12 day mountain bike trip!

[cy]

oopsss... shows ya how good I can add

25lbs gear including two sets of paniers is still pretty darn light.

[turbodog]

Well...

I'm leaving tomorrow so today's the pre-flight check.

Getting a little nervous for some reason.

[cy]

sounds pretty normal to me...

looks like you've checked and rechecked your gear and you are ready to go.

have a GREAT TIME!!!

[turbodog]

Less than 12 hours to go.

I'm swamped with work so I doubt I'll be back on CPF until I return in 2 weeks.

I'll see what kind of cool pictures I can bring back.

[rscanady]

have fun and stay safe, looking forward to your report out.

Ryan

[turbodog]

Just got back.

Logged 1705 miles since yesterday morning.

[rscanady]

WOW, that is awesome, was it all riding, or a comnination, how was the trip, I am tentatively planning this in 2008, based upon your feedback.

Ryan

[turbodog]

Here's the mileage data:

time....distance.....average mph

175.....15.59.....5.3
199.....27.91.....8.3
277.....39.57.....8.5
203.....36.80.....10.8
228.....28.54.....7.5
270.....22.69.....5
232.....38.99.....10

Total miles pedalled: 210.09

My total wrecks: 3
1. over handlebars when front tire crosses on me
2. down _HARD_ on my side when front tire washes out. Large road rash patch on hip and cheek
3. fell down ravine and got impaled by tree limbs. Almost lost my right eye from branch stab.

Mechanicals: 2
1. snakebite on rear tube
2. broken spoke on rear drive side

Both were fixed pretty easily. I found (luckily) that a standard leatherman tool will fit the cassette's lockring.

Max speed achieved: 49.3 mph
Please note that this is with a loaded bike that handled like a pregnant walrus.

One "smart" member of our group decided to touch his brake rotor after a 3 mile downhill. We figure it was 400-500 degrees from the scream he produced!

WOW, that is awesome, was it all riding, or a comnination, how was the trip, I am tentatively planning this in 2008, based upon your feedback.

Ryan

[turbodog]

Here is the daily data:

1 - Telluride to Last Dollar
2800 - ascent
550 - descent
14.9 - miles
8,750' to 11,000' - elevation

2 - Last Dollar to Spring Creek
1,600' - ascent
3,500' - descent
26.3 - miles
11,000 to 9,100' - elevation

3 - Spring Creek to Columbine
1,800' - ascent
1,800' - descent
34.3 - miles
9,100' to 9,100' - elevation

4 - Columbine to Big Creek
1,600' - ascent
2,200' - descent
37.2 - miles
9,100' to 8,500'
hot showers available here

5 - Big Creek to Gateway
2,100' - ascent
5,900' - descent
32.5 - miles
8,500' to 4,700' - elevation

6 - Gateway to La Sal Hut
4,000' - ascent
900' - descent
22.5 - miles
4,700' to 8,200' - elevation

7 - La Sal Hut to Moab
2,000' - ascent
6,200' - descent
38.4 - miles
8,200' to 4,000' - elevation

Please note day 1 and day 6. They were some real &*^%(#* climbs.

Ever spend 20+ miles in 1:1 gear?

[rscanady]

I so have to do this now, just curious was the snakebite a real snakebite to the tire or just a double puncture.

Glad to hear that you are okay, sometimes those impaling situations can be sort of scary, you think "just a few inches more this way and...."

Sounds like you had a grueling but awesome time, gonna do it again, and if so when?

Ryan

[turbodog]

No actual snake was used in flatting my tire.

It was like a few more millimeters actually. I have injury to the top eyelid.

I so have to do this now, just curious was the snakebite a real snakebite to the tire or just a double puncture.

Glad to hear that you are okay, sometimes those impaling situations can be sort of scary, you think "just a few inches more this way and...."

Sounds like you had a grueling but awesome time, gonna do it again, and if so when?

Ryan

[turbodog]

Here's a picture of my eye.

[DieselDave]

That's waaay scary

[cy]

sounds like an epic trip!
had to have been super tuff climbing with a std bike, much less a fully loaded bike. betha your brakes got the full workout too!

so what would you have left at home? to lighten up your weight?
anyone dragging a bobs trailer VS paniers?

glad your eye came out OK... pretty scary!

[turbodog]

I would have left:

chamois cream
extra shirts
water filter
extra batteries for lights, I only used 2 123s


I smelled my brakes burning several times. You had to alternate between them to keep them from melting. Then there was this one hill that I had to sacrifice them both just to keep it under control.

One dude had a bob trailer. I would not recommend it at all. We had a good bit of rock climbing. The trailer kept scraping. It also limited his speed as it would fishtail at speeds over 30 mph. This cost him a lot of time as we spent plenty of time in the 35-40 mph range.

I took over 300 photos. We're all mailing our photos to each other on cd/dvd. One guy had a $3000+ digital camera. He filled up 6-7 GB of compact flash cards. Ouch.

When I get the pictures in I'll go through them and pick some good ones.

[cy]

if that's all you would have left at home.
you were packed clean to the bone.

guess that settles the bobs VS paniers for this trip.
didn't even factor in stability of desending with bobs.
rock climbing with a bobs would be the pits...

how was the aclaimation to higher altitudes? anyone get altitude sickness?

[turbodog]

I'd say we took about a 30-40% hit on day 1.

After that it was maybe like 15% on day 2 then nothing after that.

The main thing was the magnitude of the hills. Day 6 was 22 miles uphill. And we're talking REAL uphill.

if that's all you would have left at home.
you were packed clean to the bone.

guess that settles the bobs VS paniers for this trip.
didn't even factor in stability of desending with bobs.
rock climbing with a bobs would be the pits...

how was the aclaimation to higher altitudes? anyone get altitude sickness?

[turbodog]

Good news!

I just received some photos from one of our riders, the guy with the "pro" digital camera.


Bad news:

The SMALLEST photo ois 20 megs. The largest is 80 megs.

Someone got a web host with 4 gigs of space?

[turbodog]

Ok,

I have put some of the smaller pics up on my google web site.

The whole page is ~30 megs so just sit back and let it load.

http://turbodog99.googlepages.com/pictures

They are uploading now. The page will be up in about 30 minutes.

[turbodog]

I've got some of them up now.

You can click on them for the full-size image.

[rscanady]

WOW, that looks amazing. I am sold!

Ryan

[cy]

NICE pics!

[turbodog]

I've got a total of 806 pictures, totalling 2.26 GB.

[Darell]

Ah... finally caught up to you. Lost the thread for a bit! Amazing to hear that you're

a. Back
b. Alive

Not a word about O2 starvation? I could barely handly 6k feet! How did you do it at 11?

[eebowler]

I'm eager to see more pics!

[turbodog]

I don't have the web hosting space for any more.

If someone has space for them all, I'll upload them.

I'm eager to see more pics!

[turbodog]

Slight slowdown on day1. No problem after that.

Ah... finally caught up to you. Lost the thread for a bit! Amazing to hear that you're

a. Back
b. Alive

Not a word about O2 starvation? I could barely handly 6k feet! How did you do it at 11?

[Darell]

Slight slowdown on day1. No problem after that.

You're an animal. Remind me not to go MTB'ing with you anytime soon.

[turbodog]

Ahhh....

To revive an old thread....

Seems I am making plans to go back this summer. Am even working on taking the wife along. If she goes, we'll take the telluride to moab route (easy one). If I go alone, it'll be durango to moab.

Finally found an airline that flies from my place to telluride. Will be nice not having to drive 24+ hours (one way).

[turbodog]

To revive it again...

Never went in 2010, but will likely go in July 2011. Wife said she would go, but my better judgment didn't hold her to that.