Friday, February 12, 2010

The hut trip…..planning has begun…sorta

Last night we did our weekly ride around lake Chabot. It was actually a fairly warm night (and I was overdressed) and slightly, but not too muddy.

As we began the long climb up Brandon, my mind, as it usually does, began to wander. And it wandered towards our upcoming Telluride to Utah mountain bike trip in August. My first thought, as I struggled to breathe on the climb was, “WTH was I thinking???”

Eventually though, as I found my rhythm, I started to really think about the trip. Can I really pull this off? What gear should I bring? Should I put a shock on the Jabberwocky? Should I bring the geared bike instead? Should I stop payment on the deposit and invest that money in a good psychiatrist instead?

Granted, none of the individual days is going to be very long, at least not distance-wise. The real issue will be 7 consecutive days and the fact that we’ll be starting at an elevation of 8700ft and going UP from there. Oh yeah, and we’ll be out of cell range and on our own for about 7 days...

Thankfully, one of my friends has done this trip before so I have a resource regarding just what to bring, what to expect, etc. The only problem is, my friend is a very strong rider and his idea of a rough day is probably much different than my idea of a rough day. He’s also offered to let me use his rack and panniers which is cool. Although, I’m not sure if they’ll fit on the Jabber or not since it’s a 29er. I assume they mount to the frame, but I’ll have to look into that to confirm.

As my mind continued to wander during the climb.. yes, it’s a long climb and I’m slow so there was a LOT of time for mind wandering... it dawned on me that I should probably learn to work on my bike sometime between now and August.

Actually, my bike, being a rigid single speed is pretty simple and I built it from the ground up so that’s not an issue, but my son in law’s bike, and Jerry and Chris N’s bikes have gears and shocks and all those types of things that can break and or go out of adjustment.
Maybe I’ll talk to the guys over at the Eden bike shop about taking one of their Saturday classes on bike maintenance and repair.

Eventually, the climb ended and since everyone was up there waiting, I didn’t want them to see me talking to myself so I focused back on the ride and put thoughts of the hut trip off till later...like maybe Friday at work when I’m supposed to be working.

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