Salsa Demo

Salsa Cycles was holding their annual demo at Carver Lake Park in Woodbury, where it's all good in the Hoodbury. I have to admit, I never really thought of Salsa as a relevant mountain bike company, that has changed.

I showed up to the Salsa Demo and recognized the East coast sales guy, E-Fred from the last demo. We chatted a bit, I met the new Midwest Sales guy, Freewheel's new Q rep, and the global sales manager for Salsa. They were all really nice guys, as they all were last time as well.

Chips?

I was really excited to take out their new Horsetheif, it is a full suspension 29er with 130mm of travel in the front and 120mm in the rear. I was pleasantly surprised by it last year but it was still lacking something that I just couldn't put my finger on. I was really ready to try the new model with the split pivot, which is essentially the same thing that Trek has on their bikes that I love. To put it in simple to understand terms, your rear suspension still works while breaking. On most bikes when you use the rear break, it takes up some of the travel of your rear shock, so if you hit bumps while braking you can easily bottom out. Alternatively if you are speeding along and hit the rear brake you can get quite a bit of lurch. Split pivot fixes this issue.

E-Fred helped me get the suspension set up and off I went. I liked it. A lot. It rolled over rocks like they were not even there. It was great in the loose corners even with the wide knobbed tires. It was just smooth and buttery. This years model has a really improved geometry as well. They shortened the chain stays on most of their bikes which is evident while riding. For a 29er it has a lot of giddyup and the center of gravity was perfect for me. The split pivot was the icing on the cake. I was able to fly around the singletrack with no issues at all. I liked it so much I ended up doing two laps on it.

After my second lap Thad and Ben from Freewheel showed up. Thad and I both went out on the Spearfish next. Other than the tires being a bit low, it was phenomenal. The bike was pretty much perfect for single track, at least the kind we have around here. If I lived in an area with a little more terrain, I would opt for the Horsetheif.

Spearfish and me.

The next bike I had in my sights as I am looking at purchasing one, was the El Mariachi Ti. I know the advantages of full suspension, they are real, it is just that I would never ever utilize a full suspension bike to its full potential. I want a bike that is in between the fat bike and the cross check. I have done some crazy stuff on the cross check and the fat bike but I recognize there is a time and place where those bikes are either not quite enough or conversely too damn much bike to handle what I want to do. Enter the mountain bike.

I picked the damn thing up and it was so light I could hardly believe it. The frames are triple butted this year, it has saved them a lot of weight believe it or not. I threw a leg over the beast and just started bombing off and up curbs and the first thing I noticed was they had shortened the chain stays on this one as well. It just took off. Add to that the set back of the seat post and the center of gravity was dead on. I was pretty much instantly sure that I was going to be making the right decision. Even with the triple butted tubing the ride was still really stiff where you wanted it to be but super comfortable. I'm pretty excited for that!

The carbon Beargrease is pretty cool as well. A lot of people were coming specifically to ride that. For those of you that don't know, I'll let you in on the secret. It is nothing like the Muluk, it is a totally different bike. If you want to race winter stuff, you want a Beargrease. If you want to just go out and have a good time and possibly do any kind of "touring" in the winter, the Mukluk should be your weapon of choice. The geometries are toootally different.

The Colossal is still the Colossal, a steel road bike with disc brakes. Pretty cool.

Ben took out the Warbird and was really impressed with it. It sounds like he may be getting one of them. If you have not ridden a Salsa lately, I recommend you go check one out for yourself. They are a lot of fun.

All in all it was a good day, talking to some good dudes, and riding some good bikes. What more do you need?

Labor Day Weekend.

Last year for the laboring weekend I did my first little tour with my buddy Brian. This year was a little different but still lots of fun.

Friday night I hung out with my buddy Thad and we rolled around by the falls and Hidden Falls park. We had a couples beers before the ride, which ended up being a mistake, not a big one but it was pretty hot and I had never been down to Hidden Falls before, the hill going back up was super gnar. The view from the river bank was quite awesome however.

View from the river bank.

We left Hidden Falls and bombed back through Minehaha Falls park and much to our pleasure Surly Brewing was there serving beer. Huzzah!



Beers and bikes.

We headed back to the mother ship and fired up the grill, not before picking up some bacon for the burgers. Thad fired up some beef and I got the fire pit raging. We had ourselves a couple of heart attacks on a bun and then just hung out and drank for a bit.

Burgerssss!

One of Thad's buddies and his wife stopped by and brought some wine from their recent wedding that was left over. We sat and chatted and drank and after about an hour or two they took off and Thad and I decided to go on another ride. We packed up the rest of our beers and headed for Lake Nokomis. We went to the secret ninja spot of drinking concealment, though it was about 2 am at this point so I doubt anyone would have bothered us any way. We hung out and took in the scene. The lake was really still and everything in the sky was reflecting on it. We talked about everything under the sun and when the last beer had been drunk (don't worry we brought our trash home with us), we headed back. We finished the night out with some smores and a visit from Thad's new neighbor who was just getting home from work. Then we attempted to watch Super Troopers but 4:30 am was just too much for both of us.

I rode a few more times over the weekend but mostly solo and mostly to work off all the beer and those burgers. It was a far cry from last year but it was still a lot of fun. I got a lot good time in with some friends I had not seen in a while and even made some new friends. I wonder what next year will be like.

This one time...

It has been a pretty good week over all.

Yesterday I went on a super fun ride with a new friend. We rode down Marshall, St Anthony Main, Stone Arch Bridge, Hennepin Ave Bridge and then back up the way we came. It was nice to ride with someone who is not an avid rider, just enjoying the ride and company. Twas fun.

Hennepin Ave Bridge.

Hey Farva, what's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?

Last night was a lot of fun.

I headed over to Thad's and we went over to Town Hall lanes and had a beer and some dinner. There was some general shenanigans had there. We saw a bowler that looked like one of our co-workers. There was also a couple there bowling and their nick names for the scoring screen were "Pee" and "Poo". It was hilarious on a very remedial level.

Poo and Pee, heh heh heh heh.

After the food we hit up the libation store across the street and then headed back to Thad's. I forgot my shoes so we had to figure out how to get my Shimano pedals off and put flats on, without an 8mm allen wrench or a pedal wrench. We made it happen because we are men, which is what we kept repeating to ourselves as we were standing around in front of an open garage drinking beer.

Conan, Thad's viciously cute guard dog.

After a bit the others were ready to meet up so we headed out to meet them by the Minnehaha falls. Now, I had asked Thad if I would be alright for this ride on a cross bike, he said "Yeah, you should be fine." So when we went down this super sketchy, sandy, rock filled decent, you can imagine my surprise.

"You'll be good on your Cross Check" he says...

I was okay actually. I only almost crashed once when all of the ground beneath me began to wash away as I needed to stop. I just let go of the brakes and rode it out and all was well. We rode down the banks of the river to a secret location. We stopped, had a beer, and then went and rode some single track. It was pretty gnarly but I kept up and we all ended up in the same place and had another beer. Then Joe and Jamison launched up and down the rocky creek. They came out smelling like total butt from the nasty creek water. We went on and ended up back at the beach head where we made a fire.

Another fellow from work was on his way from the bandit cross race and had two more friends in toe. Things got a little crazy once we were standing still for a long period of time, this gave us more time to consume and thus become more influenced. We were all feeling good and having a great time and we burned some things that may or may not have been explosive, don't worry we had adult supervision. Then Ben took his camera out and did a long exposure shot while a few of us rode around with our lights flashing. The shot came out amazing and pretty much summed up the night for me. We headed back on some super sketchy trails and I some how ended up leading the way out. We had to jump a fence to get back into the dog park. Thad crashed about three times. Super fun times, I cannot wait to do it again soon.

Photo by Ben Hovland

The Powderhorn Cometh.

(All photos by Birgitta Anderson)

The idea of a 24 hour race has always intrigued me. A team, yourself, and bikes for 24 hours. Racing against the clock, laps upon laps upon laps. The idea had a certain appeal as an endurance test but the social aspect is equally appealing.

Last weekend I participated in my first 24 hour race, the Powderhorn 24. I was apprehensive going into it but I ended up having a blast. I had this idea in my head that it was going to be a big old hipster fest full of drunk and obnoxious people. While there were certainly drunk and obnoxious people, they were the minority, everyone there was really cool and I met and talked to a lot of very cool people.

I showed up Friday about 4:30 and I was hanging out at Freewheel on the Greenway talking to some of my colleagues. Around 5 I headed outside and started getting my tent set up. Around this time Birgitta and her boyfriend Bob showed up with their cute pooch Shamus. We were all getting set up and then their friend Dave stopped by, he was replacing another fellow who had to cancel at the last moment. After a little bit our other two team mates, Ebbin and Tiana, showed up and we waited for the pre-ride briefing. 

From left to right, Ebbin, Dave, me, and Bob.

Birgitta getting ready to ride.

Dave passing the manifest off to Tiana.

Shamus the team mascot.

We devised our plan for how we were going to break up the riding. We would split our six down the middle into two teams of three. Each team of three would rotate people in and out twice. So if the three people on the first team were one, two and three. The rotation would go one, two, three, and then one, two three, at which point the second team would be up. Each person did 2 - 3 laps per time they were up. This meant you didn't fully cool off when it was your turn to ride again and then when you did your second set of laps, you had roughly 8 hours to get some rest. This method ended up working out really well for us.

After the pre-ride meeting was taken care of everyone lined up for the race. Luckily we were near the front because we were one of the first teams to register. Ebbin, Dave, and Birgitta were on the first rotation and Ebbin was going to take the first laps. He lined up, the race started and they were off.

I have never seen such an odd collection of riders. There were people in full lycra kits, cut off jeans, lots of beards, lots of tattoos, no tattoos, big hair, no hair, sandals, road shoes, steel cargo bikes, super light weight carbon bikes, and so much more. It was really neat to see all the different types of folks who were all coming together to hang out and ride bikes.

Some folks wore costumes.

36" wheel unicycle?

Extreme lycra irony.

There was a team of 15 year old kids that crushed it.

Racing in a dress? Why not?!

The cutest little girl with a cycling cap. She's off to a good start.

The race was underway and we were having a good time. The first group finished up their first rounds of laps around 1 am or so. My first lap was at about 3 am. I headed out ready to kill it. I was so pumped I rode right past the first checkpoint. I looked at it as I rode by it and it just didn't register. I zipped down to the next check point, the guy punched my manifest and then noticed I had not had the first one punched. They sent me back to the first check point. I was so upset at myself, I got back to the first checkpoint and then got punched after explaining what happened, then I zipped back over to the second checkpoint, they didn't remember what happened even though it was only like 5 minutes prior. They sent me on my way and I was not thinking clearly I was feeling really rushed, so I blew up 10th and as I hit Lake, I realized I passed the 3rd check in. I rushed back down 11th, hit the check point, then rushed back up 10th and hit the Nice Ride bonus stop. You were to check out a Nice Ride and do a lap on it and then come back and get on your bike. The line was horrendous.

I finally got on the Nice Ride and took off, wow those bikes are heavy. I actually had a really good lap time for riding a 50 lb bike. Then I got back on my bike and finished the lap and did one more. The only way to win this thing was to do all the bonus stops. Each bonus stop was worth 2 laps. If you did all the bonus laps and your volunteer shift, you would receive and additional 8 bonus laps, on top of the possible 36 bonus laps from the bonus stops.

On my next rotation I felt good and the sun was coming up. I headed off into the sunrise and did my fastest lap. I did two more laps, on the last lap I had a bonus at the Powderhorn park where I had to bomb down the steep hill and do yoga. It was interesting to say the least. When I got back on my bike and took off my muscles were so relaxed I could barely even pedal. By the time I got to the top of that hill, my legs were screaming at me. Fatigue was starting to set in.

Sunrise yoga.

I finished my lap, passed off the manifest, crawled back to my tent and darkness warshed over the Dude.

I slept for about three hours and felt waaaaay better.

I awoke to the news that we were in second place. What?! We started off not even caring what was going on, we were just having fun, but someone had alerted us to this news and suddenly we got a little more competitive.

The rest of the event was pretty standard affair for a large group of tired and exhausted folks. Everyone was starting to get a little loopy and goofy. What happened next I could have never guessed. Everyone got up and started cheering for the finishers. EVERYONE. It was really cool to see so many people being so supportive of each other. 

Over all the experience was an A+ and I will certainly do it again next year, actually I am already looking forward to it.