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| The Dirtfest Expo row. |
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| The NoTubes tent at the Expo. Bob basically lived here all day each day-though he did get out to ride a bit. |
DirtFest, put on by DirtRag Magazine, is a mountain bike festival and industry expo held down on the Allegrippis Trails near Raystown Lake in Pennsylvania. Last year Bob attended as part of the Stan's NoTubes contingent and Stan's would have a presence again at the vendor expo this year. Except Garrett (Bob's son) and I got to tag along.
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| Richie Rich preaches tubeless gospel. |
Bob and his work ethic headed off to staff the expo tent when we got to Raystown Lake. Garrett and I had "play" in mind and whipped out bike clothes, bikes, water bottles, sunscreen, the works. Bug spray for good measure. I decided to hit up the 2pm women's-only skills clinic.
I didn't really have time before the clinic to get a demo bike signed out and fitted, so I rode my own bike. All the women's clinics for the weekend met up at the Specialized tent with Rebecca Rusch, who's running what is called the "GoldRusch Tour" worldwide to encourage getting more women on bikes. Rebecca has won the Leadville 100 three times now, I think, and currently holds the women's course record for that race.
Rebecca gave brief introductions for herself, fellow coach Kate Holden-a pro downhiller-and several other assistant coaches. They passed around energy gels and GU Chews for anybody who wanted, and took a head count. We had somewhere around 30 women there.
We rolled out to the road, up the hill and over a short loop of trail as a warmup then regrouped on a small side road just off the trail. I met up with Molly Hurford and another roadie-we had ALL raced Battenkill last year and this year. While our riding group regrouped, we had a brief discussion about what happened to all of us in the sand pits there and then shut up when the experts started talking.
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| Class in session. Katie waits to demonstrate while Rebecca talks. |
Rebecca and Katie discussed and demonstrated basic hand and arm position on the handlebars, one-finger braking if you have disc brakes, and "attack position"-elbows out, weight centered, hands light on the grips. Then we worked on a braking drill (pedal hard downhill, start braking at one marker on the road and come to a near stop by the next marker WITHOUT skidding, then ride slowly as possible to the next marker). This helped some get a feel for their brakes and allowed the coaches to get a sense of how comfortable we felt on our bikes-or didn't, seeing as many of us rode demo bikes from the expo instead of our own bikes. Here's some video recap:
http://www.rebeccarusch.com/cornering-skills-101-dirt-fest-2012/
Near the end of the video you hear some hooting and "Oh my God" in the background...that's a couple of guys getting excited about seeing so many honest-to-goodness real live women on the trail. FEMALES. ON WHEELS. WHOA.
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| A rapt audience of women on bikes. |
After our first talk and skills drills the coaches divided the women into three groups based on skill level and took us out to ride. We would regroup periodically to discuss something about the trail that required a particular skill, and practice that skill on that section. Katie Holden led our group and I think those of us who could see her while she was riding saw some interesting things about the way she set up for corners and dived through. We rode a lap of the trail called Hydro (it flows). The trails at Allegrippis are variations on pump tracks that twist one way and another as they head up and down. Sometimes you'll find some rocks, an occasional root, a patch of mud. But I've never seen such inviting trails. Pick your speed and make your own fun. Those first two hours rolled by pretty quickly. We were repeatedly gawked at by groups of men on the trail. I overheard one say, sotto voce, that "I've never seen so many chicks on bikes." After getting enough of an eyeful they usually rolled on. Over the weekend this would continue. Katie said it was AWESOME that DirtFest wasn't just another sausagefest this year. But it got a little weird sometimes-even though women were at their strongest in numbers ever, once we disbanded from the clinic groups we dropped firmly back into the minority. Wearing a roadie/tight spandex kit also got a lot of stares from guys.
Another discovery: a lot of mountain bikers seem to believe that going uphill isn't always necessarily worth the effort. Every time we tried to reach a group consensus on which trail to take next, several people would chime, "But we'd have to go uphill to get there. Yeah, we'd have to climb a long way up. No, we don't want to do that." I kept my roadie mouth shut. Honestly, it's kind of hard to imagine any trail that only ever goes downhill. Unless you take a ski lift up and wear a full-face helmet and body armor on the way down, and that's never going to be my type of trail. Sometimes climbing ISN'T fun, but maybe I just believe in keeping things in balance. There should be some "up" and some "down" in any good ride, right?
After the clinics each day all the women regrouped at the Specialized tent (the meeting place for all of the women's rides) and after each clinic the coaches chose an "MVP" from each group to receive free schwag (helmets, sunglasses, big GU sampler packs). Just about anything could qualify you for an MVP award: best outfit, worst outfit, best crash, funniest crash, best attitude-you name it. Anything that the coaches saw and liked would be fair game.
The structure after the first clinic changed a little. Rebecca said that repeat customers coming back the next day would be divided back into their groups by level but new people would still have an introduction to the basics while the repeat riders would do more riding and more focused practice on specific things based on what we wanted to learn.
After the clinic ended at 4pm I signed out a Niner Air Nine Carbon RDO (Race Day Optimized). I thought that since Niner ONLY makes 29-inch wheel MTBs, I might as well begin with one of their offerings. http://ninerbikes.com/
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| Niner Air Nine Carbon RDO. This demo model's name is Trish-she's labeled on her top tube. |
While this bike impressed me with its "rollover" and lightness, I had an odd sense that I sat in the bike rather than on it. After a half hour I decided to stop looking at the bike and focusing on that "this isn't my bike" feeling. Then it felt great but also felt less than nimble at in some corners and on a couple of tight uphill turns. Then again, you could blame rider error for this and I couldn't rule that out. Regardless I thought maybe that the next day I would try some 650B bikes. But on returning the Niner and taking a look around at the other tents, I found there were NO 650B demo bikes available to test in the whole expo. I didn't get to ask every company rep personally, but I never saw any 650B bikes. So: more 29ers on the sample menu for Saturday. I've been told multiple times by more than one person that being 5'3 I'm too small to ride a 29er. I didn't feel one way or another after riding only one of them, but I always had a certain sense of incredulity-and indignation-that anybody could just tell me what I could and couldn't ride. With regards to riding a 29er, in one particular case I wondered if the same opinion (you're too small) would have been given to a short guy as opposed to a short woman. Even as far as women have come in oh, the last century, people still say there are things women can't or shouldn't do, or just can't ever do as well as men. So I don't know.
Bob, Garett and I stayed at a local rental house with the NoTubes crew for the weekend. We had a great home-cooked group dinner and drinks Friday night, generally hung out and enjoyed the company of Rich Straub, Richie Rich, Cindy Koziatek, Mike Busch and his girlfriend Amanda who did a fantastic job cooking all weekend.
I stayed up sort of late because we had so much fun hanging out but eventually turned in since I planned to ride all day on Saturday.
The next day at the clinic we met a few new riders and Sue Haywood also arrived to help teach. I signed out a full-carbon Felt Nine Team. I forgot to take a picture so here's a link.
http://www.feltbicycles.com/USA/2012/Mountain/Nine-Series/Nine-Team.aspx
Once the demo mechanic had fitted everything and swapped pedals, I went over to the Specialized tent for the 10am clinic ride.
Garrett wanted to join the morning group and the girls agreed to let him-he went with the "first-timer" group and I went off with Sue and Katie with another group to do more riding, and this time we would just go ride while Sue and Katie observed and gave pointers during periodic stops. I had more to think about than the bike I rode but when I finally looked down at what I sat on during a break in riding, it hit me that this thing was a serious go-fast machine. It could do MUCH MORE than I was capable of making it do-but who knew a mountain bike could ride like this one? Granted, at a price point almost three times what my road bike cost, you'd think it would ride itself but it impressed the pants off me. I hardly knew my wheels weren't the "right" size. It felt exceptionally stiff and climbed right along with me in a way the Niner didn't quite manage the day before.
We had so much fun swooping up and down and all over the place that our clinic group returned to the Specialized tent maybe fifteen minutes later than we planned. I asked Rebecca and the other coaches if they'd seen Garrett come back. Nope. I got worried. Rebecca told me to come back in 45 minutes if I didn't find Garrett-and she and the other coaches would help me to look for him.
Granted, the trails were mostly short, fairly easy loops, completely well-marked with maps at every major intersection. We were in the middle of a whole MTB festival. Garrett had a map, full water bottle with electrolyte tabs and pocketful of snacks, and there were SO many people around someone would have seen him somewhere. But I needed to know where he was. So I rode back to the Felt tent to return the fancy bike and thanked the demo reps (I told them I'd come back later to get more info about the bike). I grabbed my own bike, stopped at the NoTubes tent to tell Bob that Garrett was AWOL and I would go locate him. After a half hour of cruising the trails and asking people if they'd seen a kid in a blue Corning kit like mine, I found Garrett rolling along with one of the DirtRag Magazine assistant coaches and a group of five or six women. They were all having a grand old time. It turned out the beginner group ended up having so much fun that half of the group and one of the coaches decided to stay out longer and keep riding. One sixty-something woman in this group stayed out even after whacking into a tree face-first. She earned an MVP award for jumping back up and yelling, "That was AWESOME."
I made the rounds and told the expo staff, Rebecca and the other coaches that we had located Garrett and thanked them for their willingness to help. Bob and I had a talk with Garrett about "knowing where you are" and then we made hot dogs and burgers on the grill set up behind the NoTubes tent.
After lunch, I cruised the row of demo tents looking for my next test ride. Giant had loaned out all their small 29er hardtails. So did Trek. Then I saw the Cannondale tent and asked the rep there if he had anything in small frames. He said no and again I felt let down. But then he said, "Well, how tall are you? Five three? I definitely have something you can ride." Turns out Cannondale doesn't make 29ers in size small yet, and if you want a women's specific 29er, you might get to ride one sometime in 2013. BUT BUT BUT the medium worked for me, once I stopped looking at those large wheels. The bike was the Cannondale Flash 29 Carbon 2. Hardtail XC race bike, sharp looking black and white carbon frame with one of those weird-looking Lefty forks. I knew this bike just wouldn't do it for me. That asymmetrical fork just came off as too bizarre. But the Cannondale rep showed such enthusiasm about this bike. Besides I don't know diddly about mountain bikes and everybody else had loaned out their "little-people" bikes. So it seemed only fair to give this bike a try.
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| The great thing about demo mountain bikes is that very often they're already dirty when you get them. That way you can focus on evaluating the bike without getting too caught up mooning over a shiny paint job. This is the Cannondale I rode. |
When I showed up for my third clinic Saturday afternoon, the "advanced" group asked Katie and Sue to help us out specifically with cornering. Off we went again, through a warm-up loop, and regrouped on the paved road for some drills. We practiced some downhill zigzags on pavement to focus on leaning the bike and driving the edges of the tread straight down into the pavement (or eventually the trail). Katie leaned her bike to a startling extent in showing us what COULD be done.
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| Day 2, meeting up next to the Specialized tent (it's barely visible behind the leaves on the far left). |
We talked about steering in slower-speed corners by turning the front wheel, but our immediate focus was more on cornering (leaning the bike over more while keeping the front wheel straight). Sue Haywood: "Imagine while you're leaning your bike underneath you, that your body is still so centered above it that if you peed it would fall right on your bottom bracket." I doubt any of us will forget that one. Sue also repeatedly referred to finding someone named "Rolanda." Totally an inside joke I didn't get, so if you know what that means please clue me in. I never got to ask because every time she referred to "Rolanda," we were...rolling on. Oh, wait...
We reviewed flexibility in "attack" position, using knees and elbows as both suspension and compression, and how to push down on one hand grip or the other to turn the bike in cornering, I had some trouble with the drills we did to practice this. Sue said that when people showed her things she wanted to learn, she would do WORSE for a while until she stopped consciously thinking about it, then suddenly make improvement. I did too much thinking so maybe things would start working out later on, because they really weren't at that particular moment in time.
The Cannondale dumbfounded me. In those moments when we did actually climb, it WANTED to go uphill like no mountain bike I've ever known. I guess only having half a front fork means the front end IS lighter, and there's less to push uphill. When our group got more aggressive through the pump-track type sections I occasionally got a little "behind" in reacting to the trail's twisting and turning. I didn't know these trails that well. The faster we went the faster they changed. If my attention jumped from trying to look as far ahead as possible to staring at some obstacle RIGHT in front of me I could quickly lose track of where we were headed. I pulled off some last-minute reflex "quick save" moves that only worked because of the bike. Wheel size seemed irrelevant. This thing wanted to go FAST. Faster than I wanted to. It was ready to do more handling-wise than I could. The other two 29ers I rode were clumsy in comparison. I didn't want to test-ride any more bikes and didn't want to give it back. I forced myself to return it.
That evening I wasn't quite ready to get off my mountain bike when everyone else was, so I pedaled a few extra VERY up and down miles to get back to the rental house to get in a little more climbing, while Garrett rode back with Cindy and then Bob followed a little later. When I got back the shower was free and Amanda had already begun to cook again. Thankfully Cindy had opened a bottle of wine almost right away, since it took some time to get dinner going because we had a WHOLE CREW of people coming for dinner. I can't remember all of their names, especially after getting into my second glass of wine. But there were lovely folks there from Niner, Felt and maybe Giant (the rep who loaned me the Felt carbon bike came)...Richie had invited all sorts of nice people. After dinner they all went back down to the campground for live music and dancing, food, drinks, general partying and silliness. A few us including Bob, Garrett, Cindy and I stayed in due to tiredness and just relaxed until we started falling asleep.
Next day, bright and early, I returned to the Cannondale tent and asked to ride it again. The Cannondale guys loved this. Maybe my first impressions were a little too good. After only two hours on the bike the day before, I'd begun thinking about ways to finance a possible purchase. It really wouldn't hurt to take it out again and look for things I disliked, maybe find a way to talk myself out of it. Unfortunately I only liked it even more.
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| Day 3: Rebecca Rusch on the left, Sue Haywood standing next to her in pink NoTubes kit, looking lost in deep thought. Vicki Barclay is the other rider in NoTubes pink. |
After a little more focused skills practice during the last clinic, I ended up in a group with Rebecca, Sue, and Vicki Barclay. Vicki is a wonderfully talented rider and a new addition to the Stan's NoTubes Pro Women's Team. I first met her, I want to say, at Windham last year. We had begun catching up the night before over dinner, but talked some more while on the trails. She was recovering from a bad concussion resulting from a crash at about 33mph on a road ride, and then falling and hitting her head AGAIN while getting checked out the hospital-apparently the hospital staff left her standing up alone for a minute and she blacked out, hitting her head on a cabinet. What were they thinking??
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I made friends with the Industry Nine reps. I told them when
I eventually get that Cannondale, I'd like to put these wheels on it. They handed me business cards and said give them a call anytime. |
I received an MVP award when we got back to the tent "for being so supportive and encouraging to all the other riders," as Sue put it. Thank you Sue and Rebecca! My prize was a cool head wrap called a "Buff" that can be worn many different ways, and a Specialized helmet which turned out to be too small but this is no problem. I will find a worthy junior who needs a helmet and pass it along. I know there's one out there somewhere.
I hope to go back to DirtFest next year, and I hope we will have even more company next year. The riding is fantastic, the people are laid-back, and you can choose any dream bike you want to hit the trails. Who's coming with us next year?
Read more about Rebecca Rusch and her Gold Rusch Tour to get women on bikes:
http://www.rebecccarusch.com
http://www.goldruschtour.com
Katie Holden's website:
http://katieholden.com/
If you haven't noticed Sue Haywood's blog (just added to my blog list), here it is:
http://susanhaywood.blogspot.com/
Cool:
http://www.rebeccarusch.com/double-top-secret-project/
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| A closer view. Pretty, aren't they? |
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| Richie Rich preaching the tubeless gospel according to Stan's to some truth-seeker. |
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