Overnight to wallace, id

 With the extra days off over labor day I decided to go on a quick trip. I've been threatening to go ride my bike into the forest and not come back for awhile now and finally did something about it. I do have frame bags and a big handlebar roll and a lightweight tent and stuff to try bikepacking but yeah nah I stuck a big saddle bag on my gravel bike with a change of clothes and booked a hotel room in wallace, id.

I have been drawing lines on maps and planning routes in the region between missoula and idaho a lot recently so while I have some other ideas for 2-3 day trips from home I decided to give this one a try. From home it was going to be about 130mi each way but I got a little bit of a late start monday and drove about 30mi west of town and parked at a friend's house. This didn't really subtract anything from the trip as it's a pretty boring ride out there that I do all the time.

So yeah starting point in the ninemile valley, which runs mostly west and north.

There's one main way out of there at the end, over siegal pass, and some other possible routes that i've drawn out but haven't really tried. The line I had put me right in st regis, mt, along I90 where the clark fork river takes a turn and goes over to meet the flathead river. The valley gets narrower and steeper and then you're really climbing

I came from down there

I'm going down there

The climb up was really loose and rocky and difficult in places and I was a little concerned about the trip down the other side. I also have some pretty flimsy challenge getaway tires on the bike right now so definitely needed to be careful. But the road was super, super smooth dirt

It kind of looked like hardly any cars ever drive on it.

Where am I going?

Where am I?

Anyway after a really nice ride down amazingly smooth dirt roads I notice a sign that says "road closed 1.5 miles." Surely that doesn't apply to me. Get to a gate and a ranch that says "stop" and road closed but there's also not anything saying no tresspassing and there's a hunter's sign in box so I go by and ride through the ranch and it seems fine. Come out the other side and stop in st regis and refill my bottles.

Then it's old rail bed all the way to wallace on the route of the olympian and the northern pacific route up and over lookout pass. The hiawatha trail is a really popular biking thing and you can rent bikes and get shuttled on it so you're only going downhill, through old tunnels and over bridges and stuff. So I was expecting a little more out of the route but it was really just a long long time on straight and almost flat road

I did cross one bridge which seemed a little bit sketchy. The railings and wood on the edges were kind of falling apart and it was really high up.

Anyway getting closer to the pass was more interesting but the one tunnel it goes through is closed due to safety reasons and there's a steep bypass around it

At lookout pass I stopped for some more water and stuff and then it was all downhill to wallace

Wallace, ID

First stop was the hotel but as I rolled up a van full of people was unloading and checking in so I went to the brewery. Then got checked in, and they even had rags for cleaning bikes and didn't say anything when i rolled mine through the lobby and to my room. And they had a pool and hot tub. So yeah, wallace inn seems like a good choice if you're there. Had some dinner in town, got some snacks and stuff at the store, sat in the hot tub for a bit, then went to bed fairly early.

My route home was different from my route there, going over cooper pass and into thompson falls, downstream of where the flathead and clark fork meet. The road goes out a super narrow valley filled with old mines and it was fairly interesting, but also... not nice. Dilapidated shacks and campers everywhere and broken falling apart shit and old mines and mine waste.

There was a construction project putting in a new culvert for the creek in burke that i had to wait a bit to get through

Then dirt and up more

Something like 3000ft of climbing to start my morning and then a really steep descent down the other side that had me concerned about the brakes. you want fresh fluid and pads for that one for sure.

Then pavement for awhile into thompson falls. I've ridden this road a few times and the climb up and over thompson pass is really neat. You can get to wallace all on pavement but the route i took is a lot more direct. From thompson falls I had to ride 25mi on hwy 200 to plains but being tuesday at like noon after labor day traffic was pretty light. Good thing because there's little to no shoulder for some of it, and the rumble strips are kind of dead center where there is a shoulder which gives you a very narrow strip of smooth pavement

Then I got to plains and crossed the river and took a back road bypassing highway for awhile.

Then it was a couple more miles on 200, then a turn onto 135, which goes along the clark fork and would put me back in st regis if was going that far. But I wasn't, and after 3mi I took a left turn to go up to siegel pass and back into the ninemile

how far is it to the top?

almost there?

siegel pass, came from down there

almost crashed on the descent when i got into the loose stuff on the edge and had my front tire slide a bit. Almost to the end but actually still far from anywhere and without reception. would have been a real bad spot to hurt myself. i should probably get an inreach or something.

anyway made it down, are we fucking there yet?

about 7-8 more mi from there. Anyway, made it back to car. good route, fun trip. pretty hard. Little over 100mi and like 7k feet a day. monday almost entirely dirt and gravel, tuesday almost half pavement.

day 1: https://www.strava.com/activities/12310894722

day 2: https://www.strava.com/activities/12319339099

The new Vittoria Mezcal

 Being one of my favorite tires, I was excited to see a new version of the Mezcal floating around last year, ridden by pros and sponsored riders. They released them this spring and I ordered a set for the hei hei, which had been rolling on some syerras since last summer, and was due for some fresh XC tires.

Here it is next to the old mezcal. The previous xc-trail and xc-race tires were both available in 29x2.25 and 2.35, which is kind of not a big enough difference to bother imo but anyway the new one is now a 2.4, or 60-622. The old tires were the "anthracite" grey casing for the trail version and then a tan wall for race, both 120tpi but a little thicker on the trail version. The new "XC RACE" tire is 60tpi and available in both black and tan, with no apparent difference between the two other than color. I would have preferred black I think but tan was the color actually in stock so hey lets try a new look

Pretty good what with the matte green frame accents and copper chain and such. Guess I have an earth tone vibe going currently.

In addition to being wider and possibly more durable than the previous race version with the lower thread count, these use a new rubber compound that is supposedly softer, grippier, but still faster rolling. It also costs $10 more at retail, which to me seems a little strange given a lower thread count casing and a single compound rubber, where the old tire had a "4c," 4 rubber compound. That's one hard base layer, a medium hardness down the center, and then softer on the cornering knobs. So probably they're going to wear out faster and might have been cheaper to make. But it's ok vittoria i still like your tires.

I put both on the scale, listed weight is 730g, mine measured 742 and 760. I measure both because I'm a nerd and also to put the heavier one on the back. So a little heavier than they say, and not any different than the old xc-trail 29x2.35 I pulled out of the package (i think it was 750ish).

Maybe you can do this with most tan wall tires but it's a little unsettling that you can see light through the sidewalls

Seems like I should stay away from sharp rocks... The weight and thread count at least suggest similar durability to the old xc-trail, which i always felt were pretty reliable.

It does also appear the tread itself is slightly wider on the new 2.4 when put up next to a 2.35 but I didn't actually measure it

Anyway, I have a couple rides on them, both up mount dean stone actually. First one was thursday with team stampede, up to the top and back down. Then saturday after work I did a longer loop, riding up dean stone, across house of sky, down into pattee through sam braxton, up crazy canyon to the top of mt sentinel, and then back into town via chopsticks and the moZ.

So we did hit a few rocks out there, especially down chopsticks, and I managed not to slice open a brand new tire.

These haven't been tested on bicycle rolling resistance yet (as a pro member I voted for them as well as the new peyote), but the old version is pretty fast and definitely felt fast riding it. These new ones also feel fast, and currently my mtb tire speed butt dyno is calibrated to the schwalbe thunder burt, the fastest tire tested by BRR, on my pretty lightweight hardtail. So, "feels fast" to me coming from that bike at least is some sort of an indicator that they actually are.

The casing is still light and supple with the lower thread count and feels good. You could say lively, springy, responsive perhaps. The rubber is definitely soft and grippy and i didn't notice a loss in traction compared to the slightly worn syerras. But a new tire with fresh, sharp knobs always feels good.

So yeah, initial review, seems good. mainly I like that they have a bit of extra volume. Probably the only reason to not ride a 2.4 XC tire these days is if you weigh 100lbs. Wednesday night we're on the traditional xc course at marshall, which, I'll probably ride on the trek but it is tempting to take a spin on the hei hei, which definitely gets down to the bottom faster and is more fun, but probably is actually slower over a full lap due to the weight and tire difference. Should probably do some back to back test laps some day.

Unravel the scratchgravels XC race report

 Went to Helena and raced the scratchgravels this weekend. This was the first mountain bike race I ever did, back in 2014, on my Kona King Kahuna. I think I won the cat 3 2 lap race, and remember getting lapped by Landon Beckner, who was a pretty promising young junior at the time. My laps were about 27min long and my average speed according to strava was 12.9mph.

I've since improved a little at bike racing, despite now being 10 years older. It appears my fastest recorded lap on strava was 22:10 in 2022, on my hei hei. the last two years I've done it on my procaliber, but the start got moved forward a bit so the first laps aren't getting counted on the strava segment.

Anyway, yeah, been going to this race for awhile now. it's on low elevation trails and double track on the northwest side of Helena, and is a great first race of the season in montana. It's also great for younger racers and beginners and i try to do a little promotion in Missoula to get people to go out to it. This year we had 3 of the team stampede kids but not too many others. Kalispell brought the usuals of Matt, Joel, Stella, Alan was there from bozeman, and I think they were fairly happy with the total registration numbers.

The start is uphill on a double track so it's a little narrow and at best you might get 5 wide on the line. I was on the 2nd row and at the start slotted into about 4th wheel on the left tire track. It took me about a minute to get a little impatient plus I noticed the guys in the track next to me possibly creeping up, so instead of staying there and getting boxed in and being in the bunch for the first downhill corner I picked up the pace and hopped over into the other track, then led over the crest of the first hill and into the turn. going into it first means I got a nice clean wide line and immediately created a little gap, leaving the others to chase me on the generally uphill but rolling double track, then there's an really annoyingly steep short climb into the first singletrack section.

I kept on it and had Matt and one other guy chasing me, just a few seconds back but never on my wheel through most of the 1st lap. You reach the low point of the course and then climb back up on doubletrack to the start finish and that was where Matt got the closest. he was essentially on my wheel but I really wanted to make him work for it since we were uphill into a headwind and he never quite got there. From there it was pretty uneventful- the gap kept creeping up and then I just kept up a steady pace and kept drinking my drink mix, and held on for the win. very cool to get that one and a nice start to the mtb season. Thanks Helena united cycling for putting it on.

Going to the strava data my overall time was over 4min faster than 2022 when I set that "fastest lap." but by selecting first lap it appears i was at least a few seconds faster. Was also about a minute and a half faster than last year on the same bike in similar conditions (cool, cloudy, some very light rain, a little wind). Average speed this time was 15.2, for 4 laps. 

Tire review - Schwalbe Thunder Burt

 Last summer before butte, I found myself with two sets of mtb tires that were getting a little worn down and wanted something that was fast, light, and had fresh tread for the race. The racing ray/ralph combo was been pretty good all around on the hei hei but is a little on the heavy side (770g/tire for 29x2.35 super ground). Pirelli XC/RCs are light at 700g in a 2.4 but never really felt super fast and after a spring of use the grip had fallen off significantly despite the tread wear still looking fairly ok (this is common with XC tires though- the fresh, sharp edges on the little knobs do a lot of work). It also turned out the pirellis test slow on bicycle rolling resistance. They looked cool I guess but yeah no sorry won't be buying those again.

So, deferring to the bicycle rolling resistance charts I went with the fastest tire they've tested- the schwalbe thunder burt

I'd always been curious about riding tires like this full time but was a little cautious. The kenda sabers are super light and fast and flimsy but only come out on special occasions, where these I was going to ride all the time on the hardtail plus at butte on the hei hei.

In 29x.2.25, super ground casing (there's also a lighter super race, which according to brr is slower) they came in at about 630g and measured a little on the small side with my 29mm internal width rims. I want to say 2.2 or so. Skinny and not much to them but the larger size was out of stock. With these on that loose sandy butte course, especially in the first half, I was a little all over the place but on a more normal trail and hardpack dirt they're fine. And they went fast and made it through the race. I didn't weigh my bike but with 630g tires and 1200g wheels, I'm guessing well into the 24s.

With that first set getting pretty worn I recently bought another set because I couldn't come up with a better option. This time n 2.35. They measure true to size on the same wheels and came in at 700g each. Been riding them at 19/20 psi f/r and they give a nice good cushy feel.

Mainly though, these tires roll really, really, really fast. They feel as fast as a good road tire going across town on the pavement and the bike just flies uphill out on the trails. Plus, for conditions where these would be a challenge I have the hei hei with more aggressive tires. My best description of traction on these is "better than you'd expect."

Is this a good all around tire for general mtb riding? no. But if you want to go fast, this is the one. The main downside is that they are expensive for a pretty limited condition, flimsy tire, but all the tires are getting fairly expensive these days.

Montana Gravel Challenge 2024

 I generally write up a little summary of most of my races but rarely post them on here. They just go in a dumb forum thread even though I could easily just copy and paste here too. So I'm going to try to do that more.

I did miss a gravel thing up in polson a few weeks ago I think because I was tired and felt bad and it was raining. This weekend was the 3-day montana gravel challenge, and it's raining. Friday we were out setting up the course for the afternoon time trial plus the Saturday course. Between this morning when I decided to shorten the TT a bit and when we actually raced it got a lot wetter so definitely good call to avoid the twisty descent that was already pretty fucked before it rained more.

Ivan won, followed by Will, another young person who is a speed skater from butte. The actual pro MTB racer was 4th. Then Dan, a damn junior, fucking Ben, then I came in 8th, but 1st in 40+. I think if I hadn't slowed down for a car at an intersection that was headed toward me really fast (but the course marshall did get it to stop) I possibly would have beat Ben and Porter but oh well. First time racing outside with a power meter and am ok with my numbers - 338 average and 361np for ~20min. I can average a higher HR for that amount of time and was asking myself if I should be pedaling harder some of the time but it's rolling and and uphill finish so having something left for that is good.

Rode my new orbea terra with road wheels and 34mm corsa n.exts at like 42/46 psi. Felt pretty decent on the slippery descents and corners. Going to ride same bike setup all weekend I think. Tomorrow is mainly road but with a few dirt parts and it'll be wet and there are potholes and stuff. One of the dirt sections might get cut out depending on how much it's raining. It was greasy this morning then will only get worse.

Then days 2 and 3 happened. Day 2 has been the long gravel stage of the race with 3 being a more road circuit. This year we didn't do the long gravel loop because it's a lot of logistics and probably kind of dangerous especially toward the end of the 1 lane gravel road where you're descending around blind corners. Anyway, 2nd day more pavement, with a few out and backs, one pretty gradually uphill for like 10mi, the next shorter with more climbing. The 2nd section was muddy and slick and I was out of position, went super hard chasing onto the lead group, then was almost immediately dropped up a short dirt climb near the end. Our 2nd group of 3 stayed away and Ivan won so at least there was that. So I think 9th overall but Matt beat me to win 40+. Was a little disappointed because I spent the race not really where I wanted to be, plus dressed for cold and rain which was forecast but didn't really happen, and by the time the hard pedaling began I didn't really have an opportunity to try to take off my gloves and jacket. Essentially my race summary could be "hot, flappy, bad tactics, bad positioning."

Day 3 was the "road race" with an out on dirt to a 10mi circuit that's mostly paved, with a climb on mud but thankfully the descent side was dry. This mud climb is a section I cut out of the TT on friday morning because it was a little iffy and it has only gotten worse over the last few days of periodic rain and cool temps. Andrew was there, who has some pretty good pro road and cx results, and with fresh legs, and definitely wanted the win. Ivan had the overall GC pretty locked down and just wanted a good result and a fun, hard race. We had a good team of like 5 of us, with Ivan's dad, Porter (the jr who beat me in the TT), Brian, and myself. Ivan's dad went off the front early with 2 others and we caught them at the top of the climb. 2nd lap, I find myself riding away with Cory and hold that for over a lap, and then I see a small group chasing us down on lap 3 (of 4). It's Andrew drilling it on the front, along with Will from butte who got 2nd in the TT, Carter the pro MTB racer, and Ivan and Porter. Awesome. I hop on and then Andrew goes up the climb super hard. I'm on the back behind Carter and he gets dropped so I guess I'm dropped too and a small chase group with Jake, Dan, and a couple other guys picks us up. Ok cool I get to sit in for the last lap. After the climb and descent on the circuit, which we took fairly easy, it's about 2k generally uphill to the finish. Things slowed down a bit and I went up the side, not attacking super hard, but getting a gap and going for it. Everyone had been working except me and I kind of blew things up, but Micheal (3rd in TT), got up to me and then another guy Shawn from canada put in a good dig too and just barely got me at the line for 5th. Andrew won, porter 2nd, ivan 3rd, and 6th for me is pretty good for the team. Then Ivan won overall plus I got the 40+ win.

I think I'm happy with my power numbers but also don't have a lot of "not zwift in the winter" numbers. Got an email from intervals.icu after every day of racing. Yesterday I had a pretty good but not good enough average power for the last 40min, today I had a normalized power of 305w for 2 hours plus a best 1min, 2min, and 5min for the season. Also yesterday morning I felt like garbage and my watch told me my "training readiness" was 14. This morning it said 7 but I felt better and had more sleep.

Next weekend is a mountain bike race in helena, then our wed night xc series gets started although I'm not sure what the plan is for that. Usually it's a whole thing for me setting up all the courses and gradually getting the pro xc ready but it's apparently a lot lower profile this year.

Also did a really good job of fucking up my bike. Really hoping the headset bearings are ok because guess where the brake hoses go. The bike, wheel, and tire setup was perfect all weekend though. The guy who hosts the race had bike wash stations in his yard so after every stage I hosed off my bike, put it in the stand and wiped everything down good, then put some silca super secret on the chain every night once it dried out. Even after the nasty slick mud section on day 2 my shifting felt good and drivetrain seemed quiet.

Pirelli cinturato gravel follow up

 Last year I put up a little review of the Pirelli gravel H that I was using. It's here.

I rode those all the rest of the year and was pretty happy with them, although by june-july, as the tires wore and road and trail conditions got drier and looser, I was starting to notice a pretty good lack of grip especially up front. At garden city gravel especially I felt like I was really lacking traction on the final descent, where I got dropped and then just barely chased back on to our group. Not long after that I bought a new front tire- the gravel RC, which is a pretty good match with a little more aggressive knobs. It's a mini version of the XC-RC (which tbh I didn't like that much) and shares the double edge knob thing you see on some other tires like the maxxis aspen and ardents etc.

This combo I like really well when you want a little more traction. The front end bites better and gives you better turn in response.

I rode the gravel H f/r for about half the year and then put that RC up front in the late summer, and overall was really happy with these tires. They don't have the most supple feel, like, say, a handmade challenge tire, but they roll fast and have good durability for all the gravel and forest road type riding I do around here. I had plenty of those impacts where you think "uh oh that might be a puncture" without issue.

So I bought a fresh set of the gravel H tires for this year, although I do also want to try some other things like the conti terra speed, or maybe a challenge getaway, which both test faster than the pirellis by a little but I do like how well these have held up. Anyway, I guess review summary is they get my "would buy again" seal of approval.

The Hei Hei's best version

 I got my hei hei cr in 2020 and since then I've changed or modified basically every component, mostly in the search for lightness and more speed on the race course. Sometimes that search went a little too far but for the most part it's trended in generally the right direction. I mean, who doesn't like a lighter mountain bike?

That is just about the best a Hei Hei CR can get, in my opinion. Right about 26lbs flat for an XL, 120mm travel bike on somewhat real tires with pedals and bottle cages and a dropper that works. There are a few things that could make it a touch lighter but some things were chosen due to availability at the time or price or both.

The highlights are that it's a hei hei. DT swiss carbon wheels, X01 axs drivetrain. guide rsc brakes, bikeyoke divine sl 125mm dropper, Industry nine a35 stem with raceface carbon bars, and an assortment of fancy little titanium and carbon bits. I also swapped the standard grip damper in the fox 34sc for a fit 4 which has more control of low speed compression, and then revalved the shock to a firm digressive tune which makes it more responsive while pedaling hard but still pretty smooth over rougher stuff (I think).

The tires are the biggest variable, and depending on what I'm doing they might be something very flimsy like the thunder burts I used for the butte 100, or the minion dhf/aggressor combo I rode for awhile but decided was just a little too heavy and slow for a bike like this. What makes this bike ride the best to me are an aggressive XC or light trail tire. This spring I started out on 2.35 racing ray/ralphs because I had them, and now it's on Vittoria Syerras, which I also rode last fall. The syerras manage to be pretty light and fast while offering better grip and durability than your average XC tire. I also have an insert in the rear tire.

It's basically a bike I can ride just about anywhere, and it'll go pretty fast and be fun while doing it. So now that it's just about perfect I'm considering a new bike of course. 

If anyone wants a list I guess I can do that

Frame: 2020 Kona Hei Hei CR
Fork: Fox 34 step cast performance, 120mm, fit 4 damper. 78psi, 10 clicks rebound, 14 lsc
Shock: Fox Float DPS, Digressive rebound firm, digressive compression firm, 0.4 in^2 volume spacer. 210psi, 5 clicks rebound
Wheels: DT Swiss XRC1501 with 54t ratchet
Tires: varies, currently vittoria syerra, 18/19 psi f/r
Cranks: truvativ stylo carbon, 34t chainring
Cassette: X01 10-50
Derailleur: X01 AXS
Chain: XX1 copper
Brakes: Sram Guide RSC w/ carbon blades, 180/160 clx rotors, ti caliper bolts, ti clamp bolts
Handlebars: raceface next R. 780mm, 25mm rise, esi chunky grips
Stem: Industry nine A35 50mm w/ ti bolts
Seatpost: Bikeyoke Divine SL 125mm
seat clamp: bikeyoke squeezy
Dropper lever: Wolftooth light action
Saddle: Shimano pro stealth offroad
Pedals: shimano XT race
bottle cages: arundel mandible carbon w/ ti bolts