Discovery Trail - East

Not much in the way of "Offroad", really (except for that part where I got lost), but it was a nice ride for a bit of exercise on a - rainy, blustery - Saturday afternoon.

My main goal was to map the trail - find out where it went - which I did somewhat successfully for the most part, somewhat unsuccessfully as well. I also wanted to work out some of the details of riding in the rain - and get some exercise to boot. All in all my ride was about 16km.

Drove up to the top of the trail at Whatcom Road, and rode the new trail down - down - down to Mission Highway, crossed over at McCallum road, and followed the road for awhile before stumbling upon the trail again in somebody's backyard off of Horn Street!

Apparently when you cross Mission Hwy, you need to walk a block further North to Valley Road (where the garbage dump is) and the proper trail (a nice boardwalk over boggy marsh - apparently) continues there.

I think I know the basic layout of the entire trail now - from Gardner Park to Whatcom Road - so I can do the entire thing (both ways?) one day!

I made the discovery on this ride that my new aggressively pinned pedals have a way of tearing up the soles of my shoes, so I think I'm going to invest in another pair of plastic pedals for easy rides like this.

Downes Bowl

The sunny (albeit cold) weather today colluded with my getting off work early, and my kids being occupied in gymnastics class to provide the perfect opportunity to get back on the trails.

I headed out to Downes Bowl for a quick ride, not sure what to expect - and was pleasantly surprised with the condition of the trails, and with my own ability to ride them. It seems that switching to shorter cranks for the winter has helped me to keep my strength up, and even improve some. (I had the longer cranks back in today) I was able to climb much better than I could last fall, and the new pedals seemed to give me so much more control! I had a bit if trouble jumping up to one of the bridges though. Guess I wasn't practicing my hopping enough.

Afterwards I rode around the flat trails at the top to cool down, and talked to a man who asked me "where's your dog?" Apparently there's another unicyclist who rides around Downes Bowl with a little Chihuahua.
Hope I can meet him soon and then maybe we can ride some trails together around here!

Pedals

I finally wore out the bearings in the plastic Odyssey Twisted pedals that came with my Torker DX24, and needed something new.

Sixty - pinned, aluminum, sealed bearings

Of course I chose something with sealed bearings, and I thought I would go for metal pedals now that I have proper shin-guards.

A couple of the local bike shops recommended the Sixty brand, and they were a good price. They came in a slightly lower profile magnesium version, and these aluminum ones.

I like the big surface area on these, as well as the fact that the axle doesn't go through to the end - where it will get beat up. I also like the adjustable / replaceable (very sharp) pins.

The bearings on these pedals (or any sealed bearing pedals) feel so very smooth compared to the non-sealed versions.

Edit: These pedals are really grippy, and GREAT for tough MUni. However, the long sharp pins have a tendency to shred the soles of my shoes - so it might be good to limit their use to when I really need them.

Penzer Bike Skills Park (Langley)

47th Ave & 200th St Langley (under the power lines)

Lots of well-built structures, from easy to difficult.

Rocks, Logs, Bridges, Skinnies, Teeter Totter, Ramps, Platforms and 2 lamp standards arranged in soft gravel.

I rode around here in January, and the gravel was much too soft to ride (likely due to recent freezing weather). It's much better now. Lots of challenges - not too busy yet (February).

This is a great place to practice skills for some of the northshore trails. Most of the structures are quite low to the ground, too, so you aren't going to hurt yourself too badly when you fall.

Matsqui Trail

A break in the rain today allowed us to get out for a bit of a ride this afternoon. We took the whole family out to the mission bridge,and rode along the Matsqui Trail for an hour or so. I was the only unicyclist today, but I'm anticipating that my wife and son might attempt an easy trail like this by this one by the end of the summer.

This trail runs right along the river, and so is nearly level. It is gravel, but well packed, and easy to ride. The trail is quite long, and probably runs for about 15km at least (that is from Mackenzie park to the west, to the northern end of upper sumas mountain road to the east - the trail may easily continue beyond that at each end, but I'm not sure) Oh, and parking under the mission bridge apppears to be free!

It was an easy ride, but a welcome change of scenery for me - and i was pleased to get out somewhere new for a change.

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Too wet to ride...

Unfortunately, the rain around here makes the offroad trails pretty mucky, and for the sake of the trails themselves it's best to stay off them until the weather dries up some.

So I've been restricted to riding on the road - or paved trails for the past several weeks. And there's probably a couple more months of this yet to come.

However, I'm doing my best to get out there riding every day, if possible, to keep my skills up. I may not be getting better at rough/uneven surfaces, but I have working on hill climbing / descents, hopping / trials, and a few tricks that don't really have anything to do with MUni.

I picked up a cheap bike fender at Wal Mart the other day - and promptly snapped it off it's mount hopping off some logs. Still, it's nice to have some protection from splashing water - so I will just plan to mount it when I am doing road riding in the rain :)

I'm thinking about picking up some shorter cranks (125mm?) too, and using them over the winter months. Not sure if I will like them / gain anything - but at least it'll be something new to try.

I also got some KH Percussion shin-guards for Christmas. They are really nice. Unfortunately I haven't had much need for them from a "protection" point-of-view yet, but they are also useful to keep my legs from freezing in this winter weather!

Cranks

Shorter (125mm) Cranks

Since the trails around here are too wet to ride during the winter season, I picked up a pair of shorter cranks with the idea that they would give me more of a workout, and keep me in better shape during the off-season.

I normally use 150mm cranks, so this represents a 5cm smaller pedal stroke. It definitely makes a difference in the effort required to ride, and increased my average speed by about 25%. But hills are where I really notice the difference.

At first I thought I should have gone shorter still - but that could be dangerous on downhills without a brake.

I chose these Qu-Ax cranks because they were cheap - and I didn't really know if I would like the change in length. Apparently they are weak, and can twist on large drops, so I haven't done more than a bit of hopping with them.