Well I rode, yesterday, from home over to the canal that runs along Hill
Rd. here in Boise and on over to Pierce Park Rd. Hill Rd. follows a portion
of the Boise foothills on the west side of town. Pierce Park heads up one
the canyons into the foothills and eventually intersects with Cartwright Rd.
and taking a left on Cartwright will take you back to Dry Creek Rd. These
roads provide a multitude of ride options for Road, Mountain, and Cyclocross
rides.
Pierce Park is paved for maybe half a mile and then turns to dirt until
it intersects with Cartwright. The road can be heavily traveled and can be
dusty and like yesterday very washboardy. I know that washboardy is not
really a word, but how else to explain? The road is not very steep and most
times of the year provides a well packed surface but other times it can be
very sandy and makes for some real fun squirrelly rides heading downhill.
Today, well packed.
I zip up to Cartwright with only a few vehicles to put up a dust screen
then up and over to Dry Creek and the Hidden Springs trails. This has
probably been posted here before, but here is a link to the Boise Area
Ridges to Rivers trail maps
http://www.ridgetorivers.org/trsystem/trailmap.html If you look at the
Hidden Springs map, you will that I provides many little ride options that
can make for a good work out. Red Tail trail, named because of all the Red
Tailed hawks in the area is the only tough part of the system. It is good
long climb to the top, but I you are into out and backs, then you get a
treat with the downhill. The other option is to get back on Cartwright and
bomb back down on the pavement to trail 75. 75 is a nice trail that provides
the most technical part of this system, especially if you are not paying
attention. I will always ride everyone of these trails and sometimes do a
few in reverse order just because they are so fun.
From here I rode over to the Hidden Springs community to meet up with
some
friends to pre-ride the Hidden Springs Duathlon mtb. course. Hidden Springs
was a little community nestled in the Dry Creek area about half a mile from
trail 71's trailhead, but man has it grown and it is still growing. Houses
and cars everywhere. Anyway a friend asked me to do the long course mtb team
with him, he runs and I ride, and the organizers had laid out a new course
so we were going to see how it was. The course is a 4 mile loop that
starts/finishes in front of the Merc. The course has a little single track,
double track and unfortunately paved road. The long course does 2 loops and
I had reservations about doing this because it just did not seem fun. (After
racing today, I and everyone I talked thought it was a hoot!) We rode 1 lap
fairly slowly since we had some beginners and then opted to head back over
to Red Tail and play there. I then headed home. The Hidden Springs folks
have a great opportunity to add to the single/double track that they used in
the race today, hopefully they will follow through.
Oh yeah, the breaks were great on all rides, very little noise and lots
of stopping power. I need to get use to the rear since I end up locking it
up too easily. The CODA's did not have that problem. No water to ride
through, so I did not get to see if they are going to be a menace when
crossing streams this spring.
Mike
"Bill Wheeler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Mike Kennedy said:I got my bike back from the LBS Wednesday with my new Avid mechanical
disk brakes installed.
Yesterday I had a meeting with one of the local cyclocross folks to
discuss
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:setting up a course
around the "dog park" over by Fort Boise, so I decided to take the mtb.
and
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:check out these brakes.
It was an awesome day with near perfect temperatures, I guess around
73deg.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:I rode from my house up to the Corrals and then on over to trail 1,
Freeway and then to Military
Reserve trails. It was one of the few times this season that I did not
have
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:lot's of dust kicking up
on the ride, I guess all the rain we have had since last Sunday took care
of
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:that. Boy between 5:30
and 6:00pm must be prime time for group mountain biking, I must have
passed
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:7 separate groups
of 5 or more heading out just by Fort Boise alone.
Well these brakes work so much better then the old CODA hydraulics,
however for the first
hour or so I was going insane from all the squealing. Man they made me
wish
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:for V brakes. Also
after going through a small creek, the rotors got wet and these things
just
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:about screamed the
first time I applied the brakes. I think I scared off all the wild and
not
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:so wild life within
a 5 mile radius.
The squealing all but went away by the time I got home so hopefully
they
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:are close to being worn in.
And I hope that the water incident was also due to being new and not a
continuing feature. I will
be riding the Hidden Springs trails tonight and if Dry Creek still has
water, I think that I
will ride through it and see what happens.
Mike
get use to new pads squealing. every time I swap out new pads I get
the devil's haircut scream! Water does the same but it does last
long.
Peace,
Bill
