Bike @ Bays and GRT Racing takes on Tsali

After some serious planning organizing and fretting all the small details, the 3rd Annual Bike @ Bays was a great success and the day rolled on flawlessly. NTMBA's annual picnic that originally started out as a 12 hour race for it's members evolved into a 6 hr race and then finally just a picnic with nothing but fun riding. As the year went by people stopped taking the racing so seriously and were having more fun just hanging out and riding with friends. A decision was made as the race attendance dwindled to concentrate just on having fun and boosting mountain bike awareness in our area.

Three years ago we took it to the next level and invited the local bikes shops to come out and bring their demo fleet. No one likes to test ride a bike they are interested in buying in the bike shop parking lot, the trails are the best way to know which bike is best for you.

This year we decided to bring the competition back in a small dose to up the excitement level and give some of the more experienced riders something to look forward to. This year we created the Chainless Bike Race, an all gravity race down the Azalea trail where riders were unable to gain momentum with the use of their drivetrain. Congrats to Ben Appleby who took home the winnings.

If you missed this year's Bike @ Bays I feel sorry for you it was a ton of fun and hopefully next year you'll make it out. We had a huge turnout and everyone really seemed to be enjoying themselves. I shot a ton of video footage and plan to put a re-cap video together so maybe it will make you feel like you were there somewhat, either that or make you more jealous. I chose not to participate in the Chainless Bike Race in favor of helping run the event and getting some great footage of riders as they bombed down Azalea. I did give my Go Pro cam to one of ETSU's finest downhillers Thomas to shoot footage of the race from the riders prospective. I think his footage will be much more interesting than mine would have. He's a bit faster downhill than I will ever think about being.

I did get a chance to get out and do some riding yesterday on two different bikes, both full squish 29er's. First I hopped aboard the Giant Anthem X and wow was I impressed. It handled, climbed and descended nicely. There were only two things I can think of that I didn't care for about the bike. One was the tires, it was sporting Maxxis tires, Aspens I think, and in the wet I felt them loosing traction in the corners and climbing in spots, the other complaint was the amount of time I got stopped to answer questions about the bike I was riding. Despite some of the negative comments I read about the Giant's looks I thought it was a good looking bike and so did everyone I passed. I could easily see myself riding the Anthem X.

The other steed I tried out was the Niner RIP9, Hampton brought one out but everytime I tried to ride it someone else was riding off on it. Mark graciously allowed me to hop aboard his brand new all black anodized RIP with a bit nicer spec'd components. I was expecting the RIP to be a slug climbing especially on the fireroads from some of the locals reviews of it but needless to say I was impressed with it. I didn't really get to rip up the downhills with it like I wanted to because the duties of running the show yesterday took priority. From what I did get to ride I have no doubt Mark will really enjoy his RIP, it was one of the sweeter looking bikes at the picnic. He spared no expense in building his bike.

Coming up this weekend is the 12 Hours of Tsali, GRT Racing is bring a 4 man team to the fight this weekend, or should I say a 3 man 1 women team this year. Andy, Abby, Anthony and I will be giving the other Sport class riders a run for their money. Maybe I should change my name to something that starts with an "A" like the rest of my team, Adam, Archie, Abe, Arnold?

All week this week I will be training for the race. Train the week before a race? Yep, every night I will be eating watered down spaghetti to prepare myself for the stuff the Gone Riding folks will be serving up. There actually might be a chance they won't have spaghetti this year because we are getting race t-shirts but I don't want to be taken by surprise if they do so I am planning to be fully prepared. We'll see if they are truly giving a little back or just trading one for the other.

Which bike will I race now that the JET9 is sporting a better drivetrain set-up? Probably both, I'd say I'll do my first lap on the AIR9 and then breakout the JET and compare lap times. I have a feeling they will be close. Speaking of drivetrains both of the bikes I demo'd yesterday at Bike @ Bays, were sporting the new 10 speed drivetrains. Talk about easy climbing, I think I could climb all day with a 10 speed cassette. Maybe next year I'll upgrade to the 10 speed stuff.

Melinda and I are going to hit Tsali a day earlier than the rest of the crew in an effort to get the nicest spot in the campground and take advantage of a bit more time camping. The ECO hasn't been called into action since the 6 Hours of Warriors Creek so I think we are ready for a few days of roughing it. Yeah I said roughing it.

giving a little back and a greasy chain

Things have been slacking around the blogosphere not just here but everywhere. I guess people are spending more time outdoors rather than blogging about being outdoors. It's 12:41 am and I'm stuck at work so I'll take a minute to see if I can come up with anything entertaining to say.

Rather than spend a bunch of time putting in miles on the mountain bike in an effort to boost my summer racing I've pushed alot of my focus to giving back instead of always taking. What I'm trying to say is I've been doing some much needed trail work. In the past 2 years my commitment to doing trailwork has been kinda slim, mainly due to my work schedule but I've finally found a way to work around this. I've been doing most of my trail work during the week and I've even found a few other folks with odd ball schedules to help out.

Trailbuilding can really be enlightening and fun, especially when you get to reap the rewards of your hardwork.

We've really made alot of progress with the new trail that's being built at Bays Mountain. Even though the volunteer turnout has sucked the excellent soil conditions have made thing flow smooth and very efficient.

Not only does trailbuilding make me feel good it's an excellent workout. It's not quite as fun as mountain biking but it is free and the reward for your work will last for many many years.

I can really only think of one negative thing about trailbuilding and that is the lack of help we get. With the HUGE potential that we have here in NE Tennessee for building trails and the large mountain biking population it's really sad to see how little others give back. We have a ton of opportunity for new trails right here in our backyard but we are moving at a snails pace taking advantage of it because the few who do show up can only do so much.

I can think of 3 separate projects that need our attention just at Bays Mountain that we could be doing but will have to sit on the back burner for a while. Just the other day I had to turn down a request for help building a totally new trail system because I knew we are to understaffed to do the work. I don't want to promise anything I can't follow through with and I knew it couldn't be done and I felt bad for saying no but it had to be done.

Enough of the negativity, this weekend should be a good one to stick around town for. Bike @ Bays is back again and this year will probably be the biggest yet. Really it gets bigger and better every year but this year we've gotten even more support from the local bike shops than we have in the past and we've added a new event, the Chainless Bike Race. A gravity fed race down Azalea where riders see who can get down the mountain the farthest without the aid of pedaling. Costumes have been encouraged so the spectator's view should be entertaining. I think a video recap will be a must for sure this year.

There has officially been a change in the tide in my bike room. A official attempt to sell the JET was made and the out come has been declared a failure. Some will say it was because my asking price was too high and that may have been the case but it was probably for the better. After 2 weeks on Ebay and a few decent offers one which I almost took I decided to pull the plug and keep the JET. I never disliked the JET in any shape or form, it's a great bike I just had a yearning for the singlespeed life again but I think those days may be past for me or at least on hiatus. With past back issues and Melinda's recent back injury it has gotten me thinking maybe the singlespeed gig just isn't what I need right now. The JET is a ton of fun and some of my reasons for trying to sell it where due to some drivetrain issues its had. I finally put in an order for a new rear derailleur and a chain guide to remedy any and all of the drivetrain issues I had. Another thing that kept me from truly falling in love with the JET was the lack of a proper fork, one that was meant to be on that bike. The JET is sporting a tapered head tube but since it's birth in my bike room it's been running a regular straight 1 1/8" fork. Today I officially ordered a new fork with a tapered steer tube and I went ahead and went for the thru axel. Why not go full bore and make this one bad ass bike. No more half ass building here. Vanna White is officially going to be sporting nothing but the finest duds I can afford.

I've always been a Rock Shox kind of guy but this time I went with Fox, I've heard good things about them and rather than buy a new wheelset to accommodate the 20mm Reba I'm keeping the Mavics and converting the hub to a 15mm which is what the Fox fork uses.

I looked around trying to find a good chain guide since I refuse to be normal and use a front derailleur. I run all of my bikes 1x9's which tends to hurt more on big climbs but makes me look tougher when I clean them. I gotta do something to be a little different.

The complexity of the JET9's frame due to a rear shock mount makes it difficult to run a simple chain deflector so I went with some a bit more fancy with the bottom bracket mounted MRP G2 mini. They come in a wide variety of cool colors but I decided to stick with black since I like my chains greasy.