White Rim trip

My brother-in-law said he read about the ranger truck getting stuck. I guess if people are actually going to read this blog then I better tell the rest of the story.

During the first week of April we were planning on riding the White Rim again. The plan was to do it as a three day trip but because of a death in the family some of the bikers would need to finish in two days. So we decided I would go out with the two day group and then drive the sag wagon back to the camp and go out with the remaining group the third day. The first day three of us got to camp about 2 hours before the other riders and the truck. It was a cold wet and WINDY day. At one point we were hit by a gust that must have been over 60 mph. It was so strong that it was nearly impossible to stand in. Anyway since we were at camp before the truck we didn't have anything warm to wear. With the wind and rain it was just too cold so a couple of us took shelter in the outhouse. It was quite embarrassing when we heard a couple of voices coming towards the outhouse. This guy and his girl-friend from England thought it was quite funny to see two men exiting the outhouse together. He took a picture of us standing there while his girl-friend was in the "loo". I'm worried it is out here on the internet somewhere.

The second day we were suppose to have the fast group go to Potato Bottom camp ground, drop all of the stuff the rest of the group would need there then continue out. But our sag driver got a bit behind us and in his panic to catch up with us went flying past and didn't hear us yelling or see us jumping up and down. So then we had to race to try and catch him. I guess you had to be there but it was quite funny and we had a good laugh at the "old geezer". He had what he called an "old geezer" pass that he had lost earlier and so we had good time joking about the being and "old geezer" and loosing the old geezer pass.

OK now the part you have been waiting for. When I got back to camp this ranger drives up and starts to talk to us. I don't have much experience with drinking so did not recognize that he seemed drunk, but the others did. However as he backed out of the campground and had a hard time getting on the road it was quite obvious he was in no condition to drive. But it was to late to do anything about it, and he headed up Hardscrabble hill. As you can see in the pictures the road is barely wide enough for one truck, with cliffs of the side. I was scared that he was going to go off the road and kill himself.

The next morning he comes walking into camp asking if we had a rope that we could use to pull him back onto the road. We didn't, however even if we had I don't think there is any way we could have got his truck back on the road. So I was sitting there waiting for a tow truck to come and get him so I could get past. After awhile I asked him if it was against the law to widen the road. He said it would be OK so I started digging the road wider. Then another truck came along and they helped me dig. This was fortunate because when I finally got it almost wide enough to get past and made the attempt I ended up almost rolling my truck. Luckily the other guy jumped on the front corner of the truck to keep me from rolling. I sat there for a couple of minutes trying to figure out the best way out of this. I could just see doing it wrong, my truck rolls over, smashes my bike, hits the rangers truck and sends it a thousand feet down the cliff and into the river below.

Cold but sunny

Max 35.5 Avs 9.7 Dst 9.44 Atm 58:32 Alt^ 1238

It has been snowing the last couple of days but finally yesterday afternoon the sun came out. Our trail was covered in snow until late in the afternoon yesterday and so we were thinking it would be too muddy to ride today. However it warmed up a bit today so we decided to check it out. Turns out the trail was in great shape today, no mud. activity

This picture is from on top of Hardscrabble hill on the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands. I was stuck here for awhile because of a ranger got his truck stuck and we couldn't get past him. I'll give the full story later.

Relocating images

Max 34.8 Avs 9.6 Dst 9.78 Atm 1:01:10 Alt^ 1503

The server I was using to host my images and videos is no longer available. I finally started working on moving all the images to the blogger site. So most of the images are working again. I hope to finish it tonight.

Here is the data from yesterday's ride. Now that the gate at Slate Canyon is being left open the challenge is to climb from the parking lot all the way past the gate until it levels off. I tried twice yesterday and failed both times. I have made it a couple of times before. Yesterday's attempt gave me the highest heart rate I have recorded to date at 185 bpm.

So far so good

Max 36 Avs 8.7 Dst 8.94 Tm 1:01:04 Odo 1138.8 Alt^ 1195

Took the ghetto tubeless tires out for a ride today. Both tires were still at full pressure. I rode up Slate Canyon, unfortunately there is still a bit of snow and mud up the canyon so I had to hike-a-bike past the worst parts, and turned around a bit early. It is going to be another week or two before we can really ride up the canyon. I think the canyon will be a good test of the tubeless system. It held up going through the dry river beds with all of the banging on rocks. When the snow melts it will make a good torture test.

My Edge 305 arrived today. I'm fighting of the urge to leave work early to go try it out.

Ghetto tubeless

Max 12.6 Avs 3.9 Dst 1.5 Tm 22:42.2 Odo 1129.9 T.TM 366:22 T.Odo 2848.4 Alt^ 300

I decided to try out the Ghetto Tubeless System. So last night I brought my bike home (I have been keeping it at work lately) and installed the tubeless system.

I learned a few things: It is easier to put a little air in the 20" tube and cutting it down the middle before putting it on the rim. If you do it the way the instructions say you end up having to fiddle around with the tube to keep it centered while cutting it.

The Stan's no tubes system says to enlarge the valve stem hole. I didn't want to damage my rims so I didn't do this to start with. However when I was trying to get the bead to seal it just would not do it even when using an air tank to get a large volume of air. The valve stem kept the tube from going into the rim far enough to get a good seal.

It is a lot easier to get the bead to seal if you slosh the sealant around in the tire first. I couldn't get the bead to seal just using soapy water. However when I put the sealant in and sloshed it around so that it got all around the bead it sealed up quite easily. In fact it went so well on the first tire that I decided to try and do it with a hand pump on the second tire. I couldn't get that to work but it did seal up nicely when using the air tank.

If you can find a 20" presta valve tube it would work better. I used tubes bought from Walmart. With a presta valve I could have put the little nut on the valve to hold it in place while trying to fill the tire. Of course since most high volume compressors don't work with presta valves you would need one of those adaptors. With out the presta tube I found I needed a pair of pliers I could use to hold the valve out while inflating with the air tank in order to keep from pushing the valve into the tire and messing up the bead seal.

I think new tires would have been easier. I used the old tires that were already on my bike. They don't have more than a month of riding season wear left in them. But I wanted to try it out on my old tires before messing up some new tires. Anyway my old tires are a bit stretched out and therefore a bit loose on the rim which made getting the seal a bit difficult. I think new tires would work a bit better here.

Old tires have a lot of microscopic holes in the side walls. After sealing up the bead on my front tire I sloshed the sealant around in the tire and in a few seconds everything was sealed up and it kept its pressure. However the rear tire after getting the bead sealed had latex foaming out all over the side walls. Looking at a new Smoke (the rear tire I'm using) it seems that it would work a bit better, but the used tire has a lot of miniature holes in the sidewall. I did this in the middle of the night and couldn't really go out and ride right after installing. The next morning the front tire still had the 50lbs of air in it that I had left it with the night before. The rear tire basically had no pressure. So I put more air in sloshed the sealant around, observed more bubbles coming out the side walls and left it to do my morning chores. When I got back to the bike the rear tire was flat again. I pumped it up again and this time it seems to be holding air. I took it for a ride (the numbers above) around the back yard to get it broken in. Looks like it is holding air fine now.

So far it looks like I am going to like this. After a while I will have to try bunny hopping up over a curb and see how it works. Every time I have tried this with tubes, I snake bite the tubes. I always land hard on the edge of the curb with the back tire. Even with full suspension and high pressure I still snake bite the tubes. If this ghetto tubeless system can pass that test I will figure it is a success. However there are no curbs around my house and I don't think I will push it much while riding with my buddies because I don't want to be holding everyone up while I convert back to tubes.