The trails were all running well yesterday, but I’m excited about a bit of moisture in the morning all the same. Even if the plan is to ride trails with extensive ladder bridges. We’re meeting Vik at the very civilized time of 9:30am. I can see it now, I’ll be wearing my giant backpack full of crap and Vik will have 73 different frame storage bags and 3 foot long water bottle. Or maybe he’s moved to a bladder in a giant frame bag or a tank.
Either way, I enjoy the juxtaposition of very different setups. Like when I ride with JacAttack on her 7″ travel Guerrilla Grav with AXS and I’m on my rigid single speed. Only, we’re both on single-speeded hardtails. It’s 8am right now and I’m jonesing to get out on the trails. The Clairebarian is still asleep, but she did have a couple very tall pineapple juices at The Waverly last night so it could be a rough morning.
Day 2.1
Claire leads the charge up the Sobo no Michi climb. At other times I prefer the faster and more brutal road ascent, followed by the technical boot up Climax, but the SnM is quite a pleasant way to ascend the mountain and it’s nice being able to chat on the way up to pass the time. The Clairebarian sounds genuinely surprised when she exclaims that it took much less time than last year.
I’ll spare you the various jabs and parries, but suffice it to say that The Clairebarian’s first run down the Thirsty Beavers was awesome. It’s funny that coming from the land of ladder bridges she’s never ridden anything quite like the forever ladders on Thirsty and at the bottom she’s added it to her list of trails we need to hit again before we leave.
After that, it’s some Vanilla action to take us over to Upper through Lower Crafty Butcher and then, you guessed it, Space Nugget.
Day 2.Intermission
Tomorrow I’ll post my contribution to Tool Bag Wars but today I was too busy frantically using them. I really wish I could say that the TrickStuff eccentric I’ve been running in the Enigma has been faultless but that’s not the case. After many, many rides on the Shore this is the second time in as many days some service was required.
I’m starting to doubt it was designed with North Shore single-speeding in mind but it’s a bit late to fix that this trip. I seem to have everything running again, but I’ll likely be dropping by a bike shop within the next day or two for a pair of bearings – thankfully they’re a common size.
On a nifty side note, I have some neat ideas in my pocket – other peoples’ ideas I’ll note – for tensioning the chain on the Banshee. More on that when we’re home from Cumberlandworx.
Day 2.2
To paraphrase Vic, the Comox Valley isn’t perfect but it’s an awesome place to live. And thanks to that one theme of Cumberlandworx is pedaling with transplants I know. This afternoon it was Andrew & Dan, who were nice enough to wait up and we pedaled back up SnM and found our way to Blockhead and Bucket Of Blood and then weaved our way down to town from there. A lot of the rocks were properly greasy, so it felt like home at my favourite times of year to ride.
The rain picked up progressively, though there were still plenty of dusty patches to be found, to the point that the Showers Pass weatherproof vest in my pack started calling to me. I was clearly the only person packing any raingear so I left it be. I’ve been working on a review for NSMB of a budget-friendlier long sleeve tech shirt from MEC called the Core Train and it’s surprisingly good at wicking sweat and not absorbing water so I stayed comfy enough.
Day 3 is going to start with Cronuts, end with Love’s Ice Cream, and feature some riding in the middle. We’ve floated a few ride plans so we’ll wait and see how everyone is feeling in the morning. I find that Day 3 is always the easiest or hardest on a trip as that general state of comfortable fatigue sets in. Less power at the pedals certainly but in the zone more with the consistency and efficiency that comes with it.
End.