dark and obstacles you can usually get through in the light, become very ominous. You can just ask Patrick about that, those hanging vines were not being very nice to him in the dark. I was up front a lot of the ride and kept hearing loud thuds and then someone saying hold up Patrick is down. Patrick wasn’t the only one though, I think the vines got everyone at least once. Good thing Patrick had his Honey Stinger Rocket Chocolate bar, to give him energy to finish the ride.
We had a few new guys that saw the trek posters at the Cyclery & Fitness store and came out to ride, a good time was had by all.
We road for 2 hours then ate pizza and drank beer, well I had diet coke, and best of all Trek picked up the tab, Thanks Trek.
Mark had to take the XTC in to the shop for some surgery after the ride, so I’m thinking if it doesn’t make it, there is a Trek Superfly 100 in his future. It was a great way to finish up the week. I have had many emails asking when the next ride will be. I will be setting up a ride for November, I’m thinking Indian Camp Creek.
The Windy Century
It wasn’t enough to just have a night ride over the weekend, not while the Midwest is getting it’s 5 days of the year that are not too hot or too cold. So what did we do, we went out for a metric century ride. We started with 11 riders, 4 dropped off at the 40 mile mark due to some other commitments.
The rest of the gang finished up the metric century, then headed into Mike’s house for some of Rob Rongey’s famous pulled pork, along with Amy’s (Mike’s wife) hospitality and some cold drinks. We had a great lunch.
Christi had a birthday the day before the ride and wanted to ride her age, but we said, why stop there, I mean 29 miles is just not enough on such a nice day.
The three diehards, Mike, John and Shawn went out for enough miles to make it an American century, while the rest of us wimped out with the excuse of other commitments. I, myself, went home to get some chores done. I had my vitalsox on and they felt so good I didn’t want to take them off. They have really been helping me deal with my foot issues. So after a shower, I put on a clean pair and put me feet up for a while before starting those pesky chores.
As soon as I got a break from the mundane I ran out to Mills Apple farm for a hot apple pie,
I hate to burn all those calories and not have a way to put them back on.
It was a great ride, can’t wait for the next one.
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