June 30, 2011

A Few More FATS Pictures For Thursday

After arriving at Big Rock trail, I decided to put the camera away as it was detracting from the “overall ride quality”. However, even though I have ridden Big Rock clockwise several times, rounding the corner and seeing the backside of the “big rock” always freaks me out. Looks like some Tolkien-ian goblin hunched over the trail, picking through the viscera of a wayward cyclist… or worse, geocacher!

User-friendly signage hammered home a simple message: THIS IS THE TOWER TRAIL, MORON.

Weird brick landing pads dotted the trail whenever it crossed under the powerlines.

Another nice feature of Tower: continuous tree canopy. It made the high 80s feel like low 80s. This portion of the trail skirted the fall line, taking a large swooping left turn and continuing uphill on the opposite side of the ravine. Zero erosion, zero standing water!

Classic FATS motif. The subtle but fast turn and drop along the fall line. Eric from Cane Creek has a mild fetish for this type of trail building technique that litters FATS.

Steep, multi-tiered downhill on the connector trail back to Great Wall. Four little plateaus split the downhill up. Standing water is alleviated by the armoring on the second plateau. By the bottom of this downhill, it feels like you’re floating on a cloud of non-heroin fueled bliss. I would destroy my back on the next downhill, similarly structured but with a sharp endo-tastic jump in the middle of the downhill.

Not to place the product so obviously, but since switching to a Thomson Elite setback seat post last year, my mountain biking life has eased up on the downhill white knuckle/pucker factor. The Pisgah tests went swimmingly and leaving out my back destruction, FATS rode smoother than ever. The few centimeters of setback keep my weight off the front and have made my squirreliness a tad bit more stable. Now if only we could convince Teenwolf to throw one on his Orbea, but nobody wants to set the wheels of the Rapture in motion… just yet!

In closing, Jose being the creepy office dude lived up to his reputation and sent this salacious Armani bicycle-centric commercial. This borders on Marquis de Sade levels of debauch so make sure small children aren’t around. You’ll need a bath after this snippet of internet filth. Ugh, disgusting.

June 29, 2011

Dinosore Jr, Baby Got Back Pain…

(Stabbing back spasms or not, nothing would keep me from Sunday night’s Dinosaur Jr show in Atlanta. And yes, it was loud. And yes, my bowels uncorked themselves)

And yes, I could go on and on with annoying word play, riffing on my crippling back pain, but I’ll spare you for now and succinctly relate the cause of all these word play riffages. Picture it: There I was, Friday morning amidst the bucolic splendor of FATS trail system, mindin’ my own business, zipping around without a care in the world when suddenly out of nowhere, a sharp left turn had me unclipped and extending a leg for wash-out preparation. I stayed upright but upon planting my leg down, I felt my lower back seize up like so many over-torqued bottom bracket cups. To quote “Aliens”-era Paxton, “Game over man, game over.” With no implement of suicide at hand, I duly hobbled back to the car and drove home, tears of back spasm-y pain streaming down my face. Ugh, it was wretched. The first two hours of the ride were the most wonderful thing ever. The next hour and a half would’ve tested Siddhartha’s patience. Deep Step>Big Rock (counter)>Tower (clockwise)>Tower (counter)> Big Rock (clockwise) > Connector > BACK DISASTER > Parking Lot. As usual, big thanks to Phil at Chain Reaction and all the trail minions who built and maintain one of the best trail systems on the planet. Did you ever know that you’re my hero (collectively)?