Chris King Warranty part II

It took about a week and Chris King did a good job of fixing my bottom bracket.

The BB arrived earlier than I expected. I thought maybe it would be completely replaced, but it was rebuilt with new bearings on the side where the bearings had been damaged.

It's back on my singlespeed bike and working well.

I was a little worried that Chris King would not honor their warranty but such fear was unwarranted. So if you're looking for a good bottom bracket, you can't go wrong with Chris King.

Chris King Warranty

My last ride of the season ended with a bang. Or maybe a crunch. I was riding up a fairly easy hill in Orem. It was the week before Thanksgiving and probably about 30 degrees so the ground was in great shape.

I hadn't seen anyone but just up ahead I did see a lone rider so I sped up just to see who it was, when my crank or bottom bracket made a clicking noise and got significantly hard to pedal.

I stopped and looked at it. Everything looked ok. Just tight and hard to pedal.

So I coasted back to my car, pedalling as little as possible.

I pulled the crank and looked at the bottom bracket.

It had a problem. Some of the bearings were loose and the plastic bearing cage was crushed.

The non drive side of the bottom bracket looks fine, although I haven't taken it apart. The drive side actually fell open when I pulled the crank off.



So I didn't get to see who that was ahead of me. Maybe next time.


Now, I know these are great bottom brackets, I have one on another bike and have been happy with it. So I'm not sure what caused this one to fail.

Now I will get the chance to see if Chris King really has a good warranty or if it is just a paper tiger.

I will report later on my success with getting Chris King to honour the warranty.

Timpanookee frozen loop

Thursday morning Jeff and I met and carpooled up to the Pine Hollow parking lot. The gate was closed so we rode the road up to the Timpanookee trail head.

We began riding the frozen trail over to Salamander Flat and across to the Summit trail.
We rode up to the Summit and although the trail had snow on it occasionally, it was very rideable.


From the Summit we continued up the Ridge Trail to the 4 way and down South Fork of the Deer Creek. That trail was primo. I love being able to drop my seat with a flick of a finger. That Gravity Post seatpost has got it together.

We climbed over to Mexican Flat and began climbing back to the summit. About a mile from the summit the trail melted from ice to mud and we could no longer ride so we bushwhacked up to the paved road and rode back to Pine Hollow parking lot.

It really didn't help that the motorcycles had churned the trail into the consistency of chocolate pudding.

I don't have any footage of the really bad mud here. But I have some video of the climbing up to the summit early in the ride. Notice the water running down the trail. There is also a shot of Jeff riding down to the 4 way.

SingleSpeed Friday

After realizing that I am lazy and can do most of the rides around here without stopping, I thought I need to build up some better leg strength. And all these fast guys around here seem to ride single speeds. What is so cool about that?


So I got a Niner SIR frame and started building the single speed in May. Six months later, I finished.

The crank was created from a Shimano XTR M960 Crank. I modified it for single speed use by trimming the four mount points to where they just fit the middle sprocket. This makes for a very strong, proven crank all for only 500 grams.




I built the wheel up using Stans Crest and Chris King.


I rode my new SingleSpeed for the second time on Friday. With Brett DeHart. He can ride the singlespeed much faster, but was gracious enough to wait for me several times.

Parked by the Gate before the road that goes up to Dry Canyon trail head. We rode the Bonneville Shoreline trail up to Franks and then up Franks to the Belt Route to the Altar. Then we rode Buckle over to the top of the Dry Canyon twisty decent and down to where we parked.

We started at 4:10 and ended at 5:40, a little slow, but we were in no hurry, this was a ride to be savoured before the snows come.

On Tuesday I had ridden after work for the first time on the single speed. I took the Meekonector from the Belt Route and I was a little faster, 1:24 vs. 1:30, but then again I was alone and didn't talk as much. Here's a shot of the bike on the trail from Tuesday.

Thursday Mud Fest in Draper

Dude, I hate the Mud.

It sticks like snot to my bike and then dries like cement.

Thursday we met at the shoreline trail off of Mike Weir drive.

We rode up the shoreline trail to what I think is Draper Hollow trail and up over the ridge to the Utah county side. That ride over the ridge is where we loaded up on mud.

Then we rode some more and went through this cool tunnel.


That is Bob riding through the tunnel. Shortly after this we hit the draper downhill. An expert downhill ride with slick muddy conditions. If I wasn't awake yet, this downhill was a real wakeup call. Jumps and drops and steeps and deeps.

Yeah. That works for an early morning ride.

Mooses at Mexican Flat

Today we saw 4 moosers in the field to the north of Mexican Flat.

They had smaller racks but they were good sized animals.

Terry, Jeff, Matt, Royce, Bob, Russ and I rode from the summit trail head to the Horse Flat and out the back to the whups then up to Mexican Flats, where we saw the mooses. Then up to the 4 way and down to Mud Springs and then down Tibble.

Great ride! Lots of colorful leaves. No motorcycles, only a couple of other bikers were seen with a boxer-looking dog.

We finished before 8.

The Dirty Rat

Saturday was an epic ride. The Dirty RAT. RAT is an acronym for Ride Around Timp, Mount Timpanogos that is.

I rode most of the RAT last year (See The RAT).

But you have to ride a bit of pavement to ride the RAT correctly. You have to ride the pavement from at least Canyon Glen in Provo Canyon, up to the Lame Horse trail in Aspen Grove.

The Dirty Rat cuts out the pavement nonsense. I mean it's not nonsense if you are on a road bike, but on a mountain bike, come on, you really just want the dirt.

So park at Dry Canyon above Lindon and shuttle to Aspen Grove. Then take the Lame Horse trail up to the Summit and from the Summit head up to sheep camp via the Timpanookee campground and up to Bear canyon, etc.

From sheep camp ride to the top of Grove Creek, pass the turnoff to Grove Creek and follow the trails to the base of Big Baldy.

Make the arduous climb up to the saddle of Big Baldy then drop off the saddle into upper Dry Canyon, but don't miss the turn off to the Great Western Trail which will take you south to the saddle of Little Baldy.

Descend off of Little Baldy on a section of some of the sweetest single track you've ridden and then take a right to Area 51 and follow that to the Dry Canyon twister singletrack down to the good part of Dry Canyon.

Smoke the pipe on the way down if you wish and end your Dirty Rat at the Dry Canyon trail head.

The Pipeline

A successful pipe smoking (Dec.2008, filmed by Paul Hillyard)

The ride starts on the Aspen Grove side.

I Showed Up at the Brian Head Party

I did want to go to Brian Head with Bob, Russ, Matt, Royce, Bill and Brent; but since I had just left my family to go to do the Whole Enchilada, I didn't think I had that much of a chance.

I concocted a "vacation" for my family whereby I would bike with the guys on Friday, and then Saturday I would take my wife to bike the trails that I had explored with the guys.

It worked out pretty good. Except for my fork mistake

You can read about that mistake here.

By the time I finished the forks and got the bike together it was late, we left at around 7PM and got to Brian Head at Midnight.

The next morning I got up at 5:30AM to find the guys. I finally found them at 6AM. They were willing to let me come even though I would make the shuttles extremely tight. We had to fit 7 guys into a six seat truck, well that was Russ' truck. One of the shuttles we did in Bob's truck had 7 guys in a 5 seater.

The first ride of the day was Casto to Red Canyon. We left a shuttle truck at Red Canyon and loaded the 7 guys into the other truck with the 7 bikes and drove to the the Casto Canyon turnout and started the ride. The weather was perfect, it was about 7:30 AM when we started.

The first problem was a dérailleur adjustment that Royce needed.


The trail starts winding through trees and the wash while being surrounded by cool redrock formations that made us want to stop and take a few pictures.



After a while the trail leaves the wash and heads into the timber for a while. In case you didn't know this is a trail, someone put up a sign to remind you...



We exited at Red Canyon and then some of us waited while others went to get the shuttle truck. Then we all shuttled up to do Thunder Mountain.



Royce makes sense of the map with Carey...




Carey contemplates the safety issues with the Thunder Mountain potty.


Thunder Mountain has some very scenic climbs, the trail winds through some beautiful redrock mixed with pines.


After riding Thunder Mountain we needed to refuel.


Our final ride was down Bunker Hill. By then I was getting tired and I'd only been riding with these biking machines for only this one day. Bunker Hill starts way up on Brian Head peak and drops down to the road with some really sweet single track. By the time we finished it was almost dark. We shuttled up the highway to the turnoff up to Brian Head Peak. Where the dirt road heads up to the peak some of us got out to ride our bikes back. I rode on down the highway to the hotel to meet my family. Grateful for three great rides with some really good guides. No major wipeouts for me, but I did see Bill take a really hard endo on Casto. He escaped with a sore wrist, but it looked like it would have been worse because it was on some hard ground.

How To Turn an 80mm Fork into a Rigid

Oh yeah, a few weeks ago I had rebuilt my fork. Well, that means I changed the seals and the oil, but I tore the fork apart and cleaned it to do this.
Well I bought the oil from JensonUSA, the oil that I thought I would use...



Yeah that's right, fox float oil. Ok that was the only oil they had on the website, so that must be the right stuff. I changed the oil in the fork and refilled it with the fox float oil. Cool. The fork didn't leak. But the fork didn't travel either.

I did some research and I learned that the float oil was only to lube the top foam rings when you do an overhaul, but a lighter weight oil went in the fork. I had put 75wt. oil in where I needed 7wt.



That is what the bottle for the right oil looks like. This is 10wt. and I actually used 7wt.

Thursday up Mill down Tibble

For a September morning in American Fork Canyon it felt pretty warm, probably about 50 degrees.

I met Terry at the split at 5:30AM. The rest of the riders were on the Brian Head trip, probably riding Dark Hollow.

Terry and I parked at Tibble Fork Reservoir and began riding up to Mill Canyon. That's a pretty steep uphill and since it was still dark, it was especially challenging. Although when you can't see the obstacles, they are less scary.

I've descended Mill Canyon, but never climbed that route, but because we wanted to get some climbing in, we were willing to take the pain.

The uphill was very taxing to my cardio. There were rocks and gnarled trees and hidden gnomes grabbing my tire. After a while we made it to the part that has been groomed/rerouted. That smooth trailis great for an uphill ride. Lots of challenging switchbacks, but the trail was as smooth as a banker asking for bailout money.

We hooked up to the Ridge Trail (157) and rode over the the four way and decended down Tibble fork.Coming down I realized that my fork was not working. I have a Fox F29. Since the previous two rides I have ridden rental bikes, a Niner RIP and a Niner Jet, it became obvious that the forks on those bikes were absorbing shock much better than the ride I was now taking.

We stopped and adjusted pressure on the fork, and it seemed to help, but the fork really wasn't compressing.

As I rode down it became more evident that I had done something wrong in my oil change.

We came to a spot where the trail forked. The left fork was covered with logs to stop traffic. We decided to drop down that left fork and we ended up in the cabins. We saw Larry King's cabin.

We finished on the winding pavement through the cabins and crossed the dam to our vehicles.

Back at home, I researched the fork oil on my Fox. It turns out that I used the Fox Float oil to fill my fork. That is about 70Wt and only used on the soft float pads at the top of the fork. I should have used 7wt oil. So I had oil that was 10 times the viscosity of the oil that I should have used. No wonder my fork didn't move.

I took apart the fork and drained all the oil out. I wiped it and even took out the spacer to convert my fork from 80mm travel to 100mm.

I picked up some oil from Blayne's Cyclery on State Street in Orem. The owner, Blayne, just let me take his 7wt Fox fork oil and return it later without any ID or anything. The trust was kinda cool.
I spent Thursday night changing my fork oil, which for me was a two hour process. Then I packed and my family and I drove to Brian Head for a 3 day weekend of biking, hiking and recreating.

Mechanical Monday

Monday we were joined by Matt's Friend Austin from Arizona.

Royce, Russ, Matt, Austin and I started at Trail Crossing and headed to the four way and up to Chain Break.

I had rented a Niner Jet9 from the Bike Fix in Bountiful, so I was eager to try it's climbing abilities. I was reminded that "it's not about the bike" as I climbed the Triple Bypass up to Chainbreak.

Yeah, we've never heard it called that, in fact I think Matt was saying that it was called The Three Sisters by some other bikers, but Austin while riding it thought it should be called the Triple Bypass. That name seems more fitting.

The Triple Bypass is that piece of trail from the Four-Way up to the top of chain break.

The first mechanical was actually on the climb up from the Trail Crossing just before the turn off to Salamander Flat. That was Russ' hammerschmidt shifter cable losing a zip tie. The weather was a little cool so Russ' repairs weren't working because his emergency zip ties were cracking and breaking upon bending them. I think Austin had a spare that worked so we were off again.

Soon the next minor mechanical was with Royce's pedals. He had clipless pedals that wouldn't release. So if he had to dab, his foot stayed locked in and he would topple like a bowling pin. He got that adjusted by the turnoff to Deer Creek South Fork.

Next it was me at the bottom of the fork to Mud Springs. I had a flat on the dang rental bike. I had to change the tightest tire that I've ever changed. Took me about 20 minutes and then I discovered that my CO2 inflater that I have been carrying for two years, didn't work. So I could have been left stranded by that piece of junk, but luckily Russ had a pump.

Finally Austin had his mechanical. He flatted. While changing his flat I discovered that I was out of time since I had to meet the mechanic from Bike Fix in Bountiful at the 1600 N. exit on the Freeway at 9AM. That would save me a drive to Bountiful.

So I left to finish the ride down Mill Canyon. That was where I had my second mechanical. I crashed into a little tree on the short steep switchbacks that cross the creek before climbing where we moved a long big fallen tree that had been blocking the trail all year.

The tree that had my number

That crash broke my Planet Bike light and my Garmin Edge. My Edge actually opened up and spilled its electronic guts, but nothing really broke so I picked it all up and managed to put it together later at home. The light still works with a little duct tape.

Yeah. Mechanical Monday. Although Matt seemed to make it through without any mishaps.

The Whole Enchilada 2010

The Whole Enchilada conjures up an image of an Epic ride at first, but then you start thinking that an enchilada is like a burrito but slathered in sauce. Wet slippery sauce.

The Whole Enchilada is a ride that starts out in the La Sals, a mountain range 20 or so miles south of Moab. The La Sals have 12 peaks higher than 12,000 feet which is amazing considering that Moab itself is just over 4,000 feet.

We started our ride at about 10,000 feet just south of Burro Pass and within a mile or so had to climb up to 11,200 feet over Burro pass. Right off the bat, a sprint to the top.


I don't know about everyone else, but at 11,000 feet with my heart working as hard as it could and the thin air, it was hard to keep the pedals moving.

Then came the Rain
We knew we were risking a wet ride earlier as we shuttled up in Jared's truck and saw the strange looking clouds blowing around Moab, but it appeared that they were not settled in the La Sals. Maybe they would just blow through. Wishful thinking.

But still we were excited to get on the trail...


Notice how clean and fresh we were before the rain and the mud. Yeah, the mud came after the rain, a prewash and then a protective coating was applied.


As we climbed up to Burro Pass it started sprinkling, then raining then raining harder, then sprinkling, etc. Eventually it was apparent that the clouds had settled in and our best option was to ride through the sauce and get off the mountain.

There were several cattle guards like this one that we rode through during the day.


The forest around Burro Pass and the La Sals in general was pretty thick and prestine. The trail was carpeted with either pine needles or rocks with an occasional sprinkling of tree roots.



Coming down the La Sals was challenging, the rocks were wet it was muddy and the stream crossings were running pretty high. But the forest was beautiful, the water was clear and fresh and hey, the trail was not dusty.

It was cold. If anyone got hurt up here, as remote as it is, hypothermia would be a risk. Fortunately our crew got down and started on the Kokopeli trail safely.

After the the trail leveled a bit and actually had a few climbs, we hit some mud.

That's where the enchilada sauce really started. The mud on the road was just as sticky as hot gum on the pavement. You know when you walk across a parking lot in the summer and step on gum that some slob has spit out earlier. That gum stick to your shoe and is really tough to get off. Yeah.

The mud caked our tires and then globbed on to the forks, rear triangles, chains and derailleurs until it seized up our wheels and we had to stop about every 20 to 100 feet and scrape the tires and forks clean enough to free the wheels. Several of us crashed as the mud seized the wheels and sent us mud skiing out of control into the sogginess.

After a couple of miles of this we climbed up out of it into the drier, slickrock part of the UPS trail. We rode the UPS trail, hoping that some mud would drop off of us but it clung like a tick to Rover's heine. That was annoying, but it also caused a nasty mechanical failure.

Jared was riding along on a slickrock section when you heard that metal twang and click medley that signals a possible mechanical failure. Because the mud had now dried into a thick pottery, it had seized the gears on his derailleur. If the gears wont turn, then the gears follow the chain on its journey around the cassette. This will break and twist some essential drive train parts.

Yeah, the derailleur hangar snapped and other parts bent. All the kings horses and all the kings men, couldn't put that derailleur back together again.

So Russ and others helped set the bike up as a single-speed non-derailleur bike. I think they pumped up the rear air shock to max also to make it as rigid as possible to prevent the chain from stretching too much as could happen when the suspension is active.

At the junction to the Notch, I tried to dry some of my clothes. The sun had come out and I was wet, waiting for the derailleur repair team to join me I took a picture from there of the expansive desert to the north...





The group soon rejoined me and we decided not to go see the notch and just head out since we were a little behind schedule.

We descended to the LPS, skipping the notch and riding on to the Porcupine Rim single track.

I had never been on the Porcupine Rim trail and it was quite a change from the earlier terrain of the day.

Ledges, ledges, ledges. Yeah, you might say it was a ledge fest. I was able to launch off of a few with good results but most of them I went around or just dropped off of because the landings looked sketchy. I know that the rest of our group was launching from ledge to ledge and I was envious, but my skill is not at that Jedi level yet, and I prefer to live to ride another day.

I did however try to ride one-handed for a bit to get some trail video...


Towards the end of the ride, I caught Terry and Matt riding some of the rim...

Finally out towards the Colorado River, the trail decended to the road and we finished the ride.

Terry and Russ drove up to the La Sals to pick up the shuttle and the rest of us rode along the Colorado River and into town, which was quite an effort in itself because of the headwind.

just hung out at the Community Center in downtown Moab, debriefing the ride and generally resting for the drive home.


Check out this Garmin GPS Link for more details of the ride.

Horse Flat, to Julie Andrews and Bear

It was actually a little cold this morning. Like 50 degrees at the split.

We shuttled up to the Summit Trail and rode to Snow Gage and over to Timpanookee.

From there we headed up to Julie Andrews Meadow and came down Bear.

I only have one short video of the boulder turn on Bear.

We had quite a crew though with Jeff, Russ, Terry, Matt, Bob, Steveolyo and Royce.

Happy Trails.

The Unexpected Epic

Yeah, this was unexpected because I thought it would be the normal Saturday ride, you know 2 or 3 hours...

The plan was to hit Pole line pass, Ant Knolls, Ridge Trail 157, upper Mill plunge and dive, lower Mill to Tibble Fork Reservoir.

We met at the split and waited until 6:15.

Terry, Royce and I drove up to Tibble Fork and parked. We started riding up to pole line pass in pleasant 45 degree weather.

Before we left I noticed Adam and Aaron had pulled up. They were also on their way to ride up to pole line pass. Terry and I were riding with them for a ways until we could no longer keep up.

Somewhere we lost track of Royce. Later he caught up with us and told us he had a pinch flat.


The ride up to pole line pass is not very technical, it's just a graded mountain road, but it is relentless and climbs from 6540 to 8920 (2380) in about 8 miles.

After getting up Pole Line Pass, we went to the left and started up Ant Knolls.


After some riding up Ant Knolls, there is a fork, we went left.

At that point it was just Terry and I, Royce was out of time and had to head back.

This was the best trail of the day, just beautiful scenery, views into mineral basin, peaks all around us and soft trail winding up and down across the mountain.



This ride is an out-and-back which ends where 157 drops down the hill to the east or west.



Thus ended the easy part of our journey. We rode the beautiful trail back to Pole Line Pass and then followed 157 to Mill Canyon.

I must say that part of the ridge trail was tough, climbs that rob you of your breath, not so much breathtaking, as breath robbing.


Finally after many terrifying climbs which started as awesome, then tough, then hike-a-bike, we finally started downhill towards Mill Canyon. The upper part was rideable, but really you were surfing many baby head boulders, well I mean baby tyrannosaurus rex's. Because the boulders were more pointy.

After upper Mill Canyon, we got on Lower Mill Canyon and it has recently been rerouted. I liked it, wide switchbacks that were groomed. This was welcome trail after the loose rocks of torment that we had ridden down. We did see a Moose mama and her calf.

Finally we got to the parking lot at Tibble Fork a mere six and a half hours after we started.
Total elevation gain: 4500 feet.

Here's some extra photos of the trip...

Forest Lake...