Darting squirrel havoc: Part III

Well there I was on a recent ride, pedaling down a short descent, when I saw a big gray squirrel fidgeting on the right bank near the trail up ahead. As I closed the gap toward the squirrel, he made a last minute dart in front of my bike. I reacted similarly to the way I did once before to an almost identical scenario: doing a tuck and brake, which was instinctive, but turned out to be not the best way to react.

While doing this tuck and brake, I pushed my right heel into my spinning back wheel, far enough to lock it up. I skidded about 25 feet. At the end of the skid I kicked out my left foot from the cleat, then dislodged my right heel from the spokes of the back rim.

Of course, Mr. Squirrel made his journey across the path unscathed and long gone.

But the last time this nearly identical squirrel avoidance happened to me, my heel broke a couple of spokes irreparably out of the back wheel, rendering it not only hopelessly out of round, but useless junk! I had to call a friend and walk to a nearby park carrying my bike. I bought a new wheel set, and upgraded from the $300 pair I’d been riding on (which had come with the bike) to a $700 pair of Shimano Ultegras, which can also handle tubeless tires.

So this second time, the thought of this second squirrel inducing another blown up back wheel was a little unsettling. But happily, this time the damage was less severe. The wheel was a little out of round, it scraped a bit against the brake, but was still rideable. That was a big relief, since I was about 25 miles from home. So I turned around and rode back with the scraping wheel, muttering about the wish that darting squirrels go dart somewhere else. Permanently!

But I also knew it could have been a lot worse. Could have been like the last time, where the wheel was blown up with no other option than to hoof it to get help. Could have been like my first and worst squirrel encounter, where I ran over the darting critter while turning on a slight decline going about 18 mph, causing the front wheel to go sideways and me to go flying like Superman over the bike, and skid to a stop on the asphalt on the bone and skin of my left forearm. Bike was fine, but my arm took some major road rash!

This last time, I don’t know if the higher grade wheel kept the spokes from dislodging, but at any rate, they took the knock and held their moorings. I’d like to train myself not to pull my right heel into the wheel on a panic stop, but don’t know how to do that, since it’s been a snap reaction devoid of any thought! Need to practice non-wheel damaging panic reactions, I think. That may be a tough one! But it could save money and injury so maybe that’s something to figure out how to do.

The bike shop mechanic said he’d probably be able to true the wheel by adjusting the spoke, but he thought there may be a small vertical hop in the wheel after his adjustments. Turned out he was able to true the wheel perfectly. Yes, that was truly welcome news!

Meanwhile, he reminded me how shot my chain was and how dirty my cassette was. Turned out I’d put about 6K miles on the chain, and it had worn down the cassette pretty thoroughly. Still, shifting was fine on the old chain and cassette. But I figured I was pushing it not to replace both of them.

So I bit the bullet and replaced them. So this time, the darting squirrel ended up costing me $300 instead of $700, but it was on worn out parts that needed replacing anyway. So, all ended well after all. Still leery of the damn darting squirrels though!

Happy trails, bro

Marc, a great riding buddy with whom I’ve done many amazing rides in Northern California and Nevada in recent years, is moving to El Paso, Texas. His passion is to help wounded returning veterans rehabilitate their minds and bodies with cycling programs, and he’s been volunteering for those events for the last five years. Now, after doggedly pursuing this as a new career, he’s been hired by a program run out of Fort Bliss in El Paso. He’s now got a new future as a professional in this niche of cycling, and he’s stoked about it. Pat, PJ, David and myself, his main cycling pals, are all cheering him on, even though we won’t be able to ride together as often as we have.

No problem, though. This is Marc’s dream and he did everything he could for a long time to finally make it happen. PJ and yours truly sent him off on St. Patty’s Day. I turned out corned beef topped with a marmalade and Irish whiskey glaze, roasted carrots, and Elena contributed small smashed potatoes, a salad and homemade Irish soda bread. All was washed down with black and tans (Guinness and Sierra Nevada), and car bombs, which are glasses of beer with a full glass shot of Jameson’s Irish whiskey dropped into them. Smooth!

Here’s PJ’s farewell toast with a trumpeted close:

We watched the 1939 John Ford classic “Stagecoach,” the movie that made The Duke -- a guy whose vocal delivery we like to imitate on rides -- a big star, Mister! 
Way to go, Marc! We’re all happy for you. And you know what this means, dontcha? Cowboy boots and a 10-gallon hat are in your future!

Til next time, remember to always put on a helmet before you get on the bike. And then, do everything you can to keep the rubber side down!

-- Mark Eric Larson

Mark Eric Larson has written two books of essays, "The NERVE...of Some People's Kids," and "Don't Force it, Get a Bigger Hammer. To read, visit: 
http://www.scribd.com/Mark%20Eric%20Larson/shelfHis blog of personal essays is at: http://marksmuzings.blogspot.com/

Don't brake! Pedal through!

My buddy Pat, with whom I’ve done ton of great road biking, got a used hard tail mountain bike about a year ago. He wanted to give trail riding a try. He’s a strong road cyclist, able to do well on long rides with tough climbs.

But, like I did when I first hit the dirt trails several years ago, he found out pronto that mountain biking is a very different animal than road biking. The novice has to master a few new bike-handling techniques that aren’t likely to be expected going in. But starting out, everybody finds out that learning them is part of the deal.

Because if you don’t, one thing will happen: You’ll fall off the bike! Which, I can say from experience, gets really old, really fast! But because I’m a slow learner, I fell off the bike far too many damn times when I started mountain biking!

Now Pat likes to take videos of road bike rides with his GoPro. So he rigged it up for one of his early rides on the dirt. He had it running last year on a trail ride with Marc, a fellow cycling buddy. Marc is an experienced mountain biker, and rides technical trails as strongly as he regularly does challenging road bike routes.

They rode on a foothill trail on a rainy day with muddy conditions. Pat followed Marc, bombing down a mud and rock trail. He was having so much fun he let out a whoop. But the whoop flashed to panic when he suddenly encountered a bunch of loose rocks and gravel. He thought for sure he was going too fast. Uh, no he wasn’t.

Lesson Numero Uno: Don’t brake when you hit rough shit!

But he hit the brakes thinking that would give him control.

Check it out:

Pat made it back on the trail roughed up a bit. But he was OK and so was the GoPro, so no harm no foul. In fact, it was a, uh, a learning experience!

I remember well having to re-learn my reaction to technical patches on a trail. And that is, speed, not braking, helps you get through the rough crap! I learned, as Pat did in the video, if you brake in those spots, more often than not, you’re gonna eat it!

Now, Pat’s away for three months, and he was nice enough to lend me his mountain bike in his absence. Mine was stolen a few years ago, and instead of using the insurance money to get another one, I got a road bike. The guys I’d ridden trails with either didn’t ride anymore or had moved away.

So recently I’ve been on a couple great trail rides on Pat’s bike with Marc, and all the fun I’d been missing hit me like a brick. I was also reminded of a few more tips that made the rides great:

Lesson Numero Dos: Stand up, centered on the bike, elbows and knews out while descending.

It gives you a strong center of gravity and much better balance to handle the trail. I had to learn not to tuck my knees and elbows in while descending. That narrows your balance point and makes you more vulnerable to falling. With elbows and knees bent outward, downhill balance is a lot easier and you’re in a good position to make the moves you need as you ride.

Lesson Numero Tres: Keep your cleat clips loose enough so they’re easy to kick out of.

For the longest time, I’d fall attached to the bike when I couldn’t get my foot out in time to block a fall. Finally, (I’m embarrassed to say how long this took) after realizing that if I loosened the cleats with a hex wrench, I wouldn’t fall nearly as regularly! Brilliant! Much less pain to be endured!

Lesson Numero Quatro:  Look where you want to go up the trail, relax, breathe and pedal through. That works wonders to keep you going. In my early days of trail riding, more than a few times, on gnarly technical climbs, I’d tense up because I was tired. That worked against me and I’d sometimes give up and stop. But on my last two trail rides, I climbed through some seriously nasty loose rock by relaxing, pedaling and keeping balanced traction. Needless to say, I’m no trick mountain biker. But just mastering a nasty spot on a trail to me is just as fun as blasting down a fast single-track descent.

But on my recent rides, I was also reminded that I’d never really mastered climbing and descending smoothly through steep switchback turns. I have to get smarter on taking the right line and not slowing down too much.

Oh yeah, another big thing that I remembered on my recent trail rides was...

Lesson Numero Cinco: Keep the bike in a granny gear when there are a lot of ups and downs on the trail. That lets you get up sudden steep parts without being in too high a gear. It’ll let you continue forward instead of being forced to stop and get off the bike because you’re in too high of a gear. Easy to do, but just as easy to forget!

Pat has been a bit discouraged by the harsh learning curve for mountain biking, but I keep telling him, once you learn a few of the basics, it’s a blast!

So Pat, thanks for lending me your mountain bike. It’s major fun to ride. And take heart. When you get back, keep on riding it! You’ll eventually get the hang of it and experience the major highs of a good ride in the dirt.  And you’ll want to keep hitting the trails.

‘Til next time, remember to always put on a helmet before every ride. And once you’re on the bike, make sure to keep the rubber side down!

-- Mark Eric Larson

Mark Eric Larson has written two books of essays, "The NERVE...of Some People's Kids," and "Don't Force it, Get a Bigger Hammer. To read, visit: 
http://www.scribd.com/Mark%20Eric%20Larson/shelfHis blog of personal essays is at: http://marksmuzings.blogspot.com/