Sunday Ride: Stationary Bike (and Monkey Bars)

Cold, drizzly weather nixed my Sunday-morning bike ride, so I burned off breakfast on the stationary bike followed by a few sets on the monkey bars and dip station. Planning to post video of my monkey skills soon; in the meantime, a snap of my jungle gym:

Bull Springs Trail (FR143) Recon

Just posted the tracklog of my bike recon of FR143 over at Everytrail. Parts of this trail are spectacularly fast, like the passage through Salero Ranch (pic), and parts are dismally slow, like the rocky stuff north of Alto. For purposes of the Santa Rita Showdown, north-to-south is probably the way to go.

Interesting Tracklog Site: Geoladders

Stumbled across this site: Geoladders.com. It combines the route/tour aspects of everytrail with an interesting virtual-race concept. Most of the content is in California, but there's a nice entry for Charouleau Gap.

Cool Tools for GPX files

I use GPSBabel for most GPS file conversion/downloading jobs, but I've recently started experimenting with a couple of web-hosted converters:

• GPSVisualizer graphs data extracted from tracklogs; converts GPX, KML and text-format files; generates user-defined maps; generates coordinates from street addresses (and vice versa); and allows sketching directly on a map to generate GPX files of waypoints and routes. That last capability is way cool because it permits instant switching between USGS topos, Google terrain vectors, street maps, and aerial/satellite imagery. 
• GPSies convert page accepts tracklogs (or lists of coordinates) and converts them to routes in a variety of formats. Its outstanding feature is the refined way it handles route simplification: Instead of just dropping waypoints, it apparently recalculates the shape of the path and sequentially numbers the newly generated points. GPSBabel's simplified routes have gaps in waypoint numbering (e.g., RPT046, RPT051, RPT053, RPT054, RPT060) that can be confusing on the trail.

Just this morning I dumped a tracklog from everytrail into the GPSies converter and created a much-simplified route, cutting a couple hundred trackpoints to just 30 route points. Superimposed 'em on the map and got a very satisfactory match. Nice. Just in time for my Bull Springs exploration.

Skill Session: Steep, Loose and Chunky

Took the mountain bike out to Brown Canyon to work on a section of the trail I usually avoid: the portion overlooking (SSW of) the old Barchas Ranch. Approaching from the trailhead, the trail divides into two paths that converge at the top, forming a squashed teardrop shape. Both are only medium-steep; it's the loose, rocky trail surface that makes them tough to climb. The usual full-suspension MTB technique would be to shift into a granny gear, stay on the seat and pedal smoothly. My D460 has neither suspension nor a granny ring, so that's out.

When I've previously attempted this kind of climb, I've usually stuck with my tried-and-true climbing method: middle gear, standing on the pedals. The problem is that even a momentary loss of traction kills my momentum and causes a stall. Once that happens, it's very difficult to get the bike moving again. I often just shrug and push it to the top.


Today, I experimented with lower gears and semi-seated pedaling. With the shifter at "1" (32T front, 33 rear) and a steady cadence I found I could clear the hill without much trouble. I experimented with various body positions and found a slightly out-of-the-seat crouch that suited me. Made about a dozen runs up the hill, tweaking my technique each time. After less than an hour, I felt I had gotten what I came for, so I quit while I was ahead--not tired, still improving. I'll return, maybe Sunday, for another round. If I can get really proficient at this, it'll cut considerable hike-a-bike off my longer explorations.